Half an hour later, the unit set off on the mountain road towards Baoding. The purpose wasn't to evade the Japanese pursuit. In fact, everyone knew that with a force of over ten thousand, hiding was futile; the light rain made our footprints very obvious.
The reason for taking the mountain road was our fear that the Japanese would set up roadblocks on the highway… or rather, the Japanese would definitely set up roadblocks on the highway, unless they wanted to make our advance faster and more comfortable.
Some might think, "We have ten thousand men; if the Japanese set up roadblocks, we can just fight our way through, right?" We'd already fought off Japanese roadblocks in Beiping (Beijing). Armored vehicles, machine guns, and grenade launchers… such roadblocks weren't something that could
