The Japanese advanced to the south along the Beiping–Hankou Railway until the Yellow River, capturing Linfen along the way.

Their main objective was to secure the major cities and the railway lines connecting them.

[4] Japanese forces approached Baoding, which boasted a sixty-foot wall, two successive moats, and considerable amounts of barbed wire.

Acts of rape and murder were committed at the medical college of the city, which was burned, with many of its faculty thrown into the blazing fires.

[5] After the stalemate at Yellow River from December 1937 to March 1938, the fighting resumed resulting in Battle of Xuzhou.