Changchun, the Young Marshal's Mansion.

"Young marshal, Zhili Province is in an emergency!" Xu Zheng ran in excitedly and said.

"My father-in-law has won the battle?" Feng Yong asked with a smile. In Zhili Province, only Zhang Zuolin's troops are fighting again for the time being. And judging from Xu Zheng's ecstatic face, it must be a big victory at the front.

"Yes, Zhang Dashuai sent an urgent telegram, the Northern Military Region defeated the Henan Overseer Zhao Qi's Yu Army, and now the army is close to the border of Zhili, and the entire Zhili Province will fall into the hands of our Northeast Army." Another province fell under the rule of the Northeast. You must know that Zhili Province is not comparable to the border provinces. The Jizhong Plain is a well-known province with a large population in China, and Zhili has always been called the throat of Gyeonggi, and now the Northeast Army has completed the occupation of Zhili, which will be a huge solidarity for the new government in Beijing.

"What about Wu Peifu's troops? According to the pace of progress, they should enter the Zhili area. Why is there no intelligence on him? Feng Yong said in a deep voice, compared with the gains and losses of the entire Zhili Province, Feng Yong paid more attention to the Wu Peifu Department that went north to reinforce. Wu Peifu is a very capable commander, and can even be said to be the top commander in the entire Beiyang system, although Zhang Zuolin is also an excellent commander, but compared with Wu Peifu, I am afraid there is still a slight gap.

"According to our intelligence, after Wu Peifu's army entered Anyang, Henan, it did not continue to advance, but sent an army back to Kaifeng, the capital of Henan Province. The situation in Henan is not clear at the moment. Xu Zheng couldn't figure out what Wu Peifu was doing this. The form of the north is so critical, Wu Peifu should not be so leisurely.

"Send a report to Zhang Dashuai and tell him to be careful of Wu Peifu's movements. Also, after the army advanced to the border of Zhili Province, it stopped advancing and built defensive positions. Feng Yong said in a deep voice. He also wants to take advantage of the current good form to take out Beiyang in one go and make the Northeast a veritable central government. But the current form makes it impossible for the Northeast to let go of its hands and feet. It can be said that being able to swallow the two provinces of the Central Plains is already the limit of the Northeast.

On the Sino-Korean border, the movements of the Japanese became more and more frequent, and the Northeast Army never caught the small Japanese troops who entered the hinterland of China to commit crimes, and according to the time calculation, they are likely to have returned to Korea, and it will be even more difficult to avenge this bloody feud. Xinjiang and Tibet in the west have just been swallowed, and the internal instability is very large, and it requires a large army to continue fighting, and the pressure on the entire northeastern government is very great. Beijing, the new government has attracted the attention of the Western powers, and the Western countries, led by Britain and the United States, have begun to contact the Beijing government, domineeringly demanding that the Beijing government accept a series of unequal treaties signed by the Manchu government and the Beiyang government. For this kind of thing, Feng Yong didn't even think about it, and prevaricated on the grounds that the new government was being prepared. Now he can only refrain from talking about it for the time being. Now the countries on the Western battlefield are still frantically strangling, and the power of the Western European powers in the Far East has been seriously weakened, so Feng Yong is not worried about the pressure of Britain and France at all. But Feng Yong will not forget that there are still two powerful hungry wolves in the world who have not been dragged down by the war. And even reaped the benefits of this world war. Among them, the greatest threat to China is Japan, a bad neighbor to the east.

The war in the Northeast in the Central Plains has not yet ended, and if the United States and Japan are given an excuse for war at this time, it will be a disaster for the whole of China.

"Send a report to General Baili, asking him to launch a river crossing operation as soon as possible to eliminate the resistance in Beiyang as much as possible." In Feng Yong's heart, Beiyang is different from the southwest, the Beiyang system has a strong feudal bureaucratic atmosphere, and under the influence of this atmosphere, in the face of crisis, Beiyang often first considers the interests of its own small system. Feng Yong could not guarantee that once the Northeast was dragged into the abyss of war by the Japanese, what would be the attitude of the Beiyang government, and if they also came to save the country, it would be a big trouble. After all, Nanjing's Beiyang government is now half of the central government. The large-scale defection of the Ergouzi troops in World War II is an eternal pain in the hearts of the entire Chinese nation. Feng Yong didn't want this kind of thing to happen now.

Shandong, on the banks of the Yellow River.

Huge pontoon boats are displayed on the banks of the Yellow River.

"Commander, we have prepared these wooden boats, which can form three pontoon bridges in the shortest possible time. This would ensure that the troops would be able to pass. "The enemy will not watch the Northeast Army cross the river, and they will definitely rain frantically on the opposite bank to prevent the northeast from crossing the river.

"Very good. I will select the most elite soldiers and take the lead in crossing the pontoon bridge to build a bridgehead on the opposite bank. Jiang Baili looked at the dense positions of the Beiyang Army on the opposite side and said. Now the Yellow River is in the dry season, the river surface is not wide, and the artillery in the northeast can definitely hit the opposite bank, not to mention that there are eighteen large-caliber heavy artillery pieces in the northeast. The range of heavy artillery can definitely envelop most of the defensive positions on the other side of the river. In the entire battle on the north bank, the heavy artillery units were slow to move, and only used their might during the storming of Yucheng, and the rest of the time they were trying to march. This also made the proud soldiers of the heavy artillery regiment realize the weakness of the heavy artillery unit, and the pride in their hearts was much less.

"Commander Liao, the time for the troops to launch the river crossing operation is set for tonight, and I hope that your engineer regiment can complete the docking of all pontoon bridges before then. Cover the attack of large forces. Jiang Baili said in a deep voice.

"Yes! Guaranteed completion of the task. ”

That night, under the hazy moonlight, on the surface of the Yellow River, which was covered with ice floe, three pontoon bridges extended towards the opposite bank little by little.

Pop bang -- Dense gunfire suddenly rang out from the Beiyang Army position on the opposite side. The thrusting speed of the pontoon suddenly stopped.

"Order the artillery to open fire and cover the engineer regiment!" Jiang Baili said in a deep voice.

Boom! A huge flare shot into the sky, and the whole world was illuminated by the instantaneous bright light. The Northeast Army had already prepared hundreds of gates, large and small, to open fire in an instant.

Boom!

The position of the Beiyang Army on the opposite side was shrouded in a sea of blood. The terrible screams could be heard across the Yellow River.

Rumble...... There was a sudden roar on the position of the Beiyang Army on the opposite side, and the artillery of the Beiyang Army also began to exert its might. Although the artillery of the Beiyang Army was not as advanced as the Northeast Army and could not cover the positions of the Northeast Army on the opposite bank, there was no problem in aiming the firing point at the engineer regiment that was operating on the river. In fact, the task of the artillery of the Beiyang Army was also to prevent the construction of the Northeast pontoon bridge.

"It's time for the heavy artillery regiment to wield its might. By my order, the heavy artillery regiment completely destroyed the enemy's artillery units at any cost. "The enemy's artillery commander was not a fool either, the entire artillery position was outside the range of the conventional artillery positions in the Northeast, but they ignored the heavy artillery regiments of the Northeast Army. As a result, most of the already small artillery units in Beiyang were destroyed by the Northeast Heavy Artillery Regiment. In the following battles, he was always suppressed by the Northeast Army, and he never had the ability to fight back.

The commander-in-chief of the Beiyang Army on the other side of the Yellow River was Ni Sichong. If Fu Liangzuo was the commander-in-chief, he would definitely not make such a low-level mistake after having seen the power of heavy artillery. It's a pity that the continuous failures have seriously affected Fu Liangzuo's reputation, whether it is the Beiyang boss Duan Qirui or other high-level Beiyang Army leaders do not want Fu Liangzuo to serve as the commander of the Yellow River garrison, no way, since the encounter with the Northeast Army, Fu Liangzuo is consecutive defeats, and hundreds of thousands of troops were finally eaten by the Northeast Army on the other side of the Yellow River. Only he was left to flee back with a hundred henchmen in disarray. In this case, he was naturally not treated by all parties, Ni Sichong was also worried that Fu Liangzuo's bad luck would infect him, and after rescuing him from the other side of the Yellow River, he almost didn't stop, and sent him directly to Licheng, which also caused the two of them to not meet each other, and it was also doomed to the tragedy of the Beiyang artillery.

Boom - ...... The soldiers of the heavy artillery regiment, who had been holding back for a long time, finally waited for this opportunity to show their skills, and almost at the moment when Jiang Baili's order arrived, the heavy artillery began to spit out tongues of fire. After the battle of Yucheng, the arrogance of the heavy artillery soldiers has decreased a lot, but their self-confidence has increased a lot. After all, the battle of Yucheng can be regarded as the maiden battle of the heavy artillery troops. Even they were surprised by the power of heavy artillery, which was a strategic weapon on the battlefield during this period, and was the king of war when the aircraft were not put into actual combat.

It seemed that he could see the face of the commander on the other side of the river, Tie Qing, and looking at the skyrocketing fire on the enemy artillery position on the opposite side, Jiang Baili thought with a smile, he knew that this artillery battle, even if he couldn't kill all the Beiyang artillery, it could greatly weaken them, and the next battle would be much easier for the Northeast.

Indeed, the current Ni Sichong's face is so black that he can drip water. Artillery regiment! It was the largest firepower unit of Beiyang in the Luzhong area, and it gathered seventy percent of the artillery of the Beiyang Army in Luzhong. Hearing the farewell telegram sent by the artillery commander, Ni Sichong's heart was dripping blood! Without artillery, no one can say for sure how long his troops would last. From the moment the artillery was wiped out by the enemy, the whole war was already tilted to the northeast. All Ni Sichong could do was to delay the enemy's advance as quickly as possible.

"Report to the general, the pontoon bridge of the Northeast Army has reached the middle of the river, please tell us whether the mortar position of our department will attack?" In the past month of entanglement with the Northeast, the Beiyang Army has seen the powerful firepower of the Northeast Army, and also knows how to concentrate the firepower and weapons of the entire army for use. It is a pity that the troops concentrated in Beiyang are all allied forces from various provinces, and heavy weapons are already extremely scarce, and tens of thousands of troops have drawn out a mortar regiment, the caliber is still uneven, and the number of shells is also very limited. But that's it, Ni Sichong also attaches great importance to it. After all, this gives Beiyang the qualifications to compete with the Northeast.

"The mortar unit was ordered to stop its mission, retreat three kilometers and enter the second line of defense." Ni Sichong said in a deep voice. The first line of defense is shrouded in the range of the enemy's heavy artillery, and if you continue to stay here, you can only seek death. Therefore, Ni Sichong could only abandon the first line of defense of the troops and wait for the enemy's attack.

(To be continued)