108091908 Far East Maniac Chapter 328 Under the Blue Wall

The starting point of the Shehan Railway is Beijing. The terminal station, Hankou, is the most extraordinary in China in the era of weeping. … The lifeblood of land transportation, who controls the railway. Whoever has the strategic initiative will grasp the strategic initiative, whether it is the army from the north to the south, or the army from the south to the north, if you want to carry out strategic development, you must first control the Jinghan Railway.

The reason why the Beiyang Army decided to "defend the east and attack the west" was to open up the Jinghan line, because compared with shipping, railway transportation was the most in line with the strategic needs of the Beiyang in terms of time and efficiency, not to mention that after occupying Hankou, the Beiyang Army could go down the Yangtze River and attack the southeastern provinces along the river to control the south in the shortest possible time.

And strategically speaking, Hubei belongs to the situation of "building a bottle from a high house", attacking from here, you can sweep Central China and South China, the reason why Zhao Bei chose Hubei as the main direction of the march is also an important reason, and the Beiyang Army went south to attack Hubei, it is precisely this point

Therefore, whether it is the Beiyang Group or the United Front, if they want to defeat their opponents and control the whole country, they must first control the Jinghan Railway.

The battle of Xinyang, in the final analysis, is actually a railway battle, holding Xinyang, guarding the gate of Hubei, conquering Xinyang, it is seizing a very important strategic point on the Jinghan line, the offensive and defensive sides around the control of Xinyang, launched a tragic battle, the unprecedented fierceness of the battle surprised the military commanders on both sides.

As the supreme commander of the Beiyang Army in the Xinyang Campaign, Feng Guozhang obviously did not expect to encounter stubborn resistance from the United Front troops in Xinyang. In his opinion, the United Front did not stop the Beiyang Army in the dangerous place of Wusheng Pass, but set up such a solid defensive line in Xinyang, a place where there was no danger to defend, they obviously planned to seek a decisive battle with the Beiyang Army here.

In fact, there are still a few mountains near Xinyang, and the United Front troops regard them as high ground and set up defensive positions on them, but in the eyes of the well-equipped artillery of the Beiyang Army, those small hills are not worth mentioning at all, and they can easily take the position with a few artillery shots, and after occupying the high ground around Xinyang, they can set up artillery positions on the top of the mountains and bombard Xinyang from a high position.

But to the surprise of the artillery officers of the Beiyang Army, those small hills that did not look tall were so tenacious that even if they took out the latest mountain guns imported from France by the Beiyang Army, they could not force the United Front troops guarding the heights to withdraw from their positions, they were like rats hiding in holes in the ground. It's hard to get them to the ground.

The troops of the United Front were indeed hiding in the caves, but not rat holes, but caves, which they had dug out of the mountainside with iron inlays, iron locks, and explosives, and the holes were very small, but the passes in the caves were very long, extending from the soil to the deep rock formations, and the roof of the caves was supported by wooden stakes and planks, which were as strong as the tunnels in the coal mines, and the soldiers hid in the holes, which were not only very safe. And the cave can be stocked with enough military supplies, drinking water and food, enough to hold out for many days.

It's like the bunkers in the trenches. The small caves on these mountainsides also opened the eyes of the artillery of the Beiyang Army, and they realized how wrong their previous views were, not to mention that the defense line of Xinyang was attacked by the Beiyang Army, but by the Japanese army that attacked the Lushun Fortress. I'm afraid it won't be able to gnaw either, unless heavy artillery is brought in, the kind of heavy siege artillery used to bombard reinforced concrete permanent fortifications, maybe it can clean up the rat holes on the mountainside.

But there was no such heavy artillery in the Beiyang Army. Therefore, the artillery of the Beiyang Army could only stare at the rat holes on the mountainside, and vent their anger into the trenches on the flat ground.

The artillerymen could ignore the caves on the mountainside. But Feng Guozhang and Feng Dashuai couldn't ignore it. If you can't take the surrounding highlands, you can't take this Xinyang City, you can't take Xinyang, and the railway line that goes south to Wushengguan can't be opened, so Yuan Shikai and Yuan Laoshuai will be angry, and when the time comes, you can only use him Feng Dashuai to vent his anger.

Therefore, from the beginning of the war to the present, Feng Guozhang has focused his main attention on the caves on the mountainside, and through the interrogation of the prisoners of the Southern Army, he learned that those caves have a proper term in the Republican Army, called "tunnels", which are indeed modeled after the tunnels of coal mines. Now the republican army has a very professional engineering unit, many of which come from the border of Hunan and Jiangxi in the Luoxiang area, which happens to be the place where the butterfly mine is concentrated, many locals have worked as miners in the coal mines, and are familiar with the use of digging tools and explosives and gunpowder, so it is particularly easy to dig tunnels and tunnels.

In fact, not only the sappers are digging tunnels, but also ordinary soldiers are digging tunnels, and they are digging very well, because every soldier of the Republican Army has a tactical lesson in digging fortifications in his daily practice. It can be said that they practiced their digging and blasting skills every day under the supervision of officers, and most of the calluses on their hands were practiced in this way. In their words, this is "more sweat before the war, less blood during the war"

Before the war between the north and the south, Beiyang had also obtained information through the meticulous work lurking in Wuhan and other places, and knew that the Republican Army was purchasing shovels and iron shovels on a large scale, and each soldier had an average of one digging tool. During the "military exercise", in addition to rifles, the most conspicuous thing in their hands was these excavation tools, and at that time, the Beiyang side only regarded this information as ordinary information, but now they finally understand what use these excavation tools are for.

In fact, the construction of these tunnels and fortifications in the heights around Xinyang began very early, and in order to carve tunnels into the hard rock formations, the Republican Army sappers fought for months on the high grounds, using a large amount of explosives, and if they had more time, they were confident that they would have hollowed out the entire mountain, as a testament to the progress they had made in military modernization.

It was these sappers who buried willow hats who turned the Xinyang defense line into a quagmire on the way forward of the Beiyang troops, making the entire Beiyang Southward Second Army trapped here and unable to move, and Feng Guojiao was also hit by an unprecedented obstacle in his military career, which made Zhuo Qing's face swollen, and "Feng Dog" met the "blue wall"

"Blue Wall" is the nickname given to the commander of the United Front by the British adviser of the Beiyang Army, Lan Tianwei, in front of the revolutionary officers who are not young this year, Feng Guozhang, who has always been arrogant and domineering, is about to show timidity when he sees it, and it is no wonder that Mr. "Feng Dog" has been unhappy for the past two days, seeing who bites whom.

Now Mr. "Feng Dog" is biting Wu Peihu, and Cao Zhen, who has been bitten by him, is standing in the corner with his head hanging down, also without saying a word, with a gloomy face, and the expression when he "captured" Xihua is completely two extremes.

"Wu Peihu, let me tell you, today's horn; Seven years ago, no matter what you say, you have to take down a mountain for Lao Tzu! Take it, Jiuchuan "Lao Tzu asked you for credit, you can't take it down, hum, you kid took off the hat of this division commander for Lao Tzu, go back to Tianjin, and do your show!" ”

Feng Guozhang had already finished his anger just now, and now he was dissipating his anger, although his tone was still very stern, he didn't go up and slap Wu Peixiang's mouth again, and he also sat back in the Taishi chair, tilting his head and staring at the senior officers in front of him.

Wu Peihu's face was blue, there were still a few clearly visible finger prints on his face, he endured the hot pain on his face, and said in a deep voice: "Feng Shuaijun, see you." Our troops have been attacking fiercely for several days, and the casualties are too heavy, and if we attack the mountain again, I am afraid that the morale of the army will be unstable. ”

"Then in your opinion, this mountain will not be attacked?" Feng Guozhang cold. Enjoy.

"The southern army is only defending on the mountain, there is no artillery position on the mountain, there is no threat to our army, according to the humble opinion, only need to send a small number of troops to watch at the foot of the mountain, as for the main force, it should continue to attack the front of Xinyang, and the fierce shelling for days and days, the southern army is also seriously injured, and the artillery will work harder, maybe the position can be torn apart from the middle, and our army can break through, and then flank and outflank, encircle and annihilate it." Wu Peihu suppressed the fire in her heart. Word by word, he said his considerations.

What Wu Shuai said makes sense. In fact, from the humble point of view, the Southern Army fought this battle very sluggishly, and it was completely a hard-fought positional battle, and the key was artillery. Yesterday, Commander Duan sent a telegram saying that the Japanese had agreed to transfer a few heavy siege guns from the fortress of Arthur. It was used to bombard Russian fortifications and fortresses during the Russo-Japanese War, and the power was quite strong, and if the artillery arrived before attacking, it would be easy to conquer Xinyang. ”

Cao Yin came over and echoed Wu Peihu's opinion, now the two of them are ants on a rope, and they really need to take care of each other, otherwise, they are the scapegoats prepared by Feng Guozhang. Although Beiyang said that there was no shortage of scapegoats, if Xinyang could not be attacked, Yuan Shikai would lose face. Then this scapegoat can only find some fat and strong, Feng Guozhang is a senior veteran of Beiyang, and he may not be willing to be this scapegoat, so there are only wronged Cao Shuai and Wu Shuai.

Seeing Cao Jian speak, Feng Guozhang gave him a blank look. Said coldly: "Artillery? To put it lightly! Let me tell you, now there is a road-breaking team in northern Henan, the southern army's meticulous work and spies are planting bombs everywhere, and the Jinghan line is frightening step by step, and the train does not dare to go fast. Now the shells can't be transported, so they rely on the ones carried by the army, and they will be finished in a few days. At that time, will we wait for the Yugoslav army to bombard us with artillery? Attacking the mountain, now you can't count on artillery, you have to rely on human lives to pile up! The Southern Army is not fighting a dull battle, the Southern Army is waiting, and when we are tired of fighting, they will eat us in one go! You can wait a few days for the heavy artillery to arrive. But I can't wait for these few days, because I don't want to be a defeated general! ”

Speaking of this, Feng Guozhang picked up the teacup from the table, looked at the pattern on the cup, then raised it above his head and threw the teacup to the ground.

"Boom!"

The teacup shattered, and the broken porcelain even flew to the faces of Wu Peihu and Cao Key, making the two of them sweat in shock.

"The order goes down, after one o'clock in the afternoon, the 3rd and 9th Divisions will spread along the railway, concentrate on attacking only the hill, and be sure to take at least one hill! The Fourth and Seventh Divisions will now begin to attack, feint at the frontal position in Xinyang, and plan for the attack of the Third and Fourth Divisions. ”

Feng Guozhang gave an order, and no one present dared to disobey anymore, so they had to take the order and return to the division headquarters to arrange the attack.

Walking out of Feng Guozhang's Second Army Headquarters, Wu Peihu took a sip, rode his white horse, and led the guards back to the headquarters of the Ninth Division.

Counsellors were summoned to confer, although it was agreed that none of the heights could be conquered with the current firepower. However, the military order could not be disobeyed, and Wu Peihu still issued the attack order at one o'clock in the afternoon, and all the troops of the Ninth Division that had not collapsed were transferred to the railway line, following behind Cao Ni's third division. Advancing south along the railway, under the cover of the feint troops, two separate attacks were launched.

Feng Guozhang sent enough artillery to support, and under the cover of mountain artillery, Wu Peihu commanded the 9th Division to launch its first attack on a high ground near the railway line.

There is no suspense that the first attack of the Beiyang Army was repelled by the RUF troops guarding the high ground, and the entrances to those tunnels were too narrow for the shells to reach the entrance of the cave directly, even if a few shells were occasionally fired, it would not cause much casualties to the RUF soldiers in the tunnel, because there were two earthen walls not far behind the hole, crossed against each other, enough to block all the shrapnel, and only those soldiers guarding the entrance of the cave would be killed and injured by the shells. But soon there will be soldiers in the cave who will go to the entrance of the cave and continue to guard the tunnel with rifles and grenades.

The Beiyang Army soon launched a second attack, which was also defeated.

In this way, the battle for the heights was carried out rigidly, the soldiers on the mountain were rigidly guarding, and the soldiers under the mountain were rigidly rushing, just like Feng Guozhang said. It's all about piling human lives on the mountain, depending on which side has more people.

The powerlessness in Wu Peihu's heart became even heavier. He realized that the current war was a completely new style of fighting, not to mention that he had not seen it. Even the British Advisor saw this kind of play for the first time, and although the British Advisor despised this kind of play hidden in a cave, it was really effective and beneficial to the defender.

Attack, retreat, attack, retreat, after attacking five times, the morale of the attacking side was on the verge of collapse, and just when Wu Peihu ordered the supervising team to shoot several officers who took the lead in retreating, and was about to give the order for the sixth attack, he suddenly heard several long steam sounds

Sound.

The whistle came from the south, where was the offensive position of the Third Beiyang Division, Wu Peihu hurriedly shook Cao Yin's phone, but Cao Yin was not in the offensive headquarters, the person who answered the phone was a staff officer, and without saying a few words, Wu Peihu heard the howl of another staff officer in the field telephone connected to the offensive headquarters of the Third Division.

"What's that?" Command artillery. Concentrate on shelling that train! "It doesn't work?! Boom, boom, boom! Boom Railway. Boom Railway! Boom rails, boom rails! Give Wu a hard bang! Chuan,"

"Boom!"

There was a dull explosion on the field phone. Then, everything fell silent.

Wu Peixiang stood stunned in the headquarters, he really didn't know what happened to the Third Division in the south, and he didn't understand what the whistle meant.

At this moment, there was a faint roar in the sky, and a plane of the Southern Army was fleeting.

Again, the way the Beiyang Army encountered the battle was completely new and three-dimensional.