readx; On the 16th, when Sun Wen said 'the passenger ship returning to China, the battle in Changsha City still continued, since the early morning of the 14th Hu [***] launched a full-scale attack, it has been two days since the Hu [***] launched a full-scale attack, and the Hu [***] compressed the defense line of the 10th Division of the National Army with an absolute superiority of troops, although there are also because the northern suburbs of Changsha and the eastern suburbs are occupied by the Hu [***], so since yesterday the 10th Division in the city has lost ground contact with the outside, However, fortunately, this year has entered the era of radio communication, relying on the 10th Division of wireless telegraphy to maintain smooth communication with the outside world, and even the surrounded Lin Chengkun still directs the war in the entire Hunan Province through wireless telegraphy. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The siege of the 10th Division is expected, since the moment Lin Chengkun decided to defend Changsha, he took the initiative to give up the opportunity to retreat, although the continuous retreat in the past two days, the casualties of the troops are also relatively large, but the ammunition and food supplies in Changsha City are still sufficient, unless the 10th Division is surrounded for more than a week, otherwise the ammunition reserves of the 10th Division will not be in shortage. Lin Chengkun asked himself how the 10th Division would not have been surrounded for more than a week, because Cao Kun's 30th Division, which was subordinate to his Fourth Army, had already set out from Yueyang, and the light infantry regiment in the vanguard was less than 20 kilometers away from Changsha, and it would be able to reach Changsha for reinforcements in a day at most.

However, when Lin Chengkun waited for Cao Kun's 30th Division to come to reinforcements, Xie Ruyi, who was protecting [***], was not idle, and after failing to completely conquer the railway station and the church line for two days, Xie Ruyi dispatched the 1st Brigade of the 17th Division to attack the Changsha Railway Station from the east on the morning of the 16th, and made a certain breakthrough at noon, when Xie Ruyi immediately put the 19th Division, one of the reserves, into the eastern front.

The 19th Division, like the 16th Division, was the two main divisions of the Yunnan Army, and its combat effectiveness was obviously much stronger than that of the 15th and 17th Divisions in front of it and the division of the Gui Army. With the kneading of the 19th Division, the reserve has been directly invested in four divisions in order to annihilate the 10th Division in Changsha City, with a total strength of more than 70,000 troops.

And Xie Ruyi's forces are far more than these, at this time he still has two mixed brigades in his hands as reserves, if you add more than 10,000 Gui troops in the direction of Zhuzhou, plus the 16th Division and the 12th Mixed Brigade that are ready to intercept the southward reinforcements in the direction of Yueyang. Then the forces gathered by Hu [***] in the surrounding area of Changsha are up to a total of 120,000 troops.

Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting spent so much determination and thought to assemble as many as 180,000 troops in Hunan, except for the Gui army in Hengyang and other southern Hunan areas, which invested more than 30,000 troops, and the Dian army in the northwest of Hunan and the rear of more than 20,000 troops, all the others were gathered in the Changsha area. The strategy of protecting [***] was very simple, that is, to gather absolutely superior forces in the Hunan region, with 18 pairs of 40,000 national troops. In Hunan, with Changsha as the center, they tried to concentrate more than 120,000 main forces to carry out annihilation strikes on the 10th Division of the Nationalist Army in Changsha. Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting knew that their army could not defeat the Nationalist Army in terms of quality, and they could only rely on their numerical superiority to beat the Nationalist Army first, and they would be able to take the initiative in the future, whether it was peace or strategic confrontation.

Based on the strategy of protecting [***], so for Xie Ruyi, the most important thing at present is to completely defeat the 10th Division of the Nationalist Army, as long as the 10th Division is defeated, then the Protector [***] can gather the main force to defeat the 30th Division of the Nationalist Army again, but Xie Ruyi is not saying that he will sit and watch Cao Kun's 30th Division go straight to Changsha.

As early as when Cao Kun's 30th Division set out from Yueyang, the 16th Division of the Dian Army had also set off ten miles north of Changsha, and then the 12th Mixed Brigade also joined the ranks of the 16th Division, and the task of this Dian army, which totaled more than 20,000 men, was to block the southward movement of the Nationalist reinforcements in the direction of Yueyang.

The 16th Division, like the 19th Division, is one of the two main forces of the Yunnan Army, and it has been sitting in Guizhou for a long time, and has fought many warlords in Sichuan, and even fought with the Seventh Mixed Brigade of the Beiyang Army at the beginning. It is not only equipped with all 6.5 mm rifles, but also a large number of Hatch Chase heavy machine guns and 38-year-old heavy machine guns, which have reached the full strength of 24 in the Beiyang Army. In addition, although the artillery of its artillery regiment is of complex type, and there are all kinds of artillery made by morality, morality, and law, it is extremely rare, except for one artillery battalion with 12 57-mm mountain guns, the other two artillery battalions are 75-mm artillery battalions.

Judging only from the equipment, the 16th Division is no weaker than the 10th Division, and it is even stronger than before the 10th Division was reequipped with large-scale artillery, and the artillery regiment of the 10th Division was only equipped with 60-millimeter mountain guns in the past two months. However, although the combat effectiveness of the troops has a lot to do with equipment, morale and training also have great concern, the national army has won victories in the domestic battlefield in recent years, and the national army is the strongest army in China before, which has also led to many units of the national army to obtain extremely valuable combat experience, and the war has also exercised the command quality of many middle, high and high officers of the national army. And the words of the Dian army and the Gui army, to be honest, they have not experienced any large-scale war.

Even though the Yunnan army has been fighting in Sichuan for several years, their opponents have always been those small warlords in Sichuan, and they are small warlord troops who can't even be equipped with rifles, and when they fought with the Beiyang Seventh Mixed Brigade, they were defeated, and in the end, it was the 16th Division that relied on the superiority of troops and firepower to block the attack of the Beiyang Seventh Mixed Brigade, as for the Gui Army, it had no experience in modern warfare, and it was fought last year when it attacked Hunan, and it was the troops of the Nationalist Army that were the main force attacking Hunan. Whether it is the Gui army or the Dian army, they are all watching from the side, dealing with the miscellaneous troops of the Hunan Provincial Army.

Therefore, strictly speaking, before the Battle of Changsha, the Gui Army and the Dian Army had not fought a regular modern war, and not only the senior officers lacked sufficient experience, but even those soldiers lacked sufficient experience, and they lacked the experience and courage to fight against the modern army with a lot of firepower.

In the front line of the church, in the face of the National Army trenches and the line of heavy machine guns and barbed wire, there was not much feasible way to protect [***].

In addition to the lack of offensive power, the defense of the protection of [***] is also far from the standard of the modern army, and the fact that the defense of the [***] is low has been fully demonstrated when the 16th Division resisted Cao Kun's 30th Division.

Cao Kun can be said to be one of the few generals in China who has combat experience in commanding large corps and also has sufficient ability. At the beginning, he was in the battle of Hefei, although he was outnumbered and defeated by the Nationalist Army, but whether it was within the Beiyang Army or in the Nationalist Army, there was no intention to underestimate him, and finally although he was defeated in Hefei, he still withdrew to Henan with nearly 10,000 remnants, and then fought a series of battles with the Sixth Division of the Nationalist Army in the Xinyang area of Henan, so that the Sixth Division at that time could not advance an inch.

Now after joining the National Army, Cao Kun has always been cautious, for fear that something will make Chen Cai come to the door, not long after joining the National Army system, he has already heard of Chen Cai's famous name. In order not to let others put on small shoes for himself, Cao Kun surrendered to the Nationalist Army, Chen Jingyun transferred him from Xinyang to Wuhu, he brought the 30th Division over without saying a word, and then he watched Chen Jingyun transfer all his old units, and then a large number of officers from other units of the Nationalist Army were added to the 30th Division. After he arrived in Yueyang with his troops, he was just a bald commander in the 30th Division, and all the original old departments were transferred, and even Wu Peifu, who he had always relied on the most, was transferred, although Wu Peifu was transferred to the Operations Department of the General Staff Department as the section chief of the Northeast Section, according to the system in the National Army, that position was one of the ways for those regiment commanders to be promoted, the standard rank of colonel, and it would not be humiliating for him if he went to serve as a major general. And this will be the position of the director in the future, Cao Kun knows that Wu Peifu is different from himself and Xu Shuzheng and other division commander-level generals, and his own people are estimated to be guarded by Chen Jingyun every day, but Xiang Wu Peifu and other young and promising middle-level officers have obviously been reused.

Although he was a bald commander in the 30th Division, the officers of the National Army did not show any dissatisfaction with him, let alone disobey orders, and later inquired in detail about Xu Shuzheng and He Zonglian, and found that the two of them were similar to themselves, and He Zonglian did not disobey orders when he attacked Qingdao, so that he put aside those worries and concentrated on rectifying the 30th Division to prepare for war. He didn't dare to think about continuing to rise and return to his previous high position, but for the sake of his wife and daughter, the position of the division commander now has to sit firmly, and when the country is peaceful, he should retire in more than ten years, and it is not impossible to get a general rank before retirement.

To be honest, he has always been extremely envious of the rank of general of Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang!

With these thoughts in mind, Cao Kun led his troops to reinforce Changsha, and along the way, two infantry regiments marched lightly, while the following artillery regiments and other troops arrived by train.

I have to say that Cao Kun was indeed a little unlucky, when the two infantry regiments were lightly armed and finally rushed to Changsha twenty miles away, the artillery regiment and other troops that set off later had also arrived first by train, which made Cao Kun extremely depressed, he had better wait for half a day to transport all the troops by rail, and he didn't have to make the people of the 331st Regiment and the 332nd Regiment tired and half dead like now.

At this time, the 16th Division of the Protector [***] has already built a defensive position waiting for Cao Kun, Cao Kun is not a quick surname, so he is very patient to use a battalion to slowly carry out the fire test, while waiting for the artillery regiment behind to build an artillery position, after waiting for more than three hours, after the fire test, Cao Kun looked at the 16th Division firepower layout map in his hand, shook his head and smiled: "These people, I really think they are playing at home!" ”

The chief of staff next to him also said with a smile: "I really didn't expect that it would be so easy for them to expose so many firepower points, and when the artillery regiment carries out artillery strikes, it will be twice the result with half the effort!" ”