The two battles of Dakengkou and Zhangshi Town, collectively known as the Battle of Qujiang, have been recorded in the Chinese history of the time and space in which Luo Yaoguo is now located. After the Battle of Zhangshi Town, Luo Yaoguo and Gu Zhutong ran all the way along the Beijiang River, and finally rushed into Qujiang County before the remnants of Shen Hongying's Li and He armies (the previous mistake should be Li Yibiao's army, not Xie Wenbing's division), and then Luo Yaoguo left Gu Zhutong to guard Qujiang, and led the Eighth Division to seize Shaoguan non-stop. Shaoguan is an important pass in the Nanling Mountains, the economic and political center of the Beijiang region, and the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway also goes north through Shaoguan, and seizing Shaoguan is equivalent to blocking the main road for the three brigades of the Northern Army to enter Guangdong.

At this time, Shen Hongying did not dare to return to the garrisons of Shaoguan and Xinjie after the defeat in Zhangshi Town, but packed up hundreds of remnants of the army, and went to the north along the South Ridge to the North Army, Fang Benren and other troops in a vain attempt to rely on Wu Peifu's forces to fight back to Guangdong. At the time of Shen Hongying's defeat, Fang Benren of Jiangxi had already led the army to Nanxiong, Guangdong, and this time he came to Guangdong with Fang Benren Deng Ruzhuo's Ninth Mixed Brigade of the Beiyang Army, Fan Zhongxiu's Fifth Mixed Brigade of the Yu Army, Zhang Keyao's First Mixed Brigade of the Lu Army, a total of more than 10,000 people, and Chen Jiongming's remnants Xie Wenbingshi and Shen Hongying's remnants of thousands of troops, and by the end of March, Shen Hongying also packed up the remnants of Zhang Xiyan and came to defect, and the total number of troops under the command of Fang Benren was nearly 20,000, and he had the strength to fight with Chiang Kai-shek.

Chiang Kai-shek, who had been defeated, was faced with a new problem, that is, the dissatisfaction of the Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan armies, which had contributed a lot in the Battle of Qujiang, suffered many casualties, and their gains were very limited. In contrast, the four divisions of the Guangdong Army were all fighting a tailwind battle, relying on strong firepower and strong numbers to win easily, not only did they capture prisoners, but also obtained the wealth that Shen Sou had looted for many years because they copied Shen Hongying's lair. provoked the eyes of the armies of Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan to be hot.

Speaking of this, it is also related to Luo Yaoguo, because it was Luo Yaoguo's Eighth Division that captured this batch of property, when the Eighth Division suddenly attacked Shaoguan, some of the officers and soldiers of Shen Hongying's department who stayed in Shaoguan were caught off guard at all, and they were killed and dispersed before they had time to transfer their property, and after rushing into Shaoguan and Xinjie, the Eighth Division quickly searched the houses of Shen Hongying and his subordinates one by one, and captured millions of goods. Shen was born in a reckless manner, unlike those Beiyang bigwigs who want to be vassals and elegant, so most of his wealth is real money, not antique self-painting. At this time, the so-called "revolutionary army" was still a warlord mercenary, and Luo Yaoguo did not take off the coat of a warlord, and of course he would not hand over the goods to the public, so he divided them into three parts, one for the Eighth Division, one for Gu Zhutong and the Seventh Division, and one for Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek took the money and gave 100,000 yuan each to the second and third divisions of the Guangdong army, so the commanders of the four divisions of the Guangdong army more or less shared the profits, and they were all happy, while the three armies of Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan had nothing to gain except for Zhu Peide's other capture.

In fact, Chiang Kai-shek's practice of favoring one over the other was not entirely unreasonable, because the Seventh Division of the Cantonese Department was now under the direct management of the General Staff Department and the Ministry of Military Affairs, and military salaries were paid directly to the regiments, and they were distributed under the joint supervision of division-level commanders and officials of the Ministry of Military Affairs, so there was not much room for deductions and empty quotas. However, the Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan armies were still under the lump sum system, and the Generalissimo's Office paid military salaries according to the number of guns and weapons of the three armed forces, and as for how much the three armies paid to their soldiers, they were completely unsupervised.

In short, because of the contradictions on the issue of capture, except for Zhu Peide's First Army of the Yunnan Army, the three armies of Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Hunan were still willing to contribute, and the other troops refused to fight again, and Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to let them be stationed on the Guangdong-Jiangxi border and the Guangdong-Guizhou border. The next battle with the Northern Army could only rely on the Fourth Division of the Guangdong Army and Zhu Peide's First Yunnan Army.

The one who won the battle had a conflict because of the uneven distribution of spoils, but Shen Hongying, who was defeated and lost, also faced the same dilemma. Shen Hongying's defeat in this battle was too miserable, and in the end, he relied on the Third Brigade of the Northern Army to barely occupy the four counties in northern Guangdong. In this case, the soldiers of the Third Brigade of the Northern Army were naturally very arrogant, and the soldiers of Shen Hongying and Xie Wenbing's subordinates were often abused by them. Now don't thank us, but dare to talk to us! "Shen and Xie's subordinates went back to tell the commander, and the commander got the order of the senior commander again, and only taught the soldiers under his command to retreat, not to resist, offending the northern army. Therefore, the soldiers under Xie and Shen were very resentful, and they all said: "Since only a few northern troops are enough here, why bother us to fight hard, we are happy and comfortable, let the northern old man go hard." These words were spread by one person to ten, and ten people to hundreds, and everyone was resentful and had no fighting spirit.

At that time, Hunan Province hung the sign of autonomy and neutrality of the provinces under the rule of Zhao Hengti, so Wu Peifu's army could only enter and exit from Jiangxi, and could not go south from Hunan to Guangdong along the Guangdong-Hanzhou railway line, so Nanxiong County in northern Guangdong became the main route for the northern army to enter the Beijiang area. At this time, all the south of Shaoguan was controlled by Sun Yat-sen's forces, and north of Shaoguan, Lechang County belonged to Xie Wenbing, Renhua and Shixing counties belonged to Shen Hongying, and the northern army occupied Nanxiong.

In the face of the deployment of the Northern Army and the Shen and Xie divisions, Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters of the thief army in Shaoguan held meetings again and again to discuss the battle situation.

"Jiegong, the Ministry of Labor thinks that the key to the gains and losses of the four counties in northern Guangdong is Zhoutian Town, Zhoutian Town is the traffic artery from Shixing to Renhua County and Shaoguan, here is a three-way intersection, as long as we occupy Zhoutian, we can cut off the connection between Renhua and Lechang counties and Jiangxi. The two armies of Xie and Shen, who were stationed in the two counties, would inevitably collapse without a fight, and then we would go all out to deal with the more than 10,000 people of the northern army, and there was no reason to be invincible. He Yingqin talked eloquently in front of a huge combat map, and accurately analyzed the key points of the battle in northern Guangdong.

Chiang Kai-shek listened to He Yingqin's analysis and nodded with satisfaction. "Zhou Tian is really the key to this victory, who of you can work hard? Capture Zhou Tian and stick there? ”

"Jiegong, the ministry is willing to go." Luo Yaoguo also saw at a glance the important surname of Zhou Tianzhen, so he naturally had to shoulder the heavy burden bravely. "The Ministry thinks that there is no problem with the capture of Zhoutian Town, and now it is the remnants of Shen Hongying who are defending there, and there is no fighting spirit, and our army may be dispersed as soon as it arrives, and the key to the battle of northern Guangdong is to defend Zhoutian Town, how to use Zhoutian Town to eliminate more northern troops.

Once our Eighth Division occupies Zhoutian, the three brigades of the Northern Army stationed in Shixing County and Nanxiong County will definitely not sit idly by, so our army just uses Zhoutian Town as a battlefield to attract the Northern Army to attack and consume them as much as possible. ”

Chiang Kai-shek was also thinking about how to teach the three brigades of the Beiyang Army, who did not know whether to live or die, and nodded after listening to Luo Yaoguo's method: "Fuwen's strategy is really ingenious, we let them send it to the door themselves, if Zhou Tian can fight well, the Northern Army will not be able to gain a foothold in Guangdong, and maybe Ganzhou will be able to return to our hands." ”

"Jiegong, we can order the Eighth Division to raid Zhou Tian, and the Second and Seventh Divisions will ambush in Danxia Mountain, and wait until the Northern Army attacks Zhou Tian and then counterattacks, we will definitely be able to wipe out the thieves." He Yingqin's method was even more ruthless, using the Eighth Division to hold on to consume the Northern Army of the Third Brigade, and then counterattacking with two divisions, and defeating the three brigades sent by Wu Peifu in the first battle.

Chiang Kai-shek thought for a while and said: "Fuwen, I will assign Chen Cheng's Second Artillery Regiment to your Eighth Division, you can fight this battle well, don't be afraid of losses, I will be the first to supplement you after the battle." ”

On March 23, 1923, the Eighth Division of the Guangdong Army marched out of Shaoguan to the northeast, and at noon that day, it did not occupy the town of Daqiao and defeated a regiment of Shen Hong's British Army Li Yibiao stationed in Zhoutian Town at about eight o'clock in the evening, and controlled the main road from northern Guangdong to Jiangxi.

Zhoutian Town is located in a river valley of the Zhenjiang River, except for a small piece of flat land on both sides of the Zhenjiang River, surrounded by mountains on all sides, the road from Shixing to Renhua and Shaoguan is bifurcated in the southwest of Zhoutian, as long as this three-way intersection is held, it will cut off the traffic between the four counties in northern Guangdong. Look at this Zhoutian town again, probably because of the troubled times since the end of the Qing Dynasty, bandits are rampant, this town has actually built a boxy city wall, guarding the road along the Zhenjiang River, and there is a small pass called Shikou in the northeast of the town that can be defended.

After seeing that the actual terrain was more conducive to defense than the one marked on the map, Luo Yaoguo's face once again showed a confident smile. "Brother Wen Bai, I'm anxious that the commanders of each regiment will go to the division headquarters for a meeting, and let Cixiu also come." Wen Bai is the famous Zhang Zhizhong in history, I don't know where Chiang Kai-shek found him to replace Zhang Dingfan as Luo Yaoguo's chief of staff, and Zhang Dingfan went to Chiang Kai-shek as the chief of staff.

"Yes, Master." Zhang Zhizhong replied expressionlessly. His relationship with Luo Yaoguo is average, mainly because Luo Yaoguo rejects him, which is also the practice of the Guangdong army, and Cantonese officers always exclude people from other provinces.

Luo Yaoguo's division headquarters was placed in the Zhou family compound in Zhoutian Town, which had two surnames, one surnamed Zhou and the other Tian. The owner of the Zhou family's compound seems to be a certain veteran of the Kuomintang, well, the Kuomintang has a lot of problems, one of which is that there are a large number of veterans who rely on the old and sell the old, and Zhou Zhegong is one of them. This Zhou veteran's name is Xiyi, the word Zhewen, he is in his forties this year, and he joined the League very early, and his specialty is to blow up the carriage of the Manchu bureaucrats with homemade bombs, uh, but it seems that the craft of making bombs has never killed anyone. After the Xinhai Revolution, he followed Sun Mei, who was Sun Yat-sen's elder brother, and did something to senate.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the task of my Eighth Division in this battle is extremely arduous." In a conference room converted from a luxurious living room, Luo Yaoguo was anxious for the generals to start deploying combat missions. "The first line of defense of our army to block the Northern Army is Shikou, Chonglou, and the defense of Shikou is in charge of your 22nd Regiment, and your regiment will take an anti-slope operation in Shikou, and you must block the Northern Army in the mountains, understand?"

The little fat man now stood up with a solemn expression. "Please rest assured that the department will successfully complete the task."

"Zhongyi, Wenyang, I will leave the defense of Zhoutian Town City to you. In addition to the 24th Regiment in Wenyang, the engineer battalion and machine gun battalion directly under the division also participated in the defense. By the way, Wenbai, you also go to assist Zhongyi and Wenyang in defending the city.

The artillery regiment was deployed in the town and city, and a battalion could be placed in the middle school of Zhoutian Town, and a battalion could also be placed in the drying field of the Zhou and Tian tribes. ”

"The ministry obeys the order and will live up to the trust." Wang Bao, Gao Shaojie, Chen Cheng, Zhang Zhi and others also received military orders.

Luo Yaoguo finally looked at Li Shunen, who was silent on the side, he was the commander of the 23rd Regiment, and he was the most capable regiment commander under Luo Yaoguo, so the task assigned to him this time was also the most complicated. "Feng Ming, your regiment is setting up an ambush on the bank of the Zhenjiang River, if the northern army can't open Shikou, they will definitely find a way to outflank them, you ambush them by the river, and then let them over. The 23rd Regiment was also to retreat to the town to participate in the defense. ”

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