readx; In order to cooperate with the war in Anhui and also to obtain a bridgehead for the next step of crossing the river in southern Jiangsu, the General Staff Department under the State Military Commission put forward a plan in early October to carry out a diversion battle in southern Jiangsu, planning to use the Third Army to launch a river-crossing operation in the area from east of Taizhou to Nantong. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

According to the Nationalist Army's repeated aerial reconnaissance, it has been preliminarily judged that although Feng Guozhang's Second Army has deployed heavy troops on the front line of Yangzhou and Taizhou, the area from Jingjiang to Nantong further south has only a few troops, and there is not much threat to the large-scale crossing of the river by the Nationalist Army.

Obviously, the Beiyang Army also knew that their forces were limited, and they did not know how to heavily guard every place on the north bank of the Yangtze River, but only chose to focus on the defense of the important Jiangbei, Yangzhou, and Taizhou, and only deployed a small number of troops to monitor and contain other areas.

"Such a deployment of the Beiyang Army is also in line with their actual situation, they understand that our army occupies the advantage of the sea, with the fleet in hand, if we take the initiative to cross the river, the other side will definitely not be able to block us on the beachhead, and the troops on the shore will be bombarded by our naval artillery, so it is better to retreat to the shore and wait for our army to cross the river and have a decisive battle on the ground!" Shen Gang took a map sketch and explained the new round of battle plan to Chen Jingyun.

"They deployed their forces in Yangzhou and Taizhou, and even if our army successfully crossed the river from Jingjiang, it would have to capture Taizhou and Yangzhou before they could threaten Jiangbei. So from this point of view, the arrangement of the Beiyang Army is unfavorable for our army! Shen Gang continued, and Chen Jingyun continued to listen without speaking.

Shen Gang continued: "Now the pressure of our army in Anhui is very great, and according to reliable information, other units of the Beiyang Army have been stationed in Bengbu and Xuzhou, and they can go south at any time. In order to prevent these Beiyang troops from entering Anhui and causing greater pressure on our troops in Anhui, the General Staff suggested crossing the river from Jingjiang to Nantong, taking the initiative to open up a second battlefield, attracting Beiyang reinforcements to continue south to Jiangbei, and when necessary, our army could put more than two divisions of troops on the line from Yangzhou to Taizhou, so as to form a superiority in strength and oppress the enemy. It is also possible to send troops to bypass Taizhou and go north along the coast to Yancheng, and finally capture Huai'an. In this way, Feng Guozhang's Second Army in the Jiangbei region will never sit idly by like now, and will inevitably send reinforcements to the front line of Yangzhou and Taizhou, so that in addition to attracting more Beiyang Army, the pressure on the troops in the Anhui direction will be much less! ”

"Oh, then the staff plans to send the third division north, and what about the other one, is it the 11th division or the 18th mixed brigade?" After hearing this, Chen Jingyun quickly grasped the main problem, if he crossed the river from southern Jiangsu, the number of troops must not be too small, otherwise it would not be to fight others but to be eaten by others, and at least two divisions of troops would have to be dispatched. The 11th Division stationed in Shanghai is still empty, the 11th Division without an artillery regiment is simply unable to undertake the main combat mission, and the 18th Mixed Brigade is too small in strength and the artillery force is too small.

Since Shen Gang came to report the battle plan to Chen Jingyun today, he naturally had already prepared, and immediately said: "At this time, in the plan to cross the river in southern Jiangsu, the third division is the main force. The 18th Mixed Brigade was to serve as a reserve for the 3rd Division. In addition, a 120-mm mortar battalion was temporarily reinforced, from Nanjing, to the 3rd Division. After that, the defense of Changzhou and Suzhou was transferred to the 11th Division. ”

After hearing this, Chen Jingyun pondered for a while, and then asked: "The 18th Mixed Brigade was originally expected to be used in the direction of Wuhu, but now if it participates in the plan to cross the river in southern Jiangsu, how can the reinforcements on the Anhui side be resolved?" In addition, a large number of Beiyang Army has been discovered in the Jiujiang and Anqing directions, and the Fourth Mixed Brigade in the Jiujiang direction has engaged in small-scale engagements with the Beiyang Army, and the front line reports that the opposing side has a large number of troops. “

Chen Jingyun was worried about something, Shen Gang naturally knew, it was nothing more than that Jiujiang and Anqing were afraid that because of the small number of troops, the first army of Zhigui in Hubei would break through the defense line, and then threaten the security of Jiangxi and Anhui.

Immediately, Shen Gang said: "The president can rest assured that our army currently has the Fourth Mixed Brigade in Jiujiang, and the Fifteenth Mixed Brigade in Anqing. In addition to these two field troops, there is also a garrison regiment in Anqing, and there is also a garrison regiment in Nanchang, which is not a problem to serve as a defense. Moreover, if the situation changes, our army can also transport troops from Wuhu to it! ”

The 16th Mixed Brigade of the Nationalist Army, which was originally stationed in Wuhu, has already set off for Chaohu, and it will take over the 17th Mixed Brigade, which will reinforce Hefei, Anqing, or Jiujiang depending on the situation. In addition to this 17th mixed brigade, there was also a garrison regiment in Wuhu.

When necessary, this garrison regiment can also be sent to the battlefield, the national army's reorganization of these local garrison regiments equipped with general, almost all rifles, except for a few important city garrison regiments, other garrison regiments are not equipped with light and heavy machine guns, let alone artillery, and the vast majority of the soldiers are also from the Chengcheng Anhui army, the Soviet army, the Jiangxi army, etc., only the garrison regiments stationed in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces are newly recruited local recruits.

Because in the military system of the national army, the task of the local garrison regiment is only to maintain local law and order, and in peacetime it is to fight bandits and heroes, and they will not directly go to the battlefield to fight in the field, and they will not even need to supplement the main force. Under such circumstances, it is naturally impossible to invest too much in the local garrison regiments, for the purpose of saving military expenditures, and the salaries of the soldiers in these local garrison regiments are much lower than those of the regular army, and the quality of the soldiers is far inferior to that of the regular army.

The local garrison regiments of the National Army were organized in three infantry battalions, each with three companies and three platoons each. The strength of a regiment is about 1,500 people, and a very small number of local garrison regiments are equipped with a machine gun company, such as the Anqing Garrison Regiment and the Nanjing Garrison Regiment. Because the establishment of these infantry regiments is small in number and the cost is not large, there are still a lot of local garrison regiments formed by the national army, and in general, every big city will have a local garrison regiment, and then some important areas will also have a local garrison regiment.

For example, there are three local garrison regiments in Guangdong, one in Shaoguan, one in Guangzhou, and one in Chaozhou. In Fujian, there are also three, one in Nanping, one in Fuzhou, and one in Zhangzhou. There are three garrisons in Zhejiang, namely the Hangzhou Garrison Regiment, the Wenzhou Garrison Regiment, and the Jinhua Garrison Regiment. Nanchang, Ganzhou, and Jiujiang in Jiangxi also had a garrison regiment. Although the southern Jiangsu region is small, there are also two, namely the Nanjing Garrison Regiment and the Shanghai Garrison Regiment. Wuhu and Xuancheng in southern Anhui also have a local garrison regiment, and now there are 15 local garrison regiments in total, and two new local garrison regiments have been set up in Chaohu and Hengyang.

It is certainly not possible for these local garrisons to expect them to fight in peacetime, but when necessary, they will inevitably be allowed to go to war. Not to mention them, even the general staff of the police officers are intended to be included in the mobilization system and conduct military training for the police in various places.

Since Shen Gang said that there was no problem, Chen Jingyun also felt that it was feasible after reading the plan in detail, and immediately signed his name on the battle plan.

Shen Gang was also relieved to see that the battle plan was successfully approved, and then he quickly went out with the plan approved by Chen Jingyun, and now he still has a lot of things, because what he proposed to Chen Jingyun just now is only a preliminary plan, and the detailed matters still need to be formulated by many staff officers of the General Staff, and Shen Gang must be personally watched in this process.

Although Chen Jingyun restructured the organization of the General Staff, in addition to the chief of the General Staff, he also set up two new positions, the deputy chief of operations of the General Staff and the executive deputy director of the General Staff, and appointed Wang Lin, the former deputy chief of the General Staff, as the executive deputy chief of the General Staff, mainly to help Shen Gang share the regular work affairs of the General Staff, and the main responsibility of the deputy chief of operations of the General Staff is to share the affairs of the permanent operations. Chen Jingyun has never made any other arrangements for him.

Ma Cheng has always been the first person to start with Chen Jingyun, although his ability is somewhat lacking, which led to the delay in the Chaohu War for too long, and almost wiped out the Fifth Mixed Brigade, he must be responsible for this. But Chen Jingyun didn't deal with him too much, and he also had to chill the hearts of those old subordinates, after all, no one can be without fault, and no one can guarantee that he is a victorious general, plus Ma Cheng is a senior general with rich war experience in the national army, he has participated in the battle of Hangzhou, the war in southern Jiangsu, and the war in southern Anhui, so it is a pity to abandon it like this.

So after some consideration, Chen Jingyun once again asked Ma Cheng to talk, and after some encouragement, he asked Ma Cheng to be the deputy commander of operations.

Although there are now two deputy chiefs to help Shen Gang share the usual work, Wang Lin and Ma Cheng are only responsible for some of his previous routine and complicated tasks, and those main tasks that he cannot share. Normally, it's okay, but now when he needs to make a new battle plan, he's very busy.

Under the leadership of Shen Gang, the General Staff Department quickly completed the formulation of the specific plan, and two days later Chen Jingyun ordered the 18th Mixed Brigade to be transferred to the command of the Third Army, and immediately launched the plan to cross the river in southern Jiangsu.

Lin Zhaomin had already begun to prepare for the relevant preliminary actions, after the formal order, he was in Jiangyin, with the cooperation of the navy, to cross the river, and under the cover of the navy and Jiangyin forts, the third division completed the crossing of the river after only one day, and then went straight to Taizhou, dozens of kilometers away, and then the 18th mixed brigade also followed closely after the crossing of the river, and served as the reserve of the third division, and the 11th division also took over all the defense from Changzhou to Shanghai and even Hangzhou.