In order to avoid further deterioration of the situation, the Beiyang Army took a decisive and rapid retreat, especially Cao Kun's troops, who immediately withdrew from the Zhenjiang front line almost as immediately as frightened rabbits, and even the Seventh Division of the Nationalist Army could not stop their retreat.

The rapid retreat of the Beiyang Army frustrated the plan of the Nationalist General Staff to encircle and inflict heavy damage on Cao Kun's Third Division, and although it had achieved the results of killing and wounding thousands of enemy troops in the past few days, it allowed the Beiyang Army on the south bank of the Yangtze River to reunite and retract into the southern city of Nanjing. As a result, the southern city of Nanjing gathered more than 25,000 main forces of the Beiyang Army, and with the defense of so many troops, it would be much more difficult for the national army to take the southern city of Nanjing, and it was not possible to complete it with one division or two divisions.

The war on the south bank of the Yangtze River has undergone such a change, although it has been unexpected by the previous Nationalist Army, but it still makes many generals of the Nationalist Army depressed, especially Liang Xunqin and Chen Yi, who were extremely optimistic before, the optimistic estimate of the General Staff that the Seventh Division of the Nationalist Army is enough to cut off the railway line from Zhenjiang to Nanjing, as long as the Seventh Division can block the retreat of Cao Kun's department, then the Nationalist Army can concentrate its forces at that time to severely damage Cao Kun's department, but the Seventh Division of the Nationalist Army did not successfully complete the combat goal according to the expectations of the General Staff. Then the Nationalist Army's series of plans became useless, and in the end they could only sit and watch the Beiyang Army retreat, and then join Jin Yunpeng's Fifth Division.

Although the war did not go as smoothly as originally imagined, the war continued, and the war between the Nationalist Army and the Beiyang Army did not end with the end of the battle in Taishan Town, Nanjing.

"According to the reconnaissance of the aviation unit, I have already roughly found out the deployment of the enemy's troops in the area near the southern city of Nanjing!" In the military conference room, Liang Xunqin, director of the Operations Division, as in the past, spoke on behalf of the General Staff about the operational plan formulated by the Operations Division.

"The enemy's numbers are still the 3rd, 5th, and 8th Divisions of the Beiyang Army, of which the 8th Division of the Beiyang Army is missing two infantry regiments and some artillery auxiliary units. The other enemy units were more or less damaged, and according to intelligence from all sides, the enemy still had about 25,000 to 28,000 troops in the southern city of Nanjing! Liang Xunqin, director of the Operations Division, continued: "Based on this judgment, it can be preliminarily determined that in the past month, our army has destroyed about 15,000 enemy troops, including the Nanjing battle."

Liang Xunqin's data is based on the battle reports of various units under the Nationalist Army, and the water is relatively large. However, it is certain that the Beiyang Army suffered more than 10,000 casualties, and the casualties of the Beiyang Army were mainly concentrated in two parts, the first was the Battle of Nanjing and the previous Battle of Yangzhou and [***], the Beiyang Army troops defeated by the Guard Division, including two infantry regiments of the Eighth Division of the Beiyang Army and other affiliated units. Then there was a month-long tug-of-war between Cao Kun and Zhang Xun's troops and the Nationalist Army on the Zhenjiang front, and this part of the casualties was not small, and finally it was to add a part of the rear army left by the Beiyang Army in order to organize the retreat in the previous days. The casualties of the Beiyang Army added up to at least tens of thousands, plus the other losses of those who fled and went missing, and the Beiyang Army did not have more than 15,000 to say the least.

And you must know that when Feng Guozhang was in high spirits, when he commanded the three divisions under the Second Army of the Beiyang Army to go south, there were only more than 40,000 people in total. From this point of view, the Beiyang Army seems to have suffered great losses, and the Nationalist Army seems to have won a great victory, but if you compare the casualty data of the Nationalist Army, the casualty figures of the Beiyang Army are not so conspicuous.

So far, the Nationalist Army has invested a total of five divisions in southern Jiangsu, namely the Guard Division, the First Division, the Second Division, the Fourth Division, and the Seventh Division. Among them, the guard division, the first division, and the second division are the main forces of the national army. Since the beginning of the war, the recruit battalions under the Nationalist Army have successively replenished the First Division with almost 4,000 recruits, while the number of a division of the Nationalist Army is only 10,000, and the casualty ratio has exceeded 40 percent. Although the casualties of the other guard divisions in the river-crossing operations were also extremely large, although they were not as exaggerated as the casualties of the first division, there were now only more than 8,000 of the 10,000 people left, and in order to maintain the combat effectiveness of the guard division, when the general staff supplemented the strength of the guard division, it did not supplement the troops in batches and in batches, but directly transferred troops at the battalion and company levels of other units to supplement them.

Together with the casualties of the Fourth, Second, and Seventh Divisions, the casualties of the Nationalist Army were at least 15,000.

The casualty figure is similar to that of the Beiyang Army, but there is one thing, that is, the casualties are still so high as a result of the victory of the Nationalist Army.

"In order to conquer the southern city of Nanjing, the Operations Division has formulated a new round of plans!" Liang Xunqin continued: "The General Staff intends to launch an attack from the south and east of Nanjing with the Second and Fourth Divisions of our army as the main force. The 1st and 7th Divisions will be temporarily retained as reserves, temporarily resting for a few days, and after replenishing their troops and ammunition, they will be put into operation in the next round of operations and take Nanjing in one go! ”

Liang Xunqin then used the command list to explain in detail on the military map behind him, and the plan formulated by the Operations Division was only a preliminary plan and did not involve too much detail, so Liang Xunqin quickly finished speaking, and then stopped, looked at everyone, and prepared to wait for everyone's questions.

In the conference room, many senior generals of the Nationalist Army were gathered, including Shen Gang and Lin Zhaomin, two lieutenant generals and division commanders who had just returned from the front line, and then there were Vice Admiral Sa Zhenbing and Major General Cheng Biguang, who had just finished the battle of Nanjing and led the navy to rest and recuperate, and at the same time, there were Major General Yu Ruofei, deputy commander of the Guard Division, and Major General Xiao Qibin, deputy commander of the Second Division, who came back by naval ship to report on matters related to the Guard Division.

In addition to the generals of these front-line combat units, it is inevitable that many high-ranking generals in the headquarters of the National Army, the directors of various departments of the General Staff, Sun Guangliang of the Logistics Department, and others were even dismissed by Chen Jingyun from the commander of the First Division.

At a glance, there were almost twenty generals in the past, and a military meeting of this scale was only held before the war in southern Jiangsu, and the reason why people are so united today is mainly because the war situation in southern Jiangsu is not so tense, and because it is necessary to plan how to take the southern city of Nanjing, so so so many generals can be gathered.

At this time, Cheng Biguang spoke first: "In Director Liang's plan just now, our navy is required to continue to maintain the support of the main fleet on the Nanjing River, which is probably a little difficult!" ”

Hearing this, Chen Jingyun also glanced at Sa Zhenbing, and saw that Sa Zhenbing also had the same expression, so he knew that Cheng Biguang's words should be acquiesced by Sa Zhenbing, at this time, only to hear Cheng Biguang continue: "Before, all ships of our navy, including the Haiqi and Haizi, have been fighting on the Nanjing River for many days, during which the Hairong hit the reef, and the Jian'an and Fu'an were injured by the Beiyang Army's artillery fire. Among the remaining ships, due to the continuous operation for more than a month, the condition of some ships has deteriorated and is in urgent need of overhaul. What is also more important is that our navy's ammunition stocks are seriously insufficient, especially for six-inch guns and five-inch guns. ”

These problems mentioned by Cheng Biguang are all facts, especially the issue of ammunition. In fact, there is no shortage of ammunition for the navy in China at present, but a considerable part of it is stored in the ammunition depots of various naval bases in the north, and now that the navy has taken refuge in the Fuzhou fleet, Yuan Shikai in the north will naturally not take out these ammunition for Chen Jingyun's use. In the past, the ammunition required by the navy mainly relied on the stocks of each ship itself, and after attacking southern Jiangsu, it obtained some from the Jiangyin Naval Base and Jiangnan Shipyard. After these are consumed, it is not easy to replenish. For this reason, Chen Jingyun had already ordered the purchase of small and medium-caliber ammunition that could be produced by itself, and the purchase of ammunition that could not be produced by itself. It's just that all this takes time, and in a short time it is impossible to change the fact that the Navy lacks ammunition.

The Nationalist Army is now short of ammunition not only for the navy, but also for the army.

After Cheng Biguang's words were finished, Lin Zhaomin also spoke: "This plan is generally feasible, but after more than a month of high-intensity fierce battles, all units of our army continue to rest. At present, the enemy army is huddled in the southern city of Nanjing, and there are no external supplies and reinforcements, so the longer it drags on, the better it will be for us! Therefore, I suggest postponing the plan of the storm, using this time to rest and recuperate first, and when the Beiyang army in Nanjing City runs out of ammunition and food, it will conquer Nanjing in one fell swoop! ”

However, as soon as his words fell, Yu Ruofei, the deputy commander of the guard division, who had never spoken, spoke: "Brother Lin doesn't know, before Yu came, Cheng Kun once said to me: In addition to requesting reinforcements and supplies this time, another thing is to let them start the Nanjing War as soon as possible and completely end the war on the south bank of the Yangtze River." ”

Although it belongs to the same national army system, the guard division has always been different from other regular units of the national army, and there is only one source of officers in the guard division, that is, the Fuzhou Military Academy, and the middle and senior officers of the guard division are all graduates of the Fuzhou Military Academy, and all of them are related to Chen Jingyun, and the promotion and transfer of officers within the guard division are limited to the guard division or directly transferred to the headquarters. Basically, there is no intersection with other units of the Nationalist Army, and there is no situation in which officers from other units are transferred to serve in the guard division, and even the training methods of the troops are self-contained, and most of the training of other units of the Nationalist Army is carried out with reference to the plans formulated by the General Staff of the Nationalist Army.

If the fighting style of that unit of the Nationalist Army was most influenced by the so-called "own army", it was definitely the guard division.

The most direct reason for the formation of this style is that Chen Jingyun accepted the "aid of this matter" and said, "This side sent a large number of instructors and military advisers, in addition to taking up posts at the Fuzhou Military Academy, most of these people were delegated to the national army, and they were mainly concentrated in the guard brigade at that time, that is, the current guard division." In particular, the artillery units, the artillery and other technical arms of the Nationalist Army in the place where the army was built were simply a mess, and at that time, it was said that "this consultant suggested that the guard brigade be used as a pilot project, and that this consultant personally train artillery and baggage." Engineer troops and other technical arms, and then from the national army itself to the whole army.

To a certain extent, it is said that "I trained the first artillery and other technical arms for the Nationalist Army in the guard division, and if it were not for these advisers, the regularization of the Nationalist Army would have been delayed for at least half a year."

In the same way, due to the long-term existence of this consultant, it is not surprising that the training of the guard division has a strong style of "this consultant", although there are not many "this consultant" among the guard divisions now, but the initial influence has been formed, and it will take time to slowly change to completely eliminate this influence.