readx; Needless to say, the advantages of going first are not much, but if you stay to serve as cover, when the covering force is attacked by the superior strength of the national army, if not completely annihilated, it will at least be a heavy loss, and there will inevitably be a copy of the Eighth Division. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoThe generals of the Beiyang Army here don't want to be Zhang Xun by themselves.

Immediately, you said a word to me, although I didn't say it explicitly, but Feng Guozhang above also sensed the shirking of his subordinates.

Feng Guozhang is also a sensible person, and knows that it is not possible to directly leave an entire division behind to cover as in the last Nanjing Campaign, if you really want to say that, let alone cover, maybe there will be a mutiny on the spot or even surrender to the Nationalist Army, and the generals under him will definitely not agree.

So he chose a compromise plan: "In this way, the 11th Division retreated to Wuyi Town, and first guarded with Pan Juying." The 2nd Mixed Brigade and the 5th Division went directly north, and then gathered the 11th Division to make a direct detour to the northeast to break through, while the 7th Division in the [***] direction directly turned north to break through! ”

Feng Guozhang did not say that he would let that force stay to attract enemy firepower, but let the troops retreat on all fronts, anyway, now the Nationalist Army has not formed an encirclement in the Jiangbei area, and there is a lot of open land in the northern direction that can be used for retreat. And in this way, if the troops want to retreat, they have to arrange the broken troops, but that is the business of each unit itself, and Feng Guozhang will not worry about it.

The Beiyang Army's determination to retreat was unprecedentedly strong, and on the second day after Chuzhou was lost, Feng Guozhang had already issued an order to all troops to retreat, of course, this order was only known to senior generals, and ordinary soldiers would definitely not know it, otherwise the order for a large-scale retreat would spread, and it would definitely cause a large-scale rout.

The Beiyang Army was going to retreat, and the Nationalist Army had already expected this, so just after capturing Chuzhou, the Ninth Division did not even have time to rest and recuperate and went directly south along the Jinpu Line, on the one hand, it was to pursue the remnants of Pan Juying, and on the other hand, it was naturally to cut off Tang Tianxi's Tenth Division, which was the retreat of other Beiyang Army in Jiangbei.

At the same time, the national army in other directions also increased its offensive, intending to contain the Beiyang Army and reap greater results, especially in the [***] direction, the national army invested heavy troops, trying to defeat the Beiyang defenders in a short period of time to reach Jiejiazhuang.

Since the Nationalist Army launched the battle of crossing the river in southern Jiangsu, the 3rd Division and the 18th Mixed Brigade successively crossed the river and captured Taizhou, after this part of the main force continued to move north, leaving only one regiment to deploy in Jiangdu.

Due to the weakness of the troops in the Jiangdu direction, and at the same time the Beiyang Army continued to retreat westward, the General Staff of the Nationalist Army judged that the Beiyang Army had lost the ability to cross the river on a large scale, so it simply arranged for the Seventh Division stationed in Zhenjiang to cross the river and deployed it in the direction of Yangzhou, so that the regiment of the Third Division could be transferred north to reinforce the main force of the Third Division.

Later, when Feng Guozhang contracted his forces and ordered Wang Ruxian to retreat from Yangzhou, the Seventh Division of the Nationalist Army took advantage of the situation to pursue and severely damaged Wang Ruxian's Seventh Division, and after Wang Ruxian's Seventh Division withdrew to [***], it was even more impossible for the Beiyang Army to cross the river, and at this time the Jiangbei Campaign had reached the final stage, and the General Staff suggested that the Second Division and the Reading Cavalry Regiment should also be sent to Jiangbei to participate in the operation. As for the defense of Shanghai, Zhenjiang, and Nanjing, all the work will be handed over to the 11th Division, the Nanjing Garrison Regiment, the Shanghai Garrison Regiment, and the guard division stationed in Nanjing.

After thinking about it, Chen Jingyun also felt that Nanjing and Zhenjiang and Shanghai were no longer too threatening, so he approved this plan, and then the General Staff Department quickly sent the Second Division and the Reading Cavalry Regiment to the [***] direction, so that the [***] direction brought together the second division, the seventh division, and the reading cavalry regiment.

When the Nationalist Army completed the increase of troops in the direction of [***], it happened that the Second Army of the Nationalist Army also captured Chuzhou, so the Nationalist Army in the direction of [***] increased the offensive accordingly, and in addition to the frontal attack, the Reading Cavalry Regiment and the Second Division bypassed the north of [***], which was originally prepared for a multi-sided siege, but it just blocked the northward retreat of the remnants of Wang Ruxian's Seventh Division, forcing Wang Ruxian's Seventh Division to give up the plan to break through directly to the north, but continued to retreat westward. Prepare to retreat after relying on the Fifth Division of the Beiyang Army behind it.

On the one hand, it is to attack the supply lines of the Beiyang Army, and on the other hand, it is to prevent the Beiyang Army from breaking through from the north, Shen Gang in the staff of the National Army has great ambitions, he wants not only victory, but to annihilate Feng Guozhang's second army, even if it can't be annihilated, at least it will be hit hard, if Feng Guozhang's second army does not leave half of the people, he Shen Gang is unwilling no matter what.

The Reading Cavalry Regiment of the National Army wandered behind the Beiyang Army, and also had several battles with small units of the Beiyang Army, but it never encountered a large number of cavalry units of the Beiyang Army.

Unlike the Beiyang Army, which has a complete cavalry regiment structure in all the main divisions, the Nationalist Army is extremely lacking in horses for riding, and because the training difficulty of the cavalry is far greater than that of the infantry, it is impossible to train an elite cavalry without a few years of hard work, which leads to a shortage of cavalry in the Nationalist Army, which has not been in force for a long time, not only the number of cavalry is small, but also the combat effectiveness is far inferior to the cavalry of the Beiyang Army. This fact has been verified in previous cavalry encounters, and even Chen Jingyun did not have any expectations for cavalry.

When the Reading Cavalry Regiment was sent to [***], Chen Jingyun personally spoke to Major General Huang Anyuan, the commander of the Cavalry Regiment, although the conversation did not explicitly say that Huang Anyuan should be careful, not to bury the only regular cavalry regiment of the National Army easily, but Huang Anyuan could not understand Chen Jingyun's words.

After crossing the river, Huang Anyuan, who was cautious in his heart, led the cavalry regiment to achieve certain results, but he did not fight any hard battles, nor did he let the troops lose much, and these things every day also made Huang Anyuan a little depressed.

Huang Anyuan is also among the best in the national army, the first knife in the Fuzhou Uprising was cut by Huang Anyuan, when he led the cavalry team to capture the bullets sent in from outside the city, so that the rebel troops could get enough bullets and capture the armory. With this credit, Huang Anyuan also rose step by step, and became the commander of the cavalry battalion early.

However, due to the difficult development of the cavalry units of the National Army, it was difficult for Huang Anyuan's officers to be promoted, and he was still a lieutenant colonel when everyone else was a major general, and it was only when Chen Jingyun was promoted on a large scale this year that Huang Anyuan was promoted to a major general. Moreover, when he was promoted to major general, he only served as the commander of the Reading Cavalry Regiment, and the commander of a cavalry regiment was only a colonel according to the military system of the National Army, so it was inappropriate to be promoted directly. But according to his qualifications, it was more than enough to be promoted to major general, so in order to promote him to the rank, Chen Jingyun took a lot of effort, first promoted him to the director of the Military Pastoral Department of the Logistics Department, and then let him concurrently serve as the head of the Reading Cavalry Regiment.

In fact, there are many cavalry-born generals in the national army, but many people learn from cavalry, but they actually have no experience in leading cavalry battles on a large scale, and those cavalry officers who have just come out of the Fuzhou Military Academy are not yet mature, Chen Jingyun naturally will not hand over the only cavalry regiment to ordinary people, so he made the matter of letting Huang Anyuan, a major general, concurrently serve as the commander of the cavalry regiment.

The cavalry units of the Nationalist Army were the same as those of the Beiyang Army, and they were mainly assigned to each division. According to the latest establishment of the Nationalist Army, a division can be attached to a cavalry battalion of more than 200 cavalry, with three cavalry companies and one machine gun company under its jurisdiction. However, due to the lack of cavalry in the Nationalist Army, in fact, the vast majority of divisions did not fill a cavalry battalion, and only had about one company, and even the Ninth Division, which has expanded its weaponry and equipment, is only two companies and more than 100 cavalry.

Only the First Division and a few divisions of the Guard Division have really completed their full formation.

Due to the fact that the cavalry is not strong and the training of cavalry takes a long time, Chen Jingyun came up with a reading cavalry regiment in order to further train the cavalry. Originally, it was also a large regiment and a small company system like other troops, but due to the repeated defeats of the cavalry troops, Chen Jingyun was ready to follow the example of the cavalry of other powers and make a small regiment and a large company system in terms of establishment.

The core of this organization is that the cavalry company has three cavalry platoons of 40 men each, and a cavalry company of 160 men. This makes the cavalry company have the initial ability to fight alone.

The divisional cavalry battalion was equipped with three cavalry companies and one machine gun company, with a total strength of about 650 men. The cavalry regiments under the units of separate brigades and cavalry divisions are strengthened to four cavalry companies and one machine gun company, and the strength of one regiment can reach more than 800 people, and two cavalry regiments are organized into a cavalry brigade or three cavalry regiments into a cavalry division according to the situation.

This kind of establishment is also the general establishment of the cavalry of the great powers, which can effectively improve the combat effectiveness of the cavalry and allow the cavalry regiment to have the ability to fight alone.

The Reading Cavalry Regiment is an expanded establishment of four cavalry companies and a machine gun company, with a total strength of 850 people, and it is also the first cavalry unit to use this kind of formation. Because there is only a little cavalry in the divisions of the National Army, a cavalry battalion before the change is no different from the reorganized cavalry company, and most of the cavalry officers on the front line are also used in a centralized manner.

Huang Anyuan was deeply touched by the difficulty of building cavalry in the national army, if the cavalry of the national army could also develop as fast as infantry and artillery, he Huang Anyuan would have become a major general a long time ago, maybe he would have become a lieutenant general like Shen Gang and them now, why not now in order to get promoted to a military rank, he has to go to the logistics department to attach a position as the director of the military pastoral department.

It is precisely because he knows the difficulty of building cavalry that Huang Anyuan has always been very cautious after leading the cavalry regiment to the Jiangbei area, lest he accidentally bury a cavalry regiment that the National Army had built with great difficulty.

Then on the battlefield, especially in a large-scale battle such as the Jiangbei Campaign, it is impossible for the cavalry regiment to watch the play leisurely in the rear, as the only cavalry unit in the national army with rapid mobility ability, the cavalry regiment was naturally sent by Shangfeng to the north of Jiangbei to attack the supply line of the Beiyang Army.

And when the Beiyang Army retreated and wanted to flee north, the cavalry regiment also received an order to intercept the Beiyang Army's northward escape.

"The Beiyang Army is going to escape, but they don't want to escape from me!" Although Huang Anyuan wanted to preserve the strength of the cavalry, but when this order came, he still couldn't hold back the excitement in his heart, as long as the Beiyang Army was stopped, then the cavalry regiment would be a great achievement, and then he would have the tone to strive for more development space for the cavalry, and his rank would be promoted with the expansion of the cavalry.