readx; In the Nanjing General Staff, although it was already night, it was still brightly lit, and the light emitted from the incandescent electric lamps illuminated the entire building, and in one of the conference rooms, Shen Gang and a group of senior generals of the National Army were sitting together, and Guo Hengsi, director of the Operations Division, was facing everyone: "According to the latest reconnaissance information of the Air Force, the Dian Army and the Gui Army on the west and southwest sides of Changsha have arrived in Changsha in the evening, and it is expected that they have now been engaged in battle, and the Fourth Mixed Brigade of the Zhuzhou side has struggled to move north. However, the front of the Fourth Mixed Brigade was also pinned down by more than 10,000 Gui troops, and it was not yet possible to effectively set aside the entanglement of the enemy army and reinforce Changsha. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoIn addition, the direction of Hengyang was also attacked by 10,000 Gui troops, and traces of large-scale Gui army movements were also found in the Chenzhou area.

The above is the current situation in Changsha, Hengyang and Chenzhou"

Shen Gang said: "What about Hubei and Guangdong, what is the situation now, and after the 30th Division reinforces Changsha, how to ensure the security of Yueyang?" ”

Guo Hengsi said: "Hubei is temporarily calm, the 15th Mixed Brigade deployed by our army in the Yichang area has not found any traces of the enemy, and the eastern Sichuan region and the Shaanxi region have not taken the initiative to send troops to attack our Hubei region. Although there are some Yunnan troops in the northwest of Hunan, they are not numerous, and the Yunnan army in the Changde area should be unable to take the initiative to attack our army in the Yueyang area to the east. After the 30th Division reinforced Changsha, the second mixed brigade was still retained in the Yueyang area, which was enough to ensure the safety of Yueyang and the Changyue Railway.

On the Guangdong side, there was no news that the Gui army had taken the initiative to attack for the time being, on the contrary, the Gui army in the direction of Nanning and Zhaoqing was strengthening its defenses. According to the overall situation in all aspects, the Gui army has maintained a strategic defensive posture in the direction of Wuzhou and Zhaoqing! ”

After listening to these words, Shen Gang pondered in his heart, the strategic arrangement of Hunan and Guangdong was led by him, although he had also expected that Hunan and Guangdong would be attacked by the Gui army and the Dian army at the same time before attacking Shanxi, but he did not expect that Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting would have such a big determination, giving up other directions and using all the main forces in Hunan, intending to go south to Changsha and Hunan in one fell swoop. As a result, the troops in Hunan, which had been expected to be well-prepared, were seriously insufficient.

In the Hunan region, the Nationalist Army was dominated by the Fourth Army, and Cao Kun's 30th Division had only arrived in Yueyang for a few days, while Lin Chengkun's Fourth Army had a lot of troops, including the 10th Division, the 1st Mixed Brigade, the 2nd Mixed Brigade, the 3rd Mixed Brigade, the 4th Mixed Brigade, and the 14th Mixed Brigade and the 24th Mixed Brigade in Guangdong, which were also under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Army. However, these forces of the Fourth Army were scattered in the huge provinces of Guangdong and Hunan, resulting in only one 10th Division and the 4th Mixed Brigade in Changsha and Zhuzhou in the core area.

According to the Southwest Strategic Plan formulated earlier, the 11th Division should have arrived in Guangzhou and the 30th Division in Changsha. Carry out relevant arming work, so that there will be two divisions and one brigade in the area of Changsha and Zhuzhou, which is enough to deal with the situation. There are also one division and one brigade in the Guangzhou direction, and with the cooperation of the 24th mixed brigade in Qinzhou, the problem in the Guangdong direction is not big. As long as there are no problems in the early stage, the main forces of the Nationalist Army, which were originally deployed on the Jinpu Line and in the coastal provinces, can be slowly transferred to Hunan. However, this transfer takes time, and now the main force of the Nationalist Army is still in the areas of Jiangsu and Shandong, and if the main force is to be mobilized to Hunan, it can only be transported to Yueyang through the Yangtze River shipping and then rush to the battlefield, and to transport so many troops and the supplies needed to maintain the operations of many troops, the inland river transport vessels under the Communications Department of the Nationalist Army are seriously insufficient, and this has led to the slow westward transfer of the main force in the southeast.

If it is expected according to normal development, there will be no problem in holding Hunan and Guangdong in the early stage, but the General Staff did not expect that the Gui Army and the Dian Army would actually concentrate almost all the main forces in the Hunan region, so that the troops in the Hunan region would suddenly fall into a crisis.

At about 11 o'clock in the evening of 14 October, Shen Gang, who had just finished a joint operations meeting from the General Staff, and Guo Hengsi hurriedly arrived at Chen Jingyun's presidential palace to report to Chen Jingyun on the progress of the day's war.

When Chen Jingyun heard Shen Gang say that Changsha was in danger, he asked: "What did Lin Chengkun say himself, is he sure to hold it?" ”

"Commander Lin said in his call that although there are many difficulties, the Fourth Army is still sure to hold Changsha!" Guo Hengsi replied: "In addition, the 30th Division is already on the way, and its infantry will be able to reach Changsha in two days under the light march!" ”

Speaking of which, the 30th Division was also a little unlucky, when it received the order to reinforce Changsha, it couldn't even find the train wagons, because the Changyue Railway had just been opened to traffic at that time, and there were not many train wagons at all, and the few parts were also requisitioned by the logistics department in advance to transport supplies, and if you had to wait for the train wagons, you had to cover them for at least half a day. Cao Kun, like Xu Shuzheng and others, was a Beiyang general, but he didn't want to be directly ousted by Chen Jingyun because of his slow rescue, so he ordered two infantry regiments to march lightly, and the artillery regiment and other troops with a large number of heavy weapons were then transported by train.

Chen Jingyun then carefully looked at the military deployment map in Hunan, and then asked: "How many people are there in Hunan now?" ”

This question knocked Shen Gang down, because he really didn't know that the Dian Army and the Gui Army had a lot of troops in Hunan before, and now the numbers of the two armies found by the Nationalist Army were also known before, but no one believed that the Dian Army and the Gui Army could launch the Hunan Campaign by relying on this strength, so there must still be some troops who could not find out, and Shen Gang was not good at using vague words in this kind of matter, and immediately said: "According to the current situation, the total strength of the Dian Army and the Gui Army combined should be more than 100,000 people, In Changsha and Zhuzhou, at least about 70,000 troops were concentrated. During yesterday's emergency reconnaissance by the Air Force, a certain number of enemy troops were also found in other directions in Hunan, but the situation is not yet clear, and it will not be known until the follow-up reconnaissance by the Air Force! ”

Chen Jingyun did not speak again after hearing this, no matter what the situation was, but it is a fact that the total strength of the Dian Army and the Gui Army in Hunan far exceeds that of the Nationalist Army, especially in the Changsha area.

However, this Changsha area really can't be lost, as long as Changsha is firmly defended, then the follow-up reinforcements and supplies of the national army can continue to be put into the battlefield, once Changsha is lost, then the fourth mixed brigade that Zhuzhou is contained will also be finished, then the next thing is that the enemy army will attack Yueyang along the Changyue Railway, and attack Jiangxi along the Zhuping Railway.

However, at present, the Nationalist Army has only one mixed brigade in Jiangxi, and if the enemy's army is overwhelmed, then the operations of the entire southern provinces will become extremely passive, and even affect their overall strategy of pacifying the warlords in the southwest. So for this kind of thing, Chen Jingyun is not allowed to let it happen.

Immediately, he said: "Call Lin Chengkun and let him stick to the front line of Changsha and Zhuzhou." Other reinforcements were also made according to the plan of the General Staff, allowing the Sixth Division to rush to the front line of Yueyang and Jingzhou.

As for the Guangdong side, it is necessary to take the initiative to attack in order to ease the situation in the Hunan theater, but now the Fourth Army is too widely distributed and it is inconvenient to command. In this way, the 12th Army was established in Guangdong, and Li Lianyang, the commander of the 11th Division, was appointed as the commander of the 20th Army, and the commander of the 11th Division first let him concurrently serve as a lieutenant general! It also has jurisdiction over the 14th Mixed Brigade and the 24th Mixed Brigade.

Tell Li Lianyang that I want him to take Zhaoqing within three days and enter Wuzhou within half a month! ”

With the 12th Army on the Guangdong side to contain the attack, the situation on the Hunan side should be eased a little, Chen Jingyun told himself that as long as the Hunan side held the first few days, the situation would improve after the 30th Division arrived in Changsha, and when the other main forces of the Nationalist Army arrived in Changsha, Chen Jingyun was going to plan to fight a large-scale battle in Changsha and annihilate the enemy's main force in one fell swoop.

The crisis in Changsha is not an opportunity for the Nationalist Army!

Of course, in order to send more main forces to Hunan on a large scale, we must first solve Yan Xishan in Shanxi.

"What is the situation on Zuo Yugang's side, and how long will it take to take Taiyuan!" Chen Jingyun asked, and Shen Gang said: "The Ninth Division is currently progressing smoothly, but because the Ninth Division is advancing too fast, the logistics troops in the rear of our army have not been able to keep up in time, resulting in insufficient ammunition supply for the Ninth Division. ”

Chen Jingyun showed a rare smile when he heard that Zuo Yugang was unable to keep up with the logistics troops in the rear because of the rapid advance speed, although this Zuo Yugang was too reckless in the eyes of most senior military generals such as Shen Gang, but this person's combat style was very appetizing to Chen Jingyun. It seems that it was right to choose Zuo Yugang's Ninth Division to move thousands of miles from Qingdao, Shandong to Shijiazhuang and serve as the main force in the battle against Shanxi.

Sometimes, the command style of the generals will seriously affect the development of the battle situation, and when I heard Shen Gang say that Zuo Yugang's Ninth Division could not keep up with the rear supplies because of the rapid advance, I thought that maybe it would be a good choice for him to lead the armored forces.

There was almost no suspense in the Shanxi war, and the main force of the Nationalist Army marched from the north, east, and south respectively, with a total strength of more than 60,000 troops, even if a part of the troops were transferred south to Hubei and Hunan because of the sudden change in Hunan. However, the Shanxi region will still form a force of up to 30,000 or 40,000 troops, mainly the Ninth Division, which is impossible to resist by the Jin Sui army. Victory is almost certain, the only question is how long it will take to achieve victory, and this time depends on the speed of the march of the various units of the National Army and how quickly the logistics department can complete the supply of the 9th Division!

When Zuo Yugang's Ninth Division will launch a general attack on Taiyuan as soon as it gets the ammunition supply, the chances of Yan Xishan being able to hold Taiyuan at that time are pitiful. Once Taiyuan is finished, then the organized resistance in Shanxi Province will disappear, and all that remains is to accept the territory and clean up the outrunners.

Compared with Shanxi's ease, the Nationalist Army fought extremely hard in Changsha, Hunan!