readx; Although the Nationalist Army has suffered a lot of losses in light weapons in these months of fighting, including rifles, light machine guns and even heavy machine guns and mortars, but because the Nationalist Army has always been in a state of active attack, this has led to a large loss of various weapons close to the front line, while the artillery units that carry out artillery support in the rear have not suffered much losses, except for the Fifth Mixed Brigade in the Mingguang Battle and the defeat and loss of many mountain guns, The artillery units of the other units suffered basically small losses, and occasionally the artillery pieces were suppressed and destroyed by the artillery fire of the Beiyang Army, but at least a few of them. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Due to the fact that its own artillery suffered little losses in the battle, and the Nationalist Army captured a considerable amount of Beiyang Army artillery after defeating the Beiyang Army, the number of artillery pieces that the Nationalist Army now has is much more than before the war. In addition, there is a great commonality between the weapons of the National Army and the Beiyang Army, whether it is the Type 88 in the rifle, the Hanyang-made or the Madsen light machine gun, both sides are heavily equipped, and the artillery force is even more so.

Everyone is equipped with similar artillery, and even the caliber is of a unified standard, including the German Krupp artillery, the so-made artillery, etc., and even the artillery purchased by the Nationalist Army from the United States is similar to the Krupp and the so-made artillery, so the two sides use half of the artillery after capturing each other.

As a result, many front-line units of the Nationalist Army directly incorporated artillery units into artillery units to supplement losses after capturing the artillery of the Beiyang Army.

In addition to the construction of these two new divisions, the Nationalist Army also continued to form mixed brigades, and the pattern of forming mixed brigades continued the previous example, that is, directly drawing troops from other units to form mixed brigades, while the shortfall of the original troops was supplemented by new recruits.

It's just that although the troops have been expanded on a large scale, the combat effectiveness of the troops is also slowly declining, especially the dispersion of heavy weapons, so that the artillery regiments of the main divisions of the National Army are beginning to lack artillery.

Although the number of artillery pieces in the Nationalist Army has increased by dozens compared with the total number before the war, the pace of expanding the troops is too large, which has caused a situation similar to that of the Beiyang Army, that is, the average number of artillery pieces in each unit is declining. Taking the Third Division as an example, it was originally a full complement of 36 artillery pieces, but when it was in Guangzhou, it was transferred two artillery companies to the first mixed brigade, and after finally replenishing an artillery company in southern Jiangsu, it was soon transferred two artillery companies to the 18th mixed brigade, resulting in the third division only two battalions of 24 artillery pieces before crossing the river, and a few artillery pieces were captured in Taizhou, but it has not been able to recover to a complete establishment.

The same situation also occurred in the 2nd Division, the 7th Division, and the Guard Division, all of which had been transferred at least two artillery batteries to support the expansion of the mixed brigade some time ago, which led to the shrinking artillery strength of some of the main divisions of the National Army, from 36 guns to only about 24 guns in two battalions.

This time, although a lot of artillery trophies were obtained, because of the expansion of the 20th Division, the 21st Division and the five mixed brigades, these artillery pieces could not be fully supplemented to the original main division.

Therefore, although the total strength of the current national army has increased substantially, and the number of artillery pieces has also increased, the average level of artillery fire is decreasing.

Of course, this situation not only appears in the National Army, but also in the Beiyang Army, and even more serious, you must know that the Beiyang Army has already lost at least hundreds of artillery pieces before and after, although a large number of purchases have supplemented part of the losses, but it is impossible to make the front-line troops full, and it is difficult to replenish an artillery company of those newly established mixed brigades.

Chen Jingyun wants to build two new divisions and five mixed brigades, in addition to expanding the total strength of the national army, for the generals within the national army, it represents more opportunities for promotion, two division commanders and five mixed brigades are the positions of seven major generals, and then there are a large number of regiment commanders, battalion commanders and other middle-level officer positions, which is the best promotion position for those officers who have made contributions in the early stage of the war.

With the expansion of the establishment of the National Army, Chen Jingyun also revealed that two new army headquarters will be established, and what does this mean, this means that there will be two more lieutenant generals in the National Army, and those major generals and division commanders are all looking forward to this position.

When the General Staff issued the expansion plan for the formation of two new divisions and the expansion of five mixed brigades to the generals, Chen Jingyun announced on the spot the order to establish the headquarters of the Seventh Army and the headquarters of the Eighth Army, and appointed Lieutenant General Lin Zhaomin, the former commander of the Third Army, as the commander of the Seventh Army, and the post of commander of the Third Army will be taken over by Xu Lishan, who made contributions in the Taizhou Campaign, and at the same time promoted to lieutenant general. The commander of the Eighth Army will be Li Lianyang, commander of the Sixth Division, and Li Lianyang will be promoted to lieutenant general at the same time.

"In the next stage, the direction of our army's operations is in northern Jiangsu, northern Anhui, Hubei, Hunan and other regions. In order to better implement the next battle plan, in accordance with the instructions of the president, the General Staff has formulated a plan to adjust the troops under the jurisdiction of each army and give the scope of operation! Shen Gang had already stepped up to the front desk at Chen Jingyun's gesture to read out the latest order set by Chen Jingyun personally.

In addition to issuing the follow-up combat scope of each army, this order also made a round of adjustments to the troops under the jurisdiction of each army, after all, the troops under the jurisdiction of each army were arranged according to the previous situation, and the army-level headquarters of the national army was not a fixed formation, but changed at any time, for example, the troops under the jurisdiction of the First Army in the Jiangbei Campaign were once as high as four divisions and two mixed brigades, and even the follow-up guard division, reading cavalry regiment, and reading artillery regiment also joined the sequence of the first army. At the same time, the Third Army now only has one Third Division and the 18th Mixed Brigade, and the 11th Division, which was originally deployed in Shanghai, has been separated from the Third Army.

The units under the command of the army headquarters of the Nationalist Army are arranged according to various fronts, so as the Nationalist Army carries out a new round of combat planning, the troops under the jurisdiction of each army will also change at any time, for example, the Third Army wants to attack Huai'an, capture Qingjiangpu and threaten Xuzhou, so this time the Seventh Division was transferred to the Qingjiangpu area and included in the command of the Third Army.

In addition to the original establishment of four divisions, the First Army, which will be responsible for operations on the Jinpu Line in the future, including the Bengbu direction, has transferred the Ninth Division, the absolute main force, to the First Army, which can be said to have greatly strengthened the strength of the First Army.

After formulating the battle plan, Chen Jingyun announced the promotion of Shen Gang to the rank of general.

Although Shen Gang had expected this to happen before, but after today, Shen Gang was still very excited, this is the first rank of general awarded by Chen Jingyun, what does this mean, it means that he Shen Gang is the first person in the national army.

As for Chen Jingyun, although he himself continues to advertise himself as a soldier and has also proclaimed himself the rank of marshal, in fact, many people no longer regard him as a soldier, but as a political figure like Sun Wen and Yuan Shikai. Therefore, Shen Gang also consciously ignored Chen Jingyun's marshal rank in the past, as for the other two generals in the Nanjing Republican Political Axe, Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting, they and the National Army are cooperative relations to put it bluntly, but there is no subordinate relationship, so in the final analysis, Shen Gang still regards himself as the first general in the National Army.

In addition to the promotion of Shen Gang, a general, Chen Jingyun also promoted Xu Lishan and Li Lianyang, two lieutenant generals, and then promoted more than a dozen major generals with a stroke of a big stroke, including two division commanders, five mixed brigade commanders, and two army chiefs of staff. Moreover, Chen Yi, who had been the director of the Operations Department, was finally put into the field unit by Chen Jingyun, and like the previous director of the Operations Department, he became a division commander as soon as he arrived in the army and served as the commander of the Sixth Division.

The position of director of the Operations Division was taken over by Major General Guo Hengsi, director of the General Affairs Division.

Since the defeat of the Beiyang Army in Jiangbei a few days ago, Feng Guozhang led the remnants of nearly 30,000 people to flee north, although the Nationalist Army pursued hard, and forced Feng Guozhang to send thousands of people to break the rear again, the broken Beiyang Army was naturally eaten up by the National Army, but Feng Guozhang also took this opportunity to lead the remaining remnants of more than 20,000 people to converge with Xu Shuzheng's 11th Division, And it has gained a firm foothold dozens of kilometers north of Chuzhou.

At this time, the main force of the Nationalist Army was still south of Chuzhou, and it was preparing to wait for the arrival of the main force before continuing the offensive after pursuing the second division in the north.

"During the pursuit during this period, although the officers and men of our army used their lives, they were limited by the shortage of logistics troops and mules and horses, and the rapid march of the front-line troops was greatly affected! Chen Yi also told me before he went to Hefei yesterday that the shortage of our army's rear strength and the serious shortage of mules and horses have seriously affected our army's mobility ability! Shen Gang, who had just been promoted to general by Chen Jingyun, said expressionlessly, but his tone was still relaxed and pleasant.

After hearing this, Chen Jingyun took the report and read it, saying that the lack of logistical strength of the Nationalist Army was a reality, and he also knew that because the Nationalist Army lacked a large number of military mules and horses, it could not even meet the needs of the artillery regiment, let alone the transportation of ordinary materials. In order to meet the transportation of military supplies, the national army has collected a large number of civilian livestock in the area under its jurisdiction, not to mention horses, mules, and even donkeys, but it is still difficult to meet the huge needs of the army.

In addition, because the establishment of auxiliary units such as baggage and engineering in the national army has always been relatively small, but many times rifles are issued and directly used as infantry, which was originally the Beiyang Army, but as the scale of the national army is getting larger and larger, the strength of the front-line troops is increasing, and the problem of insufficient logistics and transportation forces is highlighted.

At present, the old infantry division of the Nationalist Army in 1912 had a total strength of about 9,500 men, but the baggage battalion was only about 500 men, and there was also a lack of mules and horses. This is fine in static front operations, but once a large-scale maneuver is required, it will seriously drag down the combat effectiveness of the troops, and even a large number of rear materials will appear, but the troops' own baggage battalions cannot effectively transport these materials to the front line. This problem was even more serious in the Ninth Division, which doubled its light and heavy machine gun and mortar firepower, but the corresponding logistical strength did not increase much, resulting in a great impact on the Ninth Division's mobile combat capability.

In addition, in the past few months of operations, the General Staff found that the Ninth Division's simple expansion of firepower was not enough, but the firepower of the machine guns and mortars of the original infantry division was too poor, and it was necessary to improve the establishment, so Shen Gang, Chen Yi and others discussed for a long time before they came up with a new type of infantry division.

However, the establishment of this infantry division has aroused a lot of opposition, because the Nationalist Army is now in the middle of the war, and every unit is fighting, but there is no time to stop and carry out a large-scale adjustment in the establishment of troops.

Therefore, in the original 1912 infantry division, it was planned to expand the baggage battalion into a baggage regiment of 1,000 men, increase the number of engineering battalions to 800, adjust the cavalry battalion to 550 personnel under the jurisdiction of three cavalry companies, increase the battalion's support firepower to six light machine guns and four 60-millimeter mortars, and increase the regimental firepower to eight heavy machine guns and eight millimeter mortars. and set up a baggage platoon under the battalion jurisdiction and a baggage company under the regimental jurisdiction. The firepower of the original artillery regiment remained unchanged.

After such a change, a standard division would be able to have fifty-four light machine guns, fifty-four sixty-millimeter mortars, twenty-four heavy machine guns, twenty-four eighty-millimeter mortars. This firepower has not increased much, and it is not as good as the previous formation of the Ninth Division, but it is relatively okay.

In fact, the biggest change is that the logistics personnel have been greatly increased, and the total number will reach nearly 13,000, which is even the same as the more powerful Ninth Division.

It can be seen that the core of this establishment change is not only to strengthen firepower, but also to increase the logistics personnel and ensure the supply capacity of the troops when they are maneuvering in a large area!

As for the establishment issue raised by Shen Gang and others, Chen Jingyun thought about it for a long time before approving it, and was ready to test it in the Eighth Division, the Sixth Division, and the Guard Division.

After all, once this establishment is implemented, the divisions of the Nationalist Army will have one-third more strength out of thin air, and this part of the strength will not directly increase the firepower of the divisions of the Nationalist Army, and the additional thousands of troops will be auxiliary troops. In the previous operations of the Nationalist Army, this part of the auxiliary force was generally served by the civilian personnel organized by the Logistics Department, rather than the specialized logistics units such as the baggage battalions and engineering battalions of the divisions, and in order to avoid the shortage of soldiers caused by the increase in logistics personnel, the General Staff Department directly joined forces with the Logistics Department and directly reorganized the civilian transport team of the Logistics Department into a baggage unit and incorporated it into the jurisdiction of each unit. After all, the number of recruits trained in the recruit camps in various localities under the General Staff is also limited, and most of them are supplemented to the units as combat effectiveness, and it is impossible to directly allocate tens of thousands of people to fill the vacancies in the logistics units of the various units.

The adjustment of the strength of the national army was not very fast, and the General Staff expected that it would take a month or two to complete the adjustment of all the troops.

And no one knows what will happen in these two months, since the Chinese People's Army defeated the Beiyang Army in the Jiangbei Campaign, the domestic situation is turbulent again, and when the Chinese people see that the Beiyang Army has been defeated by the Nationalist Army, they naturally think that Chen Jingyun will unify China.

Even Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting quietly showed favor to Chen Jingyun, and of course, at the same time, they inevitably asked Chen Jingyun for money and guns.

In particular, Tang Jiyao even asked Chen Jingyun to purchase a large number of ordnance, the Yunnan army fought very hard in Sichuan, and the losses in all aspects were very large, in addition to purchasing firearms from the Nationalist Army to supplement the losses, Tang Jiyao also sent electricity to Chen Jingyun, waiting to ask Chen Jingyun for money and supplies.

In order to maintain the overall situation of southern reunification on the surface, although Chen Jingyun was unwilling, he also sent some ammunition to Tang Jiyao, as for the money, he would not give it, anyway, given him money, Tang Jiyao also had to take it out to purchase arms from the national army.

In the midst of this turmoil, Long Jiguang, who was entrenched in western Guangdong, issued a telegram, saying that he supported President Chen Da and resolutely supported the reunification of the Nanjing Republican Political Axe, and very readily accepted the number of the 24th Mixed Brigade given by Chen Jingyun.

After Long Jiguang retreated from Guangzhou to western Guangdong last year, the Nationalist Army not only drove him out, but still quietly made several deals with him, selling him thousands of rifles and a few mountain artillery. And Long Jiguang, who is entrenched in western Guangdong, is naturally Lu Rongting's henchman, and the troops stationed in Nanning and western Guangdong by the Gui army for a long time have fought with Long Jiguang many times, but Long Jiguang is also single, and he didn't lose much after fighting with the Gui army for a few battles, so he kept a quick territory, and even thought about crossing the sea to occupy Hainan.

However, as early as after the Nationalist Army took Guangzhou, Hainan landed in the navy with the cooperation of the naval forces, and now a battalion of the 14th Mixed Brigade is stationed in Haikou, but the original local troops in Hainan have been reorganized into a Hainan garrison regiment. Although the strength of the national army in Hainan is not good, it is not something that Long Jiguang can take.

This slowly passed over time, although Long Jiguang has been hovering in the small place of western Guangdong, but he has been staring at the domestic situation, and after Chen Jingyun announced the Northern Expedition, he just thought that Chen Jingyun's status as the boss of the southern provinces was decided, and the reason why he could still be in western Guangdong was inseparable from Chen Jingyun's secret support. Later, he asked for the surname and directly joined the national army.

Long Jiguang's 8,000-strong troops were reduced to a mixed brigade, and Chen Jingyun gave him the number of the 24th Mixed Brigade of the Central Army, appointed Long Jiguang himself as a major general and brigade commander, and led his troops to continue to be stationed in Qinzhou. In addition, Long Jiguang also had to accept many officers sent by Nanjing to serve in the 24th Mixed Brigade.

Long Jiguang is different from Lu Rongting and Tang Jiyao, Tang Jiyao and Lu Rongting are now in a cooperative relationship with Chen Jingyun, although they are nominally below Chen Jingyun, but Chen Jingyun cannot send officials to Guangxi and Yungui, let alone send officers to the Gui Army and the Dian Army. And this Long Jiguang is to surrender to the National Army, which is to be included in the system of the National Army, although Long Jiguang can continue to serve as a brigade commander, but Chen Jingyun also has to send officers to serve.

Long Jiguang is also the same, there is really no way out in this ghost place in western Guangdong, if he continues like this, he will either be destroyed by the Gui army or by the national army, it is better to hold on to the good conditions when there are still more than 8,000 troops in his hands, and now he is a major general and division commander, although it is a big difference from the previous lieutenant general and division commander appointed by Beiyang, but at this time, who else will take his Beiyang military rank as a matter of affairs.

Now that he has become a major general, Long Jiguang also got a handwritten letter from Chen Jingyun, saying that he was not to blame for the past, which made Long Jiguang feel at ease. He has also made a lot of money over the years, which is enough for him to squander for a lifetime, so Long Jiguang thought that even if he couldn't be as high as Shen Gang and them in the future, there was no problem with the glory and wealth of this life.