readx; The reason why the magnificent mansion was not chosen was because there was no big mansion of the rich family in this Jiejiazhuang, and the air force of the Nationalist Army was rampant, and from time to time it would find some obvious Beiyang Army targets to bomb, and the division headquarters of the Fifth Division had been bombed by the Nationalist Air Force, although there was no great loss but several people were killed or wounded. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info so Feng Guozhang's military headquarters also chose a more secret place.

At this time, it was already morning, and the sunlight outside the window shone in through the window, making the conference room inside full of sunlight, and not as dim as the afternoon and evening, there were Feng Guozhang and a large group of Beiyang generals in the conference room, and they were all listening to a major reporting the military situation on the front line.

"According to the report of the Seventh Division on the front line, plus the news that our army has learned from other aspects, it can already be determined that it was the enemy's Third Division Xu Lishan who crossed the river from Jingjiang yesterday!"

Major Guozi-faced continued: "This unit has been stationed in the Jiangyin area a few days ago, and is preparing to cross the river, and our army has chosen to abandon the beachhead in order to avoid being bombarded by enemy naval guns in order to avoid engaging the enemy on the beachhead. The Seventh Division has already prepared for a head-on attack on the line from Yangzhou to Taizhou, and exchanged fire with the enemy's forward troops in the early hours of this morning, and the Seventh Division of our army fought bravely and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, killing and wounding more than 500 enemy troops according to incomplete statistics! ”

The major stopped after saying this, and Feng Guozhang on the side spoke: "The national army in the south finally can't wait to make a move, they can't attack in Anhui for a long time, and now they finally can't help but make a move in southern Jiangsu, and now we just want to give them a fierce counterattack!" ”

"Not only must the Seventh Division do a good job in the defense of the line from Taizhou to Yangzhou, but the Fifth Division must also strengthen its defense, preventing the enemy from launching a crossing of the river from other places, and also guarding against the enemy's advance from the direction of Anhui!" Feng Guozhang continued: "In addition, call Zhang Xun of the Eighth Division, inform him of the situation here, and then let him prepare to prevent the enemy from bypassing our army and raiding Huai'an and Yancheng." ”

At this time, Jin Yunpeng said: "Do you see if you let Brother Tang's Tenth Division and Brother Yu's Second Mixed Brigade draw some back." ”

Feng Guozhang said: "The front of the 10th Division and the 2nd Mixed Brigade has at least two divisions of the enemy, and the frontal pressure is very great and cannot be easily withdrawn. However, it is not a way to continue to be empty in Chuzhou, I have to send another telegram to the old man to report the urgency, so that the 11th Division will go south as soon as possible, or let the 20th Division and the 23rd Division come! ”

Although Feng Guozhang said this, but the officers of the Second Army below were worried when they heard this, Feng Guozhang asked for help from the rear is not a matter of a day or two, he hoped that Xu Shuzheng's 11th Division would go south a few months ago, but Duan Qirui in the rear held on to it for a long time, and Yuan Shikai also acquiesced in Duan Qirui's approach, and did not exit until after the loss of Chaohu and let Duan Qirui move the 11th Division forward to Bengbu. Later, the 11th Division did not come for a long time, Feng Guozhang said that it was okay if the 11th Division did not come, but the 20th and 23rd Divisions had to come at least one division, so Duan Qirui allowed it, but the commander of the 20th Division, Pan Juying, and the commander of the 23rd Division, Meng Enyuan, were not stupid, so they naturally refused to obediently listen to Duan Qirui's words and went to the Jiangbei front line to work desperately with the National Army. Anyway, whether it is Xu Shuzheng, Pan Juying, or Meng Enyuan, they don't want to be the second Zhang Xun.

Since the Nationalist Army took the initiative to launch the battle of crossing the river in August, although the battlefield was concentrated in the Anhui region, the Beiyang Second Army had begun to participate in the war almost from the beginning of the Chaohu Campaign, and Tang Tianxi's 10th Division and the 2nd Mixed Brigade were still fighting with the Nationalist Army in the Wugang area, and their pressure was very great, and the casualties were not small. For a long time, if there were no reinforcements from the rear, including Feng Guozhang and others, they would not have the confidence to hold Jiangbei.

Sure enough, when Feng Guozhang's urgent telegram was sent to Yuan Shikai, Yuan Shikai looked at the telegram and pondered for a long time: "The Nationalist Army is crossing the river in Jingjiang again, and now there is only one seventh division and the fifth division left in Jiangbei to be called, and the fifth division has to defend the Jiangbei heavy land and cannot be easily transferred!" ”

He was naturally unwilling to let Feng Guozhang's Second Army continue to expand and expand, but the Jiangbei region could not help but reinforce, in the final analysis, Feng Guozhang was still his subordinate, what he had to do was to balance control, not discard it. After Yuan Shikai thought for a long time, he finally said to Duan Qirui on the side: "Call Pan Juying again and order him to go to Chuzhou to reinforce the Second Army immediately, without delay!" ”

Duan Qirui heard Yuan Shikai say such a tough tone, and immediately hesitated and said, "President, is this directly said?" Also, did this twentieth division fall into the Second Army or? ”

Yuan Shikai naturally knew what the unspoken meaning of Duan Qirui's words was, and immediately waved his hand and said: "The Twentieth Division and the Eleventh Division are the same as the Twelfth Division, and they do not belong to the command of the Second Army, and he is appointed as the commander of the Chuzhou garrison!" ”

After hearing this, Duan Qirui also agreed with Yuan Shikai's decision: "Understand, let's do it." ”

At this time, Yuan Shikai said: "Also, since the 20th Division has gone south, then Meng Enyuan of the 23rd Division also asked him to continue to go south to take over the defense of Xuzhou!" ”

When Yuan Shikai commanded his generals, he generally gave favors and favors, and it was very rare to openly issue orders in a tough tone, and this time when Yuan Shikai ordered Pan Juying to go south to Chuzhou, he did rarely use an extremely tough tone, which made Pan Juying feel very uncomfortable when he received the telegram with a tough tone.

"The old man still treats me as an outsider for so many years!" Although Pan Juying, who was muttering so much in his heart, was unhappy, but Yuan Shikai sent such a strongly-worded telegram, he also had to leave Xuzhou and continue to go south, of course, he inevitably looted Xuzhou before leaving, and also used tough means to intercept a batch of ammunition transported to Xu Shuzheng's 11th Division for his own use, and when he passed by Bengbu, he didn't even get off the car, saying that he couldn't see people because of the wind and cold, and he only stayed at the train station in Bengbu for one night and then continued to Chuzhou, which made Xu Shuzheng's face extremely ugly when he came to greet him.

"This Pan Juying, sooner or later I have to make him spit out all the things he eats!" As soon as Xu Shuzheng went back, he threw off the white gloves in his hand, and then openly vented the anger in his heart under his hands with a snort. Originally, because Pan Juying withheld the supply ammunition of the 11th Division, Xu Shuzheng was extremely dissatisfied, and when he was about to find him to theorize, he didn't expect that he didn't even see anyone, and he also said that he was old and weak and suffered from wind and cold, and he was not better than a young man like Xu Shuzheng.

This is a clear satire of his Xu Shuzheng's young age, and it is also a metaphor that Xu Shuzheng relies on Duan Qirui to get to the top.

Xu Shuzheng became a lieutenant general and division commander in his thirties, and a system had already been formed in the Beiyang Army, and his promotion in addition to the military industry was based on seniority in the army, and the most talked about was that Xu Shuzheng relied on Duan Qirui to take the position, so whenever someone told him Xu Shuzheng about his age, it was easy to disgust Xu Shuzheng, not to mention that Pan Juying still made it clear that he was sarcastic.

In the grievances between Pan Juying and Xu Shuzheng, the Beiyang Army also made a series of reactions in the face of the crossing of the river initiated by the Nationalist Army in Jingjiang, and the biggest effect was that the 20th Division went to Chuzhou.

Originally, according to the expectations of Shen Gang and others, if they launched a river crossing in southern Jiangsu, the enemy would definitely send reinforcements from the rear, but the most likely should be Xu Shuzheng's 11th Division, so that there would be no enemy troops in the Bengbu and Huainan directions, and there would be no reinforcements in the Hefei direction in a short time. In this way, the Second Army in the direction of Hefei had a greater certainty of taking Hefei, but they did not expect that the internal conflict in Beiyang was much more serious than they imagined, and the 11th Division could still stand still in the critical situation of Jiangbei and transfer the 20th Division from Xuzhou to reinforce it.

Of course, when Beiyang made this decision, Shen Gang and others didn't know that the Nationalist Army was still fighting according to the battle plan they had formulated.

After the third division crossed the river, it quickly launched a fierce attack on Taizhou, although Wang Ruxian's seventh division, which defended the first line of Taizhou and Yangzhou, had already prepared, but because the troops were scattered to Taizhou and Yangzhou, Taizhou was only a brigade of troops, and when faced with the onslaught launched by all the troops of the third division, it was soon impossible to hold, and Wang Ruxian saw that the situation was not good, and in less than 24 hours, he ordered the defenders of Taizhou to retreat, preparing to retreat to the west to Jiangdu in the east of Yangzhou City. Relying on the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal as an obstacle, plus the many fortifications originally built, it resisted the attack of the Nationalist Army.

Finally, he was preparing to use Yangzhou as a bridgehead to fight a defensive battle with the Nationalist Army.

In this way, in fact, it is not difficult to understand why Wang Ruxian retreated from Taizhou so quickly, the main reason is the lack of defensive terrain in Taizhou, if the national army has a small number of troops to attack, it can still be defended, if it is here to attack the nest, then the retreat of the seventh division is inevitable.

However, war, sometimes it is always full of accidents, Wang Ruxian is a good calculation, Taizhou can be defended, and if it can't be held, it will retreat to Jiangdu, but Xu Lishan of the third division of the national army on the opposite side also saw the opportunity, and knew that it would be difficult to fight after the enemy withdrew to Yangzhou, so he ordered the subordinate 32nd regiment to march rapidly overnight, and finally stopped the first brigade of the seventh division that hurriedly retreated from Taizhou twenty miles west of Jiangdu, and a few hours later the main force of the third division passed through Taizhou without entering, and directly pursued the enemy.

This battle was fought very simply, the third division was interspersed with lightly armed troops, and then broke through head-on with superior forces, and before Wang Ruxian of Yangzhou could react, the first brigade retreating from Taizhou was declared annihilated by more than 4,000 people, although it was not able to achieve total annihilation in the plain area, but only let the Beiyang Army escape less than 1,000 people.

And all this happened in less than twelve hours, from October 3 the national army crossed the river, the 4th arrived in Taizhou to fight, and the night of the 5th Taizhou defenders took the initiative to retreat, at noon the Taizhou defenders had been pursued by the third division and surrounded, the battle time between the two was only a short three or five hours.

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