readx; On the first night of 16 August, Chen Jingyun couldn't sleep, the staff headquarters was brightly lit all night, and many people in Nanjing were worried about the fate of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, of course, most people's minds were different, for example, some people regretted what happened to the Fifth Mixed Brigade, but they paid more attention to the things behind this matter, and if the Fifth Mixed Brigade was really surrounded and annihilated, then it can be expected that a large number of generals would be responsible for it. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info Ma Cheng, who commanded the battle on the front line, was the first, and the staff in charge of the overall battle plan in the rear could not escape from responsibility, whether it was Yuan Fang or Chen Yi, they had to be punished by a big punishment, and even some people were already waiting for Chen Jingyun to remove Chen Yi and Yuan Fang and take the position of the two of them.

Among the senior generals of the National Army, many people were waiting for the two of them to be unlucky and removed by Chen Jingyun and then replace them!

Even Shen Gang has some expectations for this, as the national army becomes more and more regular, the role of the staff has been transformed from the original Chen Jingyun's private advisory team to a professional staff department, if the power of those division commanders in the national army before the war in southern Jiangsu exceeded the chief of staff, then the power of the current chief of staff is no longer something that those division commanders can hinder, and even Shen Gang has to admit that his role as the commander of the first army in the national army system is getting lower and lower. Sometimes even Chen Yi of the Operations Division can't compare. After the establishment of the General Headquarters, Chen Jingyun controlled the army with all the subordinate departments of the General Headquarters, among which the General Staff Department was the most important, and the power of the corresponding General Staff Department was becoming more and more heavy, and it had already surpassed the four major military departments. The reason is also very simple, that is, even Ma Cheng or Shen Gang, who are the commanders of the first army, have to listen to various strategic plans arranged by the General Staff.

The most obvious is that after Chen Jingyun announced the Northern Expedition, the General Staff planned and controlled almost all the operations of the Nationalist Army, and in the river-crossing operation, although Shen Gang also proposed some plans and arrangements before and was adopted by the General Staff, but he Shen Gang did not have the slightest right to speak in the follow-up campaign command, unless Chen Jingyun took the initiative to ask him about the battle situation, otherwise he could only focus on the defense affairs of Nanjing and Zhenjiang.

As the role of the General Staff became bigger and bigger, he Shen Gang naturally had the idea of becoming the chief of the General Staff. After all, commanding several divisions of an army is completely different from commanding the entire national army, and he, Shen Gang, as a general, doesn't want to arrange the national battle situation with Yuan Fang and Chen Yi against the national map. It's just that Shen Gang has never had a chance, and when he was in charge of the war in southern Jiangsu, he didn't have time to serve as the chief of staff, which was still a little embarrassing at that time. can only choose Yuan Fang, and later the role of the General Staff is getting bigger and bigger, after Shen Gang has this meaning, Yuan Fang is the position of Chief of Staff Steadily, at that time Chen Jingyun was also satisfied with Yuan Fang, and did not have the idea of removing.

And now, it seems that the opportunity has come.

"And this time there is such a big mistake on the side of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, Ma Cheng will certainly be punished, but Yuan Fang is afraid that he will also come down, and there should be great hope for him to take over the post of chief of staff at that time!" Shen Gang was calculating the gains and losses of the matter, who would be able to compete with him for the position of chief of staff at that time.

If Yuan Fang falls, Wang Lin, deputy chief of staff, will definitely have no hope of taking over as chief of staff, not to mention that Chen Jingyun will not be at ease, even if Chen Jingyun really boldly appoints him, I am afraid it will cause a backlash from many senior generals of the National Army, after all, Wang Lin did not follow Chen Jingyun all the way from the beginning, but leaned towards the National Army halfway, first served as an officer of the Fuzhou Military Academy, and then served as the director of the Academic Affairs Office of the Fuzhou Military Academy. And given that the post of deputy chief of staff has no real power, it is almost impossible for him to follow Yuan Fang's example and succeed him as chief of staff.

In the next staff department, there are only Chen Yi and Chen Weihua left, first of all, Chen Weihua no matter how much he has Chen Jingyun's trust, but his defeat in southern Jiangsu was not so easily forgotten, and now he is the director of a strategic department, no one says about him, but if Chen Jingyun brings him up again in a short period of time, as the director of the combat department or directly promoted to the position of chief of staff, others don't say it, he Shen Gang is the first to disagree. However, Chen Yi is a great competitor, although he has the rank of major general, but if Chen Jingyun really wants to take a fancy to him, it is possible to be directly promoted to the position of lieutenant general and chief of staff. But it can still work in normal times, and now the defeat of the Fifth Mixed Brigade is not only Yuan Fang, but also his Chen Yi's responsibility, and he Chen Yi can maintain the position of director of the Operations Department, so he has to thank every day.

The other logistics departments and armament departments are all technical departments, and they cannot come up with candidates to compete for the post of chief of staff, so that only the four army commanders and those senior division commanders are qualified to compete for this position. Among the four army commanders, Lin Chengkun and Chen Jingyun have the closest relationship, but he is too old and too young, he is already a lieutenant general when he is younger than Chen Jingyun himself, and even Chen Jingyun himself has said in private that too many people will not gossip if he wants to suppress him. Ma Cheng was the actual person in charge of the Anhui war, and he was directly responsible for the defeat of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, and even if he was not removed in order to stabilize the morale of the army, it would be impossible to continue to promote him to the chief of staff.

In this way, the most competitive is Lin Zhaomin. This person is now in Shanghai, he has not made great achievements, but he has not made the slightest mistake, his qualifications are deeper than him Shen Gang, he Lin Zhaomin was the deputy commander of the National Army, and he was quickly scared after being suppressed by Chen Jingyun, and finally became the commander of the Third Army, and it is not impossible to further serve as the chief of staff.

Among some other senior division commanders, needless to say, those who led troops to fight outside, according to common sense, Chen Jingyun would not transfer them back from the front line, so there were only a few division commanders left, such as Xiao Qibin of the Second Division, Xu Jingqing of the Seventh Division, Xu Lishan of the Third Division, Sun Yiliang of the Eleventh Division, and Yu Ruofei of the Guard Division. And Shen Gang has self-confidence, these people are far inferior to themselves in terms of qualifications and other aspects.

After thinking about it throughout, Shen Gang felt that his biggest competitor was Lin Zhaomin, and as for Ma Cheng, Lin Chengkun and others, he had ignored them.

At this time, Ma Cheng, who was ignored by him, really had no hope and heart to compete for the post of chief of staff, the Fifth Mixed Brigade had been besieged behind enemy lines for more than four days, and the ammunition of the Fifth Mixed Brigade had been exhausted, and it had continuously sent reports to the Second Army Headquarters requesting reinforcements.

Before the staff gave a plan, the Second Army also tried to rescue, and after contacting the First Division, asked the First Division to send a part of its troops to accelerate the reinforcement of the 12th Regiment, and then reopen the supply line to the northeast of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, and at the same time let the Ninth and Eighth Divisions increase their offensive.

At midnight, Ma Cheng received the latest telegram from the General Staff and gave the latest plan for help, asking the Ninth Division to open the gap between Bantang and Chaohu, advance five kilometers to reach Phoenix Mountain, and divide the defenders of Bantang and Chaohu! This plan made Ma Cheng look at it with a little heartbeat, Ma Cheng can be regarded as a conservative officer, he would not take the initiative to propose this kind of plan that obviously makes the Ninth Division risky, otherwise he would have let the Ninth Division forcibly break through the Chaohu defense line at the risk of great losses. But now that the General Staff has directly ordered it, he has to carry it out.

Along with the battle plan and the appointment of officers of the Ninth Division issued by Chen Jingyun, Ma Cheng also gasped after reading it.

"Due to ineffective combat, Major General Zhuang Xianhe was removed from the post of commander of the Ninth Division, and Major General Zhuang Xianhe was temporarily appointed as the commander of the Ninth Division due to the needs of the war! I hope to make meritorious contributions, and I will conquer Chaohu Lake as soon as possible!

"Due to the ineffective operation, Major General Zhuang Dafu was removed from the post of commander of the Eighth Division, and due to the needs of the war, Major General Zhuang Dafu temporarily served as the commander of the Eighth Division.

In two simple sentences, Chen Jingyun turned these two front-line division commanders into temporary division commanders, and it is obvious that if the war situation continues to deteriorate, it is certain that these two people will be removed.

There are punishments and rewards, and Chen Jingyun has already promoted Lieutenant Colonel Zuo Yugang, commander of the 92nd Infantry Regiment, to colonel. Of course, more importantly, Chen Jingyun also promoted most of the officers of the 5th Brigade in the Caijiagang area to encourage morale.

Guo Chengdong has not finished the battle, a silver double sword medal has been obtained, and his subordinate 510 regiment has also been promoted to colonel, awarded the bronze double sword medal, the deputy brigade commander of the fifth mixed brigade has also been promoted from lieutenant colonel to colonel, and served as the commander of the 520 regiment, and many of the rest of the battalion commanders and company commanders have been promoted to the rank of one level, and more than ten people have won the bronze double sword medal.

Chen Jingyun understood that he would use promotions and awards to boost the morale of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, so that they could continue to hold on and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Zhuang Xianhe, who was demoted by Chen Jingyun from the commander of the regular division to the commander of the temporary division, was a little aggrieved, and he asked himself that the operation of the Ninth Division under his command was extremely smooth since the battle of crossing the river, and it successively conquered important areas such as Dongguan, Lintou, and Gushan, although there was little progress after going down to Gushan, but there was also a reason, on the one hand, the Ninth Division needed to rest because of the continuous attack for many days, especially the artillery of the artillery regiment, ammunition was already in short supply, and it took time to replenish the shells before continuing to carry out large-scale shelling. Otherwise, the light infantry of the Ninth Division, without artillery support, would not have been able to achieve victory alone.

Although the Ninth Division gained a great advantage in firepower due to the expansion of a large number of weapons, its ammunition consumption was much higher than that of other Nationalist army units, especially the consumption of mortar shells, which was almost doubled. Every day, up to dozens of tons of logistical materials were needed to meet the offensive needs of the 9th Division. Although the logistics department had hoarded a large number of supplies in the Wuhu area in advance, with the advance of the front, the logistics department also had to transport the materials originally hoarded in Wuhu to the front line, but there was not only one ninth division in the Wuhu direction, but also the eighth, fifth, first, and fourth divisions all needed a large amount of supplies.

In order to supply the logistical supplies of these troops, the logistics department can be said to be in a hurry, and it is impossible for all troops to have sufficient logistical supplies for a while.

If there are no shells, even if the 9th Division has a firepower advantage, it will not be able to give full play! As a result, as soon as the two days were delayed, the news of the 5th Mixed Brigade being encircled came from the side, and the General Staff also urgently issued relevant orders to rescue the 5th Mixed Brigade, and also imposed a time limit on these combat orders, requiring the Second Army to open the passage to the 5th Mixed Brigade before 12 o'clock at noon on the 18th, and the headquarters of the Second Army also issued an order to the 9th Division to make sure to open the passage before 9 o'clock in the morning of the 18th.

After receiving the battle order, Zhuang Xianhe knew that if he didn't get out of the passage this time, his military career would come to an end!

Immediately, he ordered the 92nd Infantry Regiment to be the main force, the rest of the 9th Division to cover its left and right flanks, and the artillery regiment not to save ammunition and to fire with all its might to provide artillery support for the front-line infantry.

At four o'clock in the morning on the 17th, the 9th Division was already in full swing, and the 92nd Infantry Regiment launched a strong attack according to the order, and in the early morning it had broken through the gap between the two Beiyang Army positions, and then expanded the gap to a width of several hundred meters. At the same time, the 8th Division also launched a diversionary attack to hold back the main force of the Beiyang Army in the core area of Chaohu.