Chapter 400 The Last Battle 2

Jingshi Jurentang, at 12 o'clock in the morning, Shi Yanglin hurried into Zhao Dongyun's office with the war report.

"How's the situation with the 17th Brigade?" Before Shi Yanglin opened his mouth, Zhao Dongyun asked first.

"At present, the 34th Regiment is under great pressure and has been forced to abandon two lines of defense in a row. In addition, although the situation on the 33rd Regiment is relatively stable for the time being, it is not optimistic!" Shi Yanglin said, "However, the Fourth Army has continued to reinforce the south bank since this morning. A regiment of the 18th Brigade is already crossing the river and is expected to be able to cross the river in two hours!"

Zhao Dongyun nodded: "Well, report to me immediately if there is any new situation!"

In the first two days, the Feng army was limited by the serious shortage of boats crossing the river. In addition, those medium and large ships were used to build pontoon bridges and could only transport troops and supplies with small boats, so Meng Enyuan did not send more troops to cross the river. However, now the situation is more urgent, and the construction of the pontoon bridge has begun. At the end, a large number of ships can be released for transportation across the river, so the Fourth Army has sent troops across the river again since last night, first a battalion, and then one.

Today, the Fourth Army is expected to transport the 18th Brigade across the river. Although the 18th Brigade cannot carry heavy weapons and too many weapons and ammunition when crossing the river, it is finally a new force, which is enough to play a huge role in supporting the 17th Brigade.

Two hours later, Shi Yanglin came in again with a telegram, and then said in a little panic: "The 34th Regiment was attacked by the supplementary brigade of the 4th enemy's division, and has lost two lines of defense!"

Zhao Dongyun also panicked after hearing this, and then asked, "Where's the 33rd Regiment? What about the 18th Brigade? Have you finished crossing the river?

Shi Yanglin said: "According to the information on the front line, the 7th Brigade of the two rivers should have deployed some troops to the south and cooperated with the 4th Division supplement brigade to launch an attack on the right wing of our 34th Regiment. So at present, the situation of the 33rd Regiment is still relatively stable!"

"The 18th Brigade is still crossing the river, and some of the troops that have crossed the river have quickly rushed to reinforce the 17th Brigade. If nothing unexpected happens, they should be able to reach the 17th Brigade within two hours!"

After listening to this, Zhao Dongyun did not continue to say anything. In this situation, he is powerless. He has done everything he should have done before. Since the outbreak of the Battle of Crossing the Yangtze River, all he can do is to watch and wait for the front-line troops to report back, but there is no specific intervention.

Limited by the contemporary communication level, it is impossible for Zhao Dongyun to remotely command troops in the rear like the later Jiang Guangtou. It's not that he doesn't want to do so, but that he can't do it. In modern times, limited by the intelligence collection ability and communication level, it is impossible to let Zhao Dongyun directly command the front-line troops thousands of miles away. Combat.

As the commander of the army, what Zhao Dongyun has to do is to formulate an overall strategic plan according to the international and domestic situation, determine the strategic development direction of the Soviet military, government, industrial and commercial interest group, and some other details, such as the battle of crossing the Yangtze River and even the formulation of the Jiangnan strategy. It was formulated by the staff, and Zhao Dongyun just made the final decision.

And when the specific war is going on now, Zhao Dongyun can only stare at the rear.

In addition to listening to the rewards of the front-line war in time, one of the most important thing Zhao Dongyun does is to send private condolences and encouragement telegrams to the front-line generals, even if he makes various promises: if you win, it is not a dream to be promoted!

Just when Zhao Dongyun of Beijing was in a hurry.

The 17th Brigade suffered the biggest crisis since the formation of the army on the Ma'anshan front line opposite the state!

The 17th Brigade has been fighting hard for three days since crossing the river, and now it has been attacked on both sides by the supplementary brigade of the 4th Division and the 7th Division of Liangjiang with a total of more than 20,000 troops.

"When will the troops of the 18th Brigade arrive?" Pan Luanqing is now no longer calm. Now he wears a general's coat and directly takes a large number of officers to inspect the front line of the 34th Regiment. While inspecting, he does not forget to ask the adjutants around him.

The adjutant next to him said, "A battalion of the 35th Regiment of the 18th Brigade is about to arrive, and it is expected to reinforce my 34th Regiment in half an hour! The next two battalions of the 35th Regiment are expected to arrive in an hour and a half!"

Although the 18th Brigade has successfully crossed the river, the battle site of the two armies of Feng and Anhui is not on the beach, but about five kilometers away from the beach. At the beginning, the 17th Brigade moved its strategy forward about five kilometers in order to ensure the safety of the beach and the troops crossing the river. This distance is just the maximum support distance of the artillery on the north coast of the Feng army. At the same time, the artillery of the Anhui army will not threaten the safety of the crossing troops and the erection of the pontoon bridge because of insufficient range.

Since then, if the ammunition supply and personnel reinforcement in the rear want to reach the front line, they need to advance about five kilometers after disembarking, which is the walking speed of ordinary people, but the overall marching speed of the army has always been not as fast as that of a single person. Ordinary people walk 30 or 40 kilometers a day is very Easy, but for a fully armed army, the speed of marching is generally about 25 kilometers a day. If you want to reach 30 or 40 kilometers, you need to march lightly.

After the troops of the 18th Brigade disembark, it will take a certain amount of time to collect the troops before they can go to the front line according to various combat orders. Even if they march lightly, it will take at least an hour or even more than an hour and a half.

However, now the situation of the 17th Brigade has reached the most critical moment. An hour or two can change the end of the war.

Pan Luanqing braved the flames of war to patrol the front line, encouraged every officer and soldier he met, and told them that we must win this battle. The enemy's current fierce attack is just the last dying struggle. As long as our pontoon bridge is successfully built and a large number of main forces and supplies in the rear cross the river, then we can usher in A complete victory.

When the 17th Brigade was using its last bit of energy to resist the attack of the Anhui army, Meng Enyuan on the north coast also walked to the river. Next to him was Fang Biyun, the head of the Task Force.

"ColoneR, how long will it take for your pontoon bridge to be completed?" Meng En was not too polite. As soon as he came up, he asked Fang Biyun directly: "I need you to give me an accurate time. You know, my troops are all ready, just waiting for your pontoon bridge!"

After listening, Fang Biyun looked back slightly. Behind them were tens of thousands of soldiers of the Fourth Army and tens of thousands of people carrying burdens and pushing unicycles. These people have been preparing since this morning, waiting for the moment when the pontoon bridge is successfully built.

As long as a pontoon bridge is successfully set up, these people will be able to quickly cross the Yangtze River. While crossing the river, a large number of combat troops will also send a large amount of ammunition and supplies to the other shore.

At present, the total number of people hoarded by the Feng army in the direction of Hezhou is quite large. In addition to the inherent field troops of the Fourth Army, there are also more than 10,000 people organized by the Quartermaster Department. These people will follow the Fourth Army to cross the south of the Yangtze River to provide transportation and supply tasks south of the Yangtze River for the Fourth Army.

In fact, in order to support the fourth army's mission of crossing the river to the south, far more than 10,000 people have been mobilized, and the state is located on the edge of the Yangtze River, and the nearest supply transit station is hundreds of kilometers away.

In order to transport ammunition and grain to the edge of the Yangtze River, Fengjun specially opened the Ru'an supply line. In order to provide ammunition supply to the Fourth Army, the quartermaster's supply department also opened two transportation routes from Lu'an to Hezhou and Chuzhou to Hezhou. The number of people traveling to and from these two supply lines exceeded 50,000.

In fact, this number is small. In order to maintain the smooth launch of the Jiangnan strategy, the quartermaster's Department has invested nearly 30,000 active logistics forces and more than 300,000 in Jiangbei, Henan, Shandong and other places, including railway transportation, maritime transportation, river transportation, land transportation and other means. People's husband.

In order to ensure the safety of the above-mentioned logistics supply lines, the Feng army has invested all of the Third Army and dozens of patrol troops of more than 30,000 people.

No matter what era the war is, logistics will always come first, especially in this era. No matter how good the tactics are, they are based on sufficient logistics.

Specifically, in the current battle of crossing the river, why the Feng army is in a hurry to build a pontoon bridge, not because it can easily send a large number of supplies across the river after the pontoon bridge.

The amount of supplies consumed by an army is very large. The main force such as the 9th Division consumes about 50 tons a day, while the 17th Brigade is in a continuous fierce battle, and more than 50 tons of ammunition, food and other supplies need to be consumed every day.

50 tons may be a matter of several heavy trucks for future generations, but it is a great challenge for the transportation capacity of the Feng army in this era, especially for relying on small ships to cross the river and manpower to pick up the clouds.

In any case, how long the pontoon can be set up will directly determine the success of the Fourth Army's river crossing strategy.

Fang Biyun did not answer immediately, but was slightly silent for a while before gritting his teeth and said, "If the reinforcement of the pontoon bridge is suspended and only personnel are required to pass, I am confident that it will be completed at seven o'clock in the evening!"

Meng Enyuan knew that even if he put pressure on Fang Biyun, he could not make the installation of the floating bridge much faster out of thin air. He immediately said, "Okay!"

Then he turned to several other officers and said, "Let the troops prepare torches. As soon as the pontoon bridge is completed, they will immediately cross the river overnight!"

As time passed, the sound of gunfire on both sides of the Yangtze River in Hezhou and Ma'anshan has never stopped, and as time passes through the river, the front-line generals of the Fengwan armies are also becoming more and more anxious.

When the Anhui army saw that they could not attack for a long time, they had gradually invested all their troops. Lei Zhenchun had already personally taken the supervision team to the front line with red eyes.

In the face of the increasingly fierce fortifications of the Anhui Army, the 17th Brigade of the Feng Army is also becoming more and more sad, and the continuous casualties and lack of ammunition have become difficult problems for the 17th Brigade to overcome.

The 34th Regiment has been connected to retreat three times, and even after receiving a battalion reinforcement from the 18th Brigade, it is still difficult to resist the full attack of the 4th Division's supplementary brigade.

However, when the two regiments of the 18th Brigade crossed the river one after another and fought, the situation on the front line began to stabilize.

At 5 p.m., after receiving a small amount of reinforcements, the 33rd Regiment also tried to carry out a small-scale counterattack and returned to a small array.

At six o'clock in the evening, Lei Zhenchun looked at the Feng army position in front of him and sighed deeply. The Feng army's position was already covered with corpses, and those were the bodies of his soldiers.

What made him sigh was not the casualties of his troops, but through the telescope, he had already seen that a pontoon bridge had gradually formed on the Yangtze River in the distance. At most, it only took an hour or two to successfully build the Feng army's pontoon bridge, and by then the Feng army would be able to quickly pass through this damn pontoon bridge from the north. Coast reinforcements to the south bank.

At this time, Lei Zhenchun already knew that it was impossible to drive the Feng army off the Yangtze River. The next thing he needs to consider is not how to drive the Feng army off the river, but how to block these Feng army's cross-river offensive, at least to the second mixed brigade and the other two brigades of the Fourth Division and other Anhui troops. Arrived.

After taking a deep breath, he immediately ordered: "Go on and postpone the offensive and prepare to turn into defensive combat!"