Chapter 434 Strategic Focus

Therefore, the war between the two armies of Feng and Anhui, which lasted for many months, has temporarily calmed down. The Feng army should take a sigh of relief and then continue to go south with a more violent posture. Duan Qirui took advantage of this short and precious opportunity to restore his strength to welcome the subsequent more fierce attack of the Feng army.

The losses of the Wan army in the Jiangnan Campaign were not much less in the Jiangnan Campaign last year. The Fourth Division lost an entire supplementary brigade of the Fourth Division. After it came to Huzhou, there were only about 15,000 people left in the Fourth Division, which was a huge loss compared with more than 25,000 people at its peak.

The other Liangjiang provincial armies suffered more losses. The first, seventh, ninth and tenth divisions of the two rivers were all annihilated, and several other divisions also suffered heavy losses.

Before the war, the Anhui army deployed more than 100,000 troops on the front line of the Yangtze River. Now there are less than 50,000 troops pushed to Huzhou. In addition, there is a fourth division of Liangjiang that has been pushed to Jiaxing.

In addition, the second mixed brigade has also lost more than half, and has now retreated to the Wuhu area.

In this battle, the loss of more than half of the strength of the Anhui army is certain, and more important is the large loss of a large number of artillery and other technical weapons, which is more deadly for the Anhui army.

If you want to regain your strength to resist the next south offensive of the Feng army, you don't know how much hair Duan Qirui will worry about.

How hard Duan Qirui is, how happy Zhao Dongyun is.

After taking over the south of the Yangtze River, looking around, the national situation can be said to be very good. Zhao Dongyun has already seen the dawn of unifying China.

Although the south, southwest and northwest of China are still under the control of others, Zhao Dongyun is confident that after completely defeating Duan Qirui, others can no longer stop Zhao Dongyun's unification militarily.

And the next development did confirm Zhao Dongyun's expectation that after nearly a month of rest, Fengjun once again launched a large-scale offensive in the south.

Fengjun gathered three main divisions to attack Huzhou. Duan Qirui was defeated again and forced to retreat. Wang Zhanyuan, who was behind him, was more straightforward. After making enough money, they did not fight with Fengjun. They directly patted their buttocks and left and retreated directly to southern Zhejiang.

Subsequently, the Feng army launched an attack on the second mixed brigade of Wuhu, and the result was also no suspense. The fourth mixed brigade, together with the ninth division, once again captured Wuhu. This time, the second mixed brigade of the Wan army retreated directly to Xuancheng.

"At present, our army's offensive in northern Zhejiang is relatively smooth. In addition to continuing to launch an offensive in Zhejiang, we are also preparing to transfer some troops from Jiangnan to southern Anhui, then take southern Anhui, and cooperate with the first division to take Anqing, and then go straight to Jiangxi."

Shi Yanglin from the combat office said: "In the subsequent southern Zhejiang area, Fujian area is all mountainous and hilly areas. Even if our army's action is smooth, it will take a lot of time to take these two areas. Relatively speaking, the importance of southern Anhui and Jiangxi is more important to us!"

Zhao Dongyun said: "It is feasible to shift the subsequent strategic focus to Jiangxi, but it is also necessary to take into account the possible accidents of the Southern Federation in Hubei and Wang Shizhen, so it is necessary to maintain a certain number of troops in Anhui when entering Jiangxi later!"

Shi Yanglin said: "The combat department has considered this aspect, so while marching into Jiangxi, we also suggest sending troops westward to cooperate with Wang Shizhen's attack on the three towns in Wuhan to completely solve the Hubei problem to cover our flanks!"

"COOPERATE with Wang Shizhen?" Zhao Dongyun frowned slightly after hearing this. Although Wang Shizhen now ostensibly declares allegiance to the republican government, he is actually independent of the Soviet faction and is a self-contained faction.

If he cooperates with him to take Hubei, without the threat of Zhang Zhidong, Wang Shizhen will be able to free up his hand. At that time, he will probably become his own confidant.

In the early stage, Zhao Dongyun has been avoiding letting the troops enter Hubei in the west. In fact, he did not want to destroy the balance between Zhang Zhidong and Wang Shizhen in Hubei. As long as they contain each other, the Feng army could free up his hands to deal with Duan Qirui.

Although Duan Qirui has retired to southern Zhejiang, there are still more than 100,000 people in the Anhui army. It will take time to capture Zhejiang, Fujian and even Guangdong.

If you rashly break the balance between Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong at this time, how will you get along with Wang Shizhen?

This is a big problem.

"If the Hubei problem is not solved, then we will always need to face the double threat of Zhang Zhidong and Wang Shizhen when we enter Jiangxi. In order to deal with their threat, we need to deploy heavy troops in Anhui, which is very unfavorable for us." Shi Yanglin continued: "If we only need Wang Shizhen to control Wuchang after entering Hubei, it is equivalent to trapping Wang Shizhen in northern Hubei. If we do this, I guess Wang Shizhen will not have the courage to resist!"

Fengjun is now dominant in China. Wang Shizhen, Wu Fengling and others can't see the reality clearly. They will not rush to turn against Feng Jun.

So in this case, if the Feng army enters Hubei in the west, it may directly control other Hubei areas south of the Yangtze River.

However, Zhao Dongyun still cautiously rejected the proposal of the War Office. It seems to be a good thing to take Hubei, but now the Feng army has other more important tasks, that is, to take other territory of the Anhui army. As for Hubei and Hunan, they can ignore it first.

Under the instructions of the Feng army, the Feng army quickly adjusted a series of strategies. A large number of troops originally deployed in the south of the Yangtze River were transferred to southern Anhui. Because Jiangsu is very important, it is impossible to say that no army will be released, so the 16th Division was left, mainly in Jinling and Chuzhou. At the same time, the fourth mixed brigade was deployed to Zhenjiang and Suzhou because it took time to rebuild and could not continue to fight south in a short time.

As for Shanghai, an important economic town, Fengjun directly left a former first mixed brigade that is also in the process of expansion, which is now the 19th Division.

In addition to the above three field troops, there are also a large number of patrol infantry regiments drawn from Anhui and Henan and newly established patrol infantry regiments. In Jiangsu Province alone, the Feng army has deployed up to six patrol infantry regiments, with a total strength of more than 10,000.

The combined forces of the field army and the patrol force, the Feng army's strength in Jiangsu has actually exceeded that of the surrounding areas of Beijing.

In addition to leaving heavy troops to garrison Jiangsu, the rest of the troops were transferred to fight in the two directions of Zhejiang and southern Anhui. The second army was responsible for the war in Zhejiang, with the 10th Division and the 15th Division.

The 4th Army is responsible for reinforcements in southern Anhui and subsequent to Jiangxi. The department currently has the 3rd Division, 9th Division, 14th Division, 2nd Cavalry Brigade, 2nd Artillery Battalion and 1st Independent Field Artillery Regiment.

As for Lu Yongxiang's First Army, although it will still participate in the fortifications in southern Anhui such as Anqing, in fact, the strength of the First Army is quite scarce now. After the fourth mixed brigade was stationed in the Zhenjiang area, only the first division was actually commanded by the First Army. In order to supplement the strength of the First Army, Zhao Dongyun transferred the original third army. The 8th Division of the army was stationed in Anhui and joined the first army.

In order to make up for the gap after the 8th Division was withdrawn, Zhao Dongyun was deployed to the 11th Mixed Brigade in Shijiazhuang to join the Third Army. As for the defense of Shijiazhuang, it was handed over to the 5th Mixed Brigade.

In order to fill the gap in Zhili defense, coupled with the temporary military expenditure, the main reason is that the 14th and 15th Divisions performed well after the southward battle, which made Zhao Dongyun also raise greater interest in building the main division.

So after the Feng army continued to go south, he prepared to form a new main force, and according to the current serial number of the Feng army, the newly formed unit is the 20th Division.

At the same time, it also accelerated the plan to adapt the mixed brigade into an infantry division, preparing to adapt the fifth mixed brigade into a division, and the number of this division is used for the 12th division that has been vacant.

The number of the 12th Division was originally used by the direct army. After the Feng army defeated the direct army in 1907, it was reorgantated into the 11th Division with the remnants of the 11th Division and 12th Division. The number of the 12th Division was empty, and the subsequent newly recruited troops were also compiled from the 13th Division, resulting in the number 1 of the 12th Division. It's empty.

The expansion of the fifth mixed brigade into the 12th Division is the same as that of the 7th mixed brigade and the 10th mixed brigade. Naturally, it is impossible to compare with the strength of the newly formed 14th Division, the 15th Division and the 20th Division.

The 17th Division and the 18th Division have been expanded for many months, but it has still not been fully compiled, and the expansion process of the 12th Division will be almost the same.

After years of expansion, the Feng army finally expanded the number of the Central Army to 20. Of course, it is impossible that all of the 20 central divisions are Feng's troops. The second division is Wu Fengling's unit, the fourth division is the Anhui army's unit, and the sixth division is Wang Shizhen's army.

Although several warlords in Beiyang are fighting with each other, in fact, the number of the Central Army is relatively unified. At least the 4th Division under Duan Qirui has always maintained the number of the 4th Division of the Central Army.

In this way, the Central Army forces controlled by the Soviet system have 15 divisions, three mixed brigades, two cavalry brigades, two independent heavy artillery battalions, and an independent field artillery regiment. As for those patrol forces, they do not belong to the central army system, even those patrol cavalry battalions used as field troops are no exception.

Some of the above-mentioned Central Army forces are fully staffed, some are missing only about 16,000, and some are seriously missing troops with more than 10,000, so even if there are more numbers, the size of the Feng army has not suddenly expanded to 45,000. At present, There are about 300,000 people.

Compared with about 200,000 people in the first half of the year, the growth rate can be said to be very fast. An important reason for the rapid expansion of the Feng army is that a large number of technical weapons, especially artillery and guns, were captured in the Jiangnan Campaign. It was the captured weapons and ammunition that enabled Fengjun expanded rapidly.

And due to the large number of Japanese weapons captured, this also led to the emergence of a number of pure Japanese armored soldiers in the Feng army, such as the 1st Division, the 8th Division, the 16th Division and the rebuilt 4th Mixed Brigade, which are all Japanese weapons units.

Japanese weapons, German weapons and domestic weapons together constitute the main equipment of the Feng army and contribute their own strength to Zhao Dongyun's unified cause.