Chapter 451 Battle of Wuzhou

Jiang Guiti worked hard to attack Wuzhou not because he wanted to work hard for Zhao Dongyun, but because he needed to reflect the value of him and the sixth mixed brigade.

At the beginning of the negotiations between Zhao Dongyun and Jiang Guiti, the condition of Jiang Guiti's sixth mixed brigade was to obey the dispatch of the central government, and the central government was responsible for the military expenses and the replenishment of the sixth mixed brigade. Jiang Guiti had to reflect his own value if he wanted to get more military expenses, soldiers and technical weapons from Zhao Dongyun.

The simplest way to reflect his value is to let Zhao Dongyun see that his Jiang Guiti can fight, and his sixth mixed brigade can also fight.

The troops that can fight are valuable, and the generals who win the battle are worth winning Zhao Dongyun.

For this reason, Jiang Guiti's attack on Wuzhou is still very hard.

However, Jiang Guiti has not made any practical progress in the one-day advance attack on Wuzhou. On the one hand, Jiang Guiti's sixth mixed brigade itself does not have many troops, and it is impossible to devote all the troops to the front line in the war. The logistical auxiliary forces cannot go up, and at the same time, he has to stay one Part of the reserve team, in this case, Jiang Guiti actually only invested in one regiment in the first day of attack.

The 13th Brigade of Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division defending Wuzhou. This brigade, like most of the main forces of contemporary warlords, has an overstaffed situation. There are only two regiments in one brigade, but one brigade has three regiments. In addition to the 25th and 26th regiments, there is also a supplementary regiment.

Additional formations such as supplementary regiments and supplementary brigades are common among the direct forces of major warlords, such as the previous 4th Division of Duan Qirui, the 2nd Mixed Brigade, the 2nd Division under Wu Fengling, Wang Shizhen's 6th Division, and Zhao Erxun of the Southern Federation. Although the size of the formation may be different, they are all departments outside the formal establishment. Team.

Of course, Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division, like Duan Qirui, can directly allocate a mixed brigade full of artillery to the 7th Division. His artillery and heavy machine guns are limited, and he can only simply expand the number of infantry.

After more than a year of search, Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division actually has a lot of troops, and most of them are pure infantry. Its two brigades are not two infantry regiments, but three infantry regiments. In addition, there are two additional guard regiments in the division headquarters.

Then he also learned from the Feng army to expand a large number of auxiliary forces such as heavy and engineering. The ordinary warlord troops are all subordinate to heavy battalions, engineering battalions and other units, but he has engaged in heavy regiments and engineering regiments, with a regiment-level formation of more than 2,000.

And crucially, although Wang Zhanyuan has improved his logistics, Wang Zhanyuan's idea, like other warlords, uses these heavy and engineering troops as infantry.

These methods of vigorously expanding the infantry have led to the total strength of the 7th Division to more than 30,000.

The total strength of such a seventh division is more than that of the fourth division at the peak, and the 19th town of Zhao Erxun of the Southern Federation, which is similar to the number of troops, is not the same.

Because the 19th town of Zhao Erxun in the Southern Federation is not just an infantry division, but also under the command of two infantry brigades and one cavalry brigade, even the infantry brigade has a large number of horses, which is a mixed force with a combination of infantry.

The 13th Brigade under the 7th Division has three regiments, plus other auxiliary troops, with a strength of nearly 10,000. Although this 7th Division is not the 7th Division in Feng Guozhang's era, it has more or less the foundation of the old Beiyang, coupled with Wang Zhanyuan's powerful training. In fact, the combat effectiveness of this unit is still good. In 1907, when Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division proved that this unit can compete with the main division of the Feng army.

Although the wandering in the past two years has led to a decline in the quality of the 7th Division, on the other hand, the number of the 7th Division is more, and there is only such a unit under Wang Zhanyuan. When he usually searches for local money, he ignores the consequences. At the beginning, he almost tossed northern Zhejiang to death. This money has Part of it was deposited by him in the foreign bank for the case of emergency, and most of it was still thrown into the army and expansion by him.

Among other things, at least Wang Zhanyuan is still very willing to pay soldiers, because he himself knows that his seventh division has no fixed territory, and the soldiers running around must have great complaints. If you want to keep the soldiers wandering around with him all the time, there is really no other way but money. .

Although the overall quality of the 7th Division in 1909 is not as good as that of the Zhifeng War in 1907, it is not something that ordinary provincial troops can compare. Nowadays, it is basically impossible for Jiang Guiti to break through the position of the 13th Brigade by relying on a regiment.

And Jiang Guiti himself did not think that he would make any big breakthrough in the first day of attack. His purpose was actually very simple. He was just doing a fire reconnaissance.

He wants to figure out the deployment of troops and firepower deployment of the 13th Brigade, especially the deployment of technical weapons such as artillery and heavy machine guns. As long as these things are clear, when the 10th Division arrives, the Feng army will be able to launch a targeted large-scale attack.

As long as you understand the strength and firepower deployment of the 13th Brigade on the opposite side, then Jiang Gui's contribution is indispensable.

The next day, Xu Bangjie, the commander of the Second Army, also successfully took other troops of the Second Army, mainly the 10th Division, to Wuzhou.

Facing Xu Bangjie, his former Beiyang descendant, Jiang Guiti, an old man, did not rely on the old man, but reported his fire reconnaissance situation yesterday to Xu Bangjie as a subordinate general.

Xu Bangjie looked at the enemy's strength and firepower deployment map in Wuzhou and nodded secretly. Although Jiang Guiti said that he was not very famous in the domestic war in the past two years and was far less famous than those famous generals in the northern and south armies, Jiang was still old and hot. It only took a day to fight the war. The details of the enemy on the opposite side have been touched.

Jiang Guiti, a veteran, was born in the Nian Army. Later, he joined the Qing Army and the Nian Army to fight against the Nian Army. He also went to Xinjiang to suppress the chaos, participated in the First Sino-Japanese War, and suppressed the chaos of bandits. Later, he was transferred to Jiangbei to form the Jiangfang Army. After the republic, the department was adapted into the sixth mixed brigade and put under the Anhui army all the way from Jiangsu to Zhejiang. Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces say that their war experience can be said that none of the senior generals in active service in China can compare with him.

But he is different from many veterans. Although he is old, he is not pedantic and accepts new things quickly. Otherwise, he would not have been pulled by Yuan Shikai to train the new army.

Although he played with front-loading guns in his early years, but now he plays starting gun coordination, and the tactics of heavy machine guns are no worse than other young generals.

Since Jiang Guiti had figured out the deployment of the troops and firepower of the enemy facing Wuzhou in advance, Xu Bangjie did not hesitate much after the arrival of the troops of the 10th Division and soon ordered the 10th Division and the 6th Mixed Brigade to launch a large-scale attack on Wuzhou together.

This attack is different from Jiang Guiti's previous small-scale fire reconnaissance attack. Xu Bangjie invested up to three regiments in his first attack.

Under the cover of subsequent artillery, these infantry launched a tidal attack on Wuzhou.

As one of the three most prestigious main divisions of the Feng Army, the 10th Division began to expand its formation in 1908 as early as the Jiangnan Campaign. By 1909, the 10th Division had already completed its expansion, and its soldiers and weapons and equipment were the most standard in the Feng Army. The 1908 system has a total strength of more than 18,000.

Plus more than 7,000 of the sixth mixed brigade, the Feng army has invested more than 25,000 troops in the direction of Wuzhou.

Not only does the strength far exceed the 13th Brigade defending Wuzhou, but also has an absolute advantage in heavy weapons and equipment. The 10th Division of the Feng Army and the 6th Mixed Brigade attacking Wuzhou have more than 40 75mm barrel guns, eight 57mm barrel artillery guns, and a large number of mortars and heavy aircraft. Guns and light machine guns.

In terms of fire density, the 13th Brigade on the opposite side can't resist at all.

The gap between the two sides is so big that it is reasonable for the 13th Brigade to defeat in the direction of Wuzhou. The 13th Brigade under Wang Zhanyuan only persisted in Wuzhou for four days, and then began a large-scale retreat.

After taking the east gate of Guangxi, Wuzhou, it means that the whole hinterland of Guangxi has been opened to the Feng army, which is of great strategic significance for the subsequent westward march of the Feng army.

When Xu Bangjie led the Second Army into Guangxi, several other troops of the Feng army also launched attacks in other directions.

Hunan is the well-deserved main force in the Feng army: the Fourth Army.

After Meng Enyuan led the Fourth Army to occupy Pingxiang, the third division of his vanguard force went straight to Xiangtan.

Although Xiangtan is just a county, it is one of the three largest cities in Hunan and an important commercial and economic center in Hunan.

Leaving aside its economic and political status, it is also the southern gate of Changsha, Hunan Province. The Southern Federation has stationed at least 20,000 troops here. If the Feng army wants to conquer Changsha, Xiangtan is an obstacle that cannot be bypassed.

With the Feng army's march into Hunan, Hunan also lost its original tranquility and suffered the trauma of war like cities in the east and north.

After the republic in 1906, most provinces in China, especially those on the east coast, suffered serious war trauma. Zhili, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Guangxi all suffered many wars between warlords.

However, the provinces in the northeast, southwest, and western regions are not threatened by war. The northeast is the hometown of the Feng army. After 1906, only the Feng army fought against others, and no warlord has been able to advance the front to the northeast. Xinjiang, Gansu and other places in the western region also kept peace because Zhao Erxun firmly blocked the Jin army in Shaanxi.

The three provinces of Yunnan and Hunan in the southwest are also far away from the battlefield.

However, as the strength of the Feng army became larger and larger, after defeating the Anhui army, it continued to march towards the West, and finally burned the war to Hunan.