Chapter 328 Wang Shizhen's Choice 1

To some extent, the reason why the situation in Hubei has become so complicated is directly related to the entry of the Feng army.

Zhao Dongyun entered the customs and suddenly broke the apparent unity within Beiyang, which led to the complete division of the Beiyang system after the establishment of the Republican government last year. The allied forces led by Zhao Dongyun and the allied forces of Wang Yingkai, Wang Ruxian, Zhang Huaizhi, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen fought, and the war was from Zhili. It affected the four provinces of Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu, forcing Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen, Zhang Huaizhi and Wang Ruxian, who fought in the south, to transfer troops north to resist the Feng army and go south.

With the complete failure of Wang Yingkai and Wang Ruxian, after Zhang Huaizhi's Lu army suffered heavy losses in Shandong, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen faced greater pressure on the Feng army, which was better for Duan Qirui, who had strong troops. Although they were forced to transfer a large number of troops from the southern front to resist the north of the Feng army to the south, The Anhui army still retained a large number of troops in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces in the south, and even defeated Duanfang and Xiliang, and the soldiers pointed directly at Guangdong.

However, the situation has become extremely bad for Wang Shizhen. Wang Shizhen's strength is far worse than that of Duan Qirui. When he led the second army to the south, his troops not only had the sixth division and the eighth mixed brigade of his direct line, but also Wang Ruxian's eighth division.

However, with the annihilation of Wang Ruxian's Eighth Division and several Hubei Army Mixed Brigades sent by Wang Shizhen to Henan, the number of troops Wang Shizhen could control was greatly reduced, and his situation worsened due to the loss of the territory in southern Henan.

After Wang Shizhen and Wang Ruxian's troops were defeated in Henan, Wang Shizhen had only 60,000 troops left, and finally they were forced to transfer troops from the Hankou and Hanyang front line to Wusheng Pass north to prevent the Feng army from going south. In this way, Wang Shizhen only had more than 30,000 troops on the front line of Hanyang and Hankou.

Not only did his troops decrease rapidly, but his ammunition inventory also decreased rapidly. Originally, before Zhao Dongyun entered the customs, Wang Shizhen was also able to obtain shells, bullets and rifles from Fuyuan Machine Factory from Zhao Dongyun, but with the entry of the Feng army, the source of ammunition in this area was naturally cut off, although it could It is enough to buy some ammunition by means of external purchase, but imported ordnance is extremely expensive, and because several Chinese warlords are rushing to import weapons and ammunition, the amount of ammunition that can be obtained in time is very limited.

In addition, his limited financial resources have led to Wang Shizhen's situation in the past month or two!

Zhang Zhidong, Duan Qirui and others in the Southern Federation are not stupid. After half a year of recovery, the First Army of the Northern Expedition and the newly formed Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition under Zhang Zhidong have expanded to more than 150,000. Although the weapons and equipment are not good, so many people are there. After taking the opportunity to launch a counterattack, more It is reasonable to take Xiaogan and divide Wang Shizhen's troops from the north and south.

If only from the perspective of military strategy, Fengjun is actually barely half an ally with the Southern Federation, because they all have the same enemies, that is Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen.

However, the reality cannot be so simple, because the Southern Federation and the Feng army are also hostile, and this hostile relationship is stronger than the hostile relationship between the Feng army and the Anhui army.

If the war between the Feng army, the Anhui army and the Hubei army is only an internal war in the North Sea, then the war between the North Sea and the Southern Federation is an external war. If the Beiyang internal war is a conflict of interest, then the war between the Beiyang and the Southern Federation is a conflict of principles.

Unless the Southern Federation is willing to give up its independence and obey the leadership of the Northern Republican Government, no matter who governs the Northern Western Republican Government, it will continue to fight with the Southern Federation until it wins or loses.

So from this perspective, it is impossible for Zhao Dongyun to reach a de facto alliance with the Southern Federation, even a superficial alliance. Although they face the same enemy, they are also enemies with each other.

Zhao Dongyun not only wants to fight Wang Shizhen, but also wants to fight the Southern Federation.

However, in the strategy envisaged by Zhao Dongyun before, it is to slow down Hubei and let Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation continue to hold each other, and then he concentrate most of his troops and resources to take northern Jiangsu first and suppress the momentum of Duan Qirui's rapid expansion. Of course, it is unrealistic to completely cross the Yangtze River and control the two rivers. After all, the Anhui army has at least more than 100,000 people. Even if half of their troops are destroyed by the whole army in northern Jiangsu, the Anhui army can still transfer troops from the southern front to the north to help the Yangtze River, and even if the Feng army can take northern Jiangsu, its own losses will not be small, and after half a year of fighting in customs and southward, the Feng army It also takes time to rest to restore the combat effectiveness of the troops. More importantly, the Feng army needs time to restock ammunition, food and other munitions to prepare for the next large-scale battle.

In order to prepare for the Battle of Northern Jiangsu, Feng Jun prepared for more than a month, and this was still under the condition that everything went well.

Therefore, from a practical point of view, after taking the northern Jiangsu, the Feng army needs at least one rest time before it can resume large-scale southward operations.

Therefore, the war in the direction of the two rivers is not a matter of one or two, but three or four months or even half a year or even longer.

In this case, Zhao Dongyun needs to maintain calm on other fronts, especially Henan and Hubei, during this period.

However, the change in the situation in Hubei has exceeded Zhao Dongyun's imagination. Wang Shizhen is in danger in Hubei. Wang Shizhen's own failure is small. More importantly, it will make the Feng army directly face the threat of more than 100,000 troops under Zhang Zhidong's command.

Although Zhao Dongyun is confident that the 100,000 people in Zhang Zhidong can't fight all the way along the Jinghan line, in order to deal with Zhang Zhidong, he has to be forced to transfer troops and materials from other directions to Henan, which will directly affect the war in northern Jiangsu.

In the case of two-line operations, it is difficult for Zhao Dongyun to ensure that his troops can still win a key victory in northern Jiangsu. If he is unable to take over Jiangsu and Anhui provinces for a long time, it will have an irreparable impact on his subsequent strategy of unifying China.

When he figured this out, Zhao Dongyun felt that it was necessary to intervene in the situation in Hubei. Wang Shizhen could not be defeated, at least before Fengjun took Jiangsu and Anhui.

At this time, the generals in the conference room continued to discuss, but Zhao Dongyun said, "No matter how Hubei changes, the war in northern Jiangsu is still the same, and the strategic focus of our army in the future is still in northern Jiangsu. I think you all understand this! And Henan can't ignore it. The 11th Division should end its deployment in other areas and then enter the front line of Xinyang, and the patrol force needs to assume the necessary responsibility for the garrison tasks in other areas of Henan!"

"Then transfer the 8th Division to Zhengzhou, the front line of Shijiazhuang and the security tasks along the Jinghan Railway will be temporarily transferred to other troops, and the specific transfer of that unit will be arranged by your combat office separately!"

Speaking of this, Zhao Dongyun said again: "In addition, it is necessary for us to continue to strengthen the training and tasks of the patrol force in the future. Through the performance of the three patrol regiments sent to northern Jiangsu, the patrol force can still play part of the combat tasks after the reorganization. For example, many local defenses in Henan and Nanzhili can be handed over to the patrol force for responsibility!"

In the past month or two, the patrol police forces in the Feng army system have undertaken more and more tasks. In addition to the newly formed patrol police forces in Shandong and Henan provinces, many patrol police regiments established in the three eastern provinces in the early years have actually undertaken the tasks that should have been undertaken by the regular army, such as northern Jiangsu In the upper three patrol regiments, the tasks they are usually responsible for are usually the responsibility of the regular army.

And with a large number of the main troops of the Feng army going south, the rear's combat readiness tasks are actually taken over by the patrol forces, especially in the two regions of the three eastern provinces and Zhili. Although there are still a certain number of regular troops, there is only one tenth mixed brigade left in the three eastern provinces, but only A mixed brigade can't control such a large area in the three eastern provinces, so most areas actually rely on patrol forces to control the deployment, such as Anton Garrison Command, Harbin Garrison Command, etc. They are all patrol regiments.

It's just that even a few patrol forces have a certain combat power, but in fact, these patrol forces are not regular troops anyway. They not only don't have artillery, but even don't have heavy machine guns, and except for the original patrol forces in the three eastern provinces are all equipped with Fuyuan 88 rifles, after entering the customs The patrol troops formed on the ground even have rifles in a mess, even rear-mounted rifles.

In addition to the combat effectiveness of a very small number of patrol forces, the combat effectiveness of most patrol forces is very worrying. Even the provincial forces under Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen and Wu Fengling are not as good as those provincial forces. Although the combat effectiveness of those provincial forces is not good, they still have Type 88 rifles or Japanese New rifles such as this 30-year rifle will also have a considerable number of artillery and heavy machine guns.

Although these provincial forces are not as good as those old Beiyang troops, at least they can be dragged to the battlefield to fight, but the patrol forces made by Zhao Dongyun lack this ability.

Otherwise, Zhao Dongyun would have transferred these patrol troops to the front line to fight against the enemy.

As for the large-scale armed of these patrol forces, the cost performance is too low. These patrol troops are complex, young and young. Even if they are equipped with artillery and heavy machine guns, unless all the soldiers are replaced and the treatment of soldiers is raised, don't expect them to become a regular army.

Although there are a lot of patrol forces in the Feng army, there are dozens of patrol brigades in various provinces, and the total number of troops of Lin Lin is more than 60,000, but in fact, the cost of these patrol forces is very limited, the salaries of soldiers are very low, and there are no heavy weapons. Yes, even a few bullets can be shot in training, and the cost of raising these people is not even as much as Zhao Dongyun's cost of raising a mixed brigade.

If you have the money to build these patrol forces into a regular army, then Zhao Dongyun might as well set up a few new divisions!

Therefore, Zhao Dongyun would rather be directly reorganising the 14th and 15th Divisions than spend a lot of effort to strengthen the training and equipment level of the patrol force.

It's just that the situation is so tense now. Even if the combat effectiveness of these patrol forces is poor, Zhao Dongyun is forced to gradually reuse them.

Zhao Dongyun once again called a number of patrol regiments with good conditions to enter Henan and Nanzhili, but it is far from enough to station patrol regiments in strategic places such as Shijiazhuang.

It is naturally not feasible to transfer a brigade or regiment on a large scale. Nowadays, every main force of the Feng army cannot be easily mobilized. Therefore, Zhao Dongyun has to follow the old method and transfer troops from each unit on a small scale and then form a new force.

Specifically, one infantry battalion of the fifth mixed brigade, an infantry battalion of the seventh mixed brigade, and two infantry battalions of the eighth division took these four infantry battalions as the backbone to form the eleventh mixed brigade. The two missing infantry battalions were slowly trained later. Compared with this 11th mixed brigade, it is ready to garrison in Shijiazhuang. In the short term There will be no large-scale fighting, and there will be time to train the following two infantry battalions.

As for the missing cavalry companies, they first transferred a cavalry platoon from the first cavalry brigade. Although there are many of them in the Feng army, the expansion of the Feng army has been too rapidly recently. The first cavalry brigade has transferred up to four cavalry companies to other newly formed troops, and then have to be transferred cavalry to the 14th Division. The 15th Division is the backbone of the division's cavalry regiment, so it can't be transferred more at all. It can only be to get a cavalry platoon for the 11th mixed brigade first.

And the artillery battalion only transferred four 75mm mountaineers from the 7th Mixed Brigade.

Through this way of patchwork, it finally got a 11th mixed brigade stationed in Shijiazhuang, but this 11th mixed brigade is said to be a mixed brigade, but in fact, it is just the size of a reinforced regiment, with a total strength of less than 3,000.

When Zhao Dongyun deployed troops to reinforce Henan, Hankou, Hubei.

Wang Shizhen's face was gloomy, and an anxious young general beside her said in a panicked tone, "General, it will be too late if we don't break through!"

"Now there are at least 40,000 enemy troops going south in Xiaogan, and there are 50,000 enemy troops who crossed the river yesterday. Now our soldiers are only more than 20,000 soldiers. In addition, there is a lack of ammunition. The soldiers have been fighting hard for many days. If it goes on, I'm afraid..." Another person persuaded.

Wang Shizhen did not answer at the first time, but stood up and looked outside. The smoke rising after the shell exploded in the distance, and the sound of shells and machine guns was constantly coming into his ears. The army of the Southern Federation was getting closer and closer.

At this moment, he remembered that he led his army to fight south at the beginning of the year and killed all the way from Zhili to Hankou, Hubei in less than two months. What a beautiful it was at that time!

But today, half a year later, I was forced to run away?

The blood vessels on Wang Shizhen's clenched fist made people feel as if he was going to break his finger bones!

Wang Shizhen continued to be silent, and the more than a dozen Hubei generals behind him were all looking at me. I looked at you, most of whom looked anxious. After a while, they saw Wang Shizhen turn around.

Then he only heard him say, "Contact Jurentang in the north and say that I want to talk to him!"