After Xu Zhongshu led his troops to the predetermined battle line, he found that the enemy army in front was not just 20,000 people, but more than 50,000, and he did not hesitate too much, but quickly gave the order to attack.

It's just that the way of attacking is a little different.

Before, Xu Zhongshu's original attack method was very simple, relying on the advantage of troops and firepower, after all, the opponent only had 20,000 people, and his own side launched an attack with 40,000 troops, and occupied the advantage of firepower.

A wave of charges past to defeat the opponent, and even different from stopping the pace, you can directly run all the way to make a quick detour, and successfully detour to the position before the enemy can react, and achieve your strategic goal.

But now, Xu Zhongshu has changed his tactics.

It is naturally inappropriate to make a direct frontal rapid breakthrough, and the opponent has changed from 20,000 to 50,000, and a frontal assault may suffer relatively large casualties.

So what's next?

Naturally, it was a roundabout attack that the South Navy, especially the First Division, was best at.

After arriving at the battle line, Xu Zhongshu and Liang Chenglei, the commander of the Fourth Division, Song You, the commander of the First Cavalry Division, and others after a brief discussion, formally ordered the Fourth Division to launch a frontal diversion attack as the commander of the campaign, while he himself launched a roundabout attack from the north with the First Division and three cavalry divisions.

Leaving only one fourth division to contain in the front, in fact, to put it bluntly, it is not to contain, but to prevent the other side from launching a counteroffensive and cutting off their own rear routes, so after the fourth division arrived at the front line, it only tried to launch a few small-scale infantry attacks, but more often it was a simple artillery bombardment.

This once made the Hetai army on the opposite side think that the Southern Navy was preparing for the artillery bombardment before the general attack.

But half a day later, they discovered that something was wrong, and although the density of artillery bombardment on the opposite side was already very high, the opposing infantry was slow to attack.

When they reacted, they found that there were a large number of enemy troops on the northern flank defense line, and they were under heavy attack by the enemy.

The 13th Division of the Hetai Army, which was deployed on the northern flank, had already declared the defensive line lost less than three hours after the battle began.

Among them, the northernmost brigade of the division could not even hold it for an hour, they relied on the temporarily dug defense line to support it at all, and in less than an hour, the defense line was completely torn apart, and even because the defense line was broken through so quickly, they had no time to stop the retreat, so that they fell into an encirclement.

This situation made the Hetai army very frightened!

The South China Navy can fight, and the firepower is strong, and they have been prepared for this, but they did not expect to be able to fight in this way, and a division in Hetai County generally has three brigades, and one brigade is about 3,000 people.

The deployment of the entire Hetai Army on the northern flank is to rely on a number of mountains, small and medium-sized rivers, and hold the main communication arteries to form a defense line that stretches for about seven kilometers, with a total strength of about 50,000 troops, which can be described as a strong force.

The northern flank of the defensive line on the northern flank also had a division and a half, about fifteen thousand men.

According to the limited battle report, the southern navy attacking the northern flank defense line does not mean that all the main forces of the enemy army, at most the scale of more than 20,000 people, even if the enemy's strength is more, but the disadvantage in strength is not so great as to be unstoppable, not to mention that after discovering that the enemy army took the initiative to the north side, the Hetai army has already begun to draw troops from the frontal defense line to support.

However, reinforcements had just begun to be drawn, and before they could reach the front line, the front line had already been breached.

And when they wanted to close the rout and organize the second line of defense, they saw the roaring cavalry, not twelve thousand, but more than ten thousand cavalry.

This made many generals of the Hetai Army either show despair or scold their mothers after seeing it.

And the words of one of the Hetai Army Shaoqing are enough to represent their common thoughts: "It's over!" ”

When the Hetai army was desperate, Xu Zhongshu looked at the cavalry roaring in front of him with a smile!

And the commander of a battalion of the first division on the side was a little unwilling, muttering to himself: "We have worked hard to break through the defense line, and these cavalrymen have come up to grab the credit!" ”

Someone else said: "Isn't it, when the front was attacking the defensive line, I didn't see these cavalry masters come to help, they were all watching the play in the back, and now they are rushing faster than rabbits after the fight, and those who don't know see it and think that they fought the battle!" ”

"Who made them have six legs, pock!"

Xu Zhongshu naturally knew about the complaints of his subordinates, but he didn't say anything, after all, from the perspective of his subordinates, they did the dirty work, but the meritorious work was robbed by the cavalry.

But the infantry broke through the defensive line, and the cavalry attacked to capture the depths, and carried out a quick detour to outflank them, which was their predetermined battle plan.

Why did Lin Ziran let Xu Zhongshu and them take a full three cavalry divisions, it was because they took a fancy to the cavalry division's short-distance high-speed maneuverability.

With the mobility of the cavalry division, it is estimated that in less than half an hour, it will be able to completely detour back to its position and cut off the retreat of the 40,000 or 50,000 Hetai troops in front of it.

This time, the battle plan was formulated by Xu Zhongshu very simply.

The 4th Division was pinning down head-on, pretending to attract the enemy's attention, while the 1st Division and the three cavalry divisions began to make a rapid detour.

After returning to its position, the 1st Division carried out the most fierce assault on the enemy troops on the north flank, and did not need to completely crush the enemy's defense line on the north flank, but only needed to break through one of the sections of the defense line of a few hundred meters or so.

Relying on a mere few hundred meters of defense, the 1st Division was able to completely tear open and open the gap in the defensive line, and then establish a passage sufficient for the cavalry troops to pass quickly.

To put it bluntly, the task of the 1st Division is to open the gap in the defensive line for the three cavalry divisions!

Next, the 1st and 4th Divisions will continue to launch onslaught, while the three cavalry divisions will run wildly, penetrating directly into the enemy's rear, knocking out the enemy's logistics, command, and communication nodes, and cutting off the enemy's retreat.

In a way, this is not a forbidden siege!

As long as the cavalry assault is in place, the more than 10,000 cavalry will directly transform into infantry and begin to dig trenches for defensive operations.

In this way, the 4th Division on the front, the 1st Division on the north side, and the cavalry on the east side can form a situation of encirclement on three sides.

Whether it is to force the enemy army to retreat to the south or to say that the enemy army is stubbornly resisting, it makes no difference to Xu Zhongshu.

If the enemy retreated, he would send cavalry to pursue, and under the pursuit of three cavalry divisions, if the enemy could still successfully retreat, the cavalry commander Song You would have to draw his sword and kill himself.

If the enemy army does not retreat, then encircle and annihilate!

Either way, these 50,000 enemy troops are finished!

This time in the northward detour, Xu Zhongshu not only had to make a strategic detour, but he also had to easily kill the 50,000 enemy troops and lay the foundation for the subsequent battle of Huaijiang!

()