After the northern defense area of Zhenbei City was divided and surrounded, the news of the annihilation of the defenders reached the main defense area in the central part of Zhenbei City, and Xia Sheng Shaoqing, commander of the Ninth Division of Pingnan Prefecture, only sighed lightly.

As for the fall of the northern defense zone, he had already expected it.

Not only him, but even others could have somewhat predicted this result.

A few days ago, when the 6th Division of the Southern Army on the opposite side entered the combined zone of the northern and central defense zones and approached the urban area on the north side, many people were already aware of the danger.

Therefore, it will continue to resist desperately in the central and northern junctions, and at the same time mobilize the Ninth Division, the last strategic reserve, to launch a counteroffensive against the frontal enemy in the central and the frontal positions of the Fourth Division in the south, especially on the No. 6 Heights.

Because the enemy artillery units deployed on the No. 6 heights are too much of a threat to their own side.

If we can't recapture it by counterattack, the situation will be ruined sooner or later.

However, their counteroffensive did not achieve any results except for their own casualties of thousands of people, well, in fact, there were, at least their counteroffensive consumed a large number of ammunition reserves of the Fourth Division and other troops, so that the ammunition reserves of the Fourth Army were in a hurry, and they needed to be replenished only from the rear.

But strategically, the counteroffensive of the 9th Division was a complete failure.

Failing to recapture the No. 6 heights, they can only watch the artillery above continue to bombard their own high-value targets, and because of the terrain advantage, these artillery pieces can not only cover most of the war, but also condescendingly carry out precision strikes.

In this way, the breakthrough of the enemy's 6th Division became a logical thing.

When the enemy's 6th Division reached the bank of the Jing River, the northern defense area was completely divided and surrounded.

Subsequently, in the face of the huge infantry strength of the enemy's 11th, 6th, and 19th divisions, and with the support of a large number of artillery in the rear, more than 20,000 defenders who were divided and surrounded in the northern defense area became impossible to continue to hold on.

After the rout, the only option was to surrender the whole army after being overwhelmed.

As for desperately resisting to the last soldier, this is impossible.

After all, this is just a civil war, and everyone knows it very well, not only for middle and senior generals, but also for junior officers, and even for ordinary soldiers.

If the situation is okay, it can also allow the soldiers to bear a certain amount of casualties for defensive operations.

However, when the situation is corrupt, the casualties are relatively large, and at the same time there is no hope of breaking through, let alone ordinary soldiers, even middle and high-ranking generals do not want to continue fighting.

So they surrendered!

What should we do now after the destruction of the entire army in the northern defense zone?

Xia Sheng Shaoqing didn't know, and others didn't know either.

Now that the fall of the northern defense zone begins, it is just the fall of one place, but in fact this will cause a cascade of negative reactions.

The fall of the northern defense zone meant that the area of the entire Zhenbei defense line would be directly reduced to a large area, and the defenders would be further pressed into an area of less than twenty square kilometers.

At the same time, the annihilation of more than 20,000 defenders in the northern defense zone meant that the enemy was able to free up at least three divisions of the main force to participate in the siege of the central and southern regions.

As for the central and southern regions, the pressure was already very great, with three infantry divisions of the enemy's Third Army and the enemy's fourth division.

If the strength of these three divisions is added, the defenders of the central and southern defense zones will fall into an absolute disadvantage in terms of strength.

At that time, even if you rely on the fortifications to resist stubbornly, I am afraid that you will not be able to hold out for long.

In addition, there is also a very critical problem that the defense line of their Zhenbei City has already been completely surrounded and blocked, and the river transportation has also been greatly restricted.

Previously, they were also able to rely on the river defense batteries in the north of the town and the gunboats upstream to assist each other and block the warships of the Southern Army from entering the upstream, so as to protect the upstream supply ships from entering in a steady stream.

Even though the enemy's 11th Division had already made a detour to the north and set up artillery along the river.

But that section of the river is vast, the enemy's artillery wants to blockade it is still a little difficult, it is really not possible, they can also take advantage of the night to quietly go down the river, although occasionally there will be supply ships are sunk, but there are still transport ships taking advantage of the night to cross the blockade of the shore fire, and then go south to reach the Zhenbei City Wharf.

However, with the fall of the northern defense area, the enemy army is now directly erecting artillery on several high ground in the northern defense area, and the erection of artillery on these high ground can directly bombard the riverside wharf in the north of the town.

At noon that day, the enemy had already used artillery to carry out a fierce artillery bombardment of the port and wharf area of Zhenbei City from several high ground in the northern defense area.

In the heavy shelling, the port facilities were almost completely destroyed, the warehouses were in ruins, some of the materials that had not had time to be transferred were also destroyed, and even a ship that had taken advantage of the night to go south last night was sunk in the port because it was too late to return north.

What does this mean?

This means that the river supply line of the defense line of Zhenbei City has been completely cut off.

Their troops were pressed into a small area of less than 20 square kilometres, while the port area was heavily shelled, causing supplies to be diverted.

In this case, how long can you hold out?

Xia Sheng is not optimistic about this!

Xia Sheng is like this, and most of the others are like this, so in the Zhenbei City Urban Defense Headquarters, the generals are all sad!

However, just frowning can't stop the attack of the Jingzhou Front Army of the Lin Dynasty of the Great Heng Empire!

After taking the northern defense area, just as Xia Sheng expected, the Jingzhou Front quickly mobilized the troops of the 6th, 19th and 11th divisions to attack from north to south!

At this time, the Jingzhou side was already in the central and southern defense zone of Zhenbei City, and in addition to the numerous artillery units, there were seven infantry combat units participating in the front-line offensive.

The battle was in full swing, the sound of shell explosions continued, and the occasional roar of a two-hundred-millimeter cannon could be heard, which was the Luo Hai dome cruiser that had risked running aground and ran to the middle reaches of the Jing River for fire support.

After the arrival of the cruiser Luohai, it used its strong firepower for many days to give strong fire support to the army units.

In particular, the 200 mm 25 times the naval guns carried were extremely powerful, and in order to carry out long-range artillery bombardment more accurately, the cruiser Luo Hai could directly anchor and fix the ship and open fire.

Although there was a risk of being attacked by enemy boats, there were a large number of river gunboats and offshore vessels in front of the cruiser Luohai, so the danger was controllable.

Using the huge power of the 200-millimeter naval gun, coupled with the high-value target orientation given by the army, and the auxiliary shooting of the balloon, the gunners on the cruiser Luohai were able to give full play to the huge power of the 200-millimeter gun.

Even if the rate of fire is slow, it can't stand the huge power, and a shell smashing it is earth-shattering!

In the past few days, the cruiser Luohai has destroyed many high-value targets, and all of them cannot be destroyed by the army's 150-millimeter guns.

On the one hand, there was strong fire support from the navy, on the other hand, the army itself had many artillery, and the attacking infantry occupied an absolute numerical advantage.

The offensive of the Jingzhou Front is getting smoother and smoother, and at the same time, it also means that the defenders of Pingnan Prefecture are becoming more and more uncomfortable.

How long can they hold out in this situation?