The atmosphere in Hangzhou City became tense with the approach of the 202nd Army, and Gu Shoufu, who was almost mad because of the lack of troops, went around to raise troops, and at this time he only had a disgruntled 32nd mixed brigade in his hands, plus the original garrison wing of Hangzhou City, with a total strength of more than 9,000 troops, and it was a dream to rely on such a force to resist the wolf-like 202nd Army.

Gu Shoufu, as a senior general, is naturally aware of this, but he is not without countermeasures, and his biggest reliance is that he owns the Qiantang River. In his opinion, even if the 202nd Army can reach Hangzhou, it will be very difficult to pass through a river with a maximum width of more than 100 kilometers and a narrowest width of more than 1,000 meters.

Gu Shoufu asked the country to urgently dispatch reinforcements to Hangzhou as quickly as possible, and at the same time, he pulled Zhuang Ding everywhere, expanding the Imperial Association Army, which was originally less than 3,000 people and lacked guns and ammunition, to more than 8,600 people in just three days, and such a speed of expansion is estimated to be rare in the world.

On 9 November, the armored regiment, which was the vanguard of the army, came to Xiaoshan County and exchanged fire with the garrison brigade of the Imperial Association Army stationed here. Just yesterday, the 348th Division and the 349th Division were divided, and Zhang Danian led the 349th Division to Shaoxing and Ningbo, so the next heavy task of attacking Hangzhou fell on the shoulders of the 348th Division.

For the independent completion of the important task of recovering Hangzhou, Li Wei's heart was also a little apprehensive at the beginning, Hangzhou is not as good as Hengzhou and Jinhua, it is a provincial capital city with a population of more than two million, and the casualties and costs that need to be paid to occupy this city are definitely not low, if it is not good, the 348th Division will be greatly injured for this, if it is not for the news from all sides that shows that the Hangzhou army at this time is empty, he will persuade Su Jin to stop attacking Hangzhou.

The news that Xiaoshan County had been breached in less than ten minutes strengthened Li Wei's determination, so he rushed to Xiaoshan County with a guard company in advance, where he saw Fred commanding the troops to clean up the battlefield.

Li ...... Why did you get here so early? Seeing Li Wei's arrival, Fred couldn't help but feel very surprised, "We haven't cleared the Japanese army on this road yet, and if you come here like this, it will be dangerous if you encounter the remnants of the Japanese army." ”

"What danger can there be?" Li Wei waved his hand indifferently, "Old Fu, I came here this time to tell you, I just received the news, Adele is nothing serious, the doctor said that it was just rubbed by the shock wave of the cannonball, and it is good to cultivate for a month, you don't have to worry." ”

"Thank you for your concern." Fred nodded, a hint of comfort flashed on his always serious face, and then he said seriously: "Also, can you not call me Lao Fu in the future, you either call me my rank or my name, please call me Fred!" ”

"Who made your name too hard to remember." Li Wei smiled and said, "It's kind to call Lao Fudo, you say yes." ”

Seeing Li Wei's straightforward appearance, Fred had no choice but to dispel the idea of correcting.

"Okay, don't look like that, you have to follow the local customs, you know?" Li Wei is more anxious and likes to joke, he patted Fred on the shoulder and smiled: "Okay, let's get serious, you tell me more details about the battle just now." ”

"Okay!" As soon as he talked about the matter, Fred immediately entered the state of a professional soldier, and immediately said solemnly: "Li, when we attacked just now, we did not encounter decent resistance, all the Japanese ran to the other side of the river, leaving only a few hundred guards left, and as soon as we launched an attack, all of them surrendered, and it seems that the Japanese have abandoned this place." ”

Li Wei's eyebrows furrowed: "You mean to say that the Japanese are planning to make a final resistance in Hangzhou?" ”

Fred said solemnly: "Judging from the information we have now, this is indeed the case. ”

Li Wei was silent for a while and resolutely said, "Old Fu, are you interested in going to the riverside to have a look?" ”

Fred said indifferently: "Of course...... Why not? ”

Both of them are talking about the character of leaving, immediately jumped into a jeep next to them after speaking, Li Wei stepped on the accelerator after ignition, twisted the steering wheel, and the car immediately galloped towards the northwest, until then the guards of the two people reflected, and hurriedly drove after it......

Because he was not familiar with the road, Li Wei drove the car through the street for more than 30 minutes, and after asking several passers-by, he drove to Shangshabu in Lianzhuang Village, which is located on the south bank of the Qiantang River, and the car stopped by the river, and the two got out of the car and walked to the riverside, and the first thing that caught their eyes was a bridge over the Qiantang River that had been blown into several sections.

Looking at the huge railroad bridge in front of him, Fred couldn't help but sigh: "This is really a great bridge, but it's a pity to be blown up like this, I heard that this bridge was blown up after only 89 days of completion and opening to traffic, I have to say that this is a great regret and waste." ”

Hearing this, Li Wei's face also sank, and he snorted coldly before saying: "It's okay, wait until we recover Hangzhou and then repair it again, now I want to see how those remnants in Hangzhou City can resist the attack of our tens of thousands of troops." ”

Seeing that Li Wei's mood was not very good, Fred wisely did not continue on this, but pointed ahead and said: "But I have to remind you that our biggest difficulty before that is how to send our troops across the Yangtze River on the opposite side. ”

Hearing this, Li Wei also rushed to have a headache, he took out his binoculars and looked towards the north bank of the Qiantang River, and soon saw that there were many people wearing khaki military uniforms on the opposite bank of the river, and he could even see the shadows of a few artillery, and the muzzles of those cannons naturally pointed to the south bank of the river without exception.

When he put down the binoculars, Fred had already finished observing, only to see him pointing to the opposite side and saying: "Li, you see, if we want to go over, we can only build a pontoon bridge, according to the visual inspection of the width of the river here is at least more than 1,000 meters, it is not so easy to build such a long pontoon bridge, and the Japanese will not let us build a pontoon bridge comfortably." ”

Hearing this, Li Wei rushed to have a headache, he was originally a person with no formal education, if he hadn't started to study on his own under the pressure of Su Jin in the past two years, I'm afraid that he would still be a big man who can't read a basket of big words, he shouted: "Come on, call me the commander of the Zhouqiao Battalion!" ”

Soon, a major in his thirties, rushed over and saluted the two of them: "Report to the chief, Xi Lianglin, the commander of the Zhouqiao Battalion directly under the 348th Division, has been ordered to come and report!" ”

Li Wei didn't talk nonsense, and asked directly: "Battalion Commander Xi, I just want to know now, can your Zhouqiao Battalion erect a pontoon bridge on the Qiantang River, and how much time will it take?" ”

Xi Lianglin said without thinking, "Shizuo, the Qiantang River is too wide, we have never built such a long pontoon bridge, there is really no guarantee that it will be successfully erected, and I estimate that as long as we build a bridge, the Japanese will definitely fire at us, so it will be difficult for us to even ensure our own safety, let alone erect a pontoon bridge." ”

"What about a different place, such as a place where the two sides of the strait are closer to each other?"

"No way!" Xi Lianglin pointed to the broken Qiantang River Bridge on the river and said, "Do you know why the bridge was erected here?" This is because the water flow in this area is the most stable, and it is also the most suitable for building bridges, and there are no places near here where the two rivers are closer from time to time, but why bridge experts want to erect bridges here is because the water flow in other places is too turbulent and not suitable for building bridges at all, so if you want to erect pontoon bridges in this area, only here is the most suitable. ”

"Is it really that serious?" Hearing Xi Lianglin say this, Li Wei also realized the seriousness of the matter.

"That's right!" Fred on the side also said with a serious expression: "Li ...... It seems that you still don't pay much attention to the knowledge of logistics support, you must know that the boat-bridge troops are the most vulnerable when they erect pontoon bridges, and as long as a few shells fall, most of the day's hard work of the boat-bridge troops can be wiped out, which is really too common. ”

"Then what should we do, we can't fly over, can we?" Li Wei was also dumbfounded, originally he thought that as long as the Zhouqiao troops built the bridge, and then the armored troops could rush over and annihilate the Japanese on the other side, but he didn't expect that it would be so difficult to erect a pontoon bridge.

When several people were looking at each other, there was a faint buzzing sound in the sky, and soon a silver-white figure appeared in the sky, and after circling in the sky, this figure lowered its altitude and flew towards the north bank of the river.

"Huh...... That's our reconnaissance plane! ”

After seeing the plane, Li Wei suddenly slapped his thigh: "You see if this will work, when the heavy artillery regiment arrives, we will immediately let the heavy artillery regiment set up a position here, and then use the heavy artillery to block this generation of areas, prevent the Japanese from coming, and then ask the military seat for air support, as long as you find the Japanese nearby, you will immediately greet them with heavy artillery, so that your boat bridge battalion should have the confidence to assume the bridge for me, right?" ”

"This ......" Xi Lianglin hesitated for a moment before he said: "Master, it will take at least two or three days to erect such a long pontoon bridge, can we block this area for so long?" ”

"If it doesn't work, it has to work!" Li Wei gritted his teeth and said: "Lao Tzu is also out of the way, you must take this Hangzhou City down for me!" (To be continued.) )