Although General Feng Yuxiang had already made up his mind and asked for his resignation from the Military Commission, he was persuaded by Chairman Chiang's kind words, after all, at this time in China, no one with prestige in the army was suitable for being transferred to Shanghai.

However, Chairman Chiang specially appointed Chen Cheng as the commander-in-chief of the former enemy in the Third Theater and the commander-in-chief of the 15th Group Army, and sent additional troops to Shanghai to participate in the war.

At the same time, Gu Zhutong, the deputy commander in charge of actual operations in the headquarters of the Third Theater of Operations in Suzhou, also went to the front-line temporary headquarters in Nanxiang to intercede with Feng Yuxiang.

Later, Feng Yuxiang followed Gu Zhutong back to Suzhou and did not come to the former enemy headquarters in Nanxiang again. He is also self-aware, although he holds the post of vice chairman of the military commissar, but he does not have a single soldier in his hands, and now in the third theater, most of them are in the Central Army, and they are the descendants of Chiang Kai-shek, and they are not something that he, an outsider, can command.

However, Xiao Huang, the deputy chief of staff, was still retained, representing the relevant personnel of the Chief's Department on the front line.

It wasn't until later that Xiao Linghu understood the reason why General Feng Yuxiang scolded General Zhang Zhizhong, in fact, these two people are still fellow villagers in Anhui, and their relationship is usually good.

Zhang Zhizhong's mistake was that the tactics when besieging the Japanese base were wrong, and it is true that the Japanese fortifications were too strong, which caused a great obstacle to the attack of the first one. However, Zhang Zhizhong's tactical mistakes were also the main reason for the failure of this attack.

After a few days of fighting, Chen Cheng, Bai Chongxi and other high-ranking military and political officials went to the front line to investigate, and asked Zhang Zhizhong not to be limited to the solid fighting method of encirclement and contraction, but to break through from the center, and then cut to both sides. Zhang Zhizhong also did according to the above opinions, but the effect was minimal, and the main reason was the lack of follow-up, even if it was defeated, it would not stand. For example, Huishan Wharf, although it was fought down in the end, it was still untenable in the end, and had to be withdrawn in order to avoid greater casualties.

Xiao Linghu also knew that with General Zhang's power, he only had so many troops in his hands, and it was not something he could do to ask him to find more troops to fill the vacancy.

Xiao Linghu was officially transferred to the Third War Zone Guard Regiment, and Gu Zhutong and Feng Yuxiang wanted to return to Suzhou, so they naturally sent him out to escort him.

***************************

Three military command vehicles drove along the Beijing-Shanghai Highway towards Suzhou, and in front of them sat Xiao Linghu and Zhang Shun, with a forward Czech light machine gun on the car. General Feng Yuxiang sat in the middle car, and there were only three entourages in the car behind, and Lin Jinghan was in charge at this time.

After Lin Jinghan finished handling some affairs in Shanghai, he rushed to Nanxianglai, and happened to be appointed by Xiao Linghu as one of his second lieutenant platoon commanders to make up for the lack of yellow hair.

As senior officials, Gu Zhutong and Feng Yuxiang cannot sit in the same car at the same time, which is also a rule, in case there is a car accident, no two people will be injured and killed at the same time. At this time, the car accident is okay, and what I am most afraid of is the bombing of the devil's fighter plane.

However, the highways and railways leading from Shanghai to Nanjing are now blocked by troops mobilized from all over the country, and many troops who have come from afar have been pulled directly by train to Suzhou and Kunshan County, and then get off from Suzhou and Kunshan County and drive on foot to the combat area in Shanghai.

Originally, at the beginning of this operation, the defense of the periphery of Shanghai was divided into two group armies, and Zhang Zhizhong's Ninth Group Army guarded the Beijing-Shanghai line; And Zhang Fakui's Eighth Army guarded the Shanghai-Hangzhou line, so when the battle began, Zhang Zhizhong also became the commander-in-chief of the Left Wing Army very smoothly, and Zhang Fakui naturally became the commander-in-chief of the Right Wing Army.

However, with the development of the war, Japanese reinforcements arrived in the sea off the coast of Shanghai one after another, and their best landing place was naturally placed along the Yangtze River, because after all, the natural conditions here are good, and deep water ports can be found everywhere.

Because of this, the pressure on the Left Wing Army was greatly increased, and the Military Commission had to urgently mobilize a large number of troops from all over the country to defend the areas along the river.

In fact, a long time ago, Nanjing had already judged that if the Japanese army wanted to attack China, the most likely thing was to use the Yangtze River and go upstream from the mouth of the Yangtze River. In order to defend Nanjing, they began to build permanent fortifications on the Wufu Line (Wuxian to Fushan), Xicheng Line (Wuxi to Jiangyin) and Zhajia Line (Zhapu to Jiashan) in 1934, with a total length of more than 100 kilometers. In 1936, a Suzhou-Jiaxing railway was built directly south from Suzhou to Jiaxing through the Wujiang River, and many hidden forts were also built on this railway.

Of course, those so-called first-line, second-line and third-line strategic defense lines will only be used after Shanghai is lost.

Therefore, by this time, because it was necessary to prevent the Japanese army from landing along the Yangtze River, a large number of troops were transferred to the Jiading and Baoshan lines to block the Japanese army's landing.

Today, thousands of troops were coming from the direction of Nanjing, and their three military vehicles were moving in the opposite direction of the main army, which seemed very abrupt.

Xiao Linghu and the convoy had just walked to Huaqiao, and they couldn't walk anymore, so they could only stop on the side of the road and wait for this force to finish.

"Ask which unit they are?" Gu Zhutong said to Xiao Linghu, although he could also casually ask the people on the side, but because of his identity, he still didn't ask.

Xiao Linghu didn't even get out of the car, and when he saw a soldier walking by, he called out to him: "Brother, which unit are you?" ”

"Eighteen Army's!" The soldier replied, not stopping, and had already walked past their car with his gun in his hand.

"Eighteen Army?" Gu Zhutong thought for a moment and said to Xiao Linghu: "You go and ask again, is their Commander Luo here?" If he comes, let him come and answer! ”

"Yes!" Xiao Linghu promised, this time it was impossible to sit in the car and ask, so he could only open the car door, jump out, and look for the back of this team, he thought about how to find a person with a higher official position to ask, if he asked the little soldiers, they would definitely not know anything.

In fact, when he heard that this unit was the Eighteenth Army, Xiao Linghu was a little secretly happy in his heart, because his first unit in the Central Army, the Eleventh Division, was in the series of the Eighteenth Army, and it was the main force of the Eighteenth Army.

In fact, the 18th Army of the National Revolutionary Army can also be regarded as a descendant of the Central Army, founded by Chen Cheng, because the 18 characters can be synthesized into "wood", and the 11 characters can be synthesized into "soil", so the 18th Army is also known as the "civil engineering force".

At this time, there were four divisions under the command of the Eighteenth Army, which was also very different from other armies, so it was no wonder that this army was the descendant of the lineage.

The four divisions were the 11th, 14th, 67th, and 94th Divisions. Among them, the 94th Division was the first to arrive in Shanghai, and on 15 August, it was deployed on the Yangtze River defense line.

In addition to serving as the former commander-in-chief of the enemy in the Third Theater, Chen Cheng also served as the commander-in-chief of the 15th Group Army, and Luo Zhuoying, the commander of the 18th Army, was also the deputy commander-in-chief of this group army.