At the end of a short three-day rest, more than 6,000 officers and men of the Reading Force Regiment once again embarked on the journey and left Haining for Jiaxing. The 30-kilometer flat distance is nothing at the feet of the soldiers of the Reading Force, and the Reading Regiment, which has handled a large number of seized materials and transferred wealth, has a sense of comfort when it travels lightly.

An Yi, who had completed a lot of work in just a few days, was very comfortable in his heart, riding a horse to follow the artillery company, which had increased to 320 officers and soldiers and equipped with 12 75mm guns, and the dark sky and cold wind did not affect his relaxed state of mind in the slightest.

Just after four o'clock in the afternoon, Jiaxing City was in sight, and under the guidance of the newly established military police of the division headquarters, the Reading Force Regiment with strong soldiers and strong horses holding high the battle flag passed through the city, and the whole regiment marched into the Qinghe military camp at the Yinmaqiao outside the Wu Gate in the north of the city and was stationed.

When everything was settled, snow fell in the sky, and the officers and men were overjoyed when they saw this, and they all said that they were fortunate to be stationed, otherwise they would have suffered.

An Yi, Hu Jialin, Yin Jinan, and Yang Bin didn't have time to rest, so they rode on horses and followed the herald of the division headquarters to the camp in the city and reported to the division commander Liu Zhi.

Liu Zhi and Xu Tingyao were very happy with the arrival of An Yi and the others, and motioned for the four of them to sit down at will and drink hot tea first.

Liu Zhi looked at An Yi's clothes and asked in a low voice why An Yi was still dressed as a lieutenant officer? An Yi replied with a smile that he was worried that if he put on a general's uniform and go to the front line, he would be used as a live target by the enemy, which caused Liu Zhi, Xu Tingyao, Ying Rongguang and others to laugh. After laughing, Staff Officer Chen took a stack of "Declarations" from the filing cabinet and put them on the large table, sat down and asked An Yi if he had been interviewed by this reporter named Zhou Chongan?

An Yi, who was confused, grabbed the newspaper and hurriedly browsed it, suddenly put it down and asked in surprise: "Zhou Chong'an, who has never seen this series of reports!" I still don't know if this person is a man or a woman, the so-called neutral and objective "Declaration" has unprecedentedly reported on the Battle of Tonglu for five consecutive issues, and it is very detailed, and the specific process is not very different, where did this reporter get the inside story? How could there be such a positive assessment of our revolutionary army? ”

Xu Tingyao handed An Yi a cup of hot tea and said with a smile: "No matter how much these newspapers advertise themselves as objective and fair, they will be biased, if they continue to stand on the position of warlords and feudal capitalists at this time and publish some articles that damage the image of the revolutionary army, aren't they afraid of provoking fire?" So this change is completely understandable! By the way, did you meet Commander Bai and his party on the way here? ”

"Commander-in-Chief Bai? No, not seen! Isn't it the great day that Chief He led the 14th and 26th armies and the divisions of our army's East Road into Hangzhou City? Commander-in-Chief Bai didn't stay in Hangzhou City to greet Chief He to celebrate the victory, what are you doing here? ”

An Yi looked at Liu Zhi and Xu Tingyao with some puzzlement, thinking that this was really the case, Chief Bai Chongxi was too bad to give Chief He Yingqin face, how could he say that He Yingqin was nominally the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army, and Commander-in-Chief Bai still belonged to the former enemy commander under the leadership of Chief He, and it was understandable that he entered Hangzhou first to obtain meritorious service and glory by his own ability, and who could not blame Chief He for his ineffective fighting? However, when Chief He led his troops to arrive, he still left Hangzhou on his own without mercy, which seemed to have gone a little too far.

Xu Tingyao smiled slightly, and said with an ambiguous expression: "We still belong to the front line here, and the remnants of Sun Chuanfang who are entrenched in the Songjiang line on the outskirts of Shanghai are facing each other, the fourth and fifth regiments of our division have successfully captured the first line of Jiashan, and the first division of General Xue Yue has also suppressed Fengxian, who retreated from Meng Zhaoyue's department of the Zhejiang army, and the entire front is less than ten kilometers away from the enemy. What's more, the grand entrance ceremony of our revolutionary army into Hangzhou has been held for six days, and there is no need to have another ceremony, it is completely a waste of labor and money! ”

An Yi understood the mystery contained in Xu Tingyao's meaningful smile and words, smiled and didn't ask anything more, but Liu Zhi found something after comparing the content of the report of the "Central Daily", and pointed to the continuous report on the declaration and laughed loudly:

"I see...... It seems that the "Declaration" did not interview Xiao Yi, their so-called live reports are actually from the "Central Daily", only the battle of Tonglu is the exclusive news, I now remember, the second day after our division occupied Tonglu City, at the invitation of representatives from all walks of life, we attended the celebration luncheon, there was a young reporter once asked me one or two questions, there were too many people at that time, I didn't pay much attention, just dealt with a few words, the reporter seemed to be called Zhou Chong'an. From this point of view, he had been staying in Tonglu for on-the-spot interviews before the battle, and it was not surprising that he had obtained such detailed information. However, this reporter seems to be very attentive to Xiao Yi and has a good impression, and directly called Xiao Yi General An before Xiao Yi was promoted, which is wrong, haha! ”

"Divisional seat, chief of staff, what is the next combat mission of our regiment? The brothers rested in Haining for three days, and now their hands were itching. An Yi avoided this sensitive topic and actively asked for battle.

Liu Zhi and the others looked at each other and smiled, and were very satisfied with An Yi's initiative to ask for battle. Xu Tingyao motioned to Staff Officer Chen to bring the map and spread it on the table, Liu Zhi stood up and pointed to the map to explain in detail:

"At noon, before returning to Hangzhou, Commander-in-Chief Bai convened a meeting with me, the Chief of Staff, and the commanders of the accompanying divisions to study the situation, and Commander-in-Chief Bai's battle plan was unanimously approved, which coincided with the entire strategic concept formulated by the principal.

At present, the Jiangzuo Army commanded by General Li Zongren has smoothly advanced to Anqing, and the Jiangyou Army commanded by General Cheng Qian has penetrated directly into Xuancheng, and the two armies echo each other across the Yangtze River, making rapid progress, and only need to capture the Hefei line, and Nanjing, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties and the Ten Dynasties, is in sight.

Therefore, Commander-in-Chief Bai planned to successfully occupy the three divisions of the Second Army in Huzhou along the northwest of Taihu Lake, capture Yixing and Changzhou, and finally join forces with Cheng Qian's division to attack Nanjing; Our Eastern Route Army should be divided into two routes, and the left flank of the fourth, fifth, and sixth columns led by Commander He went north as soon as possible to capture Suzhou and Wuxi, occupy Changshu, and then turned east to cut off the retreat of the enemy defending Shanghai; Deputy General Bai led our first, second, and third columns to conquer the Songjiang River, occupy Qingpu and Fengxian, and finally take Kunshan, and approached Shanghai from the west and south.

In this way, the remnants of the enemy can be swept away within ten days, and the entire Jiangnan region will be brought under the rule of our civil administration. ”

An Yi, Hu Zi and the others nodded frequently after looking at the map, and looked at Liu Zhi in unison waiting for orders.

Liu Zhi felt the strong fighting spirit emanating from the generals under his command, and nodded with satisfaction: "At the request of Commander-in-Chief Bai, the first division of our division will assist the 21st Division of the serious general to conquer Songjiang, and the first division will quickly cross the town of Xinta and Shangtao in the west of Dianshan Lake, attack Kunshan by surprise, and then block the enemy's westward escape route in Shanghai.

At present, the 4th and 5th regiments of our division have occupied the Jiashan line together with the officers and men of the 21st Division, and they are about to launch an attack on the enemy in Songjiang. ”

An Yi and his brothers immediately turned their attention to the map again, and Yin Jinan, who reacted quickly, made a slight calculation and said in a low voice:

"The forty-five kilometers from Jiaxing to Xinta Town are all dotted with water network terrain, and then it is not easy to walk along the north from Xinta to the north, and the fifty-five kilometers from Xinta to Kunshan are also complex terrain full of lakes and rivers, and the march will be very difficult, even if we give up the artillery and carry the heavy parts to advance lightly, it will take at least fifty-six hours to complete, which is very tricky!"

"What? Ji Nan, you said that it would only take fifty-six hours to complete the march? Colonel Chen, chief of the operations section, exclaimed.

Yin Jinan raised his head a little puzzled: "That's right! However, we need to draw out three battalions of engineer companies to form a temporary engineer battalion, and with the assistance of the main force of one battalion, we need to start operations in advance, build bridges and open roads along the way, and requisition civilian ships, so as to ensure the rapid advance of the main battalions in the future. Fortunately, although there are many rivers in this area, they are not wide, and the villages and towns are dense, fishermen and boats are available everywhere, otherwise I would not dare to make a rash assertion. ”

Liu Zhi and Xu Tingyao were surprised and extremely satisfied, the two of them knew very well that Yin Jinan, who was honest and meticulous, would never say anything that he was not sure of, and they also knew that Yin Jinan would be wrong, so they hurriedly explained that the original request was a total of seventy-two hours for three full days, and the fifty-six hours judgment you made was too surprising. Xu Tingyao laughed: "I led the Sixth Regiment to follow you together, I have to take a good look at how you did it, and let the officers and soldiers of the Sixth Regiment learn from you." ”

An Yi and the brothers looked at each other and smiled, turned to Liu Zhi and Xu Tingyao and asked, "When will you leave?" And what about the defending enemy in the direction of Kunshan? ”

"According to the plan, you must capture Kunshan by 12 o'clock in the evening of the 27th at the latest. The reason why this company is famous is that in mid-November last year, the company attacked 160 kilometers with 135 officers and men, and in one fell swoop defeated the rebellious General Xia Chao's reading regiment, thus cutting off the last way for General Xia Chao to retreat into Anhui, resulting in General Xia Chao's defeat and capture, and finally being executed by Sun Chuanfang.

Every officer and soldier of this company is equipped with a broadsword, a German-made barge gun, and a German-made flower machine gun. ”

Liu Zhi replied quite solemnly, and after finishing speaking, he secretly paid attention to An Yi's reaction.

Who knew that An Yi, Hu Zi, and Yang Bin didn't care at all, and Yin Jinan, who had silently calculated, raised his head from the map again and asked for instructions:

"Division, chief of staff, today is the 23rd, we need to immediately send a reconnaissance team to reconnoiter the road conditions and the enemy's situation, and tomorrow we have to buy a batch of accessories and materials to build bridges in the city, I hope the division headquarters can support it. Again, due to the frequent dispatch of reconnaissance teams by our regiment in the series of battles after entering Zhejiang, the 20 blank dispatch certificates originally issued by the division headquarters to my regiment have all been used up, and the used originals recovered are in my bag. ”

Liu Zhi nodded understandingly: "No problem...... Glory, give another fifty to Jinan, just write down the number. ”

"Yes!"

Liu Zhi turned to An Yi and said, "It's dark, let's have dinner at my place, let's talk while eating." It's been a long time since I've been able to get together with you, and besides, Xiao Yi has been promoted to general, so I have to celebrate. I have here the good things sent by Commander-in-Chief Bai from Hangzhou, and we will taste them together. ”

"Thank you!" An Yi and the four replied in unison.

Half an hour later, all the generals sat together, enjoying the fragrant abalone hot pot, Dongpo meat and delicious mountain delicacies, drinking mellow champion red and chatting comfortably.

Everyone was quite angry at Tang Shengzhi's unscrupulous large-scale expansion of the army and the monopoly of the Hanyang Arsenal, and Staff Officer Chen bluntly said that this person had become resentful, and then everyone was quite puzzled by the abnormal performance of Zhang Fakui's Fourth Army, which was originally a brother, and was very helpless.

Xu Tingyao and An Yi drank a small glass of each other, put down the glass and sighed loudly: "What is this?" Tang Huzi has full wings, in order to dominate the two lakes to fight against dissidents, even General Yuan Zuming, the commander-in-chief of the left side of our Northern Expeditionary Army, was lured by him to Changde to kill the killer, and after being shot, he shouted that General Yuan Zuming collaborated with the enemy, what else did he dare not do?

Today, Commander-in-Chief Bai quietly told me that Peng Hanzhang, commander of the Ninth Army, who was also under the command of General Yuan Zuming, was also arrested and imprisoned by Tang Shengzhi on the 5th of this month, on the grounds that he had colluded with the enemy to bring disaster to Sangzi. A good end of the Ninth Army dispersed, the commander of the Ninth Army Division He Long led his troops into General Zhang Fakui's headquarters, was reorganized into the 15th Division of Reading Li, the other two divisions scattered and fled, the number of the Ninth Army was immediately pocketed by General Zhu Peide of the Third Army, and Wang Tianpei, the commander of the Tenth Army under the command of General Yuan Zuming, led his troops to flee to Eastern Hubei in a panic.

Alas, a good left army of more than 100,000 people, so dismembered by someone Tang to pieces, since the Northern Expedition, the left army and the direct warlords fought in Xiangxi, and finally overcame the strong enemy and finally drove tens of thousands of direct troops out of western Hubei, who knew that it disappeared in a blink of an eye, which shows how complex and terrible the current situation is! ”

The generals put down their glasses in astonishment, and all of them exclaimed in disbelief. An Yi looked at the mist rising in the hot pot, and suddenly felt that his road ahead was the same as this mist and he couldn't see anything clearly.

(To be continued)