An Yi, Hu Jialin and others, who received the combat mission, rushed back to Daying Town non-stop, made the final adjustment of the fronts of each division before the battle, and waited for Gu Zhutong to launch an attack on the defending enemy in Chuzhou when the third division arrived. At noon the next day, Gu Zhutong led all the three divisions into the line from Gaozu Temple to Huangwei to stand by, but An Yi suddenly received a report from Bai Chongxi that he was "waiting for orders according to the troops", which made the officers and men of the division confused.

An Yi was puzzled, and immediately called Gu Zhutong and Hu Zongnan, the acting commander of the First Division, to inquire about the reason, and learned that almost all the units of the Second Route Army to which the three divisions belonged stopped advancing, and the First Division was also ordered to rest on the spot after crossing the Jiangbei and entering Taishan Temple, and they did not know the reason.

An Yi suddenly felt the seriousness of the problem, and immediately activated the second radio station to communicate frequently with the old Nanchang base, and only then did he understand that there were rumors that Zhu Peide's Third Army stationed in Jiangxi wanted to build a counter-attack on Nanjing's political axe, and wanted to take advantage of the fact that the main force of Nanjing had gone north to cooperate with Tang Shengzhi's Eighth Army and other units to attack Nanjing from Jiujiang.

An Yi immediately convened the commanders of each regiment and battalion to urgently discuss countermeasures, and discussed the information collected from all sides.

The four divisions of General Zhu Peide's Third Army were only more than 32,000 people, while the total number of the four divisions of General Zhu Peide's Third Army was nearly 42,000, while General He Yaozu's division, the guard units of the military headquarters, the guard regiment of the General Headquarters, and the artillery units directly under him totaled nearly 40,000, and with the three divisions of General Li Zongren's Seventh Army stationed in Anqing, west of Nanjing, Zhu Peide's troops would certainly not act as Tang Shengzhi's vanguard at this time, so there was no need to worry too much about this, and only needed to make all the preparations before the attack.

The situation was just as An Yi and his brothers had analyzed, under the instigation of Wuhan political axe and Tang Shengzhi, the eager Zhu Peide's Third Army did not have the courage to march eastward, and Commander-in-Chief Chiang saw that the Eighth Army in Wuhan was pressing towards the eastern Hubei line, and immediately became vigilant, and at the same time activated the propaganda machine to question and openly criticize the signs of contradictions provoked by the Wuhan political axe, he secretly telegraphed General Li Zongren to go to Jiujiang to do the work of General Zhu Peide, and mobilized an army stationed on the border of Jiangxi and Guangdong to make a trend of going north to Nanchang. Zhu Peide, who forced him to hesitate, finally gave up the idea of the Eastern Crusade.

The pro-Chiang media in Shanghai, Nanjing, Nanchang and other countries immediately echoed and strongly questioned and criticized Wuhan's "sinister intentions".

Under the pressure of huge public opinion, the Eighth Army had no choice but to stop its eastward advance, claiming that it was just a normal exercise of small forces.

At the same time as meeting with General Zhu Peide, General Li Zongren secretly sent Chief of Staff Wang Yingyu to Wuhan to secretly negotiate with Tang Shengzhi and reach an agreement to resolve internal contradictions after the Northern Expedition.

On 15 May, General Li Zongren, who had no worries about the future, left two divisions to defend Anqing and Wuhu, and personally led the main force of the Seventh Army, Hu Zongduo's Second Division, to the north at a rapid pace, and joined up with Xia Wei's First Division, breaking the Zhilu Allied Army Cheng Guorui's army of more than 20,000 troops in Chaoxian County, and achieving a great victory in Chaoxian County, in which more than 3,000 enemies were annihilated and more than 4,000 enemies were captured.

But it is a pity that Cheng Guorui, the commander of the enemy army mixed with the captives, changed into the clothes of a soldier and was not recognized, and Cheng Guorui successfully escaped in the evening of the same day.

Afterwards, Li Zongren, who learned the news, stomped his feet and sighed, regretting it, and the officers and men of the first division of Xia Wei of the Seventh Army were helpless, because more than 17,000 officers and soldiers under Xia Wei were all Bagui soldiers from Guangxi, with unique accents, and they could not communicate with the prisoners at all, so that there was no way for a large number of senior generals and colonels of the enemy army mixed in to escape successfully.

Under the unified command of Li Zongren, the Seventh Army, the 44th Army, and the 10th Army, which captured Chaoxian, pressed non-stop to the front line of Hefei.

After receiving a telegram from Li Zongren of the Third Route Army on the left flank, Bai Chongxi was greatly relieved and immediately issued an offensive order to all units of the Second Route Army under his command.

The next morning, General Chen Tiaoyuan's 37th Army captured Quanjiao County in one fell swoop, General He Yaozu's headquarters captured Hanshan and immediately turned around and went north, General Yang Jie's headquarters engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with the defending enemy in the south of Chuzhou, and the first division led by Hu Zongnan joined Gu Zhutong with the third division and stormed the periphery of Chuzhou from the southeast.

At the beginning of the battle, in addition to artillery bombardment and sporadic fire on the spot, An Yi's reading division did not charge the enemy positions on the periphery of Chuzhou City like other roads, but ordered a special detachment to sneak out at the first time to launch a surprise attack on a company defending the enemy in Shahe Town, 15 kilometers north of Chuzhou. He sent Gu Changfeng's 3rd Regiment and Xia Jiandi's 1st Regiment, who were good at sports warfare, to make a detour to the northeast of Chuzhou City, and sent the battle report to the commander-in-chief, General Bai Chongxi, in a timely manner, which was highly praised and praised by Bai Chongxi.

At 5:30 p.m., Du Fengju in the city of Chuzhou faced the onslaught of more than 30,000 superior troops of the revolutionary army's Yang Jie's department, Gu Zhutong's department, and Hu Zong's southern part of the army. After receiving the news that the railway had been bombed and An Yi's reading division had made a detour to the northeast, he immediately lost all confidence, and in the panic of worrying that the rear road would be cut off, he decisively ordered to leave two divisions behind, and most of the other main forces abandoned the city and retreated. Under the fierce attack led by Gu Zhutong and Hu Zongnan, the whole army fled in less than half an hour, and the main force of the Northern Expeditionary Army marched into Chuzhou City.

Xie Changjie's division, which was ordered to block An Yi's two regiments head-on, had only more than 5,000 people, and as soon as he entered the blocking position, he saw Gu Changfeng and Xia Jiansuo rushing from two directions, and the Cheng Guang in the west led the Reading Force Regiment to also approach at full speed to participate in the attack, and seven or eight thousand officers and soldiers held high dozens of banners of model battalions rolling in from the east and northeast, bright red as blood in the setting sun, extremely eye-catching.

As soon as Xie Changjie saw the banner of the model battalion, he was immediately distraught, and in desperation, he could only order his subordinates to lay down their weapons and raise the white flag, and An Yi's division captured more than 4,000 enemy soldiers without blood, and captured more than 3,800 guns of various kinds, eight mortars and a large amount of ammunition.

Gu Zhutong, Hu Zongnan, Yang Jie and other troops who rushed into the city had limited income except for packing up some miscellaneous items, and when they learned that An Yi's reading force was satisfactorily reorganizing the prisoners in the west of the city, they immediately sent their horses to congratulate them.

Gu Zhutong and Hu Zongnan led their generals under the escort of two company guards, and soon came to Xiaoleizhuang, three kilometers west of the city.

After greeting each other, Gu Zhutong, who was immediately there, pointed at the black pressure and suppressed thousands of prisoners and asked loudly: "Xiao Yi, what are you going to do with these soldiers?" ”

An Yi naturally knew what Gu Zhutong meant by asking this, and smiled knowingly: "The instructor and senior brother came just in time, the junior brother was about to send someone to find you, General Xie Changjie led his troops to surrender, we can't treat others badly, the junior brother is not sure how to deal with it, so he called Chief Bai to seek advice on disposal, and Chief Bai ordered his subordinates to leave the two to deal with, you can do it!" ”

"Hey, leave it to us? Why are you going by yourself? ”

Hu Zongnan's first division currently has only more than 7,000 people, and it is not yet full, and he hurried here for this group of prisoners.

An Yi explained: "The younger brother received an urgent telegram from Chief Bai, and immediately attacked Lai'an, twenty kilometers to the northeast, saying that it was 'one go, take advantage of the victory to pursue', and the younger brother had no choice but to be ordered to pull." ”

Gu Zhutong glanced at the soldiers of the Reading Division who were slowly sorting out their outfits around the position, and asked An Yi in surprise: "Then you still don't take advantage of the victory to pursue?" What are you doing here? ”

"The pursuit has already begun, and the brothers of the Chen Zhibiao Second Regiment, the division's teaching team, the engineer battalion and the guard battalion have already followed the fleeing enemy to start the pursuit. There is only one regiment of defending the enemy in Lai'an County, and there are only about 3,000 people in two regiments of the fleeing enemy. So you don't need too many people. An Yi replied easily.

Gu Zhutong, Hu Zongnan and others looked at each other, and admired the reconnaissance and intelligence work of An Yi's department very much, and just as he was about to open his mouth to praise two sentences, An Yi had already beaten his horse backwards, and after a while, he led the bearded enemy surrender Major General Xie Changjie and seven or eight school officers to Gu Zhutong and others.

Everyone got off the horse to meet each other, Xie Changjie and the others saw that Gu Zhutong and Hu Zongnan and others were very kind, so they relaxed their hearts, saluted each other, greeted each other for a while, and then discussed the aftermath.

After everyone finished discussing, Xie Changjie and the others, who were determined to return to the field, wanted to say goodbye to An Yi, An Yi was already driving towards Lai'an County several kilometers away, and the tails of the logistics departments were still in sight.

"Xiao Yi, this guy actually said goodbye! Since you know that Lai'an County can be easily won, why are you in such a hurry? The second head of the regiment, Li Yutang, said dissatisfiedly.

Gu Zhutong laughed in a low voice: "What the hell is this guy!" You see, which of these thousands of captives still has a weapon in his hand? He must have been swept all clean, and I guess this guy was afraid that we would rob him, so he slipped away quietly. Zongnan, my third division is full and doesn't need to be captured, it seems that you have to hurry up and send a telegram to the principal, asking the principal to allocate weapons for you to cross the river as soon as possible, haha! ”

"Grandma's An Yi, actually made such a fuss for me, look back and see how I clean you up......"

Hu Zongnan looked at the northwest direction and scolded angrily, most of the other battalion commanders of the first division were from the first phase of Huangpu, and they had nothing to do with the cunning An Yi, because they wanted to reorganize the prisoners and didn't have time to catch up with them cheekily, so they had to scold and lead the prisoners into the city.

In the middle of the night, the Pukou headquarters was brightly lit, and more than a dozen generals and commanders gathered together to summarize and evaluate the first phase of the battle and determine the detailed plan for the next operation.

After reading the telegrams sent back by the various armies and divisions, Bai Chongxi couldn't help but smile slightly: "You don't know if you noticed? Each division had more than 100 casualties, and only An Yi's reading division reported 17 minor injuries, which is interesting! ”

Zhang Dingfan said with a smile: "The subordinates also noticed that An Yi fought very smartly in this battle, and after seeing the enemy's three trains entering Chuzhou, he foresaw that the enemy was going to flee, so he decisively blew up the Shahe Iron Bridge, and it was blown up very cleverly, only blowing up about 150 meters of track, without hurting the bridge, and then decisively divided the troops and made a detour to outflank, and forced more than 5,000 people of Xie Changjie's division to abandon their weapons and surrender without much effort, which shows that An Yi's battle is getting smarter and smarter. ”

"This young man is good! Less than four hours after the end of the battle in Chuzhou City, he was easily taken down by Lai'an City, this combat power and speed are very rare! ”

Chen Tiaoyuan, who had seen An Yi's ability for the first time, showed appreciation on his face.

General He Yaozu smiled and asked: "Brother Jiansheng, An Yi's Reading Division occupies Lai'an, and its position is already twenty kilometers ahead of the entire battle line, and it is very vulnerable to the attack of the enemy troops on the two sides of the Half Tower in the northeast and the Three Realms in the northwest. ”

Bai Chongxi said with a smile: "Brother Guiyan doesn't need to worry about him, with An Yi here, even if the enemies of the two divisions attack him at the same time, they can't get the slightest benefit from him, I'm afraid that he will be bitten hard by him, not to mention that he has a reputation, and he can scare the enemy army, haha!" ”

Everyone looked at Bai Chongxi in surprise, and they were all surprised that Bai Chongxi, who regarded himself as extremely high, praised An Yi so much. Bai Chongxi smiled disappreciatively, and then discussed the next step with everyone.

(To be continued)