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Chapter 1383 Casting Steel Fortress

Early in the morning, a huge convoy of 15 motorcycles, mixed with armored fighting vehicles, communications command vehicles, air defense combat vehicles, off-road vehicles, and military trucks, drove mightily into Nanxiang Town, more than 20 kilometers northwest of Shanghai. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

General Feng Yuxiang, commander of the theater, General Gu Zhutong, deputy commander of the theater, General Zhang Fakui, commander of the Eighth Group Army, General Zhang Zhizhong, commander of the Ninth Group Army, General Liu Jianxu, commander of the Tenth Group Army (with the rank of lieutenant general plus general), Major General Yang Hu, commander of the Songhu garrison, and General Chen Cheng, who had just been appointed commander of the 15 th Group Army, gathered at the entrance of Nanxiang Town with the main generals and staff teams under their command to greet the arrival of General An Yi, chief of staff of the theater.

In a secret telegram sent yesterday to his confidant generals, Chiang Kai-shek said: "An Yi has experience in dealing with the enemy, and if I come to command in person during this trip to Shanghai, I hope to listen to suggestions and dispatches." He vaguely pointed out the ownership of the command of the theater, and he did not want to raise his spirits because he would not be able to do so, lest he would snub this lord of the Chincha.

More than 300 kilometers from Nanjing to Shanghai, due to uneven roads, and on the road to meet with Gu Changfeng and other generals of the 24 th Army in Changshu, the time was delayed, and they set off from Nanjing yesterday afternoon, and only now have they arrived in the suburbs of Shanghai.

After sleeping in the car for a few hours, An Yi picked up the list of participating troops in the Songhu Theater as soon as it was dawn and carefully flipped through it. As the chief of staff, if he does not know the name, place of origin, and strength of the generals under his command, it will be a big joke.

At this time, the convoy suddenly stopped, An Yi's body paused slightly, he was a little surprised, his eyes moved away from the document, and he saw that Xiao Jiu had already run over from the front, and leaned close to the window to report: "Commander, the commanders of the theater are greeting you in front, look ......"

When An Yi heard this, he hurriedly sorted out his military uniform, pushed the car door and walked down, and Shen Fengdao, who was sitting in the passenger seat, hurriedly followed.

At this time, a group of bigwigs, accompanied by Lieutenant General Lin Fei, chief of staff of the Southwest Air Force, Major General Xu Boqian, chief of the liaison office, and Colonel Qin Zhankui, deputy commander of the Air Defense Command, and other generals of the An Jiajun Army, rushed to An Yi's special car. Where did An Yi dare to put up a fight in front of this group of bigwigs, he hurriedly caught up, he didn't want to be sick and healed, and almost stumbled to the ground, if it wasn't for Shen Fengdao's quick help, he would have made a fool of himself in front of the crowd.

Feng Yuxiang, who had the highest status, was the first to come to An Yi's side and said with concern: "General An, you must take care of your body, there are a lot of things in this war zone, and we are still waiting for you to take precautions one by one!" ”

An Yi respectfully saluted: "Vice Chairman Gong is loyal to the country, An Yi is admired, and now he is the commander of the theater, from now on, An Yi will wholeheartedly obey the command of the vice chairman." ”

Feng Yuxiang laughed and patted An Yi's shoulder: "General An doesn't have to be polite, who dares to boast of doing a better job than you when dealing with *** people?" This battle has to be commanded by you to be reassuring. Do a good job, I have set up the theater headquarters in Suzhou, and Nanxiang has set up the theater former enemy command here, under the full command of you, the theater chief of staff and Deputy Commander Gu. ”

At this time, the other generals had already arrived behind Feng Yuxiang, An Yi originally wanted to be polite, but seeing that Gu Zhutong, Chen Cheng, Zhang Zhi and others had already stretched out their hands to him with smiles on their faces, he had to leave Feng Yuxiang, and greeted him or shook hands tightly, or hugged excitedly, or saluted respectfully, and when he finished greeting, he was already tired and sweating profusely.

After making an appointment with Sun Yuanliang, Wang Jingjiu, Xia Chuzhong, Song Xilian, Huang Wei, Cai Zhonghu and other Huangpu brothers and old acquaintances to visit them one by one, An Yi saluted all the generals who participated in the welcome ceremony:

"Thanks to the love of all the elders, teachers and brothers, we gathered in Nanxiang to welcome An Yi, and An Yi felt in my heart. However, at present, the battle situation is changing rapidly, and the front-line soldiers cannot be separated from your deployment, if the battle collapses because of the welcome of An Yi, An Yi is guilty. Therefore, let's leave it like this today, all the honorable elders and brothers who shoulder the heavy responsibility of command, go back for the time being, and when An Yi finds out the situation in the war zone, he will definitely visit them one by one. ”

Zhang Fakui was reluctant to attend such a welcome party, he was already a prince at the beginning, An Yi was just a small engineer battalion commander, but now he rode on his head, how could he be convinced? Therefore, when he heard An Yi's words, he tried his best to squeeze out a smile, hugged his fists and said goodbye to An Yi, and then returned to the garrison with a cadre of the Eighth Army.

Subsequently, Chiang Kai-shek's brother Yang Hu, commander of the Tenth Army Liu Jianxu and others also took their generals and colonels to leave.

Zhang Zhizhong instructed several division commanders under his command to return to the front line and pay close attention to the movements of the Japanese army, so he took the initiative to propose: "An Yi, the former enemy headquarters in the theater is located in Guyi Garden, and Mo San and Cixiu have already brought people to work there, now let's go and have a look." ”

An Yi nodded yes, and invited Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zhizhong, Gu Zhutong and Chen Cheng to take their own special car together, and the four of them happily agreed, and Shen Fengdao blew the driver away and temporarily acted as the driver. Feng Yuxiang sat in the front passenger seat, while An Yi was squeezed in the middle of the back seat by Zhang Zhizhong, Gu Zhutong and Chen Cheng.

The convoy started again, Zhang Zhizhong briefly introduced the situation of the attack on Shanghai in the past few days, and then said: "It is ashamed to say that the Japanese army seems to have been prepared for a long time, since the beginning of the war, our army has not recovered an inch of land under the condition of air superiority, and is still firmly blocked outside the Japanese defense line, and our army has lost more than 3,000 people in battle. I heard that there are still three divisions of the Japanese army in the Pudong area, and if they can't break the enemy in one fell swoop, the future is worrying! ”

Gu Zhutong thought thoughtfully: "I arrived at the front line in Shanghai the day before yesterday. Yesterday I arrived close to the battlefield and observed the Japanese defense up close, and every step they made seemed to be clearly targeted, just to restrain our attack. I suspect there are *** spies among us. ”

Gu Zhutong's words startled everyone, An Yi thought about it, and shook his head again and again: "It's unlikely that the spy is here, I thought it was at the top of the Central Committee, and now the Supreme Council of National Defense has not absorbed many members of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Political Council?" Many of these people are appeasement and surrender factions, and now that the call for the war of resistance is rising, they do not dare to jump out and openly oppose it, for fear of bearing the infamy of being a 'traitor', so they use this despicable way to dismantle our Taiwan, and when the war in Songhu is exhausted and our army is losing and retreating, they will raise their arms and shout slogans such as 'China and Japan have not yet reached the time for war,' 'stop the war to save the country,' and 'China and Japan join hands to build together,' and so on, and perform their uncertain prophets. ”

Feng Yuxiang sighed and said: "Yes, at this national defense meeting, Wang Jingwei, He Yingqin and others behaved very abnormally, they did not dismantle the stage, and all the anti-Japanese war bills raised their hands to express their support, I always feel that something is wrong." Speaking of this, he realized that he was a little speechless, and added: "Of course, people will change, maybe they also realize that the country has reached the point of life and death, if we do not rise up to resist, we will not only be ashamed of our ancestors and ancestors, but also die without a place to be buried." ”

All the people in the car were resolutely advocating the War of Resistance, and after listening to Feng Yuxiang's words, they smiled knowingly, but it was not easy to express their opinions on the high-level disputes, so Chen Cheng deliberately diverted the topic and asked in a puzzled tone:

"Since the Japanese army has a large number of reinforcements, why don't they enter Puxi and break our army's defense line in one fell swoop with superior forces? On the contrary, I am grinding in Pudong, and I don't know what kind of fame I am doing! ”

Everyone pondered for a while, and all felt that the problem was difficult.

For the deployment of the first people, even if everyone in the car is an old fritter with rich combat experience, the intention of the first person still has the feeling of seeing flowers in the fog. The Japanese army invested a large number of troops in the Pudong area, and managed thousands of square kilometers of land like an iron barrel, which had the meaning of taking root in Pudong for a long time and turning Pudong into a bridgehead for attacking China from the front line of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

With the consistent arrogance of the Japanese army, why not take the initiative to defeat the squadron and firmly grasp the initiative on the battlefield?

Feeling the threat of the Japanese army, Xue Yue's 19th Army, Hu Zongnan's 1st Army, and Huang Jie's 8th Army had accelerated to Shanghai to prevent the Japanese army from suddenly switching from defense to attack, resulting in the erosion of the situation in Beijing and Shanghai and the collapse of the overall situation.

An Yi vaguely guessed the intentions of some Japanese commanders, and explained with a smile: "No matter what their purpose is, we only need to kill and injure a large number of their living forces, and when we were in North China, the Seventeenth Army did the same." In fact, this is better, the Japanese army does not invest a large number of troops in the concession area, but adopts the tactic of adding fuel to facilitate our individual breakthroughs. ”

Zhang Zhizhong nodded, and then asked An Yi's opinion: "I have decided to use our armored vehicle units in today's offensive to fully assist all divisions in attacking the concession area, and strive to take the battle line to the Huangpu River in one go." Xiao Yi, what do you think? ”

An Yi's face changed, and he shook his head again and again: "It's not proper, it's not proper, it's not wise to dispatch tanks under the threat of the Japanese army's superior artillery fire, especially the enemy's naval guns with a caliber of more than 200 mm." Teacher, in the next two days, let's conduct regular operations, so that I can observe the deployment of Japanese troops nearby, and then make a targeted action plan. By the way, Brother Cixiu, I would like to ask you to mobilize your troops and uproot all the Japanese strongholds along the Huangpu River north of the concession to the sea outlet. ”

Chen Cheng's eyes widened and he asked in surprise: "A large number of warships of the Japanese Third Fleet are in the Huangpu River, even if we capture those strongholds on the shore, can we hold them?" ”

An Yi smiled: "Big brother, the purpose of this battle is not to occupy those strongholds and hold them, but to take down the enemy's fortifications with lightning speed, blast them all, and we quickly retreat beyond the range of the Japanese ship's guns. I will transfer the artillery regiment of the 39th Division to assist you, so that the entire river defense fortifications on the west bank of the Huangpu River will become a meat grinder for the Japanese army. ”

Chen Cheng was still a little puzzled: "What is the ultimate intention of this?" ”

An Yi's face was grim: "My father-in-law called, the British sent a salvage fleet to Shanghai, if everything goes well, it is estimated that it will arrive at the site of the oil tanker sinking in the Yangtze River channel within a week, and then with the assistance of the Japanese warship, the salvage operation will be launched." It is expected that the Yangtze River will resume navigation in the next three months to six months. In response to these circumstances, I decided to quietly build a strong fortress group along the lines of Baoshan, Yanghang, Yuepu, Luodian, and Liuhe, and turn the mouth of the Yangtze River into an impregnable land fortress. ”

Chen Cheng was very surprised: "Our fortress cannons are all arranged in various fortresses along the Yangtze River, where do you go to draw fortress cannons to arm your fortress?" ”

An Yi smiled slightly: "I have promised the chairman that our department will resolutely stand on the front line of Songhu and never let the Japanese army move forward, so I must build the fortress artillery." Not only the first line of the Yangtze River estuary will be built, but also the first line of Jinshanwei in Hangzhou Bay, I will also do my best to build. ”

The generals were stunned and looked at each other, not knowing where An Yi got such great confidence? Could it be that the Syrian Arsenal was already able to produce fortress guns?

An Yi continued: "Maybe your elder brothers already know, that's right, now my Sufu Arsenal can already fortify cannons. Yesterday afternoon, on the way to Shanghai, I got an urgent telegram from my sister that my Southwest Machinery Research Institute finally made a 12,000-ton forging hydraulic press and a 20,000-ton die forging hydraulic press after five years of hard work. With these two hydraulic presses with independent intellectual property rights, we can not only manufacture more hydraulic presses, but the most important thing is our South Sichuan Iron and Steel Group, which can also produce seamless steel pipes of any caliber below 300 mm. It will not be long before the first batch of 200 to 300 mm caliber fortress guns will be disassembled and transported to Wusongkou and Jinshanwei, where they will be assembled and take on the heavy task of defending the motherland's coastal defense. ”

Chen Cheng, Gu Zhutong and Zhang Zhizhong were extremely shocked, Feng Yuxiang turned his head: "General An, in this way, it should be no problem to hold Shanghai, right?" ”

An Yi shrugged: "I am confident that I can drive the *** people across the Huangpu River, but Pudong is in some trouble, because the Japanese army in Pudong is generally in the protection range of large-caliber naval guns, although we can weaken the resistance of the Japanese army through artillery bombardment, but their artillery is not vegetarian, presumably there will be a hard battle next." As things stand, I expect a stalemate for quite some time.

"By the way, I just mentioned the construction of the Jiangfang fortress, and I also ask your elders and brothers to keep it a secret. The Japanese army has large-caliber heavy artillery, and if it frequently targets the Baoshan and Jinshanwei lines, it will not only interfere with the construction progress of our engineering troops and bring unnecessary casualties, but it may also be impossible to build it because of the strong opposition of various governments. If the wood is already in the boat, the situation is a different story! ”

Gu Zhutong said: "Don't worry, Xiao Yi, with the intimate relationship between the two of us, I will definitely keep my mouth shut." Needless to say, he is your brother, General Wenbai is responsible for attacking Shanghai, and the vice chairman, as the commander of the theater of operations, will not dismantle his own platform, am I right? ”

Feng Yuxiang's blood was spurting, and he said excitedly: "I can only beat *** people, even if I ask Feng Huanzhang not to speak for three months." ”

Neither Zhang Zhizhong nor Chen Cheng explained their attitudes, because there was no need for this. Chen Cheng said: "In this way, the plan formulated by the navy to sink the ship to block the Yangtze River channel in the Jiangyin section can be abolished?" ”

An Yi nodded: "Before leaving, I have already explained the benefits and disadvantages to the chairman of the committee, and after deep thought, the chairman has decided to cancel this plan and instruct the commander of the navy, General Chen Shaokuan, to reformulate the navy's battle plan against Japan. ”

Feng Yuxiang and the others were all relieved when they heard this, after all, if the navy, which has more than 90 ships and more than 60,000 tons, disappears, no one wants to see it.

Only An Yi understood in his heart that because the Nationalist Government attached too much importance to the construction of river defense, the current Central Navy was not so much a navy as a Jiang army, and most of the admirals had lost the will to forge ahead, so they made the absurd decision of sinking ships to block the river in the context of the Japanese army's large-scale invasion.

This is also the intention of An Yi's decision to make a difference and rebuild the navy.