A light rain mixed with icy snowflakes fell all night, and from the early morning onwards it turned into a torrent of snow, painting the mountains and ravines in black and white.

It was nearly noon, and the sky had not yet cleared. Under the towering dark brown stone wall above the Lion Rock, 2.5 kilometers southwest of Yangchunqiao Town, six white figures lay on the half-foot-thick snow, using small binoculars to observe the three-way intersection in the northeast direction of Zhennan and the passes on both sides of the northbound road for a long time, and from time to time whispered a group of numbers for the partners on the side to record in detail.

This team of men and horses is a reconnaissance group personally led by Dou Fang, the captain of the guard company of the An Yi Reading Regiment, and the same eleven six-person teams have been marching between the Hengshan Mountain in the west and the Huozhuoding in the east of Yangchunqiao Town.

Before the investigation teams set off in the early morning, An Yi deliberately braved the cold, snow, and rain to rush to Xiaya Town on the muddy snow to cheer for these special warriors, and gave only one request: to fully believe in the indigenous people in the mountains, treat them well, and ask for their help.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the large troops of the Second Division led by Liu Zhi successfully arrived in Jiande City, and without any rest, they immediately summoned the commanders at and above the group level to hold a military meeting at the division headquarters in the county government hall.

An Yi led Hu Jialin, deputy commander of the regiment, and Yang Bin, staff officer of the regiment, to sit at the bottom left of the long table, quietly listening to the military briefing of Chief of Staff Xu Tingyao, and the commander of the 22nd Division, Chen Jiji, deputy division commander Tang Junde, and chief of staff Guo Yiyu, who arrived at the same time, also attended the meeting. Tang Junde, deputy commander of the 22nd Division, was originally the brigade commander of the Hunan Army, and defected to the First Army at the beginning of the Northern Expedition. Guo Yiyu, chief of staff of the 22nd Division, whose ancestral home is Liuyang, Hunan, is An Yi's senior brother in the first phase of Huangpu, only one year older than An Yi, and now he is recommended by division commander Chen Jiji as the chief of staff of the division, which is relatively fast compared with the Huangpu graduates in the first army.

Lian Yue's exhaustion and exhaustion made Xu Tingyao suffer from a more serious cold, his face was sickly flushed, his breathing was quite rapid, and his nasal voice was also very heavy:

"According to the order of the former enemy's general headquarters, our second and third columns and the left flank column of the Dai Yue Division of the Second Army launched an attack at the same time, and the two divisions of the Dai Yue Department will capture Fenshui from Baijiang, and finally turn to the east to attack the right flank of the enemy army in Tonglu in one fell swoop; The 26th Army of Zhou Fengqi's Division, which had now occupied Yiwu, was the right wing column and attacked the Zhuji line of the Zhejiang Army to the north, forcing the Zhejiang Army to be unable to divide its troops to the west.

The 2nd, 22nd, and 1st Divisions of our First Army will undertake the task of attacking the middle road, which is subdivided into two roads, the left road is our second division, and the attack direction is Yangchun Bridge, Hengtang Dock, Wool Dock until Tonglu; On the right is the first division of Chen Cheng's division, and the direction of attack is Sandu Town, Dongyuan, Hehuatang to Tonglu. The 65th and 67th regiments of the 22nd Division served as the reserves of our left and right roads.

Ladies and gentlemen, please look at the watch, it is now half past three in the afternoon of the eleventh, and the time left for us by the former enemy headquarters is only three days, that is to say, within these three days, our division must overcome the natural danger of Yangchun Bridge, reach the city of Tonglu, and join the first division on the right side to attack the city, the time is urgent! ”

The generals of the second division exclaimed, and said that three days was too harsh, not to mention that the mountains around Yang Chunqiao stretched, the peaks were high and the forests were dense, there was no way to go, the attempt to cross the mountains and mountains to bypass the enemy was pure wishful thinking, the mountains on both sides of the four-kilometer sandwich road in the south mountain range of Yang Chunqiao Town were steep, the terrain was complex, and it was impossible to use any strategy, and the enemy only needed to occupy the dangerous barrier and block the road, and our army had dozens of artillery, and could not reach the pillboxes and positions under the dead corners of the cliffs. There is only one dead end.

Liu Zhi looked at the leaders of the regiment who were at a loss with his brows locked, and he was also sighing frequently in his heart, he was helpless about it like his complaining subordinates, and he also had an extra sense of urgency and anxiety.

Thinking of the former enemy's commander-in-chief Bai Chongxi's ruthless and vicious methods of grace and power again and again, Liu Zhi was sincerely frightened and shuddered, the tragic situation of the siege of Nanchang City and the siege of Youbu is still vivid, and it is clear that the battle of Yang Chunqiao will be defeated again, how can Liu Zhi not be frightened?

Now that he is thousands of miles away from Commander-in-Chief Chiang, Liu Zhi is too late to beg for escape, and if he can't make this battle, he will ruin his future, and even lose his surname, so Liu Zhi's heart is also full of sadness and sadness.

The commander of the 22nd Division, Chen Jiji, was silent from beginning to end, and within half a year, he was promoted from the commander of the 4th Regiment of the 2nd Division to the deputy commander of the 22nd Division and then to the division commander, Chen Jiji, who was very aware of the current situation of the 2nd Division and the actual situation of each regiment, so he almost directly ignored any other 2nd Division general, and directly put his expectant eyes on An Yi's face diagonally opposite him, he knew that in such a situation, only An Yi, who was full of eccentric ideas, and his reading group that repeatedly created miracles could relieve the urgent need of the Second Division and avoid the Second Division from falling into a predicament. And then avoid being hit harder again.

But what made Chen Ji helpless was that An Yi only exchanged a few words in a low voice with his regimental deputy Hu Jialin and regimental staff officer Yang Bin, and kept bowing his head to read the documents and materials issued before the meeting, as if all this had nothing to do with him.

An Yi's performance made the experienced Chen Jiji unable to figure it out, but it seemed that An Yi suddenly felt that An Yi had become mature, and at the same time became stranger, and the city government was deeper, and there was no longer the original imprint of enthusiasm, initiative and frankness and simplicity.

Xu Tingyao's performance at the full house made Xu Tingyao extremely disappointed, he whispered a few words with Liu Zhi beside him, and finally turned his head to An Yi, who was immersed in reading, took out a handkerchief to cover his mouth and coughed a few times, blushing and asked loudly: "Commander An, I remember that yesterday the division headquarters informed you about the situation of our department's attack, may I ask what do you think of the current tasks of our division?" ”

The venue immediately fell silent, and all of them focused their eyes on An Yi with hopeful eyes.

An Yi raised his head and looked at Xu Tingyao, then glanced around at the expectant expression of the generals, and shook his head again and again with pain on his face: "My subordinates are incompetent, and I still can't think of any way." Originally, I thought that we could pin our hopes on the 1st Division on the right, but according to the return of the reconnaissance team sent by my subordinates, the distance between our division and the 1st Division seemed to be only 10 kilometers, but there was a large mountain range in the middle, which burned to the top in the south, and reached Niufeng Ridge in the east of Tongling County in the north, which was more than 40 kilometers long and inaccessible mountains. ”

Everyone on both sides of the long table looked extremely disappointed, and after looking at each other, they all turned their eyes to Liu Zhi and Xu Tingyao on the first seat in the north.

In the deathly silence, Liu Zhi's lips were tightly closed, his face was like frost, Xu Tingyao coughed violently and kept wheezing, Chen Jiji saw this and suggested in a low voice that the meeting should be dismissed for the time being, and let the generals go back to settle down first and discuss again in the evening. Liu Zhi, who was helpless, could only nod in agreement, and all the generals stood up and saluted with relief, and An Yi also left with Hu Zi and Yang Bin like everyone.

Returning to the headquarters of the Reading Force Regiment on the bank of the river in the south of the city, An Yi, Hu Zi, and Yang Bin immediately joined more than 20 brothers who were carrying out offensive and defensive deductions around a large sand table. After Yang Bin briefly reported on the meaningless division meeting, the three of them focused on every mountain peak on the sand table and every indigenous village located in the alpine mountains, and discussed and predicted all the sheep intestine trails and folk customs and customs that were only introduced by the local people and not confirmed.

However, the 12 reconnaissance teams painstakingly dispatched have not yet received any information feedback, and any speculation made by An Yi and his brothers lacks factual basis, but An Yi did not accept the opinions of several brothers to temporarily stop the deduction, and stubbornly asked the brothers to continue the deduction and summarize all possible plans, which is called "preparedness".

In fact, although An Yi looked full of confidence, his mood was very heavy, he had no confidence at all, and he couldn't even see any hope of victory in this battle, the reason why he insisted on letting his brothers keep discussing and deducing was to prevent the brothers from being idle, so as to produce the same pessimism as the regiments of the second division, and breed a terrible lazy surname that depended on others.

Dinner was approaching, most of the brothers who had been fighting fiercely on the sand table for an afternoon returned to the camps to inspect and mobilize, and An Yi, who hastily picked up a bowl of rice, strolled to the bank of the Xin'an River, squatted on the slippery stones, looked down at the boats on the wharf and the Xin'an River flowing quietly eastward, and smoked silently, but his mind was full of the four-kilometer narrow passage south of Yangchunqiao Town, and the snow-capped mountains and cliffs on both sides of the passage.

After a while, Hu Zi, Yang Bin and Qu Muchen, who couldn't visit An Yi, also walked over, they were all the same as An Yi, their hearts were full of bitterness, and they were all worried that the team they had managed to pull and grow would be consumed in the battle that was about to start, so they deeply understood An Yi's suffering, and they all wanted to share this heart-devouring pain with him.

The three of them nodded with Shen Fengdao, who was standing behind An Yi and quietly enjoying the scenery, and all came to An Yi's side, and no one said anything before they quietly squatted down, smoking cigarettes like An Yi, quietly looking at the dock below and the ships coming and going.

On the river, more than a dozen ship-pilots who had been recruited by An Yi for a large sum of money drove steamboats back and forth between the two sides of the strait, and the officers and men of the logistics and quartermaster departments of each regiment carried a load of grain and meat down the wharf on the south bank, boarded the steamboat to transition to the north bank, and then picked up the heavy burden again and disembarked, and climbed the slippery stone steps of the wharf step by step.

At this moment, the young soldier who carried the heavy burden at the end screamed, and then slipped and fell, and the baskets at both ends of the flat shoulders immediately slipped out and rolled down the steep stone steps, and two baskets with large pottery oil jars were bound to roll faster and faster, and one basket rushed out of the stone steps, jumped along the inclined embankment and rolled to the wharf, "bang", hit the pile by the wharf, suddenly bounced off and slashed forward, splashed a splash of oil and smashed into the river with a "bang". The other basket hit the sturdy stone slab of the dock because of the acceleration of the habitual surname, bounced high again, and quickly smashed into the steamboat that had just offshore, and there was a loud "clang" sound, and the oil jar in the basket shattered in response, and the splashed oil splashed on the two ship's operators who could not dodge, and the bow of the ship was soaked in oil.

The exclamations and scolding sounded immediately, but An Yi stood up and laughed excitedly, making Hu Zi and Yang Bin inexplicable, thinking that it would be enough to laugh twice, is this thing worth laughing at the sky so much?

Just when An Yi was laughing, the captain quartermaster of the fourth regiment had already rushed to the young soldier who fell, grabbed the soldier's shirt, and slapped the soldier with a "snap" is two slaps, so that the soldier was thrown out sideways and almost rolled down the steep embankment, and the angry captain quartermaster still refused to give up, and stepped forward to kick the soldier in the stomach heavily, scolding and scolding in his mouth to continue to beat.

"Stop!"

An Yi roared and hurried over, and the quartermaster saw the menacing An Yi and took two steps back in fright, and immediately saluted as he hurriedly stood firm:

"Report to the chief, this kid is not beaten, and he broke two big oil fills, and his subordinates have to teach him a lesson."

An Yi pointed to a pair of baskets that were also filled with two jars of vegetable oil four meters away, took out a Colt pistol and slowly loaded it, stared coldly into the eyes of the captain quartermaster and ordered in a deep voice: "You, immediately pick up this load of oil off the dock, and then pick it up again." You remember for me, it's best not to wrestle, as long as you fall, Lao Tzu will shoot you immediately! ”

"Ann...... Sir An, you can't do this, I'm not your subordinate, you can't ...... Wait a minute! Wait a minute...... Subordinates obey ......"

An Yi removed the muzzle of the black hole from the quartermaster's eyebrows, and the quartermaster ran to the side of the burden in a panic, scooped up the flat shoulder and carried it on his shoulder, trembling and leisurely under the frightened gaze of hundreds of officers and soldiers of various regiments on and off the shore, carrying two jars of oil weighing more than eighty pounds, step by step carefully moved down the inclined and slippery stone steps, and finally went down to the dock and did not dare to put down the burden to rest, panting and carrying the heavy burden again with difficulty to climb the stone steps, it took twice as long as other soldiers to staggering to the embankment, Carefully put down his burden, he immediately collapsed in the muddy snow, panting like a dog and letting out a violent cough that was out of breath.

An Yi put away the gun and said coldly: "You have tried it yourself for a while, you should know the difficulties of the soldier brothers, if an officer like you is in Lao Tzu's army, I am afraid you will not live for three days, I hope you remember this lesson, and treat each of your brothers well, otherwise you will die a miserable death in the future." ”

"Yes, yes, the chief has learned the right lesson...... Ahem......"

The quartermaster was so frightened that he almost became incontinent, and the whole division knew that An Yi treated his officers and soldiers like brothers, and the group of wicked people under his command wanted to kill someone as simple as cutting grass, and even the commanders of each regiment and battalion were afraid of An Yi, who was becoming more and more domineering, not to mention that he was a small captain quartermaster? An Yi just killed him, and at most he was blamed by Shangfeng, which was not much different from killing a dog.

Xiao Bing wiped away the tears on his face and the blood from the corners of his mouth, tried his best to straighten his aching and tired body and walked in front of An Yi, suddenly crying, and shouted something that made An Yi extremely sad:

"Commander, I was originally your soldier...... In Gao'an...... I didn't run into the top 30 with a stomachache, and you were lying on a high platform in front of the General's Temple...... I didn't even see what you looked like, and I was ...... Taken away by the four regiments! Whining...... I was aiming for the model camp...... For the prestige of the regiment commander, you gave up the property of the divided family, and the daughter-in-law who was about to enter the door when she left signed up for the army, but ...... But you don't want me anymore...... Two days after they brought me to the model camp, they sent me out again...... Commander, I'm uncomfortable! Longyou was surrounded, and you sent the brothers of the model battalion to rescue the remaining six of us, all of whom enlisted in Gao'an...... Every time we saw the battle flag of the model battalion, we couldn't help but cry...... Regiment commander, more than 180 brothers in our town, all of whom enlisted in the model battalion at the beginning, and now only six people are left, regiment commander...... I'm sad, Commander......"

An Yi's nose was sore, tears came out of his eyes, and he stepped forward and hugged the little soldier in his arms, and comforted him with a trembling voice:

"I'm sorry for you, I'm sorry for the brothers who died! Sorry....... okay, don't go! Follow me back to the model camp and be my soldier! When you go back later, you can say the names of the other five brothers, Lao Tzu will go to the division headquarters for a meeting tonight, and ask the fourth regiment commander for someone, I promise to bring the five brothers back, I promise! Come back with me, and you'll be back......"

Hundreds of officers and soldiers watched this scene with great emotion, and watched An Yi support the little soldiers with mud all over their bodies walking towards the Baisha camp step by step, and they all sighed and burst into tears.

Hu Zi and Yang Bin sighed and followed, Shen Fengdao on the side took a deep breath, raised his head and looked at the foggy sky, his heart was full of mixed feelings, and he gently spit out a sentence in his mouth:

"It's worth ......"

(To be continued)