The loss of Xuzhou, the whole country was shaken, and the European and American powers, which were in secret contact with the Nanjing political axe, invariably suspended the negotiations, and the prestige of the Nanjing political axe and the morale of the National Revolutionary Army were greatly hit, and Sun Chuanfang made a comeback, causing a panic among tens of millions of people in the Yangtze River valley.

Commander-in-Chief Chiang was fighting to the death with all the princes in Nanjing, and he was anxious, and when he received the bad news that he was even worse, he suddenly felt like ice, shocked and angry, and immediately rushed to the general headquarters of the former enemy of the Northern Expeditionary Army who had withdrawn to Bengbu, and discussed countermeasures with the commander-in-chief, General Bai Chongxi, and ordered to recapture Xuzhou at all costs.

That night, a series of emergency lightning flew into the hands of the generals of the divisions of the Second Route Army who were evacuating Lunan, and An Yi, who had just been stationed in Pixian for three hours, and his brothers under his command received an urgent order to suddenly change the overall deployment of troops, and they couldn't help but be dumbfounded:

The headquarters of the Northern Expeditionary Army strictly ordered An Yi's reading division to defend Pi County; He Yaozu's 40th Army quickly moved south and drove to Suxian at full speed; Ye Kaixin's 44th Army, which had retreated to northern Jiangsu, was ordered to immediately march westward, passing through Pixian and rushing to Yin Ji in the east of Suxian to stand by; Gu Zhutong's 3rd Division and Deng Zhenquan's 1st Division retreated at full speed and held Suqian.

An Yi instructed the signal corps to notify the commanders of each regiment to convene an emergency meeting, and while the brothers had not yet arrived, he hurriedly hung up the map, and faced the map with Yin Jinan, Hu Jialin, Yang Bin, Liu Shoujiang, Zhan Huanqi and others, and marked the current distribution of troops in various units of the Northern Expeditionary Army while discussing.

Zhan Huanqi skillfully drew a significant defensive line, and then planted several battle flags representing each division according to the latest deployment of the General Headquarters, An Yi and all the brothers could no longer laugh, even Liu Shoujiang, who was the most inferior, was in a heavy mood and sighed frequently.

Yang Bin was worthy of being an experienced chief of staff, stepped forward and pointed to Pi County, which was alone outside the entire front, and asked angrily:

"Whose bad idea was this? Isn't this a joke about the surnames of more than 10,000 of our scholars? Look, 30 kilometers due north are Chu Yupu's two armies, more than 40 kilometers to the west are Cheng Guorui's three armies occupying Xuzhou, and 35 kilometers to the east is Xinyi, which we suddenly abandoned. You still order us to defend it? In the face of an enemy army several times larger than you, can you defend it? ”

Hu Jialin stared at the map with a blue face, pondered for a moment after listening to Yang Bin's words, and asked in a low voice, "His uncle's ...... It can't be decided by the principal himself, right? ”

"It's possible, but I personally think it's probably Chief Bai's idea, because Chief Bai knows the battle situation and our division's combat effectiveness best. Judging from the latest strategic layout, the geographical location of Pi County has suddenly become more important, as long as Chu Yupu occupies Pi County, the two armies under his command will be unimpeded whether they are rushing west to aid Xuzhou and Suxian, or going south to jointly attack Suqian with Sun Chuanfang's troops, and if they can't take Pi County, they will be disturbed by our attacks behind him and on the flanks.

Therefore, Pixian has now become a nail in the road of the enemy's attack, and he will not dare to wave his army south without pulling out the enemy.

Second, the terrain of Pixian is complicated, surrounded by water on all sides, and the city wall is not necessarily worse than that of Sixian in the south; if the defense is done properly, the enemy's two armies will not be able to attack it within three or five days, or even ten days or eight days.

The above two points may be the reason why Chief Bai ordered us to stay and defend to the death, in order to contain the enemy's strength and facilitate the counterattack in the direction of Xuzhou. Yin Jinan, who was calm and generous, expressed his views in detail.

The brethren felt quite reasonable, but none of them would feel comfortable being pushed into a position to face a possible heavy siege by the enemy.

An Yi knew that the brothers were waiting for him to express his position, so he thought about it and whispered to everyone: "No matter how difficult it is, since the order has been issued, we have to carry it out, not to mention that the principal has already arrived in Bengbu, and he must have participated in the formulation of the overall plan, so it is impossible to joke with the lives of our more than 10,000 brothers."

Therefore, I hope that you will not mention the difficulties we are facing, and the heads of the regiments will be here soon, and what will they think if they listen to your discouraged words? Especially Xia Jian and Hutou, who are surnamed strong, if they are noisy, won't it affect their morale? Therefore, everyone must pay attention to this. ”

Seeing that the brothers all nodded, An Yi continued very domineeringly: "This battle will be a vicious battle, the difficulty will not be under the Battle of Five Rivers, we will face the enemy's strength several times our own, I believe that the principal and Chief Bai and others know this very well in their hearts.

I think they also know that the terrain in the Pixian area is similar to that of the Five Rivers, and the hills are densely covered with water networks, which is very unfavorable to the use of large troops and heavy weapons, and the northern soldiers are not accustomed to marching and fighting in such terrain and landforms, while we are familiar with the road and have no problem, and it is very simple to sneak thirty or fifty kilometers in one night, which is one of our great advantages, and we must grasp it well!

Another great advantage of ours is that we have a good mass base, and we have recruited more than 800 brothers from Danji and Nianzhuang in the south and west of the city, and these brothers are familiar with the terrain and are good at water warfare. Therefore, as long as we unite from top to bottom, we will not necessarily be overwhelmed by Old Man Chu's soldiers. ”

"The master has a point!" Liu Shoujiang said happily, and the other brothers listened to An Yi's analysis, and they all calmed down and weighed it carefully.

An Yi nodded, and then said solemnly: "In this battle, I don't plan to let the regiment and battalion commanders participate in the discussion and formulation of the action plan as usual, and all the battle plans and orders are decided by a few of us."

Later, at the meeting, I will give the initial orders directly to the regiments, and let the brothers of the regiments get busy first, so that there will be no nonsense. Lao Liu and Jinan, the two of you must once again reiterate the military order, be sure to carry out the order and prohibit, and unconditionally carry out the orders issued by the division headquarters, only by doing this, can we face this battle well, otherwise not only will we not be able to complete the task of containing the enemy's main force in the middle, but may also cause huge casualties.

We only have two days to prepare at most, and maybe in less than two days, the main enemy forces that have finished resting will be pressing, so we must hurry, do you understand? ”

"Understood!" The generals replied in unison.

"Good! Prepare for a meeting. An Yi turned around and returned to the big table, motioning for the orderly to make himself a cup of strong tea, tonight will be another sleepless night.

By the time the meeting had dispersed, it was late at night.

An Yi and a few of his left and right hands immediately devoted themselves to the formulation of the plan, and not long after Bai Chongxi's longer telegram came, An Yi looked at his watch It was already 1:40 in the middle of the night, and after reading the telegram, he joked with the brothers that Chief Bai and the principal might not be able to sleep either.

The brothers smiled and felt much more relaxed, but only a few dozen seconds later, after listening to Yang Bin read the content of the telegram, everyone could no longer laugh:

Bai Chongxi strictly ordered the Reading Division to hold on to Pi County, and he had to hold back the enemy's main force in the middle for at least three days! And the time is counted from 7 o'clock in the morning tomorrow. That is to say, today cannot be counted in three days, it seems that Bai Chongxi knows very well that Chu Yupu's army will not come so quickly, and the reader has not been threatened by the enemy's real surname in the past two days.

The following morning, the special detachment that went out to reconnoiter continued to receive urgent reports: Zhu Panzao's Ninth Army under Chu Yupu, commander of the Seventh Army of the Zhilu Allied Army, took the lead in driving to the line of Dawangmiao, 15 kilometers north of the city, Yuan Zhenqing's 15th Army followed closely, and the enemy still had one division of troops to defend the enemy's headquarters Taierzhuang.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the 27th Division of the Ninth Army of Zhu Panzao drove to the north bank of the Shunhe River, five kilometers north of the city, and was immediately attacked by the machine gun company of the Reading Force Regiment of the An Yi Division and the mortar company of the division headquarters.

In the 10 minutes of fierce artillery bombardment and heavy machine-gun strafing across the river, the 27th Division paid the price of more than 300 dead and wounded before it could see its opponent clearly, and the whole division was forced to retreat two kilometers and camp under the blow of fierce fire.

At half past six in the afternoon, the veteran Chu Yupu was half-lying on a comfortable recliner under the shade of a tree, fanning his fan leisurely, and after listening to the report of the adjutant Qin Shanhu, he sat up slowly, looked at the golden clouds reflected in the sunset in the southern sky, and said calmly:

"As I expected, it was the powerful First Army Reading Division stationed in Pi County, it seems that Chiang Kai-shek and Bai Chongxi also knew the importance of Pi County and showed their trump card.

However, this descendant named An Yi is indeed a talent, our two armies marched along the banks of the canal in two ways, cautious along the way, lest there be unnecessary losses, but in the end it was still his way, although there were not many deaths, but the morale was greatly damaged. ”

"Yu Shuai, it's no wonder that the two armies that broke out in front of it, the Reading Division of the First Army of the Revolutionary Army, took advantage of the range advantage of heavy machine guns and mortars to occupy favorable terrain in advance to launch a surprise attack.

I know that this area is full of woods, waterways, and undulating terrain is really unguardable, and the opponent is the famous and scheming An Yi, who does everything to fight, and I don't know if they will hide their forces and wait to give us a head-on blow!

Gu Zhutong, the enemy's first road, disappeared after the third division went south, and there was no intelligence from Suqian, so it is very likely that he was hiding behind An Yi's reading division at this time, so that we were not facing one division, but two divisions of the enemy. Therefore, the subordinates are very worried and think that it is better to be cautious! ”

Since Qin Shanhu was almost captured by An Yi in Wuhe County, he still has palpitations when he mentions An Yi, and his momentum has unconsciously weakened by three points.

Chu Yupu took out his snuffbox, inhaled it comfortably, closed his eyes and raised his head to the sky and sneezed happily, scraping the wings of his nose with his carefully trimmed little fingernails, and then said calmly:

"You are very careful, but you don't need to worry about the third division of Gu Zhutong who withdrew to Suqian, under the follow-up pursuit of Sun Dashuai's two armies, even if he has the courage, he doesn't dare to throw away his friendly first division and run to Pixian to join in the fun, otherwise if something goes wrong, he Gu Zhutong won't worry that Lao Jiang will take off his hat?

Moreover, even if Gu Zhutong rushed to Pi County to help in the war desperately? We now have the strength of two armies in front of us, and even if we add the enemy's first army and three divisions, we will still be in a situation of fighting more and fighting less, and we will be invincible as long as we fight steadily and steadily step by step. Of course, we still have to believe in friendly forces, under their oppression, Gu Zhutong will definitely not appear here, you just need to focus on An Yi's reading master. ”

Seeing Qin Shanhu nodding again and again, Chu Yupu's words changed: "But, just like you said, this An Yi is becoming more and more treacherous in the war, judging from the battles he fought in Lingbi and Sixian some time ago, and then in the battles of Taierzhuang and Liuquan Blockade, this guy has almost no shortcomings, it can be said that he can fight any battle, and he fights very neatly, therefore, in this complex terrain, we are forced to be cautious and slow to advance!"

Hmph, since this kid chooses to take the initiative, let's let him be proud for a while, and you will see again at this time tomorrow, how long can he be proud of his 10,000 people under the siege of my five divisions? Don't think that the city wall of Pixian County is towering, the river is wide and the water is deep, and it is naturally impregnable in ancient times, even if it is held for half a year, there is no problem. But what era is it now? Under the attack of 46 guns of my two artillery regiments, and under the siege of 50,000 of my soldiers, I do not believe how long he can hold out. ”

In the end, Chu Yupu was already very eloquent.

Qin Shanhu nodded excitedly, and then asked with some concern: "Yushuai, what if An Yi leads his troops to escape in advance?" I've wanted to teach this kid a lesson for a long time, and the shame of the Five Rivers is still fresh in my memory! ”

"Afraid of what? Now that Ninghan has broken and the Northern Expeditionary Army is about to fight, there is an opportunity to take revenge, and there is no need to be obsessed with the day! In fact, it would be better if he chose to flee on his own initiative, and it would save me from working hard to mobilize troops to attack the city, as long as he escaped, we would immediately move the headquarters to Pixian City, and according to the needs of the war situation, it would be very convenient to command the four divisions to move west or south.

If our army advances westward, it can join our right-wing army to attack Suxian and take Bengbu directly, and if it goes south, it can join forces with Sun Dashuai's headquarters to encircle Suqian and cut off the entire front of the revolutionary army in one fell swoop, and the initiative in the future will be firmly in our hands. Chu Yupu said confidently.

Qin Shanhu smiled embarrassedly: "To be honest, for the sake of the overall interests, the subordinates don't expect immediate revenge, I really want him to run away from Pi County, so that we can fight with him, but after thinking about it, I don't want him to run, but the subordinates of the First Battle of Wuhe are remembered, and this revenge must be avenged!" I'm conflicted......"

Chu Yupu nodded "um" and said: "Don't talk about you, even the half-life reputation of my old guy was almost ruined in the hands of this little character, this rare opportunity is rare, and it must not be easily let go, as long as one of Wang Dong's divisions in the early morning of the Ming Dynasty followed the plan, and took a train from Xuzhou to block his way to escape south, and together with our two armies, surrounded the small Pixian city with lightning speed, where else could An Yi kid go?"

When the siege is successful tomorrow morning, you will give me the order, no matter what else, this An Yi will be caught alive! ”

"Yes!"

(To be continued)