As the deputy commander of the Henan Military Region, Yang Guigui volunteered to set off together with the Northern Route Army. Chai Qingguo, a comrade who participated in the Qingdao Campaign, can also be regarded as a fierce general, and he has an offensive spirit. If he had to detain it at the headquarters, Yang Guigui would not be happy in his heart. However, if he is allowed to set off with the Northern Route Army, Yang Guigui will definitely skip the command.

In all fairness, Chai Qingguo did not let go of the plan to annihilate Wu Peifu's field group, and since Yang Guigui was so aggressive, Chai Qingguo made a decision that surprised his comrades. He ordered Yang Guigui to lead Gu Lu's 12th Army north to make military preparations between Handan and Xingtai. The 12th Army is an engineering unit, but the engineering unit is not just staring at a military formation. In the 12 months of each year, there is never less than 3 months of basic military training. In terms of individual equipment, it is much stronger than the Beiyang Army, and the entire army is only 75 "heavy artillery" less than the field army, and because the engineering unit has a lot of experience in construction, the field army also thinks that it is inferior to the field army in terms of digging positions and using explosives. Combat sappers are all trained in engineering units.

"Comrade Yang Guigui, I will explain to you one last time, I am not asking you to take the 12th Army to attack Beijing, but to prepare for the next campaign execution. So you can't take it upon yourself to lead my troops to war. Moreover, you will join the military party committee of the 12th Army now, Comrade Gu Lu is the political commissar and acting commander of the 12th Army, and Comrade Gu Lu is the secretary of the party committee on the party committee. Chai Qingguo faced Yang Guigui and Gu Lu and emphasized the relationship between them.

Gu Lu has never been a comrade who does not put his position right, he said with a smile: "Deputy Commander Yang has a lot of experience in fighting, and if we encounter combat problems, we will definitely listen to Deputy Commander Yang's advice." ”

Yang Guigui had only heard that Gu Lushen's Chen Ke and Chai Qingguo were important, and Gu Lu had also directly opposed Chai Qingguo's battle plan not long ago. didn't expect Gu Lu to have such a clear understanding of this temporary team, and Yang Guigui couldn't help but be surprised in his heart.

Gu Lu spoke so reliably, after Yang Guigui's sense of confrontation became weaker, he had time to think about serious things. He couldn't help but ask: "What if Beiyang quickly mobilizes troops to the south?" ”

Seeing that Yang Guigui finally understood his position, Chai Qingguo's heart was relieved, "Let you go, I want you to make military preparations, and some of the battles in the future will be fought, we have no mass base in Hebei at all, and this railway line can be relied on." When you go north, you will cut off this railway line for me. If the Beiyang Army were to move south, I would let the Air Force try to stifle their march as much as possible. Let Comrade Yang Guigui go, I want you to coordinate the relationship between the two aspects. ”

After Chai Qingguo finished speaking, seeing that Yang Guigui's face was full of joy, he hurriedly continued to beat Yang Guigui, "I am asking you to coordinate, but not asking you to command me to fight in the name of the deputy commander." You remember that for me. ”

Naturally, being able to become the deputy commander of the military region will not be a fool, Yang Guigui saw Chai Qingguo's repeated admonitions, but he was not angry. "Don't worry, I will definitely complete this job. However, our troops are insufficient, and if the Beiyang Army really jumps over the wall and marches south, I can't guarantee that there will be no fighting. ”

Chai Qingguo was of course very clear about this, if he wasn't worried about the Beiyang Army going south, there was no need for him to send Yang Guigui north. "Anyway, you don't give me the initiative. You have to do that. The troops will not be sufficient at any time, the Beiyang Army in Hebei can fight at most 1.2 million troops, the Shandong Military Region may have to face 600,000, and our follow-up troops still have two armies, so you can concentrate on completing the preparatory work in front. ”

"Yes!" Yang Guigui gave a military salute to Chai Qingguo.

After sending Yang Guigui and Gu Lu away, Chai Qingguo ordered the other troops to rest quickly. As far as Wu Peifu's current performance is concerned, God knows what tricks he will come up with. The so-called indiscriminate punching to kill the master, if there is a certain level of enemy, it is easy to predict the tactics they will adopt, after all, there are only a few reasonable tactics. However, if Wu Peifu acted indiscriminately, although he would definitely fail, he would cause certain trouble to the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. At this time, instead of preparing haphazardly, it is better to rest quickly and be ready to go into battle at any time.

After the order was conveyed, Chai Qingguo looked at the map and suddenly remembered a military saying, "The last to come, the first to come." According to Chen Ke, this is the concept mentioned in Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching", not to compete for the first, but the last to come first. In the words of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, it is "we don't shoot the first shot, but the enemy doesn't want to shoot the second shot." If you don't know how far the troops can go, you will wait to face all kinds of chaos in your own troops as soon as you make a move. But so far there have been no problems with the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, but the enemy has begun to make jokes.

Now that he has made a decision, Chai Qingguo simply doesn't think about it anymore, as a commander, more often than not, he is already a responsible position, and no matter how anxious he is, it is also the reason for Chai Qingguo to skip the command. So Chai Qingguo simply lay down and slept for a while, at this time, ensuring as much energy as possible is what Chai Qingguo can do. The war has only just begun.

Chai Qingguo was asleep, and Wu Peifu, who was more than 30 miles away from Chai Qingguo, couldn't sleep. The attack of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army Air Force made Wu Peifu completely unable to deal with it. On the afternoon of the 22nd, Wu Peifu was hit hard.

In order to be able to straighten out the soldiers, Wu Peifu ordered the commanders of all units not to hide when the planes came, but to stand on the main road and command. It stands to reason that there is nothing wrong with this method, because the officers and men of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army are one, and there is no reason for the officers to flee for their lives first in the event of an air raid. However, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army stresses science and democracy, and will never be stupid enough to be bombed in the face of air raids. The tradition of the Beiyang Army is to "win with courage", and Wu Peifu was able to repel the Japanese army in Rizhao because of this bravery. So when the plane began to attack the air, a division commander who Wu Peifu was optimistic about carried out the military order and personally brought a team of his own soldiers to stand on the road and scolded the soldiers hiding on the side of the road.

At the beginning of the bombing, it was nothing, the bombs blew up gravel and smoke on the main road, and the officers were not injured because of the sparse standing. But what I never expected was that the air force of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army suddenly swooped down and fired a machine gun at the division commander and his own soldiers. The division commander was caught off guard, and he was hit by six bullets and one life. Wu Peifu was taken aback when he got the news, he never expected that the plane of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army would be able to accurately see the target on the ground. Not only Wu Peifu, but also other officers who learned the news were very frightened.

This, of course, was the misunderstanding of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army by the Beiyang Army. Wu Peifu: Naturally, they did not know the characteristics of the Air Force of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. Due to the extreme fragility of today's aircraft, a few shots could have taken place and they could have crashed. Therefore, the air force units of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army carried out air strikes outside the range of the Beiyang Army. But the Beiyang Army troops hid on the side of the road to escape the bombs, and the group of people on the road became an excellent target. The air force fighter who shot the dive shot was a very young corporal pilot, and the reason for this was only because he had been in the air force for a short time, and the first dive shooting was forbidden to new comrades to participate. After the Beiyang Army fled to the side of the road, the road was safe, and there were a group of guys who "didn't know the three eyes of the prince of horses" pointing fingers on the road, so he made his own dive design. It is even more unlikely that this division commander was chosen because of his sharp eyes, just because this division commander's personal soldiers have many goals and big goals.

When the young pilot returned to the airport, he was picked up and criticized by the flight captain. The captain ordered the pilot to make a public review of the revolutionary work in a responsible manner, and promised not to do such unorganized and undisciplined things in the future. Of course, Wu Peifu did not know these details, and he did not know that after this battle, this case became a classic case of ideological work of the Air Force of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. If you don't obey orders and commands, you won't be able to achieve great results. Those who should be criticized should be criticized, and those who should be punished should be punished.

Since the Beiyang Army believed that the planes of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army could observe the intelligence on the ground with great accuracy, their actions were even more restricted. One by one, the officers feared that they would be killed if they were exposed to the soldiers again. Wu Peifu's original action to boost morale actually dealt a great blow to the morale of the troops.

Now it is only more than 30 miles away from Linzhang County, and Wu Peifu absolutely cannot accept a large-scale dispatch of troops and then withdraw to Handan in a gloomy manner. Mo said that Wu Peifu's own self-esteem did not allow it, and it was impossible for Yuan Shikai, who was in Beijing, to accept Wu Peifu's actions. As a result of summoning his subordinates to discuss, the subordinates made a suggestion, "My lord, we might as well march at night." If you don't light a torch, you'll be fine at night. Until now, I had never seen a BJP plane go out at night. ”

This suggestion was agreed with by most of the officers, and it was now better to march at night than to march at night if they were to move forward or backward during the day. It is so close to Linzhang County, it only takes one night to arrive.

Wu Peifu immediately agreed. As a fierce general, Wu Peifu does not think that he can suffer anything when he fights the People's Party head-on. So after nightfall, the Beiyang Army only took a short rest and continued to move.

The reconnaissance unit of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army never gave up its reconnaissance of the Beiyang Army, and Wu Peifu's troops also had internal responses from the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army's subordinates. The news of the preparation of the Beiyang Army for a night march soon reached the headquarters of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. Chai Qingguo had already slept for a short time at this time, and he didn't immediately make any judgment after hearing the news. went out to take a cold shower first, Chai Qingguo stood wet in the courtyard of the headquarters and suddenly laughed, "This Wu Peifu is really bold!" ”

One of the basic subjects of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army was to attack and harass at night, and it would be fine if the Beiyang Army marched in small units. The army of 100,000 marched all the way at night, which made it clear that they would be beaten. Seeing that the sky was already beginning to darken, Chai Qingguo immediately ordered all the senior commanders of the troops to come to the meeting. At the same time, Chai Qingguo directly found the reconnaissance battalion directly under the army and ordered this elite unit to immediately enter the night attack battle. "You don't have to think too much, you don't have to think about what the results are, how many enemies you destroy, you don't have to think about them. If the Beiyang Army marches at night, don't let the Beiyang Army sleep tonight, you are the first merit! ”

"Guaranteed to complete the mission!" The commander of the reconnaissance battalion saluted excitedly.

By the time the commanders arrived, the reconnaissance battalion had already departed. After listening to Chai Qingguo's briefing, the commanders looked at each other. None of them expected that the war would have such a great opportunity at this point.