In the early morning, the sun jumped out of the Qinling Mountains and shone on the slowly flowing Wei River, slowly breaking away the mist shrouded in the river, the flat land, and the mountain cols. The mist drifted up from the woods and fields, wisps, clumps, and gradually dissipated.

When the fog lifted, the flowers and plants in the field showed smiling faces. Red, pink, yellow, lavender, shandandan, dandelion, well-known and unknown flowers and weeds, all bloom beautifully in this spring morning, as if to announce to the world that they are the graceful spring girls, they are using their lives to render color, render colorful, render fresh, render hope.

Liu Jianli stood on a high ground by the Wei River, with Zhao Shan, political commissar of the 12th Division, Li Congmin, director of the Political Department, and Wang Bingsan, chief of staff, behind him.

Yesterday evening, the 12th Division set out from the town of Weinan, crossed the Wei River and occupied positions. Now everything is ready, just waiting for the enemy to come up.

Looking at the boundless spring, Liu Jianli sighed in his heart, in such a beautiful spring, the soldiers were fighting. Fortunately, after the end of this battle, the forces of the Ma Jiajun army, which had occupied the northwest for a long time, will be uprooted, and the people of all nationalities in the northwest should rejoice to welcome the Red Army.

Zhao Shan saw that Liu Jianli was motionless, and the more he looked, the more he felt that Liu Jianjian's current words and deeds were imitating the corps commander, so he smiled and said: "Division commander, if the corps commander is here, he will recite poetry at this time." How about you, let's open our eyes too? ”

Liu Jianli smiled embarrassedly, scratched his head, and said, "If I had the ability to be a legion commander, I'm afraid I wouldn't be called Liu Jianli." ”

A few people laughed.

Before the laughter was over, he saw dust in the distance, and when he heard it again, he knew that it was a massive cavalry force of the enemy attacking.

Liu Jianjian shouted: "Chief of Staff, order the troops to prepare for battle!" ”

Teng Xinxing is a native of Guilin, Guangxi, 25 years old this year, and Li Zongren, the leaders of the Gui Army, Bai Chongxi, and Li Tianyou, the commander of the Red Fifth Division, are fellow villagers in the same county. After graduating from high school, he joined the Gui Army, attended the Gui Army's teaching team, and became a platoon commander after coming out of the teaching team. He was captured by the 18th Regiment during the Battle of Gulingtou. At first, he was stubborn, because he believed that the Gui army was the best army in China, and the Red Army was nothing more than a bunch of bandits. When the army was reorganized in the west, the grievance movement carried out by the 18th Regiment finally woke him up, and together with Li Dexian and Song Wenhu, he led the transformation of the prisoners of the Gui Army. Therefore, all three of them also went to the 18th Regiment Teaching Team for a short period of time and became glorious Red Army soldiers.

This Teng Xinxing looks very gentle and introverted, but because of his good cultural foundation, high fighting quality, quick acceptance of new ideas, and calm and brave when fighting, he has also made rapid progress. Now, he is a platoon commander of the third company of the first battalion of the 12th regiment of the 34th division of the Red Division.

The position of the first platoon was on the first line of defense of the 34th regiment, behind which was the second line of defense formed by the heavy machine-gun positions of the regimental fire battalion, and beyond that were mortar positions. The task of the platoon was to stop the enemy's shock regiment fire positions and protect the heavy machine guns and mortars from firing safely.

The positions of the 13th Division were like this, and the infantry protected heavy firepower at all levels and ensured the effectiveness of heavy firepower.

After receiving the order to prepare for battle, Teng Xinxing ordered the soldiers to go to the battle position, and the heavy machine guns of the platoon and the light machine guns of each squad were also all in place.

As soon as they were ready, the enemy's cavalry brigade rushed up.

This green horse cavalry, although the equipment is average, but there is still a study of cavalry tactics. The formation was a regular triangle, with sharp corners like an awl, and it slammed into the position of the 12th Regiment of the 34th Division.

Teng Wenxing saw that the tip of the enemy's sword was aimed at him, and immediately ordered the soldiers to open the shell guns and put them in front of them, ready to fight in close combat when the enemy rushed in front of them.

The predecessor of the 34th Regiment was the second battalion, and the equipment of the first battalion of the 34th regiment was the same as that of the first battalion of the 31st regiment of the 11th division. Ma Yuanhai did not understand the characteristics of the various units of the Red Seventh Army Corps, so he shot the attack arrow at the 12th Battalion of the 34th Regiment, the most elite of the 34th Division.

The enemy rushed over, and the ground shook as the horses stepped on it. Teng Wenxing looked at the constant war horses falling into the trap pit, and the constant war horses stepping on the ground mines, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth: The dog said, even if you are illiterate, you can touch the signboard, dare to attack the first battalion of the 34th Regiment, you are tired and crooked!

500 meters, 400 meters, 200 meters, 100 meters, the triumphant smile on the face of the green horse cavalry can be seen clearly, Teng Wenxing no longer appreciates the beautiful scenery of the green horse cavalry falling into the horse pit, shouted and hit, and the submachine gun in his hand began to roar.

The bullets fired from light and heavy machine guns, submachine guns, and rifles were like a fiery dragon, rolling towards the charging green horse cavalry, burning the sharp corners of the triangle clean.

The horses screamed, blood splashed, and the knights with scimitars were shot to the ground before they could rush to the Red Army position.

The cavalry charge was different from the infantry, it had a huge habitual surname, and the tip of the sword was broken, which did not affect the thousands of troops and horses behind to continue to rush. The cavalry behind still rushed up, trampling the comrades and dead horses who landed in front of them into a bloody mess.

The drums of war were frequent, the battle flags were flying, and the horns were sounding, and the strong green horse cavalry ignored the rain of bullets of the first battalion, urged the mounts, and set off a frenzy and rolled towards the Red Army position. They had only one purpose, to rush up and cut down the red bandits with their sabers!

Liu Jianli stood behind a big tree, looking at the green horse charging team that was like a tide in Qiantang, surging closer and closer, and immediately connected with the heavy machine gun positions of the 34th Regiment and the division, and remembered what the regiment commander had said to Hu Laohu when he was in the passage. He even remembered the tragic story told by the commander of the regiment that the 7,000 Mongolian iron cavalry led by Seng Lingqin were wiped out by the British and French artillery fire on the Bali Bridge in Tongzhou, and the French army only suffered 12 casualties, and looked at the Qingma cavalry team with a little pity, and ordered the division to fire heavily and the 34th Regiment on the whole line, and all the artillery aimed at the middle of the enemy's cavalry team.

This time, the battlefield was immediately lively. Hordes of cannonballs fell in the middle of the horses, abandoning the horses high, and the horsemen on the horses were thrown off their saddles and fell to the ground again, becoming spirits under the hooves of the horses.

Countless heavy machine guns and light machine guns spat out bullets, and a gust of wind rolled up on the ground with magazines and chains, and swept the Green Horse cavalry into the center of the whirlwind, tearing, whirling, and then throwing it to the ground and turning it into a wanderer.

The Green Horse Cavalry, which had been severely attacked, quickly changed its formation, separated from the middle, divided into two teams, and swept towards the two flanks of the 13th Division's position, intending to break through from both flanks.

The artillery and heavy machine guns of the 13th Division immediately extended their fire, chasing the formation of the Green Horse Cavalry with shells and bullets, constantly reaping lives.

On the positions of the 35th and 36th regiments deployed on both flanks, guns and cannons rang out in unison, strangling the tactics of breaking through the two wings of the Green Horse Cavalry in a dream.

Under the double blow of shells and bullets, the fierce green horse cavalry could no longer hold on. I don't know who led the way, but the rout began, and the cavalry behind turned their horses and began to run towards the road to Gangu.

As a result, Ma Yuanhai's battle to use cavalry to storm the Red Army's Weihe defense line failed with just one charge.

Ma Yuanhai led the guards and retreated by the scattered cavalry. At this time, he was no longer sad, and his mind became clear.

With such a powerful firepower of the Red Army, did it just prevent its own troops from breaking through to the north? Isn't there a main force of red bandits waiting in the Gangu direction? It seems that the Red Seventh Legion is like a hunter on the grassland, afraid that it has already set up a set, just waiting for its group of fools to jump.

You can't go in the direction of Gangu, it must be a dead end. Tianshui City can't go either, Ma Hongkui is right, the Red Seventh Army troops in that city are not something that their own troops can afford to provoke. Now there is only one way left, which is to rush to the south to cross the river and break through to Longnan. But when I think about it, if the Red Seventh Army is ready to completely wipe out the Ma Jiajun, I am afraid that it will also be a dead place. After thinking about it, I felt that there was no way out, so I wanted to just die, the battle had reached such a point, and the troops had suffered such a big loss, even if they ran out alive, they had no face to see.

Ma Yuanhai was about to commit suicide, when he saw Ma Lu running over with a team of guards, and he didn't get off his horse, so he immediately asked him loudly: "The troops are all scattered, what should I do now?" ”

Ma Yuanhai was taken aback, yes, what should I do? Looking at it again, the battlefield was full of corpses of people and war horses, Ma Yuanhai's heart moved, he couldn't die, these are all soldiers of the Ma family, no matter what, he has to think of taking some of them out, otherwise, Qinghai will be over.

Ma Yuanhai recovered his spirit and said to Ma Lu: "What to do, hurry up and gather the troops, organize the formation, and rush out of the bloody road." Otherwise, they all have to die! ”

After speaking, he clamped his legs, urged the war horse, and took the lead in chasing the rout.

Seeing that the enemy's cavalry charge was routed, Liu Jianli immediately ordered the whole division to advance and narrow the encirclement.

At this time, Ma Hongkui was leading his seventh division along the main road towards Gangu.

He had already heard the sound of gunfire in the direction of the Wei River, and knew that it was Ma Yuanhai who was attacking the red bandits' position.

As for whether Ma Yuanhai can drive the red bandits into the Weihe River to feed the turtles, Ma Hongkui doesn't want to, and he doesn't want to think about it. The offensive battle in Tianshui City had already made him understand that this Red Army was not easy to provoke, and it was right to disengage as soon as possible. Besides, if Ma Yuanhai succeeds, wouldn't he be safer?

Listen to me, why did the gunfire stop? Could it be that Ma Yuanhai collapsed so quickly?

Ma Hongkui is different from Ma Yuanhai, he has seen the world. Not to mention anything else, just Yuan Shikai's Beiyang elite back then, his own troops were not opponents. Don't say that the Red Army defending Tianshui City is so dense today, Ma Yuanhai will definitely fail, but he didn't expect to fail so quickly, and I don't know how much combat power the cavalry he brought with him.

If the cavalry brought by Ma Yuanhai is wiped out by the red bandits, then when you arrive in Gangu, I'm afraid you will have to talk to Ma Bufang about it. The strength of his own Seventh Division has not suffered much loss, so he can't always let him defend Ningxia! There are only 700,000 people in Ningxia, and they are very poor.

Before Ma Hongkui could finish his imagination, gunfire rang out in the direction of the cavalry brigade in front.

Zhou Yi, chief of staff of the 11th Division, was lying on the position of the 31st Regiment at this time, observing Ma Jiajun together with Wang Dahu and Wang Xinyun.

The cavalry of the Ma family army on the main road was very long, at least six or seven thousand people. The soldiers were vigilant, maintained their battle formation, and rushed towards the 11th Division and the troops directly under the corps.

Zhou Yi thought to himself, this won't work, as soon as the fire is fired, the cavalry at the head will certainly not be able to escape, but the one behind will immediately retract. The enemy must feel the prospect of a breakthrough and attract them to attack on a large scale in order for the powerful legion's direct firepower to work.

As soon as he discussed with Wang Dahu and Wang Xinyun, Zhou Yi immediately reported to the plateau and asked him to convey to the corps commander that the heavy firepower directly under the corps and the firepower directly under the 11th Division would not fire for the time being, and that the heavy machine guns of all regiments were not allowed to fire, and only rifles and light machine guns were allowed to fire, which must create a false impression that the main force of the Red Army was on the front line of the Wei River, and this place was only a blocking force. Let them attack with all their might, and then open fire with all their heavy firepower, and gather the enemy here. At the very least, it is necessary to completely crush their will to resist and create conditions for their final annihilation.

Zhou Yi's suggestion was quickly approved, and now he is waiting for the cavalry of the Ma family army to enter the firing range.

The vanguard of Ma Hongkui's 7th Division was Ma Yongchang's cavalry regiment. In a hurry to retreat, not even the vanguard company was dispatched, and the whole regiment advanced rapidly in battle formation along the main road.

Guarding the middle of the main road was the Engineer Regiment, behind which were the heavy machine gun regiments and artillery regiments of the regiments.

The engineer regiment carried a lot of explosives, and all the explosives that were detonated by electric detonation were buried within a distance of 1,000 meters on the main road in front of the position, preparing to let Ma Jiajun have a good taste of taking an airplane.

Ren Chaoran, the commander of the engineer regiment, and Li Zengyu, the political commissar, watched the cavalry regiment of the Ma Jiajun enter the firing range and ordered to fire. In addition to the heavy machine guns, the light machine guns and rifles of the whole regiment immediately shouted happily, and the beating made Ma Yongchang's regiment dizzy and quickly retreated.

As soon as Ma Hongkui heard the sound of gunshots in front of him, he knew that something was wrong. The red bandits have blocked the way. Just as he was about to order the troops to retreat, he saw that the cavalry led by Ma Yuanhai to attack the Wei River broke down. After a little observation, I was surprised, Ma Yuanhai brought three cavalry brigades, how many people came back? It's horrible!

After a while, Ma Yuanhai and Ma Lu and several other brigade commanders came up, and Ma Hongkui briefly inquired about the situation, knowing that the red bandits by the Wei River were definitely the main force, and the firepower was unimaginably powerful. Now they are trying to press this side, and they will soon catch up, and they must immediately break through in multiple ways, otherwise the whole army will be destroyed.

At this time, Ma Hongkui didn't dare to play annihilation anymore. He was taught by his father Ma Fuxiang since he was a child, and although he later tended to be reactionary and degenerate, he still had some skills. In addition, he is also the chairman of Ningxia Province, with a great reputation, and in times of crisis, he is the banner of stabilizing the morale of the army. So, he summoned the brigade commanders and regiment commanders of the New Second Army, the Fifth Cavalry Division, and the Seventh Division together, briefly talked about the situation, and told everyone that only by fighting to the death and killing the bloody road could they withdraw to Gangu. Otherwise, either surrender, be captured, or be killed.

With this statement, the morale of the backbone cadres of Qingma and Ningma has risen again. Ma Hongkui saw that he could still fight, so he asked Ma Yuanhai to make a combat deployment.

Ma Yuanhai cleared his throat and shouted loudly: "The survival of the whole army is here in one fell swoop. Which donkey dared to make the annihilation slippery, and when he retreated, Lao Tzu's machine gun swept him. Now, I order: the 7th Division will attack head-on along the main road, the New 2nd Army will attack in the south, and the 5th Cavalry Division will attack in the north. The Seventh Division was commanded by Ma Tengjiao, the New Second Army was commanded by Han Qigong, and the Fifth Cavalry Division was commanded by Ma Tingxiang. Everyone is all dead, and they must also protect Chairman Ma and kill them, otherwise, I am sorry for the ancestors of the Ma family. The units immediately formed their formations, and after 10 minutes, they concentrated the artillery of the 7th Division and shelled the opposite side, killing all the shells. The cavalry dismounted and charged with the infantry. Everyone took the sound of artillery as an order, and as soon as the sound of artillery was thought, the whole army charged. Didn't hear it clearly. ”

After Ma Yuanhai gave the order, all brigade and regiment commanders made preparations. Ma Hongkui sent another telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, declaring that the troops were surrounded by red bandits, and that he was determined to repay the chairman of the committee for his kindness. Then, Ma Hongkui called his guard battalion commander and asked him to immediately find a few clothes for the people who were transporting the baggage with the army, and pick a few fast horses for backup.

Ten minutes later, Wang Zuotong, commander of the artillery battalion of the 7th Ningma Division, and Ma Yizhong, commander of the mortar battalion, began to direct the artillery to shell the positions of the Red Army on the opposite side.

With the sound of artillery, the remnants of Qingma and Ningma launched a multi-pronged attack and attacked Liangshang.

Zhou Yi couldn't help but be overjoyed when he saw that Qingma and Ningma were concentrating all their strength on the attack, and immediately reported to the plateau, asking to tell the artillery regiment and let their mountain artillery destroy the enemy's artillery position.

Seeing that the enemy was attacking in a big way, Liu Yimin ordered the 12th Division to speed up the encirclement to the south, and ordered the 13th Division and the Only Division to go out of Tianshui City to pursue westward, solve the enemy's lagging and covering troops, and then continue to encircle. The 4th Division was ordered to join the siege to the north.

After receiving the order, the commander of the artillery regiment, Li Chang, immediately ordered the mountain artillery and 75 mortars to destroy the enemy artillery positions.

The artillery of the Seventh Division of Ningma fired 6 shells per cannon, and just as they were in good spirits, the shells of the Red Seventh Army fell near the position, Wang Zuotong and Ma Yizhong hurriedly ordered the artillery to transfer their positions, but unfortunately it was too late, the artillery of the Seventh Army Corps, which corrected the orientation, smashed the shells on their heads accurately, and the artillerymen scattered in a hurry, and Wang and Ma also ran away in a hurry.

At this time, it was time to fight hard, and the elite infantry of Qingma and Ningma suffered little losses, and under the leadership of the brigade commanders and regiment commanders, they rushed to the positions of the 11th Division and the troops directly under the regiment all over the mountains.

The artillery salvo of the 7th Ningma Division just now still caused a lot of losses to the engineer regiment guarding the frontal position on the main road. Although the positions were camouflaged, improvised artillery holes were dug. However, due to the fact that the time to occupy the position was too short, the position did not have time to be reinforced, and one squad of fighters was buried in a small anti-artillery hole.

Li Zengyu, the political commissar of the engineering regiment, was also cut by a piece of shrapnel on his arm, and after a simple bandage, Li Zengyu shouted Ren Chaoran and the enemy came up.

Ren Chaoran was also disgraced, listening to Li Zengyu's shout, he shook his head, got rid of the soil in his ears, and climbed to the trench to take a look, Mom, there are so many enemies. In particular, the main road where the explosives were planted was densely packed with people. pulled Li Zengyu: "Lao Li, look! ”

Li Zengyu followed Ren Chaoran's finger and looked at Jiule, grandma's, dare to bomb Lao Tzu with cannons, Lao Tzu will let you take a plane!

Li Zengyu did not ask Ren Chaoran's opinion, ran directly to the first engineer battalion, and led the soldiers to press the detonator together.

This time, the 1,000-meter section of the road roared continuously, the smoke and dust billowed out, and I don't know how many lives were devoured.

Liu Yimin, who was standing on the roof of the command post and watching the battle, even said that the engineer corps was good, and Ren Chaoran and Li Zengyu were good. After saying that, he ordered the entire line to open fire, completely destroying the will of Tsing Ma and Ning Ma to resist.

At half past seven in the morning, Zhang Qun received an order from Nanjing, ordering him to immediately meet Zhou Enlai and talk about a few points: First, he lodged a strong protest to [***] to protest against [***] sabotage of armistice negotiations and blind civil war. The second is to demand that the communist soup abide by the armistice order, immediately achieve a ceasefire in Tianshui, and let Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui's troops retreat. 3. If the fire does not stop in Tianshui, the central government cannot sit idly by and watch the second horse be annihilated, and the central army will launch an attack in Tongguan, eastern Sichuan, and northern Sichuan. A million-strong army captured Xi'an, Weinan, Mianyang, and Guangyuan in one fell swoop. 4. In order to avoid accidentally injuring civilians, the Central Air Force will not bomb Xi'an, but it will not damage the Longhai Railway, the Tongpu Railway, and the Luoyang Airport. Fifth, the central government is sincere in negotiations, if [***] does not want to talk now, it is okay to wait for the central army to occupy Xi'an. But [***] must be held accountable for treachery and starting a civil war. It was necessary to abandon the occupation of the Weihe Plain and retreat to northern Shaanxi. Sixth, the 300,000 elites of the Central Army gathered in Wuhan and Yichang have covertly entered the eastern Sichuan region, and if [***] dares to annihilate the Second Horse Army, the elite of the Central Army will solve Peng Dehuai and Xu Qianqian by force.

After receiving the order, Zhang Qun felt that the New Year was wrong. Yesterday it was still the second horse besieging Tianshui, why did it become a retreat for the second horse today?

After calling Zhang Zhizhong and Chen Cheng to discuss, they understood that Liu Yimin and Luo Ronghuan's other priority was to secretly rush to Tianshui to solve the second horse army.

Chen Cheng said hatefully: "This Liu Yimin is so bold and arrogant that he ignores the armistice order at all. If this person is not removed, the country will have no peace. ”

Zhang Zhizhong smiled: "This is not to blame Liu Yimin, the second horse does not fight Tianshui, let us sit down and negotiate honestly, won't there be nothing?" In the final analysis, it is not right to start a war in vain. ”

Zhang Qun was upset, and directly said that you should go with me to see Zhou Enlai immediately.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, Zhou Enlai rushed to Lintong and made an appointment with Zhang Qun and others in the five halls.

Zhang Qun's face was ugly, and he said directly to Zhou En: "Mr. Enlai, I am instructed to make a strong protest to your party on behalf of the political axe of the Republic of China. Then he said all the instructions from Nanjing.

As he spoke, Zhang Qun was still puzzled, and said angrily: "Mr. Enlai, I didn't expect that you [***] people were actually masters of tricks to hide from the world. Yesterday he protested solemnly, and today he is encircling and annihilating the main forces of Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui. I think this move is too unbright and will damage your image of Zhou Enlai in front of the people! ”

Chen Cheng continued: "Mr. Enlai, when will you [***] stop engaging in sneak attacks, ambushes, and stuffy sticks?" If you do this every day, you will be looked down upon by the Chinese people! ”

Zhou Enlai smiled: "I can't accept the arguments of the two. It was the Nanjing Nationalist Axe that really provoked the civil war, and it was Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui and others who dared to be lackeys. Now, Chiang Kai-shek is self-defeating, lifting a stone and hitting himself in the foot, knowing that it hurts? Started protesting? Let me tell you that there is no good end to fighting a civil war, and Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui are role models! ”

(To be continued)