The siege headquarters of the Seventh Army was set up in a forest about 2.5 kilometers outside the Baohe Gate, with a semicircular bunker made of triple sturdy sandbags two meters high and thirty meters long in front, and several low-rise tiled houses of the villagers in the back. At the kind invitation of Hu Zongduo, An Yi came to watch the battle with Hu Zi after dinner.

As night fell, with Hu Zongduo's order, thousands of elites of the 13th Regiment and 14th Regiment under the command of the Seventh Brigade and more than 4,000 officers and soldiers of the supplementary regiment formed by Hu Zongduo on the way to Hunan quietly moved and trotted straight towards Zhonghe Gate, Baohe Gate, and Wangshan Gate.

According to the requirements, each platoon of the forward unit was equipped with two long ladders, so after diving 100 meters out of the dense forests, villages, and other hidden places, the officers and men who poured out of the dense forests and villages all ran faster and faster carrying all kinds of long ladders and the elongated door panels erected on the city trenches, and closely followed behind the "brave team" composed of brave officers and men selected in advance by each regiment.

An Yi lay on the sandbag in front of the left side of the bunker, raised the telescope by the faint light and observed nervously, under the light of the torches with long spacing on the enemy's battlements, the officers and men of the 14th Regiment "Brave Team" in front had successfully erected a simple wooden bridge on the moat, and more than 1,000 officers and soldiers behind him successfully crossed the wooden bridge almost silently to reach the bottom of the city, and a series of various long ladders were erected nervously under the solid city wall more than 100 meters long.

An Yi worriedly asked the beard beside him, "Is the defender on the city wall really so paralyzed?" The nearly two-kilometer-long siege formation of tens of thousands of people didn't let them find out? ”

"There is fraud! Absolutely deceptive! I guess ......"

A cannon "boom" on the head of the city broke the beard's words, and the long city wall immediately became blazing, as bright as day, countless lit torches flew from the city head to the city, the enemy's dense machine gun fire suddenly rang out, and dense grenades flew to the officers and soldiers at the foot of the city wall.

The long ladders were either broken at the waist or shook backwards in the dense explosions, and the strings of siege warriors on the long ladders were blown up into the air, falling in pieces to the narrow area between the trench and the city wall, and only a dozen lone long ladders were left attached to the high city walls, most of these extremely primitive and simple ladders could not be built on the battlements, but the heroic siege warriors still climbed up without fear in the earth-shattering shouts of killing.

Immediately afterwards, barrels of kerosene, vegetable oil, and gasoline rolled down from the city wall, causing a sky-high fire, and the city wall suddenly became a long fire belt under the city wall, and the violently burning oil barrels stirred up pillars of fire as high as dozens of meters, swaying and twisting in the wind, roaring upward.

Groups of siege officers and soldiers who were like burning men wailed and threw themselves into the deep water of the city trenches, and on the long pole of the blazing fire hung one after another charred warriors, spasming and twisting in the crackling sound of burning, gunfire and screams that tore hearts and lungs, and gradually scorched black, and the groups fell, and the screams of drilling into the heart came and went, and could be heard clearly ten miles away.

Thousands of defenders rushed to the battlements, using machine guns to fire at the besieging officers and soldiers who had escaped from the trenches, and rifles to kill the surviving officers and soldiers who were desperate and desperate in the narrow area below the city and in the trenches.

Behind the position, the artillery fire of the Seventh Army began to roar back, violently bombarding the city, a few accurate shells blew up the dense defenders on the city wall, and the flesh and blood were blurred, but the enemy's superior artillery placed on the Snake Mountain and Wangchutai quickly returned fire, and only a few volleys made the two hidden artillery positions of the Seventh Army dumb, and then the firepower extended and covered, causing the soldiers of the Seventh Army to mourn all over the field, and it was a mess, and even several houses more than 20 meters behind Hu Zongduo's headquarters were flattened by a few shells that suddenly flew in. The siege, which lasted only forty minutes, ended in a crushing defeat for the attackers.

The gunfire stopped, the hundreds of meters long wall of fire under the city wall was still burning, and the surroundings of An Yi and Hu Zi were full of raging flames caused by the explosion.

An Yi and Huzi, who were in a heavy mood, walked to Hu Zongduo, who was blue but resolute, and looked at each other silently for a moment, Hu Zongduo took a few steps forward in the noisy noise and whispered a few words to An Yi, An Yi nodded and pointed in the direction of the river, whispered a few words, and saw several commanders of the Political Department of the Seventh Army coming with sad faces, and hurriedly said goodbye to the busy Hu Zongduo.

The two rushed back to the hidden location of the second and third companies, and all the grizzled and frightened brothers got up from the ground, An Yi finally relieved himself after listening to the reports of the two company commanders without a single casualty, and immediately ordered the whole team to return silently.

After returning to the camp and settling down, An Yi and Hu Zi rushed to the rear headquarters of the Zhongxiao Gate where the division helped to fight, and from the faces of the dejected commanders, the two knew that the officers and men of the Fourth Army could not escape a similar fate as the Seventh Army without asking.

Hu Shusen and Liu Xiao saw An Yi and the others, and strode over to ask about the reason for returning and the battle situation of the Seventh Army.

An Yi replied truthfully: "Chief Hu Zongduo of the Seventh Brigade of the Seventh Army and Director Deng of the Political Department have ordered our department to be rebuilt, and said that there will be no major action for at least three days. More than half of the casualties of the 14th Regiment of the Seventh Army have not yet been counted, and no less than one-third of the dead and wounded officers and men have been observed by their subordinates. ”

Liu Xiao sighed slightly: "The regiments of the 10th Division of the Fourth Army as the main attack are almost the same, just now I received a retreat call from Chief Li, and Chief Li was also very sad, and ordered us to use the time of these two days to rest and recuperate, summarize the gains and losses, and think of more ways." Tomorrow at nine o'clock in the morning, the two of you will come to the division headquarters for a summary meeting, and I need to hear the opinions of your engineers. ”

"Division, my subordinates suggested calling Yin Jinan together, he is stronger than both of us in terms of troop distribution and speed." An Yi suggested in a low voice and immediately obtained Liu Xiao's consent.

Returning to his hidden camp, An Yi immediately convened a meeting of the platoon commander and above of the battalion, and learned that the brothers above the platoon commander of the second and third companies had arrived to observe the whole process of the siege.

At the end of the meeting, An Yi nodded with satisfaction, asked everyone to summarize, called on the brothers to contribute ideas, and the winner was rewarded with a hundred oceans.

The brothers left in a hurry, and the elf's Dong Lingzi made tea for An Yi and the three of them, and was praised by An Yi when they were served, and Dong Lingzi said shyly: I'm afraid that my eldest brother will send me to study and no one will serve me, and the brothers are all very arrogant, I don't feel at ease.

Dong Yanzi's words made An Yi feel emotional, Hu Zi looked at Dong Yanzi with appreciation for a while, and turned to An Yi: "What did you say to Hu Zongduo when you came back?" ”

An Yi was quite frustrated: "He told me that the result of the fiasco was better than we expected in the afternoon, but half of the artillery of the Seventh Army in the rear was gone, and the whole army was indignant and shouting shame at the moment, and it was estimated that he would be ready to do it again in a day or two, and he would not dare to disagree with him as a person from another province in the general colonel of the Gui Army." I told him that no matter what, he must pay close attention to the river on the left flank of their Seventh Army, otherwise he would probably suffer heavy losses, and told him not to fall for Chen Jiamo, and not to believe in the illusion that all enemy ships are sailing downstream.

Alas...... In fact, he was ordered to withdraw and rest better, tonight's battle he also broke his muscles and bones, and finally expanded the strength of the thirteenth and fourteenth regiments under his command, from Guangxi to here, fighting life and death along the way, hard work to reorganize the prisoners and supplement them into a reinforced regiment of 4,000 people, He Shengqiao lost more than 2,000 elites under his command in the first battle, and he didn't have time to adjust tonight and was appointed as a vanguard by Commander Li Zongren, and the loss of the two vicious battles added up to a regiment is gone, although he didn't care about it on his face, but I could hear from the conversation that he didn't feel good in his heart! ”

Yin Jinan was also uncomfortable: "During the siege of the city, I quietly went to the direction of Zhongxiaomen to take a look, the four armies and the ten divisions were killed and wounded, and it is estimated that there will be no ten days and a half months of supplementary rest and recuperation. ”

Hu Zi thoughtfully put down the teaglass, lit a cigarette and turned to An Yi: "As far as I know, this thirty-three-year-old Hu Zongduo is the same as Tao Jun, the head of the regiment of Li Mingrui, a fierce general under Chief Li, both of whom are from Hubei, and they both graduated from the fourth phase of the Baoding Military Academy. The two and Huang Shaohong, General Bai Chongxi is the brother of the Baoding Military Academy, many years ago under the command of General Huang Shaohong, after the Northern Expedition from Changsha began to be reused, until the Wuchang city under the basic battle to participate, the two led by the troops is also the fastest expansion in the Gui army, the most captured, the friendly generals have a high evaluation of these two.

However, the relationship between Hu Zongduo and General Gui Jun seems to be very delicate, for example, this time he asked him to lead his troops to attack the city, and several other brigades were watching from behind, although the battlefield could not accommodate too many attacking troops, but it was completely okay to send two brigades to participate in the battle and assist each other, and when Hu Zongduo's troops were attacking the city, there were no other covering troops to keep up, and Lao Tzu couldn't figure it out when he thought about it. ”

Yin Jinan said in surprise: "Are you saying that General Li Zongren intends to let Hu Zongduo's brigade be a siege test?" No way! Chief Li is definitely not that kind of person, we have been following behind the butt of the Seventh Army since Tingsi Bridge, whether we hear or see, it proves that Chief Li is a generous and fair person, and will never do such a stupid thing, even if he is really worried about Hu Zongduo sitting big as you said, he can completely transfer part of his army to be consistent with other brigades.

Taking a step back, the commanders of all regiments and battalions under Hu Zongduo are all from Guangxi, and Hu Zongduo will not be blind to such a shrewd person in the war, not to mention that there is Chief Bai who is the deputy chief of staff of our Northern Expeditionary Army to take care of him. ”

The beard turned white and glanced at Yin Jinan: "Jinan, there are many reasons why you and I can't believe it or not, but there are indeed some bad things that we have to prevent." You know that big brother I usually don't like to chew my tongue, but so many years of wandering let me see and hear a lot of mysterious things, since the age of fifteen into the rivers and lakes darts, I have seen a lot of incomprehensible things, I have been thinking about it for so many years and still have no clue, only know that this world is different from the past, people's hearts are separated from the belly! You can't assume that everyone is as honest as you all the time, can you? ”

Under An Yi's surprised gaze, the beard that was quite excited taught Yin Jinan a rare lesson: "Take what I said just now, even if it's not true, it can make a few of our brothers grow more hearts, right?" It's good for Xiao Yi, it's good for you, it's good for me. Our current identities are different, to put it mildly, since we embarked on the Northern Expedition, our heads have been tied to the waistband of our trousers, and we can't afford to be a little negligent.

For example, I said those bad things about Gui Jun just now, and I was polite to say it so painlessly, if you don't believe me, I will say another thought that has been pressed in my heart today, I think how can you stand it? Listen to me, you kid: If Hu Zongduo is more and more dissatisfied with his own situation, especially when he goes to his hometown and his own land, he is not angry after thinking about it, and deliberately asks Chief Li Zongren to take the lead in attacking the city, which will not only consume the troops under him who are not the same road as himself, but also show that he is above board and righteous to Chief Li and the group of colleagues in the Gui army, and can stay out of the increasingly fierce siege war in the future, will you be able to accept it? ”

Yin Jinan was dumbfounded, An Yi's heart was also extremely shocked, the more he thought about it, the more terrifying he felt, he turned to Hu Zi and asked reluctantly: "Huzi, this is just one of your assumptions, right?" ”

Hu Zi sighed: "Originally, I didn't have this idea, but before I came back, I took a look at the 4,000-person supplementary regiment that Hu Zongduo had retreated from, and there were almost no casualties, and there were only about 200 people lying on the ground who wanted to die or live, and there were no more than 30% of the casualties reported by the Hubei regiment commander under him." And I don't know if you found it, Hu Zongduo looked calm when he talked to you, and he deliberately avoided those fools in the Political Department of the Seventh Army, the more I thought about it when I came back, the more wrong it became, so I slowly pondered and had a guess just now...... Alas, I wish I was talking nonsense. ”

An Yi's heart was extremely heavy, he looked at the half of the cigarette butt in his hand, and sighed leisurely for a while: "If this is just a tentative attack by Chief Li for the next siege, the price is inevitably too great!" If Hu Zongduo is really like what you said, who can our brothers trust in the future......"

(To be continued)