"Are all the Beiyang Army belonging to the king's eight? As soon as we came, they hid in the city! As soon as the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army approached Linzhang County, the Beiyang Army, which was once outside the city, withdrew to defend the county. The county seat is not big, and nearly 10,000 horses are really defended like iron buckets.

The political commissar is not in a hurry at all, in the face of a unit like the Beiyang Army, rural work is far simpler than imagined, "There is no food growing in the county, what are we afraid of." Can these Beiyang troops still go without eating? Instead, he hurriedly sent troops to assist the villagers in harvesting the summer grain. The sixteen-character formula is clear, the enemy is stationed and we are disturbed. In the county where they are located, we will send artillery to constantly harass and make the appearance of attacking the city. ”

"You are so calm, what if the Beiyang Army goes out of the city?" The regimental commander was not as optimistic as the political commissar.

"We will fight them when they go out of the city, the ditches in the fields of Hebei are criss-crossed, and they can carry out defensive warfare at any time, the small group of Beiyang troops does not need to fight, and the large group of people who come out of the city We will first drag them down, and then encircle and annihilate them." The commissar described the battle as eating as the same.

Seeing that the political commissar had a good time, the regiment commander couldn't help laughing at himself: "I'm lazy again." ”

"Lazy!" The political commissar smiled, "I don't want to spend so much effort, but how can I defeat the enemy if I don't do it." After the grain harvest was completed, the Beiyang Army no longer had a source of food here in Linzhang. The follow-up troops will come up immediately, and everyone will be able to eat this food for a few days. According to the information we have gathered, the food in Linzhang City is only enough to eat for half a month, and I don't believe that the ocean of the Beiyang Army can still produce food. ”

In the summer campaign of 1915, the People's Party strangled the key point of the Beiyang food shortage. As long as there is a-for-tat struggle with the Beiyang Army for the countryside, starvation alone can bring the Beiyang Army to death. The harvest in the north was later than in the south, and the BJP front gradually advanced along the harvest line. The Beiyang Army on the opposite side didn't seem to understand this at all, and was still stupidly defending the city. The cadres and fighters of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army could not understand how the brains of the Beiyang Army grew.

Although it was the vanguard of only one regiment, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army quickly sent more than half of its troops to the countryside. This audacity soon paid off, and on June 20, when Hebei was generally beginning to begin its initial summer harvest, the troops of two divisions of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army had already surrounded Linzhang County. The number of fighters involved in the harvest has increased significantly.

Handan, which is less than 100 miles away from Linzhang County, Wu Peifu has no idea what the People's Party wants to do. According to Beiyang's operational concept, either an important city is attacked or an important city is defended, and all battles are carried out around key points. The BJP on the other side seemed to be everywhere, but a large-scale battle never began. One after another, Wu Peifu held the war concept of "knowing oneself and knowing that the other party will not be defeated in a hundred battles," and wanted to first determine where the main force of the People's Party was.

It was not until June 19 that Wu Peifu determined that the main force of the People's Party was gathering in Linzhang County. Linzhang is a big grain county, which is also in line with Wu Peifu's judgment. In this case, Wu Peifu sent troops.

But things are not so simple, the 100-mile road Beiyang Army took three full days to go out for more than 40 miles. When the Beiyang Army Brigade was dispatched, it was first bombed by the Air Force of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. If you are honest, a four-kilogram bomb and two or three hundred rounds of bullets from a machine gun will not cause many casualties at all. For a force of 100,000 people, the casualties of four or five hundred people were almost negligible.

However, for Wu Peifu, four or five hundred people are only 0.5% of the strength of a Beiyang army, but for every Beiyang officer and soldier, he is only injured or not injured, which is a 100% chance. The number of people that can be killed and wounded by the plane at a time is very limited, but the number of Beiyang troops who have seen these death falling from the sky wantonly killing is more than ten times and dozens of times. The Beiyang Army had no way to deal with it at all, and could only be slaughtered one-sidedly by the machines buzzing in the sky. The sharp whistling sound of the bomb piercing the air and falling made the hearts of every Beiyang Army rise to their throats. The explosion sounded, and the voice of crying father and mother after the explosion sounded. This is no longer a march, but an execution.

At first, the Beiyang Army stood there and was bombed, but later when they heard the roar of airplanes or bombs, regardless of whether the bombs were coming in their own direction or not, the Beiyang Army Brigade even crawled and hid on the side of the road. As soon as the troops dispersed, it would take a long time to gather them again, and what made the Beiyang officers even more annoyed was that the more they hid, the more the soldiers understood that the closer they were to the main road, the higher the chance of being hit by bombs, and they ran farther and farther away from the roadside. This convergence of troops is even more troublesome. After learning to dodge, the number of casualties of the Beiyang Army dropped rapidly, and the speed of the march could not be described as "falling" but "falling". The march, which was originally planned to be completed in two days, was now only halfway through three days.

The sluggishness of the Beiyang Army was greatly unexpected by the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, and it was impossible to overturn the original military plan and start over, and the first step was to encircle and annihilate the enemy in Linzhang County. Originally, it was planned that Linzhang County would be the meeting place of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army and the Beiyang Rescue Army. Since Wu Peifu was not powerful, Chai Qingguo had no choice but to kill the chicken with a knife and put an army that was originally used for fighting into the encirclement and annihilation battle.

Of course, the real battle is not filled with human lives, and the main force of the war is the artillery brigade directly under the army. During the summer harvest, the weather is sunny and the visibility range is huge. Under the guidance of the air force, after several rounds of test firing, the artillery accurately positioned its fire on the enemy's densely populated city and several assembly points.

After only firing more than 200 shots, Chai Qingguo felt distressed. Although almost 10,000 rounds of artillery shells were prepared for battle, the number of 75 guns was not large. "Why doesn't the Air Force drop leaflets?" Chai Qingguo asked.

"Don't worry, isn't this the beginning?" Xiong Mingyang, political commissar of the Henan Military Region, said. Sure enough, small snowflakes began to appear under the plane, and they fell into Linzhang County.

After a while, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army sent people to shout and persuade them to surrender. The defenders of the city, of course, refused to surrender, and they bluntly begged the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army to let them go.

"Let them go? What do you think? Keep the shelling! Chai Qingguo didn't bother to say anything more. More than 200 more shots were fired, and a white flag was raised on the city. After all, with tens of thousands of people stuffed inside the city, this density was inevitably too large, and the dense positions outside the city blocked the enemy's escape route, and they had no other way but to surrender.

After solving the enemy in Linzhang County, the next object of consideration is Wu Peifu who is on the way. There were more than 200,000 enemies in Handan, and Wu Peifu brought out 100,000 this time. The original plan was for the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army to meet this reinforcement in Linzhang County. The distance in the middle is less than 100 miles, and it is very convenient to encircle the point and send reinforcements. Now Wu Peifu always travels 40 miles, if the climatic conditions are good and the eyesight is strong, he can see 40 miles at a glance. At such an awkward distance, the battle of encirclement and annihilation becomes extremely tricky.

"It is not wrong to divide the enemy and annihilate them one by one. There is a glimmer of possibility that we will have to fight a war of annihilation. If the enemy's 200,000 men were to be put in Handan, it would be too troublesome to attack. "Xiong Mingyang, like other political commissars of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, is a soldier with outstanding achievements.

Chai Qingguo didn't care about some arguing, although he was a commander, he was only a member of the Standing Committee and deputy secretary of the party committee of the military region. The senior commanders are all party members, and the party committee is actually equal to the combat meeting. He drew a line on the map with his finger, "Which army can jam this line and cut off the Beiyang Army." Can we do it, there are 100,000 people on both sides of this line. ”

Chai Qingguo commanded three field armies this time, with a total of 300,000 troops. The three army commanders and the 12 division commanders all came from the military academy of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, and "fighting a war of annihilation" and "dividing and encircling" are the common ideas of everyone, and as long as possible, these senior commanders will not hesitate to make such a choice. Therefore, they can fully understand what the line drawn by Chai Qingguo means. The Beiyang Army will not stand still, once it is found that it is surrounded, those who break through and those who rescue will fight for their lives. This defensive line will be under terrible pressure from the enemy. These comrades were not afraid of death, but defeat meant a major setback for the entire campaign. No one dares to stand up and speak out easily. The expectation of 300,000 people is heavy just thinking about it.

"Why don't I take the troops." Yang Guigui, deputy commander of the military region, broke the silence, "Which unit is willing to go with me." ”

Everyone's eyes fell on Yang Guigui, and with the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Army at the moment, he was not afraid of fighting. However, until now, no one has proposed to change the way of thinking about the war of encirclement and annihilation, which makes the comrades feel the firm determination of the command.

"Why do you have to fight such a tough battle, can't you besiege it?" Gu Lu, the acting commander of the 12th Army, finally couldn't help but speak. The 12th Army is an engineering unit rather than a field army, but the liberation of Hebei is indispensable for engineering troops, needless to say, a large number of engineering personnel must be used for a land survey alone, and engineering troops are required for river recuperation. In the past few days, the harvesting work in Linzhang County is that the engineering troops have undertaken the vast majority of the labor.

Since it was a discussion meeting, everyone could say whatever they wanted, not to mention that Gu Lu's question was not vexatious at all.

Yang Guigui answered this question, "The reinforcements of the Beiyang Army are likely to come to the rescue of Handan, before they come to the rescue, after we first defeat the troops that came out, we can storm Handan, once the 200,000 enemy troops in Handan are annihilated, Beiyang is equivalent to breaking an arm." ”

Gu Lu was not a pure military commander, so he didn't have much to say in the previous campaign planning, and after listening to Yang Guigui's words, Gu Lu was silent for a moment before replying: "Handan is just a corner of Hebei, if we capture Handan, it will be impossible for the Beiyang Army to recapture Handan with their lives no matter what." Only when there are still enemy troops in Handan, they will consider rescue. Since we must fight with the Beiyang Army on the plains, why don't we pull the Beiyang Army out to fight? Everyone said that Wu Peifu was very capable of fighting in the Beiyang Army, and such a very capable army was like a snail in the air raid, why could other Beiyang troops be more capable than Wu Peifu? What's more, if the Beiyang Army forcibly comes to the rescue, it would be good if we concentrated on fighting the Beiyang reinforcements. I firmly support the fight of annihilation and the destruction of the enemy's living forces. However, Beiyang is not just Wu Peifu's army. If it can annihilate 100,000 200,000 reinforcements, the Beiyang Army will either order Wu Peifu to break through or let Wu Peifu defend himself. In either case, we can annihilate Wu Peifu more easily. I don't support such a tough fight now. ”

Yang Guigui's eyes widened, in the original battle plan, he hoped that when Wu Peifu rescued Linzhang County, he would completely annihilate Wu Peifu's aid troops, and then cut off Wu Peifu's connection with Beiyang, and calmly plan it. His combat idea is completely a change in this plan, and Gu Lu's suggestion is to change all the current plans, although he can't say anything wrong with Gu Lu's point of view in such a short period of time, Yang Guigui can't accept it at all. He stammered, speechless.

Gu Lu's suggestion was not without supporters among other senior commanders, and the commander of the 18th Army thought for a while and spoke, "I think Comrade Gu Lu's suggestion has some truth. Although they haven't officially fought Wu Peifu, their marching ability is much worse than we thought. Even if they gradually get used to the harassment of our air force in the future, I think it is unlikely that Wu Peifu will have any special performance in the field. Moreover, the Beiyang Army is still short of food, and a protracted war is very unfavorable to the Beiyang Army. The current situation is that we are rushing to harvest food, and the troops are somewhat tired. If you can get a few days of rest and recuperation, it should be very beneficial for the next step of the operation. ”

Yang Guigui couldn't help but retorted: "We have to give full play to the ability to fight continuously......"

"There is no way to fight continuously, and we can fight continuously now because we rely on rail transportation, and if we march completely on two legs, the combat effectiveness of the troops will be greatly reduced. Moreover, our operational objective was not a failure, and the initial goal was to cut off the enemy in Handan from the enemy in Beijing after striking a heavy blow to the enemy in Handan. Carry out mobile warfare in the Handan area in order to annihilate more enemies. ”

"But there are 100,000 people in Handan or 200,000 people, and the difference is still very big." Yang Guigui also grasped a certain point in the debate.

In the midst of the endless debate, more and more comrades began to participate, but the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army had no experience in large-scale operations with Beiyang, and even the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army itself lacked the experience of large-scale operations with hundreds of thousands of troops. In the end, there was no argument about what the result was, and everyone looked at the commander Chai Qingguo, hoping to see what he meant.

Chai Qingguo lived up to expectations, he said: "I mean that the 18th Army sent two divisions, one south and one north, to attack the Beiyang Army in a flanking posture. That's what was planned in the original battle plan, so let's just execute it. ”

"Commander Chai, if you want to do everything, then you probably won't get anything in the end." Yang Guigui put forward his own point of view.

"Commander Chai, isn't it a bit of a boat to ask for a sword by doing this?" The commander of the 18th Army was somewhat unacceptable.

Chai Qingguo felt that these two statements were quite interesting, Yang Guigui felt that Chai Qingguo was not decisive enough, and the commander of the 18th Army felt that Chai Qingguo was conservative. Chai Qingguo said with a smile: "Comrades, it is unlikely that I will make the mistake of leaning to the left and the right at the same time. Actually, I agree with Comrade Gu Lu's idea, since the battle situation has changed, our deployment must also change. The reason for this is to see what the Beiyang Army is going to do next. And Wu Peifu's performance makes me think that he is only worse than we think. Even if you haven't been in contact with the Air Force, you can't make such a big joke on the march. ”

The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army was the military chief, who was responsible for military operations, and even the commissars could not interfere in military operations. If the political commissar feels that the military chief is inappropriate and incompetent, he may convene a party committee to remove the command of the military commander and elect a new military commander, but the military action must obey the orders of the military chief until the political commissar formally adopts a resolution of the party committee to take over the command.

So no matter how many doubts there are in my heart, since Chai Qingguo has given the order, the comrades are no longer stubbornly opposed. On the afternoon of October 22, two divisions of the 18th Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army began to set off to the north and south of the Wu Peifu Field Group in Beiyang.