Major General Liu Changhao, commander of the 11th Division of the Zhilu Allied Army, is an inconspicuous orthodox soldier, his family has been poor since he was a child, but he has been striving for self-improvement, he joined the army at the age of 15 to participate in the desperate struggle between warlords, and at the age of 18, he was awarded the exceptional examination of the Baoding Military Academy because of his military exploits, and graduated from the second phase of the infantry department with excellent results, and served as a lieutenant and company commander of the direct army for three years, and was again admitted to the non-commissioned officer school of the Yueben Army for studying at public expense, and entered the Yueben Army University for further study in the third year, and was only 28 years old when he served as the colonel of the Zhilu Army after returning to China. He has repeatedly performed miraculous feats in a series of battles in which the direct army was divided.

Because Liu Changhao's surname is Gengzhi, he dares to admonish his superiors, and he is incompatible with his colleagues and is unwilling to join the same stream, and has been suppressed in the position of colonel for six years, Zhang Zongchang was shocked by the strong threat of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and at the end of last year, he joined forces with the Feng Army and the Anhui Army to rapidly expand the troops, only to remember this unknown but with real talent and real learning, after the adjustment of the troops, the eleventh division that had been withdrawn from most of the veterans was handed over to Liu Changhao, and Liu Changhao was finally promoted to the rank of general at the age of thirty-three. He took over the mess of the 11th Division without complaint, and took only three months to lead the 11th Division, which was abandoned by everyone, into a disciplined unit, but the situation gave him too little time, and he had just left for Suqian from Jinan for half a month, and was ordered to go south without good training, and fought against the Revolutionary Army's Reading Division that dared to go deep into the hinterland of the Zhilu Allied Army alone.

The distance from Suqian to Shuanggou Town was only 86 kilometers, although the road was not wide but very smooth, and it was very easy to walk, and the 11th Division immediately slowed down after traveling 65 kilometers on the first day, and spent a full 14 hours advancing in sections, and finally entered the position on the north bank of the Huai River north of Liuxiang before 4 o'clock in the morning.

Liu Changhao felt extremely regrettable that the eight field guns of the division's artillery battalion could not pass through the muddy area of five kilometers between Shuanggou Town and the north bank of the Huai River, and in the face of the rivers that were only a few meters wide in front of them, the artillerymen were at a loss, and after several efforts, they could barely push forward 1.3 kilometers and could not advance half a step.

The sound of artillery stopped, and there was not a single shadow of soldiers and civilians in Liuxiang Town, except for a few rows of wooden barracks and a few houses in the town.

Liu Changhao, who was standing on the earthen hill by the river, put down his binoculars, looked at the southeast worriedly, ignored the deputies and staff officers who were talking about it a lot, and said lightly under the inquiry of Chen Yanda, the chief of staff:

"The enemy has withdrawn from Willow Lane, and it seems that they are aware of our army's intentions...... The 3rd and 4th regiments that crossed the river from the upper reaches were ordered to advance directly to the south, occupy Liuxiang Town as quickly as possible and immediately set up defensive positions, and the rest of the troops immediately crossed the river and headed for Liuxiang except for the artillery battalion. ”

"Yes!"

The chief of staff finished answering and ran down the hill.

An hour later, the 11th Division's 9,000 men and horses all crossed the Huai River and entered the line of Liuxiang, and the reconnaissance team reported that they had discovered the enemy's main force, and the revolutionary army took Panjia Town as the center and built a blocking position of six or seven kilometers long with the help of the mountain bag ridge, and judging from the layout of the opponent's position and flag, the number of enemy troops was about 8,000 people in three regiments.

Liu Changhao pondered for a moment, did not rashly launch an attack, but telegraphed the situation to the Wuhe County Command, and the order he received was only four words: Attack with all your might!

At 9 o'clock in the morning, Liu Changhao finally gave the order to attack with all his might, and the three regiments of the whole division advanced at full speed under the cover of 24 mortars, and advanced to a distance of about 200 meters in front of the revolutionary army's position.

Amid the deafening explosion, on a mound of more than 30 people called "Xiaozi Peak" located 400 meters behind the position, Hu Zi, deputy commander of the Reading Division, stood at the observation mouth of the headquarters five meters deep, looking at the position where thick smoke and gunfire were blowing from afar.

"Report, one of the enemy's regiments began to charge at my position on the left flank!"

"Understood!"

Gu Changfeng asked worriedly: "Brother Hu, the engineer battalion on the left flank lacks heavy machine guns, can you afford it?" ”

Hu Zi put down his binoculars and replied calmly: "Don't worry, it's not that you don't know the combat effectiveness of my division's engineer battalion, which is only stronger than ordinary troops, not weaker, not to mention that the other party is a tired division that has marched twice in a row?" I dare say that the enemy could not storm within fifty meters of the position of the engineer battalion within three hours, and the hundreds of traps and camouflage pits dug by the engineer battalion in time were enough for the enemy to drink. However, the position of your second battalion and third battalion is under great pressure, the right flank position is close to the river bank, there is no advantage in the high ground, all rely on trenches and sandbags, and the light rain does not stop, and it will soon become a quagmire, so you have to pay attention, the reserve is also mainly supporting this direction, the mortar company of the division and your machine gun company are not moving, that is, let the enemy launch two charges and then let them make a wrong judgment, and then put them into use when they charge as a whole, so that we can give full play to our advantage in firepower and destroy the enemy to the greatest extent. ”

"I'm going to the right flank personally."

"Be careful!"

Gu Changfeng, who was carrying a big knife, led the guard squad to rush to the right flank position, and just lay down to dodge a series of sweeping machine gun bullets, he heard the earth-shattering shouts of killing from the enemy position, and the enemy saw the weakness of the left and right positions that could not be defended, and began to launch a fierce charge with the support of machine gun fire.

Gu Changfeng rushed to the side of the third battalion commander in two steps with a flower machine gun, and shouted loudly in the rain of bullets: "Give the order to go down and shoot again at eighty meters!" Then grenades beckon! ”

"Understood!"

The commander of the third battalion bent down and ran through the fifteen-meter trench and shouted the order to the second company, and the communications soldiers of the second battalion quickly conveyed the order, and began to make nervous preparations in the face of thousands of enemy troops getting closer and closer.

120 meters, 100 meters, 90 meters, 80 meters...... The 24 light and heavy machine guns of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions finally spat out bursts of flames, and more than 1,100 officers and men launched fierce fire on the enemy who was close in front of them, and the shooters of each squad and platoon stared at the officers wielding broadswords and short guns in the dense enemy group, and pulled the trigger, which lasted for more than a minute, blocking the enemy's charging momentum, and hundreds of grenades immediately flew towards the hundreds of enemies who rushed into front of the position, and the violent explosion brought up bursts of large areas of earth and rubble, and the enemy was killed in the bursts of explosions. The enemy's first regimental charge was completely crushed, leaving behind more than 200 corpses and more than 300 wounded soldiers.

The officers and men on the position did not have time to cheer, and under the stern orders of the commanders, the dead and wounded comrades were carried down to the rear, and more officers and men loaded ammunition to cool the barrels, and then quickly climbed out of the trenches and rushed to the rear to bring bundles of weeds and branches prepared in advance, which were laid at the bottom of the trenches that were trampled into mud.

Gu Changfeng, who was covered in mud and gunsmoke, finished replacing the magazine of the machine gun on his body, and carried the hot gun body to patrol happily, praising and scolding, the hurried and nervous brothers suddenly relaxed a lot, not only did they not talk about the fierce battle just now, but on the contrary, they were also worried about whether the engineer brothers in the left flank position could repel the enemy's onslaught.

However, just as Hu Jialin said, the worries of the brothers of the Third Regiment were really unnecessary, and the enemy's fierce attack could not gain the slightest benefit in the potholed area, and in less than 20 minutes, the enemy threw down more than 400 dead and wounded, and all of them retreated to their original positions, and the position of the engineer battalion, which was nearly four meters above the ground, was full of joy. Acting battalion commander Huang Hansoul was making a bet with the young senior soldier next to him, and the senior soldier did not kill the enemy company commander who crawled out of the pit 70 meters away from the front of the position, and handed over the rifle to Huang Hansoul embarrassedly amid the boos of his comrades.

Huang Hansoul, who was tall and sturdy, took the rifle and pulled the bolt, barely aiming at anything, and hit the desperately struggling enemy company commander in the head with one shot, and then fired three shots in succession, accurately killing the three enemies who were struggling to flee for their lives, winning bursts of applause in the trenches.

Huang Hansoul, whose square face was smoked like an old cat, laughed coaxingly: "How is it? Cow, right? The sharpshooter Deng Bin's kid personally pointed it out, haha...... Ready! The second wave of the enemy's attack began, and the light machine guns were all added up to Lao Tzu! ”

The continuous drizzle for 30 hours gradually stopped, and the southeast wind blew under the gray sky, blowing the thick smoke of gunpowder to the enemy's position, and before the commanders on the position took out their binoculars to carefully observe the enemy's situation, the fierce battle began again, and after the first tentative charge, the enemy did not give the revolutionary army any respite, and threw most of its troops into a fierce charge on the whole front.

What was incomprehensible to the enemy was that the firepower on the revolutionary army's position seemed to be becoming more and more fierce, the guns were firing more and more accurately, and one by one the platoon commanders were killed during the charge, and the enemy troops who had lost their command were repulsed again after more than 10 minutes of hard fighting, and the officers and men of the Third Regiment and the Engineer Battalion also paid a heavy price of more than 260 killed and more than 300 wounded, and the long defensive line became precarious due to the reduction in personnel.

Until this time, Hu Jialin still did not bring out the 24 mortars that were hidden, nor did he transfer the machine gun company equipped with 12 heavy machine guns to the battlefield.

On the Jiguan Mountain opposite the position, seeing that the opponent did not have artillery and enough heavy firepower to support, Liu Changhao, the commander of the 11th Division, who had just moved his headquarters forward halfway up the mountain, put down his binoculars and loudly reprimanded the intelligence staff officer with a blue face:

"After fighting for so long, you don't know anything about the enemy's firepower, the enemy simply doesn't have mortars and enough heavy machine guns, why did the charge of the regiments fail at the last step both times when the enemy's positions were about to be torn apart?"

According to the intelligence summary, almost every squad of the enemy has a light machine gun, and a heavy machine gun fire point is set up every forty meters or so, which is very contrary to the norm! Moreover, the enemy's general marksmanship is extremely accurate, attacking the two regiments in the middle and right flank positions of the enemy, and more than half of the platoon commanders were killed and wounded after two charges. The intelligence staff officer defended aggrievedly.

After three hours of fierce fighting, the 37th Division and the two regiments of the Ninth Army of our army finally succeeded in carrying out a forced crossing, and in one fell swoop broke through the two positions arranged by the enemy on the south bank of the Huai River at the mouth of the Tong River. The cavalry regiment directly under the former enemy headquarters has left for the mouth of the Tong River and is about to cross the south bank and enter the battlefield.

The deputy marshal telegraphed our division to step up the attack, so as not to let the enemy army and the remnants of Guojiawan form a convergence trend! Chief of Staff Chen Yanda excitedly came to report.

Liu Changhao turned his anger into joy: "Okay, General Zhang Chengzhu's cavalry regiment has finally appeared!" It must be in accordance with the order of the deputy marshal to divide and annihilate the two-step enemy army, and the cavalry will be approaching in a blink of an eye at a short distance of ten kilometers, as long as it successfully penetrates into the enemy's rear, the thousands of stubborn enemies on the opposite side will not escape...... Pass my order: the reserve is put into battle, and the officers and men of the whole division will work together to go to the forward position and go all out to launch the final fierce attack! ”

"Yes!"

The generals and colonels of each regiment responded in unison, and rushed to their headquarters with confidence to direct the battle.

(To be continued)