He poked his head out of the bombed-out trench to check on the casualties of his troops, and it was good not to look at it, which made him want to cry. His battalion of more than 500 people can still move only more than 200 people, and there are not many wounded, because the shelling area is not large, only concentrated near the trenches, shells can only cause damage when they fall to the side, but because of this, most of them were directly killed. On the other hand, the soldiers who were a little farther behind the trenches, although they were lying on the ground and sheltering on the ground, suffered few casualties.

From the sound of the explosion, he could tell that there were more than 20 75mm mountain guns in the Fourth Route Army on the opposite side, and more than a dozen mortars of larger calibers, judging by the sound, it should be larger than the caliber of 82mm mortars. The battalion commander thought to himself, no wonder so many people from the Fifth Route Army ran to the Fourth Route Army to serve as soldiers, this Fourth Route Army is really fucking rich, and there are so many cannons.

After waiting for a while and not seeing the opposite Fourth Route Army shelling again, he poked his head out of the bombed trench to check the casualties of his troops. His battalion of more than 500 people can still move only more than 200 people, and there are not many wounded, because the shelling area is not large, only concentrated near the trenches, shells can only cause casualties when they fall around, but because of this, most of them were directly killed. On the other hand, the soldiers who were a little farther behind the trenches, although they were lying on the ground and sheltering on the ground, suffered few casualties. It seems that this place can't stay any longer, a battalion has been bombed so that only so many people remain, not to mention the regiment commander, even Commander Deng will not force them to be bombed here anymore, almost losing a battalion, and the army commander can also have an explanation for Tang Shengzhi.

The battalion commander was thinking about withdrawing with his troops, but he didn't expect that many soldiers suddenly turned around and ran away without waiting for his order, and some even threw away their weapons. The battalion commander, who was about to open his mouth to scold, suddenly felt as if something was wrong, because some wounded soldiers who were injured and could not stand up also looked behind him in panic. When he looked back, he immediately turned pale with fright, only to see that on the position of the Fourth Route Army at the bridgehead, a large number of soldiers of the Fourth Route Army with Xueliang bayonets poured out, and these people did not shout, but just pounced on them with guns. On their left, more than a thousand Fourth Route Corps also rushed out of the town of Huayuankou and on the right side of the bridgehead position, and these two groups of men rushed towards their flanks.

The battalion commander's tears of grievance were almost shed, and his heart said that this is to surround us! For the sake of my remaining 1,200 people, 3,000 or 4,000 people were dispatched, and the Fourth Route Army didn't need to make such a big effort no matter how rich it was, right?

Come to think of it, this battalion commander's hands and feet are not idle, and he even crawls up from the ditch with a rolling belt, and he also runs away. Resisting on the spot for a while waiting for the regiment commander to come up to support, this thought just flashed in his mind and disappeared, not to mention that there was only one and a half companies left in his battalion, even a battalion with full strength could not block the three-sided attack of the thousands of Fourth Route Army, and he would not be stupid enough to stay here and wait for death. If his regimental commander had seen so many Fourth Route Army attacking his battalion, which had been blown to the ground, he would not have come to his rescue at all, and probably ran faster than him. Seeing from afar that his horse had been killed in the shelling just now, he sighed and ran on his legs. Fortunately, the troops of the Northwest Army are all three times a day, and their troops are only more than this year, because they are waiting for the deployment, and the training is poor, but after years of training, his physical fitness is still good, and it is not difficult to run at all, and he is even gradually catching up with some people who run before him.

They had barely run a few hundred meters before their guns were thrown away, for they saw that the Fourth Route Army, which had rushed out from the garden mouth to their west, was rushing so fast that their advance was about to overtake them. It's just that the people of the Fourth Route Army are very strange, they just rush forward vigorously, and no one shoots at them, as if they don't even ignore their existence.

Seeing this scene, the more than 100 people of Deng Baoshan's department, who were running away with their lives, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, they already felt that the target of these Fourth Route Army was not them, but the regiment behind them. These people gasped for breath while looking back at the soldiers of the Fourth Route Army who were chasing after them, and they were frightened again, and the speed of the pursuers behind them was not slower than the pursuers on their flanks, and the distance from them had been shortened to more than two hundred meters.

These people immediately ran forward again and rolling, and sooner or later they would be caught up by the Fourth Route Army behind, and some of the people who were active did not run forward, but ran diagonally towards the railway to the east, and they wanted to get out of the pursuit route of the Fourth Route Army behind. The Fourth Route Army, which was chasing along the railway, rushed out of the riverbank position east of the bridgehead, and was far away from them. According to their thoughts, as long as they left the advance route of these pursuers behind, they would not let go of the brigade of deserters in front of them in order to chase their dozens of unarmed remnants.

These people had just deviated more than 100 meters from the brigade, and suddenly a very dense rain of bullets shot from the railway behind, and the dozen or so people who rushed in front were immediately knocked to the ground, and the crowd fleeing in the direction of the railway immediately stopped, and looked in the direction of the railway, a few people reluctantly turned around to chase the brigade, and most of them squatted in place and raised their hands and waited for the Fourth Route Army behind to come up and capture the prisoners.

It turned out that at some point, a train with the head of the railway in the north was speeding over with more than a dozen flatbeds and wagons full of sacks, and in the improvised fortifications surrounded by hemp on several flatbed cars, there were twelve 82mm mortars with their muzzles raised; Twelve Maxine heavy machine guns were mounted on wagons filled with sacks, and hundreds of soldiers of the Fourth Route Army were on board the other wagons.

The rain of bullets that knocked down the people who fled in the direction of the railway was fired from the heavy machine guns on the train. The Fourth Route Army on the train also found it strange to these men of the Fifth Route Army who fled with their lives, they only shot those who fled away from the brigade, but ignored the deserters of the brigade who fled along the main road. The train soon rumbled past the fleeing defeated soldiers and headed in the direction of the village of Biyuan. After the train, the Fourth Route Army, which was pursuing along the railway, also rushed up, except for some soldiers who came to take prisoners under the leadership of a second lieutenant, and the others continued to rush forward.

The long-term cross-country training of the Fourth Route Army showed its effect at this time, the defeated soldiers who escaped almost all fled with their bare hands, and the soldiers of the Fourth Route Army who chased them were fully armed, and the speed of the two sides was about the same at the beginning, but after 1000 meters, the speed of the deserters slowed down significantly, and the speed of the pursuing Fourth Route Army almost did not change, the Fourth Route Army on the left and right sides had gradually caught up and slowly began to overtake the deserters, and now the situation is that the deserters were sandwiched in the middle by the Fourth Route Army on the left and right, Chased by the pursuers behind, Xiang desperately fled. It is as if the shepherd is driving the sheep, and as long as the sheep do not deviate from the shepherd's course, the shepherd will not drop his whip raised high to beat them.

The regiment that followed this battalion, at the behest of the regiment commander, marched extremely slowly along the way, and the distance from the battalion in front was stretched five or six miles. That's it, they still rested early and didn't leave. The ground where they were located was a little low, and the crops in the field had grown to the height of half a man, so that the battalion in front of them could not be seen here. When a regiment shelled the position of that battalion, the regiment commander judged from the loud explosions and the smoke and dust flying high that the battalion in front was attacked by the Fourth Route Army.

The regiment commander believed that the Fourth Route Army took the initiative to withdraw from Zhengzhou without waiting for them to fight, indicating that the Fourth Route Army was unwilling to exchange fire with their Fifth Route Army, and in his opinion, it could even be considered that the Fourth Route Army was afraid of their Fifth Route Army. He thought it was understandable for the Fourth Route Army to attack the battalion he had left in front of, after all, they had driven them all the way from Zhengzhou to the Yellow River, and as long as they retreated across the Yellow River, although they were still in Henan, they were already counted as opening Henan. Because the important big cities in Henan were all south of the Yellow River, the Fourth Route Army that retreated to Hebei was almost equivalent to being driven out of Henan by them. It seems that the Fourth Route Army is not ready to retreat, and the dog is in a hurry and has to jump over the wall, not to mention that the Fourth Route Army is also tens of thousands of horses.

However, he still did not believe that the Fourth Route Army had left their positions at Huayuankou and Qiaotou and came here to attack his regiment, and if that was the case, the Fourth Route Army would not have withdrawn from Zhengzhou. Moreover, according to the reconnaissance, their position was set up very strongly, and they should have done it very seriously, which means that they just want to defend there, although the large army has retreated across the Yellow River, they still want to leave one foot on the south bank, and they still want to find an opportunity to come back.

If he wants to support the battalion in front, he will not think about it, Deng Baoshan arranged it this way to give them up when necessary, in case Tang Shengzhi pursued them not to take the initiative to attack the Fourth Route Army, Deng Baoshan could also explain to Tang Shengzhi.

However, he can not care whether the battalion lives or dies, his own safety still needs to be paid attention to, and the necessary defense still needs to be done, but it must be defended on the spot, and the terrain here is not conducive to defense, and it is necessary to occupy a higher area. Looking around, only the railway embankment less than a mile to the east was ideal, and one battalion was immediately ordered to seize the embankment to the east, while the other battalion and the troops directly under the regiment were to look for favorable terrain on the spot against the roadbed and prepare for battle.

The battalion rushing to the railway had just approached the roadbed when it was knocked down by a dense rain of bullets, and it could be heard from the sound that it was more than a dozen heavy machine guns firing together, followed by more than a dozen mortar shells exploding in the ranks rushing to the railway, and because of the dense formation, the powerful 82 mortar shells exploded into the air with a powerful shock wave that lifted many people into the air, and it seemed that a dozen holes with yellow dirt suddenly appeared in the dense crowd.

This sudden shooting and artillery bombardment surprised the regiment commander, didn't I hear that the Fourth Route Army had an ironclad train? A rumbling from far and near came quickly, as the sound got closer and closer, more than a dozen swarthy carriages and flatbed cars turned out from behind a high slope that covered his vision, in the window, the roof of the carriage was set up on the bunker set up by the sack, light and heavy machine guns were set up on the bunker, and in the sack bunker on several flatbed trucks, you could also see the barrel of the thick mortar that was high, this is not their 60mm mortar, this is an 82mm mortar, and there are more than a dozen, they don't have such a large-caliber mortar, Only Li Pinxian's Eighth Army has three gates, and they are still regarded as treasures.

As the train approached, the bullets fired from it were more dense, and the accuracy was higher, and under such a close range of intensive shooting, his battalion suffered a large number of casualties, and even he could not bear to look at it anymore. Those who weren't shot had already run back dead. This regiment commander knew that the most dangerous thing was not the heavy machine gun on the car, but the 82 mortar on it. Although the heavy machine gun has a range of more than 2,000 meters, the railway is about 500 meters away, and it is difficult to shoot accurately at his position, and the lethality is not great, not to mention that his troops can also cover up; However, this distance is just right for the 82 mortar, because the distance is not far, the visual accuracy is high, and with its huge power, it can be a large explosion.

Before he could give the order, an officer had already commanded to set up a machine gun and shoot at the train. The regimental commander was hesitating whether to disperse and retreat quickly, or to stay on the spot and wait for reinforcements? He estimated that the large army led by Deng Baoshan was climbing, and it should arrive soon, and it was not impossible to hold on to help.

Before he could make a decision, a scene appeared that puzzled him, the train did not stop to the east of them, but went straight south, stopping more than 500 meters behind them. At this time, the machine guns on it had long ceased firing, and the mortars had not moved except for the first shot just now.

Overwhelmed by the strange actions of the Fourth Route Army, his chief of staff shouted in surprise: "Commander, they are going to surround us!" ”

At this time, he also saw from a distance hundreds of soldiers of the Fourth Route Army jumping out of the car, and these people did not rush towards them, but quickly inserted themselves sideways into their retreat.

The regiment commander couldn't help but take a breath, this was obviously to cut off their retreat, and doing so could only show one problem, that is, they had begun to attack him, which meant that the Fourth Route Army at Huayuankou must have attacked. Since their troops had begun to block his retreat, it was impossible to rely on the battalion in front of him to block the Fourth Route Army, which must have been finished. The only correct thing to do now is to rush out immediately, otherwise once the Fourth Route Army at Huayuankou rushes up and attacks his regiment of less than 1,000 men on both sides, then he will have no chance.

However, it is not easy to rush back, the Fourth Route Army blocking their way is about 300 people from a distance, with more than twice the strength of the other side, although it is not very easy to rush back before the Fourth Route Army at Huayuankou comes up, after all, the opponent is not only small in number, but the position was also established in a hurry. The point is the mortars and a dozen heavy machine guns on the train parked to the east of them, charging under such powerful firepower, it is undoubtedly a moth to the fire, and when they rush to the position, it would be good if half of the more than 1,000 people could be left, and how many people could run out under the fire of machine guns and mortars that rushed over, then only the devil knows.

Although he can't rush back, but if he wants to wait here to be surrounded by the other party and annihilated, it is absolutely impossible, since the east and south are not good, then there is only the west, many years of experience tell him that the slightest hesitation on the battlefield will bring great risks to himself, thinking of this, do not hesitate, immediately order the chief of staff to give the order, 'Retreat to the west, first break out of the encirclement.' ’

While observing the situation in the north and south, he stepped back, and suddenly found that the chief of staff not only did not convey the order, but also looked at the west with his eyes wide open, and he was so angry that he shouted: "What are you doing in a daze if you don't give orders?" Waiting to die? ”

The chief of staff, who had woken up, pointed to the west and said in a trembling voice: "Commander, look! ”

The regimental commander turned around sharply, and he was also frightened, only to see a force of more than 1,000 Fourth Route Army, all armed with rifles with bayonets, forming a battle formation and surrounding them from the west.

The south, east, and west are not good, and the north is even worse, before he can react, a group of people suddenly rushed out of the main road in the north, and the regiment commander recognized that this was his battalion, seeing that they even lost their weapons, and ran like a fire burning their butts, no need to ask, it must have been blown up by the artillery fire of the Fourth Route Army, and it was chased back.

The ensuing scene confirmed his thoughts, and after them rushed out a fourth army with bayonets in hand, and even to the east there was a Fourth Route Army. Looking at the Fourth Route Army, which was surrounded on all sides and outnumbered his troops, he sighed helplessly and said to the chief of staff: "Tell the brothers, don't resist, it's useless, surrender." ”

As soon as Li Zhe, the deputy commander of the first regiment, rushed up with a battalion, this regiment of the Fifth Route Army surrendered, which made Li Zhe couldn't help but be disappointed, although he felt that it was not enjoyable, he had no choice but to order the troops to collect their weapons, take care of the prisoners, seize the time to clean up the battlefield, and treat the wounded. At the same time, the 2nd Battalion was ordered to immediately take over the position of the 4th Battalion and cover the retreat of the 1st and 3rd Battalions with their prisoners. After about 20 minutes, the first and third battalions had simply cleaned up the battlefield and bandaged the wounded soldiers of the Fifth Route Army, and then began to retreat with the prisoners. It's just that the wounded of the Fifth Route Army can't be taken away, they are all placed in a hollow, and after the Fourth Route Army is all evacuated, they can go to their troops.

(To be continued)