Song Biao immediately ordered the whole army to speed up the march, and personally led Zhang Yahu's 2nd Manchurian Infantry Regiment and the most elite Siberian 7th Infantry Regiment to Liaoyang County to participate in the battle.

As soon as he arrived in Liaoyang County, Song Biao saw Lieutenant Colonel Maltos who was commanding the troops to storm the county seat, and the strength of the two infantry regiments followed Song Biao with him, seeing this scene, Lieutenant Colonel Maltos was quite happy, he immediately stepped forward and saluted Song Biao on horseback and said: "Your Excellency Commander, our army has captured the staff command headquarters of the army and the county town in the southeast, and the army currently has less than 10,000 troops, scattered on the west side of Longding Mountain and the Shoushan defense line, as well as the west side of the county seat and the area of the southern camp of the enemy's material terminal. ”

Song Biao hurriedly dismounted and commanded with Lieutenant Colonel Martos: "Is there a map?" ”

Lieutenant Colonel Martos hurriedly took out a folded map from his map bag, opened it and pointed it to Song Biao: "Your Excellency Commander, I suggest that you send troops to seize the Shoushan defense line as soon as possible, and then you can seize the defense area of the southern camp of the army, which is located outside the southwest of the county, which was previously the garrison of the Qing army, and was later rebuilt by our army into a material storage area, and a large number of warehouses were built at that time. The logistics brigade of the General Affairs Station, with a certain scale of heavy firepower, was deployed here with about six battalions of troops, and the 1st Infantry Regiment of our Far East tried to storm at night without success. ”

Song Biao took a closer look and asked Lieutenant Colonel Maltos: "How many combat units are there in the army, and is the specific distribution clear?" ”

Lieutenant Colonel Martos pointed to the first mountain defense line on the map and said: "This area still retains the size of an infantry wing of the Chinese army, which should be the remaining strength of the original reserve 1st brigade. In addition, there are still many units of the Yue army in the Wangshuitai defense area in the north of the city and the Liumuling defense area in the west of the city, and according to the intelligence obtained from the tentative attack and reconnaissance of Colonel Brusilov's cavalry company, the Yue army also has an infantry wing in this area, about 3,000 men, and it may be constantly being transferred to the Nandaying and Shoushan defense line to supplement the defense. ”

Song Biao looked at the map and thought for a moment, then called Zhang Yahu and Major Neznamov of the 7th Siberian Infantry Regiment over, and after a short discussion, he and Lieutenant Colonel Martos devised a new tactic.

Lieutenant Colonel Maltos continued to command the troops to attack the Shoushan defensive line, while Song Biao personally led the troops to attack forward along the southern suburbs of the county, directly attacking the Nanda camp, and sent a regiment to attack the position on the northeast side of Shoushan, and marched side by side with Lieutenant Colonel Martos.

After making a reasonable decision, Song Biao immediately led his troops to assault, and the battle situation was the most chaotic moment, and the army still had some troops in several outposts on the southern outskirts of the county that had not been withdrawn, but they only added up to the size of a battalion.

Song Biao sent the 7th Siberian Infantry Regiment, which had the most elite combat effectiveness, to the front, quickly pulled out this outpost and went all the way to the Nanda Battalion in the southwest corner of Liaoyang County.

There is still a kilometer away from the southern camp, and I have already seen how huge the scale of this material terminal is, the entire camp is located six hundred meters away from the west side of the southwest corner of the county city wall, due to the huge scale of the Shoushan defense line, it is just a stretch to the vicinity of the county seat, and it is only 750 meters away from the nearest high ground in the southern camp.

In terms of overall scale, this southern camp covers an area of about 350 acres, with a blue brick and cement city wall almost equal to the county town on the periphery, surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, and about 100 material warehouses.

Song Biao concluded that it was impossible for the material reserves of the Yue army to be placed in the Nanda Camp on the entire front line, but this Nanda Battalion had to occupy at least half of it, so the Yue Army would rather lose the county seat of Liaoyang than abandon this place.

After seizing this Nanda battalion, the battle of the army is really more auspicious.

Song Biao made a decisive decision and personally led Chen Wu's 3rd Manchurian Infantry Regiment to seize the outpost, while the 7th Siberian Infantry Regiment was responsible for storming the Shoushan defensive line.

The troops stationed in the southern camp are all infantry brigades and transport brigades of the general affairs station of the Manchurian Army, there are about six brigades, the size is equivalent to two infantry regiments, although they lack heavy firepower, they occupy the advantage of the city defense and defense line, and if they want to risk a strong charge, they will definitely encounter relatively large casualties.

Considering that there would be a larger-scale tug-of-war and holding war in the future, Song Biao hoped to save troops as much as possible, he could not find a high point nearby, so he could only occupy dozens of abandoned houses as a temporary stronghold, first attack the opponent's wall with the mortar in his hand, and delay the opponent with more shooting from both sides, and prevent the Nanda Battalion from sending troops to support the Shoushan defense line.

Song Biao was very confident in his Russian generals and the New Manchurian Infantry Division that he personally supervised, most of these generals were young and middle-aged backbones selected by Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin and the Russian General Staff, and they performed very well in peacetime.

For example, Major Neznamov, who was already a major general before the October Revolution, was the most important military theorist at that time in the early days of the Soviet Union, laying the direction of the development of the entire Soviet Red Army, which is also because although he was talented and could serve in the Soviet Red Army, he could not have the opportunity to lead the army into battle, so he had to devote all his energy to the study of military theory.

This is also a kind of tragedy for soldiers.

Anyway, Aleksandrovich . Major Neznamov was the best of the three Siberian infantry regiment commanders, and was far superior to the others, and when Song Biao tried to gather the elite of several infantry regiments together to train an infantry regiment capable of effectively executing the Huthir tactical attack, he first chose this unusually shrewd and sharp infantry major.

The Huthier tactic was the prototype of modern infantry tactics developed by the Germans in World War I, which required the infantry to be able to effectively avoid strongholds and fortresses in the enemy's defensive lines, follow the barrage of artillery to shoot slowly, and assault the enemy's artillery positions and command systems.

Song Biao continued to work hard for a month, transferred many batches of relatively outstanding non-commissioned officers from the Russian army, eliminated a number of non-commissioned officers, and made the 7th Siberian Infantry Regiment a key sharp knife infantry team construction.

With the input of the 7th Siberian Infantry Regiment, the army was constantly cut through multiple points on the entire Shoushan defensive line, so that Lieutenant Colonel Kornilov's 1st Infantry Regiment in the Far East took advantage of the advantage of mortars and used mortars and shotguns to storm and seize a number of high ground on the south side of the South Daying, making it lose the ability to protect the flanks of the South Daying.

Although the defenses around Shoushan Fort were still strong and had more mortars and cannons, their remaining strength was less than 1,000 men, and after the loss of the main position on the eastern flank, the rest surrendered under the leadership of a colonel.

It was already four o'clock in the afternoon, and Song Biao finally had the opportunity to attack Nandaying in an all-round way, and the main force had already arrived in Liaoyang, and was storming the entire county under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Brusilov.

At this point in the war, the next step can only be a full-scale assault.

Song Biao immediately transferred the 7th Siberian Infantry Regiment and the rest of the 4th and 5th Infantry Regiments, which had the strongest offensive ability, and together with Zhang Yahu's 2nd Infantry Regiment, they stormed the Nandaying reservoir area of the Yue Army.

After using artillery and explosives to blast open part of the city wall on the east and south sides, and seizing the south gate of the Nandaying reservoir area, the large army swarmed up, and Song Biao also climbed the city wall to look down on the entire camp at the first time.

Song Biao's superiority in mortars, shotguns, and machine guns was too great, and when a large number of machine guns were erected on the newly occupied city wall, the soldiers and infantry brigades of the transportation troops organized by the Yue army were almost unilaterally slaughtered.

Before the evening, the remaining garrison of the army in Nandaying was also forced to surrender, and about two infantry brigades hurriedly withdrew from the reservoir area, bypassing the north road and fleeing to the Liumuling position on the west side of the county seat.

Song Biao knew very well that the huge amount of military salary of the Yue army must be in the Nan Daying, which was the reason why he was desperate to storm the South Daying, but he didn't have time to see how much money he had intercepted at this time, so he immediately began to organize the troops to make preparations for a night raid on the Shoushan position.

Silizhuang in the southern suburbs of Liaoyang is one of the four large grain depots set up by the army inside and outside Liaoyang County, and in this place alone, the army hoarded 4 million kilograms of grain, and Song Biao temporarily held a combat meeting in the courtyard here.

A few kerosene lamps were lit in the room, and Song Biao gathered all the staff officers together with Lieutenant Colonel Martos to discuss the next move of the army. Colonel Brusilov was intensively deployed around the perimeter of Liumu Ridge to prevent the Japanese army from breaking through at night.

After Tu Vanieer and Jiang Fangzhen sorted out the battle reports submitted by various units, they confirmed that the remaining strength of the army in the county town should be less than 3,000 people, and there were still more than 4,000 people on the western defense line in the Liumuling area.

Song Biao took half of the Chinese and half Russian summaries and looked through them in detail, and with the arrival of the main force, the Yue army suffered great losses in street battles in the county town, and could only occupy the western part of the city, less than 1/4 of the entire county seat.

The casualties of the Manchurian Infantry Division were not insignificant; as of two hours ago, the total casualties of the various units were 3,372, and the three temporary field hospitals at Longdingshan, Lushan, and Confucian Temple were all overcrowded.

After Song Biao put down the two summaries, Colonel Martos suggested: "Your Excellency, commander, we must launch an attack as soon as possible, and first annihilate the Yue army in Liumuling and Wangshuitai. There is only one infantry brigade in the Wangshuitai garrison, but their will to resist is very stubborn, the Liumuling defense line is very important to the army, and they have not given more reinforcement, our army should launch a strong attack on two points at the same time at night, and defeat them at any cost, while continuing to clear the army in the county, raise enough manpower to strengthen the recovery and reinforcement of the surrounding defense line, the army cannot tolerate the loss of Liaoyang, which is the key point related to the entire army of 270,000 people, maybe within two days, They will launch a full-scale assault, we must race against time, we must not waste time, if they do not attack at night, and we do not organize a storm, then a whole day will be wasted, and tomorrow we will have to reorganize the assault. ”

Song Biao bowed slightly, and said: "At 11 o'clock this evening, the 1st and 2nd Infantry Regiments of Ceshantinsk will be the main attack, and the 3rd Infantry Regiment of Manchuria and the 4th Infantry Regiment of Siberia will be the attack on both flanks...... I'll be in charge of this attack! ”

He still didn't feel at ease about leaving so many troops to someone else to command a surprise attack, in case he repeated the old mistakes of the Eighth Division, he would be ruined here, and no matter how much money and food and ammunition were in Nanda Battalion, it would not belong to him in the end.

Immediately, he and Lieutenant Colonel Maltos instructed: "You know the defense line of Liaoyang best, and now we should start to pay close attention to this work, sort out the information of the defense line of the army and all other relevant information as soon as possible, and let Hu Dalin's engineer battalion start to restore the fortifications in the area of Wangshuitai and Jiahe Bridge in advance." Hurry up and be ready to meet the counterattack of the Japanese army within two to three days. ”

After saying this, he instructed and emphasized it again in Chinese and Jiang Fangzhen and others.

Everyone paused, stood up and saluted in unison, and then hurriedly left the conference room, and went out to reorganize their troops and prepare to participate in the front-line assault in the evening, which was personally under the responsibility of the commander-in-chief.

After everyone else left, Zhang Yahu, who was supposed to attend the meeting, walked in mysteriously, low-key and quickly, and whispered in Song Biao's ear: "Shizuo, I have found it." ”

Song Biao got up, took Zhang Yahu to the small room next door alone, and asked, "Have you counted the number?" ”

Zhang Yahu said: "Not yet." Before they surrendered, they also sent people to pour two iron barrels of kerosene over there, which almost burned, and we went in a hurry, and they were all detained when we went up, if we hadn't urgently killed the school officer who led the team, it is estimated that they would have been burned. The kerosene has not yet evaporated, and I have never dared to light the lamp to count it. Staff Officer Cai found their account books, and it was said that if there was no accident, it would probably be more than 30 million yuan. ”

Song Biao nodded slightly and asked, "Are the windows open for ventilation?" ”

Zhang Yahu said: "It's all opened, I took advantage of the time when the sky was not completely dark to move all the paper tickets to a clean room, it is estimated that I will be able to count them on the spot after a while, and those silver dollars are not afraid of burning." However, there is a very strange thing, when I vacated the room to dry paper tickets, I found another batch of ruble tickets in a warehouse that should have been empty, the amount is really a lot, and it is too late to count the details, Cai Ye said that there is no account on it. ”

(To be continued)