Hu Zongduo's 19th Army, Xia Wei's 7th Army, Ye Kaixin's 44th Army, Chen Tiaoyuan's 37th Army, and Cheng Qian's 6th Army under Li Zongren advanced rapidly along both sides of the Yangtze River, crushing Tang Shengzhi's troops with a fierce offensive, and He Jian's 35th Army and Liu Xing's 36th Army were forced to withdraw from eastern Hubei and occupy the front line of Huangmei, Guangji, Longping, and Yong'an, which are important towns in eastern Hubei on November 4. At the same time, Li Zongren issued an order of the Military Commission, reaffirming the functions and powers of Cheng Qian's Fourth Route Army and Zhu Peide's Fifth Route Army.

On 8 November, Zhu Peide, who felt that his own strength had increased rapidly and had gradually won the right to speak, made persistent efforts to solemnly announce the establishment of the "Jiangxi Provincial Security Command" aimed at maintaining local law and order and renovating local order, and temporarily assumed the post of commander-in-chief.

At noon on the same day, the Ganzhong Security Command was established in Nanchang County, and Yang Bin was appointed as the commander of the major general of the Ganzhong Command, Xia Jian was the deputy commander of the major general, and Zhan Huanqi was appointed as the chief of staff of the major general. Administratively, the Ganzhong Security Command is administratively under the leadership of Zhu Peide's General Headquarters, with an establishment of 8,000 officers and men, and is a division-level unit, with jurisdiction over a total of 15 counties from Yingtan in the east to Yichun in the west, Laochangchang in the north and Chongren in the south.

The next day, the three regiments under the newly established Ganzhong Security Command were stationed in Gao'an, Dongxiang, and Linchuan counties, and joined forces with the Fengcheng Security Regiment to defend the eastern, southern, and western sides of Nanchang in a half-moon shape, thus greatly making up for the shortcomings of the Third Army's insufficient and scattered troops, strengthening mutual contact and mutual coordination among the garrisons of various counties, and steadily controlling the entire Poyang Lake Plain in their hands.

After three days of arduous negotiations, four commercial firms from Germany, Belgium, the United States and the United Kingdom reached an agreement with Jiangnan Group to provide the site for the Hukou wharf and the four major commercial banks from various countries to jointly fund the expansion of the mineral and trade transit terminal with an annual throughput of 1.8 million tons on the basis of the existing coal mine wharf in Hukou, which connects Poyang Lake to the Yangtze River.

Jiangnan Group, which provides land, safety guarantee and transportation of raw materials from the production area, occupies 30 percent of the shares, the German Lulin Foreign Bank occupies 25 percent of the shares with the investment of cranes, grabs and loading and conveying equipment, and the other three major foreign banks each account for 15 percent of the shares with capital investment, and the only modern large-scale professional loading terminal in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River immediately entered a busy period of construction while being used, and the tungsten ore trade, which had been stagnant for two months, resumed on the basis of a 32 percent increase in prices.

On 9 November, two 500-ton transport ships, two 300-ton cargo ships, and three 250-ton cargo ships worth 460,000 yuan ordered by the Jiangnan Group sailed from Germany and Belgium loaded with machinery and equipment, weapons parts, and raw materials into Poyang Lake and sailed straight to Changbei Wharf and Lao Nanchang Wharf. Commenced the fulfillment of their four-year work contract with Lulin & Co. of Germany and Jiangnan Group of China.

With the wholehearted devotion of professionals such as Lao Shoudao, Zhou Chong'an, Le Cheng, and Zhang Xi, An Yi was finally able to divert most of his energy to the urgent construction of the army.

The special brigade led by Ding Zhicheng, Zong Xingzhen, and Li Fulin has returned to its original level of 360 personnel and is carrying out arduous training day and night; eight detachments have been dispatched to various parts of Jiangxi and eastern Hubei to draw maps and reconnoiter the distribution of troops in various armies; and the newly joined 150 elite troops have sailed to the inaccessible mountains in northwest Jiangxi to carry out rigorous elimination training; Hu Jialin and Gu Changfeng took over the burden of Yang Bin, responsible for the training of recruits at the non-commissioned officer training base, and managed the 300 instructors stationed in Zhu Peide's department; After a month of military training, the 35 young students who were selected to be young and promising and full of the spirit of serving the country have taken the lead in entering the medical school that has not yet completed their enrollment, and began their professional studies in basic medicine and other subjects with the help of Vice President Kreuzer and eight medical teachers.

In addition to the slow expansion of the army, the inspection of the training of new recruits, the appointment of officers, and the construction of the teaching team, he also had to rush to Nanchang to hold various secret meetings at the call of Zhu Peide from time to time to analyze and discuss the current situation, consult and coordinate common economic and political interests, repeatedly analyze the peasant uprisings in full swing in Guangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Hubei regions and the rapid expansion of the Red Army, discuss countermeasures, and formulate various plans and emergency plans.

What is gratifying is that Zhu Peide is not willing to abide by the orders issued by the Nanjing Special Committee and the Wuhan Political Branch at all, and has always adopted a passive wait-and-see attitude, still less is he willing to consume his own manpower, material, and financial resources while making enemies on all sides. An Yi adopted a vague attitude of mutual respect, buying and selling, and never interfering with their development, so the two tacitly agreed that they hit it off, but the things that were very tricky for others were very easy for them, but the ongoing Ninghan War consumed more of their energy.

An Yi got detailed information from him, and when he returned to the old Nanchang base, he summoned the brothers to discuss the map and sand table, and tried to sum up the combat ideas and troop habits of Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, and then compared them with the original various materials, and carried out offensive and defensive training in the form of simulation and group deduction, which could not only enrich the senior commanders such as Hu Jialin and Yang Bin, but also enable Guo Sizheng, Huang Hanqian, and Qi Xiuping, Wang Xulun, Zhang Hao, these middle-level chief officers broadened their horizons and got the opportunity to exercise.

Because Yin Jinan was still in Chizhou, Anhui Province, and did not come back, Ye Cheng, Qu Muchen and Yang Fei, the three wise and brave pens, were studying in Germany, An Yi and Zhan Huanqi had to take on the "Engineer Classics", "Military Basic Course for Non-commissioned Officers", "Army Infantry, Artillery, and Engineer Tactical Coordination", "Infantry Basic Training Course", "Infantry Shooting Training Course", "Infantry Division Combat Training and Internal Affairs Management Regulations", "Preliminary Study on Mountain Training and Operations" and other textbook final improvement and proofreading work.

According to the original plan, this series of textbooks for the training of recruits, noncommissioned officers, and internal officers must be printed by the 25th of this month, and together with the basic knowledge selected from various subjects of the Whampoa Military Academy, they will be compiled into a relatively systematic military textbook.

At present, fixed intelligence stations have been established in Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Anqing, Changsha and other places, usually with the commodity sales agency rights of the factories of the Jiangnan Group to enter the "Jiangxi Guild Hall" all over the major cities, and occupy a place in the guild hall in the way of generous concessions and cooperative development. In addition, the establishment of intelligence stations and the collection of various kinds of intelligence are lacking in radio stations and technical personnel, and the training of the personnel in charge of receiving and receiving telegrams in charge of Zhan Huanqi and others has been carried out for two months, and they can be quietly sent out for training in another month.

Thanks to Gong Qian's help and familiarity with the logistics personnel of the First Army's divisions in Nanjing, valuable information flew in one after another:

Li Zongren had already squeezed He Yaozu's 40th Army out of Nanjing and sent Bai Chongxi's Second Route Army to cross the river to fight, leaving only half of Gu Zhenglun's division to be responsible for the garrison of the capital, and Li Zongren's deputy commander of the Seventh Army, Zhong Zupei, led a division into Nanjing to exercise the right of garrison; Zhang Zuolin saw that the troops of Nanjing and Wuhan were killing each other, and they could not go north in a short period of time, so he immediately stopped the secret negotiations with Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, and commanded the army to launch a fierce attack on the Jin Sui army on the front line of Datong and Wutai, forcing Yan Xishan to retreat step by step, and at the same time conquering the line of Shijiazhuang and Jingcheng in the south in one fell swoop, and approaching Niangzi Pass; At the same time, Zhang Xueliang also launched an attack on Feng Yuxiang, who was purging the internal traitors, so anxious that Feng Yuxiang loudly called Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and He Yingqin to hurry up the Northern Expedition, and sent telegrams to Nanjing twice in three days to urge the army to go north, and Yan Xishan, who was under pressure, also called on Li Zongren and Tang Shengzhi to put the cause of the party and the state first, turn the war into a jade silk, and join hands to go north to attack the Feng army.

Li Zongren, who was determined to win Wuhan and the whole of Hubei, was fighting with Tang Shengzhi at a critical moment, where could he draw a large army, so he persuaded He Yingqin to command the armies that had already crossed the river to immediately launch an attack to the north, so as to appease Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, and second, to let the people of the whole country see the revolutionary feat of the Nanjing Special Committee and strengthen the determination of the Northern Expedition.

He Yingqin comprehended this, and immediately issued a general attack order, with Liu Zhibu of the First Army and Gu Zhubu of the Ninth Army as the main force of the right flank to be responsible for the frontal offensive of the Jinpu line, and ordered He Yaoguo of the 40th Army sent by Bai Chongxi and Xia Douyin of the newly formed 10th Army to attack the enemy in Dingyuan in the middle, and Zhang Keyao of the 33rd Army to be responsible for attacking Shouzhou on the left flank.

Liu Zhi's First Army had been resting for less than two months, and had just replenished 5,000 recruits from Lao Nanchang who had been trained for less than a month and a half.

On 10 October, Chen Yu in Nanjing sent an urgent report: Gu Zhutong and the Ninth Division defeated the enemy's Li Baozhang Division, occupied Mingguang County, and successfully cut off the southern section of the Jinpu Road.

After a while, Zhu Peide also called and told An Yi: Xia Wei's Seventh Army broke He Jian's 35th Army and occupied Qishui, Hu Zongduo's 19th Army occupied Qichun, Ye Kaixin's 44th Army occupied Tianjia Town, and Cheng Qian's Sixth Army on the south bank captured Banbi Mountain and rushed to Yangxin with victory.

An Yi had just stood up and walked to the map, Zhan Huanqi came briskly again, handing over an urgent telegram, He Jing reported that Chiang Kai-shek had returned to Shanghai yesterday, and as soon as he arrived in Shanghai, he immediately called Wang Jingwei and Li Jishen in Guangzhou, asking them to rush to Shanghai as soon as possible to discuss the settlement of intra-party disputes, and to release rumors that the central party headquarters would be restored.

He Jing asked An Yi for help so that he could interview Chiang Kai-shek as soon as possible, come up with exclusive news, and continue to expand the influence of the Oriental News Agency.

An Yi immediately put everything aside, dictated the telegram, and asked He Jing to go to the Central Club, which was also located in the French Concession, to ask Chen Lifu for help, took the telegram handed by Zhan Huanqi and signed it, and sat on the chair and stared blankly at the autumn colors outside the window.

(To be continued)