Once the civil war began, Song Biao would not intend to stop.

On August 23, the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions, which had arrived in Wuhan one after another, surrounded the 8th Town and the 21st Mixed Association New Army, and the two sides were about to officially start a civil war.

In order to prevent this trend from spreading, Zhao Tingzhu, the overseer of the First Army, received a telegram from Song Biao to formally attack the Hubei New Army, occupy the three towns of Wuhan, and bring Hubei under the jurisdiction of the provisional political axe.

This year, Zhao Tingzhu was twenty-eight years old in his prime, energetic, the youngest among the overseers, he could be called a young marshal, he had a Russian church school education background, compared with Zhang Yahu, Chen Wu and others in the Far East Lushi and other military academies The road to further study is much smoother, from September 1905 to November 1906 when he graduated from the Far East Lu Shi class, he graduated with the first place among the 85 cadets of the infantry section that year, and then finished from the small class of the staff department half a year later. In April 1907, he went to the Russian General Staff College for further study, and in September he went to the German [***] Academy for further study for half a year, and returned to China in April 1908 to continue to serve as the brigade commander of the First Infantry Brigade.

Life...... That's it.

There are many people who have the ability to achieve great things, and sometimes all they need is such luck and opportunity.

At this time, Zhao Tingzhu was not only the overseer of the First Army, but also the leader of the Far Eastern Lushi faction within the Northeast Army, and the mainstay of the imperial party.

He did not participate in every vicious battle of the Northeast Army like Zhang Yahu and Chen Wu, he fought Heigoutai, fought Jiangjiayao, when Zhang Yahu and Chen Wu followed Song Biao to fight the Liaoyang Campaign, he had already read the power to lead the army to clear bandits in Jilin Province and attack Feng Linge, he was given the right to command multiple troops for the first time, that battle was actually not good, if it was not for the strength, he was likely to be dragged down by the guerrilla warfare of the bandit troops, and it was also a very valuable military experience for him.

At this time, on the banks of the Yangtze River, the instructor of his first division was Fu Liangzuo, the chief of staff of the first army was Chen Qicai, the top military adviser was Colonel Maltost of the First Staff Bureau, and one-half of the staff officers and advisers of the First Staff Bureau were in Hanyang, planning the overall situation for him and preparing logistics work.

Because he is proficient in the Russian language, to this day, the 1st Infantry Division under his command still retains more than 20 Russian advisers engaged in training and teaching, which is the source of the 1st Infantry Division's combat courage and elite.

After the first round of artillery fire at 9 o'clock in the morning, Zhao Tingzhu, Zhang Yahu, Chen Qicai, Colonel Maltost, and Fu Liangzuo personally went to inspect the riverbank, and he used the seven-magnification cylinder telescope provided by the German Zeiss company to observe the opposite bank, and on the Wuchang River embankment, 1.3 kilometers away, the Hubei Revolutionary Army's defenses along the river were almost destroyed.

The opponent is really weak.

He knew that the opponent was Huang Xing, the legendary deputy leader of the Alliance, Huang Keqiang.

The Hubei Revolutionary Army laid out a large number of fortifications along the coast, simple but numerous, lacking cement pillboxes and other strong fortifications, they even lacked machine guns, and the only few machine gun points were accurately annihilated by artillery.

The revolutionary army did not even have a deep defensive line, only such a defense along the river, there was no high and low defense, there was no joint deployment of points, lines and planes, the control of the fire points lacked calculation, the thousands of meters long defensive line piled up with sandbags had been torn apart by artillery, blood and corpses remained everywhere, and the sporadic artillery counterattacks of the revolutionary army were quickly suppressed.

In short, the adversary lacks a real military leader.

This is Zhao Tingzhu's judgment.

He put away the binoculars and sighed with Zhang Yahu beside him: "Maybe as we originally predicted, as long as we rush to the side of the Yangtze River, this battle will be over, how to say?" The surname Huang is not even as good as a new graduate of the Far Eastern Army, I really don't understand why the Hubei New Army is willing to accept his command, just because of his fame? ”

Zhang Yahu laughed.

Chen Qicai cautiously reminded: "Ladies and gentlemen, Your Majesty has emphasized several times that it is better to overestimate than underestimate the opponent, and not to underestimate the opponent. ”

Zhao Tingzhu nodded silently, he knew that the burden on his body was very heavy, because Chen Wu's Third Infantry Division did not need to continue south to Fujian, and the general situation was already extremely favorable to the imperial political axe, he needed to suppress the Hubei New Army as soon as possible, connect Hubei with Hunan controlled by the empire, wave his army from Hunan into Guangxi and Guangdong, completely defeat the League, and then wave his army into Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, and exterminate any province and remnant local forces in the country that are unwilling to accept the monarchy.

Especially the brothers Zhao Erfeng and Zhao Erxun, the governors of Sichuan and Yunnan and Guizhou, if these two are not removed, the remaining hatred of the Northeast Army will be difficult to eliminate.

The purpose of attacking Hubei was to suppress the domestic resistance forces, and the purpose of attacking Sichuan was to take revenge.

As long as the new army in Hubei defected, or was completely defeated, and lost the bridgehead of Hubei, the other southern provinces would completely abandon the extravagant hope of autonomy, or at least dare not openly oppose the rule of the empire.

For this reason, Zhao Tingzhu, Martos, Chen Qicai, and Fu Liangzuo prepared a complete set of battle plans, but now it seems that most of them are useless.

More than 16,000 shells covered the entire Hubei Revolutionary Army's defense line along the river during the half-hour bombardment, and two hot air balloons were suspended in the air over the wide river.

The specifications of these two hot air balloons are much larger than those of the Hubei Revolutionary Army, with the black three-gun logo of the Northeast Army on them, the hot air balloons have photographic equipment on them, and there are also radio transmitters, and three people are responsible for making hot air balloons, one person is responsible for reconnaissance and photographing, and one person is responsible for generating electricity.

The hot air balloon of the Hubei Revolutionary Army has never been lifted into the air, for unknown reasons, probably because it feels flashy, the other party seems to like to observe the military dynamics on the other side of the river on the Yellow Crane Tower, if it weren't for Song Biao's special explanation before, Zhao Tingzhu might consider directly bombing this ancient building.

After checking the situation on the other side of the river, Zhao Tingzhu and the others returned to the headquarters and prepared to officially cross the river.

Because the Third Infantry Division did not need to participate in this operation, Chen Qicai devised a plan to cross the river, intending to secretly let the Third Infantry Division cross the river to Huangshi in Xishui County, and attack Wuchang through the railway detour from Daye to Wuchang.

Zhao Tingzhu persuaded the General Staff, because what the Northeast Army needed at this time was a frontal and absolute victory, which would directly crush the opponent psychologically, and although it was a risk, this risk was worth it.

There is another advantage of crossing the river in Hanyang, that is, the members of the Guangfu Society in the Hubei New Army broke away from the New Army very early, formed the Hubei Patrol Army, and retreated to the two towns of Hanyang and Hankou.

The Hubei New Army originally had 81 M1903 75mm Krupp guns, but the shell reserves were insufficient, and more than half of them had been consumed by the time of the revolutionary uprising.

In the sporadic artillery bombardment of the past few days, Zhao Tingzhu has been constantly luring the opponent to counterattack, and seized the counterattack to knock out several artillery positions of the Hubei Revolutionary Army.

Unlike Huang Xing and others, Zhao Tingzhu, who has fought more than 10 times in the large-scale anti-bandit campaign alone, has very rich experience in combat and command, and has participated in real battles, and he knows very well in his heart that in the past half a month of continuous testing, he has determined that the opponent's combat strength is not high, and the will to resist is not high.

Therefore, the battle will end at the moment when the Imperial Army crosses the Yangtze River.

The revolution has succeeded, and now is of course the time to enjoy the fruits of victory, and as a result, the soldiers will not be able to figure out whether they will continue to fight, even with stronger opponents.

After Zhao Tingzhu and others returned to the headquarters, the second round of artillery attacks of the First Army began again, and more than 170 artillery pieces from six artillery positions launched artillery attacks at the same time to suppress the enemy positions along the entire river for a second time.

The whole process went as smoothly as Zhao Tingzhu expected, and the several shelling launched by the revolutionary army were quickly defeated by the Second Artillery Brigade's countermeasures, and the other side had neither machine guns nor artillery, and a few machine guns were scattered, and they could only rely on the rifle fire discharged from the human wall to resist the crossing of the river.

Zhao Tingzhu watched the river-crossing operation of the First Infantry Division on the temporary guard tower, and the 101st Infantry Regiment of the First Division was the 101st Infantry Regiment at the outpost, and the 101st Infantry Regiment of the First Division was the elite unit of the No. 1 Tianzi of the Empire.

The 101st Infantry Regiment, which is regarded as a descendant of the descendant troops, has always had the courage of the Russian army, is not afraid of sacrifice, and has rushed to the forefront of all previous anti-bandit operations.

It was only at this time that the Hubei Revolutionary Army suddenly opened fire on two concealed artillery points, and soon dozens of shells sparsely fell on the position, and the artillery regiment under the First Division used 54 three-inch Lucia field guns to counter-suppress.

Because there are hot air balloons to watch, even if the revolutionary army hides the artillery in hard-to-find houses and woods, as long as it fires, it will be completely exposed, and the revolutionary army has also made some calculations, even if the artillery positions appear to be very scattered, more than 30 artillery pieces are scattered at more than 10 points, but the shells of each cannon can fall on the pre-predicted line, the area is right, the accuracy is still quite different, and the threat to the 1st Infantry Division is not great.

Once exposed, the scale of the counterattack encountered by these guns was astonishing.

The real power of artillery has always been in accuracy and range, without accuracy and range, artillery is just throwing grenades all over the sky, but it just looks scary, and the gap between the artillery literacy of the two sides is very obvious.

As the number of artillery countermeasures continues to increase, the cumulative cumulative damage and gap between the two sides will widen, and it will be more and more difficult for the inferior side to launch artillery bombardments and countermeasures, while the superior side will continue to suppress more and more smoothly.

This is a conclusion that can be reached without thinking, and it is also the simplest experience of war, and in real war, this gap can widen to unimaginable proportions.

In order to facilitate river crossing and street fighting, the 101st Infantry Regiment is all equipped with M1910 Winchester self-loading rifles, the effective accuracy range of this rifle is only about 150 meters, but the rapid fire is extremely fast, skilled soldiers can shoot a rate of fire of 40 rounds a minute, and some teams are even equipped with a grenadier with an experimental surname, with a range of 150 meters, the caliber is 30mm, this simple mortar has a lot of use space in street fighting.

The revolutionary army built a large number of defensive positions in the area of the Yellow Crane Tower and the ancient city wall, relying on the mountainous advantages of Snake Mountain, and the first large-scale battle between the two sides took place in the area of Lanhongting, where the first battalion of the 101st Infantry Regiment and the two standards of the 21st Mixed Association fought.

Although the gap in strength is large, the light machine guns deployed by the Northeast Army to the squad soon played a very strong suppressive role, and the crazy rate of fire of the M1910 Winchester self-loading rifle caught the revolutionary army off guard.

In the previous battles, every time the Beiyang Army encountered the Northeast Army, it was difficult to resist for more than ten minutes, and it was retreating at the slightest touch, and it was a large-scale rout as soon as it retreated, and it was difficult for the Hubei Revolutionary Army to escape such a fate, this was not a level of competition at all, just like the contest between the world boxing champion and the weak scholar, an iron fist hit the past, and the other party would not dare to fight again.

In conventional operations, the Northeast Army usually adopts the tactical operation of three companies advancing alternately, with each company advancing in a platoon with each other, and each platoon advancing in turn in an orderly manner, with each squad taking turns to be responsible for breaking through the high points and machine gun points in their respective areas of capture.

At this moment, the gap in the level of tactical training was extremely obvious, and it was not felt by others, but the feelings of the officers and men themselves were the most obvious, and once the judgment that could not be stopped at all appeared, everyone could only retreat frantically.

The revolutionary army's plan to rely on Snake Mountain for sniper operations was soon declared bankrupt, and the large number of fortifications that had been laid out with a lot of effort was abandoned, and the soldiers of the 21st Mixed Association soon chose to surrender on a large scale.

Everyone knows that this is a battle within the revolutionary army, as long as they surrender, they can change camps and continue to eat military salaries, if it weren't for Huang Xing of the League who urgently brought a batch of military salaries, they should have switched to the side of the temporary political axe a month ago.

For soldiers, it is enough to have a political axe, but it doesn't matter what kind of political axe it is.

Zhao Tingzhu's initial prediction was basically correct, and the battle of crossing the river basically ended in Snake Mountain, with half of the revolutionary army defeated and half surrendered.

From the arrival of the Northeast Army on the riverbank at 9:50 a.m., by 10:15 p.m., the outpost of the Northeast Army had already occupied the headquarters of the revolutionary army's uprising, and the New Army of the Eighth Town announced its surrender in the area of the parade ground and Jiyu Bridge.

(To be continued)