In early January of the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938), more than 200,000 soldiers of the Central China Front Army set out from Shanghai, Suzhou and other places in two routes, all the way along the Beijing-Shanghai Railway to Nanjing, all the way from Jiangyin Fortress to the east of the Yangtze River, along the Jingjiang River and Yangzhou line to attack the Soviet Union and China.

The battle plan formulated by Yanagawa Heisuke and others was that after the capture of Nanjing, the main force of the front army could cross the Yangtze River to the north and attack northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui along the Tianjin-Pudong Railway, with the intention of joining forces with the North China Front Army in Xuzhou to open up the northern and southern battlefields and make them one.

On the Shandong battlefield, thanks to the wise command of General Li Zongren, commander of the Fifth Theater and the bloody battles of the vast number of officers and men, the offensive of the Yue army was finally contained.

Moreover, with the main force of 100,000 [***] elites withdrawn from the Nanjing battlefield to the Xuzhou area, the combat effectiveness of the Fifth Theater increased in vain, and General Li Zongren even ambitiously planned to fight one or two encirclement and annihilation battles in northern Jiangsu and southern Lunan to eat the five and 10th main divisions of the Yue Army that invaded Shandong in one fell swoop.

Later, after mobilizing heavy troops, he turned around to meet the Central China Front Army, which was heading north along the Gimpo Railway.

Due to the change in the outcome of the Battle of Nanjing, the hundreds of thousands of [***] elites who defended Nanjing were preserved, and the current situation of resistance is slightly better than the original historical situation.

With the addition of these hundreds of thousands of elites, Li Zongren's Fifth Theater has greatly increased its strength, and its strength has reached an astonishing more than 700,000 troops.

Moreover, they are secretly assembling elite troops, preparing to attack the two major offensive groups of the Chinese army, which are driving straight in.

Just as the battle of Xuzhou slowly began, at the same time, Qiao Anbang, who was in northern Anhui, was not idle, except for the Chinese New Year's Eve and the officers and soldiers of the whole brigade spent a Spring Festival together, and after the first day of the new year to pay a visit to his father Qiao Siyuan, Qiao Anbang began to be busy again.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been intellectual young people from all over the country who rushed to Pheasant Heji to sign up for the army, and Qiao Anbang naturally took these people in one by one and temporarily arranged them in the Longshan military camp.

However, to Qiao Anbang's surprise, most of these intellectual youths came from North China, and a considerable number of them even came from the occupied areas with great difficulty, while the number of people from Central China, South China, and other nationally controlled areas was pitiful.

In addition to his doubts, Qiao Anbang thought of the telegram sent to him by Chairman Chiang not long ago, and the content of the telegram was very simple, that is, he ordered himself to lead the Tiger Brigade to the front line in Shandong immediately to resist the war.

It stands to reason that he led his troops to retreat into northern Anhui to rest and recuperate, and this was also ordered by Chairman Jiang himself, and now that the Battle of Xuzhou has just begun, he will have to transfer the Tiger Brigade to the front line, and it is just after Qiao Anbang has just issued a recruitment declaration, this will make Qiao Anbang a fool and understand Chairman Jiang's intentions.

Because he has military exploits, thanks to the country and the nation, Chairman Chiang and the national political axe can not help themselves on the face, so they ask for the surname to push themselves to the front line and use their own hands to get rid of themselves, which should be the so-called killing people with a knife.

After understanding the intention, Qiao Anbang naturally scoffed at this telegram and did not buy it.

Fortunately, because the battle situation in Shandong was raging, General Li Zongren and the [***] troops of the Fifth Theater were mainly focused on attacking the Yue Kou, and the order issued by Chairman Chiang to intercept the intellectuals in various localities was not so thoroughly implemented.

In this way, the intellectuals and patriots who came from North China and even the Central Plains were able to smoothly pass through the national control area to reach the Pheasant and Gathering.

By the middle of the first month, the total number of enthusiastic patriotic young intellectuals who had come from all over the country had reached more than 20,000, in addition to thousands of workers and technicians who had worked in factories and some teachers and people from all walks of life.

Qiao Anbang, who was extremely overjoyed, immediately incorporated all 20,000 young intellectuals into the army, and all 5,000 veterans were disorganized and mixed with the recruits for training.

Thousands of workers, technicians, and other talents were also put to the best use of Qiao Anbang's talents, and all of them were arranged to the arsenal, health team, and other departments, and dozens of teachers were selected from them to join Qiao Anbang's work in the school built last year for local orphans and children from poor families, responsible for teaching those orphans to read and study.

As a traverser, Qiao Anbang knows that it is a terrible thing to be uneducated, and now the orphan school he has established will play an important role in the future, and the empire will be in ruins in the future, and there must be an urgent need for a large number of educated and knowledgeable talents, these students are naturally the best candidates, and with them can better build the country.

Of course, this school is just the beginning, and in the future, Qiao Anbang will establish this kind of school all over the country for teenagers and children to learn and read for free, so that all Chinese can have books, doctors, food, and houses to live in, which is Qiao Anbang's most basic requirement for himself.

With the increase in the number of new recruits, Qiao Anbang deeply realized the serious shortage of middle- and grass-roots officer talents at hand, and after hard thinking, Qiao Anbang came up with the idea of building a military academy following the example of Sun Yat-sen, the father of the nation, to train middle- and grass-roots officers for himself, although the current situation does not allow large-scale schooling. However, military academies can be established first, and some retired veterans who have been wounded and disabled can be selected to run several crash courses for officers, so that the troops can be provided with a steady stream of middle- and low-level officers.

Even potential recruits on active duty can take turns attending the crash course for officers to increase their combat knowledge and skills.

After making up his mind, Qiao Anbang immediately began to prepare for the construction of the military academy, and all kinds of materials needed such as reinforced concrete were extracted from the aircraft, and all kinds of machinery needed to build the house such as excavators and cranes were ready-made.

After the completion of the military academy, Qiao Anbang planned to be the principal himself, after all, there was a prescient example of Chairman Jiang, and Qiao Anbang certainly knew how much benefit he would bring to himself as the principal.

In the future, the descendants in his army will be as loyal to Principal Jiang as the generals of the Whampoa department in [***], and the friendship between himself and his subordinates is just a simple relationship between superiors and subordinates, and there is a more intimate teacher-student friendship.

With the existing material, manpower, and financial resources of the Tiger Brigade, it is simply effortless to build a military academy that is not very large.

About half a month later, the Yongsan Army Military Academy, located next to the Yongsan Barracks, was built, and the number of intellectuals and patriots who had rushed from all over the country in the past half a month had also increased to 30,000.

After having 30,000 people, Qiao Anbang decided to officially reorganize the Tiger Brigade, although these 30,000 people were very different from the 100,000 army he had expected, but they were still much more than his original 5,000 men.

And Qiao Anbang now understands one thing, that is, his current territory is too small, and his development potential is limited.

So Qiao Anbang decided to arm the 30,000 troops in his hands first, build them into an invincible iron army, and then gradually expand the territory.

Of course, Qiao Anbang will not take advantage of the danger of others to launch an attack in the national control area, then he will be spurned by his compatriots across the country, he can wait until after the defeat of [***], and then attack the occupied area, and regain the lost land from his own hands, so that he will not only become a hero of national resistance, but also be able to get a territory in a blank area of power, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.

After having an idea, Qiao Anbang gathered all 30,000 recruits and 5,000 veterans in the newly built Yongsan Army Military Academy for reorganization, and also to celebrate the establishment of Yongsan Military Academy.

After discussing with Qiao Anguo and others, Qiao Anbang decided to disrupt all the original veterans of the Huben Brigade and re-expand the recruits, and use them as the backbone to expand the troops into three infantry divisions.

There are three infantry divisions under the jurisdiction of the Northern Anhui Rescue [***], each division has three infantry regiments, and the troops directly under the division have an artillery regiment, a communications battalion, a automobile baggage regiment and a guard battalion.

The infantry regiment has three infantry battalions per regiment, and the direct subordinate units include a communications company, a reconnaissance company, a guard company, and an artillery battalion, and each battalion has three infantry companies. The battalion was directly subordinate to a radio communications platoon, a guard platoon, and an anti-tank company equipped with 37 anti-aircraft guns.

On average, there are about 10,000 people in the division, all of whom are equipped with German-style equipment, but the individual weapons are equipped with American-style Garand M1 rifles, because the German-style Mauser rifle is still a pull-bolt manual rifle, although it hinders the unified caliber and standard of the troops' weapons and equipment, but it is also a helpless move.

However, it won't be long before the automatic development function of the aircraft is repaired, Qiao Anbang will equip the troops with a German-style MP44 assault rifle, which is the predecessor of AK47, which is much better than Garand M1, and in terms of submachine guns, it is all replaced with the most advanced German-style MP38 submachine gun, but this gun is only a transitional weapon, and Joan Bang's ultimate goal is to equip the troops with more advanced MP40 submachine guns and even Soviet ** sand submachine guns.

Each artillery regiment has two howitzer battalions and one 88mm anti-aircraft gun battalion, with a total of 60 howitzers and 20 88 antiaircraft guns.

Most of the units directly under the division and regiment are equipped with pistols and German-style MP38 submachine guns, and the original Huben Brigade Guard Company has been expanded into a three-battalion directly subordinate guard regiment, and the regiment commander is Wang Gensheng, the former commander of the Guard Company.

(To be continued)