At the headquarters of the 7th Mixed Brigade in Tangshan, Li Chun and a large group of officers gathered in front of the large military map of Tangshan on the table, listening to the military intelligence report of the operational staff officer amid the rumbling of artillery from a distance.

Captain Zhou Bianlong, the combat staff officer of the 7th Mixed Brigade, pointed to the map with the baton in his hand and continued: "At present, the situation of the 4th Battalion is relatively stable, but it is worth noting that in the evening, the front-line troops have already found signs of enemy reinforcements in the area.

The second battalion on the flank of the fourth battalion was the area where our fighting had been most intense before, and from two o'clock in the afternoon the enemy had committed a regiment of troops to attack the defensive line of the second battalion, and conservatively estimated that the enemy had invested at least two artillery battalions in this area for artillery support.

According to the battle report of Major An Yilan of the 2nd Battalion, in the past four hours, the enemy has launched as many as six company-level attacks, and the 2nd Battalion was forced to withdraw from the first line of defense at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and has now retreated to the second line of defense.

The situation on the second battalion side is worse now, the commander of the third company, Captain Zhao Bilian, was seriously wounded, the company has suffered more than 20 casualties, and the battalion has lost three heavy machine guns and an 80mm mortar!

Since the two fronts of the 3rd Battalion and the 1st Battalion were not attacked by the enemy's main force, the current situation is stable! ”

After Zhou Bian Long finished speaking, Lieutenant Colonel Xue Yiping, chief of staff of the 7th Mixed Brigade on the side, spoke: "At present, our army's defense line is still relatively stable, as long as we wait until the third division arrives, then most of the current predicament can be solved!" ”

Li Chun frowned: "When will the troops of the Third Division arrive?" ”

Xue Yiping said: "The Ninth Regiment of the vanguard of the Third Division has arrived fifteen kilometers away from Tangshan, and is currently marching lightly on foot, and it is expected to arrive in the early morning. ”

"Go and tell the Third Division again, let them reinforce our department before tomorrow!" Li Chun was quite dissatisfied with the slow movement of the Third Division.

The troops of the Third Division have already set off from Shanhaiguan by train in the early hours of this morning, and according to the normal formation, they will be able to arrive at most this evening, but the Third Division said that it has encountered a train failure, and the westward advance has been greatly slowed, but these reasons are what Li Chun does not care about, what he cares about is that now his Seventh Mixed Brigade is facing the attack of tens of thousands of the enemy's main force, and it is expected that there will be more direct troops attacking Tangshan after tomorrow, if the Third Division does not arrive by tomorrow, Even if his 7th Mixed Brigade was able to hold back the enemy, it would have to pay a huge price for casualties, which Li Chun could not bear.

The General Staff of the Feng Army scheduled that the vanguard of the Third Division would be able to arrive in Tangshan for reinforcements within one day, but in fact, a regiment of the vanguard of the Third Division was still more than 10 kilometers away from Tangshan, and due to a train failure, they had to march at night on foot, and even if they were optimistic, they would not be able to enter the front line until the early hours of tomorrow morning.

The night of June 12 was destined to be unpeaceful, when the direct army and the Feng army on the front line of Tangshan were engaged in a life-and-death battle, Zhao Dongyun also had a fierce scolding battle with Wang Yingkai.

That night, Zhao Dongyun first issued a telegram, accusing Wang Yingkai of tearing up the Tianjin agreement and attacking the Feng army stationed in Tangshan without authorization, which was completely a bad act of sabotaging the republican unity and the Beiyang regimental level, and also said that Wang Yingkai had been dictatorial many times in the past month, directly appointed many important government officials in violation of the republican constitution, and exercised the tyranny of warlords in the name of the president.

Subsequently, Wang Yingkai also unceremoniously issued a telegram to refute it, saying that Zhao Dongyun first violated the Tianjin agreement and transferred the Third Division into the customs without authorization, and at the same time, the Feng army stationed in Tangshan launched an attack on the direct troops in Baodi, Ninghe and other places without authorization a few days ago, and his rebellious heart was already known to passers-by, and once again demanded that Zhao Dongyun stop the move of increasing troops in the pass, and hand over the Tangshan area to the troops under the Ministry of War to take over the defense.

With the official outbreak of the war between Zhao Dongyun and Wang Yingkai on this day, the domestic situation has also been set off in great turmoil, Wang Shizhen and Duan Qirui, who are fighting in the south and the Southern Federation, have successively issued telegrams, asking Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun to calm down and maintain restraint, saying that the enemy is current, and the Southern Puppet Federation has not been completely annihilated, and the two are also asked to take the republican reunification as the key.

However, Wang Ruxian, who has a close relationship with Wang Yingkai and can be regarded as Wang Yingkai's side, is very vehement, obviously biased towards Wang Yingkai's side, and accused Zhao Dongyun of leading the army into the customs without authorization to sabotage the Beiyang regiment level and the republican unity. Of course, in the telegram, they did not say that they were urgently stopping the fighting in the south and were preparing to send troops north to Zhili.

The reaction of Wu Fengling, one of the remaining major warlords in Beiyang, was as flat as ever, Wu Fengling just issued a telegram that asked everyone to maintain restraint, and then he continued to lead the troops to hurry, he still had to rush to Shijiazhuang quickly, whether he could stop Wang Ruxian and the follow-up Wang Shizhen from going north to reinforce Wang Yingkai, it depended on whether Wu Fengling could hold Shijiazhuang.

Compared with the telegrams of the warlords in Beiyang, the provinces of the Southern Federation were quite excited, and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation was also extremely excited to issue a telegram, saying that this group of chaotic thieves in Beiyang had fallen into civil strife, and the Northern Expeditionary Force of the Federation had completely gone north to defeat Beiyang, and it was just around the corner to welcome back the Holy Driver.

According to the statistics of some good people, in the three days of June 12th, 13th, and 14th, various forces in China successively issued 17 telegrams, and these 17 telegrams also became the most obvious feature of the outbreak of the second Beiyang Civil War.

If the first Beiyang Civil War was just a small fight, the subsequent North-South Civil War was one-sided, the Southern Federation, especially the Southern Union troops in the direction of Liangjiang, were unable to withstand a blow from Beiyang, and the total number of more than 200,000 troops under Duanfang and Yinchang was completely collapsed by Duan Qirui's Beiyang Army of less than 50,000 people, this kind of war naturally does not reflect the cruelty of contemporary war, but the current second Beiyang Civil War truly reflects the cruelty of contemporary war.

In the first 12 hours of the outbreak of the war alone, the direct army successively deployed four artillery battalions in Tangshan, fired more than 5,000 shells, and participated in the attack with more than 15,000 troops.

The defending side of the Feng army has only more than a dozen barreled artillery, although there are dozens of mortars as a supplement, but the mortar has not been able to replace the barreled artillery since it was invented, naturally there are many reasons for it, whether it is later or now, this mortar in the war is unable to replace the huge role of the barreled artillery, because in the artillery battle, the Feng army has been pressed and beaten.

In addition, there is a huge disadvantage in the number of troops, the full strength of the Seventh Mixed Brigade is only 5,000 people, even if you count the temporary conscription, the temporary militia force composed of workers from the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but the strength of the front-line troops is still very different.

From the afternoon to the present, it is often the direct army that attacks the position of a battalion of the Fengjun army with the strength of a regiment.

In this case, the Feng army was not an invincible iron army, and it was impossible to continue to hold the position even if it was dead, so in order to reduce the casualties of the troops and gain more time to wait for reinforcements from the third division, Li Chun ordered the troops to resist gradually, and in the evening part of the troops on the front line had already abandoned the first line of defense, and after nightfall, Li Chun continued to shrink the line of defense and ordered the other divisions to also retreat to the second line of defense.

At nine o'clock in the evening, at the front line of Hanhezhuang, Li Cungao looked at the position of the direct army that was still bright not far away, and he said with a solemn face: "It seems that the direct army on the other side is still unwilling, and even plans to continue the attack at night!" ”

"Brother Li, the direct army on the opposite side has at least increased to more than 1,000 troops now, I'm afraid it will be difficult to defend our side later!" Lieutenant Chen on the side also had a solemn face: "Why haven't the reserves over there come up yet?" ”

"I'm afraid there aren't many reserves on the battalion headquarters!" Li Cungao said: "Today, our second battalion has been fighting for so long, with nearly 100 casualties, and the fourth company as a reserve has already been put into battle, and the reserves that can be organized now are at most dozens of people in the battalion headquarters, and they are not used at all!" ”

"In this way, we can only wait, but it is estimated that Company Commander Han will be back soon, as long as he can come back with two heavy machine guns, then there is still hope for holding on next!" As Lieutenant Chen spoke, he suddenly said again: "Look, the direct army is coming up again!" ”

On the opposite side of the torch-lit direct army position, a large number of torches were lit up, and a large number of figures shook in the firelight!

At the same time, the sound of shelling, which had been sparse, also intensified, and the direct army on the opposite side began to shell again.

In the rumbling cannon, Li Cungao said in a loud voice, "I'll go ahead and take a look, Brother Chen, you arrange mortars here, and when the direct army on the opposite side comes up, I'll give them a ruthless one!" ”

Lieutenant Chen said: "Don't worry! ”

Li Cungao immediately took the herald to the trench with his waist and went up to the first row of positions in front.

After all, the ammunition carried by the direct army with the army on the opposite side, especially the artillery shells, was also limited, and the fierce shelling in the afternoon also caused the direct army's artillery shells to consume a lot, and it was not easy to continue to organize large-scale artillery bombardment this night, and naturally it was not as fierce as the artillery fire in the afternoon.

Li Cungao stepped forward quickly, first on the only remaining heavy machine gun position in the second company: "There is no need to put a close fight later, as long as there is a firing range, suppress the shooting, and you can't let them rush up!" ”

The leading heavy machine gun shooter, a sergeant with a stubble on his face, said loudly: "Li Tou, rest assured, brother, I have practiced my feel today, and I will never let those rabbit cubs on the opposite side rush over later!" ”

Li Cungao nodded, and then continued to move forward, and it didn't take long to reach the first row of the line, at this time he saw a middle-aged man who was encouraging the soldiers before the battle: "Brothers, take the guns in place, and when the enemy comes up, they will fight hard, I will wait to eat the food of the handsome, take the salary of the handsome, and now the time has come to give the handsome a life!" ”

"As long as this one is won, everyone will go all the way to Jingshi, kill his mother, rob his mother, and have all the money and women!"

Li Cungao listened to these gangsterly encouraging words, and subconsciously frowned, as a professional officer, he was very unaccustomed to these behaviors, but he also knew that the secretary under his command was from a bandit, and the banditry in these words was also understandable, plus the current war, he was not good at caring about these things.

"Sergeant Lin, how's the situation?" Li Cungao continued to step forward and said to the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man, Sergeant Lin, laughed twice: "Everyone is doing well, just wait for those bastards of the direct army to rush up!" ”

Just as the two were talking, the opposing direct army was already crawling out of the trench in the light of fire, and then rushed towards them!