At dawn on March 9, Jingshi West Garden.

Fang Ruolian habitually turned over, and then stretched out her hand to hug her husband beside her, but her hand was empty, she opened her eyes in a daze, but saw that the person next to the pillow had already disappeared.

"Have you been busy all night?" Fang Ruolian didn't say anything too surprised, she was still in a state of confusion, and after saying a word to herself, she continued to sleep.

At this time, Zhao Dongyun, as she said, was busy for another night, and at this moment, he was looking at the battle report handed over by Shi Yanglin with slightly bloodshot eyes.

Since the Feng army entered the customs last year, hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Feng army have been fighting day and night, but Zhao Dongyun also can't sleep well when the battle situation is tense, and many times he would rather stay up all night waiting for news from the front-line troops than lie in bed and toss and turn.

Especially after deciding on the battle plan for crossing the river, Zhao Dongyun had already put all his thoughts on the front-line warfare, and most of the rest of the military and political affairs had already been postponed, and basically spent most of his time discussing various countermeasures with the generals of the high headquarters.

Although the battle of crossing the river that we are seeing now is only a division-level crossing of the river on the front line of Hezhou and Dangtu, and only one 17th Brigade launched a landing operation, in fact, in order to allow the Fourth Army to assemble on the front line of Hezhou, it is necessary to ensure that the 17th Brigade crosses the river smoothly and that the main force of the Fourth Army can cross the river safely after crossing the river. In particular, those operational staff officers of the Operations Department have been working continuously and intensively for more than two months in order to plan the plan for the battle of crossing the Yangtze River and the follow-up strategic plan for the south of the Yangtze River, and they have been working tirelessly day and night to perfect and finalize the plan before the campaign is officially launched.

The officers of the high command were busy, although Zhao Dongyun did not say that he would participate in too detailed military affairs, but as the supreme commander of the Feng army, every strategic plan and every key tactical arrangement of the front-line troops actually needed him to make the final finalization.

Don't think that Zhao Dongyun just signed simple words such as 'can' and 'got it' on those battle plans, but before signing his name, Zhao Dongyun also had to do a lot of work, for example, Meng Enyuan finally reported that Pan Luanqing's 17th Brigade was the first batch of forced troops, and the decision he Zhao Dongyun had to make was 'can' or' No, however, the first batch of forcible crossing troops is related to the entire battle of crossing the river and even the entire strategic layout of the south of the Yangtze River, so Zhao Dongyun has to have a detailed understanding of the situation of the 17th Brigade, not only to see whether Pan Luan Qingshi is suitable as the commander of the first batch of crossing the river, but even every officer above the rank of major in the brigade, Zhao Dongyun has a detailed understanding of it, and combined with the previous combat examples of the 17th Brigade, so as to speculate whether the 17th Brigade really has the important task of taking on the first batch of forced crossing troops.

It was only after he had learned the entire 17th Brigade in detail that he signed his name on Meng Enyuan's telegram request.

So don't look at Zhao Dongyun just making a simple decision at the end, but in order to make this decision, his workload is not inferior to that of any operational staff officer in the combat department.

After deciding on the plan to cross the river, he spent most of his time in the military intelligence conference room in Jurentang, either discussing the military situation, or consulting a large amount of information by himself and meeting with a large number of generals.

Just like what he's doing now!

Ever since the 17th Brigade on the Hezhou side launched the battle to cross the river yesterday, Zhao Dongyun has been staying in the military conference room with more than 10 senior generals and more than 10 core combat staff officers of the General Headquarters.

The staff officers, especially the communications officers of the communications section, kept walking in and out with all kinds of telegrams, and then issued all kinds of orders to the Fengjun army nationwide in the telegraph room next door.

Although it is said that the battle of crossing the river was only the 17th Brigade at the beginning, in fact, in order to cooperate with the battle of crossing the river on the front line of Hezhou and Dangtu, the Feng army across the country has taken action, and the third army in the direction of Henan has strengthened the defense of the Jinghan line, especially the Feng army troops in the three strategic places of Xinyang, Shijiazhuang, and Zhengzhou, which are already on full alert, to prevent Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen, who have already reached an alliance agreement with the Feng army on the surface, from suddenly attacking. Then attack the Jinghan line, which can be called the lifeline of the Feng army in the northern Anhui direction.

The 10th Mixed Brigade stationed in the northeast shrank its forces early and retreated to Shenyang, intending to use the large number of fortifications built in the past few years to defend against possible Japanese-Russian intervention forces.

The 5th Mixed Brigade, the 7th Mixed Brigade, and the 9th Mixed Brigade in the direction of Tianjin and the Beijing Division were also on strict alert for the movements of various countries in the direction of Tianjin, and the 1st Cavalry Brigade also ended the task of suppressing bandits and counterinsurgency in the direction of Mongolia ahead of schedule, and then returned to the front line of the Beijing Division, so as to reinforce Tianjin or the northeast at any time.

As for the suppression of bandits in the Mongolian direction and the task of monitoring the local princes, the tasks were handed over to several patrol cavalry battalions and two patrol infantry regiments.

Speaking of which, it has to be mentioned that after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in October 1906, many Mongolian princes germinated the idea of independence, but Wang Yingkai at that time was also a person with extremely strong traditional thoughts, he ignored the opposition of the Russians and directly sent troops to Mongolia to go around, and then killed a group of horse bandits or rebels supported by the Mongolian kings, it was to pacify the Mongolian independence ideology, although the Russians expressed a strong protest, but at that time the Russians had just fought with the Japanese themselves, At that time, the four major warlords of Beiyang had reached a secret agreement and formed the Beiyang Republican Government, at least on the surface, Beiyang was a unified military group, and it was not in vain to see hundreds of thousands of Beiyang troops there. Because the Japanese and the British were also strongly opposed to the Russians' attempt to incite Mongol independence, and even stated that if the Mongolian situation was not controlled, they would support Beiyang to send troops to quell the rebellion.

In the eyes of the Japanese and the British, especially the British, any expansion of the Russians in the Far East was unacceptable, and the Britain in 1906 was not the Britain on the eve of World War I, and Britain on the eve of World War I, in order to deal with Germany, on the one hand, did not have the energy to care about the small actions of the Russians in the Far East, and on the other hand, it was also to win over Russia, so it acquiesced in Russia's actions in Mongolia.

However, now, in the European continent, the Three Emperors Alliance is still very marketable, Germany has not completely torn its face with Russia, as for why Russia has transformed into an ally of Britain and France, there are many things to say, not to mention it for the time being, and I will talk about it later.

However, after the entry of the Feng army into the customs last year, the situation in China was further chaotic, and the Beiyang was completely divided and led to a civil war between several major warlords, which once again gave the Russians an opportunity, so they began to incite the Mongol princes to become independent.

In the face of the Mongolian problem, whether Zhao Dongyun wanted it or not, he couldn't show that he was worse than Wang Yingkai, so when he had just moved into the Beijing Division, when the Feng army was still going south to Shandong and Henan, the First Cavalry Brigade rushed to Mongolia to suppress the situation after finishing the initial rest.

By the end of last year, in fact, the Feng army still had a very large number of troops in Chahar, Mongolia and other directions, with the first cavalry brigade, five patrol cavalry battalions, and two patrol regiments. Needless to say, the combat effectiveness of the First Cavalry Brigade is one of the two cavalry brigades of the Feng Army, Meng Enyuan's starting unit. The five patrol cavalry battalions, although they have the name of patrol police, but in fact their combat effectiveness is not bad, the patrol cavalry battalion and the patrol cavalry regiment are two concepts, and the patrol cavalry battalion has always been the main field force in the Fengjun sequence. As for the two patrol infantry regiments, although their combat effectiveness is a bit scummy, it is still not a big problem to deal with irregular forces, and in addition, these two patrol infantry regiments are stationed in the city, so it is not a problem to serve as local defense.

With these troops, the independence of those Mongol kings did not form a scale at all, and they were often directly exterminated before they could gather many people. The overall situation was similar to that at the end of 1906.

It is precisely because Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun both maintained a high-pressure and repressive attitude towards Mongolia's independence that there has been no change on the Mongolian side, and the rest of the country has not heard any rumors of Mongolia's independence.

Now the situation on the Mongolian side has tended to be stable, and the five patrol cavalry battalions and two patrol infantry regiments stationed in the Mongolian direction, plus the cooperation of some Mongolian princes who are unwilling to become independent, are enough to deal with the small number of local rebel forces in Mongolia. Under such circumstances, the battle plan for crossing the river was about to be launched, and the First Cavalry Brigade also ended its deployment mission in Mongolia, and then returned to the front line of the Beijing Division to reinforce the troops of the Feng Army on the front line of the Beijing Division.

At the same time, the 1st Division and the 4th Mixed Brigade in the northern Anhui direction had already launched an active offensive against the 6th Liangjiang Division and the 2nd Mixed Brigade of the Central Army in Anqing and Wuhu in advance; in addition to creating a strategic illusion for the Feng army, it was also intended to contain the Anhui army in these two directions; after all, the 6th Division of Liangjiang and the 2nd Mixed Brigade of the Central Army in these two directions were the main forces of the Anhui army, and containing them on the Anqing and Wuhu lines would be of great strategic significance for the Feng army to conquer the Dangtu line in the future.

Not to mention the direction of northern Jiangsu, the 10th Division has launched several small-scale river-crossing harassment operations, although at present this small-scale river-crossing harassment operation has not achieved much actual results, but it is enough to attract the great attention of the Anhui army, forcing the Anhui army to invest heavy troops on the important land of southern Jiangsu to prepare for the large-scale river-crossing landing of the Feng army.

After all, if the Anhui army said that a large number of troops in the southern Jiangsu direction were withdrawn, so that the defense in the southern Jiangsu direction was empty, the Feng army would not have to go around in a circle to land in Dangtu in northern Anhui, they could all land directly in southern Jiangsu, so that they could directly penetrate into southern Jiangsu, the current core ruling area of the Anhui army, and then cause the complete collapse of the Anhui army in the south of the Yangtze River.

In addition, in the direction of Jinling, where both sides of Fenghui and Anhui were heavily concentrated, the Third Division also launched a large-scale offensive in a timely manner, and its purpose was also very simple, that is, to contain the transfer of the Fourth Division.

The goal of the mobilization and offensive of the Feng army in many of the above directions was the same, that is, to cover the Fourth Army in Hezhou and cross the river along the Tu line.

Therefore, the Fourth Army only needs to manage its own river crossing, and the 17th Brigade only needs to hold the beachhead, but for those senior staff officers of the Commander's Headquarters, they are the Fengjun troops deployed in the direction of the whole country at the same time, and the Fengjun troops are not only 170,000 field troops, but also include a large number of patrol infantry regiments and numerous auxiliary troops, including a large number of support regiments and transport regiments formed by the Quartermaster Department.

Together, the total number is as much as three or four hundred thousand.

This is a very difficult task for the young Fengjun command system!

And for the supreme commander of this army, Zhao Dongyun is also facing extremely difficult pressure!

The bloodshot eyes in front of me indicate this qiē!