After discovering that Duan Qirui broke through with the Fourth Division overnight, Meng Enyuan's face outside Xuzhou City was a little ugly, he didn't want to see himself with nearly 100,000 Feng troops busy in northern Jiangsu for several months, and finally he could only take an empty city!

"Let Ren Cungao speed up and advance westward, and let the 1st Mixed Brigade not take care of the 3rd Brigade of Liangjiang, get rid of their entanglement and try their best to catch up with the pace of the 10th Division!" Meng Enyuan quickly issued a series of orders.

"Then order the Third Division to immediately bypass Xuzhou and pursue southward, the Ninth Division immediately divert south to the direction of Suzhou, and hand over the finishing work in Xuzhou City to the First Division!"

With Duan Qirui leading the main force of the Fourth Division to leave Xuzhou, although there are still nearly 10,000 troops of the Anhui Army around Xuzhou, it has lost its strategic value for the entire war in northern Jiangsu, as long as the Fourth Division is not in Xuzhou, then the Feng army does not need to deploy heavy troops in Xuzhou.

Anyway, the Anhui army has shown a great rout and retreat in northern Jiangsu, and the remaining nearly 10,000 enemy troops in the direction of Xuzhou cannot set off the storm.

The battle situation on the front line in northern Jiangsu showed great changes at the beginning of November, and this change is good and bad for the Feng army, the benefits are obvious, no matter what the purpose of the Anhui army is, but they have already given up Xuzhou, and giving up Xuzhou is equivalent to giving up the entire northern Jiangsu, in addition to Xuzhou, Suqian, Suzhou line, the Anhui army is impossible to build a similar defense line in other areas of northern Jiangsu, in the face of the follow-up onslaught of the Feng army, they can only retreat all the way to the south bank of the Yangtze River.

But there are also disadvantages, that is, although Meng Enyuan found out in time that Duan Qirui was going to escape, and quickly made targeted measures, urgently ordered the 10th Division to accelerate its westward advance, and ordered the 3rd Division and the 9th Division to bypass Xuzhou and pursue southward, but still failed to catch up with the 4th Division, which was bent on escaping.

In order to cover the retreat of the Fourth Division, Duan Qirui still had nearly 10,000 people in the Second and Third Brigades of Liangjiang in Xuzhou, and even when the Fourth Division had already escaped from Xuzhou, in fact, the Anhui troops of these two brigades did not know that they had been regarded as outcasts.

Then, he didn't care about the life or death of Zhang Huaizhi in the direction of Suzhou, and directly crossed Suzhou all the way south to Bengbu before stopping slightly.

The Fourth Division successfully escaped from the encirclement of the Feng army, which made Zhao Dongyun, who was in the Beijing Division, a little dissatisfied.

When he received a battle report from the former enemy headquarters in Xuzhou, saying that Duan Qirui successfully broke through with the Fourth Division, he seemed to have returned to the Battle of Bazhou a few months ago, at that time, he had been planning painstakingly for several months, but he still failed to leave Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division, and now things are repeating themselves again, which has to make him sigh, it is really difficult to encircle and annihilate the main force of the enemy.

On November 5, nearly 10,000 people of the Liangjiang Second Brigade and the Third Brigade in Xuzhou, who had been abandoned, were hopeless to break through and continue to hold on without enough ammunition, so they were forced to surrender in the face of the attack of the First Division.

It's just that these two brigades surrendered, not took the initiative to surrender like Zhang Dianru, so Fengjun also unceremoniously imitated these two troops like the previous prisoners, and after the preliminary sorting out of the Ministry of Education, the soldiers who were willing to continue to serve in the army were directly supplemented to the various units in the south, and the basic officers were basically directly supplemented and appointed, while the middle and senior officers were transferred to deputy positions and civilian positions, and they had to be sent back to the Fengjun Military Academy to study again, and some were directly dismissed, and there were also those under house arrest, and there were all kinds of treatments.

After receiving the replenishment of nearly 10,000 soldiers, all the divisions in the south replenished the personnel lost in the early stage, especially the several main divisions were able to continue to maintain a full staffing establishment, which was very important for the follow-up operations of the Feng army.

Taking Xuzhou was originally an extremely important matter, but when the Fourth Division could not escape and the Feng army was vigorously pursuing, Xuzhou was conquered without causing much turmoil.

It's just that after Xuzhou was conquered, Zhao Dongyun's Xuzhou former enemy command headquarters specially set up for the Xuzhou Campaign was also abolished immediately, the first army and the second army returned to their respective formations, the first army went south to Anhui, and the second army continued to go south to other areas in northern Jiangsu.

On November 9, the 9th Division of the 1st Army of the Feng Army and the 4th Mixed Brigade captured Suzhou, but before they attacked Suzhou, in fact, after Zhang Huaizhi learned that Duan Qirui had escaped from Xuzhou, he himself fled with the main force of the 5th Division, leaving only a few thousand troops in Suzhou.

After taking Suzhou, the 9th Division and the 4th Mixed Brigade of the First Army continued to move south, aiming directly at Bengbu.

On November 10, the 10th Division of the Feng Army and the 12th Division of Zhang Dianru, who had just surrendered to the Feng Army, joined forces to conquer Qingjiangpu, and the remnants of the 2nd Mixed Brigade of Zhejiang were forced to retreat south to the line of Taizhou and Yangzhou, but in the follow-up attack of the Feng Army, it was extremely difficult for them to hold the north bank of the Yangtze River.

After the war in northern Jiangsu was temporarily over, Fang Biyong personally reported the situation of the war in northern Jiangsu to Zhao Dongyun!

"The war in northern Jiangsu began to break out in August, and lasted for more than three months in mid-November, and in this war that lasted for three months, the Anhui army successively invested the fourth division of the Central Army, the first division, the second division, the fifth division, the second mixed brigade of the Liangjiang Army, the first mixed brigade of the Zhejiang Army, and the second mixed brigade. There are also more than 15,000 Lu troops under Zhang Huaizhi.

The Anhui army and the Lu army combined, with a total strength of more than 80,000 troops, nearly 200 barreled artillery pieces of various models and calibers, and nearly 200 heavy machine guns such as the Makqin and Hachkais. ”

Fang Biyong continued: Our army has successively invested the First Division, the Ninth Division, the Fourth Mixed Brigade, the Second Cavalry Brigade, and the First Independent Heavy Artillery Battalion of the First Army. The 3rd Division, the 10th Division, the 1st Mixed Brigade, and the 2nd Independent Heavy Artillery Battalion of the Second Army. In addition, there are three separate heavy mortar battalions, and more than 10 patrol regiments are responsible for rear defense, logistics and transportation.

The total number of troops, including the main force and auxiliary forces, is about 90,000.

In addition, during the battle, our army absorbed a number of enemy forces, including the 12th Division. If these troops are added, then the number of troops invested by our army in the war in northern Jiangsu has already exceeded 100,000 people.

The above-mentioned units have more than 20 100-mm cannons, more than 200 old and new 75-mm guns, more than 800 mortars of various calibers, more than 300 heavy machine guns, and more than 700 light machine guns. ”

If we simply look at the comparison of the strength and equipment of the two sides, in fact, the difference is not as big as imagined, at least in the extremely important body artillery, the gap between the Anhui army and the Feng army is not as big as the outside world imagined.

In fact, the difference in combat effectiveness between the two sides is such a big difference in the officers and soldiers of the two sides, as well as the tactical concepts.

The strength of the Feng army to participate in the war includes the three main divisions of the Feng army, the third division, the ninth division, and the tenth division, the three units started by Zhao Dongyun, all participated in the war, and the combat effectiveness of the fourth mixed brigade should not be underestimated, although the remaining Lu Yongxiang's first division and Bao Guiqing's first mixed brigade are worse in combat effectiveness, but after all, they are the foundation of the old Beiyang troops, and although their combat effectiveness is not as good as the third division, they are far beyond the provincial army in ordinary warlords.

On the other hand, the Anhui army, except for a fourth division, the others are the Liangjiang Provincial Army or the Zhejiang Provincial Army, most of these provincial armies are incorporated from the Southern Federation's defeated army, although Duan Qirui vigorously reorganized, but these reorganized provincial armies are okay to fight the provincial armies of other warlords, but it is far from enough to fight with the main force of the Feng army.

In addition, the tactical concepts used in the Feng army were far beyond the contemporary, and the combined attack of light machine guns and mortars was difficult for the old-fashioned troops to resist.

In the war in northern Jiangsu, the Anhui army lost unjustly!

Besides, although Duan Qirui lost, it seems that he lost his troops and generals, but the foundation of the actual Anhui army was not damaged.

What can represent the Anhui army?

First of all, there must be Duan Qirui, and then there must be two troops under him: one of them is naturally the Fourth Division of the Central Army, and the remaining one is the Second Mixed Brigade of the Central Army. As for those Liangjiang Army and Zhejiang Army, to be honest, Duan Qirui himself didn't pay much attention to it, otherwise he wouldn't have directly thrown down tens of thousands of Liangjiang Army palaces in the previous Xuzhou Campaign, without blinking his eyes.

To put it bluntly, the strategic value of a fourth division exceeds that of all other units of the Anhui Army combined!

Now the Second Mixed Brigade of the Central Army is still fighting in Jiangxi and the Southern Federation, and the Fourth Division of the Central Army escaped in Xuzhou, plus Duan Qirui himself is not dead, so there is no doubt that the backbone of the Anhui Army is still there.

Fang Biyong continued to hold the thick battle report and continued: "In the past three months, our army has killed and wounded 18,000 enemy soldiers and captured more than 16,000 people. 26,000 rifles of various types, 58 machine guns, 37 artillery pieces of various types, more than 2,800 military horses, and many other military knives, binoculars, and pistols were also captured! ”

After talking about the results of the battle and the captures, he naturally has to talk about his own losses: "On the part of our army, more than 3,700 people have been killed and 7,000 wounded, of which more than 2,000 have been seriously injured, and other lightly injured have returned to their original units one after another. In terms of ordnance, our army lost 8,000 rifles, 16 artillery pieces, nearly 100 mortars, more than 20 heavy machine guns, and more than 50 light machine guns. ”

When Fang Biyong said these casualty figures, Rao is Zhao Dongyun had already prepared in his heart, but it still made him frown, looking at the proportion of battle losses, it was not a big victory, but a typical war of killing one thousand enemies and losing eight hundred, the Feng army achieved many results in northern Jiangsu, but its own losses were also huge, the loss of soldiers and ordnance on the surface was actually nothing, and more importantly, the ammunition that the Feng army had hoarded for a long time was almost exhausted in the Northern Jiangsu campaign.

After taking Xuzhou, the various reserve warehouses of the Feng army on the front line in northern Jiangsu were almost empty, and if there was to be a war in these years, it could not be fought without shells and bullets, and if the battle was rashly launched with insufficient ammunition reserves, then the end would usually be very tragic.

"Now that the front-line units have been fighting for many months, they urgently need to rest and recuperate in order to replenish the soldiers' physical fitness and restore morale, and in addition, it is also necessary to take a break for the quartermaster department to re-replenish the front-line troops with artillery shells, bullets, food and other military supplies!" When Fang Biyong said this, he cautiously said to Zhao Dongyun: "Therefore, the General Staff Department has built a post to postpone the battle in the direction of Bengbu, and let the front-line troops rest for a few days first!" ”