sent Cao Kun away, Zhao Dongyun is still in a bad mood!

In the emergency meeting just now, Fang Biyong, Shi Yanglin and others all felt that the situation of the Fourth Army was very bad now, and that if they wanted to solve the predicament of the Fourth Army and complete the Jiangnan strategy in accordance with the plan, it was certain to increase the troops, but they had different opinions on how to increase the troops.

Although it is said that Zhao Dongyun has given the Third Army to be fully armed and ready to reinforce southern Anhui at any time, but in fact, the Third Army cannot be moved lightly, Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen are not good goods, once they learn that the Feng Army is in a bitter battle in the south of the Yangtze River, and the Third Army is being withdrawn, they know with their toes that they will take the opportunity to rob, and the Jinghan Line is estimated to be unsafe at that time.

Therefore, if it is necessary to increase the number of troops, the only troops that can actually be reinforced are the 15th Division or other troops in the area of the Beijing Division.

The 15th Division had to go south to reinforce the front line, and if it was only transported by rail, and then walked to southern Anhui, it would take more than half a month no matter how fast it was, and no one knew if there would be any changes at that time.

Moreover, it is difficult to completely lay the victory of the Jiangnan strategy with direct reinforcements to southern Anhui, so Zhao Dongyun needs a new breakthrough point, and this breakthrough point is Songhu!

As long as the navy can guarantee the landing of the army, Zhao Dongyun will dare to send the 10th Division and the 15th Division to Shanghai together, and then give Duan Qirui a hard blow to the abdomen.

Although this operation is a bit risky, once it is successful, it can completely change the situation in Jiangnan.

Feng's army can't be defeated in Jiangnan, and he can't even consume too many troops, the domestic situation is changing every day, Zhao Dongyun doesn't want to lose both in Jiangnan and Duan Qirui, and then cheapen Wu Fengling and others, so he needs a quick and decisive action.

In this case, the plan to land in the Songhu area was revisited by Zhao Dongyun!

In the past, he was reluctant to take risks, but seeing that the Fourth Army's battle in the Jinling direction was in a predicament, he needed a new breakthrough point.

Under the strong intervention of Zhao Dongyun, the action of the Feng army was rapid, and the 15th Division went to Tianjin the next day to board the ship, and then went directly south under the escort of the navy, and prepared to risk landing directly at Songhu, when the 10th Division would also launch a large-scale landing operation across the river.

This was a landing campaign on a larger scale than the Fourth Army's river-crossing operation, and for this reason, the command of the Feng Army was busy, and the navy was even more so.

Although the navy, which was under great pressure from Zhao Dongyun, was reluctant, it was also forced to cooperate with the army's actions and prepare to launch a landing operation against Songhu.

Just when Zhao Dongyun was stimulated by the defeat of the Fourth Mixed Brigade and then took a radical Songhu landing operation, Meng Enyuan, who was in the direction of Jinling, also urgently dispatched one regiment each of the Ninth Division and the Third Division to advance westward to block the eastward advance of the Second Mixed Brigade of the Anhui Army.

At the same time, he strictly ordered Lin Pingxiong, commander of the 4th Mixed Brigade, to gather the remnants, and then catch up with the remnants of the 33rd Regiment to catch up with the pace of the 2nd Mixed Brigade.

Now the situation of the 4th Mixed Brigade and the 33rd Regiment is very bad, both of which have experienced a large-scale collapse, almost being defeated by the formation, and although the remnants of the total number of more than 3,000 soldiers have been collected one after another, the gap is already very large from their peak.

After Lin Pingxiong gathered the remnants of the army, although he had already taken the initiative to send a telegram to Zhao Dongyun, asking for resignation and retirement, Zhao Dongyun did not approve it.

Although Zhao Dongyun was already extremely dissatisfied with Lin Pingxiong in his heart, and planned to completely suppress him after this battle and let him never turn over, but in this situation, he still comforted Lin Pingxiong and encouraged him.

Lin Pingxiong led more than 3,000 remnants of the army to follow the pace of the Second Mixed Brigade, and also advanced eastward.

For a time, the battle situation in Jinling began to be unfavorable to the Feng army!

However, although the situation was already relatively critical, Meng Enyuan did not give up the attack on Jinling, and the 1st Mixed Brigade still advanced rapidly eastward under his orders, and had already successively defeated two regiments of the Liangjiang Army that came to block it.

"Hmph, I want to see if I take Jinling first or if you defeat my Western Front first!" Meng Enyuan is now the same as Duan Qirui, who is making a big gamble, a big gamble about the victory or defeat of the two armies of Fengwan and Anhui, and the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers of the Feng army.

In the southeast of Jinling, Bao Guiqing looked at Meng Enyuan's combat order, and he was also a little surprised in his heart, he had already learned the news of the defeat of the Fourth Mixed Brigade in Dangtu, and originally thought that Meng Enyuan would let him suspend the offensive and even return to help, but what he didn't expect was that Meng Enyuan did not let him return to help, but asked him to increase the pace of attack, asking him to cut off the Ninghu railway line within two days, and then turn around with the 18th Brigade of the Ninth Division to launch an attack on Jinling.

As long as the 1st Mixed Brigade cuts off the Nanjing-Shanghai Railway and reaches the Yangtze River, it means that the Feng army has completed the final encirclement of Jinling, and then it will be able to launch a final general attack on the land in Jinling City from three directions, and annihilate the enemy of Jinling in one fell swoop.

As long as the 2nd Mixed Brigade broke through the Western Defense Line of the Feng Army to intercept Jinling, then Meng Enyuan could still proudly claim victory in this crucial battle.

On the other hand, if the 2nd Mixed Brigade was allowed to break through the defense line temporarily deployed by Feng Ju in the west first, it would be a fiasco for the Feng army that could lead to the annihilation of the entire army!

In this battle, Meng Enyuan is not fighting for the Soviet system, nor is he fighting for Zhao Dongyun, he is fighting for himself!

As time passed, the battle between the Fengwan and Anhui armies in the direction of Jinling became more and more intense, and countless soldiers died or were injured every day.

On April 13, Bao Guiqing led the first mixed brigade to successfully arrive at the Yangtze River in a roundabout way, and successfully cut off the Nanjing-Shanghai railway, although there were nearly 10,000 Anhui troops from Zhenjiang in the east to attack, but Bao Guiqing did not care about the enemy behind him, but directly turned around and launched an attack on Jinling in the west.

At this time, Jinling was already completely surrounded by the Feng army, and at the same time, most of the troops of the 3rd, 9th, 14th, and 1st mixed brigades of the Feng army began to launch a final general attack on Jinling.

When the Jinling General Offensive broke out, the 15th Division of the Feng Army was already arriving in the sea off Shanghai by boat, and in order to hurry, the 15th Division's shipping was actually chaotic, and the ships on board were all rented foreign ships or requisitioned domestic ships, and the navy's warships were once again all dispatched to provide naval artillery cover for the 15th Division and the 10th Division's crossing of the river.

The next day, the 2nd Mixed Brigade of the Anhui Army, under the leadership of Jin Yunpeng, had marched to a distance of less than 5 kilometers from Jinling, but here he encountered stubborn resistance from the 34th Regiment of the 9th Division and the 12th Regiment of the 3rd Division of the Feng Army.

On the morning of 15 April, after many days of preparation, the 10th Division of the Feng Army took the lead in launching the battle of crossing the river on the front line of Nantong, and in the afternoon, under the cover of naval warships, the 15th Division officially launched a landing on Shanghai under the cover of naval warships, braving the artillery fire of the Anhui army's batteries.

The defeat of the 4th Mixed Brigade did not make the senior generals of the Feng army cower, but took the initiative to launch a large-scale offensive, and the siege of Jinling and the landing in the Songhu area pushed the war in the entire Jiangnan region to a higher height.

As of 16 April, the Feng Army has invested in the Jiangnan area the 3rd, 9th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 2nd Cavalry Brigade, 2nd Heavy Artillery Battalion and other troops.

In order to defend against the attack of the Feng army, the Anhui army also gathered at least 150,000 troops, which were widely distributed in southern Anhui and southern Jiangsu.

The two sides of Fengwan and Anhui are fighting for Jinling, a city with great political significance, simply speaking, Jinling itself is not so important, at least militarily important, this city is not an important strategic place, and there is no attribute that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it is more difficult to defend than Jinan, Xuzhou, and Zhengzhou, so you can often see examples of Jinling being conquered in history.

Not to mention that it is too long ago, when the bandit rebellion broke out a few decades ago, the Taiping army conquered Jinling, and the Qing army counterattacked back, if you talk about later generations, the people's army also conquered the city during the revolution in 1911, and several changes of hands are enough to show that this city is really not easy to hold.

But this city does not have military strategic value, and it is not easy to defend, so why do the Qing army, the Taiping army, the people's army and the current Anhui army have to defend Jinling.

Because this city is the heart of the Jiangnan region, and it is the only city in South China with great political influence, as one of only two cities that can be used as the capital, Jinling, like Jingshi, has a political significance that no other city can match.

In addition, Jinling can also be regarded as the core pillar of the southern Jiangsu region, especially the western gate, in addition to the south of the Yangtze River, and guarding Jinling is equivalent to guarding the extensive southern Jiangsu region to the east of you.

Although the area of southern Jiangsu is not large, it can provide tens of millions of tax revenues every year, which every ruler cannot ignore.

The combination of economic and political aspects also caused the Feng army to want to conquer the city, while the Anhui army wanted to defend the city.

Even when Jurong was broken through, the Second Mixed Brigade had not yet broken through the Dangtu defense line in Fengwan, and the defenders of Jinling were facing the risk of being surrounded and isolated, Duan Qirui did not say that he would give up Jinling, but chose to continue to defend it.

By now, Duan Qirui had no intention of retreating, the Second Mixed Brigade was already less than five kilometers away from Jinling, as long as he could receive the Second Mixed Brigade to tear apart the western defense line of the Feng Army, then it was uncertain who would win and who would lose in this battle.

However, what he didn't expect was that Zhao Dongyun's determination would be so resolute, and when he learned that the Fourth Mixed Brigade had failed and the Fourth Army was in a predicament, Zhao Dongyun not only did not withdraw or continue to send troops to southern Anhui for reinforcements, but directly transferred troops from the north, and then launched a landing operation with the 10th Division in the Songhu area.

After Duan Qirui learned about such an adventurous behavior, he didn't secretly scold Zhao Dongyun for being a madman, he wanted to overwhelm Jiangnan with all the bets.

But as risky as this is done, the effect is enormous.

With the reluctant cooperation of the Navy, the 10th and 15th Divisions launched landing operations at the same time, one was to cross the river, and the other was to land directly from the ship; in order to cover the landing of the army, Cheng Biguang transferred all the warships in the navy that could be moved, and even those auxiliary ships with only a few machine guns were transferred to provide the army with fire cover during the landing.

Moreover, before leaving, according to Zhao Dongyun's personal instructions, the navy brought all the shells that could be brought, and made it clear to the navy that all the shells must be fired out in this battle, and if he dared to keep the shells and bring them back, he would be angry.

In addition, he also gave Cheng Biguang a secret warning: that is, if this landing operation fails, he Zhao Dongyun will be very angry and angry, and then he will not say anything about not giving the navy military funds, not building ships and so on, when the time comes, he Zhao Dongyun will wave a butcher's knife and slash at these generals of the navy.

So although the psychological side was reluctant, Cheng Biguang did not dare to disobey Zhao Dongyun's personal order.

After looting all the ships that could fire their guns and bringing them to Shanghai, Cheng Biguang led the fleet to venture close to the Wusong Fort and carry out a large-scale artillery bombardment.

When the fleet carried out a large-scale artillery bombardment of the Wusong Battery, the transport ship also braved the artillery fire to approach the shore, and then the soldiers of the 15th Division on board began to glide to the shore in small boats, officially launching a large-scale landing operation.

Cheng Biguang saw that the army soldiers had almost landed, so he led the fleet to withdraw slightly, at this time his fleet had already suffered a lot from Shanghai, the Hairong was hit by multiple shells, the superstructure was beaten into a sieve, and even the six-inch main gun was damaged, killing and wounding dozens of sailors.

This time, Cheng Biguang's fleet can be said to have made a lot of effort, and these craters on the battleship alone were enough to hand over to Zhao Dongyun, so as soon as the army's advance force landed successfully, he led the fleet to evacuate.

The fleet suffered a great loss in shelling with the fleet and the battery, and to really take the Wusong battery, it had to rely on the army.

When Cao Kun landed his troops, he did not stay on the warship, but landed with the 29th Brigade, and as soon as he stepped on the shore, he issued the first combat order: "Take the Wusong Fort and open the way for the brothers of the navy!" ”