【171】The Red Flag of the Wind Blows the Earth (27)

According to Yao Fan's attack plan for Weifang, the PLA was divided into assault groups, diversion groups, firepower groups and reserves.

"Li Jun's second regiment and third battalion stayed behind in Anqiu, and the first and second battalions that participated in the attack on Weixian were responsible for the main attack on the east gate and the south gate."

"Liu Jinbao's third regiment and three battalions were stationed in Pingdu, and the first and second battalions were responsible for attacking the north and west gates of Weixian."

"Your two regiments should allocate the ratio of firepower and assault groups to suppress the enemy's firepower at the head of the city."

"Li Hainiu's regiment is the only one with all three battalions in place, and you, together with Xi Dahu's cavalry battalion, will act as a diversion group and directly attack Changle County, 20 kilometers west of Weixian, to block the Huai army reinforcements that may come from Qingzhou."

"The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 5th Regiment serve as reserves, waiting for orders at any time."

"Guiba's artillery battalion will immediately look for a suitable position tonight, and tomorrow it will be used as a fire support group to suppress the fire at the head of Weixian County, and give priority to destroying the more than 20 artillery pieces erected at the head of the city."

Yao Fan repeated the battle plan that had been arranged long ago.

"Do you understand?"

"Understood!"

"Understood!"

"Got it!"

…………

The People's Liberation Army of Shandong Commune camped and rested almost all after eight o'clock, but Yao Fan did not sleep well this night, because he was afraid that the Qing army would come to rob the camp in the middle of the night, he got up several times at night to check the enemy situation reports from various posts, and the sentry posts in each direction reported that the Qing army did not move all night, which made Yao Fanbai worried.

The guard Huzi whispered: "Chairman, you better sleep, the Qing soldiers must have blocked all the four gates with stones, and if they want to go out of the city to attack at night, they have to take the trouble to move away, who wants to spend that idle time." ”

Yao Fan couldn't understand why Li Peirong and Mo Zushen could still rely on the fortified city so calmly to defend after he repeatedly succeeded in blasting the city gate with explosives, the inertial thinking of the Qing generals was really stubborn and terrible.

"Probably because they think they can defend the city with artillery, right? According to the establishment, the four infantry battalions had 24 artillery pieces, and Li Peirong felt that it was normal to hold the city. After all, in the previous Pingdu Campaign, Wang Zhengqi's artillery was all lost in the field battle......" Yao Fan thought about it, and fell asleep in a daze on the marching bed again.

At four o'clock in the morning, the wake-up call sounded in the barracks, and the fluttering long horn alarm the enemy troops at the head of Weixian County, and three or four miles away, the Qing army crackled and fired a few shots in the pre-dawn darkness, as if in a demonstration, and in the silent morning, the distant gunshots sounded like a few beetles had been pinched in the stomach.

The soldiers of the People's Liberation Army of Shandong Commune quickly got up in the wake-up call, poured the snow collected last night into the iron pot, lit a fire to make rice, and washed with melted snow water.

The guard Niu Hu poured the boiling water from the thermos into the wooden basin, twisted a hot towel, and handed it to Yao Fan, Yao Fan walked out of the tent after wiping his face, and the cotton military uniform on his body looked a little wrinkled because he slept in a night of kimono.

When the sky was white, a report came from the walkie-talkie that the troops had completed their movements.

"Start attacking!" Yao Fan ordered.

Gui Ba first ordered three companies under the artillery battalion to carry out a tentative attack on the head of the city, and the company commanders and platoon commanders nervously observed the head of the city through a telescope.

According to the plan, the first battalion of Li Jun's 2nd Regiment at the east gate was responsible for the main attack, and the remaining three gates were only feints.

After the attack began, Yao Fan found that Li Peirong and Mo Zushen's defense was still quite tenacious, and the cannon at the head of the city began to fire from a distance of more than 700 meters, and the front-loading smoothbore cannon of black powder roared at the head of the city, demonstrating slowly to Yao Fan at a rate of five minutes.

"Katsura Eight ......"

"Rest assured, Chairman!" Gui Ba interrupted Yao Fan without waiting for him to finish speaking.

The mortar positions that had been test-fired suddenly opened fire, and the 27 mortars simultaneously emitted the sound of the bottom fire of the shells in the nine positions formed one kilometer away, and the shells drew an arc of death after reaching the highest point of the curve, silently rushing to the end of the mission.

Yao Fan saw that the city of Weifang was plunged into a sea of fire, smoke began to rise from the city, and this quiet small county town in the telescope suddenly turned into a lit matchbox.

The mortar fire of a battalion was so powerful that Yao Fan was stunned.

Before Li Jun and Liu Jinbao's infantry fire cover group surrounded Simen entered the position and took position, the head of Weifang City had already collapsed under the three rounds of rapid-fire strikes from 27 mortars.

The infantry on the city wall suffered heavy casualties, the stumps and broken arms paved a hellish bloody road on the road at the head of the city, the 12 iron cannons on both sides of the east gate were blown up, and the mushroom cloud after the propellant was detonated steamed up, blowing up the arrow stacks sticking out of the muzzle and the nearby qiē in a radial manner.

The surviving infantry on the city walls fired indiscriminately into the distance, not reloading gunpowder and lead bullet on the spot, but only trying to turn around and run into the city to hide.

Such indiscriminate shooting was not threatening at all, and it did not even scratch the oily skin of even one person of the approaching stragglers outside the city. The demolition team sent by the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Li Jun learned from the experience, and the 30-kilogram TNT explosive packs with a triple charge were bundled into a group, and after ignition, the city gate of Weixian County was blown to pieces.

Suddenly, an iron cannon at the head of the city shot a solid iron bullet, and the black ball screamed and hit the dirt more than thirty meters behind Li Jun's side, and then jumped up, and jumped backwards twice, in the final third jump, it happened to hit a warrior, fortunately, the iron ball had little impact force left after a few jumps, and the warrior was just knocked and rolled on the spot, dislocated his shoulder, but there was no fracture.

"It's dangerous! Chairman, just now a solid iron cannonball landed next to me, and it actually dislocated a soldier's arm! ”

Hearing Li Jun's report on the walkie-talkie, Yao Fan was a little upset.

Despite the long distance, Yao Fan felt upset by this stubborn resistance, and Yao Fan felt that if he was not a modern person, but was born in this era, after receiving such a counterattack, it was entirely possible to choose to slaughter the city after attacking it, so as to alleviate the depression he had accumulated during the attack.

But soon, the trumpet of the charge sounded, and under the fierce trumpet, a battalion of assault groups rushed into the bombed city gate like a group of fierce tigers shouting "kill, ~~~~~~~~". Yao Fan knew from experience that Weixian County had been taken so far.

After the two battalions of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 2nd Regiment learned that the east gate had been taken by the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment, the assault group began to press towards the city gate for which they were responsible, waiting for the 1st Battalion to open the door from the inside.

The 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment immediately divided its forces into the city and attacked the remaining three city gates.

The battle ended within half an hour, and the 2nd Regiment and 1st Battalion led by Li Jun personally used grenades and rifles to defeat the Qing troops defending the city in the attack like snow in the city, and countless Huai troops were taken prisoner, and they knelt on the side of the street trembling facing the wall.

When he learned that all the four gates had been taken and that the second and third regiments had all rushed into the city, Yao Fan commanded on the walkie-talkie with confidence:

"Guiba, clean up the artillery position, and we will go to Changle with the two battalions of the fifth regiment that served as reserves."

By this time the gunfire had stopped, and suddenly the sound of horses' hooves came from the west.

Yao Fan didn't raise the binoculars, put his hand on his forehead and looked, and saw that it was Xi Dahu's cavalry.

The cavalry brought dangerous news, and the sentry horses released by Xi Dahu's cavalry battalion found that the Huai army in Qingzhou had already set out before dawn in the morning, and the target was directly aimed at Weixian, and it was expected that all of them would reach Changle at noon, and the cavalry of the vanguard would only be faster.

Yao Fan raised his wrist and looked at his watch, it was now seven forty o'clock, and Li Hainiu's regiment was full of infantry, and it was expected to arrive in Changle at eight or nine o'clock.

"Why don't you use a walkie-talkie and make a special trip?"

"Battalion Commander Xi doesn't like walkie-talkies, he said that thing is a foreign thing, and he is afraid of being retained."

Yao Fan frowned and raised the walkie-talkie to contact Li Hainiu, and after hearing Li Hainiu's answer, Yao Fan said: "Manatee, the Huai army in Qingzhou has all gone out of the city, and they are going to Changle, Xi Dahu told you that you didn't." ”

"Chairman, I just knew, and I was worried that it would affect your fight against Wei County, so I haven't had time to report yet."

"! In the future, this kind of information must be reported immediately! Yao Fan angrily reprimanded.

"Yes, Chairman, I'll report back immediately next time." Li Hainiu's voice came from the walkie-talkie.

He then continued: "Chairman, our regiment has already seen Changle, and we want to take Changle first, and then go to the city to stop the Huai army. ”

Yao Fan completed his decision in an instant, and said: "Your troops leave two battalions to build a position in situ, send a battalion to attack Changyi quickly, give up if you can't take it in an hour, and retreat to the constructed position to wait for my reinforcements." ”

"Yes."

Of course, Yao Fan hoped to be able to annihilate Zhou Sheng's traditional Huai army in one fell swoop in the field battle. But he has been taught cautious by Yao Peng and Li Hongmei since he was a child, and in Yao Peng's words, "Don't think that you have lifted the earth just because you have held up a handstand."

Yao Fan didn't pay attention to the annihilation of the "Pei" battalion and the "gentry" battalion in Weixian County, he felt that he was just adding new members to the prisoner of war camp in Jimo. However, Li Hongzhang's descendant Huaijun Yao Fan has never met it, and it will not lead to good results in underestimating the enemy.

Thinking of the previous prisoner of war camp in Jimo, Yao Fan smiled. More than 700 of the Qing army's prisoners of war chose to stay after completing the two-month labor camp, which accounted for less than one-fifth of the more than 3,000 prisoners of war. Yao Fan happily kept his promise and released the rest of the prisoners of war who were unwilling to stay, and gave each of them one tael of silver as travel expenses.

As a result, after completing the prisoner of war release conference, it didn't take long for more than 500 prisoners of war to run back, saying that they had figured it out on the way back to their hometowns and were willing to join the Shandong Commune as a buddy.

"I want to see how strong Zhou Shengchuan's troops are." Yao Fan had read Zhou Shengchuan's deeds of training at a small station in a book, and felt that this person should be very capable of fighting, at least his kung fu on paper should not be bad.

Yao Fan took a step forward and led the assembled troops to the west.

Originally, in Yao Fan's consideration, the number of Huai troops going south to Shandong should be more than 10,000, but Lao Li obviously did not treat the village chief as a cadre and sent fewer troops than expected, which made Yao Fan feel that there was an opportunity.

Green steel helmets and military uniforms jumped on the snow-covered field, and the morale of the soldiers who had just captured Weifang was at its peak, and they sang the military song in a neat voice: "Forward, forward, forward, our team is like the sun......"

After receiving Yao Fan's order, Li Hainiu ordered a battalion of Luo Qiren to run and attack Changle.

The PLA's tactics of explosives packs and fire suppression were very successful, although two soldiers were injured by random arrows fired from the city gate tower because there was no artillery assistance, but under the fire of the rifles that followed, the city gate building was beaten to sawdust and no arrows were fired.

After learning that the first battalion had attacked Changle and successfully occupied it, Li Hainiu ordered the entire regiment to stop building fortifications in situ and directly enter the county seat of Changle.