The sun in early spring has slowly set down the mountain, leaving only the red sunset in the sky, but the two sides of the Yangtze River in Ma'anshan under the sunset are constantly drawing out meteor-like traces, these are the shells fired by the artillery unit of the Fengjun Army on the north bank, nearly 100 artillery pieces are fired non-stop, and countless shells fly towards the south bank to support the 17th Brigade and the 18th Brigade on the south bank to launch a counteroffensive operation.

That's right, it's a counteroffensive!

Since 6 o'clock in the afternoon, the Anhui army took the initiative to stop the large-scale offensive when it saw that the shape was not good, but Pan Luanqing, who was in front of him, decisively issued the order to launch a counteroffensive, especially after receiving reinforcements from two battalions of the 18th Brigade, the 34th Regiment launched a number of offensives in succession, although it did not kill or wound many enemies, but it successfully recaptured two positions.

Just as the 17th Brigade launched a counteroffensive, Lin Yongquan also stepped onto the pontoon bridge accompanied by a group of senior officers.

Although limited by his own weak tactical ability, Lin Yongquan was quite low-key in this battle of crossing the river, and the battles in the first few days were basically Meng Enyuan personally gave Pan Luanqing various combat orders, and Pan Luanqing was fully responsible for commanding the offensive and defensive operations of the river-crossing troops, Lin Yongquan, the commander of the Ninth Division, had a very weak sense of existence, although Lin Yongquan was reluctant to do so, but he also knew his own family affairs, and asked him to personally command the 17th Brigade to carry out beachhead defense operations. In the face of the Fourth Division's supplementary attack with the Liangjiang Seventh Division, eight out of ten were defeated, and Zhao Dongyun also sent him a private secret telegram before the war, which also hinted that he should not interfere too much in Pan Luanqing's command in the battle of crossing the river, and that he should properly delegate power.

Therefore, in the early stage of the river-crossing operation, he was very low-key, giving Pan Luanqing great autonomy, and he did not express any dissatisfaction with Meng Enyuan bypassing him and directly commanding the 17th Brigade.

However, in any case, he Lin Yongquan was the commander of the Ninth Division, and now that the 18th Brigade has also crossed the river, it means that all the combat units of all two brigades of his Ninth Division have crossed the river, and he, the division commander, will naturally follow the crossing of the river, so that he can personally command the battle of the Ninth Division in the future.

Lin Yongquan's crossing of the river means that most of the Ninth Division's river-crossing operation has been completed, and the next thing is to transport artillery and cavalry troops across the river, but the cavalry is okay, the cavalry can lead the horses across the pontoon bridge, but the artillery is a little difficult.

At present, the pontoon bridge built by the task force is only preliminarily completed, and the carrying capacity is still very limited, and if you want to barely pass those 75-mm field guns weighing more than a ton, it may cause too much trouble.

The first to cross the river was the baggage troops of the Ninth Division, and they would send urgently needed ammunition, food and other supplies to the 17th and 18th Brigades on the south bank in time, and the others would be the mountain artillery battalion of the Ninth Division.

Although it is also 75 mm caliber, the weight of the mountain guns is much lighter than those field guns, and with the current strength of the pontoon bridge, it can barely transport these mountain guns across the river.

As for those field artillery, they continue to be deployed on the north bank, on the one hand, they cannot be transported across the river, and on the other hand, the Feng troops on the south bank also need uninterrupted artillery support.

A large number of officers and men of the Ninth Division, who walked on the pontoon bridge with Lin Yongquan, held torches and slowly moved forward on this improvised pontoon bridge that spanned several kilometers of the Yangtze River.

The pontoon bridge built by the task force started from the beachhead on both sides of the river, and after crossing the pontoon bridge of about 700 meters on the north bank, it was on the small yellow island that crossed the middle of the river, because the terrain on the small yellow island was quite muddy, so the task force laid wooden planks on the predetermined passage, this section of the plank passage was about two kilometers, and then took the pontoon bridge on the south side again, this section of the pontoon bridge was about 1.3 kilometers.

The two sections of pontoon bridges, plus the wooden plank passage on the small yellow island, are about four kilometers long.

Because the current pontoon bridge is only a simple pontoon bridge, which can accommodate a limited number of people and goods passing at the same time, the speed of the follow-up troops crossing the river of the Ninth Division is also limited, and when Lin Yongquan finished walking this long pontoon bridge and just stepped on the land on the south bank, Pan Luanqing and other officers of the Ninth Division, who had been waiting for a long time, had already crossed the river to meet him.

"Quan Shuai, is it okay to walk this way?" When Pan Luanqing saw Lin Yongquan coming, he immediately took the initiative to greet him respectfully, and immediately after Pan Luanqing, the other middle and high gold officers of the Ninth Division also greeted him in unison.

This title of the commander sounds a little strange, but it still sounds very interesting, and calling someone a certain commander is a more popular title among the warlord forces in China today.

For example, Zhao Dongyun will call himself Mingyun or Dongyun when he is humble, and when he is arrogant, he will call himself the president, and when outsiders call him, the enemy will call Zhao Dongyun Zhao Guangtou, ordinary people call him President Zhao, and some people take his place of origin as a proxy name, calling him 'Zhao Suqian', his subordinates are generally called presidents and generalissimos, and advanced students call Zhao Dongyun a teacher, and different people generally use different names for Zhao Dongyun.

As for Zhao Dongyun's words, Yuan Shikai could call him 'Ziyang' in the past, as for now? There is no one in contemporary China who is qualified to call him in words.

Zhao Dongyun is the generalissimo, the marshal, and some customs of the former Qing Dynasty and other warlords, so some senior generals within the Feng army are generally called a certain marshal by their subordinates, but there is no fixed way to call Meng Enyuan 'village marshal', this village is the second word of his word Shu Village, and some people call him 'army marshal', this army is on behalf of the head of the first army of the Feng army.

And the division commanders and brigade commanders who came down were roughly similar, often with a word in the name or a word in the word, and then added Shuai as an honorific title, Lin Yongquan was called Shuai by his subordinates in person.

This style of name can be said to have a strong feudal traditional atmosphere, but it is estimated that it cannot be changed for a while, because the Beiyang interest group is actually a continuation of the feudal tradition, and there is a natural difference between it and the so-called revolutionaries of later generations.

Pan Luanqing and the others are handsome, and they are quite respectful.

Although the entire Feng army knows that Lin Yongquan's tactical command ability is average, but everyone knows that this Lin Yongquan is the first to follow Zhao Dongyun's old qualified general, in order to support Lin Yongquan's ascension, Zhao Dongyun spent a lot of thought, in order to supplement Lin Yongquan's own lack of command ability, Zhao Dongyun specially assigned a large number of professional combat staff officers to the Ninth Division, so no matter what Lin Yongquan's own ability is, but he is the confidant general of Zhao Dongyun.

Moreover, Lin Yongquan has always been more self-aware, and when commanding operations, he usually discusses and formulates plans with the officers and staff officers under him, and does not say that he is acting alone, so Lin Yongquan has served as the commander of the Ninth Division for a long time, but the Ninth Division has not had any examples of defeat because of Lin Yongquan's own lack of ability.

Lin Yongquan didn't put on any show, he immediately talked to the officers who came to greet him, and when he walked up to Fang Qingkun, he said with a smile: "I see An Qing's statement in my eyes, when the war is over, I will personally ask the generalissimo for you!" ”

Although Fang Qingkun's stout face remained calm, he still couldn't hide the joy!

Since the Anhui army took the initiative to stop the attack two hours later, he Fang Qingkun knew that the credit for this battle had already been earned, and no matter what happened in the future, it would be possible to rise to another level, and it would be possible to become the commander of the first division or even the army commander in time.

In fact, it is true, the war on the Ma'anshan side has not yet ended, when Zhao Dongyun of the Beijing division received a telegram from the front, saying that the Anhui army had stopped attacking and the pontoon bridge had been successfully erected, he immediately ordered: Pan Luan Qingjia was awarded the rank of general, and he was honored with four ranks.

All officers and soldiers of the 17th Brigade who participated in the battle were given an additional one-month salary as a reward, the rest of the Fourth Army who directly or indirectly participated in the operation were all given an additional half-month salary, and the dead and wounded soldiers were all given generous pensions to show Zhao Dongyun's preferential treatment.

After the telegram of the reward of the Beijing Division reached the Ninth Division on the front, the officers, including Pan Luanqing, and the ordinary soldiers were full of joy, the officers were happy for the bright future in the future, and the soldiers were happy for the additional salary. As for whether the families of the dead were elated or grief-stricken when they received the generous pensions, this is no longer in Zhao Dongyun's consideration for the time being.

When a large number of baggage troops and mountain artillery units of the Ninth Division crossed the river overnight, the Ma'anshan and Rentouji fronts fell into a strange calm, the Anhui army stopped taking the initiative to attack, but began to dig fortifications, and the Ninth Division was also exhausted for many days and could not launch a large-scale counteroffensive, so the two sides fell into a strange calm.

However, when the front line of the two sides was calm, the light of the torches on the pontoon bridge erected by the Feng army on the Yangtze River never stopped.

In contrast, a large number of torches also appeared in several directions in the east, south and west, and those were all Anhui troops who rushed from Jinling, Wuhu and other places to reinforce them.

Both sides are accumulating the greatest energy at this time, in order to burst out the greatest combat power in the subsequent battle.

On the south bank of the Yangtze River, in the temporary headquarters of the Ninth Division, the middle and senior generals of the Ninth Division sat together in a rare gathering, and the operational staff officers on the side were explaining in detail the current war.