When the Soviet Department was resting and replenishing, they successively restored the main force to the south to the full strength of the past, replenished a large number of artillery, machine guns and other ordnance, and began to hoard a large amount of ammunition in many military warehouses in Jiangbei.

Unlike the troops in Henan, which could directly rely on the Jinghan Railway for convenient supplies, the Feng troops fighting in Jiangbei were trapped by the fact that the distance was too long, and the lack of rail and water transportation was also limited.

At present, among the troops in the Jiangbei direction, the supply of the troops in the northern Jiangsu direction mainly depends on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and sea transportation, and the sea transportation does not mean that it is directly transported by ship to Jinling, Yangzhou, and other cities along the Yangtze River, but can only be transported to some small coastal ports in Jiangbei, and then transported to the front line by land or river. This is mainly because a number of important forts along the Yangtze River are still controlled by the Anhui system, and the Songhu Fort and Jiangyin Fort directly stop the naval departments under the control of the Soviet system outside the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Although the artillery of these batteries is also old, the key is that the navy controlled by the Soviet Union is not good, and just a few warships do not dare to venture into the narrow Yangtze River and confront the batteries.

If the navy wants to enter the Yangtze River, it must first pull out the two big nails of the Songhu Fort and the Jiangyin Fort, otherwise it is unlikely to enter the Yangtze River on a large scale.

Based on this, it is actually very troublesome for the troops located in northern Jiangsu to get supplies!

At present, the supply needs of the First Army in northern Anhui have been completely dependent on the supply line of Ru'an, although this supply line no longer exists the threat of large-scale enemy forces and can ensure basic security, but it is twisted and turned, and the land distance is as high as more than 400 kilometers.

For this reason, not only did the First Army Command organize a large number of logistics troops for transportation, but the Quartermaster Department requisitioned more than 100,000 local soldiers in order to maintain the operation of this supply line.

In order to supply the combat needs of the troops in northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, the Soviet Union hired and requisitioned more than 300,000 people in southern Henan, northern Anhui, and northern Jiangsu, not including railway transportation, sea transportation, and canal transportation north of Xuzhou.

Basically, it takes three civilians to be able to supply one soldier to fight on the front line.

The huge logistical pressure was also the main reason why the Feng army took Chuzhou and most of northern Anhui in December last year, and took the initiative to stop the large-scale offensive after arriving in Jinling and Anqing.

It's not that the Feng army has suffered heavy casualties and can't fight anymore, but the front-line troops have really exhausted all the shells and bullets, so they can only rest in place and wait for supplies in the rear.

An important part of the so-called 'rest and replenishment plan', which began at the end of last year, is to resupply the front-line troops with a large number of artillery shells and ammunition, and the replenishment of troops and ordnance is actually secondary.

In order to solve the problem of supply difficulties for front-line troops, the Quartermaster Department also thought of many methods, starting with the Quartermaster Department sending personnel directly to the front line to purchase and requisition grain, forage, livestock, horse-drawn wagons, and even clothing and other materials for the troops in the local area, so as to reduce the pressure on the supply line.

Later, the Quartermaster Department hired a large number of foreign steamers to transport supplies for the front-line troops, such as hiring British steamers to ship a batch of artillery directly from Tianjin, and then across the Yangtze River to Yangzhou, which is only a river away from Anhui, but this move was limited to high-value, urgently needed materials. The reason is also simple, because during the war, those foreign steamers were all lions with big mouths, and just to transport that batch of artillery, the Soviet Department paid tens of thousands of yuan in freight, which was enough for the Soviet Department to purchase several more guns.

The Soviet family is weak and can't afford to withstand such a toss, so most of the materials are transported from the rear to various material transfer centers by railway, canal, and sea, and then rely on people to pick horses, and then slowly transport them to the front line.

The difficulty of supply also led the front-line troops to carry out a long period of supply hoarding if they wanted to launch a large-scale campaign.

According to the statistics of the General Staff, at least the front-line troops need to prepare enough ammunition to support the two-month operation, so that they can launch the river-crossing campaign with confidence, without worrying about running out of ammunition halfway through the battle.

The Feng army hoarded ammunition and stopped the large-scale fighting on the front, so between December last year and February this year, the Jiangbei front fell into a strange calm, and both sides of the Soviet and Anhui sides were deploying troops on a large scale, the Soviet system was hoarding ammunition, and the Anhui department was also hoarding ammunition.

However, anyone with a discerning eye who knows anything about the domestic situation knows that the two major factions of Suzhou and Anhui are already making final preparations and seem to be calm now, but once the battle breaks out, it will be a life-and-death decisive battle that will determine the survival of both sides.

Against this backdrop, the officers of various departments in the Soviet system headquarters were in a hurry throughout January and February, and they were very busy!

In particular, those staff officers of the Operations Department of the General Headquarters' General Staff Headquarters have been planning for the battle of crossing the river since December last year.

These staff officers who were either from studying abroad or from advanced training classes, and these top professional staff officers among the countless officers of the Soviet Department have been almost without rest day and night in the past two months, countless battle plans have been put forward and then denied, and sand table deductions have been staged almost every moment in many sand table rooms.

"I don't dare to agree with what Brother Chen said, although our army is brave and good at fighting, but in Jinling to launch a frontal river crossing operation, facing the enemy's heavily guarded south bank, the price that needs to be paid is unacceptable to our army!" A young major raised his head slightly: "The battle of crossing the river is not to defeat the enemy army head-on, but to cross the river safely and smoothly, so I insist on my previous opinion, our army should avoid Jinling, Anqing and other places heavily guarded by the enemy, and choose another place to cross the river!" ”

The officer surnamed Chen, who was also wearing the rank of major next to him, snorted coldly: "In Xinyuan's view, our army crosses the river in another remote place, and it is naturally impossible to get close to Jinling and Anqing, but if you choose a long distance, how to solve the transfer of troops and transportation in the later stage, and when our army is mobilized, could it be that the Anhui army on the opposite side is dead wood, sitting back and watching the large-scale transfer of our army and being indifferent?" ”

The person known as Xinyuan has an extremely young face, and this person, like many generals in the Soviet Union, can be regarded as a person with a prominent historical reputation, he is Sun Chuanfang!

Speaking of this Sun Chuanfang, he was actually not a Soviet general at the beginning, he was a direct person. Why? Because Wang Yingkai is his brother-in-law!

Under the support of Wang Yingkai, he successively served as a cadet, studied the Beiyang Rapid Military Academy, and then in 1904 was selected to study in Germany, the reason why he did not go to Japan to study in Japan as in history, it was naturally because of the changes caused by Zhao Dongyun, in addition to the early Beiyang selection of many people to study in Japan, in 1903, many students who were originally selected to study in Japan were selected to study military affairs in Germany.

This Sun Chuanfang can't get rid of the butterfly effect, and like many students who were supposed to go to Japan to study, he went to Germany to study.

It's just that when he returned to China at the end of 1907, the domestic form was already completely different, the republic was republican, Wang Yingkai went into the wilderness, Zhao Dongyun became a new generation of leaders in Beiyang, and received many direct forces, including civil and military generals, many direct people chose to be loyal to Zhao Dongyun, among which Lu Yongxiang and Bao Guiqing are the most obvious examples.

In addition, most of the students studying in Germany will choose to go north to join the Fengjun to serve Zhao Dongyun, under this wave, plus Wang Yingkai was ousted by Zhao Dongyun, but at this time he was already seriously ill and did not have the mind to make a comeback, and he also saw the general trend of the world, although China is still three points in the world, but he still thinks that Zhao Dongyun's winning chance is much greater.

Why?

Because he and Wang Yingkai were all defeated by Zhao Dongyun's men, are the other Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen, Wu Fengling and Zhang Zhidong still stronger than themselves? Impossible! Although Wang Yingkai was defeated and went into the wilderness, he was still a conceited person.

didn't want to bury the future of Sun Chuanfang's wife and brother, so he simply encouraged Sun Chuanfang to serve Zhao Dongyun, and repaired several letters, asking Lu Yongxiang and Bao Guiqing, these old subordinates, to take care of Sun Chuanfang.

After such twists and turns, this Sun Chuanfang can be regarded as officially entering the Fengjun system, first serving in the strategic department, and a few months later being promoted to major and transferred to the combat department as a third-class operational staff officer.

It is not surprising that Sun Chuanfang entered the combat department, because many students who have just returned to China will not serve in the field troops for the first time after serving in the army, and generally serve in various departments of the headquarters, such as arranging to enter the combat department, arranging to serve as a company commander or even a battalion commander in the main force, etc.

The reason why I observed for a few months was to avoid people who did not learn and did not know how to get in, and the students who studied in Germany were better, regardless of their ability, most of them were military students sent by the government, and those with poor ability relied on rote memorization to barely be regarded as an officer.

However, there is a huge gap in the ability of students studying in Japan, and a few universities such as Lu Shi and the empire are naturally high-achieving students, but in recent years, there have been tens of thousands of Chinese students studying in Japan. That's just a few hundred people.

Most of them go to secondary school or language school for a year or two before returning to their home countries. After graduating from a language school like Zhenwu School, many students studying in Japan in Japan dare to return to China after a few months of internship in the army, and then they dare to go back to China to call themselves Lu Shisheng.

For this kind of person, Fengjun has always been as far as he can go.

When Sun Chuanfang and other staff officers were arguing around the sand table, Shi Yanglin outside was also thoughtful, his combat department had been preparing for a long time to plan the battle plan to cross the river, and Zhao Dongyun had been urging for a long time, but so far Shi Yanglin had not been able to come up with a combat plan that could satisfy all parties, and as time passed, the front-line troops were more and more prepared, and his pressure was getting bigger and bigger day by day!