On the night of the twelfth day, the sound of guns and cannons in Tangshan never stopped, although the army of this era lacked the ability to fight at night, but in order to attack the direct army, a large number of fires were lit, and the front line was illuminated as after day and continued to launch the attack.

Since the failure of the first large-scale attack in the afternoon, the direct army after a few hours of initial rest, after 8:30 p.m. launched a large-scale offensive again, the offensive front continued to focus on the south of Tangshan, the first mixed brigade of the direct army invested the second infantry regiment as a reserve as the main force of the second large-scale offensive, the input of this new force plus the original two infantry regiments of the first division, the fierce attack launched by the three infantry regiments put the first regiment of the seventh mixed brigade of the southern defense line under great pressure, Among them, Hanhezhuang, which was defended by the second battalion of the second regiment, was under the greatest pressure!

"As of one o'clock in the morning, the second battalion had 78 killed and 170 wounded, including Captain He Jintong, commander of the first company, Lieutenant Fang Yuyuan, commander of the third platoon of the second company, and Lieutenant Di Qingyun, commander of the first platoon of the third company. In addition, a number of officers, including Lieutenant Li Cungao, the platoon commander of the first platoon of the second company, were injured. At present, the battalion has suffered heavy losses, and the soldiers have suffered great physical exhaustion after 12 hours of fierce fighting, and they urgently need to rest! Lieutenant Colonel Xue Yiping said suspiciously.

Li Chundao: "Since this is the case, then withdraw the second battalion first, and let the sixth battalion go up to take over the defense line of the second battalion!" ”

However, another major said: "Brigade commander, this sixth battalion is our last and only reserve, if the sixth battalion is transferred to Hanhezhuang, what if the enemy breaks through from the central and northern regions?" ”

Li Chundao: "We are not comfortable today, are we not comfortable with the direct army on the other side?" ”

Li Chun's words everyone knows without thinking about them, the first division and the first mixed brigade under Wang Yingkai are no better today than there, as the attacking side of the direct army launched a fierce attack, although there is superior artillery fire cover, but the soldiers who fell under the guns of the heavy machine guns of the Feng army are definitely not there.

Especially in the direction of Hanhezhuang, even if the direct army took advantage of the advantage of strength to adopt the tactics of rotating attacks to avoid heavy losses to a certain army, but even if each battalion in the exhibition only suffered dozens of casualties, but if it was added up, the direct army left at least 300 corpses on the position of Hanhezhuang today, and even more were wounded.

It is said that killing 1,000 enemies and losing 800 self-losses, and in today's offensive and defensive war, the direct army as the attacking party, the soldiers of the direct army often repeatedly launched a charge in order to conquer a certain section of the position, although the direct army did not launch a death charge as if it were dead in the Russo-Japanese War, but adopted a lot of tactical detours, but the casualties are still very large, in the past 12 hours, the direct army has at least 1,000 casualties, and the casualty ratio is already about 8 percent.

Although this casualty ratio is nothing in the armies of the great powers, the Japanese army was able to continue to attack even when the casualties were more than half in the Russo-Japanese War, and it was not uncommon for the Russian army to lose more than half of the casualties in defensive operations and occasional counteroffensives. However, the casualty bearing rate of the troops of the warlords in China today, including the Feng army, is far inferior to that of the troops of the great powers, and this has nothing to do with tactics and equipment, but has to do with the source of the soldiers and faith.

In terms of casualty rates, some small-scale troops, such as those at the battalion and company level, may be able to bear 30 percent or even more than half of the casualties if the commander-in-chief of the unit is outstanding, but this cannot be regarded as a general expression of an entire army and can only be regarded as a special case.

If it is reduced to the scale of divisions and armies, if the casualties of the warlord troops in China, whether Wang Yingkai's direct army or Zhao Dongyun's Feng army, are less than 5 percent in ordinary combat operations, the impact on the troops will not be great, and the troops will often be able to maintain high morale and continue to launch offensives.

If the casualties reach 10 percent, it will seriously affect the morale of the troops, and if the officers are sensible enough, they will choose to stop the current offensive tactics and consider other offensive tactics.

If the casualties reach more than 15 percent, then it can basically be concluded that this unit has lost its offensive capability, and as for the casualty rate of 20 percent or even 30 percent, let alone attacking, it would be good if it did not collapse directly.

Zhao Dongyun also has no good way to deal with the army's low casualty rate, because there is actually only one way to solve this problem, that is, to let the soldiers have beliefs in the country, nation, and ism.

And are these things available in contemporary China?

No

The words "country and nation" are actually very unfamiliar words to the general public, and there is no so-called modern concept of state and nation in contemporary China, for them, whether it is the former Qing Dynasty, the Southern Union or the Northern Republican government, in fact, it is a kind of "dynasty" not "government".

Ordinary people don't care whether Guangxu or Wang Yingkai is the emperor or president.

As for modern nationalism, it is even more nonsense, although many knowledgeable elites will value the word 'nation' at that time, but the ordinary people are not interested in the nation, the so-called Han and Manchu and Mongolian, Tibetan differences are actually very far away for them, such as the national contradiction between the Han and the Manchu in the late Qing Dynasty and the contradiction between the Manchu and Han ethnic groups in the late Qing Dynasty, most of which were imposed by later generations with their own national concepts, and there was no so-called national contradiction at that time.

Before the Xinhai Revolution, there was only one chaotic contradiction in China for thousands of years, and that was the contradiction between the ruling class and the ruled class.

This statement applies not only to ancient China, but also to the vast majority of wars and disputes in the world.

To put it mildly, all kinds of doctrines, beliefs, and other messy things that have been cultivated by later generations since childhood are actually a kind of spiritual brainwashing forcibly imposed on the controlled class by the ruling class, and all kinds of isms and beliefs are excellent tools for control.

One of the most representative examples is Christianity, these Christians have the same God, but there are dozens of doctrines, evolved into various versions of Christianity, such as Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, why there are so many sectarian branches, the conscience of heaven and earth, is definitely not the work of Jehovah himself, but because the rulers of different eras and regions want the people to believe in the religion that allows them to believe, and they need doctrine to strengthen their rule.

If you have to have faith, everyone can be your own God.

Whether it is religious belief or national belief or national belief, these beliefs need to be cultivated and strengthened by the ruling class for a long time, and contemporary China has obviously not yet reached this point in time.

And Zhao Dongyun didn't have so much time, so he chose the easiest way, that is, to still follow the ancient times, establish personal loyalty and faith, and let the soldiers fight for him Zhao Dongyun.

Although the effect of this was far less than that of the various doctrines on the Gundam, it was easy to operate, and the time required was short enough for Zhao Dongyun to build an army that had always been loyal to him in just a few years.

As for training a force that can serve the country and the nation, to be honest, Zhao Dongyun does not have the ability and time to let his army work for the sake of the illusory concepts of the country and the nation, which are just concepts.

Of course, modern China is not without the concept of nationality, well, for example, group fights between two neighboring villages and the like are very common, and large-scale Hakka and soil fights in the south are very famous.

Historically, if China wants to form a modern concept of state and nation, it is still after the Xinhai Revolution, well, to be precise, it should be after the May Fourth Movement.

In contemporary China's warlord forces, which have no sense of state and nation, you can't expect them to have the same high casualty tolerance rate as the foreign powers' troops.

The direct army now suffered eight percent casualties, which may not seem like a large number, but it has greatly weakened the ability of the direct army to continue to launch large-scale attacks.

And now although the direct army has made a lot of breakthroughs on the southern front, in fact, it has not completely torn the defense line of the Feng army, and although the Hanhezhuang direction has lost the first line of defense as the strategic support point of the southern front, and now the second line of defense is also crumbling, but in any case, it has finally been held.

In this case, if the direct army wants to launch a third large-scale offensive, it will have to replenish ammunition and men, and this will take time.

And time is what the Feng army needs the most!

As Li Chun expected, after one o'clock in the morning, the direct army had already stopped its large-scale offensive, except for a few sporadic artillery shots and sporadic harassing and tentative attacks.

At five o'clock in the morning, the 9th Regiment of the 3rd Division, which had been marching on foot all night in the night, finally arrived at the Tangshan front, the regiment had just arrived in Tangshan, although the unit was also exhausted from the all-night march, but the 7th Mixed Brigade, which had been fighting fiercely for a day, suffered many casualties, and morale was generally reduced, and Li Chun's 7th Mixed Brigade was in urgent need of reinforcements.

Therefore, although the soldiers of the 9th Regiment were exhausted, they still threw themselves into the front line for the first time!

The arrival of the Ninth Regiment did not hide the direct army only a few hundred meters away, and soon the front headquarters of the First Division, Lu Yongxiang, who had not slept all night, had red eyes, and his eyes were bloodshot when he looked at the map!

"Do you want to confirm the number of the reinforcements from the Feng army?" Lu Yongxiang asked in a hoarse voice.

"According to the reconnaissance of the front-line troops and the information we learned from Tangshan, the source should be an infantry regiment of the Third Division, but the specific regiment is not known yet!" The staff officer next to him replied carefully.

"What about the rest of the 3rd Division, where are they now?" Lu Yongxiang continued.

"All the troops of the 3rd Division of the Feng Army left Tangshan by train yesterday morning and in the morning, and according to the itinerary, they should all be able to fall today, but we have not yet received accurate information from the other units of the 3rd Division, and the reconnaissance cavalry was intercepted by the cavalry of the Feng Army when they tried to bypass Tangshan yesterday." The operational staff officer continued.

Lu Yongxiang was worried about the Feng army in Zunhua, and even more worried that the cavalry troops he sent out would encounter the two cavalry brigades of the Feng army, so he did not dare to send a large-scale cavalry unit, but only sent a small number of cavalry scattered eastward to investigate, but some of the reconnaissance cavalry was intercepted by the cavalry company under the jurisdiction of the seventh mixed brigade.

Looking at the blank space in the eastern part of Tangshan, Lu Yongxiang could guess that the Third Division was near this area, and he was more worried that the cavalry brigade that the Feng army set off to the west yesterday was looking at the huge blank area between Tangshan and Zunhua.

Lu Yongxiang frowned for a long time and then raised his head, then looked at the other officers and said in a deep voice: "We withdraw our troops!" ”