Therefore, the battle between the two armies of Fengwan and Anhui, which lasted for many months, was temporarily calmed down, and the Feng army had to breathe a sigh of relief, and then continue to move south with a more violent attitude, while Duan Qirui took advantage of this short precious opportunity to restore his strength in order to meet the more fierce attack of the Feng army in the future.

The losses of the Anhui army in the Jiangnan Campaign were not much less than last year's Jiangnan Campaign, the Fourth Division lost an entire Fourth Division supplementary brigade, and after reaching Huzhou, the Fourth Division had only about 15,000 people left, and compared with more than 25,000 people at its peak, the losses were extremely great.

The other Liangjiang Provincial Army suffered even more losses, with the 1st, 7th, 9th, and 10th Divisions of Liangjiang all completely annihilated, and several other divisions also suffered heavy losses.

Before the war, the Anhui army deployed more than 100,000 troops on the Yangtze River, and now the Anhui army that has been pushed to Huzhou is less than 50,000 people, and there is also a fourth division of Liangjiang that has been pushed to the Jiaxing area.

In addition, the 2nd Mixed Brigade also lost more than half of its losses, and has now retreated to the Wuhu area.

In this battle, it is certain that more than half of the troops of the Anhui army were lost, and more importantly, a large number of artillery and other technical weapons were lost, which was even more fatal to the Anhui army.

If you want to regain your strength to resist the next southward offensive of the Feng army, I don't know how much gray hair Duan Qirui will have to worry about.

How hard Duan Qirui is, how happy Zhao Dongyun is.

After taking Jiangnan, as far as the eye can see, the situation in the whole country can be said to be very good, and Zhao Dongyun has already seen the dawn of unifying China.

Although the southern, southwestern, and northwestern directions of China are still under the control of others, Zhao Dongyun is confident that after completely defeating Duan Qirui, others will no longer be able to stop Zhao Dongyun's unification militarily.

And the next development did confirm Zhao Dongyun's prediction, and after resting for nearly a month, the Feng army in June once again launched a large-scale offensive in the south.

The Feng army gathered three main divisions to attack Huzhou, Duan Qirui was defeated again and was forced to retreat, and Wang Zhanyuan at the back was even more straightforward, after people made enough money, they didn't fight with the Feng army, they just patted their butts and left, and retreated directly to southern Zhejiang.

Then the Feng army launched an attack on the second mixed brigade of Wuhu, and the result was also without suspense, the fourth mixed brigade and the ninth division together once again recaptured Wuhu, and the second mixed brigade of the Anhui army retreated directly to Xuancheng this time.

"At present, our army's offensive in northern Zhejiang is still relatively smooth, and in the next step, in addition to continuing to launch an offensive in Zhejiang, we are also preparing to transfer a part of our troops from the Jiangnan region to the southern Anhui region, and then take southern Anhui, and cooperate with the first division to take Anqing, and then go straight to Jiangxi."

Shi Yanglin of the Operations Department said: "The follow-up southern Zhejiang region and Fujian region are all mountainous and hilly areas, and even if our army moves smoothly, it will take a lot of time to take these two areas. Relatively speaking, the importance of southern Anhui and Jiangxi is even more important to us! ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "It is feasible to shift the strategic focus to Jiangxi in the future, but it is also necessary to take into account the possible accidents of the Southern Federation and Wang Shizhen in Hubei, so when the follow-up march into Jiangxi, it is still necessary to maintain a certain number of troops in Anhui!"

Shi Yanglin said: "The Operations Department has already made this consideration, so while marching into Jiangxi, we have also sent troops to the west to cooperate with Wang Shizhen to attack the three towns of Wuhan and completely solve the Hubei problem to cover our flanks!" ”

"Cooperate with Wang Shizhen?" Zhao Dongyun frowned slightly after hearing this, although Wang Shizhen now declares allegiance to the republican government on the surface, he is actually independent of the Soviet faction, and the family is his own faction.

If he cooperates with him to take Hubei, without the threat of Zhang Zhidong, Wang Shizhen will be able to free his hands, and when the time comes, he who controls Hubei will probably become his confidant again.

In the early stage, Zhao Dongyun had always avoided letting the troops enter Hubei westward, in fact, he didn't want to destroy the balance between Zhang Zhidong and Wang Shizhen in Hubei, as long as they contained each other, then Feng Jun would be able to free up his hands to clean up Duan Qirui.

Now although Duan Qirui has retreated to southern Zhejiang, there are still more than 100,000 people in the Anhui army, and it will take time to take Zhejiang, Fujian and even Guangdong one by one.

At this time, if you rashly break the balance between Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong, how will you get along with Wang Shizhen at that time?

That's a big problem.

"If we don't solve the Hubei problem, then when we enter Jiangxi in the future, we will always need to face the double-sided threat of Zhang Zhidong and Wang Shizhen, and in order to deal with their threat, we need to deploy heavy troops in Anhui, which is very unfavorable for us." Shi Yanglin continued: "If after entering Hubei, we only need Wang Shizhen to control Wuchang first, then it will be equivalent to trapping Wang Shizhen in northern Hubei. If we do this, it is estimated that Wang Shizhen will not have the courage to resist! ”

Fengjun is now dominant in the country, and it is impossible for Wang Shizhen, Wu Fengling and others to see the reality clearly, and they will not rashly turn their faces with Fengjun.

Therefore, in this case, if the Feng army enters Hubei in the west, then it is possible to directly control other Hubei regions south of the Yangtze River.

However, Zhao Dongyun still cautiously rejected the mention of the combat department, it seems to be a good thing to take Hubei, but now the Feng army has other more important tasks, that is, to take other territories of the Anhui army, as for Hubei and Hunan, they can ignore it for now.

Under the instructions of the Feng army, the Feng army quickly adjusted a series of strategies, and a large number of troops originally deployed in the Jiangnan region were transferred to southern Anhui, because the Jiangsu region was very, very important, it was impossible to say that not a single unit would be let go, so the 16th Division was left behind, mainly deployed in the Jinling and Chuzhou areas. At the same time, because it took time for the Fourth Mixed Brigade to rebuild, it was impossible to continue fighting southward in a short period of time, so it was deployed to Zhenjiang and Suzhou.

As for Shanghai, an important economic city, the Feng army directly left behind a former 1st Mixed Brigade, which is also in the process of expansion, which is now the 19th Division.

In addition to the above-mentioned three field troops, there are also a large number of newly established patrol infantry regiments drawn from Anhui and Henan, and in Jiangsu Province alone, the Feng army has deployed as many as six patrol infantry regiments, with a total strength of more than 10,000 people.

Combined, the strength of the Feng army in Jiangsu actually exceeded the strength of the troops in the surrounding areas of Beijing.

In addition to leaving heavy troops to garrison Jiangsu, the rest of the troops were transferred to the war in the two directions of Zhejiang and southern Anhui, and the second army was in charge of the war in Zhejiang, with the 10th and 15th divisions under its jurisdiction.

The Fourth Army of Meng Enyuan, which was responsible for reinforcing southern Anhui and subsequently marching into Jiangxi, currently had the 3rd, 9th, 14th, 2nd Cavalry Brigade, 2nd Heavy Artillery Battalion, and 1st Independent Field Artillery Regiment.

As for Lu Yongxiang's First Army, although it will still participate in Anqing and other fortifications in southern Anhui, in fact, the strength of the First Army is quite scarce now, and after the Fourth Mixed Brigade was transferred to garrison the Zhenjiang area, only the First Division was actually commanded by the First Army, and in order to supplement the strength of the First Army, Zhao Dongyun transferred the Eighth Division of the original Third Army to Anhui and join the sequence of the First Army.

In order to make up for the gap after the Eighth Division was transferred, Zhao Dongyun transferred the 11th Mixed Brigade deployed in Shijiazhuang to Henan to join the Third Army's combat sequence, and as for the defense of Shijiazhuang, it was handed over to the Fifth Mixed Brigade.

In order to fill the vacancy in the defense of Zhili, coupled with the fact that the military budget is not too tight for the time being, of course, the main reason is that the 14th and 15th divisions are doing well after the southward operation, so that Zhao Dongyun is also more interested in building the main division.

Therefore, after the Feng army continued to move south, he was preparing to form a new main force, and according to the current sequence number of the Feng army, the newly formed army was the 20th Division.

At the same time, it also accelerated the plan to reorganize the mixed brigade into an infantry division, and prepared to reorganize the fifth mixed brigade into a division, and the number of this division was used for the 12th division, which had been vacant.

The number of the 12th Division was originally used by the direct army, and after the Feng army defeated the direct army in 1907, the remnants of the 11th Division and the 12th Division were reorganized into the 11th Division.

The process of the expansion of the 5th Mixed Brigade into the 12th Division is the same as that of the 7th Mixed Brigade and the 10th Mixed Brigade, and the intensity is naturally impossible to compare with the strength of the newly formed 14th, 15th, and 20th Divisions.

The 17th and 18th Divisions have been expanded for many months, but they are still not fully staffed, and the expansion process of the 12th Division will be similar.

After many years of expansion, the Feng army finally expanded the number of the Central Army to 20, of course, the 20 central divisions could not all be Feng Army's troops, the second division was Wu Fengling's troops, the fourth division was the Anhui army's troops, and the sixth division was Wang Shizhen's troops.

Don't look at the number of major warlords in Beiyang who are all at war with each other, but in fact, the number of the Central Army is still relatively unified, at least the current Fourth Division under Duan Qirui has always maintained the number of the Fourth Division of the Central Army.

In this way, the Central Army units under the control of the Soviet Union had 15 divisions, three mixed brigades, two cavalry brigades, two independent heavy artillery battalions, and one independent field artillery regiment. As for those patrol units, they are not part of the CSKA system, even those patrol cavalry battalions used as field troops.

Among the above-mentioned Central Army units, some are full, some are a small number of short of only about 16,000 people, and some are only a few more than 10,000 troops with a shortage of staff, so even if there are many numbers, the size of the Feng army has not swelled to four or five hundred thousand all of a sudden, and there are about 300,000 at present.

Compared with about 200,000 people in the first half of the year, the growth rate can be said to be very fast, and the important reason for the rapid expansion of the Feng army is that a large number of technical weapons, especially artillery and guns, were captured in the Jiangnan Campaign.

Moreover, due to the large number of captured Japanese-style weapons, this also led to the emergence of a number of pure Japanese armament divisions in the Feng army, such as the 1st Division, the 8th Division, the 16th Division, and the rebuilt 4th Mixed Brigade and other troops, which are all Japanese armament troops.

Japanese weapons, German weapons and domestic weapons together constitute the main equipment of the current Feng army, and contribute their own strength to the great cause of Zhao Dongyun's reunification.