Although the Kyoshi was in the Northland, the Kyoshi in October was still extremely hot, and a regular weekly war briefing was being held in the Juren Hall at this time.

As the person directly in charge of the various strategic plans of the front-line war, Shi Yanglin, the chief of the operations department, is responsible for the narrator of the weekly war briefings as before.

I saw him pointing with his baton on a huge map of China: "Up to now, although our army's operations in northern Jiangsu have faced many difficulties and undergone many changes, on the whole they are still proceeding in accordance with the plan formulated by the General Staff before!" ”

"In the direction of Xuzhou, our army has invested a total of infantry units of the first division, the third division, and the ninth division, as well as two independent heavy artillery battalions and three independent mortar battalions, totaling about 55,000 people. At present, in Xuzhou City, according to the intelligence reality discovered by our army, the defenders in Xuzhou City are currently under the personal command of Duan Qirui, and the troops in the city include the Fourth Division, the First Division of the Liangjiang Army, and the Second Division of the Liangjiang Army, and the enemy is expected to have about 50,000 troops.

Among them, the first division of the Liangjiang Army was heavily damaged by our army on the Zizhuang line, and at least one regiment of the division was defeated, and in the previous battle of Xiaoxian, our army also annihilated two battalions of the enemy's tenth division, and after a series of peripheral battles, our army has achieved a complete defeat of two enemy regiments in the direction of Xuzhou, killing and wounding at least more than 3,000 enemy troops.

On the eastern front, the 10th Division of our army has already moved south to Qingjiangpu and Suqian by two routes, and the task of continuing the westward offensive from the direction of Pizhou has been handed over to the 1st Mixed Brigade.

According to the intelligence reality of our army, the enemy deployed the Zhejiang 1st Mixed Brigade and the Liangjiang 5th Division in the direction of Suqian, and the 2nd Mixed Brigade of the Zhejiang Army in the direction of Qingjiangpu.

In the early battles in this direction, our army and the enemy's Liangjiang Fifth Division had many battles in Haizhou, Muyang and other places, and won successive battles and annihilated more than 2,000 people in the unit, and at present the unit has retreated to Suqian, according to the battle report of Wu Peifu, commander of the 19th Brigade of the front, although the equipment of the unit is acceptable, but the sense of battle is poor, and the morale is quite limited.

In the western direction of Xuzhou, in addition to the main force of the First Army in the western part of Xuzhou, the Fourth Mixed Brigade and the Second Cavalry Brigade have already moved south to Suzhou to guard against the enemy in Suzhou in order to conquer the place.

At present, the direction of Suzhou is still the Zhang Huaizhi Department of the Lu Army, and there are the remnants of the Fifth Division and the Anhui and Shandong Provincial Armies with unknown numbers under his command, with a total strength of about 13,000 to 15,000 people, and the exact number has yet to be confirmed by the Intelligence Department! ”

After saying this, Shi Yanglin raised his head and looked around at the many generals present, and then said in a deep voice: "It is also worth noting that the pace of reinforcement of the Anhui Army is much faster than we expected, in addition to the Fifth Division of the Liangjiang Army in the early stage, the follow-up Second Mixed Brigade of the Zhejiang Army also appeared in Qingjiangpu in the near future.

In addition, the intelligence of the intelligence department shows that although the Anhui army is engaged in a major war with our army in northern Jiangsu, it still maintains a fierce offensive in the direction of Fujian and Jiangxi, for which the troops of the Southern Federation have suffered many heavy defeats in the past month, and nearly 30,000 people under the command of Duanfang were completely defeated by the Anhui army in Ganzhou five days ago, and now the troops of the Anhui army from the southwest of Jiangxi have been directed towards Guangdong, and Xiliang in the direction of Fujian has also been forced to retreat to the Quanzhou area.

With the southern federal forces in the direction of Jiangxi and Fujian being defeated by the Anhui army, then the Anhui army will be able to draw more troops north to reinforce the northern Jiangsu line, and this is a very unfavorable thing for us, this Zhejiang second mixed brigade to the north reinforcement is a very obvious example! ”

Shi Yanglin said as he pointed on the map with his baton, and everyone was actually very clear about the current situation before he explained, after all, all the people present were high-level officials of the Feng army.

Shi Yanglin's explanation is better than a summary!

With Shi Yanglin's explanation and the indication on the map, then it can be lightly sent, and now the Xuzhou battle between the two armies of Fengwan is not limited to Xuzhou, but also affected many urban strongholds in northern Jiangsu such as Qingjiangpu, Suqian, and Suzhou.

On the front of more than 200 kilometers in this war, the battle mainly revolves around a few strongholds, and the first is naturally Xuzhou, which has been operated by the Anhui army for a long time, but the three cities of Suzhou, Suqian, and Qingjiangpu are also extremely important, otherwise the Anhui army and the Feng army will not invariably send the main force to garrison or attack the above areas.

Looking at the deployment of troops on both sides of the entire Xuzhou Campaign, then it will be found that in fact, the Feng army has no advantage in strength, but in terms of the total number of troops on both sides, in fact, the Anhui army and the Feng army are about the same, and the reason why the two sides are about the same strength is still the Feng army leading the attack, and the Anhui army can only be forced to resist gradually, that is because the Feng army is participating in the war is a regular army, and the equipment level of artillery and other heavy weapons exceeds that of the Anhui army too much.

Otherwise, the Fifth Division of the Liangjiang Army was defeated and retreated in the face of the attack of the 10th Division of the Feng Army, and was defeated all the way from Haizhou to Suqian, not because they did not want to resist, but because they really could not resist the attack of the Feng army with the same strength.

The superiority of the officers and soldiers, the level of equipment, and the high morale of the officers and soldiers were the advantages of the Feng army, and they were also the reasons why Zhao Dongyun dared to put on a posture of sweeping the southern provinces with a mere 100,000 troops to the south.

It's just that the Feng army attacking in Xuzhou is not enough, and there are only more than 50,000 when the full battle is full, although the artillery force is far superior to the Anhui army, but there are also many Anhui troops in Xuzhou City, and people still have to build fortifications for many months to use, in the contemporary war, the defensive operation occupies a great advantage, so the Feng army wants to take Xuzhou with the current 50,000 troops, the difficulty is actually very great.

Zhao Dongyun has always disliked to play any kind of parity, his favorite thing is to gather most of his own troops, and then attack a small number of the enemy's forces, whether it is the Tangshan Campaign, the Jingshi Campaign, or the Bazhou Campaign, in fact, the Feng army does not rely on any equipment advantage to win, they rely on the strength advantage to win.

Now that there is no advantage in the troops in northern Jiangsu, Zhao Dongyun is naturally dissatisfied, and immediately he said: "What is the situation in Henan, when can we send troops out of the east into Anhui?" ”

Shi Yanglin said: "Now the strength of the Third Army in Henan is very tight, Wushengguan and many places in Henan need to be controlled, I am afraid it is difficult to draw troops to the east, and the border area between Henan and Anhui has been controlled by Wang Zhanyuan, if we send troops east into Anhui, we can continue to advance eastward only after defeating Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division, and Wang Zhanyuan also has tens of thousands of horses under his hands, which is not easy!" ”

Zhao Dongyun scolded secretly at this time, it was a big mistake to leave Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division in Bazhou, and he couldn't see any problems at first, but now at the juncture of the Xuzhou Campaign, this Wang Zhanyuan ran out again to get in the way, but now is not the time to clean up Wang Zhanyuan, and after he defeats Duan Qirui and takes Jiangbei, he wants to see where this Wang Zhanyuan can run!

Zhao Dongyun, who once again had a headache because of the lack of troops, looked at Yang Shande from the Ministry of Education: "How is the reorganization of the Eighth Division going?" And how is the replenishment of troops of the 9th and 10th Mixed Brigades going? ”

Although the name Yang Shande is not well-known in the Fengjun system, it is far less famous at home and abroad than the generals such as Meng Enyuan, Chen Guangyuan, and Gu Lanyu, but the status of this person in the Soviet Department is not low, he serves as the head of the Ministry of Education, just like Lin Yongquan, the previous head of the Ministry of Education, who single-handedly controls the recruitment and training of recruits in the Fengjun.

At the same time, due to the particularity of the Ministry of Education, it usually shoulders the responsibility of reorganizing the Chengcheng army, and can even involve the formation of new troops.

The Eighth Division of the Central Army, that is, Wang Ruxian's Eighth Division before, was defeated by Wang Ruxian in the Battle of Zhengzhou, and even he himself was captured and was criticized for announcing his dismissal, but the Eighth Division did not disappear with the defeat of Wang Ruxian, although the Eighth Division was destroyed in the Zhengzhou Campaign, but there were still remnants of five or six thousand people who surrendered.

If it is a prisoner of other provincial armies, according to the principle of dealing with the Feng army, it is generally directly incorporated into other units to supplement the battle losses, but this eighth division is a bit special, no matter what, this eighth division can barely be regarded as the old Beiyang sideline, and it still has the number of the Central Army before, and there are still five or six thousand people left, which is naturally reluctant for Zhao Dongyun, who is short of troops and urgently needs to expand his troops.

After all, this eighth division is different from the twelfth division, although the twelfth division also had the number of the Central Army before, but in fact, it is the foundation of the Zhili Provincial Army, and in order to reorganize the 11th Division, the remnants of the 12th Division were also transferred to the past, so the 12th Division was directly revoked by Zhao Dongyun, but this eighth division is a little different.

On the one hand, he wanted to take the opportunity to expand another division, and on the other hand, it was also out of the desire to appease the original soldiers under Wang Ruxian, so Zhao Dongyun did not directly revoke the number of the Eighth Division, but rebuilt the Eighth Division.

According to the management of the Fengjun Army's incorporation of the Cheng Army, almost all down to the company commander and the brigade commander have been replaced, leaving only ordinary soldiers.

In this case, with the replacement of officers, the addition of five or six thousand soldiers and matching equipment, then an eighth division can be rebuilt.