Only three days after the capture of Cairo, when the river was cleared, Li Yongji took his three motorized regiments, plus two brigades of Charles's Sixth Army, and sailed east along the Ohio River on troop carriers provided by the Chinese side.

In just one day, three regiments of the Dream Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force and two brigades of the Sixth Army of the Allied Army, with a total of 43,000 troops, arrived at a place fifteen kilometers west of Smithland and forcibly landed, and in terms of strategic situation, they had reached the forefront of attacking the city.

Originally, Li Yongji was also worried that the Ohio Russian Army Regiment would escape again, which would also be a trouble for Li Yongji, after all, he had too few people, but the place to control zhì was too big, and it was impossible to continue to expand the results of the war, so sooner or later there would be problems, even if he had the golden finger of the space-time trading system.

This is also the advantage of a large territory, if you can't fight, you can retreat, and exchange space for time, this method is most suitable for dealing with small but strong elite troops like the Dream Division.

However, it is clear that the commander of the Ohio Russian regiment did not continue to retreat, or rather, he could no longer retreat, because if Cairo was lost, there would be extenuating circumstances, and if he continued to retreat here, it would be difficult to explain to the above, after all, this is the most important transportation hub to support Nashville, and it must not be lost.

It should be said here that Nashville at this time, in addition to being the capital of Tennessee, is also an important strategic location.

The city's importance is undeniable, not only because it is close to the river, but also because it is the center of Tennessee's railroad and has the most complete rail network in Tennessee.

In a way, the occupation of Nashville is not the loss of Tennessee, because the Union Army can use the developed rail and road network here at any time to send troops in all directions, and once it is necessary to retreat to defense, the terrain of Nashville is also easy to defend and difficult to attack, and now it has been fortified, so in terms of strategic value, it is much more important than Memphis.

Although Memphis City is close to the Mississippi River and is also an important river port, the railway network and road network are not as convenient as Nashville, and it is easy to attack and difficult to defend, and there is not much high ground, so the loss of Memphis can only be said to have lost the control of the lower reaches of the Mississippi River, but it cannot be said to have taken the entire state of Tennessee.

If you have to compare, Nashville is like Beijing, Memphis is Tianjin, which is more important than needless to say.

In a word, for the Union Army, Nashville cannot be lost!

Why? Because once Nashville is lost, Tennessee will fall completely, and Kentucky in the north will be immediately exposed.

But the most important point is that after taking Nashville, the Union Army can use the railway line here to completely connect with the eastern state of Virginia (Virginia and Tennessee are next to each other), so that the Chinese and the Western Theater of the Union Army and the Eastern Theater of the Union Army will join forces, which the Union Army is absolutely not happy to see.

On the contrary, if Nashville does not lose it, this is a nail, and if this nail is not pulled, the Eastern Theater of the Union Army and the Western Theater will not be able to merge smoothly, or it will take more time and energy to converge, and this transfer process will easily expose flaws and give the Union Army a chance to break through.

To be honest, this idea of the Federation Army is quite good, and their approach to fortifying Nashville also hits Li Yongji's soft underbelly, because the fortification, or trenching of Nashville, is no longer an easy place to fight, even if Li Yongji wants to take this place, he will have to pay huge losses.

This is not to say that Li Yongji does not have the confidence to take it, but to take this place, he must either pay a lot of lives, or he will have to pay a lot of firepower, in short, he must fight a positional battle with people in a proper manner. Obviously, this approach is not only costly, but also loses the mobility of the motorized corps, so Li Yongji let Nashville not fight.

Of course, frankly speaking, the current situation is also related to Li Yongji himself, when he had the opportunity to take advantage of the other party's unstable foothold, he took Nashville in one fell swoop, but Li Yongji thought about Yin British and French, and deliberately stayed and did not fight, but as a result, Yin Man did not succeed, and Nashville became a trouble.

There was no way, and after discovering that Nashville's threat was not small, Li Yongji launched this roundabout method of warfare, hoping to cut off the opponent's supply line through Guò to suffocate the defenders of Nashville.

Having said that, after discovering that the Ohio Russian regiment did not continue to escape, but defended on the spot near Smithland, Li Yongji no longer hesitated, and immediately ascended the reconnaissance balloon, and at the same time sent scouts to start reconnoitring the situation on the opposite side.

At this time, the federal army did not have any idea of camouflage, so the defensive positions were clear, so it didn't take much effort to obtain the number of defenders in front by means of guò reconnaissance balloons and scout reconnaissance.

After summarizing the information he got a little, Li Yongji immediately came to a conclusion, that is, there were more than 100,000 enemy troops in Smithland, and it can be said that almost the entire Ohist Russian army regiment was here.

At the pre-war meeting, Sun Xiangbing, chief of staff of the Dream Division, was the first to speak: "Obviously, the other side is also using trench tactics, and in terms of the scale of this trench position, I am afraid that it has been dug for more than a day or two. ”

Speaking of this, Sun Xiangbing held a wooden pole and dotted a few models on the sand table with small blue flags representing the federal army: "Here, here, and here, it is the opponent's defensive position." It can be seen from the sand table that the other side has set up a total of three ring defense lines, each of which is based on two or three high grounds, and a large number of horizontal and vertical trenches have been dug outside, and there are a large number of wooden fences in front of the trenches...... Although there were no rapid-fire machine guns, they had about 150,000 men, so if they were to attack head-on, it would be really troublesome, and the losses would probably not be small. ”

"Don't you have heavy artillery and ironclad cars?" Charles, who was attending this kind of meeting for the first time, suddenly said, "Concentrate your artillery, blast all the way from this central point, and then send ironclad vehicles to charge, as long as you can open a road to Smithland City?" ”

Hearing him say this, Li Yongji glanced at him in a little surprise.

Obviously, although what Charles said was simple, it was quite effective, and he immediately grasped the main characteristics of the Dream Division's troops, that is, the firepower was fierce and fast, so it was indeed a way to deal with the enemy in front of him according to his method.

"Of course we've thought about it." After listening to Charles's words relayed by the translator, Sun Xiangbing nodded, "But obviously, if you use this method to attack head-on, the amount of ammunition required is too large, and the effect is not obvious, after all, the trench position itself can effectively prevent shelling, so it is quite unwise for artillery to directly bombard this trench front." As for our ironclad cars, the number is too small, and the off-road ability is actually very limited, if the other party digs some big traps, I am afraid it will also be a great damage to our vehicles.

In short, if we attack this kind of position head-on, it is quite a cost-effective act, we will lose the advantage of our strong mobility, and it will inevitably be impossible to completely eliminate the cold guns and cold guns of the opponent, even if we can take it, not to mention how much ammunition is consumed, the casualties will not be small. ”

"There is no immortal in war." Charles shook his head, but soon realized something, and immediately changed his words, "Of course, it's good to be immortal...... Ahem, in short, what do you mean, how else can we fight except for a frontal attack? ”

After finally listening to the translator, he looked at Li Yongji again, and found that after Li Yongji nodded slightly, Sun Xiangbing continued to hold the wooden teaching pole and pointed to a place behind: "Here, let's attack from here!" ”

"Here's ......," Charles looked closer, "you mean, attacking from the east side of Smithland?" ”

"Yes." Sun Xiangbing nodded, "Smithland is just a small town, far from being a city, so the value of this place is mainly because it is the confluence of the Cumberland River and the Ohio River. Because the scale is too small and the foundation is too poor, it cannot be built into a fortress city, and only a few trench positions can be built.

However, a trench position is good, but it requires a lot of land, and it can usually only defend one side, so once it is dug, the direction of defense is basically fixed. ”

Speaking of this, Sun Xiangbing pointed to the small blue flag representing the federal army with a wooden teaching pole: "Look, according to the reconnaissance results, the enemy army on the opposite side mainly puts the defensive direction on the west and south, forming an L-shape.

Among them, the position in the west corresponds exactly in the direction from which we came, and as for the south, it is obviously deployed along the river to prevent us from using the fleet to launch a beach-grabbing landing on their rear. ”

"Hmm." Charles looked at the sand table and nodded, "In other words, the Yankees only deployed their troops in the west and south, and did not dig trenches in the east and north, right?" ”

"That's right." Sun Xiangbing nodded.

"Then why didn't they dig trenches to the east and north?" Charles asked, "If you're going to dig it, why don't you dig it on all sides?" ”

"Because there are not enough troops, and there is no time, General Charles." This time, it was Li Yongji who opened his mouth and answered, "If they dig trenches in all four directions at the beginning, then they must be underdefended in all four directions, but it is better to focus on excavating the two key areas of the west and south first, and then dig the north and east sides when these places are dug well."

Therefore, we are also fast enough, if we delay for another week, with their trenching speed, they will definitely dig in all four directions, and they will have to be connected into one air, so the attack will be much more difficult.

On the contrary, because the speed of our attack was too fast, they did not have time to dig the surrounding four directions into qualified trench positions, so they could only dig the west and south places first, and the rest of the places could only be abandoned first, and this was our opportunity. ”

"If you can see this, don't they know their own weaknesses? Don't know where there is no trench to defend is the most dangerous? Charles asked again.

"That's a good question." Li Yongji nodded, "Look at the sand table, to the north of Smithland Town, there is a swamp and dense forest, this place is obviously not conducive to the deployment of large troops, so it is a natural barrier.

In fact, even if we are a motorized force with a large number of motor vehicles, we will not be able to go undetected in the natural swamp jungle of Guò in the short term, and if we do that, we will have to walk at least two to three days to get out of this dense forest, and they will have enough time to re-respond in this direction during this period, such as digging trenches, so this direction is also safe.

In this way, the three directions of the Federation Army, north, south, and west, are actually safe, and as for the soft underbelly of the east, we have to bypass either the Guò Ohio River, or make a big circle and bypass it from the north.

Detour this road from the north, because this natural dense forest swamp is basically impossible, so the only thing left is to use the fleet and take the Ohio River.

Obviously, the other side had already guessed this method, so a large number of wooden piles, wrecks and iron cables were set up in advance in this direction of the river, which was equivalent to the temporary destruction of this section of the river, at least our ships could not pass through the Guò river, bypass their closely defended southern defense line, and go to their east. ”

"In that case, why do you still want to attack from the east? How do you get around? Charles asked.

"That's a good question." Li Yongji smiled, turned his head to Sun Xiangbing, who was silent on the side, and said, "Okay, my chief of staff, you can explain to him." ”

"Yes, Chief." Sun Xiangbing nodded to Li Yongji first, and then continued to pick up the wooden teaching pole and explain, "Indeed, under normal circumstances, we can't continue to advance through the Guò Ohio River in a short period of time, nor can we quickly go around the dense forest swamps in the north of Guò to the back, in other words, it seems that there is no way to quickly detour through the enemy's rear, but in fact, if we only go around their rear, there are still ways." ”

"What, what?"

"It's easy." Sun Xiangbing pointed to the south of the Ohio River, "The Smithland position is north of the Ohio River, so we can cross the river here first, land south of the Ohio River, and then advance along the Ohio River, and when we advance to the rear of the Ohio River, we can cross the river again and go north of the Ohio River, so that we can go around to the eastern rear of the Smithland position?" ”

"Well, really." Charles nodded, "This method is indeed good, a bit like the tactics of the Union Army in the Battle of Vicksburg. However, how do we go around without being noticed by the other party? Looking at your approach, I'm afraid it will take a lot of time, what if they react and transfer the main forces to the east in advance and re-dig trenches in the east?

After all, your tactic is to fight a time difference, that is, to hit the weakness of the opponent before they react, so once the time drags on for a long time, they will find out in advance and respond in advance, it seems to be ineffective. ”

"That's a good point." After listening to the translator's words, Sun Xiangbing smiled at Charles rarely, "Indeed, what we did was just to take the other side by surprise and avoid attacking their trench defense line head-on. ”

"Then why are you doing so many tricks?" Charles said suspiciously, "No matter what you do, even if you spare this circle, it will be difficult not to be discovered, after all, they will definitely send spies." ”

"Then they won't have time to find out." Li Yongji spoke again, "For this reason, we have deliberately formulated an operation codenamed Two-Headed Dragon. ”

"Operation Two-Headed Dragon?"

"Yes." Li Yongji pointed to the west in the direction of Smithland, "Specifically, this time I will leave a regiment of troops here, cooperate with your two brigades, build more camps, bluff, and make a posture that we plan to use the main force to attack from the west."

But in fact, while you are bluffing here in preparation for a storm, my two regiments have crossed the river by night, and then, by our great mobility, have made a large circle south of the Ohio River, and then re-crossed the river thirty kilometres east of Smithland.

When the time comes, once the re-crossing is successful, we will radio you and you will make a diversionary attack to draw them to the western front, and we will quickly attack from the east, use our speed, rush into their rear, and then flank them from both sides, and completely destroy them!

Because this tactic is to attack from two directions, as if two dragon heads are biting the same prey at the same time, that's why I call it a two-headed dragon! Well, when I say this, don't you think it's very kind and vivid? ”

“……”R1152