"Did you find out the number of the enemy army? Which Feng army is it? Wang Zhanyuan asked with a dark face.

"The number of the enemy has been ascertained, it is indeed the 6th Brigade of the 3rd Division of the Feng Army, and the division is currently marching south!"

Although Wang Zhanyuan had expected that it would be the troops of the Sixth Brigade, he still felt incredible when he heard the personal confirmation of his subordinates, you must know that at the beginning, he thought that the Sixth Brigade would detour back to the direction of his southeast flank.

But in the first few days, he sent a large number of scouts to this side, but they failed to find the traces of the Sixth Brigade, he didn't think that the Sixth Brigade had put on wings and flew past the search of his scouts, since the Sixth Brigade was not found in the south, and the Fifth Brigade stopped retreating at that time, Wang Zhanyuan thought that the detour of the Sixth Brigade was not in the south, but in the north.

In order to avoid the 13th Brigade being encircled, he quickly withdrew the 13th Brigade and withdrew the 13th Brigade to the northern front, and strengthened the north, that is, the left flank of the 7th Division, and at the same time sent a large number of scouts from the north to try to find out the traces of the 6th Brigade.

Wang Zhanyuan's series of tactical arrangements were all based on the fact that the 6th Brigade was detouring to the north and at the same time there was a 10th Division moving south, so he expected that the northern battlefield would become a key engagement area for both sides, and even a place for a decisive victory, so he not only deployed the 13th Brigade on the northern battlefield, but also deployed the divisional artillery regiment in this direction.

However, not long after he completed this tactical deployment, the reconnaissance cavalry of the 7th Division found the 6th Brigade in the southeast direction, which had to be said to be a great surprise to him.

"This damn Gu Lanyu and Chen Guangyuan, they deliberately made a time difference, they were afraid that we would see it early, so they delayed it for two days, it seems that their appetite is not just a thirteenth brigade, but our entire seventh division!" At this time, Wang Zhanyuan still overestimated Chen Guangyuan and Gu Lanyu, thinking that this move was deliberately arranged by Feng Jun.

But in fact, the reason why the Sixth Brigade's roundabout operation was delayed by two days was entirely because of the two-day delay in Yongqing, and it was not a deliberate arrangement by Chen Guangyuan or Gu Lanyu.

All battle plans may be executed from beginning to end, and there will always be many changes in the middle, and this time is a great test of the adaptability of the front-line generals.

Contrary to what Wang Zhanyuan thought, the Feng army never intended to leave an entire Seventh Division from the beginning, their plan was like this: the Fifth Brigade dragged the Thirteenth Brigade, and then the Tenth Division pressed down, and the detour of the Sixth Brigade was only used to contain the rest of the Seventh Division, and their goal was to use the Tenth Division and the Fifth Brigade to eat the Thirteenth Brigade together.

As long as this 13th Brigade is annihilated, it will be equivalent to a heavy damage to the 7th Division.

However, after Wang Zhanyuan withdrew the 13th Brigade, the 7th Division was regrouped, so that the original campaign objective of the Feng army no longer existed, and if the battle continued, the campaign goal would become to encircle and annihilate the 7th Division, and in fact, in terms of the strength of the two divisions of the Feng army, it did not have the strength needed to encircle an entire 7th Division.

"What now? Will the 6th Brigade come back or continue the detour? On the outskirts of Bazhou, Chen Guangyuan, who had already arrived at the headquarters of the Fifth Brigade with the division headquarters and a large number of baggage and engineering auxiliary troops, stared at the map and frowned.

Now his mood is not much better than Wang Zhanyuan, the unexpected retreat of the 13th Brigade made his battle plan planned in advance almost completely failed, the 13th Brigade as the target has already withdrawn to Bazhou, how can this talk about encircling and annihilating the 13th Brigade!

Chen Guangyuan seemed to be asking questions now, but the officers below knew that this was Chen Guangyuan talking to himself while he was thinking, so the lower group of officers had a tacit understanding to shut up and not answer.

Although the temporary division headquarters set up in the field was actually in tents, the tents could not block the ultraviolet rays but could not block the heat waves, and the heat in the north in July was no less than that in the southern provinces, which can be seen from the fact that when the two armies were fighting, many soldiers were shirtless.

However, the soldiers can ignore the image, but the officers of the Third Division, especially the middle and senior officers, can not be like this, in the hot tent, more than a dozen middle and senior officers present here are all wearing a full set of blue-gray officer uniforms, military caps are placed on the table in front of them, they are sitting upright with their hands clenched into fists or spread flat on their thighs, many people are already sweating on their foreheads, but no one dares to complain, and they listen to Chen Guangyuan's self-talk expressionlessly, but they don't dare to say a word:" It's so hot, don't talk nonsense, just say what to do! ”

The army is a place of deep hierarchy, especially the modern army, in the ancient army you may see the description of the love of the soldier like a son, but in the modern army you will never see this situation, a modern army is usually like this: under the command of the officer, the soldiers mechanically and numbly charge with rifles, and even one step back will be shot on the spot by the officer.

And when the boss slaps the subordinate, the subordinate can only stand here stiffly and be beaten, and if you take a step back, you have to take a step forward so that the commander can continue to beat you!

Chen Guangyuan was not as restrained as his subordinates, picked up a handkerchief and wiped the sweat on his forehead, casually unbuttoned his collar, and then looked around at the officers under him and continued: "Although our intended combat goal has disappeared, our plan to encircle and annihilate the enemy army remains unchanged, and the Sixth Brigade still has to continue to detour!" ”

This time, Chen Guangyuan was not talking to himself, but had already made a decision: "And the task of the Fifth Brigade is to continue to attack Bazhou to cooperate with the attack of the 10th Division!" ”

After two days of emergency maneuvering, the forward troops of the 10th Division have arrived in the northern outskirts of Bazhou, and the 10th Division will definitely have to launch an attack on Bazhou at that time, and what the 5th Brigade of the 3rd Division and other troops have to do is to cooperate with the 10th Division to launch an attack!

After Chen Guangyuan made the decision to continue the operation, the Sixth Brigade did not stop, but continued to detour to the southwest, at this time the Sixth Brigade had already begun to march to the southwest of Bazhou, trying to cut off the connection between the Seventh Division in Bazhou and the south, and at the same time preparing to intercept the southward escape of the Seventh Division!

On the frontal battlefield, the 10th Division finally arrived in the north of Bazhou after many days of marching, and the 10th Division's marching speed was affected by the lack of carriages, mules and horses, and the marching speed of heavy equipment and ammunition was quite slow, and now it was able to successfully reach Bazhou a few days later, which was completed when the 10th Division requisitioned a large number of mules and horses and even civilian men on the spot.

During the Tangshan Campaign, the Feng army showed the problem of weak logistics strength, and after the follow-up troops went south to Bazhou, it was even more difficult to get rid of the logistics transportation of railway supplies, especially the shortage of military carriages, mules and horses, in order to solve the problem of logistics and transportation, in addition to hiring a large number of people to form a support group, the front-line troops were also temporarily authorized by the headquarters to requisition civilian livestock, horse-drawn carriages to transport artillery, ammunition and other heavy materials.

Speaking of which, the logistics system of the Feng army is much better than that of other warlord troops in the country, but it is still insufficient, and the main reason for this is that with the equipment of a large number of technical equipment of the Feng army, there is a large demand for ammunition.

Mortars, machine guns, the demand for ammunition is huge, especially those mortars, although the shells that are shot out are cast iron black 'gunpowder shells, the price is not expensive, but the weight is still there, plus the Feng army's combat dependence on mortars, the commanders of the front line like to use rapid fire to suppress and attack the enemy at every turn, although this use has many benefits, but it also brings a strict problem, that is, the mortar shells can not be supplied.

An infantry company of the front-line troops only brought two mortars during the operation, and each mortar group would not carry more than 18 shells, and in fact there was a shortage of logistics supply capacity, and the mortar shells carried during the operation were fifteen or even less than 12 rounds, which were often fired down several times and then disappeared, and some of the more brainless commanders would let the mortars continue to fire when the battle situation was in crisis, and with the rate of fire of mortars of more than 10 rounds per minute, basically all the shells carried could be fired out in one minute. Then I watched the play on the side.

In order to solve this problem, in addition to strictly reiterating on several occasions that front-line officers are required to economize mortar shells, the Fengjun Command is also forced to increase the logistics and transportation forces, but this increase in the logistics and transportation forces is only at the level of the quartermaster department, but the establishment of logistics units at the division and brigade levels is still the same.

Because the logistics unit of the army is fixed, it is different from the support regiment, and at present, a large amount of technical equipment of the Feng army depends on logistics, especially the logistics and transportation force of the division and brigade level troops, but the baggage troops at all levels of the Feng army are still the establishment of the old Beiyang era.

Only a division has a baggage battalion, and judging from the current level of equipment and ammunition consumption of the Feng army, this division should be a regiment, not a battalion.

However, it is not so easy to increase the number of baggage troops, and it will not cost too much to get a support regiment from the quartermaster department, but if you have to assign each division to double or even triple the number of active baggage troops that it has now, it will cost more.

If you look at the difference in strength between the Beiyang Army and the Japanese division, you can see that the combat establishment of the two sides is actually about the same, but in wartime, the Japanese division moves more than 20,000 people, while the Beiyang division is only more than 13,000, and even if the Fengjun division has increased in number, it is less than 14,000.

Of course, some of these extra thousands of people are combatants, but more are logistical and engineering support personnel.

Now, if we want the Feng army to give full play to the full combat effectiveness of the combatants and provide them with sufficient combat supplies, then a division of the Feng army will have to add at least 1,000 more baggage personnel, and if the number of heavy machine guns and mortars will be further increased in the future, then it will not be possible to provide logistical supplies for such a division without increasing the number of baggage personnel by 2,000 people. However, in this way, the number of each division of the Feng army is estimated to be too much more than the current one, and the increase in the number will cause huge pressure on military spending, which Zhao Dongyun cannot tolerate.

However, you can't fight without supplies for a unit, the logistics troops in the establishment are insufficient, and the support regiment of the Quartermaster Department provides supplies of a strategic nature, and they are only responsible for transporting ammunition supplies from many combat readiness warehouses in Mukden and the Tangshan Arsenal to Langfang, and the follow-up transportation will not be directly transported to the front-line position, but only transported to a certain supply station relatively close to the front line, so the next logistics transportation will have to rely on the troops themselves.

As a result, the field troops in the Feng army will basically requisition the local civilian transportation forces to a greater or lesser extent, especially mules, horses, and carriages, which can transport artillery shells and ammunition, and will also requisition some of the people to serve as temporary chiefs, otherwise the various units of the Feng army will not be able to replenish ammunition at all when they start a war.

The 10th Division was able to carry a large amount of artillery and ammunition all the way south by requisitioning carriages and long men, although the speed of the southward movement was not too fast, but it was not slow.

The speed of the march of regular troops with a large number of artillery and artillery shells cannot be compared with those of the light infantry, and if the light infantry marches forcibly, it is possible to maneuver 40 kilometers a day, but for a unit like the 10th Division, it is quite good to be able to move more than 10 or 20 kilometers a day.

When the 10th Division arrived in Bazhou, the large-scale attack of the Feng army on Bazhou was officially launched!