"Are you sure it's the Fourth Division?" Pan Luanqing asked the scout cavalry in front of him with a solemn expression.

The tired cavalryman said: "I personally approached the enemy less than 100 meters to observe, judging from the marching posture of the enemy army, the appearance of the army and the weapons and equipment, it is definitely the main force of the Anhui army, they not only have a large number of artillery, but also a large number of mortars and light machine guns!" ”

After hearing this, Xiong Zhiqing, chief of staff of the 17th Brigade on the side, said: "According to our intelligence, there are very few troops equipped with mortars and light machine guns in the Anhui army at present. ”

Mortars and light machine guns are still relatively new affairs in China, mortars as Zhao Dongyun's leading design after the crossing, the Feng army was the first to use, so far there is only the Feng army in the world in batches equipped with mortars, since the outbreak of the civil war, the mortars of the Feng army have been powerful, and other warlords in the country have begun to imitate mortars for their own use, but even if the mortar is simple, if you want to mass production, you also need a large-scale arsenal to be feasible, so at present, The only one with large-scale imitation mortars in China is the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau of Duan Qiruikong, but the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has not been preventing mortars for a long time, and it is still in the stage of trial production and testing, and only hundreds of them have been produced before and after.

In addition to the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, which has purchased the official patent authorization of the Danish Madsen Company, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and the Guangdong Manufacturing Bureau can also produce small-scale imitations, of course, people will not give the Madsen company patent fees.

The number of mortars and light machine guns that Duan Qirui's Anhui army could obtain was extremely limited, and because of the limited number, only the two main forces of the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade were equipped with a considerable number of mortars and light machine guns.

Pan Luanqing continued: "The person who came is at least a regiment, and there are more enemies behind, this time it is at least a mixed brigade of the enemy, but I don't know if it is the brigade of the fourth division!" ”

Xiong Zhiqing, chief of staff of the 17th Brigade, said: "The news from the 3rd Division has found the 6th Brigade on the Jinling line, and the 7th Brigade is either the 7th Brigade or their supplementary brigade, and the 7th Brigade has been heavily damaged by us before, Duan Qirui should not risk sending the 7th Brigade that has been rebuilt for a short time, so the person who came should be their supplementary brigade!" ”

"And judging from the equipment of the enemy, it has at least one artillery battalion, and the information we have obtained also says that the supplementary brigade of the fourth division is a mixed brigade unit with an artillery battalion, so it is very likely that the enemy will be their supplementary brigade!"

Pan Luanqing said: "If it is the Fourth Division Supplementary Brigade that comes, then we will be in danger tomorrow!" ”

The Fourth Division under Duan Qirui is different from other Liangjiang Army Divisions, in addition to having a fixed establishment of two infantry brigades, one artillery regiment, and other units, this Fourth Division also has a supplementary brigade under its jurisdiction. This supplementary brigade is a mixed brigade with two infantry regiments and one artillery battalion.

In terms of regimental and battalion levels, the Fourth Division after the end of last year was a unit with six infantry regiments, four artillery battalions with 18 artillery pieces, three engineering battalions, three baggage battalions, and one cavalry regiment with a force of 1,000 cavalry, with a total strength of more than 25,000 troops. It is said to be a division, but it is completely different from ordinary infantry divisions.

Among these units of the Fourth Division, the Sixth Brigade and the Seventh Brigade were units directly under the division, but the supplementary brigade was a mixed brigade unit with an artillery battalion and a heavy force, with a total strength of more than 6,000 men.

So don't look at the Fourth Division's Supplementary Brigade just hanging on the name of the Supplementary Brigade, thinking that everyone is a miscellaneous brand of recruits, but in fact it is not, but a genuine, even more terrible opponent than the rebuilt Seventh Brigade.

As the main force of Duan Qirui, the Fourth Division is the main opponent of the Feng Army, so the Intelligence Department of the Feng Army has always maintained the highest level of attention to the department.

There is a lot of information about the Fourth Division's Supplementary Brigade, and the Anhui Army troops from the east discovered by the scouts are the Fourth Division's Supplementary Brigade.

Pan Luanqing didn't feel much of this situation, he had already expected to be counterattacked by the enemy's main force before crossing the river, but this fourth division supplementary brigade came faster than he expected.

According to the itinerary of the 4th Division's supplementary brigade, it will meet the 34th Regiment of the 17th Brigade deployed in the eastern direction at noon tomorrow.

At that time, with the addition of the Liangjiang Seventh Division on the western defense line, the 17th Brigade will face a flanking attack from the supplementary brigade of the Fourth Division of the Anhui Army and the Seventh Division of the Liangjiang Army at the same time, and the enemy's strength participating in the counterattack will not be less than 20,000.

However, the 17th Brigade currently has less than 5,000 men left.

The strength of the two sides is one against four, and the 17th Brigade is still strict and lacks ammunition, so it is difficult to hold on to such a strict situation.

However, no matter how difficult it is, Pan Luanqing has no other choice, he can only choose to continue to hold on, even if his 17th Brigade is disabled, he has to survive tomorrow!

According to the information from the military headquarters of the Fourth Army, the pontoon bridge of the Feng army has completed the construction of the northern part of the bridge, and the construction of the pontoon bridge on the south side is currently being carried out in full force, and according to the report of Fang Biyun, head of the task force, his task force engineering team is expected to complete the preliminary construction of the pontoon bridge by 9 o'clock tomorrow evening.

Although the pontoon bridges built at that time still had many problems such as sturdiness, and could not transport a large number of artillery across the river on a large scale, they could at least allow personnel and more importantly ammunition to cross the river quickly.

At present, the biggest problem for the Feng army to cross the river is the lack of ammunition for the troops crossing the river, otherwise, Meng Enyuan would have sent an entire Ninth Division across the river in the past two days.

As long as the pontoon bridge is initially built, the carrying capacity requirements are not high, only the ability to cross the horse or even a person cart, or simply a person can pick it, as long as the ammunition and other supplies can be quickly transported across the river, then the task is preliminarily completed.

Because as long as a large amount of ammunition can be transported across the river, then Meng Enyuan will be able to send more troops across the river, without worrying that the troops will not be able to play their due role if they have no ammunition after crossing the river.

Based on this situation, Pan Luanqing is very clear about his task, that is, to stop the enemy army at any cost, and he must hold on until nine o'clock tomorrow night. As long as you can hold out until that time, you will be able to get a large amount of ammunition and logistics supplies, and there will also be friendly reinforcements.

At that time, the entire battle of crossing the river will be revitalized, and then the tens of thousands of troops of the Fourth Army will cross the Yangtze River, go southeast and go straight to the direction of Jinling, divide the two main forces of the Anhui Army, the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade, and then break these two troops individually.

As long as the Feng army defeats the fourth division and the second mixed brigade, Duan Qirui's hole card troops, then it can be declared victory in such a Fengwan war that lasted for more than half a year, as for the remaining hundreds of thousands of Liangjiang troops, to be honest, they are not taken into account by many generals of the Feng army.

Time passed little by little, and the 7th Division of Liangjiang stopped attacking that evening, and Lei Zhenchun had already received the news that the 4th Division's Supplementary Brigade was about to arrive in Ma'anshan, and Duan Qirui personally gave him an order, asking the Liangjiang 7th Division to cooperate with the 4th Division's Supplementary Brigade to launch an attack tomorrow.

To be honest, this order made Lei Zhenchun quite depressed!

Why, just because of the word 'cooperation', you must know that his Liangjiang Seventh Division will be able to gather the strength of an entire division by tomorrow, and the Fourth Division's supplementary brigade is only 6,000 people, but Duan Qirui personally ordered that the Liangjiang Seventh Division cooperate with the Fourth Division's supplementary brigade to launch a counteroffensive.

From this, it can be seen that in Duan Qirui's heart, there is more importance between the Seventh Division and the Supplementary Brigade.

However, Lei Zhenchun did not have the confidence to complain, he led the Seventh Division to launch a fierce offensive for two consecutive days since yesterday, but only took a small outer defense line of the 33rd Regiment, and this defense line was abandoned by the 33rd Regiment on its own initiative.

Even if Lei Zhenchun didn't want to admit it in his heart, he also knew that relying on his own Liangjiang Seventh Division alone would not be able to break through the defense line of the 17th Brigade and push the Feng army down the river.

Tonight, the various fronts in Ma'anshan were eerily quiet, and the Liangjiang Seventh Division stopped its large-scale offensive, and only occasionally launched small-scale tentative and harassing attacks.

The 17th Brigade was even more eager for the enemy not to attack, so that it could have more time to rest and replenish.

At the same time, in order to replenish the battle damage of the 17th Brigade, the 9th Division sent another battalion of infantry to cross the river in precious small boats, in order to restore the combat effectiveness of the 17th Brigade.

As soon as the fresh force of this battalion arrived on the opposite bank, it was sent by Pan Luanqing to the east to reinforce the 34th Regiment, increasing the strength of the eastern defense line to three battalions.

So far, of the seven infantry battalions that Pan Luanqing has at his disposal, three have been sent to the eastern defense line, three have been sent to the western defense line, and one is a strategic reserve.

Although there were three infantry battalions on the eastern and western fronts, the gap in the situation was quite large, and the three infantry battalions under the jurisdiction of the 33rd Regiment in the west had all experienced many days of hard fighting and were in a very bad state. The three battalions of the eastern defense line have always been in good condition and have not participated in tragic defensive battles.

The reason why Pan Luanqing did not send more reinforcements to the 33rd Regiment when the situation was so critical was to retain a part of the fresh force to prepare for the expected Fourth Division.

Now that the Fourth Division is here, they will also come in handy.

Pan Luanqing knew that it would be difficult to stop the enemy's nearly 20,000 troops by relying only on his own 17th Brigade, and there was also a 4th Division Supplementary Brigade to attack, but the 17th Brigade did not mean that it needed to hold on all the time, they only needed to hold on until tomorrow daytime, and the pontoon bridge of the Feng Army would be preliminarily built after night, and they would be able to obtain a large number of supplies and reinforcements in terms of troops.

Only need to hold for a day, this is Meng Enyuan's last mission goal for Pan Luanqing!

However, this goal was not so easy to achieve, and the next morning, as if the time had been set, at nine o'clock, there was a whistling sound over the positions of both sides, followed by countless shells falling from the sky and falling on the positions of the 17th Brigade of the Feng Army.

At the same time, the artillery positions of the Fourth Army on the north bank of the Yangtze River also began to fire in unison, and many shells flew into the sky, and then crossed the sky and landed on the positions of the Anhui army in the distance.

The last stop of the battle of crossing the river, which decided the victory or defeat of both sides, and the key battle that determined the victory or defeat of the Fengwan War, finally broke out!