It's too late to finish a new chapter before twelve o'clock, and this chapter in Wuhan is being written, so I took the place first, and I changed it after I finished writing.

Chapter 126: Taking Wuhan (I)

In the case of equal firepower, the battleship and the battery fire, it has always been a battleship that ends in tragedy, and this time is no exception.

As an inland gunboat on the Yangtze River, the Gannet has extremely weak firepower, with only two three-inch guns at the bow and tail plus some machine guns and light weapons. Due to the initial requirements of the design to be able to enter the upper reaches of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, the depth of the hull was strictly limited, and the armor thickness was between 20 mm and 30 mm, which was okay to block ordinary light infantry guns, but in the face of 107 mm cannon direct fire, this thickness was not enough.

And this time, he fired four 107-mm cannons, although this is an old gun from the First World War, but its caliber advantage is clearly there. Even if grenades were used, they were not something that a "shallow paper-skinned" warship like the Gannet could withstand. The Soviet Union smuggled a total of eight batches of eight 107-mm cannons to the Soviet area, four of which were placed in the fort of the Honghu section on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and the other four were secretly transported to the south bank for concealed arrangement.

There was a great chaos on the Gannet, which had hit two guns in a row, and the sailors on the ship, who had lost their command line, did not have time to react from the shock of the cannons, and after more than ten seconds, two rounds of shelling came, and this time two shells hit the Gannet, one of which hit the part below the waterline, and exploded a large hole half a meter long. The river rolled in, and the whole ship was blacked out, and the lights were all extinguished. The second shell hit the front of the hull, throwing several sailors into the boiling water.

At this time, the battery on the shore stopped firing, and the Gannet, which had been hit by four shells, hurriedly reversed and retreated, and in the darkness because of the panic and the heavy damage to the hull, the draft increased greatly, and finally ran aground on the shallows of the Yangtze River, about five kilometers away from the Honghu battery.

Just about 200 kilometers upstream of the Gannet's stranding position, the Yueyang section of the Yangtze River is unusually lively. More than thirty motorized tugboats were loaded with Red Army officers. He was about to set sail down the river.

In the autumn offensive of 1934, Hunan was only the beginning, seizing Hunan and completely annihilating He Jianbu. Just to completely clear the "troubles" of the Jiangxi flank. And the campaign goal of the Red Army's autumn offensive of this year. In fact, it is a very large plan.

After the end of the autumn offensive of 1932. The Red Army reached a series of peace agreements with the Nationalist government in Nanking, but everyone knew that it was only a false peace agreement. But after the agreement is signed. Although there was a small conflict between the two sides in Fujian, and the currency war under the table was even more bloodless, the great supremacy still maintained a superficial peace.

However, this peace only lasted until September 1934.

In 1932, when the Red Army won a heavy victory, rapidly expanded its base areas and troops, and even forced the Nanjing Nationalist Government into a very dangerous situation, it took the initiative to ask for peace talks, and the fundamental reasons for this were twofold: First, it needed time to digest the newly acquired territory, and second, its own foundation was unstable and the number of cadres was insufficient.

When he was in Jiangxi, Lin Han had discussed the failed peasant uprisings in Chinese history with Li Runshi and other Red Army cadres, and Huang Chao and Li Zicheng were the most talked about topics. The moment these two people almost got their hands on the world, but because of the defeat of a battle, they lost all overnight and it was difficult to turn over. There are many reasons for the collapse, but its early expansion is too fast and its foundation is unstable, which is also an important reason. And Li Runshi, a cattle man who systematically summed up the success and failure of peasant uprisings in Chinese history, wrote a paper "Against Rogue Doctrine" before Lin Han arrived in the Soviet area, and he also had a deep understanding of this.

During the two years from September 1932 to September 1934, the top echelons of the Red Army paid the most attention not to the small-scale industrialization construction in the base areas, but to the establishment of "Red Army universities" in the base areas, which were busy training cadres and improving the quality of grassroots cadres.

People and talents have always been the most precious resources. After two years of painstaking training of grassroots cadres, and a large number of blood transfusions from the Communist Party of Germany, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and returned students trained by Lin Han, and two years of hard work, the Red Army decided to launch a full-scale offensive in September 1934.

Hunan was only the first campaign target.

At the same time as the Battle of Hunan, the Battle of Jiangxi was held.

As early as early August, the Red Army deliberately carried out a massive troop mobilization in Jiangxi to carry out strategic deception and pretend to be fighting a major battle in Jiangxi.

On 1 September, the Jiangxi Red Army launched an all-out attack on Nanchang, and surrounded Nanchang with troops under the city.

The Nanchang garrison had 20,000 people at this time, and the commander of the city guard was the famous "iron wall" horse commander, and the Red Army was also very polite to this "old friend" of the Red Army. Outside the city of Nanchang, there were actually only more than 10,000 Red Army troops surrounding and monitoring the Nanchang defenders.

The remaining main force of more than 40,000 people set up a pocket formation between Nanchang and Jiujiang, waiting for reinforcements from Jiujiang to come. It is a pity that Jiangxi's artillery army has long been frightened at this time, and it is stunned that "friendly troops are not as good as mountains", and the plan to besiege the city and send reinforcements finally failed.

However, the strategic deception of the Battle of Kiangsi in August succeeded as expected, that is, to attract part of the artillery army in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to Jiujiang.

In fact, the Nanjing Nationalist Government has long wanted to abandon Jiangxi Province, which is getting worse and worse, especially Nanchang, which is also mired in a "bandit zone". Because Jiujiang is close to the Yangtze River, it is more valued as a nail into Jiangxi than Nanchang.

In order to keep Jiujiang, the Nanjing Nationalist Government transferred three divisions from Wuhan to reinforce Jiujiang, but the consequence was that the Wuhan defenders had only two divisions and less than 20,000 people.

Jiangxi was only a feint, Hunan was just swallowing the meat that had long been in its mouth, and Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hunan, was the biggest and important target of the Red Army in this battle.

Wuhan in 1934, arguably the most important industrial city in Chinese mainland, the steel mill in Hanyang, and the Hanyang arsenal were the long-awaited targets of the Red Army.

In the past two years, although the Red Army has received a lot of assistance from Lin Han. It has established its own small industrial base, which can produce a small amount of steel, produce its own mortar shells, and reload bullets, but due to many factors such as external blockade, inconvenient transportation, and poor location of factories, the military industrial system of the Red Army is actually not large.

Note: To establish a complete military industrial system, it is a very huge system project. Just building a steel mill is a lot of requirements. The location of the concentrator plant is convenient. It is best to have iron mines and coal mines nearby, and at the same time, it is necessary to train a large number of qualified industrial workers, and to have enough time to accumulate technology.

In the September strategic policy of the Red Army, after taking Yueyang. The Yangtze River will be crossed immediately. Strike east. Surprise attack on Wuhan, especially to take the arsenal and iron factory in Hanyang.

At this sensitive juncture, it became the biggest variable for the British battleship to suddenly go upriver to Yue Feng (to protect overseas Chinese). The fleet of Yueyang Wharf is a surprise attack on Hanyang. At this critical juncture, how could it be enough to tolerate the British's plan to add variables?

Chapter 126: Taking Wuhan (I)

In the case of equal firepower, the battleship and the battery fire, it has always been a battleship that ends in tragedy, and this time is no exception.

As an inland gunboat on the Yangtze River, the Gannet has extremely weak firepower, with only two three-inch guns at the bow and tail plus some machine guns and light weapons. Due to the initial requirements of the design to be able to enter the upper reaches of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, the depth of the hull was strictly limited, and the armor thickness was between 20 mm and 30 mm, which was okay to block ordinary light infantry guns, but in the face of 107 mm cannon direct fire, this thickness was not enough.

And this time, he fired four 107-mm cannons, although this is an old gun from the First World War, but its caliber advantage is clearly there. Even if grenades were used, they were not something that a "shallow paper-skinned" warship like the Gannet could withstand. The Soviet Union smuggled a total of eight batches of eight 107-mm cannons to the Soviet area, four of which were placed in the fort of the Honghu section on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and the other four were secretly transported to the south bank for concealed arrangement.

There was a great chaos on the Gannet, which had lost its command line, and the sailors on the ship who had lost their command line did not have time to react from the shock of the cannons, and after more than ten seconds, the second round of shelling came, and this time there were two shells that hit the Gannet, one of which hit the part below the waterline, blowing open a half-meter-long gap, and the river water rolled in, and led the whole ship to lose power, and the lights were completely extinguished. The second shell hit the front of the hull, throwing several sailors into the boiling water.

At this time, the battery on the shore stopped firing, and the Gannet, which had been hit by four shells, hurriedly reversed and retreated, and in the darkness because of the panic and the heavy damage to the hull, the draft increased greatly, and finally ran aground on the shallows of the Yangtze River, about five kilometers away from the Honghu battery.

Just about 200 kilometers upstream of the Gannet's stranding site, in the Yueyang section of the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River was unusually lively, and more than 30 motorized tugboats loaded with Red Army officers and men were preparing to set sail downstream.

In the autumn offensive of 1934, Hunan was only the beginning, and the capture of Hunan and the total annihilation of He Jianbu were just to completely clear the "troubles" on the flank of Jiangxi. The campaign objective of the Red Army's autumn offensive of this year was actually a very large plan.

After the end of the Autumn Offensive in 1932, the Red Army and the Nationalist government in Nanking reached a series of peace agreements, but everyone knew that they were only a false peace agreement. However, after the agreement was signed, although there was a small conflict between the two sides in Fujian, and the currency war under the table was even more bloodless, the great supremacy still maintained a superficial peace.

However, this peace only lasted until September 1934.

In 1932, when the Red Army won a heavy victory, rapidly expanded its base areas and troops, and even forced the Nanjing Nationalist Government into a very dangerous situation, it took the initiative to ask for peace talks, and the fundamental reasons for this were twofold: First, it needed time to digest the newly acquired territory, and second, its own foundation was unstable and the number of cadres was insufficient.

When he was in Jiangxi, Lin Han had discussed the failed peasant uprisings in Chinese history with Li Runshi and other Red Army cadres, and Huang Chao and Li Zicheng were the most talked about topics. The moment these two people almost got their hands on the world, but because of the defeat of a battle, they lost all overnight and it was difficult to turn over. There are many reasons for the collapse, but its early expansion is too fast and its foundation is unstable, which is also an important reason. And Li Runshi, a cattle man who systematically summed up the success and failure of peasant uprisings in Chinese history, wrote a paper "Against Rogue Doctrine" before Lin Han arrived in the Soviet area, and he also had a deep understanding of this.

During the two years from September 1932 to September 1934, the top echelons of the Red Army paid the most attention not to the small-scale industrialization construction in the base areas, but to the establishment of "Red Army universities" in the base areas, which were busy training cadres and improving the quality of grassroots cadres.

People and talents have always been the most precious resources. After two years of painstaking training of grassroots cadres, and a large number of blood transfusions from the Communist Party of Germany, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and returned students trained by Lin Han, and two years of hard work, the Red Army decided to launch a full-scale offensive in September 1934.

Hunan was only the first campaign target.

At the same time as the Battle of Hunan, the Battle of Jiangxi was held.

As early as early August, the Red Army deliberately carried out a massive troop mobilization in Jiangxi to carry out strategic deception and pretend to be fighting a major battle in Jiangxi.

On 1 September, the Jiangxi Red Army launched an all-out attack on Nanchang, and surrounded Nanchang with troops under the city.

The Nanchang garrison had 20,000 people at this time, and the commander of the city guard was the famous "iron wall" horse commander, and the Red Army was also very polite to this "old friend" of the Red Army. Outside the city of Nanchang, there were actually only more than 10,000 Red Army troops surrounding and monitoring the Nanchang defenders.

The remaining main force of more than 40,000 people set up a pocket formation between Nanchang and Jiujiang, waiting for reinforcements from Jiujiang to come. It is a pity that Jiangxi's artillery army has long been frightened at this time, and it is stunned that "friendly troops are not as good as mountains", and the plan to besiege the city and send reinforcements finally failed.

However, the strategic deception of the Battle of Kiangsi in August succeeded as expected, that is, to attract part of the artillery army in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to Jiujiang.

In fact, the Nanjing Nationalist Government has long wanted to abandon Jiangxi Province, which is getting worse and worse, especially Nanchang, which is also mired in a "bandit zone". Because Jiujiang is close to the Yangtze River, it is more valued as a nail into Jiangxi than Nanchang.

In order to keep Jiujiang, the Nanjing Nationalist Government transferred three divisions from Wuhan to reinforce Jiujiang, but the consequence was that the Wuhan defenders had only two divisions and less than 20,000 people.

Jiangxi was only a feint, Hunan was just swallowing the meat that had long been in its mouth, and Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hunan, was the biggest and important target of the Red Army in this battle. (To be continued......)