The landing site of the Fourth Army of the Soviet Union was two kilometers north of Ma'anshan in the east of Dangtu County on the other side of Hezhou, and after the 17th Brigade of the Feng Army expanded to a depth of five kilometers to the southwest, it was expected that the operational scope of intercepting the Anhui Army would be about the area of Ma'anshan City in the future.

Of course, the Seventh Division of the Liangjiang Army, which has tens of thousands of people, cannot be gathered and hidden in Dangtu County, but is scattered along the Yangtze River, forming a Yangtze River defense line that is more than 20 kilometers long.

On this Dangtu defense line, the key area is Dangtu County, where there is a whole brigade of the 14th Brigade of the Liangjiang Army and an artillery regiment, which is the key garrison area of the Anhui Army in the direction of Dangtu, not only to strictly prevent the Feng army from using Jiangxinzhou to directly land in Dangtu, but also the 14th Brigade and artillery and other troops are also the main mobile reinforcements of the Dangtu defense line. Of course, their task is not to say that they will not directly defeat the Feng army's crossing of the river, because everyone knows that once the Feng army crosses the river, it will inevitably be a large-scale river crossing, and the number of troops crossing the river may reach tens of thousands.

A Feng army of this scale is absolutely not something that can be defeated by just one or two Jiang Seventh Divisions, and it is even difficult to stop the offensive of the Feng army's troops crossing the river.

So once the Feng army landed on the Dangtu line, what was the role of the Liangjiang Seventh Division?

One word: drag!

The requirements are not high, as long as the Seventh Division of the Liangjiang Army can drag the Feng Army's river-crossing troops for more than two days, then the troops from the east and west directions of Wuhu and Jinling will be able to arrive preliminarily, if it can be delayed for more than three days, then the Second Mixed Brigade and the Fourth Division of the Central Army, the main force of the Anhui Army, will be able to arrive one after another, and when the time comes, with the resistance of the main force of the Anhui Army, Duan Qirui will be sure to block the offensive momentum of the Feng Army, of course, this is only Duan Qirui's conservative estimate. In his heart, he still wanted to annihilate the Feng army's river-crossing troops on the south bank of the Yangtze River in one fell swoop.

Because it was almost a strategic turning point on behalf of the Soviet-Anhui War, once the Anhui army was able to annihilate the Feng army's river-crossing troops, the Feng army, which had suffered heavy losses, would never launch another river-crossing campaign in a short period of time, although the Anhui army did not have enough strength to launch a large-scale counteroffensive and then recover the Jiangbei region, but at least the war between Suzhou and Anhui could re-enter the strategic stalemate.

And time is very precious for Duan Qirui, he took Guangdong not long ago, he needed time to rectify Guangdong, to completely incorporate Guangdong, a wealthy province, into his own ruling system, and then rely on most of southern China, he was confident that he would outperform the Soviet system in financial resources, and then expand more troops, waiting for the appropriate actual launch of the Northern Expedition.

In the deployment of the entire Yangtze River defense line of the Anhui army, this strategic thinking has been very clearly embodied.

On the vast Yangtze River defense line, the Anhui army only focused on a few sections of the defense, while the two main armies, the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade, were regarded as mobile troops.

Specific to the direction of Dangtu, the tactical deployment of the Liangjiang Seventh Division also reflects this thinking, that is, the main force is deployed in Dangtu County, while a small number of troops are deployed in other areas, and the purpose of these troops deployed in battalions is not to block the Fengjun's crossing of the river, but to play the role of early warning.

The infantry battalion of the Anhui army deployed along the Ma'anshan River is a unit of this nature.

As soon as they found out that the Feng army had crossed the river, they had already sent a herald to ride a fast horse to Dangtu to report the news!

At the same time, the two infantry battalions stationed in the area of Xishan and Jiuhua Mountain also quickly went to the direction of Ma'anshan, and these two infantry battalions belonged to the 25th Infantry Regiment of the 13th Brigade of the Seventh Division of Liangjiang and the infantry battalion in Ma'anshan.

The 25th Infantry Regiment of the Liangjiang Army is the main force deployed by the Anhui Army in the Ma'anshan area.

When the second battalion of the regiment said that it had discovered that the Feng army had crossed the river in large numbers, the commander of the regiment did not dare to slack off, and immediately led two regiments to rush to Ma'anshan, but they were still a little late, and when they arrived, nearly two hours had passed since the Feng army crossed the river, and at this time the 33rd regiment of the Feng army had successfully landed ashore and advanced to the southwest to expand the depth of the beachhead defense.

In this case, the first battalion of the 33rd Regiment of the Feng Army, which went to seize Rentouji, pursued the remnants of the enemy, and the 2nd Battalion of the 33rd Regiment of the Feng Army, which went to the front line of Yushan Lake, was facing the 25th Regiment of the Anhui Army that came from reinforcements.

Fang Qingkun, who commanded the entire regiment in the rear, looked at the Anhui army wearing dark blue military uniforms in the telescope, and roughly estimated and found that the number of Anhui troops who came over this time was quite large, and there were at least thousands of people who had been found alone, and considering that the Anhui army was not lined up in the open area for Fang Qingkun to count, Fang Qingkun estimated that the enemy should be a regiment.

Fang Qingkun is as conceited as many Fengjun officers, he doesn't think that a mere infantry battalion of the Anhui army can confront the two battalions under his command now, but now is an extraordinary period, his task is not to defeat and defeat how many enemy troops, but to stick to the beachhead, and the opposite Anhui army wants to delay time and other main sources, Fang Qingkun also wants to delay time, waiting for the rear troops to erect pontoon bridges and cross the river.

However, although both wanted to delay time, there was one difference, that is, the premise of Fang Qingkun's 33rd Regiment wanting to delay time was to use these two areas to form a preliminary defensive position after taking Yushan Lake and Rentouji, and only then on the premise of ensuring the beachhead could delay time.

On the contrary, if they want to delay the offensive of the Feng army, it is very necessary to take advantage of the unstable foothold of the Feng army in the early stage, especially on the first day of the Feng army's crossing of the river, to attack the Feng army's river-crossing troops as much as possible, and it is best to be able to directly attack the Feng's river-crossing troops, so as to slow down the river-crossing speed of the Fengjun's main force.

To put it simply, the contradiction between the two is that the Anhui army wants to delay the river-crossing troops of the Feng army on the beachhead, while the 33rd Regiment of the Feng army, which has already crossed the river, needs to block the Anhui army outside the beachhead and delay the reinforcements of the follow-up Anhui army.

When these factors are combined, it is very interesting that although the commanders of both sides have been ordered to delay the time, and they do want to do so, the reality is that from the moment the two sides come into contact, fierce fighting has broken out between them.

After the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 33rd Regiment of the Feng Army encountered the 25th Regiment of the Anhui Liangjiang Army, which was rapidly moving south to reinforce on the front line of Yushan Lake and Rentouji, there was no so-called restraint between the two sides, and they did not even carry out much fire testing.

The clatter of the machine guns stopped and then rang out again on the banks of the Yangtze River, accompanied by the crisp sound of rifle guns and the occasional explosion.

These explosions were mainly grenade shells from both sides, but the mortar shells that were always used in the Feng army were fired relatively rarely, not because Fang Qingkun didn't like to use mortars, but because the existing mortar shells in his hands were limited and could not be wasted at will.

Now all the ammunition of the 33rd Regiment was carried with them before, although it was said that it had been fully prepared before departure, but at the place where the river was crossed, in order to knock out the two machine gun fortresses that brought great casualties to the Feng army, the mortar shells of the 33rd Regiment had been consumed a lot, and before crossing the river, the senior generals of the Feng army, including Meng Enyuan and Lin Yongquan, all believed that the counterattack of the Anhui army would come very quickly and fiercely, and once the main force of the enemy army came to counterattack, then it would be possible to rely on the 17th Brigade itself.

And considering that there are no pontoon bridges and ammunition can only be transported by a small number of ships, then the ammunition that the 17th Brigade can use for combat in the next three days, especially mortar shells, will be very tight.

In addition to anti-machine gun combat, Fang Qingkun was not willing to waste the precious mortar shells in his hands if there was not much need in other circumstances!

Fang Qingkun endured and refused to use too many mortar shells, so for the front-line infantry of the 33rd Regiment, the pressure was naturally great. The troops of the Feng army, especially the troops of the three main divisions, had long been accustomed to launching attacks under the cover of mortar fire, and now without the cover of mortar fire, they really felt a little unaccustomed for a while.

But they are not used to fighting, they are the same as before, cats waist, scattered, and then try to carry out a roundabout attack at the company and platoon level, and occasionally use 60 mm mortars to hit the machine gun fire points of the Anhui army, but so the Anhui army and the Feng army have not been fighting for a day or two, this is half a year before and after, for the Feng army to use 60 mm mortars for anti-machine gun operations, in addition to imitating and also equipping 60 mm mortars, they are also specifically aimed at these tactics of the Feng army, and have improved many machine gun tactics.

For example, in the past, the heavy machine guns of the direct army and the Anhui army were rarely maneuvered, generally fixed in a fortification, and then fought until they were destroyed, anyway, before the appearance of mortars, the use of heavy machine guns was not a big problem, anyway, the rifle guns and even machine gun fire could not knock them out, as for artillery, you have the ability to let a field gun or mountain artillery play precision bombing, otherwise don't expect the traditional body artillery anti-machine gun.

However, this situation was greatly changed in the Soviet-Anhui War and the previous Soviet-Anhui War, when the mortars of the Feng army, especially the 60mm mortars, were almost heavy machine gun killers, and under the command of a skilled mortar commander, three rapid fires could completely destroy a surround heavy machine gun position.

Some people may say that the new machine gun position surrounded by the open air is useless, so why not use the fortress machine gun position, and the reason for this is also simple.

A fixed, with complete protection, can resist mortars or machine gun fortifications, must spend a lot of manpower and material resources to build, not to mention those cement fortifications, no warlord in contemporary China has enough money to buy cement to build fortifications, the Anhui army is not good, the Feng army is not good, as for the civil fortifications can also be, but to build these fortifications in the project is relatively large, it takes more time, it is difficult to use it for encounter-type field warfare.

For example, the current battle between the two armies of Suzhou and Anhui is a typical encounter, the two sides first of all let alone build machine gun fortresses, and even the infantry trenches are too late to dig, and they are directly lying on the hill and fighting.

In this case, the 60-mm mortar anti-machine gun combat of the Feng army is still relatively smooth!

When the mortar unit destroyed another heavy machine gun of the Anhui army, the infantry of the Feng army once again launched a charge towards the temporary position of the Anhui army!