In Jinan, Shandong, Gu Lanyu was dressed in his general's uniform and wore the epaulettes of the rank of lieutenant general, and after he took over Chen Guangyuan as the commander of the third division, he was also promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.

Nowadays, the Beiyang Army, including Fengjun, is still relatively strict in the control of military ranks, and after Beiyang officially issued a new military rank at the beginning of the year, there are only two people who have been awarded the rank of general in the entire Beiyang system, that is, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen, as for Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun have served as the president and vice president at that time, so they themselves have not been awarded, and after Zhao Dongyun moved into the Beijing Division, he reorganized the headquarters and considered himself 'Generalissimo', this generalissimo is actually not a military rank, but a position.

In addition to the two generals, the number of lieutenant generals was not large, and when the title was conferred, only senior generals above the division commander were awarded the rank of lieutenant general, such as Lu Yongxiang, commander of the first division, Chen Guangyuan, commander of the third division, Zhang Huaizhi, commander of the fifth division, Wang Zhanyuan, commander of the seventh division, Wang Ruxian, commander of the eighth division, Lin Yongquan, commander of the ninth division, Xu Bangjie, commander of the tenth division, Meng Enyuan, commander of the Yuguan defense, and a few others. The other mixed brigade commanders, infantry brigade commanders, cavalry brigade commanders, and all sorts of other messy people were basically all major generals.

As for the military ranks of the generals of the warlords and provincial armies, most of the military ranks registered in the military department of the War Department are also major generals, even colonels, etc.

Of course, each warlord also has its own appointments, for example, Duan Qirui privately awarded several of his division commanders of the Liangjiang Army the rank of lieutenant general, but this kind of local military rank is not recognized by the outside world.

For example, after Zhang Huaizhi was promoted to the commander of the Third Army, Wang Yingkai promoted him to the rank of general in accordance with the precedent of Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen, and at the same time introduced the rank system, promoting Wang Ruxian to the rank of lieutenant general in the army, Wu Fengling to the rank of lieutenant general in the army, and Lu Yongxiang to the rank of lieutenant general on the eve of the Tangshan Campaign, as well as adding titles to a group of other generals.

The so-called additional rank, for example, the rank of 'general plus' in the army, means that your rank is still the rank of lieutenant general, but you can enjoy the etiquette treatment of the general, and the current Wang Yingkai era and the current Zhao Dongyun era of the additional title system is still limited to the general class.

Usually the major 'general will be added' general, and the middle 'will be added' will be added, and there has not been such a thing as colonel plus major 'general title' for the time being.

After Zhao Dongyun moved into the Beijing Division, he rewarded his subordinates lavishly, first promoting Meng Enyuan to the general of the army, and then to Xu Bangjie to the lieutenant general of the army, and Gu Lanyu to the lieutenant general of the army.

However, despite the lavish rewards, there are still only a handful of lieutenant general-level generals in the Fengjun system, and the gold content is still very high.

Gu Lanyu is now very satisfied with his current situation, not only promoted to lieutenant general, but also served as the commander of the third division, the commander of the main division of the Feng army, and his position in the Feng army is already vaguely second only to Meng Enyuan and Xu Bangjie.

If he is good in the follow-up southward campaign, then the next army commander may be him, but it is still too early to talk about the follow-up southward battle, what he has to do now is to take Jinan down as soon as possible, and then bring Shandong into his control.

Gu Lanyu had this idea, and most of the other generals of the Feng army also had similar ideas, wanting to make great contributions in the follow-up battles, so as to be reused.

"Now our priority is to break through the enemy's Yellow River defense line!" Kong Weibei, the commander of the Fifth Brigade below, looked at Gu Lanyu as he spoke, looking at the epaulettes of the rank of lieutenant general on Gu Lanyu's shoulders, and inadvertently showed a look of envy.

You must know that he Kong Guanbei was also a strong candidate for the commander of the Third Division, but during the Battle of Bazhou, the overall performance of the Third Division was not good, and the table of the Fifth Brigade could only be regarded as mediocre, not only was Chen Guangyuan, the commander of the Third Division, transferred from his original post, but Kong Guanbei's further promotion was also affected, and at the same time, Gu Lanyu was the best candidate, which was in the competition for the commander of the Third Division, and Kong Guanbei was defeated.

After Kong Guanbei's voice fell, Pei Lianying, who replaced Gu Lanyu as the commander of the Sixth Brigade, also spoke: "Now that Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division and the Anhui Provincial Army are deployed along the Yellow River defense line, if you want to cross the river head-on, I'm afraid it will be very difficult, and now the best way is to bypass the frontal battlefield and cross the river from the flank!" ”

"If we make a detour, it will not have much effect if it is short, and the enemy troops on the opposite side will easily be able to quickly maneuver to our position of crossing the river, and if the detour distance is too large, it will affect the transportation of the logistics troops, and the marching time will also be too long, and if we cross the river in a large circle, I am afraid that the test for the troops will still be relatively large!" Kong Wei said: "According to my opinion, it is still necessary to break through over there in Daqiao Town, there are not many enemy troops deployed there, and it is relatively easy to cross the river!" ”

At this time, Gu Lanyu said: "It is too difficult to cross the river in Jinan head-on, although our army has an advantage in strength, but we must also try to avoid unnecessary casualties, and we must save our strength as much as possible to deal with Duan Qirui's Liangjiang troops." ”

The enemy of the Soviet Feng army is not only Zhang Huaizhi, the bigger enemy in the southward battle is actually Duan Qirui, Duan Qirui now occupies the two rivers for many days, when Zhao Dongyun launched the battle to enter the customs, Duan Qirui was not idle, and his troops have gone south to southern Zhejiang and Jiangxi, although the southern federal forces are resisting but they can't resist Duan Qirui's troops at all.

Regardless of whether the Feng army can take Shandong or not, sooner or later it will be against Duan Qirui, and if he takes Shandong and continues to go south, he will march into northern Jiangsu, Duan Qirui will definitely resist, and if he can't take Shandong, Duan Qirui will also slowly send reinforcements north to Shandong.

Therefore, as long as the contradiction between Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui is not resolved at the political level, then a large-scale war between the two families is certain.

Under such circumstances, the Second Army, which was heading south to Shandong and Liangjiang, must be cautious in the early stage of operations and preserve its strength as much as possible to meet Duan Qirui's Liangjiang troops.

After considering the opinions of many subordinates, Gu Lanyu proposed a battle plan to his immediate boss, Xu Bangjie, commander of the Second Army.

Moreover, the detour distance was farther than the previous battle plan, Gu Lanyujian sent the main force to bypass Jinan, and then crossed the river in the area of Zhaoguan Town, thirty kilometers southwest of Jinan.

Unlike in the past, when only a partial division was sent to cross the river, this time Gu Lanyu used the main force to cross the river, leaving only a small number of troops in front of Jinan to contain it, and then the main force crossed the river and directly killed the south of Jinan, and at the same time, it could also cut off the connection between Jinan and the southern places.

After Xu Bangjie saw this battle plan, he was anxious and a large number of senior generals of the Second Army discussed it, and finally implemented the plan after a small rest.

As a result, on August 9, the main force of the Second Army under Xu Bangjie quietly left the frontal battlefield, and then advanced to the southwest, crossing the river in a roundabout way, including the 19th Brigade of the 3rd Division and the 10th Division, while the 20th Brigade was left on the frontal battlefield as an accompanying attack. As for the First Mixed Brigade that is preparing to reinforce the Shandong battlefield, now that Langfang has just set off, it will take ten days and half a month to go to Jinan, to say the least, Xu Bangjie does not plan to wait that long, because the longer he waits, the more troops Zhang Huaizhi will be transferred back from Anhui, and the troops that Duan Qirui will transfer to the north are getting closer and closer.

On August 11, Xu Bangjie's second army erected a pontoon bridge on the Yellow River in the area of Zhaoguan Town, and then the main force quickly crossed the river, and the troops under the command of Zhang Huaizhi on the opposite side also discovered the detour of the second army's crossing of the river, and sent troops to rush to intercept it, but it was defeated by the fifth brigade of the third division of the vanguard after crossing the river lightly, and when the fifth brigade occupied the other side of the river, a large number of main forces of the second army and artillery units also began to cross the river.

On the thirteenth, after crossing the river, the third division quickly advanced eastward and captured the major cities along the way.

At this time, the two sides officially broke out a large-scale war, and it was a battle led by the Feng army.

Jinan, north of the Yellow River, south of Mount Tai, but the Feng army is from the east to cross the river or from the west to cross the river roundabout, when the time comes, it is necessary to launch a siege operation, and Zhang Huaizhi on the opposite side can not see this, so he deployed the Jinan defense line, in fact, this situation has long been expected, it is impossible to prevent the Feng army from crossing the river in a roundabout way, but he can shrink his forces to hold on in Jinan City.

If the Feng army wants to take Jinan, it will inevitably fight a tough battle, and the longer the war drags on in Jinan, the more beneficial it will be for Zhang Huaizhi, because Zhang Huaizhi and Duan Qirui's troops are constantly going north for reinforcements, and there will be more forces available in Zhang Huaizhi's hands after one more day.

After the 3rd Division's lightly armed infantry unit was blocked in the Lashan attack, it did not immediately launch a strong attack, but waited for the arrival of the follow-up artillery units and the 10th Division's troops.

After the 3rd Division rested in Lashan for two days, an artillery regiment and two 120-mm mortar battalions launched an attack on Lashan, thus completely opening the prelude to the offensive of Jinan!

On the Lashan front, the rumbling artillery has not stopped since it sounded, and the machine guns on both sides have been intermittent, and the clicking sound has been continuously transmitted in the air.

In the forward position of the second battalion of the 11th regiment of the third division, Zhao Dongzhi, who wore the rank of major, looked a little nervous and looked at the pocket watch in his hand, watching the hour hand of the pocket watch in his hand pass minute by minute, and his hand holding the pocket watch was unconsciously getting closer and closer, as the pointer stayed at 5:30, Zhao Dongzhi secretly counted in his heart, and suddenly there was a rumbling sound in the rear, which was the sound of the rear artillery regiment and the 120-mm mortar battalion launching the shelling on time, followed by countless shells across the sky, Passing over their heads, they landed on the position of the Anhui army hundreds of meters away from the opposite side.

For a while, it seemed that the whole time was shrouded in the smoke and dust of the explosion, Zhao Dongzhi took out the telescope to watch the effect of the shelling, but his eyes were not very good, it was obvious that this burst of shelling did not achieve the expected effect, although the opposite position continued to hear explosions, but Zhao Dongzhi did not see a single figure, it was obvious that those Anhui troops were hiding in the anti-artillery hole.

Fifteen minutes later, the shelling stopped, and Zhao Dongzhi's telescope had already vaguely seen that the Anhui army on the opposite side began to walk out of the anti-artillery hole, because according to the Beiyang tactics of infantry and artillery coordination, it was time for the infantry to charge, but Zhao Dongzhi sneered when he saw it.

Two minutes later, the artillery of the Feng army, which had stopped shelling, suddenly opened fire again, and it was a rapid fire, and in a short period of time, a large number of shells were once again projected at the position of the Anhui army on the opposite side.

However, at this time, Zhao Dongzhi had already taken a deep breath, and then pulled out his command knife: "Attack according to the predetermined plan!" ”

With his order, the platoon commanders of the second battalion blew the copper whistle in unison, and a large number of Fengjun soldiers wearing blue-gray military uniforms crawled out of the temporary trenches, and then quickly rushed forward in a scattered manner, and at this time, the artillery of the Anhui army, which had been silent, also opened fire!

In an instant, on the road of hundreds of meters where the Feng army charged, the shells of the Anhui army continued to fall and explode, and the heavy machine guns of the Anhui army on the opposite side also sounded.

The soldiers of the Feng army kept falling, and the explosions sounded around them from time to time, and then Zhao Dongzhi still waved the command knife to let the troops charge!