Suqian, on the northern Jiangsu front, is an important passing city of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and although the importance of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is not as important as before, it still has important economic and military value for contemporary Shandong and northern Jiangsu.

Since the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War, this canal has become an important transportation channel for military supplies between the two armies of Fengzhou and Anhui, and during the Feng's attack on Shandong, almost all logistics materials were transported south through this canal.

In order to make up for the problem of too small the amount of canal transportation, the Feng army on the one hand opened up sea transportation, and for this purpose also specially captured Haizhou to establish a temporary supply port, and on the other hand, it also used Zhengzhou as a transit point for logistics materials, and a large number of materials transported south along the Jinghan Railway were re-opened to a land passage of more than 300 kilometers in Guò, and broke into Kaifeng and Shangqiu all the way into Xiao County, the bridgehead of the Feng army in the western region of northern Jiangsu.

Despite the sea and railway transshipment, the Jinghan Grand Canal in the Zhili and Shandong sections still undertakes part of the logistics and material transportation tasks.

For the Feng army, this canal was important enough, but for the Anhui army, this canal was even more important.

Xuzhou, the decisive battle site of the battle between the two sides, is more than 300 kilometers away from the Yangtze River, although this distance is comparable to the distance from Zhengzhou to Xuzhou, but the traffic situation between the two is very different, because Zhengzhou to Xuzhou is an open plain terrain, there are no dense mountains and hills and there is no too dense water network terrain, you can widely use a large number of equipment in the Feng army four-wheeled heavy carriages and other means of transportation, otherwise the Feng army will not choose to open up such a land supply channel of more than 300 kilometers.

However, the water network in Jiangsu is dense, and the land transportation situation is not ideal, so it is naturally more advantageous to use the more convenient and faster Jinghan Grand Canal for transportation.

Since Pizhou was captured by the Feng army, the supply line of the Anhui army to Xuzhou through the Guò Canal was cut off, and it could only be forced to switch to land transportation from Suqian to continue to transport supplies to Xuzhou.

It can be seen here that Suqian has now become a logistics transfer center to support the Anhui army to fight in Xuzhou, and for the Anhui army, the strategic position of the place is very important, no less than the importance of Xiaoxian and Haizhou to the Feng army. Once Suqian was conquered by the Feng army, then if the Anhui army wanted to continue to transport supplies to Xuzhou, it could only be transferred from Qingjiangpu as the starting point, or simply from Jinling to use land transportation.

Although the capture of Suqian could not completely cut off the logistics supply line of the Anhui army to Xuzhou, it could still greatly deal a blow to the amount of logistics supplies that the Anhui army could obtain on the Xuzhou side.

In particular, this kind of super-large-scale campaign is a comparison of who can obtain more shells and bullets, and whose logistics situation is better, because the logistical supply capacity directly affects the combat effectiveness of the troops.

For example, although the Feng army has a large number of weapons, if the rear cannot transport enough shells in time, then machine guns and artillery can only become decorations, and the weapon advantage cannot be brought into play at all.

In addition to the importance of logistics and transportation, Suqian also has another very important strategic position, that is, once the Feng army moves south to Suqian, the 10th Division of the Feng army can continue to advance westward and then merge with the 1st Mixed Brigade marching west from Pizhou to form a powerful in-depth interspersed force, and then capture the vast area south of Xuzhou.

In this way, Xuzhou will become an independent isolated city, not only will it lose the supply and reinforcements in the rear, but also will completely lose direct contact with the Anhui army in other directions in northern Jiangsu, and the defenders of Xuzhou who are surrounded on all sides are very likely to be completely surrounded and annihilated.

Based on these factors, the importance of Suqian is self-evident, and it is unceremonious to say that the victory or defeat in the direction of Suqian has been able to directly affect the outcome of the entire war in northern Jiangsu, especially for the Anhui army.

If the Feng army can't take Suqian, at most the attack will be blocked, and it may take more strength and casualties to take Xuzhou, but for the Anhui army, once Suqian is lost, it will represent the collapse of the entire northern Jiangsu defense line.

The importance of Suqian is clear to the senior generals of the Feng army, and Duan Qirui is also clear, so when the Feng army gathered the main force of the 10th Division to attack Suqian, Duan Qirui also strictly ordered the Suqian defenders to hold on and never let the Feng army conquer Suqian.

At the same time, Duan Qirui also urgently transferred the Second Mixed Brigade of the Liangjiang Army, which had just returned from Jiangxi to reinforce the direction of Suqian, originally the department planned to directly reinforce the direction of Xuzhou, but after the war in the direction of Suqian was tightened, Duan Qirui was transferred to the direction of Suqian.

"At present, the enemy forces in the direction of Suqian have increased to more than 20,000 people, and together with the nearly 10,000 enemy troops in Qingjiangpu, they form the Suqian-Qingjiangpu defense line.

Unless you abandon the direction of Qingjiangpu and concentrate your forces in the direction of Suqian, it will be difficult to overcome the enemy army in front of you by relying on the strength of a brigade on the Suqian side! ”

The person who spoke was Colonel Su Kangyun, chief of staff of the 10th Division, who was a continuing student like most of the senior staff officers in the Feng Army, and a little different from other advanced students was that this person was still a German student before he was admitted to the advanced training class. He was one of the official students sent to Germany by Yuan Shikai to study military affairs in the early days, and this person naturally could not be admitted to the Berlin Military Academy like Yang Deming's few proud sons, but studied in an ordinary non-commissioned officer school. After graduating last year, because he had the dual qualifications of a student studying in Germany and a trainee, the speed of promotion can be said to be extremely fast; first he served as a battalion commander in the field unit for a short period of a few months, and after the transition, he was quickly transferred back to the combat department to serve as a second-class staff officer, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Because of the particularity of the Operations Department, the staff officers during the period were generally highly educated officers, and a considerable number of regiment commanders had the experience of serving as operational staff officers in the Operations Department, so in a certain way, being transferred to the Operations Department as an operational staff officer was a promotion channel pursued by those officers at the rank of major and lieutenant colonel, because as long as they served in the Operations Department for a few months, they could often get the opportunity to be transferred to the unit as a regiment commander or division and brigade chief of staff, and the military rank would also be promoted to colonel.

Although there are a large number of colonels who have been promoted step by step from company commanders, battalion commanders, deputy regiments, and regiment commanders in the Feng army, it is difficult for most of these people to cross the threshold of major generals and then become senior generals. Middle-level officers who are really pinned on by the top level and focus on cultivation are often specially arranged by the Quanxu Department to rotate positions in different departments to accumulate enough experience, and at the same time, frequent transfers make their information richer, so that they can be silenced when they are promoted.

From the battalion commander of the field unit, to the staff officer of the key department, the section chiefs of the high command, and even the civilians, these are all things that those proud sons of heaven need to go through one by one, and their tenure in a certain post is usually not too long, and there will not be a situation where they have worked hard in the same post for many years, which can be seen from those operational staff officers who frequently come and go in the combat department.

Based on this promotion mechanism of the Feng Army, the War Department served as a cradle for senior generals in the Feng Army, especially for officers from the infantry department.

Su Kangyun also served as a staff officer in the operations department, but unlike ordinary people who served as ordinary combat staff officers and then transferred to the field unit to serve as the regiment commander, he was promoted to the chief of the fifth section of the combat department after accumulating merit in the combat department, and after being promoted to the rank of colonel, he was transferred to the field unit to serve as the regiment commander.

But to tell the truth, his appointment as regiment commander was only a transition, and even he didn't know that several senior generals in the military had already noticed him, believing that his staff skills were quite outstanding, and intended to train him to be an outstanding senior staff officer.

Therefore, after serving as the regiment commander for only a few months at the beginning of the year, he was transferred to the 10th Division as the division chief of staff, and if he was a good one, then he would be promoted to the chief of staff of the army or return to the headquarters to serve as the chief of a certain department, and the subsequent direction was to move towards the post of chief of operations division, which is known as the most promising major general in the army.

As long as you have the experience of serving as the head of the operations department, then in the future, after going around the field unit and serving as the brigade commander, then it is logical to move forward to the position of division commander in the DPRK and China.

Don't look at Su Kangyun's service experience and subsequent promotions, which are more cumbersome, but in fact, the time required is much faster than those traditional officers, such as those colonels who have been promoted through traditional channels, although on the surface they are only one step away from the brigade commander, but in fact, the vast majority of people are impossible to cross the threshold of the lesser general.

You see how many colonel-level officers there are in the Soviet Army, but there are only so many positions of senior generals, and there are so many positions, and the promotion system of the Feng Army is also different from other warlord troops, other warlord troops are basically the battalion commander to the regiment commander, the regiment commander to the brigade commander, and the brigade commander to the division commander, but this is not the case in the Feng army, even if the brigade commander is promoted and the position is vacated, then the regiment commander below cannot directly take over the position of the top brigade commander, but is transferred from other places to directly serve as the brigade commander. So if you want to cross the regiment commander to the brigade commander, and the brigade commander to the division commander, like in other warlord troops, the possibility is almost completely negligible.

Seeing Su Kangyun introducing the current Suqian battle situation, several officers below, even Wu Peifu, who had been promoted to major general, were a little envious.