The Fourth Mixed Brigade's crossing of the river was unimaginable to the Fourth Army, when the Fourth Army launched the river-crossing operation, the first batch of troops to cross the river alone was as high as one brigade, but the first batch of the 17th Brigade to cross the river was almost disabled. However, the 4th Mixed Brigade did not complete the full crossing of the river, only one regiment crossed the river, and then the first corps of the 4th Mixed Brigade captured the city of Wuhu without the cover of a large number of artillery, forcing the enemy's 6th Brigade to retreat to the southwest.

In this way, the Fourth Mixed Brigade took the lead in achieving a breakthrough on the entire Yangtze River defense line.

After learning that the Fourth Mixed Brigade had successfully crossed the river and taken Wuhu, Shi Yanglin of the Operations Department quickly changed the original plan and proposed a new plan to report to Zhao Dongyun.

"At present, the Fourth Mixed Brigade has successfully crossed the river, and the enemy's Sixth Brigade, which has retreated in the southwest direction, has already collapsed, and it is impossible to pose any further threat to our army, so the Fourth Mixed Brigade of the Operations Department should immediately move eastward to Dangtu to cooperate with the Ninth Division in the direction of Dangtu to carry out annihilating strikes against the enemy's Second Mixed Brigade.

The current Ninth Division is inseparable from the Second Mixed Brigade, and if the Feng Army has a new force from the west to penetrate directly behind the Second Mixed Brigade at this time, Shi Yanglin will already be able to meet the result that the Second Mixed Brigade is heavily damaged or even completely annihilated by his own side. No matter how bad it is, it can force the Second Mixed Brigade to retreat to the south, so that the security of Dangtu can be thoroughly guaranteed, and then the Ninth Division and the Fourth Mixed Brigade can be freed up to continue to advance eastward; on the one hand, it can directly participate in the battle to attack Jinling, and on the other hand, it can also directly march in the southeast direction, and then directly penetrate into the northern Zhejiang region, forming a strategic two-sided flanking posture against the enemy forces in the entire Jiangnan region.

After listening to Shi Yanglin's explanation, Zhao Dongyun also felt that it was necessary to let the Fourth Mixed Brigade advance eastward, because no matter what happened next, but now it was always necessary to defeat or drive away the enemy's Second Mixed Brigade that was peeping at him, otherwise the Fourth Army would not be able to mobilize all its forces to launch a large-scale general attack on Jinling.

After Zhao Dongyun approved the latest battle plan proposed by the Operations Department, Wuhu had already been captured, and the Fourth Mixed Brigade, which was resting for a short time, moved quickly and then advanced all the way to the east.

It may not be appropriate to say that it is a sudden advance, because between Wuhu and Dangtu, there are no more Anhui troops that can stop the eastward advance of the Fourth Mixed Brigade.

As for the 6th Brigade of the 3rd Division of the Anhui Army and Liangjiang that withdrew from Wuhu, they had already retreated directly, and even the 4th Mixed Brigade did not know where the remnants of the division were.

However, no matter where the remnants of the division were, the current state of the 6th Brigade of the 3rd Division of Liangjiang is likely to launch any counteroffensive, unless the other main forces of the 3rd Division of Liangjiang go north to reinforce it.

However, the task of the 3rd Division of Liangjiang is not light, the division is the main force of Duan Qirui to control Jiangxi, originally the Nanchang area and the Southern Union army fighting, before the Yangtze River defense line was tense and transferred the 1st and 6th Brigade to the north, in fact, the main force of the Anhui Army in Jiangxi is already only a unit of the 5th Brigade of the 3rd Division of Liangjiang left, plus other scattered troops less than 10,000 people.

However, Jiangxi is not the hinterland of the Anhui army-controlled area, but the west of Jiangxi is Hunan, and Hunan is still under the control of Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation.

Therefore, even if the southern federal forces in the direction of Hunan cannot exert much practical pressure on the Anhui army, it is impossible for the Anhui army to say that there are no troops in Jiangxi, so Zhang Zhidong is estimated to immediately command the troops to kill and recover Jiangxi.

Therefore, it was impossible for the rest of the troops of the 3rd Division of Liangjiang to be easily transferred to the Yangtze River defense line, although the Wuhu side had already been broken through by the Feng army.

However, from the perspective of the strategic layout of the entire Anhui army, in fact, the current situation of the Anhui army is still under control, and the Jinling defended by the Fourth Division and other Liangjiang troops is not to say that it is impregnable, but under the current situation, it is simply impossible for the Feng army to take it without killing and wounding thousands of people, and it will not take a month.

Although the Second Mixed Brigade failed to break through the Dangtu defensive line, it can be regarded as successfully containing the Ninth Division, one of the three main divisions of the Feng Army, even if it was attacked from behind by the Fourth Mixed Brigade, as long as Jin Yunpeng, the commander of the Second Mixed Brigade, did not make a fool's mistake, then it was undoubtedly a fool's dream that the Feng Army wanted to inflict heavy losses and surround the Second Mixed Brigade by relying only on the troops of one division and one mixed brigade.

Although the total strength of the Second Mixed Brigade of the Central Army of the Anhui Army is not comparable to that of the Seventh Division of Liangjiang before, although the total strength of the Second Mixed Brigade is even less than that of the Seventh Division of Liangjiang, the combat effectiveness of the two is very different.

The most obvious thing is that at the beginning, the 17th Brigade of the 9th Division was a brigade that beat the 7th Division of Liangjiang enough, and then it relied on the strength of the 9th Division itself to completely annihilate the division, but now, the 9th Division and the 2nd Mixed Brigade are on a par.

As long as there is no major accident in the 2nd Mixed Brigade, which is not inferior to the combat effectiveness of the 9th Division, even if it is repulsed in Dangtu, at most it will only retreat, and it is unlikely to hurt the bones.

Shi Yanglin of the Operations Department said that the Second Mixed Brigade could be severely damaged by relying on the Fourth Mixed Brigade and the Ninth Division to attack each other, which can only be regarded as a prediction under the most optimistic situation, but in fact, even Zhao Dongyun himself did not have this hope, all he wanted was to let the Ninth Division and the Fourth Mixed Brigade work together to temporarily repel the Second Mixed Brigade and force the Second Mixed Brigade to retreat to the south, and then let the Ninth Division withdraw itself to participate in the Jinling Campaign.

This is the most direct and most likely tactical goal for the Fourth Mixed Brigade to advance eastward and attack the Second Mixed Brigade.

Wuhu is only more than 40 kilometers away from Dangtu in a straight line, and the 4th Mixed Brigade has advanced all the way, well, in fact, it should be said that it is a march, and it only took a day and a half, and by the morning of the third day, the cavalry company of the 4th Mixed Brigade had already engaged in a small-scale exchange of fire with the outer guard forces of the 2nd Mixed Brigade.

This is also an official announcement that the Fourth Mixed Brigade has also joined the battle of the Dangtu frontline.

After Jin Yunpeng learned from the peripheral guard troops that a Fourth Mixed Brigade had come, his face was not very good-looking.

Starting from Wuhu, he knew that the battle in the next period of time would be extremely difficult, and he was already fully prepared for this, so when he encountered the interception of the Ninth Division, he was not surprised, and he was not too anxious in terms of tactical deployment, in the face of Duan Qirui's order to urge him to break through the Dangtu defense line to reinforce Jinling, he turned a blind eye, but fought patiently with the Ninth Division slowly, after all, he was also self-aware, and his second mixed brigade was the trump card of the Anhui army. However, the Ninth Division on the opposite side is also the ace unit of the Feng Army, so it must be fought with caution.

However, now that the Fourth Mixed Brigade appeared behind him, this somewhat disrupted his previous strategic deployment, and if he continued to stay here in Dangtu, it was very likely that he would be attacked by the Ninth Division and the Fourth Mixed Brigade.

In order not to let himself fall into the encirclement, Jin Yunpeng was more decisive than Zhao Dongyun, Shi Yanglin and others imagined, as soon as he learned that the Fourth Mixed Brigade appeared, he immediately commanded the troops to move to the southeast, but unlike Shi Yanglin and others expected to retreat thousands of miles, he just retreated more than ten kilometers and did not move.

This made Lin Yongquan and other front-line generals of the Feng Army quite depressed, the second mixed brigade came up and didn't come up, but they didn't go, they just stayed on the side, what should you do if you let the Ninth Division continue to pursue, do you continue to pursue and continue to rush the second mixed brigade to the south or just turn around and go straight to Jinling?

If you continue to pursue, the reinforcements that the 14th Division and the 3rd Division have been waiting for for many days will come to naught, but if you want to say that you will go directly to Jinling, what if the 2nd Mixed Brigade comes up to kill a horse pistol again?

Jin Yunpeng's half-impossible move put the Ninth Division in a dilemma of choice.

However, this predicament did not last long, and soon the commander of the First Army, Lu Yongxiang, contacted Meng Enyuan, saying that as long as the Ninth Division appropriately sent some troops to support, then relying on the Fourth Mixed Brigade as the main force, then it should be able to contain the Second Mixed Brigade, so that most of the main forces of the Ninth Division could withdraw and then reinforce the Jinling direction.

After careful consideration by Meng Enyuan, he was limited by the delay in making a breakthrough in the Battle of Jinling, and he finally agreed to this plan, and it was the 33rd Regiment of the 17th Brigade that was transferred to support the 4th Mixed Brigade to fight, that is, the infantry regiment led by Fang Qingkun.

The 33rd Regiment was a long-tested unit in the early battle of crossing the river, and Lin Yongquan transferred this regiment to stay in Dangtu to fight with the 4th Mixed Brigade, also considering that the 33rd Regiment was really good at fighting defensive battles in the early stage. Because it is foreseeable that once the main force of the Ninth Division is withdrawn, although there are still the 4th Mixed Brigade and the 33rd Regiment left in the direction of Dangtu, it will still be weak against the 2nd Mixed Brigade, and the Feng Army will inevitably carry out defensive operations at that time, so it will become inevitable that the 33rd Regiment, which is more convenient for defensive warfare, will be transferred.

The Ninth Division only brought three regiments and most of the artillery and other support and auxiliary forces to Jinling, leaving the 33rd Regiment and the 4th Mixed Brigade to continue to garrison the Dangtu area, which frustrated Jin Yunpeng's previous goal of successfully containing the 9th Division and the 4th Mixed Brigade.

In this regard, Jin Yunpeng quickly made a tactical response, changing the previous retreat into a counteroffensive, almost as soon as the main force of the Ninth Division left, the Second Mixed Brigade launched a large-scale counteroffensive on the Dangtu line.

Moreover, this kind of counteroffensive is different from the previous skirmish with the Ninth Division, the scale of the previous battle with the Ninth Division was generally small, and on the whole, both sides were more cautious and the guide zhì occupied the line of stalemate, but now Jin Yunpeng could not watch the main force of the Ninth Division go straight to Jinling, and if he wanted to successfully contain the main force of the Ninth Division to reduce the pressure on the defense line of the Jinling Anhui Army, he had to break through the defense line of the Fourth Mixed Brigade and the 33rd Regiment first.

As a result, the Second Mixed Brigade broke out their true combat effectiveness for the first time in this Fengwan War!