Wu Chenzhuang on the front line of Xuzhou, Zhao Dongzhi looked at the position of the Anhui army in the distance, and the tongue of fire erupted from the position of the Anhui army in his sight from time to time, which was a heavy machine gun shooting!

"What's going on, why haven't you taken down the machine gun position of the Anhui army on the opposite side for several hours?" Zhao Dongzhi unceremoniously reprimanded his subordinates:

"A mere machine-gun position has stopped our regiment's pace for three hours, and your three battalions are going to watch us not advance an inch?"

A young major next to him blushed, but still straightened his waist and said: "Tell the sir, it's not that our sergeant is not careful, but the machine gun fortress of the enemy army on the opposite side is made of cement masonry, and our battalion has tried to use multiple rounds of mortar attacks, but to no avail!" ”

"Nonsense, don't I know?" Zhao Dongzhi still scolded unceremoniously: "Could it be that if there is an enemy's cement fortress in front of us, we won't fight?" I'll give you another mortar crew and make sure to capture it within four hours!" ”

Zhao Dongzhi did not care about the attempts of several officers under his command to defend themselves, and he himself knew what difficulties the front-line troops were encountering, but the division headquarters had already given him a strict order, asking him to conquer Wu Chenzhuang before dawn tomorrow, and obtain a forward artillery position for the army's independent heavy artillery battalion, so as to launch a counter-artillery operation against the artillery units of the Anhui army close to the deployment.

Since when the Feng army launched a general offensive on the whole front, although the Feng army gathered a large number of artillery units for artillery bombardment and occupied the advantage in artillery, the attacking Feng army infantry units were still intercepted by the intensive artillery of the Anhui army, and it was difficult for the front-line troops to advance, so that the offensive of the Feng army naturally slowed down, and such a result was naturally unacceptable to the senior generals above, so many tactical adjustments were made in time, and a very important part of it was to knock out the enemy's artillery units.

The Feng army had two independent battalions of 100-mm cannons, in addition to a large number of battalions of 75-mm field artillery, and if these artillery units had a close enough firing position, they could completely destroy the opposing Anhui artillery units in the artillery battle, and thus clear the way for the attacking infantry units.

And the task of seizing forward artillery positions for the heavy artillery battalion fell on the 11th Regiment of the 6th Brigade of the 3rd Division!

In the face of Gu Lanyu's personal order from the division headquarters, although he Zhao Dongzhi knew that this task was difficult, he still made a military order for Gu Lanyu in the division headquarters!

Although he Zhao Dongzhi also had some concerns in his heart at that time, whether it was reality or ideals, he did not give him a chance to refuse.

In reality, he is Zhao Dongyun's cousin, this identity can certainly make him go longer in his career, as long as he has accumulated enough merits and qualifications, then he can be promoted logically, for example, in the Jinan Campaign, he was quite good, so when the commander of the 11th Regiment of the original 3rd Division was transferred to the 13th Division as the brigade commander, he also took over as the commander of the regiment naturally, and the military rank was also promoted to lieutenant colonel.

This promotion can be said to have played a considerable role in his identity, why? Because even if he made a lot of contributions in the Battle of Jinan, he was only promoted from major to lieutenant colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel, well, is still a lieutenant colonel officer from the infantry section There are about several channels for serving in the Fengjun system, one is to be transferred to the infantry brigade as chief of staff, the other is to be transferred to the infantry regiment as a deputy commander, or to be transferred to the military department as an operational staff officer, adjutant, or transferred to the general staff to serve as an operational staff officer, section chief, section member and other positions, and the above positions are either deputy or civilian positions, but a small number of them will be transferred to the infantry regiment as a regiment commander.

However, this situation is actually very rare in the Feng army, and the commanders of the infantry regiments in the Feng army, especially the infantry regiments of several main divisions, are basically colonels, and most of them have rich service experience, and they are either transferred from the chief of staff of the division and brigade, or the colonel and section chief of the various sections of the staff department, and the operational staff officer. Even if there is a lieutenant colonel as the regimental commander, it is only the kind of senior lieutenant colonel who can be promoted to colonel with a straight kick, and these senior lieutenant colonels are often promoted to colonel on the spot after a few months of transition as regimental commander. It is rare to say that a junior lieutenant colonel is the commander of a regiment, especially the commander of an infantry regiment of the main division such as the Third Division.

And Zhao Dongzhi can directly serve as the commander of the 11th Regiment of the 3rd Division with the rank of junior lieutenant colonel, there is no doubt that his identity background has played a considerable role, otherwise, even if he can be promoted to regiment commander as a junior lieutenant colonel, he can only be transferred to several other non-main divisions, that is, the 11th Division and the 13th Division.

But when his identity background brought convenience to Zhao Dongzhi's promotion, it also brought him great pressure!

Everyone knows that he is Zhao Dongyun's cousin, almost everyone is staring at him with wide eyes, and many people, even senior generals like Gu Lanyu, are full of expectations for him, thinking that since he is Zhao Dongyun's cousin, then he should also have Zhao Dongyun's military talent, Gu Lanyu They don't ask Zhao Dongzhi to be able to write military theories that shock China and foreign countries as casually as the marshal Zhao Dongyun, but leading troops to fight is always better than others, right?

In this case, even if Zhao Dongzhi plays normally, it will be unsatisfactory for others, let alone make mistakes!

Such a huge pressure has been accompanied by almost his entire military career, you can see that every battle that Zhao Dong has led the troops to fight since the battle was implanted in the pass is extremely difficult and bitter, especially now that Gu Lanyu named him to lead the troops to seize the forward position for the heavy artillery troops.

In addition to the pressure of reality, there is also the pressure of ideals, today's Fengjun is like a round of rising sun, which is on the rise, and this also represents a broader space for development, Zhao Dongzhi is also an ambitious person, he also wants to one day become a famous general in the Feng army with Gu Lanyu, and he also hopes to become the leading military boss in the Feng army like Meng Enyuan.

And these extravagant expectations are what his identity background can't bring him, and his identity background is at most a little smoother for his promotion, but if there is no famous reputation for the outstanding merits of the entire Feng army, don't expect to be able to become the lieutenant general of the third division, the number one trump card of the Feng army, let alone become the commander of the first army like Meng Enyuan.

The double pressure of ideals and reality made him have no room for refusal in the face of Gu Lanyu's trust, what he could do was to fill himself with confidence and then make a military order in front of many commanders and colleagues in the division headquarters: In the early hours of tomorrow morning, we must obtain forward artillery positions for the heavy artillery battalion.

He was facing such a huge pressure, so naturally it put great pressure on the officers of the 11th Regiment under his command!

When Zhao Dongzhi continued to inspect the battle line with the officers of the regimental headquarters, Major An Yulong, the commander of the third battalion, also called several company commanders under his command to him.

"The regiment commander has given me a deadline, I must take the machine gun position of the Anhui army on the opposite side within four hours, what do you have to do about it!"

After An Yulong said that, several low-ranking lieutenants all showed bitter faces, four hours sounds like a short time, but in fact, to take the heavy machine gun position on the opposite side is not a matter of one hour or two hours, the key is that the machine gun fortress on the opposite side is a cement building, and the mortar can't break through the machine gun fortress at all, and the machine gun suppression can't be suppressed, and the machine gun fortress can't be defeated, which is tantamount to a fool's dream.

"This Wu Chenzhuang is a key node in the Xuzhou defense line of the Anhui army, the Anhui army has been operating here for more than half a year since the beginning of the year, and has also used a lot of cement to build a lot of machine gun fortresses, and according to the experience of the Russo-Japanese War, this kind of cement machine gun fortress is extremely difficult to overcome, even if it is filled with human lives, it cannot be filled!" One of the subordinate captains frowned and said: "Now the only way is to ask for the support of the fire of the artillery regiment of the division headquarters, and strive to let the artillery units directly destroy these machine gun fortresses!" ”

However, as soon as this remark came out, it attracted opposition from others: "Let's not talk about whether they can ask for the support of the divisional artillery regiment now, even if they can, it will be difficult for them to accurately hit the enemy's machine gun fortress from several kilometers away!" ”

Although the accuracy of contemporary artillery shelling is not bad, if you want a field gun to accurately hit the enemy's machine gun fortress from five or six kilometers away, to be honest, the accuracy of the hit is basically negligible, even if you fire dozens or hundreds of shells, it may not be able to hit.

In the history of the war, this kind of development and the Russo-Japanese War of cement built machine gun fortress has always been a nightmare for the infantry, there are three ways to conquer these forts in later generations, the first is to bombard with heavy artillery, as the so-called awesome fortress can not withstand the bombardment of super-large caliber, even if it is a super-strong bunker tens of meters deep in later generations, people can use ground-penetrating shells to deal with it, the problem is that the Feng army does not have so many heavy artillery. The second is to use direct-fire artillery, including later generations of bazookas, anti-tank guns, etc., the problem is that the Feng army does not have these now, if you want to obtain direct firepower, you can only reduce the elevation angle of the existing artillery, and then bomb it directly, but the same problem as the first deposit, the Fengjun artillery is too much in the country, but it is still extremely rare in the average distribution, the third division has a total of only a few dozen guns, which has to be responsible for the artillery support of the entire third division, and now there are more places to use artillery at this moment, Moreover, these artillery pieces are now shouldering a more important task, that is, to suppress the enemy's artillery and enemy infantry, and it is impossible to draw field artillery from this small machine-gun position.

And the third one is much simpler and more traditional, which is to rush up and blow it up with explosives packets, cluster hand grenades and the like.

In fact, there was only one way in front of the 3rd Battalion, and that was to rush up and blow it up with explosives packs!