As the head of the Operations Division, although Shi Yanglin can't control some tactical details, he still knows the current combat situation of the entire Feng Army.

Hearing Zhao Dongyun's question, Shi Yanglin immediately said: "That's right, General Gu's third division has been chased outside Chuzhou City, according to the latest battle report, the third division has already had a partial exchange of fire with the fourth division, but the specific situation is not known to the staff for the time being!" ”

Although the Operations Office has a relatively comprehensive grasp of the situation of the entire Feng Army, it is only strategic, because after all, the Operations Office is responsible for the operational command of the entire Feng Army, not for the specific command of a specific division or brigade.

Strictly speaking, the command system of the Feng army is like this, Zhao Dongyun commands many departments of the command, including the General Staff, the Operations Department, the Ordnance Department, etc., and coordinates the strategic development direction of the Feng Army. The General Staff Department is responsible for specific operational command affairs, and the operational command affairs here are specifically under the responsibility of the Operations Division.

For the operations department, their task is to formulate a plan for a large-scale battle like the Northern Jiangsu Campaign, and the orders of these plans are not conveyed to the divisions and brigades, but to the headquarters of the various armies, and then the commanders of each army formulate specific detailed combat plans according to the strategic planning of the operations department, and dispatch the divisions and brigades under their jurisdiction to carry out specific operations.

For example, now in the Jiangbei direction, Zhao Dongyun's strategic requirement for the General Staff is to take the entire Jiangbei region as much as possible, and then plan to cross the Yangtze River south to the Jiangnan region.

For this reason, the Operations Office also issued orders to the First Army, the Second Army, and the Third Army, requiring the First Army to quickly move south to take Yingzhou Prefecture, Fengyang Prefecture and other areas in central and western Anhui, and then order the Second Army to conquer Yangzhou, Taizhou, Chuzhou and other areas, and then order the Third Army to launch an offensive from Henan to the east to capture the eastern part of Henan and the western part of Anhui.

To be more specific, Xu Bangjie of the Third Army ordered Gu Lanyu's Third Division to quickly move south to Fengyang, pursue the Fourth Division all the way south to Chuzhou, and so on.

In this way, a complete command system is formed!

Under normal circumstances, neither Zhao Dongyun nor the Operations Department will directly issue orders to a division and brigade under the three main forces, even during the Chuzhou Battle some time ago, Zhao Dongyun actually did not directly issue orders to Gu Lanyu and Ren Cungao, the generals of these divisions and brigades, at most they sent the so-called 'condolence' telegram to urge the front-line generals LinkedIn to fight bravely to complete the relevant orders.

Of course, this is only limited to the troops of the three major armies, with more than 200,000 troops in the Feng army, and in addition to the three main forces, there are also many divisions and brigades under the direct jurisdiction of the General Headquarters, such as the Eighth Division, the newly formed 14th Division, and the 15th Division, in addition to the 5th Mixed Brigade, the 7th Mixed Brigade, the 9th Mixed Brigade, and the 10th Mixed Brigade.

With such a command system of the Feng army, coupled with the fact that the Jiangbei front line is thousands of miles away from the Beijing division, it is impossible for the operations department to control every move of the front-line troops in real time.

Zhao Dongyun did not feel any dissatisfaction with Shi Yanglin's vague answer, Fengjun's command system was built by him, and he also knew that the combat department was not omnipotent, and it was impossible to control all changes in the front-line battlefield.

However, it is enough to know that the third division has caught up with the fourth division, he still trusts Gu Lanyu more, since he has caught up, even if he can't completely defeat this fourth division, he should be able to bite off a piece of meat from the fourth division, as long as Duan Qirui's fourth division can suffer certain losses, then in the follow-up river crossing operation, then it will be much easier for his own side.

Don't look at the Anhui army, there are still more than 100,000 people, but most of them are rabble, and only the fourth division and the second mixed brigade under Duan Qirui can be valued by Zhao Dongyun and many generals of the Feng army.

And this is not because the generals of the Feng army are arrogant about the enemy, but this is the truth!

In the battle of northern Jiangsu, the Liangjiang Army and the Zhejiang Provincial Army under the command of the Anhui Army annihilated by the Feng Army were quite a lot, and after the first battle, at least one division of the Liangjiang Army was completely defeated, one division was absorbed, and at least three mixed brigades of the enemy army were severely damaged. Of the 70,000 or 80,000 people that Duan Qirui brought to northern Jiangsu, only 20,000 of the Fourth Division and more than 10,000 remnants of the provincial army escaped, and the rest were either annihilated or surrendered or taken prisoner.

In the battle of northern Jiangsu, which lasted for three months, the Feng army at least achieved the record of killing and wounding nearly 10,000 people of the Anhui army and the Lu army, and more than 10,000 people joined the Feng army sequence on the spot anyway, and nearly 20,000 people were taken prisoner, most of which also subsequently joined the Feng army's combat sequence.

In the Battle of Northern Jiangsu, the Anhui army lost at least 50,000 people.

In comparison, the casualties of the Feng army, as well as the total loss of troops due to missing and sick are less than 10,000 people!

But almost all of these people lost by the Anhui army were those provincial troops, and the losses of Duan Qirui's descendant's main force Fourth Division were almost negligible!

And considering the combat strength of the Fourth Division, it is unceremonious to say that Duan Qirui suffered heavy losses in northern Jiangsu, but in fact, it did not hurt his foundation at all.

After tens of thousands of people were lost, the people relied on the wealth looted in Jiangnan and Zhejiang, and raised tens of thousands of new troops in Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and other places.

In the past few months, the Feng army has been expanding, but Duan Qirui is not idle, isn't it just expanding the army, as long as you have money in your hand, who wouldn't!

Therefore, in the war between the Feng army and the Anhui army, in fact, those provincial armies and some secondary forces were foils, and it was the main divisions in the hands of both sides that could really decide the victory.

For example, the 3rd, 9th, 10th, and 4th Mixed Brigades under the command of the Feng Army, the rest of the troops, including Lu Yongxiang's 1st Division, Bao Guiqing's 1st Mixed Brigade, Zhang Dianru's 16th Division, and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, which had lost most of its horses and turned into cavalry, were actually unable to have a decisive impact on the battle situation between the two sides.

So far, the main force that the Feng army can fight at hand is actually only the three divisions and three brigades at the beginning of the entry, and the combat effectiveness of the other surrendered or newly expanded troops can only be regarded as average, and it is enough to deal with the provincial army that deals with other warlords, but it is still slightly insufficient to fight hard with the fourth division under Duan Qirui.

In contemporary times, including the Feng army, the gap between the main forces and non-main forces under the command of various warlords is still very large, and this has created a situation that if you want to completely annihilate a warlord, you can only kill the main forces under their hands, otherwise just annihilating tens of thousands of provincial troops is at most heartache and heartache, but it cannot decide victory or defeat.

In the Northern Jiangsu Campaign, the reason why the Feng army let the Ninth Division boldly break through to the west from the direction of Suqian was to encircle the Fourth Division in Xuzhou City, but it did not expect Duan Qirui to retreat decisively, and although the Feng army also left more than 10,000 Liangjiang Provincial Army, it still let the Fourth Division escape.

On the surface, the Feng army won a great victory in the Northern Jiangsu Campaign, but in fact, the Feng army did not achieve their original strategic goal, that is, to encircle and annihilate the Fourth Division.

Since the plan to encircle the Fourth Division has failed, but the Feng army can't watch the Fourth Division slip away, this is also the situation where the Third Division is chasing after the Fourth Division, in the final analysis, it is still those senior generals in the Feng Army, especially Xu Bangjie and Meng Enyuan, who are in charge of the Jiangbei War, have great resentment for not being able to leave the Fourth Division, trying to let the Third Division catch up, not seeking to completely annihilate the Fourth Division, but at least give the Fourth Division a hard blow, if you can leave one or two regiments or even a brigade on the other side, That's better, otherwise, it will be difficult to sit back and watch the Fourth Division flee back to Jinling, and then cross the river and take Jiangnan.

These strategic considerations at the overall level are the worries of the Operations Department, Meng Enyuan, and Xu Bangjie, and for Gu Lanyu, the commander of the Third Division, he has not yet considered these strategic levels, he only knows one, that is, his immediate boss Xu Bangjie wants to drag or even leave the Fourth Division by himself.

Therefore, Gu Lanyu started from Xuzhou, and he commanded the Third Division to pursue all the way, the fourth division in front was exhausted, and the third division in pursuit was not comfortable.

After taking Fengyang County, in order to catch up with the Fourth Division, Gu Lanyu even abandoned the artillery regiment and the baggage regiment and other troops that delayed the speed, and only led two infantry brigades and cavalry regiments to pursue lightly.

After chasing for hundreds of miles, he finally caught up with the Fourth Division outside Chuzhou.

However, when Gu Lanyu didn't expect it, the Fourth Division on the opposite side did not flee back to Chuzhou as soon as possible, but set up a posture outside the city, and at this glance, it seemed that Duan Qirui planned to go back and forth.

It's just that this didn't scare Gu Lanyu, but made him crazy!

You Duan Qirui is running ahead, it doesn't matter if I can't catch up, you even took the initiative to stop to meet the counterattack that wants to hit me?

I, Gu Lanyu, have experienced dozens of battles since last year, and no one has ever been able to stop the pace of my attack, Wang Shizhen's Sixth Division was not good, Lu Yongxiang's First Division and Bao Guiqing's First Mixed Brigade in the Tangshan Campaign were not good, Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division in the Bazhou Campaign was not good, Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division in the Jinan Campaign was not good, and today your Duan Qirui's Fourth Division is also not good!

The confident and arrogant Gu Lanyu didn't think about a lot of messy things, and immediately launched a large-scale attack without hesitation, in addition to a frontal attack, he also played his best roundabout attack, this time he sent a whole sixth brigade.

But what he didn't expect was that he Gu Lanyu was playing a roundabout, but Duan Qirui on the opposite side was also roundabout!

Immediately after that, Tang Tianxi's 7th Brigade, which also carried out a detour, and Pei Lianying's 6th Brigade faced each other on the western front of the battlefield.