Wang Shizhen's sudden announcement of support for the northern republican government, it is natural to have a huge change in the domestic situation, first of all, Hubei, the source of the incident, almost a few hours after Wang Shizhen issued this telegram, the troops of the Southern Federation responded quickly, located on the front line of Xiaogan, Hanyang, Li Yuanhong's department in the north of Hankou and Hankou, that is, the Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition of the Southern Federation, quickly reduced its strength, not only completely stopped sending troops to control the surrounding prefectures and counties, but even sent a town to Hanyang in the south was urgently 'transferred to the north!

Why?

Because once Wang Shizhen and Zhao Dongyun reach some kind of agreement, whether it is a temporary armistice agreement or a real alliance agreement, it represents the same thing, that is, the more than 20,000 main forces under Wang Shizhen's command stationed at Wushengguan will be freed up, and then go south to rescue Hanyang and Hankou.

If the Southern Federation still wants to conquer Hanyang and annihilate the nearly 30,000 main forces of Wang Shizhen there, then it is necessary to stop Wang Shizhen's rescue troops here.

But is it so easy to stop? Although the Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition under Li Yuanhong said that it had jurisdiction over the second, eighth, and ninth towns, with a total strength of more than 40,000 troops, the combat effectiveness of the Southern Union Army had always been poor, and among these three towns, there was actually only one second town that could barely compete with the Beiyang troops, and the combat effectiveness of the other two towns was really worrying.

Among the three towns under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition, the predecessor of the second town was the 21st Mixed Association of the former Fresh Army, last year the Southern Federation established the Northern Expeditionary Army, and was awarded the number of the second town after the reunification, the department was hit hard by Wang Shizhen in a series of wars such as Henan and Hankou, but the backbone was preserved relatively completely, so it can be regarded as a recovery after half a year.

The Eighth and Ninth Towns are not the Eighth and Ninth Towns of the former New Army, but newly formed troops, the predecessor of which was the Sichuan New Army, and the Ninth Town is a newly recruited unit from Hunan.

Since last year, the number of the troops of the Southern Federation has been extremely chaotic, and the number of towns has been numbered from the first to forty-nine, and even the Southern Federation itself does not know how many of these troops are the former New Army, some are the old army of the former Qing Dynasty, and some are even landlord armies, militia groups, etc., in short, it is called a chaos.

In addition, the troops of the Southern Federation suffered successive defeats, and many troops were annihilated or severely damaged by Beiyang, and some of these annihilated or heavily damaged troops retained their numbers, and some of them were organized into new troops, such as the third town under Duanfang, whose predecessor was the ninth town of the former Fresh Army, in a series of battles conducted by Jiangsu and Duan Qirui, the department was heavily damaged many times in a row, and when it retreated to Jiangxi, there were less than 2,000 people left. This remnant was then reorganized into the Sixteenth Town with the remnants of the Twelfth Town (formerly known as the Twenty-third Mixed Association of the Fresh Army in Jiangsu), while the Fourth and Twelfth Towns became history.

The same situation is also the fifth town (formerly known as the Jiangbei Mixed Formation Association), the sixth town (formerly known as the Jiangnan Mixed Association), the thirteenth town under Duanfang (formerly known as the Anhui thirty-first mixed association), the twenty-first town under Zhang Zhidong (a newly recruited unit in Hunan, sent to Jiangxi to fight and annihilated by Duan Qirui's Anhui army), and the twentieth town under Enshou (formerly known as the Shanxi New Army).

Although the Southern Federation has always wanted to purge the number of troops, the actual situation is that it has never been able to do so!

Therefore, it is also said that the numbers of the Southern Federal Forces are a bit messy, not to mention that the Beiyang warlords, including the intelligence department under Zhao Dongyun, can't figure out the detailed numbers of the Southern Federal Forces, and even Zhang Zhidong and Duanfang themselves can't figure out the messy numbers of the troops under their hands.

In short, the number of troops is getting bigger and bigger, last year there were only about 30 towns, and this year it has been numbered to 49, but the number of troops that can be regarded as large is only more than 20 towns, well, this is also counting those towns with only a few thousand people.

Relatively speaking, the establishment of several regular armies in the Southern Federation is more regular, including Zhang Biao's Department of the First Army of the Northern Expedition deployed in Hubei, which has three towns under its jurisdiction, namely the first town (formerly the eighth town of the former New Army), the third town (formerly known as the 25th Hunan Mixed Association), and the seventh town (Hubei new army); The Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition Li Yuanhong Department had jurisdiction over the second town (formerly known as the 21st Mixed Association of the former Qing Dynasty and Hubei), the eighth town (the former Qing Sichuan New Army), and the ninth town (Hunan New Army); The Fifth Army of the Northern Expedition Shuqing Abu had jurisdiction over the 14th Town (the former Qing Guizhou New Army), the 15th Town (the 37th Mixed Association of the former Qing Yunnan New Army), and the 18th Town (the former Qing Guangxi New Army).

In addition, there is the end of the Third Army of the Northern Expedition deployed in Jiangxi to fight, although the troops under the jurisdiction of the Third Army of the Northern Expedition are often heavily damaged or annihilated, but it is still relatively regular, and now it has the jurisdiction of the 11th Town (the Jiangnan Mixed Formation Association Remnants Division), the 16th Town (the former Ninth Town of the Fresh Army, the 23rd Jiangsu Mixed Formation Association Remnants Division), the 17th Town (formerly known as the former Fresh Army Jiangxi 27th Mixed Formation Association, and later incorporated into the Anhui 31st Mixed Formation Association), the 38th Town (Guangdong New Formation Troops).

Then there was the Xiliang Department of the Second Army of the Northern Expedition, which was deployed to fight in southern Fujian, and now retains the 10th Town (expanded from the 10th Town of Fujian of the former Qing Army) and the 46th Town (the remnants of the former Qingjiangbei Mixed Association and Jiangnan Mixed Association).

Then there is another is the Shaanxi and Gansu Army under the command of Zhao Erxun, which has jurisdiction over the nineteenth town and the twenty-sixth town, of which the twenty-sixth town is reorganized from the remnants of the Shaanxi-Gansu New Army and the remnants of the Shanxi New Army, and the combat effectiveness is very average, but the nineteenth town is worth mentioning.

This 19th town has been in the limelight very strongly in the past six months, the ministry is Zhao Erxun spent a huge amount of manpower and material resources to form a new formation, the level of equipment is not bad, more importantly, this town is Yan zhòng over-formed, the total strength of nearly 30,000 people, although it is said to be a town, but in fact there are three infantry associations and a cavalry association and an artillery standard, the department is still in Shanxi and Wu Fengling's troops.

To tell the truth, the combat effectiveness of this unit can be regarded as the top among the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Southern Alliance, otherwise it would have blocked Wu Fengling's attack with less than 30,000 troops.

The above-mentioned five Northern Expeditionary Armies and the towns of the Southern Federation in one of the Shaanxi-Gansu Army are all relatively clear and regular, and they are also the main combat units of the Southern Federation today.

In addition, there are also widespread local troops of all kinds in the southern provinces, and although these units also bear the names of so-and-so town and so-and-so mixed association, in fact they are all old troops, or newly recruited, or simply landlords' armed forces, militia groups, and the like, and are not regular troops.

If you understand the armies and towns of the Southern Federation, you will find that although the Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition under Li Yuanhong claims to be an army with three towns, it can actually fight only one second town.

And whether the second town can block Wang Shizhen's troops of more than 20,000 people who went south from Wusheng Pass, to be honest, Li Yuanhong has no bottom in his heart, don't look at the number of his troops is more than the Beiyang Army, but in the past series of wars between the Northern Republic Government and the Southern Federation, basically the Beiyang Army fought more with less, and they were all able to win.

This fight is too much, and naturally the morale of the generals of the Southern Federation has been beaten, and there is no three or five times the strength of the force, let alone attack, and even the defense is enough.

In order to guard against the reinforcements of the Hubei army that went south from Wusheng Pass, Li Yuanhong began to shrink his forces and concentrate on Xiaogan when he was preparing to fight a defensive battle, and there was less Li Yuanhong's Northern Expedition Fourth Army's flanking attack, although there was still an attack by the First Army of the Northern Expedition and other southern federal forces in the front, but the pressure on the Hubei army on the front line of Hankou and Hanyang was also reduced a lot.

As long as Wang Shizhen can hold on to the front line of Hankou and Hanyang, then how the follow-up war in Hubei will change is a debatable question, and the more than 20,000 people who can't get Zhang Zhidong to eat Wang Shizhen are estimated to be compensated even Li Yuanhong's Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition.

Many intelligence officers of the Intelligence Department have been paying close attention to the war in Hubei, and when Li Yuanhong began to shrink his troops, he also reported to the Beijing Division in time.

Zhao Dongyun in Jurentang read the report and said: "This Hubei side is temporarily stable, as long as it gathers nearly 30,000 troops from Wushengguan. Wang Shizhen has great hope of holding Hanyang, even if he can't hold Hanyang and Hankou, but he won't be wiped out! ”

However, Zhao Dongyun has never liked to pin his hopes on others, especially Wang Shizhen, so he still instructed Fang Biyong: "Henan's Third Army must be ready for battle in case of accidents!" ”

Although he expected in his heart that Wang Shizhen would be able to resist the attack of the Southern Federation, he was not afraid of 10,000, in case Wang Shizhen was really so unlucky that he could not stop it, then he wanted Henan's Third Army to quickly go south to seize Wusheng Pass, as long as Wusheng Pass was controlled, even if the Third Army had fewer troops, it should not be a problem to block the northward offensive of the Southern Federation.

No matter what, Zhao Dongyun will not let the war spread to Henan!

"After the Third Army received reinforcements from the Eighth Division, the strength in the Henan direction has reached nearly 50,000 troops, although it is facing the danger of many fronts, and there is a relative lack of heavy weapons, but in case the situation changes, it is still not a big problem to seize a Wusheng Pass and hold it!" Fang Biyong said.

Henan has been the land of four wars since ancient times, with northern Jiangsu in the northeast, Anhui in the east, southern Shanxi in the northwest, Shaanxi in the west, and Hubei in the south. And in the above directions there are enemies of the Feng army.

Needless to say, there are now seventy or eighty thousand Anhui troops and the same number of Feng troops engaged in a life-and-death decisive battle, Anhui in the east has Zhang Huaizhi, and there is a Wang Zhanyuan, Hubei in the south has Wang Shizhen, and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation. Shaanxi in the west is Zhao Erxun, and the northwest is the south of Shanxi, and now Wu Fengling and Zhao Erxun's nineteenth town are still fighting.

So don't look at the fact that the Feng army has no war in Henan, but in fact, the strategic pressure is extremely heavy.

Even if the Eighth Division is reinforced, the Third Army in Henan is still in a situation of insufficient troops, which is to garrison in Xinyang, the place where the border with Anhui in the east is also to be garrisoned, and then the west of Luoyang in the west is also to garrison, and even the northwest near Shanxi is also to garrison, so many places have to be stationed, and the deployment of troops of the Third Army in Henan is extremely scattered, and it is not enough everywhere.

However, fortunately, Henan's Third Army is only based on strategic defense, and although there are many enemies around, no one is willing to take a great risk to enter Henan and fight with the Feng army.

To be honest, if the Anhui army, the Southern Federation, and the like mobilize the main force to enter Henan and play a decisive battle with the Feng army, then Zhao Dongyun can wake up with a smile in his dreams, why?

Two words: railroad!

The mobilization of military forces and logistics on the Jinghan Line of the Jingfeng Railway and the Jinghan Railway is extremely convenient, but it is not as troublesome as that of northern Jiangsu.

But no one is so stupid, all of them are eyeing each other, but all of them are unwilling to enter Henan and play a large-scale decisive battle with the Feng army!

After the strategic situation in Hubei and Henan stabilized a little, Zhao Dongyun and a group of high-ranking military and political leaders of the Soviet system continued to set their sights on the direction of northern Jiangsu, although Zhao Dongyun and others were very concerned about the development of the situation in Hubei before, but in the final analysis, the fundamental purpose of paying attention to the situation in Hubei was to ensure the smooth progress of the war in northern Jiangsu.

The war that broke out in northern Jiangsu was the key to determining the life and death of the Soviet system, and other directions were only secondary!