Chapter 126: Taking Wuhan (I)

In the case of equal firepower, the battleship and the battery fire, it has always been a battleship that ends in tragedy, and this time is no exception.

As an inland gunboat on the Yangtze River, the Gannet has extremely weak firepower, with only two three-inch guns at the bow and tail plus some machine guns and light weapons. Due to the initial requirements of the design to be able to enter the upper reaches of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, the depth of the hull was strictly limited, and the armor thickness was between 20 mm and 30 mm, which was okay to block ordinary light infantry guns, but in the face of 107 mm cannon direct fire, this thickness was not enough.

And this time, he fired four 107-mm cannons, although this is an old gun from the First World War, but its caliber advantage is clearly there. Even if grenades were used, they were not something that a "shallow paper-skinned" warship like the Gannet could withstand. The Soviet Union smuggled a total of eight batches of eight 107-mm cannons to the Soviet area, four of which were placed in the fort of the Honghu section on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and the other four were secretly transported to the south bank for concealed arrangement.

There was a great chaos on the Gannet, which had lost its command line, and the sailors on the ship who had lost their command line did not have time to react from the shock of the cannons, and after more than ten seconds, the second round of shelling came, and this time there were two shells that hit the Gannet, one of which hit the part below the waterline, blowing open a half-meter-long gap, and the river water rolled in, and led the whole ship to lose power, and the lights were completely extinguished. The second shell hit the front of the hull, throwing several sailors into the boiling water.

At this time, the batteries on the shore stopped firing. The Gannet, which had been hit by four shells, hurriedly reversed and retreated, and in the darkness it was unable to choose a way, and because of the heavy damage to the hull and the great increase in draft, it finally ran aground on the shallows of the Yangtze River about five kilometers away from the Honghu Fort.

Just about 200 kilometers upstream of the Gannet's stranding site, in the Yueyang section of the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River was unusually lively, and more than 30 motorized tugboats loaded with Red Army officers and men were preparing to set sail downstream.

In the autumn offensive of 1934, Hunan was only the beginning, and the capture of Hunan. Annihilation of the key department. Just to completely clear the "troubles" of the Jiangxi flank. The campaign objective of the Red Army's autumn offensive of this year was actually a very large plan.

After the end of the Autumn Offensive in 1932, the Red Army reached a series of peace agreements with the Nationalist government in Nanjing, but everyone knew about it. This is just a fake peace agreement. But after the agreement is signed. Although there was a small conflict between the two sides in Fujian. The currency war under the table is even more bloodless, but the supremacy still maintains a semblance of peace.

However, this peace only lasted until September 1934.

In 1932 the Red Army won a heavy victory. There are two fundamental reasons for the rapid expansion of the base area and the rapid expansion of troops, and even the Nanjing Nationalist Government, which has forced the Nanjing Nationalist Government into a very dangerous situation, for two fundamental reasons: First, it needs time to digest the newly acquired territory, and second, its own foundation is unstable and the number of cadres is insufficient.

When he was in Jiangxi, Lin Han had discussed the failed peasant uprisings in Chinese history with Li Runshi and other Red Army cadres, and Huang Chao and Li Zicheng were the most talked about topics. The moment these two people almost got their hands on the world, but because of the defeat of a battle, they lost all overnight and it was difficult to turn over. There are many reasons for the collapse, but its early expansion is too fast and its foundation is unstable, which is also an important reason. And Li Runshi, a cattle man who systematically summed up the success and failure of peasant uprisings in Chinese history, wrote a paper "Against Rogue Doctrine" before Lin Han arrived in the Soviet area, and he also had a deep understanding of this.

During the two years from September 1932 to September 1934, the top echelons of the Red Army paid the most attention not to the small-scale industrialization construction in the base areas, but to the establishment of "Red Army universities" in the base areas, which were busy training cadres and improving the quality of grassroots cadres.

People and talents have always been the most precious resources. After two years of painstaking training of grassroots cadres, and a large number of blood transfusions from the Communist Party of Germany, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and returned students trained by Lin Han, and two years of hard work, the Red Army decided to launch a full-scale offensive in September 1934.

Hunan was only the first campaign target.

At the same time as the Battle of Hunan, the Battle of Jiangxi was held.

As early as early August, the Red Army deliberately carried out a massive troop mobilization in Jiangxi to carry out strategic deception and pretend to be fighting a major battle in Jiangxi.

On 1 September, the Jiangxi Red Army launched an all-out attack on Nanchang, and surrounded Nanchang with troops under the city.

The Nanchang garrison had 20,000 people at this time, and the commander of the city guard was the famous "iron wall" horse commander, and the Red Army was also very polite to this "old friend" of the Red Army. Outside the city of Nanchang, there were actually only more than 10,000 Red Army troops surrounding and monitoring the Nanchang defenders.

The remaining main force of more than 40,000 people set up a pocket formation between Nanchang and Jiujiang, waiting for reinforcements from Jiujiang to come. It is a pity that Jiangxi's artillery army has long been frightened at this time, and it is stunned that "friendly troops are not as good as mountains", and the plan to besiege the city and send reinforcements finally failed.

However, the strategic deception of the Battle of Kiangsi in August succeeded as expected, that is, to attract part of the artillery army in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to Jiujiang.

In fact, the Nanjing Nationalist Government has long wanted to abandon Jiangxi Province, which is getting worse and worse, especially Nanchang, which is also mired in a "bandit zone". Because Jiujiang is close to the Yangtze River, it is more valued as a nail into Jiangxi than Nanchang.

In order to keep Jiujiang, the Nanjing Nationalist Government transferred three divisions from Wuhan to reinforce Jiujiang, but the consequence was that the Wuhan defenders had only two divisions and less than 20,000 people.

Jiangxi was only a feint, Hunan was just swallowing the meat that had long been in its mouth, and Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hunan, was the biggest and important target of the Red Army in this battle.

Wuhan in 1934, arguably the most important industrial city in Chinese mainland, the steel mill in Hanyang, and the Hanyang arsenal were the long-awaited targets of the Red Army.

In the past two years, although the Red Army has received a large amount of assistance from Lin Han and has established its own small industrial base, which can produce a small amount of steel, produce its own mortar shells, and reload bullets, it is subject to many factors such as external blockade, inconvenient transportation, and poor location of factories, and the military industrial system of the Red Army is actually not large.

Note: To establish a complete military industrial system, it is a very huge system project. Just to build a steel plant, there are many requirements, the location of the concentrator plant is convenient, it is best to have iron mines and coal mines nearby, and at the same time, it is necessary to train a large number of qualified industrial workers, and there must be enough time for the accumulation of technology precipitation.

In the Red Army's September strategy, after taking Yueyang, it was immediately necessary to cross the Yangtze River, attack eastward, and make a surprise attack on Wuhan, especially the arsenal and iron factory in Hanyang.

At this sensitive juncture, it became the biggest variable for the British battleship to suddenly go upriver to Yue Feng (to protect overseas Chinese). The fleet at Yueyang Wharf is a surprise attack on Hanyang, at this critical moment, how can it be tolerated enough for the British to increase the variables? (To be continued......)