During his tenure as head of the Operations Division, Yang Deming had participated in countless high-level strategic military meetings of the General Command, and now it was naturally difficult for him to face a battle-level combat meeting, so he stood up, and then walked calmly to the map on the wall and said aloud:

"All the commanders and colleagues also know that although our army is now gathered on the front line of Xuzhou, the number of troops is unprecedented, but the Anhui army on the opposite side has also gathered at least 80,000 troops on the front line of Xuzhou, Jiangbei, and according to the intelligence reality of the intelligence department, the Anhui army is still continuing to send troops from other places in Liangjiang to reinforce the front line in northern Jiangsu!

In addition to the Anhui army in northern Jiangsu, there are more than 10,000 Lu troops of Zhang Huaizhi on the front line of Suzhou, but it is worth noting that with the entry of Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division into Anhui, it seems that there is a certain contradiction with the Lu army, and the information of the intelligence department shows that the Lu army has begun to gather the troops originally reinforced in the Suzhou line in the area of Fengyang Mansion to guard against Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division. From this point of view, it must have relieved a small amount of pressure on our army! ”

"However, Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division is entrenched in the border area of Henan and Anhui, which also makes the commander's plan to send the Third Army to go deep into the hinterland of Anhui in vain, and if the two are offset, it will have little impact on the overall impact of our army!"

"At present, the strategic core of our army is still in northern Jiangsu, especially the Xuzhou line, since the day before yesterday after the 10th division of our army conquered Pizhou, our army from the east to attack Xuzhou's flank danger has been eliminated, and in the western direction of our army's first army will certainly face the danger of the flank of the Suzhou Lu army, but the Lu army has not seen any signs of moving north, even if it goes north, our army only needs to divide a brigade to stop the department.

Many units of our army have been resting for many days, the whole army is full of body, and in terms of morale, our army has not tasted defeat since entering the customs battle, and the morale of the whole army, whether it is officers or soldiers, is high, and the whole army is determined to fight to the death for the president!

In terms of ordnance and soldiers, although the various departments of our army were damaged in the entry into the customs and the southward operation, after many personnel replenishments and the addition of defection soldiers, all departments in the personnel have basically remained in a state of full establishment, and we have always been equipped with light weapons, and although there has been a slight loss in heavy weapons, most of the losses in the heavy weapons of the various departments have been replenished after the replenishment of captured enemy artillery and heavy machine guns and some artillery, machine guns and other weapons urgently transferred by the ordnance department. Although the state of our army's various units is not as good as before entering the customs, it is still in a state of full capacity.

Logistically, the Quartermaster Department and Ordnance Department of the General Headquarters have made use of the large quantities of supplies provided to our combat units by the Jinghan Railway, maritime transport, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the front-line troops have stockpiled more than 150 rounds of artillery shells for each barreled artillery, more than 80 rounds of shells for each small- and medium-caliber mortar, more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition for each heavy machine gun, more than 500 rounds of ammunition for light machine guns, and more than 150 rounds of ammunition for rifles. With half a month of fodder for our army's existing cavalry and logistical horses, and ten days' rations for the soldiers, the ammunition, grain and grass and other logistical materials currently hoarded on the front line are enough for us to launch a large-scale campaign that lasts for half a month!

Combined with the above, the Ministry believes that it has the conditions to launch a general attack on Xuzhou! ”

Yang Deming continued: "Since the high command asked us to act cautiously, and did not give us too tight a time limit, the headquarters believed that the attack should be carried out step by step.

First of all, the first step is that we should send the 20th Brigade to capture Pizhou to continue westward, completely block the connection between Suqian and Xuzhou in the southwest direction, and cut off the channel for the Anhui army to reinforce from Suqian to Xuzhou.

In the second step, we should send a brigade of troops south to Suzhou to prevent Zhang Huaizhi's division of the Lu army in the direction of Suzhou from going north to reinforce ......"

As Yang Deming slowly said sentence by sentence, what was presented was not only a battle of Xuzhou, but a whole battle of northern Jiangsu around Xuzhou!

The battle carried out by the Feng army and the Anhui army and the Lu army was a large-scale decisive battle between the two sides in a narrow sense, but in fact the battlefield was not only in Xuzhou, but spread throughout the entire northern Jiangsu region and the Suzhou region in northern Anhui, the width of the battlefield reached more than 200 kilometers, although limited by the small number of troops on both sides, the sum of the three parties did not exceed 200,000, and the scale of the Xuzhou Campaign in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in the later world and the Huaihai Campaign of the two sides of the Communist Civil War cannot be compared. But for contemporary China, it is already an unprecedented large-scale battle.

In this way, it is not difficult to understand why it is the Battle of Xuzhou, but the battle between the two sides in the early stage is concentrated in the peripheral areas of Xuzhou and other fronts in northern Jiangsu, because other fronts can directly affect the final decisive battle between the two sides in Xuzhou.

The Feng army tried to defeat the main force of the Anhui army in Xuzhou in one fell swoop and suppress Duan Qirui's expansion momentum, and the Anhui army also tried to rely on the nail of Xuzhou to block the Feng army, so as to gain more time to take the southern provinces and digest the fruits of victory in the Liangjiang region, for either side, they could not tolerate defeat!

And with the outbreak of battles in the outlying areas of Xuzhou, the Feng army's attack on the city of Xuzhou itself also began.

On 6 October, after a thousand-kilometer maneuver, railway transportation, and horse traction, the Feng army finally pulled more than 20 100-mm cannons from the two independent heavy artillery battalions onto the front line in Xuzhou, and set up in the western suburbs of Xuzhou, launching the first round of large-scale artillery bombardment of Xuzhou.

Subsequently, a large number of 75-millimeter field battles gathered by various units in the Feng army were also set up one after another, and large-scale artillery bombardment was carried out towards Xuzhou in the distance!

The first army and the second army of the seventy-five millimeter, one hundred millimeter field artillery combined number of as high as more than 100, more than the mountain artillery in their hands, the pre-Qing era's beginning, according to the Beiyang establishment of the Beiyang Standing Army, Fengtian Standing Army or other provinces of the new army, the infantry division of the artillery regiment is generally two field artillery battalions and one mountain artillery battalion, and the regular troops of the contemporary domestic warlords are basically the establishment of the Beiyang era, although the details of the establishment of each warlord are different, But it's basically the same, so under normal circumstances, in a unit, its field artillery is generally more than the mountain artillery.

But this situation can only be said to be the most ideal situation, only a few main divisions of the Feng army and a few divisions under Wang Yingkai before can do this, and then there are only a few descendants of the warlords of the old Beiyang era, and the rest Whether it is the newly expanded troops of the Beiyang warlords, or the Southern Federation troops adapted from the new army in the former Qing era, in fact, the artillery units are extremely lacking, not to mention the fifty-four seventy-five mm guns that are full of infantry divisions. Among them, there must be two battalions of field artillery, and they can't even get together three battalions of 57-mm artillery.

In fact, this situation is also reflected in the mixed brigades of the various warlord units, including the mixed brigades of the Feng army, which are actually equipped with mountain artillery, and very few are equipped with field artillery.

However, today's Fengjun artillery outside Xuzhou is an exception, the Feng army can be regarded as an elite unit in the country, and these troops are the elite of the Feng army, the troops participating in the war are basically the main force of the Feng army, and the artillery units of each army are basically full, although the artillery sources of the equipment are diverse, but in any case, each infantry division can also have three battalions of artillery, but this is the point, the troops of other warlords in the country can not compare.

Why do the people of the world regard the Feng army as the strongest warlord in the country, not only because of the large number of Feng troops, but in fact the number of Feng troops is not much, the total strength of the Southern Federation is much more than that of the Feng army, and the total strength of the Anhui army is less than 100,000, not less than the Feng army to go there, the people of the country regard the Feng army as the strongest army in the country, because the predecessor of the Feng army is the third town and the two towns of the Fengtian Standing Army, which are the three old Beiyang troops, and the Feng army that expanded on this basis is whether it is well-trained officers and soldiers or weapons and equipment. In fact, they are much better than other warlord forces.

Moreover, Zhao Dongyun's ability to loot money is not small, and his ability to spend money is even greater, in the past few years, he has looted the three eastern provinces, and he has armed the troops under his command into the strongest army in the country, not to mention anything else, the Feng army alone now has nearly 300 75-mm barreled artillery pieces that can not be compared with other units in China. The Anhui army also has more than 100,000 people, but the number of artillery pieces is only more than 100, not to mention that there are still a lot of 57-mm mountain guns and old-style erection guns.

Not to mention that the Feng army still has more than 20 100-mm cannons, which are more expensive than the 150-mm howitzers with short barrels.

Why do those warlords in China regard Zhao Dongyun as the biggest threat, whether it is Wang Yingkai or Duan Qirui or Wang Shizhen, Wang Ruxian, Zhang Huaizhi They don't need to be encouraged by others, they have a tacit understanding to unite to deal with Zhao Dongyun, not because Zhao Dongyun is ugly and disgusting, but because the strength of the Feng army is too strong, if they don't unite to resist, sooner or later they will have to be cleaned up by Zhao Dongyun one after another.

This is the same as last year when they joined forces to fight against Zhao Dongyun, although the time has been a year apart, but the essence has not changed much.

With hundreds of field artillery shelling Xuzhou, tens of thousands of Fengjun soldiers wearing blue-gray military uniforms also launched the first attack on Xuzhou in the bronze whistle of the officers!