When two armies fight, sometimes one moment they are evenly divided, but the next moment it is often caused by a change in a certain tactical node that causes a change in the entire front.

The 147th Heights, in the engagement of the 3rd and 10th Divisions, played such a role.

Although the site itself was not of much strategic value, neither side could afford to place even a battalion on the hill.

Looking at the front of the 3rd Division and the 4th Division, which is more than 10 kilometers long, although there are not many similar tactical points on small heights, there are definitely a lot, and even if we take a step back and say that even if the place is lost, it will have little impact on the Fourth Division.

However, the loss of this small high ground caused an infantry battalion of the 7th Brigade of the 4th Division to suffer a devastating blow!

At this time, even if an infantry battalion was annihilated, it was not a heavy blow to the Fourth Division, but the battle situation was one link after another, and the fall of a 147 Heights caused the third battalion of the Anhui Army to be annihilated, and the failure of the battalion led to the collapse of the 14th Regiment of the 7th Brigade, and when the 14th Regiment was defeated, it naturally affected the safety of the entire 7th Brigade.

On the second day after the loss of the 147th Heights, no matter how hard Tang Tianxi tried, he still could not recover the retreat of the 14th Regiment, and in the afternoon, with the continuous retreat of the 14th Regiment, the 13th Regiment fell into a heavy siege again.

By this time, Tang Tianxi's Seventh Brigade was already undoubtedly defeated!

In order to avoid the encirclement of the 13th Regiment, Tang Tianxi was forced to order the whole brigade to retreat!

However, he did not order the retreat, before the retreat, although the departments of the Seventh Brigade, especially the Thirteenth Regiment, were already in danger, they could still barely hold on, but when the Seventh Brigade began to retreat, the first hour or two was an organized retreat, but under the step-by-step pursuit of the Sixth Brigade, a large-scale collapse quickly occurred!

By the end of the evening, Tang Tianxi, the commander of the 7th Brigade, had already found that he had lost control of the troops under his command, and the entire 7th Brigade had completely collapsed.

The reason why the Seventh Brigade completely collapsed was largely because of the order for the whole brigade to retreat under Tang Tianxi!

He overestimated the ability of his troops to retreat!

How well an army is organized, do not look at its offensive ability, but look at its ability to retreat, and to put it bluntly, any army in contemporary China, including the three main divisions of the Feng army, is extremely lacking in the ability to retreat organization, which is why there are very few things in the domestic warlord melee that retreat before the battle, even if it is fought hard, few generals will choose to retreat directly when fighting.

Tang Tianxi undoubtedly made this tactical mistake, he thought that he could retreat hundreds of kilometers from Xuzhou and Fengyang all the way to Chuzhou, and he could also withdraw from here.

However, he forgot that the retreat of the Seventh Brigade was different from the retreat of the entire Fourth Division from Xuzhou and Fengyang.

When Duan Qirui organized the Fourth Division to retreat from Xuzhou, he not only did not let the Feng army on the opposite side know, but also left the entire two brigades of nearly 10,000 people, and the Feng army only learned that the Fourth Division had fled the next day, and after the Feng army took Xuzhou, the Fourth Division had fled dozens of kilometers away.

When retreating in Fengyang Mansion, Duan Qirui also secretly left, and left a whole brigade like last time, and when Gu Lanyu's third division noticed and pursued, the distance between the two sides had once again widened by more than twenty kilometers.

These two retreats have two things in common, the first is that the Fourth Division of the Anhui Army did not engage in a tragic battle with the main force of the Feng Army before retreating, and they all retreated at night, and they did not notice until they ran out of the Feng Army. The second is that Duan Qirui has left behind a large number of broken troops.

As for the follow-up pursuit battle, although the Feng army followed closely, in fact, it could only follow behind the Fourth Division and eat ashes, and the two sides did not have direct contact in the pursuit all the way.

However, today outside the city of Chuzhou, the situation is completely different from the previous two times, first of all, the seventh brigade was forced to retreat under the strength of the enemy, when Tang Tianxi ordered the retreat, the seventh brigade and the sixth brigade were engaged in a brutal offensive and defensive battle, so it was impossible to do it secretly, the soldiers of the Anhui army crawled out of the trench with their front feet and ran back, and the soldiers of the Feng army at the back immediately began to pursue.

And this time, there was no huge number of provincial troops for him to give Tang Tianxi as a broken rear force, he could only call a battalion to break the rear force.

However, a mere battalion could not hold on for long in the face of the attack of the entire Sixth Brigade, and soon it collapsed completely!

The combination of many factors, the collapse of the Seventh Brigade has become inevitable, even if Tang Tianxi has the power to reach the sky, it is impossible to reorganize the Seventh Brigade in a short period of time and fight again.

The same situation is placed on the three main divisions of the Feng army, in fact, it is not much better!

Only two hours after the retreat order was issued, looking at the chaotic troops under his command, Tang Tianxi actually regretted it, if he did not order the retreat, but continued to hold on, although it was possible to make the entire 13th Regiment fall into the encirclement of the Feng army, but it may not have the opportunity to wait for the rescue of the Eighth Brigade or the Supplementary Brigade.

But at that time, what he wanted was to take the entire Seventh Brigade away safely, and purely from a tactical point of view, in fact, his choice was not wrong, after all, the Eighth Brigade of the friendly army was entangled by the Fifth Brigade of the Feng Army on the opposite side, and whether it could come over was still two different things, and the supplementary brigade was in Chuzhou City before, and it would take half a day to rush to reinforcements, and in half a day, the 13th Regiment would 100% fall into the encirclement of the Feng army, not to mention the supplementary brigade to come to the rescue. Even the entire Fourth Division could not save the 13th Regiment from being destroyed.

Therefore, Tang Tianxi decided to retreat after considering many factors, because this is the only tactic that can save the current fear.

However, at that time, he forgot a very crucial point, that is, the tactics he formulated were feasible, but he did not take into account that with the current Su zhì of the Fourth Division of the Anhui Army, it was impossible to implement such a difficult tactic smoothly.

The Fourth Division of the Anhui Army is undoubtedly enough to rank among the first-class strong armies in many warlord troops in China, and the brilliant achievements of the previous Fourth Division also fully prove this, but in the country, the Fourth Division is considered a first-class strong army, but in the world, to be honest, it is not a second-rate army, at most it is a third-rate army.

In the past few years, even Zhao Dongyun, a traverser with great self-confidence, only thought that the Beiyang Army was only half of the combat power of the German Army at most when comparing the Beiyang Standing Army and the armies of the great powers, and this was still based on the premise of having perfect logistics, and the reality was that it was impossible for the Beiyang Army to obtain sufficient logistics supplies, so the actual combat power still had to continue to be pressed, and it would have to burn high incense to have three percent of the combat strength of the contemporary German army.

After the republic last year, the warlord forces in China were more strictly divided, and the Feng army absorbed the experience of the Russo-Japanese War, and then equipped with a large number of light and heavy machine guns and mortars, as well as the use of new infantry tactics, and the combat effectiveness was improved to a certain extent compared with the era of the Beiyang Standing Army, but Zhao Dongyun did not think that the three main divisions of the Feng army under his command could be compared with the land forces of the world powers.

To be able to have fifty percent of the combat strength of the German Army, this is already enough to snicker!

As for the Fourth Division under Duan Qirui, although its combat effectiveness is on par with the three main divisions of the Feng Army, this has a great deal to do with the Yan Zòng supernumerary of the Fourth Division, which has three brigades and more than 20,000 troops, which is not surprising that you have a division of more than 15,000 people. With the same strength, the combat effectiveness of the Fourth Division is slightly weaker than that of the main force of the Feng Army, such as the Third Division, but the weakness is limited and not enough to affect the victory or defeat of both sides.

Limited by the overall limitations of domestic military development, whether it is the Feng army or the Anhui army, in fact, they lack the ability to implement difficult tactics!

And there is no doubt that retreating before the battle is a super difficult tactic!

In today's situation, if the armies of the great powers are replaced, such as the first-class armies of the French army and the German army, it is not difficult for the superb tactics to retreat smoothly, even if it is replaced by a second-rate Japanese army, as long as the commander does not make a fool, then with the Japanese army's plain zhì and tactical execution ability, there should be a seventy or eighty percent chance of withdrawing.

However, if the Seventh Brigade of the Anhui Army wants to do it, it is difficult to climb to the sky!

It is a pity that most of the generals in China ignore this or do not want to admit it, and they all think that their tactics are extremely superb, but they have never thought that the troops under their command have the ability to carry out these difficult tactics.

Therefore, throughout the modern history of the country, you will find many examples of such battles: the commander put forward extremely superb tactics, and then the subordinate troops carried out a mess of the defeat of the command, among which the retreat examples are more obvious, looking through the history of the war, there are few warlord troops who can retreat before the execution of the formation, and basically the retreat has become a collapse.

Whether Tang Tianxi overestimated the Su zhì of the troops under his command, or said that he deliberately ignored this, this is irrelevant, the important thing is that the Seventh Brigade has completely collapsed!

Faced with the collapse of Tang Tianxi's Seventh Brigade, although Duan Qirui wanted to kill Tang Tianxi 10,000 times in his heart, but now at the moment of life and death, he didn't have time to get angry, but ordered the Chuzhou Supplementary Brigade to urgently pick up the remnants of the Seventh Brigade with a black face.

Since the Seventh Brigade has been defeated, the fact that the Seventh Brigade planned at the beginning to attack in a roundabout way and play a counterattack and outflanking has naturally come to naught, and the most important thing now is to bring the remaining main force of the Fourth Division back to Jinling.

The rout of the 7th Brigade almost immediately abolished one-third of the combat strength of the 4th Division.

In the battle outside Chuzhou, although the Seventh Brigade was only defeated, but the subsequent collapse led to the formation of the brigade being completely dispersed, and even Tang Tianxi was nowhere to be found, I don't know whether he was afraid that Duan Qirui would send him to a military court to escape or die in the chaos, in short, no one saw this person again after that day.

Duan Qirui spent a lot of effort to collect more than 2,000 remnants of the Seventh Brigade one after another, but these remnants were depressed one by one, and their morale was all gone, and the machine guns and other supporting weapons were lost, and even many remnants even threw away their own rifles.

This seventh brigade has been completely abolished!

Even if it can be rebuilt, just like the Seventh Division under Wang Zhanyuan and the Seventh Division under Feng Guozhang, the rebuilt Seventh Brigade is not the previous Seventh Brigade.

The Seventh Brigade was hit hard, and although Duan Qirui hated Gu Lanyu on the other side, he also knew that Chuzhou could not stay for a long time, so he quickly took the remaining main forces of the Fourth Division and the First Mixed Brigade of the Liangjiang Army away.

Although the Fourth Division was heavily damaged, the Eighth Brigade and the Supplementary Brigade were still intact, and the main force was still there, and there was also the First Mixed Brigade of the Liangjiang Army as a cover, adding up to nearly 30,000 people.

Moreover, outside Chuzhou before, in order to severely damage the Seventh Brigade, Gu Lanyu's Third Division can be regarded as having used up the last trace of milk, and the soldiers' physical consumption is nothing, the key is that the food and ammunition carried by the army have been exhausted, they were originally lightly pursued, and they did not bring too much baggage at all, and the soldiers often only have dozens of bullets that they carry with them, and the food is only a few days' rations that they carry with them.

In the first battle outside Chuzhou, the Third Division consumed a lot of ammunition with the army, and now the situation of the Third Division has reached a more dangerous point, if they continue to catch up, the Fourth Division will give them a return rifle, and then the Third Division will have a tragedy.

Therefore, although Gu Lanyu was dissatisfied, he could only watch Duan Qirui retreat, and then led the army into Chuzhou, which was voluntarily abandoned by the Anhui army, to rest.

Soon, the battle report related to the Chuzhou Battle was delivered to Zhao Dongyun in time!

After Zhao Dongyun looked at it, he nodded slightly: "Chuzhou has been lowered, and this land in the north of the river is in hand!" ”