The 200,000 field strength of the Anhui army is even more than the current 170,000 field strength of the Feng army.

It's just that there is a big difference between the elite main forces of the two, the main forces of the Feng army are the third, ninth, and tenth divisions, as well as the fourteenth division that has not yet been tested by large-scale wars, and the fourth mixed brigade can barely be regarded as one of the main forces, and the total number of cavalry and artillery units is about 70,000 or 80,000. And the Anhui army can be called the main force of only 30,000 or 40,000.

Although the first, eighth, eleventh, and thirteenth divisions of the Feng army going south and the first mixed brigade are considered second-line troops in the Feng army, their combat effectiveness is not bad, at least much stronger than the provincial armies of other warlords, although the provincial army on the Anhui side also has a few troops, such as the sixth division of Liangjiang, whose combat effectiveness is not bad, but the vast majority of the Liangjiang provincial army still can't defeat these second-line troops of the Feng army.

On the whole, due to the factors of officers' and weapons, as well as the level of training, the combat effectiveness of the Anhui army as a whole is inferior to that of the Feng army.

However, in the direction of the two rivers, the gap between the two sides is not so big, although the Feng army has 170,000 main forces, but there are more troops left behind in Henan and the north, and the troops that can participate in the war in the direction of the two rivers are only about 100,000 people, and the Anhui army on the opposite side has more than 100,000 troops in the direction of the two rivers, and with the end of the war in the direction of Guangdong, the Anhui army has drawn a large number of troops to the north, including the second mixed brigade of the Central Army, the main force of the Anhui army second only to the fourth division.

Although this second mixed brigade bears the name of a mixed brigade, its actual strength has already swelled to more than 10,000 people, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a division; this brigade, like the previous Fourth Division, fought in almost half of China when it went south to fight, experienced dozens of battles, won successive battles without tasting a single defeat, had extremely rich combat experience, had relatively high officers and soldiers, had high morale, and had not yet lost a single weapon; it was said to be a brigade, but it had two artillery regiments under its jurisdiction, with a total of nearly 40 barreled artillery pieces and no less than 40 heavy machine guns. This kind of mixed brigade is also unique in China.

The Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade are the main forces, supplemented by nearly 100,000 provincial troops, which are the main strength of the Anhui Army in the direction of the Yangtze River.

Purely in terms of the comparison of troops, in fact, the Feng army in the direction of the two rivers is less than the Anhui army, but at present, the Feng army is on the offensive, and the Anhui army can only passively defend, which is enough to show that sometimes the number does not explain a qiē.

After Fang Biyong finished talking about the Anhui army, he also talked about the situation in the Southern Federation by the way, but at present, the Southern Federation is not a big problem for Zhao Dongyun, before Duan Qirui is solved, he will not have direct contact with the Southern Federation, and the recent changes in the Southern Federation are not big, Hubei and Hunan are still the same, Zhang Zhidong's wrist is still quite good, not only blocking Wang Shizhen in Hubei, but also blocking the attack of the Anhui army in Hunan. Zhao Erxun of Shaanxi and Gansu is also good, with a nineteenth town, Wu Fengling is stunned to have the title of the patrol envoy of Shaanxi, Gansu and Jin, but he cannot enter the Shaanxi and Gansu regions.

Since the fall of the tenth town and the defeat of Xiliang in Chaozhou, the end side is difficult to support, and after losing Guangzhou, it can only retreat to the western part of Guangdong, but fortunately, after taking Guangzhou, Duan Qirui believes that the overall situation of Guangdong has been decided, and a large number of troops, including the second mixed brigade, have been transferred north to reinforce the Yangtze River defense line, leaving only one Jiang Guidi's sixth mixed brigade and more than 10,000 provincial army troops in Guangdong, otherwise the end side is now estimated to lose even Guangxi.

After Fang Biyong briefly introduced the current troop deployment of various armies in China, the meeting soon entered the main topic, that is, the battle plan for crossing the river.

At this time, Fang Biyong had already sat down again, and then Shi Yanglin, the head of the Operations Division, stood up, walked to the large map next to him and said, "President, commanders, colleagues.

After many months of planning, and in accordance with the many deductions of many colleagues in our Operations Division, our Operations Division has now formulated a preliminary plan for the river-crossing operation, and I hope that today's commanders can put forward more proposals to improve the river-crossing operation plan together! ”

After speaking, he picked up his baton, then pointed to the map and began: "According to the many deductions of my colleagues in the combat department, it is believed that our army will go south to conquer the Jiangnan region, and its biggest obstacle is the enemy's fourth division entrenched in the direction of Jinling and the enemy's second mixed brigade on the front line of Wuhu.

If our army launches a frontal battle to cross the river in this area, it will encounter heavy fire from the enemy, and even if it can cross the river along the river, I am afraid it will suffer heavy losses. In order to avoid encountering heavy losses during the crossing of the river, the colleagues of the Operations Department unanimously agreed that the crossing point of our army must bypass the frontal enemy in Jinling and Wuhu.

Based on this, we selected Taiping Province and Prefecture (present-day Ma'anshan and He County) as the first place to cross the river, which is located between Wuhu and Jinling, and the enemy is about 50 kilometers away from Jinling and Wuhu, and once the enemy discovers our crossing site, it will take at least two days to send the main force from these two places to intercept it. And two days is enough time for us to transport the first batch of troops across the river, so as to establish a solid forward position in Dangtu to meet the follow-up troops crossing the river! ”

As he spoke, Shi Yanglin took out a detailed military map of Hezhou and the nearby areas, and continued: "There is still a sandbar on the river in this place, about 1.5 kilometers wide, and the use of this sandbar can greatly reduce the difficulty of our pontoon bridge, speed up the erection of the pontoon bridge, and transport heavy weapons across the shore in time. ”

"In order to cooperate with the smooth development of the troops crossing the river, our army needs to launch a companion attack in the direction of Wuhu and Jinling, so as to confuse the enemy's sight and delay the enemy's reinforcements!"

"Before that, in order to further confuse the enemy's judgment of the location of our army's crossing of the river, our army can launch an appropriate offensive in the direction of northern Jiangsu, and even send naval transport troops to land in Shanghai in the specific form, and then conquer the Songhu Fort, after conquering the Songhu Fort, use ships to carry troops from Nantong to cross the river to further strengthen the number of troops on the south bank, and then attack the Jiangyin Fort, once the Jiangyin Fort, then the naval ships can enter the Yangtze River basin and go straight to Jinling to provide frontal naval artillery fire support for our army, to cover the crossing of the river by the main forces in the direction of northern Jiangsu. ”

Shi Yanglin's explanation is quite long and slightly dull, from the beginning of the general direction, and then to the detailed deployment of each division, to the establishment of logistics supply lines, etc., almost taking into account every aspect of the river-crossing operation, and this river-crossing operation plan is not just about crossing the river, in fact, the river-crossing operation plan is just the beginning, and the more important thing in the back is how to completely conquer the Jiangnan region and annihilate Duan Qirui's Fourth Division, the Second Mixed Brigade and other troops.

For example, after taking Jinling, the battle plan requires the troops to quickly move south to capture Hangzhou, an important city in northern Zhejiang, and at the same time send troops to continue south to Jiangxi, and capture all regions including southern Jiangsu, southern Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang in one fell swoop.

The text description of this plan alone is more than 50 pages long, and the plan covers the movement and deployment of all troops of the Feng army.

For most of the half an hour of Shi Yanglin's explanation, his throat was so dry that he drank water several times.

"The above is the preliminary plan for the operation plan for crossing the river drawn up by our War Department, and since the plan has been drafted, there are still many deficiencies, and I hope that the president, all commanders, and colleagues will forgive and correct them!"

After Shi Yanglin said that, he did not return to his seat, his work was not completed at this time, as the specific person in charge of the plan, he still had to answer the questions of the people present.

And the various questions that followed also made Shi Yanglin, the person in charge of large-scale strategic planning for the first time, feel a lot of pressure, and at this time, he felt the kind of pressure borne by Yang Deming, the former director of the Operations Department, for the first time.

As the chief of the operations department, known as the most powerful major general in the Soviet Feng army, he is certainly extremely beautiful, but he is responsible for the actual command of the entire Feng army, and the pressure he bears is also enormous.

Since he took office as the head of the operations department, he has not rested for even a day, many times he even sleeps in the staff department, and he is busy with all kinds of strategic arrangements and plans every day, and not only busy, but more importantly, his casual decision will affect the survival of the front-line army, this kind of power brings a huge responsibility, if the combat plan of the combat department leads the front-line troops to suffer a fiasco, then he Shi Yanglin is estimated to immediately change from the most prominent young man in the Feng army to a street rat that everyone shouts and beats.

The pressure he bears is not something that everyone can bear.

Soon, the questioning came, and the first person to speak was Cao Kun, the first commander of the 15th Division, who was also the highest-ranking field officer in this conference room today.

"If our army crosses the river in Hezhou in southern Anhui and is only 50 kilometers away from the enemy in Jinling and Wuhu, and the combat department thinks that it will take two days for the enemy to arrive in Dangtu from 50 kilometers away, Cao does not dare to agree.

There is no doubt that once the enemy discovers the place where our army crosses the river, it is bound to do everything possible to intercept it, and in this case, it is impossible for the enemy army to march as usual, but will adopt the mode of marching lightly and marching day and night, and whether it is our army, the Anhui army, or other armies, when the lightly armed troops march day and night, the situation of marching 40 kilometers a day is always preserved, and last year, when the enemy's Fourth Division retreated and our third division pursued, there was a record of a forced march of more than 40 kilometers in one day. Therefore, once our army crosses the river in the Hezhou area, it is very likely that the time for the enemy to come to intercept it will be one and a half days or even only one day, if this is the case, it will have a heavy impact on the troops crossing the river, and it is even possible to lead to the failure of crossing the river! Is the War Department overly optimistic about this? ”

Although Cao Kun's words did not directly deny the feasibility of crossing the river in Hezhou and Dangtu, he also kept great doubts!

If you want to avoid the enemy in Jinling and Wuhu, and want to cut off from it and separate the two main forces of the Anhui army, this idea is good, but the difficulty is extremely great, let alone cut off the connection between the fourth division and the second mixed brigade, it is estimated that the river-crossing troops will be attacked by the fourth division and the second mixed brigade, and then the end of the river-crossing troops of the Feng army will be properly annihilated!

In the face of Cao Kun's questioning, Shi Yanglin immediately explained: "The Operations Department has already considered the emergence of this situation, and we have two solutions to this, the first is that although it is impossible for the first batch of troops to cross the river to carry a large number of artillery, it is not a problem to carry a large number of heavy machine guns and mortars.

Second, before crossing the river, our army will also launch large-scale accompanying attacks in Wuhu and Jinling to attract the enemy's attention in the early stage, and in the later stage, it will delay the enemy's main force to reinforce the direction of Dangtu.

Under the attack of the main force of our army, it is unlikely that Duan Qirui will send the main forces such as the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade to Dangtu for reinforcements! ”

Shi Yanglin didn't say it very much, because the war was already full of uncertainty, and before the fight, Shi Yang couldn't be sure whether the accompanying attack in the direction of Jinling and Wuhu could firmly contain the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade, he just thought that this was unlikely!

As for war, no one dares to say that their predictions are 100% correct, but as long as there is a greater chance of success, then as a qualified general, he should not hesitate to do it.

After Cao Kun listened, although he still disagreed with Shi Yanglin's opinion, he did not continue to argue, because what he wanted to do today was to express his opinions on behalf of the generals of the field troops of the vast number of southbound troops, and these opinions only need to let Zhao Dongyun know, there is no need to directly argue with Shi Yanglin about anything, that is not his task.

However, Cao Kun stopped talking, but Cheng Biguang, the director of the Navy Department on the side, spoke with an embarrassed face.