After the Western Route Army repelled the Northwest Army, it began to reorganize in Xi'an, organized into the Western Front Army, and began to attack many places in Gansu from northern Shaanxi. At this time, the cavalry troops led by Batu also swung south from Mongolia, and after reading the Yellow River, the mighty cavalry troops directly entered Gansu, and Batu had to lead his troops to make peace with Wang Mao in Lanzhou.

This march was unprecedentedly difficult, and the cavalry units originally wanted to attack Lanzhou directly from Mongolia, but this idea was immediately rejected by the above.

The Central Military Commission held that, compared with ordinary warlords, Ma Jiajun not only used people from Gansu, Hezhou, Hui, and Ma as the standard of employment, but also used family hereditary and religious control methods to lead troops, so its will to fight was far higher than that of other warlords.

Especially in front of Lanzhou, there is the Yellow River in the north, and the mountains in the east, south and west are towering, easy to defend and difficult to attack; Batu's troops were mainly cavalry, and if they rashly crossed the Yellow River to attack Lanzhou at this time, it was very likely that they would be completely annihilated by the Ma family's army. Therefore, the central government ordered Batu to lead his troops to make peace with Wang Maocai's Western Front army first.

Before attacking Lanzhou, Wang Maocai got another bad news. It turned out that the Northwest Army, which had been defeated in Xi'an and other places, went all the way to the west, and now most of them have converged with the Ma Family's army, and the generals of the Northwest Army and the Ma brothers reached a cooperation agreement in Lanzhou, and the two sides will meet together to defend against the enemy!

Now the two armies converged together, the Ma Jiajun actively built the defense line, they began to build the bunker fortification group, the main position on the periphery of Lanzhou City were poured reinforced concrete bunker group, the outer slope of the bunker is a ring cliff several meters high, and the waist of the bunker is a hidden firepower point. At the foot of the pillbox was also dug a trench several meters wide, the front of the trench was covered with barbed wire and *, not to mention the average infantry, even the armored troops were difficult to walk through.

In order to be able to fight together, the Ma brothers strongly advocated building some roads between the positions to run through, and the small traffic trenches and communication trenches were connected to each other.

In order to be able to strictly defend it, the Ma brothers put their elite more than 80,000 people to garrison the key points and urban areas of Nanshan; More than 70,000 people of the cooperative Northwest Army defended the areas on both sides of the Yellow River in the northeast of Lanzhou; At the same time, the Ma family army sent an elite 40,000 cavalry to defend the Lintao and Ningxia areas to ensure the safety of the left and right flanks of Lanzhou City, so that nearly 200,000 troops were deployed around the Ma brothers in Lanzhou.

Although Wang Maocai's Western Front army has as many as 300,000 troops and has an absolute advantage in terms of troops, the Ma brothers still think that they are superior in skills and have a greater chance of winning when considering factors such as logistics and supply, terrain, etc. The Ma brothers decided to use Lanzhou as a consumption point to annihilate Wang Maocai's Western Front Army, and then march eastward to recapture Shaanxi and other places.

Wang Maocai's pressure is not less than that of the Ma brothers, you must know that if the 300,000 army against the 200,000 still can't win, he will have no face in the army in the future, and now it seems that the Ma brothers have decided to defend Lanzhou, and it is impossible to persuade them to surrender, only by fighting desperately.

For such a battle, although Wang Maocai made a military order, he did not dare to relax his vigilance at all. In the evening, Wang Maocai, Xue Boling, Batu, and the staff officers of the Western Front Army discussed the next offensive in the pre-war conference room.

Wang Maocai was still smoking a big cigarette pouch, and the big tobacco pouch smoked his teeth yellow; Batu couldn't get used to the smell of the cigarette pouch, so he took out the rolled Mohe cigarette and smoked it; After Xue Boling saw it, he took out a box of cigarettes from his pocket and lit it.

"Tiger Boy, how are your armored units prepared?" Wang Maocai asked Xue Boling with a smile.

Xue Boling smiled and said, "The armored troops will definitely be the vanguard in Lanzhou." A few days ago, I went to the position to observe that their fortifications were very well done, and if the infantry attacked alone, the casualties would be very large. ”

"Brother Boling is right, their fortifications are perfect, and if the cavalry troops go to storm it, they will encounter a lot of casualties." Batu flicked the Mohe cigarette ash in his hand and said with a serious face.

"I called Commander Jiang yesterday, and he said that the above means that since the Ma Jiajun wants to defend to the death, it is better for us to take advantage of the opportunity to attack Lanzhou and wipe out all the living forces of the Ma Jiajun. The Ma brothers in Dog Day have a lot of troops, and they have mobilized more than 200,000 in Lanzhou. Wang Maocai smoked a big cigarette pouch, didn't take it away when he spoke, and showed a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"But Lao Tzu is still confident in fighting this battle, Commander Jiang has promised to transfer 4 more artillery regiments from Cui Wu to us, plus our troops, a total of 9 artillery regiments, more than a dozen tons of ammunition! Haha, even if it's a damn copper wall, Lao Tzu is going to blow him up. ”

Batu raised his eyebrows: "Where did you get so much ammunition?" When did Cui Wu's Middle Route Army be equipped with so many artillery? This kid has always been an iron rooster, and the central government ordered him to mobilize all the artillery in his hand to you? ”

Seeing that Batu didn't understand, Xue Boling smiled and said, "This is all brought by our old commander, Commander Huang." Before his visit, he set up the Hanyang Factory and the Gongxian Arsenal, which now produce more than 10,000 shells a month. The Hanyang plant can also produce 105 mm caliber artillery, 75 mm mountain guns, water-cooled heavy machine guns, light machine guns, and rifles. These two factories are not coincidental, and they are also under the jurisdiction of the Central Route Army. The building near the water will get the moon first, and Commander Cui's troops will be equipped first. ”

After hearing this, Batu understood: "I said, Cui Wu, this kid has always been unprofitable and can't afford to eat early, it turns out that the kid can't finish eating!" Ha ha. ”

"Humph!" Wang Maocai exhaled: "Batu, do you know how many artillery there are in the Middle Route Army now?" ”

"How much?" Batu was also interested.

Wang Maocai put his two index fingers together: "A whole 10 artillery regiments!" Damn, on average, an integrated division of the Middle Route Army is assigned to an artillery regiment. And these artillery equipment is not 75 mm mountain guns, the main force is fucking cannons and * guns of more than 105 calibers. Think about it! At the beginning, Commander Huang said that all units would concentrate on the use of artillery to form artillery regiments to support firepower, and Lao Tzu's Western Front Army fought from Guangxi to three waves, and there were only four artillery regiments in total, and now the team is also equipped with a lot of 75mm Bofors mountain guns. I thought that my firepower was okay, but I didn't expect Cui Wu, a lamb, to get 10, this time he hit Lanzhou, didn't he have some blood? ”

"I'll be a good girl!" The chief of staff of the Western Front Army was surprised: "So we say that our Eastern and Western armies together are not as good as the artillery fire of the Central Route Army?" ”

Hearing the words of the chief of staff, Wang Maocai became angry again: "It's a little family again!" The East Route Army was a rich Jiangsu and Zhejiang region all the way, and there was food and drink along the way; Now that he has taken over the Northeast Army, not to mention the artillery, even the planes are there, damn it! In the end, we were the most shabby. ”

Liu Jian, who came with the cavalry, smiled and said, "Why should Commander Wang be angry? Which army is not the army of our country? You see, now that Lanzhou is going to be attacked, won't Commander Jiang Xianyun's heart-and-heart armored troops be mobilized immediately? Not to mention, except for those who stayed in Mongolia, Suiyuan, and Rehe, the cavalry units were mobilized all of them, and even a cavalry division of the Northeast Army was pulled over together. What does this mean? It shows that we are a cohesive army, with no mountains and no regions, but only for the sake of this country and nation. ”

Hearing Liu Jian's words, Wang Mao was happy, he had known Liu Jian for a long time, and he had heard that this person was powerful, and those who could operate without anesthesia were iron men.

"Haha, you kid has done the ideological work for me!" Wang Maocai slammed the cigarette pouch on the ground: "You are right, we are different from the troops of the old warlords, they are all revolutionary troops, and what you and ours are all from the Chinese army." I think this battle in Lanzhou is to give Ma Jiajun a little color, and the artillery is going to blow up their fortifications, haha! ”

"However, the logistics are not very easy to solve at present, although there are roads all the way from Xi'an to Lanzhou, but most of them are dilapidated, and it will definitely be too late to repair them now; What's more, this road is more than a thousand miles, and it is easy to be cut off by the enemy. "The chief of staff raised his own concerns, to be honest, logistics is not his responsibility, but the three armies do not move the grain and grass first, everyone understands the truth, if the logistics problem cannot be solved, hundreds of thousands of troops on the front line, let alone fighting, even what to eat is also a problem?

"The question raised by the chief of staff is very important, I think it is better to do it like this, we still do it according to the previous method, and organize groups of mules and horses to carry out transportation. Although the road is badly damaged, there is still a road, and it should be fine if the mules and horses walk. Liu Jian put forward his own point again.

"I've calculated that the logistics supply of hundreds of thousands of troops alone will require tens of thousands of mules and horses, this is not a joke, I'm afraid it may not be enough to get all the mules and horses in Xi'an." Batu spoke his mind.

Wang Maocai touched his head: "It's not simple? Isn't it 10,000 mules? We have just carried out land reform in Shaanxi, and now the common people have been allocated their own land, but now is the agricultural slack season, first with the villagers on the spot, it is not a problem to requisition a few thousand mules in the Guanzhong area. ”

"That's a good way! We can't requisition, we have to rent from the people, how many days to rent, how much to pay, if we are tired to death, we will pay them. The chief of staff laughed.

Liu Jian continued: "I heard Ma Guizi say that our cavalry unit alone has hundreds of eliminated logistics horses, so it is better for us to recruit and transfer all the logistics units together, divide them into several batches, and take turns to run on the road." Isn't that the solution in this way. ”

"Okay, we're going to send people to repair the road at the same time, and transport it while building it. Maybe the battle is over, let's build a road for the fellows, haha! After speaking, Wang Maocai laughed.

A week later, the artillery fire mobilized by the various troops was in place one after another, the transportation line from Xi'an to Lanzhou was also opened, everything was ready, hundreds of thousands of troops had surrounded Lanzhou, and a major war was about to begin.