Many years later, we can see how rapid the Youth Army's offensive in Shandong was from the letter written by Shi Congbin, then chief of staff of the Zhilu Allied Army and commander of the Second Army, to his beloved daughter.

"My beloved daughter Gu Lan, seeing the words as she looks, is my father at the moment in the front line of Tai'an commanding the operation, the southern army is fierce, and Kun Shuai is unprepared. In just three days, the main force of the southern army entered the Lu border in three ways. The army moved rapidly and was extremely combative, and nearly 20,000 officers and men of the 16 patrol battalions deployed by our army on the border were completely wiped out before they could play an early warning role. Yesterday, the troops of the two brigades of the Second Army, which was under the command of my father, tried to slow down the advance of the army along the railway in the Tengzhou area, but unexpectedly, the battle lasted less than two hours, and more than 10,000 officers and men of the Second Brigade were defeated and retreated by the enemy's superior firepower. Surprised by his father, he ordered the rest of the troops to retreat from the entire line of Zoucheng, and in order to be sure, he retreated to Tai'an first to avoid the edge. In addition, I am writing to you because you know the letter even though you are young, please tell your mother that Kun Shuai has decided to abandon Shandong and retreat to Zhili, Jinan is no longer a place to live, and it seems that it is not safe to retreat to Beijing. My father has sent Adjutant Xu to take a battalion of men and horses back to Jinan to escort you and others to the Tianjin Concession for temporary refuge, hoping to pack up the softness immediately, and leave as soon as you see the letter, don't stop ......"

In fact, Shi Jianqiao, who was only 13 years old at the time, escaped from Jinan, and on 18 October, in just seven days, Gu Pinzhen's division, the main force of the Youth Army, rushed into Jinan City at the speed of a rapid march.

Gu Pinzhen's actions shocked the warring parties, you must know how chaotic the situation was at that time, Zhang Zongchang in order to cover the retreat of the main force, transferred two corps to delay the youth army in the Tai'an area. In addition to Gu Pinzhen, the four divisions responsible for breaking through from the front and taking Jinan from the front, Yu Zuobai's division of the fifth division, Dai Yue's division of the sixth division, and Tao Jun's division of the twenty-first division were all engaged in melee fighting with the Zhilu coalition army in the Tai'an area......

At this time, Gu Pinzhen obviously grasped the core point of the entire battlefield, and led the officers and soldiers of the 15th Division to kill directly to Jinan.

These Bai Chongxi were shocked and it was still a trivial matter, after all, it had happened more than once that the people under his head did not do what he ordered. It was Zhang Zongchang who was really surprised, and it is said that Zhang Zongchang was still in Jinan City when Gu Pinzhen's vanguard forced the attack on the Jinan City Gate. However, due to the unknown situation of the enemy, Zhang Zongchang chose to leave the remnants to cover himself (all front-line officers were promoted to three levels, if they did not die), and he himself escaped from Jinan under the escort of the White Russian cavalry. And the puppet Jinan Provincial Government and other institutions were not so lucky, and all the senior officials of the former provincial government, including the eleven senior generals under Zhang Zongchang, were captured because they did not retreat in time! This was a huge blow to the morale of the entire Zhilu coalition army.

It should be said that Zhang Zongchang was not a careless person, and in July he ordered the officers and men of his subordinate to "tighten the last string" and "strictly guard against stubborn defense." But the string broke if it collapsed too tightly and for too long, so after a long time, many of the bad habits of the Zhilu coalition army themselves returned, and the phenomenon of eating, drinking, prostituting and gambling, and neglecting their duties became active. Fortunately, Zhang Zongchang's troop layout in the entire Shandong is top-heavy, and most of the troops rely on Zhili, so at least half of the 500,000 Zhilu coalition troops have run away.

At this time, there was also an incident, the Zhilu coalition army close to Qingdao had about three armies, the commanders were Fang Yongchang, Wang Dong, and Xu Kun, because the Zhilu coalition army was unable to organize any effective resistance to the pace of the sluggish youth army's northward advance, these three troops deployed in the eastern part of Shandong could not retreat back to Zhili. It was obviously impossible for them to summon up the courage to fight their way out with the youth army, and it was not possible to hold on to the spot because they were in the way of the westward advance of the Japanese. And the Japanese have made it clear that they will either be disarmed or fight with the Imperial Army, there is no other way......

In desperation, Fang Yongchang chose to resign and fled to Tianjin to be a public servant. Wang Dong and Xu Kun commanded these three armies of 40,000 people to participate in the Japanese army's military operations, and the first traitor army was born in this war known as the "Shandong Incident".

In order to show punishment, Sun Wen, chairman of the Nationalist Government, issued an order that all officers and soldiers of the ministry should be regarded as traitors and would not accept surrender......

On the Japanese Shandong Dispatch Army, Commander Utsune Kazunari met with His Majesty the Emperor before the expedition and was promoted to army general. The commanders of the three divisions assigned to the Shandong Dispatch Army, Major General Nakajima Masatake, Lieutenant General Matsuura Kanwei, and Lieutenant General Shigeru Honjo were very conscientious and rushed to Shandong early with the troops. And the commander of the Honjo Fan Division, who was the first to arrive with equipment, attacked first, and first successfully forced the landing of the three Zhina Army, opening the door for the imperial army to advance to Jinan......

But now all this is obviously in vain, because the first thing Commander Yuheng Kazunari did after arriving in Qingdao was not to immediately set about winning the war, but to review the 100,000 Japanese troops under his command in Qingdao, who said that Japan did not have bureaucracy?

The orderly formation of the Japanese troops showed their majestic posture to the citizens of Qingdao and reporters from all over the world, and if the orderly troops standing in the queue were strong, the Japanese army was indeed invincible......

On the one hand, the Japanese Shandong Dispatch Army was still self-absorbed there, and on the other hand, the Northern Expeditionary Army had already begun to prepare for the Jinan Campaign.

After the remnants of Zhang Zongchang's army were driven across the Yellow River, the Youth Army stopped the pursuit, and in addition to leaving three brigades of troops to carry out a basic alert on the north bank of the Yellow River, more troops were asked to concentrate towards Jinan.

Bai Chongxi also arrived in Jinan on October 16, but he did not come by plane, but by train. It is expected that on the 25th, this airfield will be able to realize the take-off and landing of planes, and then Yang Xianyi, who is also the commander of the division, will be transferred here, and the air supremacy in Shandong will fall into the hands of the Northern Expeditionary Army. Although air supremacy is a new term, and the power of aircraft has also been generally despised in this era, Bai Chongxi has included air supremacy as a key factor in the decisive victory of the Northern Expeditionary Army and the Japanese army in the battle plan. This point is very appreciated by Wang Zhenyu, because Jiang Fangzhen, who is known as a master of strategy, has not been able to realize this......

The battle situation in Shanxi is also taking a sharp turn for the worse, don't look at the Feng army in front of the youth army like a good child, but no matter how docile the Siberian tiger is, it is also a tiger. Since it is a tiger, it is natural to eat people, and the Feng army finally swept away the bad luck of Xuzhou's defeat in Shanxi and played its own prestige......

Although Chu Xiongfei's troops fought very brilliantly and defeated a regiment of the Feng army with the strength of a battalion, Chu Xiongfei was only a battalion commander of the Jin army after all. The commanders of the two armies, Shang Zhen and Xu Yongchang, one is a well-known general in the Republic of China, and the other is a model soldier of this era. Using such two people to command the Jin army, which itself lacks combat effectiveness, against the wolf-like Feng army, we can only sigh that Comrade Yan Xishan is really a political giant and a military dwarf.

Although the officers and soldiers of the Jin Dynasty knew that they were defending their hometown, and they were all tenacious, they had no choice but to fight because their skills in fighting were too trendy, and they really couldn't do it when they encountered the bandit soldiers of the Feng army.

The battle had only lasted less than a week, Yan Xishan's hair was half white, and there was not a single piece of good news from the Jin army on both fronts. The eastern front is fortunately, relying on the favorable terrain to resist steadily, and the entire front is still controlled in key areas. The northern front is not so lucky, the Jin army was repelled by the Feng army from the entire front for fifty kilometers, it is estimated that in two days, the Feng army will appear in Jinzhong, which is sad for our Yan Xishan classmates......

The whole of Shanxi was mobilized, and Yan Xishan still fantasized that he could defeat the Feng army on his own at this time. Therefore, for the five divisions under the command of Cheng Qian, the left route army of the Northern Expeditionary Army, which had already driven to the edge of the Yellow River, Yan Xishan did not send an invitation letter to invite them to enter the country. And Cheng Qian's department seems to be really a teacher of benevolence and righteousness, a mighty teacher, and he really won't enter Shanxi.

This situation made Zhang Zuolin smell a hint of it, and he immediately ordered Zhang Jinghui and Sun Liechen to speed up their attacks, and to take the entire territory of Shanxi before the southern army entered Shanxi.

At the same time, Zhang Zongchang's life became not very good, and after the Zhilu coalition army under his name fled to Ludong in shock, there were only 300,000 people in a count. You must know that before the war, the Zhilu coalition army was claimed to be 500,000, and the actual number was about 400,000. As a result, in just one week, nearly 100,000 troops were lost, and what was even worse was that not a single battle was fought. Thinking of this, Zhang Zongchang felt ashamed, and he really didn't know what to tell Veteran Zhang.

Zhang Zuolin was very pot-bellied, not only did he not blame, but also sent Yang Yuting south to work, not only paid back the military salary, but also transferred a batch of arms from the arsenal in Tianjin to Zhang Zongchang, so that Zhang Zongchang was so moved that he almost sold his life to Zhang Zuolin.

So there was a very strange scene on the battlefield in Shandong, on the north bank of the Yellow River, Zhang Zongchang's 300,000 troops were eyeing each other, and in Ludong, 100,000 Japanese troops and 40,000 puppet troops were attacking. Bai Chongxi made the final adjustment and deployment in Jinan, and a big war that would determine the fate and direction of China in this time and space was about to start......

And in Wuhan, Wang Zhenyu couldn't suppress his excitement, and he didn't even feel thirsty after drinking three cups of herbal tea, he really couldn't help it, didn't everything he did after crossing into this time and space just for the rise of the nation and the strength of the country! Now it's like I've been reviewing my homework for a long time, and I'm about to face the college entrance examination, how can you let him not get excited?

Although it is already autumn, the rising sun is still slowly rising, shining on the top of the majestic Mount Tai