The battle in Shanxi was already the fifteenth day from the beginning of the 10th to the 24th, and the casualties of the two armies of Shang Zhen and Xu Yongchang were not small. In particular, Shang Zhen directly faced the elite troops of Zhang Jinghui of the Feng army, and suffered a lot of losses in the fight. From the defeat of Datong to Shuozhou, a full 100 kilometers, but also thanks to Shang Zhen's ability, he was able to defeat and fight repeatedly, and kept his army from dispersing without causing certain casualties to the Feng army, and finally retreated smoothly into Shuozhou City. In the east, Xu Yongchang stabilized his position very rarely, with the help of favorable terrain, he was stuck in Yangquan, no matter how Sun Liechen organized the death squad, he didn't give up an inch of land anyway, and he relied on the Jin army to block Sun Liechen by himself.

"Overseer, let me attack, I promise to block Zhang Jinghui's men in Shuozhou, and never let them take half a step south. Please don't hesitate any longer, once the Feng army is in Taiyuan, we will sit in the lonely city, as long as they divide their troops into Jinnan, then we will die. Fu Zuoyi, who gained Yan Xishan's trust and served as the commander of the Taiyuan garrison, has been begging to see Yan Xishan every day, in short, he wants to lead his troops north to defend Shuozhou and block the iron hooves of Feng's army going south.

Yan Xishan didn't understand military affairs, and what he was worried about was that Taiyuan would not have any army. This made Yan Xishan very scared, what is the Overseer without the protection of the army? It's a fart. Therefore, no matter how resolute Fu Zuoyi's attitude was to ask for battle, Yan Xishan, who had been thinking about it for a long time, couldn't make up his mind.

Fu Zuoyi was anxious, he shouted at Yan Xishan: "Overseer, if Shuozhou loses again, the entire battle situation will be irreparable, I suggest that you immediately surrender to the Southern Nationalist Government, this is the right way." ”

Yan Xishan seemed to have been hit in the chest, he didn't want to go to Wang Zhenyu until he had to, and the reason that he would rather be the head of the chicken than the queen of the cow was still very popular. So Fu Zuoyi's words directly hit Yan Xishan's vital point, Yan Xishan muttered and asked: "Then I will let Yisheng you go to Shoushuozhou, this battle must be a bitter battle, no matter whether you win or lose, is our Shanxi still the Shanxi of our Shanxi people?" ”

Hearing this, Yan Xishan's military advisor Zhao Daiwen immediately fainted, he got up and persuaded bitterly: "Baichuan, you are confused, it is obviously a mortal situation, but you still have to hesitate here again and again." You might as well listen to Yisheng and give it a go, even if you fail, we are worthy of the fathers and villagers of heaven and earth and Shanxi, and the honor of the Jin army is also worthy of defending by you, the person in charge. ”

After Yan Xishan saw that Zhao Daiwen and Fu Zuoyi both advocated a battle with the Feng army in Shuozhou, he nodded and said: "Then it depends on you, Yisheng, you will draw elites from the defenders of Taiyuan to form a mixed brigade, and you will personally serve as the brigade commander, and then go to Shuozhou." As for Shang Zhen's troops, you will also take over after you arrive in Shuozhou, and Shang Zhen and the three division commanders will return to Taiyuan to report on their work......"

The next day, Fu Zuoyi took 5,000 elites of the Jin army to Shuozhou, where they will write the most important stroke for the history of the Jin army.

Fu Zuoyi is almost an outlier of the Jin army, since ancient times, Shanxi people are good at business and trade but not good at military affairs, which has a lot to do with their geographical environment. They did not have the wealth of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, their harvests were limited and tight, and they were threatened by the nomads of the north at any time. If at this time, Shanxi people still blindly rely on martial arts to fight against foreign enemies, then they will not be able to live this day. So since the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi merchants have been accustomed to dancing on two eggs, and they are all hooking up with Mongolians and Manchurians. There is no way, otherwise, they will not be able to survive, let alone grow. Right and wrong aside, such a regional culture naturally creates Shanxi people who look very civilized and friendly, and they are accustomed to solving problems with their mouths rather than their hands. In such a social atmosphere, the life ideal of the officers and men of the Jin Dynasty is naturally to be promoted to become wealthy, and it will never be to conquer the world. Fu Zuoyi is different, this person seems to be a born soldier, and his ideal in life is naturally to build a strong army that can sweep the world and complete the reunification of the motherland. Therefore, the soldiers led by Fu Zuoyi have always been the existence of the Xiongguan Jin Army, and he himself is indeed a pearl compared to the Jin Army.

However, Fu Zuoyi did not complain, after he obtained the rank of major general and the command of all the Jin troops in Shuozhou, he rushed to Shuozhou as quickly as possible, and began to rectify the department, planning to rely on this ancient city to fight to the death with the Feng army.

However, when he arrived in Shuozhou, Fu Zuoyi found that the situation was extremely unfavorable for his side. The first thing to bear the brunt of was the morale of the Jin army, which had long since lost its morale after the Feng army had been pushed back for a full 200 kilometers from the northern front. The loss of morale in the army is manifested in two things, one is the lack of military discipline, and the other is the mass desertion.

Fu Zuoyi had to end his inspection of the Jin army ahead of schedule and summoned the officers above the company level of the entire Northern Front Corps to give a lecture: "I know that defeat has made you lose the courage to continue fighting, and fleeing has made you lose the blood of a soldier. Many of you may have never been on the battlefield before this attack, but your enemies are a tiger and wolf army of bandits. To be honest, it was a surprise to me that I had been able to hold out in the face of such a ferocious enemy. In my opinion, defeat, fear, and defeat are your due fate. And now, you are only one step away from this fate, and you can collapse at any time. But I want to ask you a soft question. ”

Fu Zuoyi suddenly shouted in a soft voice: "You can escape, you can give up your self-esteem as a man and your duties as a soldier." But what about your fathers and fellow villagers? They deserve to be extorted and looted by the army, what about your sisters, wives and daughters? Should they be wantonly humiliated by the army? Look at Zhili, the people of Shandong, how did the Feng army treat them? Do you touch your eggs to see if you're a man? Look at your own uniforms and see if your own performance is worthy of the honor of an officer. Your performance in the past ten days is simply a shame for our Jin army, people like you are simply the scum of our Jin army, and you are now living shamelessly. I, Fu Zuoyi, don't believe that anyone is born a hero, and I don't believe that anyone is born a bad seed. If you are still a man, and you still have a little soldier's blood, and you still know what it means to be honest, then don't be so selfish, be brave, and use your lives to defend our fathers, elders, sisters, wives and daughters with your lives. Use your bravery to tell the grandsons of Fengjun, who is the real master? ”

The effect of Fu Zuoyi's reprimand is obvious, at least these already dizzy officers now remember their duties, and they have begun to take the military discipline of their respective units seriously, the phenomenon of desertion has immediately decreased, and all units have also begun strict training and civil engineering operations. But the effect that can be played by just a lecture is very limited, and Fu Zuoyi chose a stick and a carrot.

First of all, the thirteen deserters who were captured were executed by the ruthless Fu Zuoyi in front of all the officers and soldiers, and no one dared to be deserters anymore.

The second is that all kinds of rewards and rewards have been announced, anyway, Yan Xishan is rich, so almost everyone has a reward. This is crucial, at least because the morale that had plummeted due to consecutive defeats has returned to normal values. More importantly, Yan Xishan is not only rich, but also has an arsenal, although at this time the Taiyuan arsenal has not reached the largest scale in its history, but it is more than enough to arm the 40,000 Jin troops in Shuozhou City.

Then Fu Zuoyi personally went down to the front line, urging all departments to strengthen the city wall and build outer fortifications, Fu Zuoyi's attitude was to defend the city and not fight on the city wall. Therefore, outside the north gate of Shuozhou, Fu Zuoyi relied on the favorable terrain to build three lines of defense, of which the last line of defense was to rely on two mountains and set up a firepower line, which was definitely easy to defend and difficult to attack. At the same time, Fu Zuoyi also pulled all the 75 mm imitation Japanese mountain guns on hand to the mountain, and the forty guns were condescending, and once they were fired, the power should not be underestimated. Due to the terrain, these cannons could even support the first two lines of defense.

As for the trenches, Fu Zuoyi, who had been trained strictly at the Wuhan Army University, strictly constructed the method of building the positions of the youth army, and even built pillboxes, which can be regarded as moving the elastic defense to Shanxi, but it is unknown how much power the Jin army, which lacks the support of a strong industrial base and advanced equipment, can exert such a position.

But in any case, Fu Zuoyi secretly encouraged himself that he must block the Feng army in Shuozhou, fight for the Jin army, fight for Shanxi, and let those self-righteous Northeast people see, who are the pure masters?

On the eighth day of Fu Zuoyi's arrival in Shuozhou, on November 2, Feng's army was finally late......

There was a reason for the late arrival of the Feng army, and they had more difficulties than the Jin army. As the battle line continued to move on, the supply line of Zhang Jinghui's department became longer and longer. Wan Fulin's division and Kan Chaoxi's division, which were in charge of the main attack, were also not fuel-efficient lamps, and soon directly stopped the pursuit of Shuozhou on the grounds that the ammunition was too much to sustain and the officers and men were exhausted from repeated battles and it was difficult to drive. This also left time for Fu Zuoyi, otherwise he would pursue him at a normal speed, not to mention Fu Zuoyi, even if Kong Ming was alive, he could only continue to flee.

Zhang Jinghui is a well-known good man, and his division commander wants to pick a son, and he doesn't want to punish these guys who dare to delay the military plane, but to send a telegram to Beijing to urge supplies.

As for Beijing, Zhang Zuolin is also anxious about all kinds of applications for materials. If you want to talk about this war, the most unprepared one is him Zhang Zuolin. With a deficit in the past two years, it would be good to be able to maintain the army, but it would not be possible to hoard supplies at all. Finally, in the middle of the year, a large number of military supplies were obtained from the Japanese, and they reluctantly launched the Shanxi Campaign, but they didn't expect Sun Liechen and Zhang Jinghui to be such losers, and most of them were defeated before they could reach Taiyuan. It is not easy to think about the Japanese again, after all, the Japanese are now going to fight against the Youth Army in the Shandong region. However, even so, the Japanese side squeezed out a part of the military supplies originally planned to be shipped to Shandong from Tianjin to the Feng army to support their military operations in Shanxi.

These supplies were temporarily transported to Tianjin for temporary storage because the warehouses in Qingdao Port and Weihaiwei were full, and Zhang Jinghui and his five divisions had received these supplies on 1 November, and they were still delivered as quickly as possible