Episode 20 Jiangsu Chase Kills

At three o'clock in the afternoon of October 5, light tanks and armored vehicles of the 6th Division of the People's Guard rumbled through Baoying County.

"Dada...... Dadada......"

"Dada...... Dadada......"

Tanks and armored vehicles sped across the vast "Great Plains of Airports", machine guns catching fleeing Qing ground crews and pilots. The sidecar was also speeding up, and the soldier sitting in the sidecar was driving a woodpecker machine gun, excitedly catching everyone who could see the run. Every soldier who drove into the airport was excited to join in the massacre.

On the empty airport, Qing soldiers were constantly shot and fell to the ground, and soon corpses were scattered all over the field.

But soon, the roar of the battalion commander sounded on the radios of the vehicles:

"Shoot into the sky...... Are you crazy ...... shooting into the sky? You're all pilots! Catch alive ...... Gotta catch it alive! …… Don't shoot at intact planes! Don't shoot at intact planes! …… The pilots are to be captured alive......"

Soon, the tanks, armored vehicles, and sidecar motorcycles that were busy slaughtering all reacted, and instead of killing people desperately, they fired their machine guns into the sky, and then shouted with their car horns to order the Qing army to surrender.

As soon as the Ming army ceaseed fire and shouted, a large number of Qing army personnel who could not run on the airport immediately fell to the ground and raised their hands to surrender. Those who are still running have not run far, and their legs will definitely not outrun the engine. And this is the airport, as far as the eye can see, there is nowhere to hide. Within a few minutes, the entire airfield was controlled by the Ming armored reconnaissance battalion, and basically the Qing troops at the airfield surrendered.

According to the policy of the Ming army, although the pilots of the Qing army were full, once they were captured, they should also be treated very well. They were to be separated from the rest of the captives, to be treated with good food and drink, to be given the best conditions for food and lodging, to be given full respect, and to be sent back to the rear with priority.

These people are extremely valuable resources, even if they can't be used by the Ming Dynasty for a while.

……

The main force of the division behind also rushed up along the highway at a gallop. The armored reconnaissance battalion continued to move forward at full speed. The entire division advanced to Huai'an.

It wasn't until the division headquarters of the Sixth Division drove past Baoying Airport that anyone noticed that the national flag of the Beiqing Dynasty on the airport office building had not been taken off. Immediately, two soldiers climbed to the top of the building, tore down the flag of the Northern Qing Dynasty, and raised the flag of the Ming Dynasty. Baoying Airport is officially won.

The division's engineers are now busy repairing the Baoying airfield, filling in the craters on the cement runway, and then repairing the collapsed hangars. Now this airport already belongs to Daming Land Airlines. If nothing else, the first fighter group will land here this afternoon. Soon a regiment of fighter aviation will be stationed here.

With Baoying Airport, the flight radius of Ming fighters has been greatly expanded. In this way, the Ming army can easily threaten Xuzhou under the condition of fighter escort, and can threaten as far as the southern part of Shandong, that is, Zaozhuang, Linyi, and Rizhao. Of course, these local Ming military aircraft carriers can also threaten from the sea, but after all, the power and number of aircraft carrier bombing are extremely limited, and they are subject to various conditions, which are completely incomparable with land-based airfields.

The vanguard of the 6th Division of the People's Guard, about 5 kilometers north of Baoying, encountered several thousand Qing troops who had broken away from the ranks and came to find the surrender of the Ming army. Thousands of people crowded the road, and the Ming army still had to open fire into the sky to clear the road.

Although it was not necessary to receive and handle the prisoners very carefully, only to order the prisoners to get out of the way and go south on their own, it still delayed the 6th Mechanized Division for nearly an hour and seriously slowed them down. According to aerial reconnaissance and capture, a third of Baoying's Qing army division remained, retreating northward, and had basically fallen apart.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, the vanguard of the Sixth Mechanized Division caught up with the tail of the fleeing Baoying Qing army on the east bank of Baima Lake, more than ten kilometers north of Baoying County. Of course, this so-called "tail" is also very reluctant, because along the way, they have constantly encountered the remnants of the army that have fallen behind and voluntarily run south to surrender, which is nothing more than a small scale and not a system. Now it has finally caught up with the Qing army, which is barely in formation.

The vanguard drove a 6.5-ton thin-skinned Lightning-1 tank with only machine guns to rush the Qing army's troops, and the Qing army, which had been tortured by bombing and artillery bombardment, was about to collapse at this moment, and the situation that had repeatedly occurred in the past two days was staged again: the mechanized troops of the Ming army rushed forward on the highway, and thousands of Qing soldiers on both sides of the highway rushed to throw down their guns and raise their hands.

……

The Sixth Division of the People's Guards enjoyed a hearty pursuit and rout battle all day today. It is completely one-sided pursuit. Beside the highway and in the fields, there were discarded heavy artillery, tanks, and ammunition baggage. On the contrary, the road is very clean, and only a few bombed-out cars can be seen from time to time.

The heavy artillery was thrown in the field intact, shiningly reflecting the sun's rays. Horse-drawn carts full of baggage supplies were also thrown on the side of the road. Many of the cannons and wagons were stuck in the ditches, and no one cared for them, and the mules and horses screamed incessantly, trying to break free from the reins. In addition to this intact equipment, the fields are full of artillery, horse-drawn carriages, cars that have been blown up by planes, and occasionally a Qing tank that has been blown up. The big guys were all unrecognizable, and some of them were still smoking, rising high in the field. It is surrounded by farmland with a flat river, and with the sun gradually setting westward, it has a feeling of "desert lonely smoke".

At first, the Ming army on those tanks did not understand why the heavy equipment of the Qing army was in the fields, but the roads were empty. It stands to reason that even if these heavy equipment were blown up, they should have been blown up on the road. How can it be in the field? Even if it was for fear of blocking the highway and the Qing soldiers worked together to push it off the road, it should be next to the road, how could it be so far away from the road?

But as they moved forward, they understood more and more. From time to time, a string of blown up "convoys" began to appear on the road. These "fleets" are not large, generally only a few vehicles. At the front, there are always one or two cars, followed by several trucks.

Without exception, these cars are international famous cars, and even if they are blown up, they can be seen to be quite luxurious. Several large trucks in the back were also burning, but along with them were large and small boxes. Suitcases, rattan boxes, wooden boxes, iron boxes, safes...... In addition to the box, it is almost charred precious furniture: Taishi chairs, tables, screens, chairs, couches...... Among the officers of the Ming army, who came from wealthy families, could barely make out the expensive woods: nanmu, huanghuali, and rosewood......

Scattered around the ruins of the truck, shards of porcelain, burned and mutilated banknotes, stocks, bonds, and promissory notes fluttered...... Almost all of the dozens or hundreds of boxes have been pried open, and the things worth taking inside have been looted by the Qing soldiers in the past.

The vanguard of the Ming army saw no less than 10 such "small convoys" on the road of more than 50 kilometers from Gaoyou to retribution. Tanks were needed every time to push these wrecked cars off the road. At this time, the commanders of the vanguard were very happy, fortunately, the heavy artillery and tanks of the Qing army never went to the road. Otherwise, they would have been blown up on the highway like this, and it would have been much more difficult to push them off the road.

Now everyone understands that this is the "privileged car" of high-ranking officials of the Qing army and local high-ranking officials. There were too many of these officials, and each of them had innumerable valuables to be transported to the rear by road priority. In their hearts, each of their vehicles and possessions is worth the value of several tanks and dozens of heavy guns. Indeed, each of these officials' "thin and soft" vehicles is worth at least three tanks in terms of value. However, it was precisely because the private belongings of these officials occupied the limited roads that almost the entire Qing army in Jiangsu had to be dragged through the fields with heavy weapons and baggage. In fact, it is tantamount to abandonment.

The actions of these commanders made the Qing soldiers below feel no guilt at all when they abandoned their heavy equipment. The chief doesn't want these things anymore, why are we still guarding these things? Throw it away and run!

On every Ming army tank that drove by the side of those "privileged convoys", the commander would look coldly at these privileged cars that were still smoking, and his heart was mixed. Next to each officer's motorcade, there was a safe that had been blown up. No official has fewer than five safes. From the smallest bedside safe to the half-human-high safe, they were scattered next to the car, which had long been blown open and looted by the Qing army's rout. Now they are like a steel coffin, announcing the death of their master and the imminent fate of the entire Northern Qing regime.

Now, the Qing army should still have 10 divisions in southern Anhui, all concentrated in the triangular area west of Gaoyou Lake, south of Hongze Lake, and east of Chuzhou and Mingguang's Langya Mountains. This area is several thousand square kilometers. At present, two of the other three group armies of the East Road Army Group have broken through the north side of Chaohu Lake and are heading west to force Hefei; One has already taken Chuzhou, an important town in Anhui, and is now advancing northwest to Mingguang, and the next step is to turn to the northeast and capture Xuyi. This leads to the south bank of Hongze Lake.

What the lightly armed Eighth Army in Jiangsu had to do was to take Huai'an as soon as possible, completely occupy the east bank of Hongze Lake, and then cross the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal to the west to join the main force of the Ming army in Anhui.

In this way, the encirclement of the Qing army with ten divisions in the triangle area south of Hongze Lake was completed.

After eating these ten divisions, the Qing army had no troops in the east south of the Huai River. Then, the entire Army Group on the Right will advance to the west, make a big detour from the north side of Dabie Mountain, and join forces with Army Group on the Left to complete a larger encirclement. This time, the Qing army will be surrounded by more than one million permanent troops on the north bank of the Yangtze River defense line and the north side of the Dabie Mountain defense line.