Episode 177 Two Army Groups

The generals agreed that if they wanted to attack in October, the first Sunday of October, October 4, would be the best choice.

"The early morning of October 4," Tang Yunsheng said, "is generally the best time to launch an attack. We should also have set the time for the attack in the early morning of the 4th. At the moment, it seems that between 3 and 5 a.m. will be the best option. The specific points will be decided until a few days before the attack, according to the weather at that time, the enemy's deployment situation, and other factors. ”

The generals nodded. Xiang Xiaoqiang bowed slightly to the left and right, and said to Tang Yunsheng:

"Tang Gong, my lords, in view of the top secrecy of the specific time of the attack, I propose that from today until the moment of the attack, no matter in our telephone calls, telegrams, or paper documents, there will be no words such as 'October 4th' and 'three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning'. I propose to use two code names to describe these two times. ”

Tang Yunsheng nodded, looked at everyone, and then looked at Zhang Zhaoxian:

"What does Ming Gong think?"

Zhang Zhaoxian nodded and smiled:

"It's very important. …… Do you have any good suggestions? ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang glanced at the crowd again, and said with a smile:

"It's not a good idea for students...... However, we can consider using the specific abbreviations of internationally accepted military terms, i.e., d-day, and h-hour. ”

He paused, then continued:

"D-day, which is the abbreviation of 'scheduled day of action', similarly, h-hour stands for 'scheduled time of action'. D-3, +2 hours, two hours after the start of the offensive. It's convenient and confidential. We don't even need to know what day D is and what time hour h is, so we can still use these two codes in a telegram file. ”

Zhang Zhao looked at everyone first and said with a smile:

"What do you think?"

Xiang Xiaoqiang said that this is an "abbreviation for international military terms", but in fact this is just an abbreviation commonly used in the British and American armies. The most famous D-Day was the Allied landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944. However, at this time, the terms "D-day" and "H-hour" were still relatively obscure, even in military circles. From this point of view, the secrecy function is even better.

Several generals here felt that why did we Chinese use foreign terms. In fact, the Ming Dynasty has been friends with Britain for so many years, and it is an English military term, and I don't know how much it has been "brought". Others don't think it's a big deal. Besides, now everyone knows that after the fortress exercise, Xiang Xiaoqiang is the "beloved disciple" of the two chiefs of general staff, as long as Xiang Xiaoqiang's proposal is not a big problem, no one will object.

"Okay," Zhang Zhaoxian nodded and smiled, "Then it's decided." In the future, D day and h hour will be used for attack time. ”

Tang Yunsheng continued:

"This is the battle plan that has been drawn up to today. Of course, this is not the final plan, and it will need to be adjusted according to various circumstances in the following month or so. It's basically like this—"

He came to the map shelf, pulled out a whole map from Jianghuai to North China, picked up the indicator pole and drew two circles on it, and said:

"It was preliminarily decided that the army participating in the war against the Qing Dynasty had a total of 155 divisions with a strength of 2.3 million troops. These include the People's Guard Division, consisting of 5 armored divisions and 6 mechanized divisions, and the Army Division, consisting of 44 motorized infantry divisions and 100 ordinary infantry divisions. It can be said that these 155 divisions are the most elite part of our Ming ground forces, and this time they are concentrated and all of them are used, striving to achieve the greatest results in the shortest possible time.

"The 155 divisions were organized into two army groups: Army Group Left and Army Group Right. Army Group Right consisted of 90 divisions, including 3 armored divisions, 4 mechanized divisions and 25 motorized divisions. Army Group Left consisted of 65 divisions, including 2 armored divisions, 2 mechanized divisions and 19 motorized divisions.

"It can be seen from the ratio of forces that the army group on the right will be the wing of the main attack. It will start the offensive from the eastern section of the Yangtze River defense line, and the offensive front will be as follows: Tongling in the west and Zhenjiang in the east, with an offensive width of about 240 kilometers, and an average offensive width of 2.6 kilometers per division. Army Group Left will attack from the middle of the Yangtze River defense line, with a frontal attack of about 300 kilometers from Xiangfan in the west and Wuhan in the east, with an average attack width of about 4.6 kilometers per division.

"Between the right and left army groups is the Dabie Mountain, which is about 200 kilometers long. The Dabie Mountains are also part of our Yangtze River defense line, but it has been converted into a mountain defense line. Because Dabie Mountain is in our hands and is an important barrier on our defensive line, the army group on the left does not need to cross the Yangtze River like on the right, but directly attack it by land.

"The Qing army's largest strength is mainly placed in three places, the first is the north side of the Yangtze River defense line, the second is the Beijing-Tianjin area, and the third is in the north, on the Russian-Qing border. The first task of our two-line army group is to break through on Day D, and then intersperse, divide, and encircle this part of the Qing army on the north side of the Yangtze River defense line, and annihilate it in a relatively short period of time. Once this step is successful, then there will be no Qing army that has formed a military superiority over us on the thousands of kilometers of great plains from the Jianghuai region to the Beijing-Tianjin region.

"The fastest way for the Qing army to reinforce was to transport troops south by train from the Jinpu line. And our dive bombers will carry out concentrated bombing on the Jinpu line, delay their troop mobilization, and minimize the role of the railway in transporting troops. During this time, our right army group will advance northward as fast as possible, trying to advance to Xuzhou before the Qing army's heavy reinforcements from Beijing and Tianjin arrive. It is expected to make contact with the heavy forces of the Qing army near Xuzhou and start the Battle of Xuzhou. This advance is about 280 kilometers away and is expected to be completed in less than 20 days.

"The first stage of the task of the right army group is: to cross the Yangtze River, quickly advance 40-50 kilometers to the north, and then continue to advance north with the strength of 60 divisions, and the remaining 30 divisions will turn to the west to attack, and form a pincer offensive with the left army group, and encircle the Qing army between the two army groups, that is, the Qing army north of the Dabie Mountain defense line.

"The first stage of the Left Army Group is to cross the land defense line and advance 150 kilometers north in about 10-15 days, during which time it will take Nanyang, Zhumadian and Xuchang, and then engage in battles in the areas of Zhengzhou, Kaifeng and Luoyang. This is also the second stage of the service for the left army group - to clear the customs and open the gateway to Shanxi and Shaanxi. ”

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