At half past one in the morning, the headquarters of the Guangzhou Cadet Army.

Ouyang Yun handed the telegram in his hand to Pan Meiren and instructed: "Hurry up and send a telegram to Commander Li, add this at the end, and the 27th Division of the Japanese Army will not appear on the battlefield in Xuzhou." ”

The telegram was sent by Xia Wenyun, and the content of the intelligence was that because of the resignation of Japanese War Minister Sugiyama Moto, the current China policy of the Japanese army base camp "not to expand" has become the main tone. Therefore, the scale of the Battle of Xuzhou will belong to the restricted level, in addition to the three divisions that have appeared on the Xuzhou battlefield, the 27th Division and other Japanese troops will not appear on the Xuzhou battlefield in the short term.

Sugiyama once frantically clamored for the destruction of China in half a year, but with the defeat of the Combined Fleet in the Taiwan Strait and the defeat of the Battle of Nanjing, his argument has become a joke.

Historically, the reason why the Chinese side was able to achieve a great victory in the Battle of Taierzhuang was related to a piece of information that Li Zongren obtained from Xia Wenyun. It was precisely because Xia Wenyun clearly pointed out the key points of the Japanese army's strategy in the intelligence that Li Zongren resolutely abandoned the northern defense line and besieged the Japanese army on the southern front, thus severely inflicting heavy losses on the main forces of the 5th and 10th Divisions.

The appearance of Ouyang Yun's butterfly affected the trend of history, but fortunately, Xia Wenyun was not drowned by this and continued to play a major role.

At about two o'clock, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi in Tongshan (Xuzhou) City received this precious telegram. "Ah! At this moment, the Japanese army will definitely suffer heavy losses! Li Zongren was originally worried that the Japanese army would have a new force to join and destroy the comparison of enemy and enemy forces, and Taierzhuang would become a meat grinder for the national army, so he was worried about the next battle process.

Bai Chongxi also exhaled heavily.

The fierceness of the battle in Taierzhuang and the heavy casualties of the national army were expected before the war. The Japanese artillery fire was sharp, but the Nationalist army did not have artillery fire to restrain it, and the result of letting it play was that the defenders were bound to pay huge casualties. It was Bai Chongxi's idea to unify the existing artillery in the Fifth Theater of Operations, so he was more concerned about the casualties of the defenders of Taierzhuang. He knew that once the casualties were too large, or even the collapse of a certain army, then the Battle of Taierzhuang would inevitably become a turning point in the Battle of Xuzhou - the national army would not be defeated in one fell swoop, but the pre-war goal would definitely not be achieved. Once Xuzhou falls prematurely, it will have a huge impact on the future of the war.

"Jiansheng, are the artillery units and the armies in Hexi in place?" Li Zongren asked Bai Chongxi.

Bai Chongxi nodded affirmatively and said, "Just wait for your order, our army will fire ten thousand cannons!" Brother Delin, this battle can be done! ”

"Yes, Ouyang Yun's telegram came too timely, so we have no scruples."

Bai Chongxi was in a relaxed mood, and couldn't help but joke: "You believe him like this, what if it's false information?" ”

Li Zongren shook his head: "Impossible, the energy of the student army is shallow." What kind of fox pupil, I used to look down on it, I thought Ouyang Yun had a lot of money and nowhere to spend, but I didn't expect that he would be able to restructure the scale he has appeared. This kid is young, and he has a dark career in one set. Jiansheng, we really lost our eyes before! ”

Bai Chongxi was aroused, and said with a wry smile: "Yes, thinking about the time when he first arrived in Guangzhou, we thought that he wouldn't last long, but who knew that the Lu Dao Scholar Army had actually taken root." ”

"Now, we are waiting for news from Guo Muyi!"

Where did Guo Muyi and his raiding force go?

The situation at the Northwest Gate, the North Gate, and the East Gate was similar to that of the West Gate, and after the 5th Division's fierce attack for three hours, it was difficult to advance an inch. After stopping the attack, he not only arranged patrol troops, but also asked his subordinates to fire a flare over the three city gates every quarter of an hour.

The Taierzhuang defense line is very important to Xuzhou, once it is captured, the Japanese army will get the bridgehead to attack Xuzhou and grasp the initiative on the battlefield in Xuzhou. Because the front-line command of China and Japan was aware of this, they attached great importance to the Battle of Taierzhuang, and the Japanese army dispatched three armies at a time. On the Fifth Theater side, Li Zongren ordered Li Pinxian, deputy commander of the theater and commander of the 11th Group Army, to personally sit in charge.

At a quarter past two o'clock, flares were raised again in turn over the three gates. Flares rose into the sky, illuminating the vicinity of the three gates, and at this moment, the officers and soldiers at the forefront of the two warring sides could even see each other's helmets showing out of their fortifications and trenches.

At the west gate, Li Pinxian picked up the binoculars and looked at the opposite side in time.

When the Japanese army first carried out this action, the defenders were startled, thinking that the Japanese army had begun to attack again. When the flares went out and the battlefield sank into darkness and silence again, everyone realized that the road was a false alarm.

After an hour and a half of fighting, this was the third time that the Japanese had fired flares, and if Antenglige had happened to be in front and had raised his binoculars to the opposite side, he would have been horrified to find that the defenders were rapidly massing their forces at the west gate.

The flares were raised, and the 31 officers and men who were originally assembling towards the four gates all bowed their heads and ran towards the assembly area under the low shouts of the officers.

In Li Pinxian's binoculars, in addition to dozens of helmets with trenches exposed, there was only a team of more than a dozen devil gendarmes walking from south to north with guns on their backs. Putting down the binoculars, he exhaled softly, and then said to Gu Lianqian, a staff officer beside him: "Notify all night attack troops, and start entering the battlefield in five minutes." ”

"Yes." Gu Lianqian agreed, and the cat's waist ran away.

Three flares went off at once, and the battlefield fell into darkness again. Li Pinxian turned around and walked into the cellar of a family not far away. There will be a temporary command post for him. The cellar was ringing with the sound of a tick-tick message, and he asked, "Is there a telegram from Xuzhou?" ”

A communications officer stood up and replied, "Commander, not yet. ”

"I know it, continue to pay attention. Notify me immediately of any new situation. ”

"Yes!"

Li Pinxian walked out of the cellar, then took the flare gun from the guard's hand, and asked, "Checked?" ”

Guard Li Jun replied respectfully: "Yes." ”

Li Pinxian swept the gun in his hand and took the lead towards the front line of the West Gate.

A few minutes later, some troops began to run past him quickly, and he found a slightly higher place to stand, silently watching his men rush to the dark front-line battlefield in front of him. When the footsteps disappeared, he turned his head to look at the southeast, his brows furrowed and sighed softly: Has Guo Muyi's department arrived at the destination and is ready to attack? If they delay the time, then Lao Tzu's teams will be in vain.

When Li Pinxian was talking about Guo Muyi in his heart, Guo Muyi was also talking to him: It was getting closer and closer to three o'clock, and the troops had successfully appeared five kilometers southeast of Taierzhuang after a rapid march.

In this raid, there were not many people in the Fifth War Zone who knew the Dao, and all of these people were waiting for the battle to start at the moment. Regardless of whether they agreed or disagreed with beforehand, at this moment, they had only one common wish in their hearts, and that was that this raid could be successful.

Time is not affected by anyone's will, and it passes according to the constant frequency of eternity - Li Pinxian raised his left hand, Guo Muyi raised his left hand, Guo Da, Huang Haifu, Zhang Zizhong, Li Zongren, and Bai Chongxi all began to look at the time.

Li Pinxian and Guo Muyi's watches were proofread with Li Zongren, and at this moment, their heartbeats tended to the same frequency with the jump of the small seconds hand.

At around 2:43 p.m., there was a sound of "huh-", and a flare rose in the sky above the battlefield at the Northwest Gate. The devils of the Anteng Division, located on the front line of the Northwest Gate, fired another flare in accordance with the instructions of the division commander. At this time, the small battle of Ximen had just ended - after the 1st Division entered the battlefield, it finally had its first confrontation with the Seya detachment, and the result was that the 1st Division was blown up and killed more than 30 soldiers, and the Seya detachment left more than 10 corpses.

When the Seya detachment started, Guo Da was staring closely at the watch in his hand. He scolded softly: "Antengriji's luck is too good, Dog's day Seya Kai, sooner or later, open fire at this time, so how many devils of the 5th Division will be awakened!" ”

Guo Muyi's raid plan did not have anything to do with Li Pinxian's department. However, the truce of the 5th Division made Guo Da, who was on the front line, suddenly realize that because the noise of the Jiguang tank was too loud, it was almost impossible to get close to the Japanese army without knowing it when there was no battle on the front line. In this case, the only way to ensure the suddenness of the surprise attack is to launch a massive night raid first. So he proposed to Li Zongren that the 31st Army wait for an opportunity to carry out a night attack first, so as to create a sound to drown out the motor sound of the Jiguang tank. Li Zongren agreed to his proposal after discussing with Bai Chongxi, and Bai Chongxi added another point on this basis, in order to ensure that the raiding troops could appear in the rear of the 5th Division by surprise, they simply used a part of the artillery to bombard. Covered by the rumbling explosions, it is believed that the Japanese will paralyze their hearing, allowing the Jiguang tanks to launch an attack at a closer distance.

The 5th Division suddenly stopped attacking something that no one expected, and after Li Pinxian considered it, he calmly accepted this order.

As the scheduled time approached, Li Pinxian no longer looked at the time, but stared closely at the Japanese position not far away.

The men who participated in the night attack did not live up to his expectations, and the ex-husband of more than 2,000 people of the two regiments unknowingly arrived less than 30 meters away from the first trench of the Japanese army, and the nearest assault platoon was only five or six meters away from the first group of devils. At such a close distance, it would be possible to break through in seconds, and the flares fired by the Japanese would provide ample illumination for their attack.

The flare rose quickly, and as soon as the light bloomed, Li Pinxian knocked on the flare gun. "Phew!" A red signal flare rose into the sky at the same time, and when the flare was just shining brightly, it dragged out a brilliant tail in the sky -- the officers and men of the night attack, who had been nervously and excitedly waiting for the attack signal, jumped up at the same time, and the officers and men hissed and shouted: "Rush! "Hit!" "Brothers, rush!" …… While pulling the trigger vigorously, he threw a grenade.

The devils of the 5th Division, after a long-distance attack, followed by the fight for most of the night, have long been exhausted, although the division commander An Teng has a strict order, the troops on duty are not allowed to sleep, but nothing has happened for more than an hour, and the ups and downs of the battle at the west gate not far away have paralyzed everyone's nerves, and many devils leaned against the wall of the trench with their guns in their arms, and fell asleep unconsciously.

The thunderous shouts of killing suddenly sounded, and many devils actually thought that Ximen had started tossing again, muttering two sentences in their mouths and wanting to continue to doze off when they changed their positions, and what was waiting for them was a revenge bullet or a bright bayonet. More devils instinctively raised their guns and opened their eyes, and then they were horrified to find that the enemy was close at hand. So, before they could react, a dense rain of bullets poured down, and the devils of a squadron in the first trench were killed by the night raiders almost without any ability to fight back.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Not far away, the devils of the gendarmerie howled, and the whistle of the alarm blew loudly. When he landed, the devils behind him, including the devils outside the other three city gates, were in a commotion.

Antan Ligibbon was sleeping in an armored car when he was awakened by the sound of gunfire outside, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He stepped out of the armored car, and by the light of the flares, he saw the situation on the battlefield thoroughly, and his heart was hanging high.

The Japanese army outside the northwest gate had two and a half brigades, and after fighting hard for most of the day, they lost five or six hundred men, and there were about two thousand men left. After these two thousand people were attacked and killed by a squadron, there are now more than 1,600. As soon as these more than 1,600 devils launched a counteroffensive, the offensive momentum of the 31st Army's night attack troops was immediately contained.

The weapons and equipment of the 31st Army were still too poor, because all the devils in the first trench were destroyed, and the devils in the second line of defense were not afraid of hurting their own people. The 31st Army was in charge of this night attack by a brigade commander named Chi Zhenhai. Seeing that the momentum of his own attack was blocked, he remembered the commander's note, and immediately shouted: "Brothers, withdraw the first line of defense!" Then he led the team to withdraw to the first line of Japanese trenches that had just been captured.

And as soon as they jumped into the trench full of devil corpses, the rumbling of artillery rang out in the southwest.

As soon as the cannon sounded, the fighters who participated in the night attack immediately became excited. The reason why the 31st Army fought so hard before was because there was no artillery that could suppress the enemy's artillery fire, but now that they finally heard the power of their own artillery, they were bullied by the devil's artillery, and the officers and men of the 31st naturally cheered and were indescribably excited.

"Listen! It's our cannon! ”

"Ge Laozi, I thought that the turtle sons of the artillery unit had all run away!"

"Brigade, are we going to launch a counteroffensive?!"

Chi Zhenhai reacted differently from the soldiers, he was very angry - today's battle was depressed, his side had no heavy fire support, and there was no way to take the artillery of the little devils, so there was no tactics at all in this pure defensive battle, so he could only use people to fill in the recklessness. As a result, in the middle of the night, the losses of the troops exceeded the consumption of more than two months on the southern section of the Jinpu line. It just so happened that Li Pinxian came to inspect his defense line, and he couldn't help but ask: "Commander, I don't understand!" If you continue to fight like this, the troops will have to finish playing sooner or later! And what about our artillery? And what about the artillery of our 11th Army? Without artillery, there is no way to fight this battle! ”

"Our artillery was requisitioned by the Theater Command."

"What? Why? Commander, do the surnamed Li and the surnamed Bai want to announce their personal vendetta! Commander, this battle can't be fought, let's withdraw! ”

Li Pinxian was furious when he landed - Chi Zhenhai's words poked his wound, and he roared: "Bastard, you can also say this?" Remember your identity, you are the brigade commander of the dignified national army - Chi Zhenhai, let me tell you, even if we fight to the bottom of the battle today, we must not take half a step back - do you understand?! ”

"Commander, I can't figure it out!"

"If you can't figure it out, don't think about it!" Li Pinxian glared at him fiercely, gritted his teeth and left.

Ji Zhenhai knew that he had said the wrong thing at the time. Anyone who knows Li Pinxian knows that he is very taboo for others to mention those things in front of him. Li Pinxian originally belonged to the Hunan army led by Tang Shengzhi, and was later defeated and incorporated by the Gui army led by Li Zongren during the civil war, and in the subsequent Jiang-Gui War, he betrayed the Gui family under the call of Tang Shengzhi. Immediately afterwards, under the call of Feng Yuxiang and Shi Yousan, he followed Tang Shengzhi against Jiang, but the result was a big defeat, losing all his men and horses and becoming a commander of the light pole. This did not end his military career, because immediately after the outbreak of the Central Plains War, he was invited by Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi to join the Gui army again. Only this time, he still failed to finish well, and in the Liangguang Incident not long ago, he betrayed Li and Bai again through Tang Shengzhi's agreement, thus officially becoming a part of the Central Army.

The reason why Li Pinxian is like a wall grass is actually a helpless move. Including himself, the middle- and low-ranking officers of the army under his command were all Tang Shengzhi's old subordinates, and he was completely unable to make arbitrary decisions. Therefore, although his behavior at both ends of the snake and mouse is despised by the world, he thinks he has a clear conscience.

This time, the Gui family suffered a big loss in the Battle of Nanjing, and the elite troops of Li and Bai were exhausted, but Lao Jiang also transferred him to Li Zongren's command. Li Zongren was okay, he behaved quite like a general, and he didn't say anything when he saw him again, but Bai Chongxi showed a look of disdain and sarcasm from time to time, which made Li Pinxian very annoyed and aggrieved.

There is a reason for Chi Zhenhai's anger - more than half of the artillery under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Theater Command is from the 31st Army. If Li Zongren had not requisitioned these artillerymen, the 31st Army would have been able to suppress the devil's artillery under its own command. It's okay for you to recruit, but you can't hide it. If your artillery unit had been dispatched earlier, how many fewer people would have died in your own army? When Chi Zhenhai thought about it like this, he naturally suspected that this was Li and Bai taking the opportunity to retaliate.