While I was talking with Bai Jiansheng, we, General Jiang Yuyan, were also discussing countermeasures with General Fang Xuchu, and finally formulated a set of combat plans according to the situation in which the enemy was strong and we were weak, and the enemy was outnumbered. Welcome to read // Although I participated in the entire combat process, I did not directly see this plan, and now looking back, it is nothing more than "advance and retreat, show the enemy weak, lure the enemy to go deep, encircle and annihilate him" 16 words.

The so-called "advance and retreat" means that we first sent a unit to the area of Guanghua and Gucheng to make tentative contact with the Hubei army, and then gradually retreated, on the one hand, to show the enemy weakness and make them arrogant; On the one hand, through constant harassment, the action of the Hubei army to march to Yunyang was delayed".

What we lack most now is time, because for every day of delay, there will be more troops coming from Shaanxi; If it drags on long enough, even the Sichuan brothers will be able to catch up with this battle, then we will not have to worry about running out of troops. In addition, it also takes time for our Shaanxi soldiers and the officers of the Hubei Generals and Regiments to run in, otherwise they will not know the soldiers and the soldiers, and it will be easy for them to collapse without a fight. General Jiang Yuyan also took this into consideration and selected our third battalion and the first part of the Military Command Division Guard as the forward troops to strengthen relations with each other through battles.

On the evening of the day when Bai Jiansheng took over as the platoon commander, the instructors of each platoon told the cause and effect of the aid to Hubei in class, and announced a series of precautions formulated by the standard department, such as changing the clothing to the Hubei army uniform, instead of wearing camouflage uniforms; The weapons should be changed to Hanyang-made, not Zhonggong 1911 rifles; You can't wear a steel helmet on your head, but you have to wear a large-brimmed hat of the Hubei army and so on. In short, before the formal encirclement and annihilation of the invading Hubei army, they must not be allowed to discover the traces of our Shaanxi army.

It is easy to find materials such as Hubei army uniforms, Hanyang-made, and large-brimmed hats. They captured some of it when they conquered Junzhou before, and the Military Command Division Guard can also give us some of it, which is enough for us to use. But the problem is that our soldiers are accustomed to steel helmets. After putting on the big-brimmed hat again, I found that it could not be bulletproof, and I always felt unsure. The Zhonggong 1911 rifle used in ordinary times is a 10-round fixed magazine, which can be fired continuously; The Hanyang-made magazine is only 5 rounds, and it cannot be fired in bursts. Shaanxi Wazi, who is accustomed to the Zhonggong 1911 rifle, feels that Hanyang is not comfortable, and after deducting five times, he always feels that he can deduct five more times. These habits must be changed quickly, otherwise it is easy to die on the battlefield.

On the morning of August 11. Our three battalions and the first part of the military order division were dressed and divided into two roads in the direction of Gwanghwa and Gucheng. The battalion commander, Lu Zhonglin, ordered our second team to act as the vanguard and search and advance in front. The first two days were fine. Everyone is in danger; On the third day, we bypassed the county seat of Guanghua and continued to advance, but we didn't walk long before we encountered the invading Hubei army.

Originally, I was also very nervous, and my palms were constantly sweating. But the moment I heard the gunfire of the sharp soldiers in front. Instead, I calmed down. The platoon commander Bai Jiansheng had been in battle for a long time, and after hearing the gunshots, he quickly scanned the surrounding terrain, and without waiting for the captain's order, he ordered me to lead the soldiers of the 1st shed to occupy a hill more than 30 meters high near the left of the front of the road, leaving the 2nd shed and the 3rd shed to wait for the orders of the battalion commander and the captain.

When I got there, I realized that although the hill was not high, it was a must-fight in the surrounding area because of its proximity to the road. It is also slightly higher than other nearby hills, and from the top of the hill you can directly overlook the enemy positions ahead. More than a dozen of us climbed to the top of the mountain panting. One person was left to observe the enemy, while the others picked up the sapper shovels and began to build the fortifications.

It may be that the enemy is now, everyone is working harder than ever, the fortifications are more stable, and the simple individual bunkers dug are more standard, and there is no need for me to supervise them. I chose a place with a wide field of vision and relatively hidden, dug a lying position, then took off the grenade and put it in a convenient position, lying in the pit and holding Hanyangzao and began to look in the direction of the enemy.

The shot just now was fired by our spearhead when he spotted the enemy's spearhead, but in fact, the forward troops of the two sides were still at least three or four miles apart. As soon as the gunshots rang out, both sides immediately stopped and began to build positions, so for a short time they fell into the calm before the big battle, as if they were brewing emotions for the upcoming lightning and thunder.

At this time, the battalion commander came to the top of our hill with his guards, held his binoculars and observed for a moment, and then ordered: "Do not let them build a position in peace!" The whole battalion of mortars was ordered to fire 10 rounds at once at the positions in front of them, and then to shell freely at the enemy's second detachment, in the degree of no more than a third of the base. ”

The battalion commander was in my pángbiān at the time, and we had a 60mm mortar in our shed. Half a minute later, the mortar shells, with their characteristic muffled sound, fell on the enemy positions two kilometers away, and exploded with a "boom", rising in the distance a cloud of white smoke, mixed with rocks, grass and trees, and even human bodies that had been torn to pieces.

This was the first shelling of our Shaanxi army since it entered Hubei, and the sound of this artillery was like a signal, and then the mortars on our army's position opened fire one after another, and the sound of firing and explosion suddenly became a sound. The Hubei army in front of us should not have expected that we had so many mortars, and the soldiers on the entire front position did not build anti-artillery positions in time, and they were suddenly caught off guard by our surprise attack, and suffered heavy casualties in an instant.

However, the Hubei army was not to be outdone, and soon organized the few mountain artillery and mortars to retaliate against us, especially our position, which was the focus of artillery care. I was just about to encourage him to say a few words when a shell flew and exploded in the pit, and the recruit was blown to pieces. As for other positions, casualties have also been reported one after another.

For most of the next day, both sides tested each other with sporadic artillery bombardment, and there was a tacit understanding that no infantry charge was organized. I know that the reason why the Hubei army on the opposite side did not attack was to wait for their large army to arrive, and then rush over with the momentum of Mount Tai and the lion fighting the rabbit, and crush us into powder. And our main purpose is to stall for time and show weakness, and we hope that they will not come, and of course they will not be stupid enough to take the initiative to charge. Late at night, we planted mines on the way of the enemy's advance, and then took advantage of the darkness to withdraw from our positions. In our rear, the first part of the Guards has already set up another blocking position, and we only need to build a third position behind them and hold them down.

I thought that the third blockade was our turn to fight, but who knew that at this time, Zhang Xiangchu (Zhang Fenghui) also arrived in Junzhou with part of the Shaanxi army, and replaced us in the name of the Shaanxi army soldiers and the officers of the Hubei General Corps. Our third battalion had no choice but to retreat to the county seat of Junzhou for rest, and this rest was four or five days.

Listening to Bai Jiansheng's platoon commander, the Senate was still arguing over Zhang Zhenwu's case during these days, and Li Yuanhong was trying his best to quibble, anyway, he didn't take the initiative to resign; On the contrary, Premier Tang Shaoyi of the State Council had nothing to do with himself, but wanted to ask to step down again and again; Sun Yat-sen invited Huang Xing and Li Yuanhong to go north to discuss state affairs with President Yuan and Mr. Sun, but Li Yuanhong seemed reluctant to leave Hubei.

Of course, my primary concern is the current progress of the war. It's a pity that I'm just a small shed chief, so I can only ask for a little bit of information from Bai Jiansheng. Bai Jiansheng is very well-informed, as far as the officialdom disputes in Beijing, as close as the battlefield dozens of miles away, he knows everything well, and he is comparable to Zhuge Liang, who knew astronomy and geography during the Three Kingdoms, so I called him "Little Zhuge with Sun Liangcheng and Shi Yousan". In fact, my name is Ru Ming, and the word Ziliang also has the meaning of admiring Mr. Kong Ming, but compared with Bai Jiansheng, the "little Zhuge ", it seems too unworthy of the name.

According to Bai Jiansheng's private statement, Liu Mingzhao and Yin Changheng of the Sichuan army did not come to Yunyang, but went down the Yangtze River, and the troops pointed directly at Yichang Mansion. The garrison of Yichang Mansion only has more than 2,000 people in the Seventh Town and the Thirteenth Association, which is not the opponent of the Sichuan army at all, and Yichang Mansion was quickly captured, and now the Sichuan army is preparing to attack Jingmen Prefecture, which is garrisoned by only one standard. Tang Xizhi, the commander of the seventh town, couldn't help but panic, and repeatedly ordered the 14th Association to assist Ji Yulin in attacking Yunyang to be established as soon as possible. Once the Fourteenth Association is established, our immediate enemy will only be four thousand men of the Fifteenth Association under the jurisdiction of the Eighth Town, and we now have more than six thousand troops!

On August 18, Yu Hongqi, the commander of the 14th Association, was forced to lead his troops back to Jingmen under pressure from Tang Xizhi. Ji Yulin, the commander of the eighth town who led the offensive operation, also seemed to feel some kind of dangerous atmosphere, and hurriedly ordered the 15th Association under his command to retreat as soon as possible, but it was too late, and the 15th Association was firmly besieged by the Shaanxi Army and the Military Order Division Guards in the narrow strip between the Han River, the Zeng River, and the Lang River.

When Ji Yulin heard the news, he immediately lost his soul, and hurriedly called Li Yuanhong, Tang Xizhi, and Yu Hongqi respectively, begging the 14th Association of the Hubei Army, which was only a day's journey, to come back to help as soon as possible and save him from fire and water. Who knew that Yu Hongqi, who learned the news, not only did not return to help, but like a frightened rabbit, he accelerated his retreat and fled back to Jingmen Prefecture in a puff of smoke. Tang Xizhi was still angry about Ji Yulin's delay in the construction of the 14th Association that led to the loss of Yichang Mansion, and at this time, he adhered to the spirit of "dead friends do not die poor roads", and turned a deaf ear to Ji Yulin's request for help. Li Yuanhong ordered Yu Hongqi to rescue his allies in a loud voice, but the county officials were not as good as the current management, after Yu Hongqi fled back to Jingmen Prefecture, Li Yuanhong was helpless: You can't force Yu Hongqi to defect to the Sichuan army, right?

The escape of the 14th Association directly sentenced Ji Yulin and the 15th Association under his command to death. Ji Yulin was also single, seeing that he couldn't escape, he directly led his troops to surrender to our army. In this way, our Shaanxi army captured Xiangyang Mansion almost bloodlessly, and also incorporated Ji Yulin's eighth town, which became a force to be reckoned with in northwest Hubei overnight.

The above excerpt is from the fourth chapter of "Memories of a Soldier" (also known as "Memoirs of Liu Ruming"). (To be continued......)

PS: It's a weekend double shift, right? For the sake of the update in the past few days, I asked for a monthly pass.