The warm winter sun shines on the vast lake, reflecting a sparkling golden light.

Silvery-white fast ferries plow through the calm lake, whipping up a string of tumbling waves and foam.

Relying on more than 100 river ferries and gravel boats transmitted by Wang Qiu from modern Shijie, just as the Kuomintang was trying its best to collect soldiers and horses to deploy defenses in the capital Nanjing, the Red Tenth Army had already boarded ships from Jiapu Town and left the port, crossed Taihu Lake from west to east, and swooped straight towards Suzhou, where the enemy's defense was empty!

-- Taihu Lake, one of the five major freshwater lakes in China, is located in the south of the Yangtze River Delta, at the junction of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, is the largest lake in East China and the third largest freshwater lake in China, with a water area of 2,250 square kilometers and an average water depth of 2 to 3 meters.

Because the water depth of Taihu Lake is too shallow and there are many tidal flats, although there are more than 70 rivers connecting Taihu Lake and the Yangtze River, it is rare for the Kuomintang navy and the fleets of foreign powers to patrol the lake at this time -- if you insist on driving cruisers and gunboats into it, I am afraid that you will not be able to drive them out soon!

In later generations, even a large 500-ton sand and gravel ship ran into the "shallow saucer" of Taihu Lake, and often ran aground in the thick silt.

So, taking advantage of this blind spot of the enemy, the Red Tenth Army skillfully completed a tactical feint, which on the surface made everyone mistakenly believe that the Red Army was about to go straight to Nanjing, but in fact, it was the golden cicada that broke out of its shell and killed a horse gun by water, and the spearhead was pointed directly at Suzhou and Shanghai in the east!

“…… With such a shallow draft and a cruising capacity of more than 150 kilometers, it was really not easy to handle in our time! Many boats and sightseeing boats are not enough! It's a shame that our Suzhou water transportation department is just going to be updated. More than 20 medium-sized ferries were ordered in Shanghai, and then they were intercepted by us under the banner of the Ministry of National Defense before they were delivered...... Otherwise, everyone will have to squeeze the sand and gravel boat! ”

On a ferry that was obviously overloaded, Wang Qiu frowned and looked at the map. He said to General Su Yu beside him.

-- After several rounds of expansion, the total strength of the Red Tenth Army has reached 18,000 men. Although in order to create a false impression of the enemy and to mobilize the masses to expand the guerrilla zone, about 2,000 Red Army soldiers were left on the western shore of Taihu Lake to confuse the enemy.

But the problem was that how to transport the remaining 16,000 people to the other side of Taihu Lake made poor Wang Qiu's poor classmate almost lose his gray hair -- the heavy equipment, ammunition, and grain and materials of the Red Army. Of course, you can temporarily send it back to the opposite side of the wormhole, and then take it out after landing. But it's just these sixteen,000 stick boys who can't pass through the wormhole, counting their carry-on bags. That's more than a thousand tons!

Of course, in modern Shijie, these personnel can be stuffed with only one naval landing ship -- anyway, compared with modern amphibious landing warfare, the crossing distance across Taihu Lake is very short. There is no need to arrange bunks and meals for them. All you need to do is find a place to squat - but the problem is that the water in Taihu Lake is very shallow, and large sea boats can't drive it at all; The second is that Wang Qiu's cross-plane teleportation capacity is limited, although it has been enhanced to a single capacity of more than 100 tons, but it is still too small for sea vessels, and can only transmit river ferries and gravel ships...... And the tonnage and deadweight of these ships are quite small.

As a result, although Wang Qiu tried his best to get more than 90 boats, it still seemed impossible for a legion.

For this. The traversers and Red Army commanders and fighters had to rack their brains and use the methods of modern Western navigators to trade in black slaves. The soldiers were ordered to sit down one by one on the ship, no more and no less, just enough to sit down and move their hands and feet a little, and the corridors and decks were so crowded with people that they couldn't move at all unless they got off the ship and landed. Eating and drinking rely on kettles and compressed biscuits to solve the problem - Cai Rong also suggested learning from the Indian experience, let some of the arm-strength haode fighters "buy tickets", but unfortunately the ship is not a train, and too many "tickets" will sink......

As for the problem of urine and bowel movements...... Before boarding the ship, Wang Qiu gave each of the Red Army soldiers a pack of adult diapers for paralyzed patients.

Fortunately, the vast number of Red officers and men did not complain about this -- since it was a rebellion and a revolution, it must have been relatively difficult, and the bunks on passenger ships in those days were not very spacious in terms of environment...... Relying on the preaching and encouragement of the political commissar comrades, as well as the perseverance and endurance unique to the Chinese nation, they all endured it silently.

But even so, the total strength of the 16,000 men of the main force of the Red Tenth Army to the east still exceeded the maximum capacity limit of these ships.

Wang Qiu dug out 400 assault boats from Shanghai's strategic material reserve warehouse -- the same thing commonly used in flood fighting and rescue -- this thing was very simple to operate, and even the Red Army soldiers, who were mainly illiterate, could use it with a little training. After this kind of assault boat is filled with fuel, the maximum endurance is also 200 kilometers, and at least seven or eight people can run a single trip across Taihu Lake, which should be enough.

After solving the problem of transportation capacity, the next navigation problem was put on the desk - there were no maritime satellites and GPS navigation and positioning systems in those days, and neither the Red Army nor the traversers were familiar with the Taihu natives...... Zuihou's solution was to find a few old fishermen who had rocked small boats on Taihu Lake all their lives, and put them in the wheelhouse of the "flagship" to be responsible for guiding the way, while the boats behind all followed the flagship, as long as they didn't lose it.

-- During the War of Liberation, only one person in a fleet of the Kuomintang Navy could use a sextant, and the result was that they were "dispatched in groups" in this way.

As for the hundreds of assault boats that followed behind, they also followed the large army, and it stands to reason that they could reach the landing site...... Of course, if the engine stalls in the middle of the way, or if the boat turns too fast and capsizes, and if there is a "water traffic accident" that causes the two ships to collide, then there is no way to do it - as a result, there are really a few particularly unlucky squads who drift to West Dongting Mountain Island in a daze and become a "red lake bandit......

All in all. After a day of drills and training at the port of Jiapu, the Red Army fleet set sail at dawn on 22 December.

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Although the Red Tenth Army's "lake-crossing operation" was not perfectly organized, it did achieve a surprising effect in terms of tactics.

Just when the Red Army regiment had already sailed more than half of the voyage. When Dagong Mountain and Xiaogongshan Island were faintly visible in the area under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, the female announcer of the Kuomintang Nanjing Central Radio Station was still using her slow and bewitching voice to cheer up the officials and gentry and citizens of the capital Nanjing.

“…… Rustling...... China Central Radio, listeners...... According to the Central News Agency, after Fang Zhimin's troops of the 10th Red Bandit Regiment crossed Tianmu Mountain, they stormed Huzhou Buke the day before yesterday. Surrounded by the loyal and brave soldiers of our government in the northern Zhejiang Plain, fiercely attacked, bandits and corpses were everywhere. Flesh Blur...... More than 4,000 bandits were killed. The capture is still under investigation. According to the confessions of the prisoners, many of the bandit leaders of Fang Zhimin's troops were killed by the bombing, and one of the big leaders was killed by a cannon under the city of Huzhou, and the whole army of the bandit troops cried when he died. His body was wrapped in red silk and carried on it. has not been buried, suspected to be the bandit leader Fang Zhimin himself......

According to local sources, the red bandit general Xun Huaizhou was seriously injured and was in danger; Liu Chouxi, the commander of the Red Bandit Legion, fell into the ditch while escaping on a rainy night and was killed on the spot...... Due to the obstruction of the attack on Huzhou, reinforcements from all walks of life of the party-state were about to gather, and the bandit army had no choice but to turn westward in order to avoid being trapped. Wants to offend the boundary of Jiangsu. Our 21st Brigade was ordered to go south from the national capital to suppress the bandits and inflict a frontal blow on the enemy in Changxing County. After killing tens of thousands of rebels, he calmly transferred to Liyang to set up defenses......

…… President Wang of the Executive Yuan held a press conference, claiming that although the red bandits of Fang Zhimin's troops seemed to be rampant, they were actually at the end of the crossbow, and hoped that the people of Gyeonggi would not be disturbed. Chairman Chiang issued a telegram at the Nanchang camp, saying that reinforcements from all walks of life had been mobilized from Jiangxi and Hunan to Nanjing, and that the officers and men of the national government were confident in defending the safety of the capital...... The Blue Coat Society organized a fundraiser on the streets of Nanjing, claiming that it would be used to build fortifications on the outskirts of Beijing, and called on all citizens to contribute money and strength to defend the capital. The Nanjing Garrison Command declared martial law in the capital and warned all citizens not to go out at night and violate the night curfew......"

“…… Hehe, interesting! It's so much fun! In our time, many people scolded CCTV's news broadcasts for only reporting good news and not bad news, which was too exaggerated...... They should really listen to the news broadcast of the Kuomintang, this is simply writing a war fantasy novel! ”

Listening to the absurd Nanjing Central Radio news on the radio, Wang Qiu couldn't help but laugh "hehe".

“…… Just get used to it, the Kuomintang's newspapers and broadcasts are in this tone, and at least five out of ten sentences are false. ”

Commander Liu Chouxi, who had just been declared by the Kuomintang to "fall into the ditch and die on the spot," yawned and said disapprerovingly, "...... How to deduce the true content from falsehoods, clichés, and empty words is a basic skill that both we and enemy commanders must have. Otherwise, it is likely that someone will be trapped alive, and I don't know how I died...... We're almost on the other side now! Is the docking location correct? ”

“…… The route of our fleet is still generally correct, as long as there are no problems in the next landing operation. ”

Wang Qiu raised his eyebrows and replied, and slammed his fist heavily in the northeast corner of the "Map of the Waters of Taihu Lake", where the railway line was closest to the shore of the lake, "...... After the landing, we must take control of Wangting Town, the northernmost part of the Suzhou jurisdiction, as soon as possible, and plant explosives here to sabotage the Beijing-Shanghai Railway (referring to the railway from Nanjing to Shanghai, not from Beijing to Shanghai in the future), so as to prevent the enemy in the direction of Nanjing from using the railway to rush to the rescue. At the same time, an assault boat assault team was formed, which went south along the Grand Canal and penetrated directly into the city of Suzhou, completely disrupting the defense system of the Kuomintang reactionaries......"

-- Before the Red Tenth Army embarked on the ship and set off, the people discussed the location after crossing the Taihu Lake, and reached a consensus that although the enemy garrison in Suzhou was extremely thin, because of the previous feints of the Red Army in the Huzhou area, the Kuomintang authorities in Suzhou might gather the only little armed Liliang and set up fortifications and defensive lines on the communication arteries south of Suzhou and north of Huzhou, so as to cause trouble for the Red Army's attack. Moreover, as long as the railway connecting Suzhou and Nanjing was not cut off, Nanjing could send troops to Suzhou by train within eight hours.

Therefore, in the choice of landing site, the Red Army simply went the opposite way and landed from Wangting Town, north of Suzhou. As soon as they landed, they destroyed the railway and telegraph lines connecting Suzhou and Nanjing (only about two kilometers from the shore of the lake). Then, while letting the large forces land and assemble in turn in Wangting Town, an elite commando of about a thousand people was organized. Take an assault boat from Taihu Lake to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which runs parallel to the railway line, take the waterway at the fastest speed and go straight to the city of Suzhou, and before the enemy can react, he stabbed into the heart of the Kuomintang authorities in Suzhou!

-- From the beginning of the landing, in order not to give the Kuomintang reactionaries and imperialism any chance to prepare, the Red Tenth Army had to race against time.

In the selection of the commander of this elite commando team, the original favorite object of the traversers was Comrade Xun Huaizhou, the fearless general. But this time. However, Su Yu insisted on leading the team by himself, on the grounds that the Red 19th Division in Xunhuaizhou had been a pioneer for a long time, while his Red 20th Division had not yet made a name for itself in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. He was the chief of staff of the Red Tenth Army and the commander of the Red 20th Division, but he was often forced to abandon his direct troops because of his work as chief of staff - he himself also needed some combat exploits to convince his subordinates, so he insisted on getting this task.

Therefore. After some discussion. Su Yu finally got his wish and got the position of vanguard officer and the command of a "fleet of assault boats". After the entire convoy had successfully docked and refueled the depleted assault boats, he was about to lead the team out.

What is more interesting is that at Su Yu's insistence, Wang Qiu laughed and hung the future Chinese naval flag on every assault boat.

“…… The Fourth Front Army in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Border Region always likes to brag that they are the first Red Army contingent with aircraft in the whole of China! It was the founder of the Red Air Force! We, the Red Tenth Army, are going to compete with them and build China's first Red Navy! ”

General Su Yu, who changed into a white navy dress. He said with a perkluster face, "...... It's pretty handsome on me! ”

- General Su Yu. Do you just want to snatch Xiao Jinguang's title so much? Well...... In terms of merit, he is indeed behind you......

(Note: On February 16, 1930, a biplane of the Kuomintang Air Force lost in fog and ran out of fuel and landed in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border area, where it was captured by the Red Army.) After being educated, the pilots joined the Red Army, repaired the aircraft and named it "Lenin", and began to help the Red Army in the war, dropping leaflets in Hankow and bombing Kuomintang positions. Zuihou, before the transfer of the Red Fourth Front, the plane "Lenin" was dismantled and buried in the Dabie Mountains. ）

“…… China's Red Navy? Hehe! The tone is not small. Looking at Su Yu's lively appearance, Major General Wang Yaowu couldn't help but sneer, "...... Could it be that you are going to use such a small boat to fight the Yangtze River Fleet of the British Empire stationed in Shanghai? ”

“…… If it were in the vast open sea, such a small boat would naturally not be an opponent for the gunboats of the great powers. But in the Huangpu River or even the Suzhou Creek, the results are hard to say. Wang Qiu raised his eyebrows, "...... Besides, in our time, the British probably won't even be able to make up such a navy! ”

As soon as these words came out, not only did the Red Army generals in this time and space not believe it at all, but even Cai Rong, who had not followed Wang Qiu to the UK on a mission before, also showed a look of disbelief, "...... This one...... Although the situation of Britain after the rebellion was very miserable, it would not have fallen to this point! ”

“…… How could it not? As the saying goes, a phoenix with a falling feather is not as good as a chicken! Wang Qiu pursed his lips, and then crossed his fingers to explain to his colleagues, "...... The frigates in Portsmouth were taken over by our expeditionary fleet, the capital London was still occupied by the armies of various countries, and the ships stranded in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were forcibly controlled by local separatists. The western and southern coasts of England were taken over by the Irish army...... Which ship can the Admiralty in Whitehall control at the moment? It seems that even the royal yacht was towed away by the French! ”

“…… Oh, my God! Is it so miserable? Miss Cai Rong suddenly gasped in surprise, "...... In this way, if the Admiralty in Whitehall in London is forced to rush one day, it may unseal Lord Nelson's 'Victory' sail battleship and put it back on the battlefield......"

“…… Perhaps! If Whitehall could find so many sailors who could steer wooden sailboats......" Wang Qiu rolled his eyes, "...... In addition, I am afraid that the bronze statue of Nelson will have to be melted down quickly to make a 24-pounder cannon...... Now the guns on that ship are all made of wood. ”

“…… I think this is probably asking for the necromancer's skeleton sailor......" Cai Rong sighed and shook her head, "...... But it doesn't matter, I remember when I traveled to England before, I saw that there was a Warrior preserved there, which was the first steam ironclad ship in history......"

“…… The Warrior? It was a floating warehouse at the moment, and the power machinery had long since been dismantled, and it was actually like a pirate ship in Disneyland. Well, there's a cruiser Belfast on the Thames, but it's also an empty shell......"

……

Listening to the various discussions and descriptions of "Britain on their side" by several "future comrades", the expressions on the faces of Major General Wang Yaowu and the Red Army generals soon became more and more surprised, more and more unbelievable, and more and more crying and laughing......

In the end, Fang Zhimin couldn't help coughing and muttered to Liu Chouxi, "...... Lao Liu, listening to the words of these future comrades, it seems that not only will China be turned upside down in the next century, but also Britain in the next century will be completely different from the current British Empire! ”

“…… Hey, I feel the same way......" Commander Liu Chouxi also nodded with emotion. (To be continued......)