Although Shang Yi was happy to win a thousand gold medals, the war is still going on. When the official documents of the United Front Work Department were sent to the Sixth Army, it was September 27th.
Li Yan, Li Dingguo and others received the official document and then realized Shang Yi's overall plan. At the same time, they also knew his task, which was to continue to persevere in Hubei and restrain the Qing army's forces. On the one hand, they created favorable conditions for the recovery of Nanjing.
On the other hand, we are waiting for the situation to change.
Therefore, Li Yan, Li Dingguo, Li Mou and others immediately held a military meeting, and finally they all decided unanimously to respect the orders of the United Front Work Department and continue to persevere in Hubei. They must persist in the past two months.
The Qing army's attack adopted the tactic of resisting layer by layer and gradually retreating, although it delayed time, and now we must be prepared to give up all occupied areas and retreat into the Dabie Mountains to continue fighting.
Dabie Mountains is an important area connecting eastern Hubei and southeastern Henan. In the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was surrounded by dangerous mountains and built many passes in the area of the main roads, including Jinshan Pass, Baisha Pass, Muling Pass, Shuangshan Pass, and Huangtu Pass.
, Changling Pass, Songzi Pass, Lizi Pass, etc. Now most of the passes are guarded by militia, and it is also the reliance for the merchant army to continue to deal with the Qing army and confront the confrontation after retreating into the Dabie Mountains.
Of course, it is not a simple matter to carry out this task well. First of all, we must do the work of connecting the entire army, because the entire army is now looking forward to aid from Zhejiang. If the officers and soldiers know that they do not have reinforcements, they can only rely on
If you persist in your own strength, I am afraid that many people will feel shaken. They must be firmly confident in sticking to it. Second, they must formulate a plan for gradual retreat, retreat in several stages, and stick to it in each position more.
How long can we stick to this, and how to keep these two months? The third is to allocate ammunition and materials, because the ammunition in the Hubei War Zone is limited and cannot be replenished for the time being, so it must be reasonable
Allocate existing ammunition to ensure that there is the necessary resistance at each stage, and wait until the situation changes, and launch a counterattack against the Qing army. At the same time, there are also food and other material reserves for retreating to the Dabie Mountains, which is also related to
The battle conditions in the later stage will start to be arranged from now on.
Therefore, Li Yan also decided that although the war is urgent, the divisions and brigade commanders should be urgently recruited back to Macheng County to hold an important meeting.
On September 28th, the two division commanders Li Hanjun, Li Chengdong, two brigade commanders Ding Qibing, and Li Benshen all came to Macheng. Li Yan and others also officially conveyed to them the grand strategic plan of the United Front Work Department and the next task of the Hubei War Zone.
, let them do the next level of work. However, for the sake of confidentiality, the cross-sea raid plan is limited to all divisions and departments. The brigade department knows that no officers and soldiers at the next level shall be disclosed. The propaganda only says that the Hubei War Zone is
In order to recover Nanjing and attract the Qing army, if only two months have passed, after Zhejiang recovers Nanjing, it will definitely come to rescue Hubei.
After hearing this, the four division commanders and brigade commanders were also quite shocked. They did not expect that the scale of the battle this time would be so large, and the Hubei War Zone was only one of the components. Therefore, everyone also expressed that they would definitely implement the United Front Work Department's
The resolution is to do a good job in the soldiers and persevere in the past two months.
Li Dingguo also made a new battle plan. At present, the merchant army has reduced a lot in Hubei, leaving only the area south of the Dabie Mountains, which is also the core counties of Huang'an, Macheng and Luotian, which basically returned to the original state.
Therefore, the three counties are now used as the core to defend. However, in front of Luotian County, the merchant army is still stationed in Datong Town.
Judging from the forces, the Ninth Division suffered heavy casualties in the previous stage, and more than 2,000 were added to Macheng County. Currently, the entire division has about 9,000 people. The 18th Division and the Third Brigade stationed in Shitong Town also suffered certain losses.
, There are more than 9,300 people in the 18th Division and more than 5,500 people in the Third Brigade. Only the 22nd Brigade stationed in Huang'an County has suffered little losses and basically maintains all personnel.
The Qing army's tactics were also very clear, which was to first capture Huang'an and Luotian counties from the east and west lines, then encircle Macheng, and adopt the fortress tactics of layer-by-layer advancement to gradually erode the area of the merchant army. Now on the Western Front, the Qing Dynasty
The army's fortress group was about to be pushed closer to Huang'an County. The nearest one was only more than ten miles away from Huang'an County. On the eastern front, the Qing army had formed an encirclement of Datong Town, and the nearest fortress was left to Datong Town.
Less than five miles.
Therefore, Li Dingguo decided to abandon Datong Town within three days and let the 18th Division retreat to Luotian County to guard the garrison, while the 22nd Brigade was still stationed in Huang'an County. The 3rd Brigade temporarily retreated to Macheng for repair and strive to replenish about 1,000 troops.
The Ninth Division stationed in Macheng together and looked for opportunities to assist Huang'an and Luotian counties.
The two counties of Huang'an and Luotian were stationed for ten to fifteen days. Once the two counties were lost, they did not retreat to Macheng, and retreated into the Dabie Mountains. The 22nd Brigade retreated to Jinshan Pass and Baisha Pass areas.
The 18th Division retreated to Changling Pass and Songzi Pass area, while the 9th Division and the 3rd Brigade were still stationed in Macheng County. After resisting the Qing army for another ten to fifteen days, after Macheng lost, he retreated to Shuangshan Pass and Huangtu Pass.
The area was stationed and continued to resist the Qing army.
In terms of tactics, Li Dingguo also ordered the merchant army to attack the Qing army's fortress group, and to build positions around the county town to defend positions, or retreat into the city and rely on the city wall to defend. However, the fortress group has not been built yet.
When you arrive around the county town, you can use small-scale troops to carry out short-term assaults against the Qing army according to the requirements of the United Front Work Department.
Short assault tactics are actually a small-scale encirclement and annihilation operation. They are a combination of mobile warfare and defensive warfare used by the Red Army in later generations to target the fortress encirclement tactics. The method of the whole is to lure the enemy out of the fortress group.
Or when the enemy builds a new fortress, concentrate superior forces and quickly encircle them. Quickly resolve the battle before the enemy's follow-up echelons or reinforcements from the fortress arrive. Once the enemy's reinforcements arrive, or
If you retreat to the fortress to defend, you will retreat immediately to avoid fighting against the enemy.
Shang Yi was certainly clear about Chu. Although history has proved that this tactic cannot truly break the fortress encirclement, it can concentrate troops, avoid excessive losses, and eliminate the enemy to the greatest extent, and weaken the advantages of fortress tactics.
But in the current Hubei War Zone, it is still very practical.
Li Dingguo personally witnessed the fortress encirclement tactics. After seeing the short assault tactics proposed by Shang Yi, he couldn't help but be amazed. This was a tactic tailor-made for the merchant army, because the Hubei war zone is not about breaking the fortress.
To encircle, instead try to delay the time of the fortress advancement and wait for the situation to change. Therefore, this tactic is immediately implemented to each unit.
After reading the resistance plan formulated by Li Dingguo and getting this short-term assault tactic, the four division commanders and brigade commanders also felt that they had a lot of confidence in their hearts, and they were confident that they could persevere for two months.
That night, the four division commanders and brigade commanders also returned to their positions overnight to prepare for implementation of the plan.
At this time, the Qing army had launched a fierce attack on Datong Town, and concentrated most of the Qing army's firearms in Hubei. Under the cover of various artillery fire and rockets, they launched round after round at the positions of the merchant army's army under the cover of various artillery fire and rockets.
The fierce attack, but the defense of the merchant army was also very tenacious. Relying on the protection of the built fortifications, it continued to repel the Qing army's attack. Although the Qing army broke through a considerable number of positions, it also caused a large number of casualties.
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Although Li Chengdong, the commander of the 18th Division, was also preparing to evacuate Datong Town after returning to Datong Town, it did not mean that he would withdraw all the troops at once. Instead, he adopted the method of retreating layer by layer and evacuating gradually. First, let Jiu go
The division's artillery regiment retreated first, while the other troops gave up their positions outside the town and retreated to the town's defense.
When the Qing army saw the merchant army retreat, they became more confident and their attacks became more fierce. On several occasions, they had already penetrated into Datong Town, but the defense intensity of the merchant army suddenly increased a lot, even
In some positions, they also launched counterattacks on the Qing army. In some positions, both sides had to compete repeatedly for several times. It was very difficult for the Qing army to think that it was difficult for them to move forward. Moreover, the Qing army was the side that marched and suffered much more losses than the merchant army.
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The battle in Datong Town continued on October 1st, and the merchant army completely withdrew, and the Qing army finally occupied Datong Town in full.
Although the Qing army paid the price of more than 10,000 people killed in the battle in order to capture Datong Town, Hong Chengchou and Luke Dehun were still very satisfied. At this time, the Qing army had already carried out a fourth expedition of the Hubei merchant army.
Over the past month, the Qing army recovered a total of eight counties, and most of the Hubei region had been recovered. The only areas occupied by the merchant army now were Huang'an, Macheng and Luotian counties. These were the first three expeditions.
The victory that the Qing army had never had before, and the Qing army's conquest and suppression of the Hubei merchant army also achieved phased success.
But the Qing army had lost about 25,000 troops at this time, and at the same time, more than 150 fortresses were built, which also consumed a lot of manpower and material resources. Therefore, this victory was hard-won, and Hong Chengchou also decided to
First, they sent good news to Beijing, and then temporarily repaired for a few days. Each unit also replenished its troops and mobilized a batch of supplies from Nanjing to launch a final attack on the merchant army.
On the side of the merchant army, in the previous stage of the battle, a total of about 8,500 troops were lost, and nearly 5,000 troops were gradually replenished. Now the total force in the Hubei War Zone is about 31,000.
But this is the largest source of troops that Hubei region can currently replenish, and the ammunition consumption is close to 50%. Li Mou has retreated to the Dabie Mountains with a portion of his soldiers to set up defenses, ammunition, and all
Planting materials.
It can be said that both sides are actively preparing for the final battle.