An Yi led his troops through the raging residential buildings and rushed to Wenchang Bridge. Before approaching the command post of Fifth Regiment Commander Li Yannian, they were suppressed by a burst of flying mortar shells in the dry drainage ditch of the alley.
After the violent explosion, An Yi looked up and saw that all the buildings from the alleyway to the bridgehead two hundred meters had been razed to the ground by artillery fire. The corpses of brothers from various units of the Second Division were piled on top of each other, everywhere, and there were pools of blood all over the place.
It spread wider and wider, flowing everywhere, and the hot air was filled with the suffocating smell of burnt corpses and blood.
Under the cover of the thick smoke caused by the shells, An Yi flew up and quickly rushed to the temporary command post in the northeast corner. He entered the yard full of rubble and broken bricks, quickly climbed up the high platform of the collapsed earth temple, and found the man lying behind the broken wall.
Li Yannian, who was observing the commander, immediately lay down next to him and took out his telescope: "Brother, retreat quickly, we can't hold it anymore!"
"Xiaoyi? Why are you here?"
Li Yannian turned his head in surprise, and the officials on both sides looked at the sudden arrival of An Yi. They were very surprised and moved. When everyone wanted to escape as soon as possible, An Yi came risking his life. This kind of loyalty and courage,
How could it not make Li Yannian and his deputies deeply moved?
An Yi kept holding the telescope and pointed it forward: "His uncle! We can't retreat without retreating. The enemy is all in the dark on the other side. It seems that they are playing hard. You see... the enemy has been growing long and long under the cover of powerful machine gun fire."
We began to forcibly cross the narrow section of the river that was several kilometers long. We did not set up a blocking position two kilometers ahead in the southeast direction. The several fishing boats going back and forth were full of enemy troops and were rowing to the west bank with their lives. If we did not leave, we would all be intercepted by the enemy.
We are making dumplings from south to north. Unless we can jump down the Qujiang River along the Lingshan River Estuary and swim across the other side, there is only one way to die. But in such a cold weather, what is the difference between going into the water and committing suicide? There is no way out, so retreat quickly!"
"I also want to withdraw, but if we can't stop the enemy's pursuit on the other side of the bridge, those of us who can still move will run away, and the more than 500 injured brothers behind us will have to wait to be slaughtered!" Li Yannian explained painfully.
An Yi looked back at the piles of wounded soldiers a hundred meters away, gritted his teeth and said loudly to Gu Changfeng who came behind him: "Hutou, have you seen the old tree at the end of the bridge that was blown away without a single leaf...
...The trunk of the tree with at least five people hugging each other on the shore is tilted towards the bridge deck. The middle of the trunk above the root is hollow. Try to put a few explosive packets in it. As long as it is successfully detonated, there is a high chance that it will fall sideways on the bridge deck.
Go on, how can we block the enemy's pursuit speed?"
"I understand!" Gu Laoer turned around and left.
"Come back... take all your people. After turning around the dilapidated house on the left front, they all rush to the abandoned position on the shore. You must use all the machine gun firepower to suppress the enemy firepower on the other side. This is only possible. Go ahead.
"
After An Yi finished speaking, he saw Gu Changfeng leaving and gave a few words of advice to Li Yannian beside him. Then he turned to Li Fuqiang, who was half-kneeling behind him and observing calmly with a telescope: "Old Li, we have to go help Hutou together.
Kill the machine gunners on the other side as much as possible, and I will have to follow you."
"Let's go."
Li Fuqiang put away the telescope, took off the rifle on his back, pulled the bolt and loaded the gun, and quickly jumped off the high platform.
An Yi picked up his rifle and bent down to follow. The two of them rushed out of the yard one after another and turned into the alley with smoke and fire to the west. They took a few detours and then disappeared. Li Yannian and three subordinates were seen on the high platform.
His face was full of sorrow.
Li Yannian turned over and sat up and ordered loudly: "Everyone is here, escort the wounded to the west immediately, follow the broken wall and alley to the north as much as possible, and evacuate quickly!"
"yes--"
After giving the order, Li Yannian lay down on the low broken wall again, raised his telescope and nervously observed the Wenchang Bridge, but showed no response to the urging of the guards and adjutants behind him.
Under the ruins more than a hundred meters away from the river to the west of Wenchang Bridge, Gu Laoer and more than a hundred brothers who had sneaked into position were clinging to the ground. The whistling of bullets was heard above their heads.
Gu Laoer observed clearly and shouted loudly: "Prepare the grenade... prepare--fight!"
The rumbling explosions resounded in the sky, and thick smoke enveloped the space tens of meters wide in front of them. Gu Laoer jumped up with a loud shout, and led his brothers to rush forward for more than 30 meters and pounce on four groups of temporary structures.
Behind a fifty-meter-long bunker, Gu Laoer's tiger-like voice sounded again: "Pile all the corpses, mount all the machine guns, and be sure to suppress the firepower from the other side!"
More than a hundred brothers put down their weapons, picked up the corpses lying around and piled them on the bunker in front of them. Regardless of the crime of desecrating the dead brothers, they set up light machine guns and flower machine guns and aimed at the enemy's firepower points on the west bank to beat them wildly.
.
This sudden and violent attack was effective instantly. The enemy launched a fierce charge and then moved forward. The six machine gun fire points about 300 meters away from the other side suddenly went silent. How could Gu Laoer, who was almost an expert in fighting, miss such a good opportunity? He picked up the explosive bag.
With a loud roar, he led the two brothers in a mad dash towards the big tree 70 meters away in the northeast.
The enemy on the other side reacted and thought that Gu Laoer and the others were trying to blow up the stone bridge to cut off the main road. They fired bursts of bullets at the three people who rushed towards the bridge. For a moment, they did not bother to call out to the more than 100 brothers in the guard company directly opposite.
Brother Lian's pressure suddenly decreased, he immediately changed the barrel of the gun and started firing violently again.
"Pah——"
"Seventh, next target, eleven o'clock direction, ruler three, wind force two."
An Yi lay in the pile of dead people and watched nervously with a telescope and loudly reported the count. Li Fuqiang, who was lying three meters away behind the corpses on the first floor, pulled the trigger. The school officer brandishing his saber and yelling next to the enemy's heavy machine gun spurted scarlet blood from his head.
Fog fell headlong on the machine gunner's back, causing the gun head to tilt high and shoot wildly into the sky.
"Direction of half past ten, ruler four, wind force two."
"Pah——"
The heavy machine gunner who had just finished changing his ammunition belt fell down at the sound. The distance of 370 meters was too easy for Li Fuqiang. After firing five bullets, the two of them rolled backwards at the same time and rolled into the dirty drainage ditch on the roadside.
Li bent down and moved quickly, shifted positions, moved more than thirty meters later and stopped again. They both squeezed between two 1.5-meter-wide stone piers to load their guns with ammunition racks, specifically targeting the enemy commander and machine gunner.
"Da da da——"
The last brother following Gu Laoer staggered, fell to the ground and never moved again. The explosive bag in his hand flew four meters away to the left front.
Gu Laoer, who was lying down in an emergency, was panting heavily on the ground and motionless. He waited for a burst of mortar shells to explode around him and then jumped up quickly. He rushed to the explosive package dropped by the dead brother in two steps and leaned over to pick it up.
He got up, carrying three explosive bags tied to support rods and rushed to the roots of the big tree at high speed. He used his legs to leap forward and accurately drilled into the middle of the hollow tree trunk, immediately attracting a dense rain of bullets.
The old bark was beaten into pieces by machine gun bullets, causing pieces to fly, making a "click-click" sound like fried beans.
After a burst of blows, there was no movement. The enemy quickly transferred firepower and called the guard company's position directly in front. Gu Laoer took advantage of this rare opportunity to stuff three explosive packets into the tree hole above his head, pulled out his dagger and supported the last one.
The pole was pierced hard and firmly fixed on the inner wall of the tree hole.
Gu Laoer stopped to take a breath. After hearing the sound of the gunshot, he decisively lit the fuse. He waited for three seconds and then flew out of the tree hole. After several ups and downs, he had already fled behind the broken wall more than 30 meters away to the west.
Without looking back, he dashed straight to the west.
"boom--"
There was an earth-shattering loud noise, which overshadowed all the gunfire on the battlefield. The 40-meter-high tree with half of its trunk blown up violently shook, and the cracking sound of "Gah-gah-gah" pierced the eardrums, leaving it bare.
The dozens of meters of tree crowns were thrown to the northwest, teetering on the edge of collapse, and finally, blown by the strong wind, they were suddenly thrown to the southeast with the force of rebound.
The broken tree trunk could no longer bear the weight and inertia of the 20 to 30 tons of canopy trunks above. It suddenly broke with a loud "pop" sound and collapsed onto the western section of Wenchang Bridge. The stone railings beside the bridge were smashed and broken, and they flew everywhere, shaking the tree.
The ground shook suddenly twice, and the giant tree bounced high with great momentum, then fell again, finally completely blocking the more than 20 meters of bridge deck connecting the western section of Wenchang Bridge to the embankment.
The enemy on the other side stared in horror at the spectacle of a giant tree toppling dozens of meters above the bustle. Only after everything had passed did they finally realize that the only bridge on the way forward had been blocked. Looking up to the west bank, the revolutionary army was retreating frantically, fleeing in confusion.
As darkness fell and heavy snow came again, the fierce exchange of fire in front of the Hutaling position finally stopped. Both sides, who had fought fiercely for a day, were exhausted and unable to fight anymore.
Meng Zhaoyue, the commander-in-chief of the Zhejiang Army who rushed to the battlefield, had arrived at the frontline headquarters in Youbu Town. After listening to the report, he looked up at the heavy snow falling in the sky and had to order to stop the attack and withdraw the entire army to the original position west of Longyou City.
Hold the position.
"Can any of you tell me why such a promising victory ended up with half the effort and a loss of troops and generals?"
Meng Zhaoyue, who had a strong build and three strands of scholar's beard, half-closed her pair of deep red phoenix eyes, leaned on the tall handsome chair and glanced coldly at the generals in the hall.
There was silence in the hall. Wu Ming, the commander of Meng Zhaoyue's Tiger General Guards Brigade, took a step forward, clasped his fists and stated: "Shuai Zhao, I think that all the ministries have done their best, but I didn't expect that the revolutionary army responded so quickly and blocked it so well.
As far as the south of Longyou City attacked by my subordinates, the unit with the "Model Battalion" flag raised high was very powerful and strange. The unit was called a battalion, but in fact it had the light and heavy firepower of a reinforced regiment. The number of officers and soldiers was not high.
Under another 700, and supported by more than a dozen mortars, they bombarded our machine gun positions indiscriminately. The tactics of this unit were flexible and resilient. They kept building positions during each firefight and seemed to never tire.
, shocking.
At noon, his subordinates personally led the officers and soldiers of the two regiments to launch a desperate charge. They rushed to the unit's position several times but were repelled by the hand grenades that looked like suicide. What is even more surprising is that the officers and soldiers of the unit have extremely accurate marksmanship and professionalism.
The captain of our unit was chosen to shoot. The generals under his command experienced ten out of ten in this battle. By the afternoon, each unit suffered heavy losses. More than half of the three main regiments were killed or wounded. All seventeen regiment and battalion commanders were killed before the battle. There was nothing we could do.
Then organize an effective attack.
This is the first tough battle my subordinates have encountered since joining the army. Although I am filled with anger, I am helpless."
Wu Ming's words resonated with the generals in the hall. They all plucked up the courage to explain the reasons why the initial success was extremely smooth but the strategic intention could not be implemented in the end. Yang Shijun and Situ Wei even speculated that the troops of the Model Battalion might not be just an independent regiment.
, is likely to be a fully-staffed main division like other units of the rapidly expanding revolutionary army. Otherwise, it would never be possible to have such powerful firepower and the officers and soldiers to be so well-trained.
"Model camp? Ah, I remembered. A while ago, the Kuomintang newspapers praised this unit to the sky. Major newspapers and periodicals across the country reprinted it, saying that it was the hero of the Battle of Fengxin and the Battle of Nanchang. It was invented.
A powerful force in the Northern Expedition that adopted the new method of joint infantry and labor training, Marshal Wu’s unit suffered greatly from this unit in the Battle of Tingsi Bridge, and it is indeed well-deserved... It seems that Chiang Kai-shek’s revolutionary army has talents."
Meng Zhaoyue did not reprimand his subordinates for this, but nodded magnanimously and summarized the battle:
"The battle from Youbu to Longyou was the best battle fought by our army so far. Although the remnants of the opponent finally broke through, it basically achieved the goal expected before the war. Our army resisted step by step and retreated step by step.
With his arrogant strategy, several small towns cost the revolutionary army nearly 10,000 losses, and the result was that the revolutionary army returned in vain. It bought at least twenty days of precious time for our army to adjust its strategy. It is very worthwhile..."