The Ming army attacked the other side. For the Qing soldiers who had no fighting spirit, it was not an enemy but a chance to survive. A large number of Qing soldiers fled in all directions. Those who had no time to escape threw down their weapons in large numbers and attacked the Ming army.
surrender.
This long and narrow area, to the northeast, is mainly the dock area and the railway station area. In the middle is Pukou Town, where the headquarters and various military and political institutions are located. To the southwest is the Qing army's barracks and the Pukou garrison.
Most of them are in this area. It can be said that as soon as the Ming army attacks, they will face a large number of Qing infantry.
But at this time, the first tank of the Ming army was still driving slowly on the pontoon bridge. The infantry only crossed less than a thousand infantry, and nearly 20,000 Qing soldiers surrendered.
The Ming army crossing the river did not expect this situation and was not prepared for the moment. They had no time to collect the prisoners of war, so they just asked the prisoners to go west and not to block the troops crossing the bridge. As the rifles laid down by the Qing soldiers piled up into a mountain, a small number of
The Ming army's inability to carry them also became a major obstacle at the bridge. The remaining prisoners were ordered not to drop their guns for the time being, but to hold their rifles above their heads and walk to the designated gathering place before putting them down together.
The prisoners of the Qing army were very obedient. Although the guns were in their own hands, and there were only more than a hundred Ming troops and a few machine guns escorting them, no one had any intention of resisting, and they all cooperated and walked westward with their guns raised.
For them, they can live. This opportunity is hard-won.
In order to avoid accidental damage in the air, the Ming army brought many large Ming flags and unfolded the flags at major gathering places to facilitate identification by aircraft. But now the Qing army has many more prisoners of war than the Ming army, and it is easy to think that they have surrounded the Ming army in the air.
, was attacked. The Ming army gave several flags to the Qing prisoners of war and asked them to unfurl them on the crowd.
The People's Guard has established a bridgehead on the West Bank. Military police wearing armbands direct traffic, guide infantry, and guide tanks, armored vehicles, and self-propelled artillery to designated locations. Although there are aircraft escorting them from the sky, this is not the case now.
This was still the time when the Ming army was most vulnerable and vulnerable to counterattack. But there were not many sounds of gunfire and artillery around, mainly the noise of soldiers and the roar of engines.
Xiang Xiaoqiang stood on a bunker on Zimu Island in the middle of the river, looking at the situation on the west bank with a telescope. He was sweating at first, but now he gradually relaxed.
It has been half an hour since they started crossing the river. It seems that the Qing army not only failed to react and organized a counterattack, but became more and more chaotic. The Qing army had no fighting spirit, and it was never expected that the Ming army would take the initiative to attack.
Now that the bridgehead position is stable, they are being asked to speed up the crossing. As long as all the People's Guards have crossed the river and five more motorized infantry regiments have passed to meet the minimum strength, they can move inland, bypass the Laoshan Mountains, and head northwest
Outflanked the other end.
The whole world is now exploring how to use mechanized and motorized corps. Not only in the overall application, but also in many specific issues, there is no existing experience. For example, how should tanks pass through pontoons? Guderian advocated that a tank should be fully driven
After crossing the pontoon bridge, the next tank can drive up. Although Xiang Xiaoqiang is a "disciple" of Guderian, he thinks this is too slow. In this case, a mechanized infantry regiment will not be able to cross in less than two hours.
Obviously, dogma cannot be copied at this time. Guderian's tank work is a summary of actual combat experience, but it must also be based on specific circumstances, especially not to fall into the German-style rigidity. At least, most rivers in Europe are not as good as the Yangtze River.
Width.
Xiang Xiaoqiang saw that the bridgehead position was now getting bigger and bigger and was very stable. Fighters were circling overhead. The possibility of being attacked by the Qing army was very small, so he decisively ordered three tanks to be mounted on the pontoon bridge at the same time.
The speed suddenly tripled, and at six o'clock, one mechanized infantry regiment, three motorized infantry regiments of the People's Guard, and five friendly motorized infantry regiments came over.
According to the predetermined plan, the People's Guard left half of its tanks to support the battle at the southwest end, and then a mechanized infantry regiment and eight motorized infantry regiments crossed northwest, bypassed the Laoshan Mountains and then moved northeast to outflank. The trucks behind kept driving off the pontoon bridge, quickly
Formed an organizational structure. In this way, the subsequent motorized infantry regiments followed one by one. An uninterrupted queue of military vehicles formed on the dirt road behind the Laoshan Mountains, driving towards the northeast end.
The Qing army in Pukou was basically paralyzed. The Ming army outflanked the troops and marched quickly behind the mountains. They passed several Qing army heavy artillery positions along the way and found that they were all blown up like a scrapyard. A small number of Qing soldiers saw them from a distance.
They scattered and fled, and there was no need for the Ming army to dismount and fight.
Not long after, the long stretch of Laoshan Mountains came to an end.
The tracks of the leading tank ran over the rails of the Jinpu Railway and turned to the southeast. Black smoke was seen in the south, indicating that it had reached the northeastern end of the narrow strip, and to the south was the railway yard and dock area.
At half past six, Xiang Xiaoqiang received a signal that the outflanking troops had arrived at the predetermined position, and the northeast end was also strangled.
Xiang Xiaoqiang stood on the big bunker on Zimu Island, looking at the queue of military vehicles under his feet, the infantry running on both sides, and then at the black smoke billowing Pukou on the other side. He knew that the "New Year's greeting" operation on the first day of the new year was more than half successful.
Already.
"How far have we passed?"
He lowered his head and asked.
Li Gensheng, standing under the big bunker, asked the staff officer next to him, and then replied:
"In addition to our People's Guard, 15 motorized infantry regiments have passed."
The temporary headquarters was set up on Zimuzhou, in this big bunker at the foot of Xiang Xiaoqiang. There was already a Ming army fortification group on Zimuzhou. Before the last battle in the southern suburbs, the Qing army took advantage of the heavy fog to break through here.
. Now Zimuzhou has just been recaptured, and all the fortifications are empty and burnt to black. Now the largest one, which is the original command fortification, has been cleared out to serve as the headquarters.
Xiang Xiaoqiang jumped down from the bunker and asked Li Gensheng:
"How's it going? It won't be a big problem now, right?"
Li Gensheng said:
"Don't worry, sir. It's going much smoother than we imagined. It's completely ready to start."
Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and said:
"Okay, give the order and start the attack."
With an order, the Ming troops at both ends of the narrow strip began to advance inwards.
…
The Qing army repaired for several hours at night, but the effect was too limited. Many places are burning now, corpses and wounded are everywhere. Officers can't find soldiers, soldiers can't find officers, and there are a lot of escapes. Different.
Soldiers from the army and division were mixed together. Some were covering their wounds and howling, some were vomiting, some were planning to escape, and some were looking for food.
Now except for the three Eight Banner Divisions, which are better and have returned to the regiment level, the rest of the Han army is still a mess. The largest units that can be commanded are platoons and companies. In the previous few hours, Emperor Guangwu
The Eight Banners Division was ordered to supervise the battle, capture soldiers from different regiments, different divisions, and even different corps together, temporarily form combat units, and continuously attack the east coast.
But in the early morning, the Ming army's counterattack suddenly became fierce. Almost ten thousand guns were fired on the east coast, and planes flew into the sky. They began to continue yesterday's air raids. Emperor Guangwu felt that the sky was getting brighter at this time, so the Ming army sent planes to fight in the sky again.
It's very natural, and the shelling effect is much better during the day.
However, a large number of broken troops began to retreat from the south, and many reports were received from Zimuzhou, indicating that the troops had come to seize the pontoon bridge.
Emperor Guangwu and the Qing generals initially judged that this was a self-defense attack by the Ming army to "defend Nanjing." They wanted to get further details, such as the Ming army's strength, equipment, numbers, etc., but the defeated troops withdrew
Either they said something contradictory, or they didn't know anything. They didn't even fight the Ming army, so they just retreated with the crowd.
The Pukou General Headquarters of the Qing Army could not get any useful information. All they could do was organize the army to stabilize the defense line and block this "small group of Ming troops", and mobilize fighter jets from several nearby airports to join the battle and destroy the Ming army's dive bombers in the sky.
Beat it down.
But soon, three kilometers northeast of Pukou Town, the dock and station areas reported the discovery of a large number of Ming troops, as well as tanks and armored vehicles, and the defenders quickly retreated.
Emperor Guangwu and the generals looked at each other, and they all realized a problem: the Ming army was no longer "self-defense."
…
The Ming army's two attack surfaces, the northeast and the southwest, each took dozens of tanks as the vanguard, followed by armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery and infantry, and steadily advanced towards the middle of Pukou.
There was almost no fighting, and the occasional sporadic resistance was defeated by the Ming army's overwhelming firepower. The Qing soldiers rushed to surrender, even those who had originally planned to resist, when they saw the Ming army's roaring tanks and strange machine guns.
, and the black muzzle, all surrendered without hesitation.
On the dirt road, in the middle is a Ming army convoy advancing forward, and on both sides are Qing army prisoners who are walking in the opposite direction. A truck parked on the side of the road for surveillance has a machine gun and a loudspeaker mounted on it, and it is constantly broadcasting:
"Stay to both sides of the road as much as possible... Don't block the road... Hold guns and throw them at the designated place... No matter Man or Han, the Ming army will ensure your safety, let you eat hot meals, and treat your injuries...
You don’t have to die for the Qing court anymore, you can live on..."
Listening to the words on the loudspeaker, the prisoners of the Qing soldiers felt more and more at ease in their hearts, and they all felt that surrendering was the right choice. There was a long queue of prisoners of war, and they all still had guns in their hands, but the team was surprisingly stable. This can be regarded as a milestone in the history of war.
It's a wonder.
At Zimuzhou and Yanziji, the Ming army's pontoon bridge troops were quickly building bridges. Because whether it was reinforcements or retreats, the three pontoon bridges were currently not enough. Moreover, the number of prisoners on the other side had reached nearly 100,000, and now they were crowded in several
The place needs to be transported as soon as possible, otherwise if something unexpected happens, the consequences will be disastrous.
The Yanziji floating bridge is slower to build because the river is wider here, about a thousand meters. It is much faster over Zimuzhou. Zimuzhou divides the river into two streams, each of which is only a few hundred meters wide. Not only can
They are erected at the same time, and the erection difficulty is much lower. It is much faster to build two 600-meter-wide pontoon bridges than to build one 1,000-meter-wide pontoon bridge.
Now two more lines have been set up on Zimu Island. In addition to the three lines originally set up by the Qing army, there are already five. Now three lines are used by the Ming army to increase troops to the west bank, and two are used to transport prisoners to the east bank. One
At that time, the Zimuzhou section of the Yangtze River was "busy with traffic", as busy as the rush hour at work.
The troops that had crossed the river were divided into two parts. One part continued to increase troops in the main attack direction, and the other part launched a warning to the southwest. The Ming army attacking Pukou had two major threats. One direction was 50 kilometers east of the Qing army attacking Zhenjiang; the other
The direction is 30 kilometers to the southwest, and the Qing army attacking Ma'anshan. The distance to the east is farther, and it cannot be reached within a day anyway, so the threat is not great. But if we force the march to the southwest, we can reach Pukou as soon as the afternoon.
In the plan made by Xiang Xiaoqiang and the headquarters, the Battle of Pukou would not end so quickly, and would take at least one day. Therefore, he deployed a large number of friendly troops 5 to 10 kilometers away in the southwest. Li Guoliang also sent a large number of reconnaissance planes to the sky.
Conduct reconnaissance within 100 kilometers in the east, west, and north directions of Pukou to observe the movements of the Qing army.
Xiang Xiaoqiang sat in the fortifications of Jiangxinzhou, studying the battle situation with Li Gensheng and the five group army commanders, and constantly received radio reports from the aircraft. Within a radius of several hundred square kilometers, he knew every move of the Qing army.
These commanders discovered that Xiang Xiaoqiang liked to use radio to command the troops. There was a large row of radios in the fortification, including walkie-talkies and transceivers. A dozen communication soldiers sat in front, each wearing a headset, receiving and transmitting
Various orders and reports. Some communications soldiers wrote down notes on paper while talking to the front line, and then turned around and handed them to Xiang Xiaoqiang.
Xiang Xiaoqiang took it over, analyzed and judged it with a few people, then made a quick decision and sent the order using the radio.
These commanders couldn't help but lament that the People's Guard's radio equipment was too powerful, and it was so useful to use radio to command the troops. It was much faster to use flags than traditional messengers.
"But sir," Fang Dongcheng, commander of the 9th Group Army, said doubtfully, "it is too unsafe for us to use plain language in such a large amount to command the front line clearly... Isn't this clearly heard by the Qing army?"
Feng Lingcai, commander of the 16th Group Army, took over and said with a smile:
"Lord Fang, you are overthinking. The right way is to have soldiers with great speed. Sir Xiang knows his way very well. Commanding troops can be done with just one quick word. So what if the Qing army hears it? The key is not whether the Qing army hears it or not, but the Qing army."
Come here without reacting. If we encrypt and decrypt every order, the entire speed will be slowed down, which may give the Qing army an opportunity... In the past, we only knew that Sir Xiang's army had many tanks and good weapons. Today,
Only then did I realize that what is really powerful is not only these tank submachine guns, but also these radios, and Sir Xiang’s commanding art!"
Although Xiang Xiaoqiang knew that Feng Ling was a flatterer, he still felt quite comfortable being photographed. Especially when Xiang Xiaoqiang saw that he was not only a flatterer, but also really had some skills. Although these few words were meant to be flattery, they were all meant.
In terms of ideas, this is where Xiang Xiaoqiang is ahead of his contemporaries.
At 11 o'clock at noon, the Ming troops at both ends advanced to the outskirts of Pukou Town. It was estimated that the remaining Qing troops only numbered in the tens of thousands, but the resistance became fierce. The Qing troops began to rely on buildings and streets to resist desperately.
In a posture of coexistence and death with Pukou, it was difficult for the Ming army to advance inward.
It’s no wonder that the prisoners that have been captured are almost all Han troops, and according to intelligence, there should be two to three Eight Banners Division soldiers in Pukou. Now they are probably the last tens of thousands of people. They fought and retreated in the previous battles.
, did not join the surrendering army, and now they have gathered in the town and begun to resist desperately. - Moreover, Emperor Guangwu should still be in Pukou Town.
…
Today is a good day. The sun came out in the morning, and it was pretty good. The fog that had lasted for many days completely dissipated on New Year's Eve, and the sun came out on New Year's Day. It is in line with the saying: There is a new atmosphere in the New Year.
But over the southeastern sky of Nanjing, a few small black spots faintly appeared in the dazzling sun. By the time people noticed, these small black spots had quickly grown in size and turned into eight fighter jets, arranged in a formation.
"Four-four" formation. Then eight more planes emerged. Then eight more...
It wasn't until more than thirty planes "emerged" from the sun that the anti-aircraft guns on the ground in Nanjing began to bombard them, and the sky was soon filled with black clouds.
However, these dozens of fighter jets ignored the anti-aircraft guns and pounced directly on the dive bombers over Pukou from high altitudes. Before the Ming army fleet could react, two Ospreys were already dragging black smoke to the ground.