: Fighting in the town

He Fuguang was stunned and looked embarrassed. He had no way to stick to his point of view anymore, otherwise he would be charged with "making the enemy's prestige and destroying his morale". In fact, he has been reflecting on a question recently. The strong strength of the Beiyang Army comes from many aspects, including financial resources, equipment, military quality, etc. As for combat effectiveness, it is only one of them. Where did the rumors that the Beiyang Army is invincible to fight begin to spread?

After hearing what Wu Shaoting said, He Fuguang corrected his attitude and analyzed in a deep voice: "What the governor said is right. In addition to being trained longer than us and having a slight advantage in officer quality, we are not worse than them in terms of military strength and equipment. Now we must take advantage of Jiangxi to support it for a while and Fujian has not yet taken action to deal with Cao Kun's troops. When the three provinces join forces, we will never have any advantage at that time."

When Wu Shaoting saw He Fuguang instantly comprehended his meaning, he showed a look of relief and said, "Chongshi, just be sure you understand what I mean."

He Fuguang was not necessarily happy. He said with a stern face: "But I also have the responsibility to remind the governor that there will be changes in Jiangxi and Fujian at any time. We fought Cao Kun from the beginning, which will only accumulate internal injuries. Internal injuries can also be fatal!"

Wu Shaoting knew that the internal injury that He Fuguang mentioned refers to the attitude of all walks of life in Guangdong Province. After the Guangdong-Guangxi War, Guangdong businessmen's capital was moved outward, and a credit crisis occurred not long ago. If the Guangdong army fought too much in the first battle with the Beiyang army, I am afraid that the people in the province will fall into an irrescueable abyss.

He sighed deeply and said unwaveringly: "This battle is a destruction, and if you fail, you will be successful. Chongshi, I am different from you. If I fail, I will be doomed. You still have another way out."

He Fuguang frowned and said seriously: "Governor, what are you saying? Since the beginning of the first reign of Guangzhou, we, the new army, have been following the Governor. No matter whether we win or lose in this battle, we will follow the Governor to the end."

Wu Shaoting glanced at He Fuguang. He knew that He Fuguang felt a little frightened. The words just now were a kind of temptation. As for the purpose of the temptation, everyone was a matter of personal opinion. He nodded slightly, slowed down and said, "Let's arrange it like this first. Other details will be decided by you, the chief of staff."

"yes!"

Shaoguan City is becoming increasingly uneasy, and the oppression of the war is imminent day by day. Many wealthy families have moved from the city to the countryside to live in seclusion. Many factories are becoming increasingly depressed, either workers heading south to seek another way out, or factories move south to take refuge. The ships traveling on the Pearl River are very busy, and have already surpassed the situation of crossing thousands of sails. Only the four gunboats from Guangzhou, "Guangli", "Guangzhen", "Guangjin" and "Guangyu" that came from Guangzhou at the beginning of the month occupied the port position like rocks, with an unshakable attitude.

Nowadays, the most common people in the streets of Shaoguan City are soldiers carrying guns and military carriages. From morning to night, the latest transfer orders occurred all the time. After the end of the Guangdong-Guangxi War, Shaoguan became the city with the most troops stationed in Guangdong. A batch of troop transport ships went up the river, and trucks of supplies were continuously entering and leaving the city walls.

The division headquarters of the First and Third Divisions were successively set up in the city. Shaoguan County Magistrate Chen Guangbi reluctantly sent out his good fortune that he had worked hard to search for for two years, and provided it to Mo Qingyu and Wei Rucon as the stronghold of the division headquarters. The two divisions were not far apart, which facilitated the establishment of a unified command and communication line between the division headquarters.

Guangzhou has not yet issued a clear order to establish a front-end headquarters to unify the command and mobilize the two divisions. The highest command organization is still the General Administration Headquarters. Fortunately, the First Division and the Third Division still do not have the power to cross, and there are no conflicts or conflicts for the time being. Mo Qingyu and Wei Rucong have a good relationship, and they can quickly coordinate and agree even if there are conflicts in orders.

The regiment-level combat units have been sent out long ago, mainly Lechang as the front-line combat zone, and the regiment headquarters are set up in six departments, including Lechang County, Renhua County, Shixing County, Nanxiong County, Lianzhou County and Ruyuan County.

On October 28, the Hunan South Expedition Army marched from Yizhang County and had a small-scale exchange of fire with the garrison of a company of the Guangdong Army in Laopingshi Town. The Northern Army did not launch a strong attack, but only fired two shells on the Guangdong Army's defense line every hour. The Guangdong army of this company did not intend to defend its position to the death. After noon, the company commander took the initiative to order a quiet retreat and let the Northern Army waste shells.

The Seventh Regiment of the Guangdong Army stationed in Lechang had already laid trenches in the northern suburbs of Lechang. The trenches extended from southwest to northeast, cutting across the official road from Hengyang to Shaoguan. Sun Jizhi thought he was not good at positional warfare, and the Seventh Regiment did not have many decent engineers. This trench defense line was built from the engineering team borrowed from the Second Training Regiment.

Laopingshi Town is just an observation base, and the first real battlefield of combat is still in Lechang.

However, the Guangdong Army company retreated from Laopingshi Town did not return to Lechang, but sent a correspondent to report the situation. The company commander decisively ordered to detour to the mountains and forests in the east to hide. In addition to observing the task, the company also shouldered a more important task, which was to open a line behind enemy lines according to the layout of the Northern Army and guide the 11th Cavalry Regiment to infiltrate into Hunan Province for combat.

It was not until two hours later that the vanguard of the Northern Army discovered that the Guangdong army in Laopingshi Town had already withdrawn, so the troops successfully occupied the town. They asked the locals about where the Guangdong army was going, but they did not understand the dialect, and only found out that there were many Guangdong troops in Lechang.

It was approaching evening, and the Northern Army did not dare to go deeper rashly, so they set up a battalion near the town and sent scouts and tricks to explore slowly towards Lechang. After dark, the first batch of scouts reported that the forces of a regiment of the Guangdong Army set up trenches outside Lechang, which obviously wanted to use positional warfare to block the Northern Army's invasion south.

The news soon reached the Chenzhou front command post.

Xiao Yaonan did not get new ideas based on this information. As he had expected before, the Guangdong Army would definitely use the familiar geography to defend the trench defense line as the main defense line. He had certain experience in dealing with positional wars. Unfortunately, Commander Cao was urging him tightly in Changsha and did not want a stalemate in the frontline war, so the troops would take certain risks to continue to move south.

"Commander Cao asked Tang Xiangming to be furious."

After reading two telegrams from the front line and Changsha, he couldn't help but feel secretly happy. Perhaps this seemed a little gloating, but how could he not laugh at the inner battle between his brothers and his walls?

After looking at the time, it was already past the dinner hour. Xiao Yaonan had no appetite to eat and directly summoned his generals to arrange combat missions. He decided to call on the forces of the two regiments to restrain the Lechang defense line from the front, and then sent cavalry troops to the rear of Lechang to attack, intending to take down Lechang in one fell swoop before the Guangdong army took support actions.
Chapter completed!