Chapter 46: Peach Blossom Spring's Surprise

  At this time, Taoyuan County was heavily guarded. Looking up at the city wall, patrol soldiers were coming in waves one after another. Due to the notification from the reconnaissance camp, after an afternoon of effort, more than 300 soldiers from the entire reconnaissance regiment and two reconnaissance companies had infiltrated the county seat, but only a portion of handguns could be brought in, while other scouts and all weapons were hidden in a nearby forest not far from the city wall, waiting for the response from the scouts inside the city.

  At this time, a patrol team walked over, with just six people, and Liu Xiaogang, the commander of the reconnaissance battalion, was hiding in a hidden place with five scouts who had already infiltrated the city, waiting for an opportunity. Finally, the six enemy soldiers walked over. Liu Xiaogang waved his hand, and he and his five comrades suddenly rushed out. Before the enemy could react, their hearts were already pierced by a gleaming dagger. In this way, without making a sound, the entire patrol team in this area was replaced by scouts from the Seventh Army Corps.

  With the sound of two cat calls, a dozen or so ropes were thrown down from the city wall, and the scouts below climbed up one after another, then disappeared into the dark interior of Taoyuan County with their weapons.

  In this way, after a night of gathering and reconnaissance, Liu Xiaogang had already figured out the exact addresses of important places such as the ammunition depot, logistics and supplies within the city. At this time, the enemy's ammunition depot gathered a company of troops for reconnaissance, the logistics department gathered two companies of troops, the enemy's division headquarters gathered one company of troops, and the enemy's material warehouse gathered one company of troops. All the troops had changed into Hubei military uniforms, waiting for the commander-in-chief's order to attack the city.

  Liu Hua led the main force, after more than 3 hours of marching, arrived at Taoyuan City and immediately ordered the troops to rest and reorganize, and required the mountain artillery regiment to set up the big guns immediately, waiting for dawn.

  At this time, the sky was already slightly bright, and the battalion commander guarding the city gate saw that all 18 large cannons outside the city were aimed at himself. He was immediately frightened and sat on the ground, picking up the phone to report the situation to the regimental commander.

  "Captain, Captain, it's not good! The Communist army has captured all our mountain guns and now they're all pointing at the city gate. Captain, please send troops quickly, I only have one battalion of soldiers here and we can't hold on for sure. Captain, I need reinforcements." As soon as he finished speaking, the 18 mountain guns outside the city fired in unison. The 18 shells instantly destroyed the city gate tower, and the enemy regiment commander's request for reinforcement was buried under the rubble before he could even finish speaking.

  Order the mountain artillery battalion to fire two volleys, the 7th Army Corps' 2nd Division's 1st Regiment launches a charge, other troops block several city gates, if they refuse to surrender, resolutely eliminate them. Liu Hua simply arranged the task.

  At this time, the scouts inside the city immediately took action after hearing the artillery fire outside. The first to take action were the troops near the enemy's logistics camp. Liu Xiaogang led his two companies, wearing Hubei military uniforms, and swaggered into the enemy's logistics camp. The enemy sentry approached, just about to ask something, when a scout's bayonet had already stabbed into his belly. At this time, the logistics camp was in chaos after hearing the explosion of artillery shells, and they started putting on their clothes.

  At this time, the soldiers of the two reconnaissance companies led by Liu Xiaogang had all arrived. With a single order, each soldier threw all the hand grenades they had prepared into the room. As the explosions sounded one after another, a series of wails were heard in their ears. In this way, more than 400 people in the logistics regiment were blown up, leaving only about 40 wounded prisoners. Liu Xiaogang saw that the entire logistics regiment was controlled by his own men, so he left behind a company's strength and led the remaining company to advance towards the city gate.

  A battalion gathered at the ammunition depot was even easier, directly reporting that they were there to receive ammunition, and the guards easily mixed into the ammunition depot. The guard of just one platoon was not enough for a whole battalion, with each person getting some. Soon, the logistics warehouse was also occupied.

  Liu Xiaogang, who was attacking the city gate all the way, could be said to have been unscathed due to wearing the uniform of the Hubei army. Along the way, no less than a company of people were deceived and assassinated by Liu Xiaogang and others. At this time, Liu Xiaogang suddenly heard a fierce gunshot coming from the enemy's headquarters. Immediately feeling that something was wrong, he led his troops to reinforce them.

  At that time, just as a company of the enemy army was about to launch an attack, the enemy regiment commander also decided to abandon Taoyuan and break through with his troops. The two groups happened to collide head-on. It's worth noting that the training of the Hubei Army was extremely rigorous, and the enemy regiment commander had all his own guards around him, with good weapons. The reconnaissance company was immediately suppressed by the enemy's strong firepower. When Liu Xiaogang arrived, several soldiers in the reconnaissance company had already been killed.

  After listening to the report of the reconnaissance company commander, Liu Xiaogang immediately made up his mind. He ordered a company that was holding out to hold on for 10 minutes before retreating, and he led another company to ambush the enemy's retreat route, aiming to annihilate them completely. Without much thought, this elite enemy force of over one company was thus lost in Liu Xiaogang's ambush, including the enemy regiment commander who was shot in the head.

  When Liu Xiaogang was about to lead the remaining people to reinforce the city gate, a team came from the direction of the city gate. Liu Xiaogang took a closer look and found that his own troops had broken in, so he rushed to meet them and sent someone to take over all the enemy's warehouses and supplies with his troops.

  "Report to the regimental commander, the reconnaissance battalion and two reconnaissance companies have successfully completed their mission." Liu Xiaogang came to Liu Hua's front and saluted immediately.

  "Alright, very well. Order all reconnaissance units to rest and reorganize. All battlefields will be cleared by follow-up troops. Go take a break!" He patted Liu Xiaogang's shoulder as he spoke.

  Liu Hua arrived at the Taoyuan County Government, found the room he had stayed in last time, and fell asleep as soon as he lay down. It was also because of this victory that Liu Hua had not rested for two consecutive days. The political commissar looked at the young army commander in front of him, smiled, and closed the door.

  The next day, as soon as it dawned, Liu Hua was woken up by a burst of cheers. As he walked out of the room, he saw the political commissar walking towards him with a smile.

  "Colonel, General He sent a telegram. They won a battle in the mountains west of Yongshun and annihilated two brigades of the Xiang Army, capturing many spoils. And they asked about the current situation of our 7th Army Regiment." As he spoke, he handed the telegram to Liu Hua.

  Liu Hua also laughed when he saw the telegram. "Commissar, it seems that both sides have won a victory. This time, Chairman Chiang should be scolded. How is it? Has the battle result been counted?"

  "Look at me, haha, I forgot the important thing, Colonel. This time we made a fortune again, really didn't expect it, this Zhang Zhenhan is really rich, thinking about it makes my mouth water. I'm telling you, don't be scared:"

  Firstly, we captured a total of 800,000 jin of grain, which is nearly two months' worth of food for Zhang Zhenhan's entire army. It all came cheap to us, haha!

  Second, the enemy's heavy artillery camp, mainly with 6 mortars, 5,000 mortar shells, 3,000 mountain gun shells, a total of about 1 million rounds of ammunition, and about 20,000 hand grenades.

  Third, and most pleasantly surprising, we captured the enemy's ammunition depot. According to the introduction of the guards at the depot, these were all the ammunition reserves the enemy had prepared for their winter encirclement campaign against us. My god! I went in and was shocked - it was all shells and bullets! After a rough count, there were about 10,000 mortar shells, about 5,000 mountain gun shells, and about 50 million rounds of bullets. Haha, I never thought that Chiang Kai-shek would give us such a big gift this time.

  After listening to the political commissar's words, Liu Hua was also shocked and couldn't speak for a long time. "Commissar, have these situations been reported to General He?"

  "Commander, aren't you still sleeping? You were sleeping so soundly that I didn't want to disturb you. I was just waiting for you to wake up and sign it before submitting the report," said the political commissar with a smile.

  "Let's go, Commissar. We'll report the good news to the Commander-in-Chief." With that, he pulled the Commissar towards the telegraph room.

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