Chapter 52: Everyone Displays Their Divine Abilities

  At this time, the commander of the Shiguan Bridge Garrison was secretly delighted. Because his reinforcements were about to arrive, as long as the reinforcements arrived, they could hold the county seat, and it would be a great achievement at that time. Just as he was happy...

  "Commissar, the reinforcement troops led by Regimental Commander Wang have arrived. You'd better take a look!" The deputy regimental commander ran over.

  "Goodness, so soon! Let's go and take a look." He said as he walked out of the command center. From afar, he saw a group of people walking towards him, led by none other than Commander Wang Bing. The regiment commander hastily went to greet them with a smile.

  "Wang Lü Chang, thank you so much for saving my life this time, brother. I will never forget your great kindness and virtue," the team leader shouted from afar.

  Looking at the approaching Wang Lü Chang, the regimental commander suddenly felt that something was not quite right. The smile on Wang Lü Chang's face looked so stiff, but it was too late. He only felt a hard object poking his waist, and without thinking, he knew it was a handgun. Looking around, he saw that every one of the deputy commanders was stunned in place.

  "King Travel Long, what is this..." The team leader asked relentlessly. Before King Bing could speak, the division commander Sun Xingbang next to him continued: "Tell you, we are the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, you have been captured." Several captives immediately broke out in a cold sweat, they were really unlucky, hadn't even fought yet and were already...

  "Heh heh, Director Zhou, I'm afraid we need your help and that of your subordinates to get something done. Would that be possible?" asked Master Sun Xingbang with a smile.

  The regimental commander thought of the pistol pressed against his waist, and he didn't dare not to agree, so he quickly nodded. Seeing that the regimental commander had agreed, the deputy regimental commander and chief of staff behind him were even more in agreement. Soon, the three regiments of the division quickly divided into three routes, respectively led by the regimental commander, deputy regimental commander and others, to rush to their own three battalion defensive positions.

  Needless to say, under the military uniform and the coercion of the enemy commander, the three battalions of the enemy army obediently became prisoners. The gunfire at Shimen Bridge gradually subsided, and when Liu Hua arrived with his direct troops, escorting the captured materials and prisoners, the battlefield was cleared. Looking at the results in front of him, although Liu Hua felt that his unit's casualties were too great, it was still worth it, as there were enough captive soldiers to make up for the losses.

  "Captured over 1100 enemy soldiers, nearly 300 of whom were artillery and other technical troops. Seized 4 mountain guns, the rest were all destroyed by bombing, 6 mortars, countless ammunition, among which the most supplemented were mountain gun shells and mortar shells."

  Liu Hua was delighted, but not overly so, despite seeing the soldiers' fatigue. He still ordered the soldiers to escort the captured supplies and ammunition, and the captives retreated from Shimen Bridge. As for the wounded captives, Liu Hua had no choice but to leave them at Shimen Bridge and hand them over to the Nationalist Party troops who arrived later, because although other supplies were not in short supply, medical supplies could not be wasted on these Nationalist Party prisoners.

  At this time, the second division led by Political Commissar Guan was also clearing the battlefield. It turned out that north of Xiangxi was the border of Hubei Province, and not far away was the Yangtze River. Faced with the Yangtze River, which is over 1,000 meters wide, Chen Cheng seemed very confident, but only deployed a brigade in each county along the river defense line, while the towns were just symbolic local militias that could hardly pose a threat to the well-equipped Second Division.

  But opportunities are always reserved for those who are prepared, and Chen Cheng is determined to complete the task entrusted by Director Chiang. The Central Army's experience in the fifth annihilation campaign against the Red Army immediately came to mind. Orders were given to dispatch a certain number of troops from each county town to assist the local militia in defense, building fortifications, and advancing step by step. Thus, one battalion, two battalions... troops of different sizes began to march out of the county towns. Guan Xiangying and Gao Yuan and others had seen this point.

  The troops of the Second Division immediately launched a surprise attack on the small units that had broken out of the county seat, and their performance was overwhelmingly victorious. At this time, Guan Xiangying, the political commissar, had just ambushed a battalion that had broken out of the county seat. With the experience of the previous ambush at Taoshi Creek, Commissar Guan did not give up his life to launch a fierce attack, refusing to charge forward until the enemy was knocked down. Under the intense firepower of an entire division, only a few dozen wounded and captured enemies remained from the battalion.

  Although there were no captives, the Seventh Legion had captured a lot, and the political commissar didn't care about that at all. What he cared about was the equipment and ammunition of this battalion. It's necessary to know that these troops are going to defend cities and towns, so the ammunition has been specially strengthened. Each person carried 150 rounds of bullets.

  Afterwards, the head of the Logistics Department, Li Qing's approach was completely different from that of the First and Second Divisions. After receiving the order, Li Qing's eyes were fixed on Anhua because his own troops had occupied it before and he was familiar with the terrain. Moreover, Anhua is located in the middle of Xiang, surrounded by mountains, and the nearest county town is 100 miles away from Anhua, so the enemy's reinforcement troops would need at least 10 hours to arrive. In Li Qing and Wang Nanhu's eyes, it was still easy for their division, reinforced with two artillery companies, to take down the garrison of two regiments in Anhua.

  Li Qing and Wang Nanhu secretly sent two battalions of troops into the county seat after two days of preparation. Two days later, they launched a pincer attack from both inside and outside, combined with intense bombardment by 24 mortars from two artillery companies, and captured the county seat in just 2 hours. It was only after Li Qing interrogated the prisoners that he learned why it had been so easy. Since the annihilation of the Anhua garrison, He Jian had reorganized several town's security teams into a two-battalion defense force to deceive Chiang Kai-shek, but apart from having slightly better weapons, they had no real combat effectiveness.

  After entering the city, Li Qing ordered his troops to intensify their cleanup of the battlefield before the enemy's reinforcements arrived. By then, Li Qing had already led his troops out of Anhua County with prisoners and spoils of war in tow.

  At this time, the scheduled week had arrived, and the three troops rushed to Taoyuan County under the cover of night, preparing for the next step in discussing the battle.