Chapter 31 In the fierce battle in Long'an, the Seventh Red Army's attack on Nanning was frustrated

The sky was filled with the horrific screeching of mountain artillery and mortar shells.Almost at the same time, on the river 100 meters downstream of the Long'an Ferry, several motor sailing boats and dozens of civilian ships carrying the Seventh Red Army were blocked by intensive artillery shells, deafening explosions and water columns pulled up by the shells, Like an angry water dragon roaring and rolling on the river, trying to divide and swallow the fleet. When Li Mingrui and several of his entourage boarded a stone dam on the east bank of the Youjiang River, the water waves thrown into the air by the shells fell fiercely on their faces and bodies like a torrential rain.Li Mingrui raised his binoculars without any feeling to inspect the beachhead on the river and the mountains and jungles on the east bank for a while, then put down the binoculars, walked down the stone dam with a serious face, and walked quickly to the headquarters in Long'an Town .

He concluded that the opponent was not just the reactionary militia in the Youjiang area, but the regular army of the Guangxi clique.Long'an, a large market town with thousands of households, is located on the east bank of the Youjiang River.On both sides of the narrow stone streets, there are mostly houses of blue bricks and gray tiles. Along the Youjiang River, this is a treasure land with rich products, and it is also an important land and water fortress leading to Nanning.The temporary headquarters of the Seventh Red Army was set up in a courtyard in the town.There is a thousand-year-old camphor tree in the courtyard. It is tall, tall, and vigorous. Its stalwart trunk stands high above the rows of houses. Generations of ordinary people living in a small courtyard.

A military map is spread out on two patchwork wooden tables in the center of the main room.Army commander Zhang Yunyi, commander of the first column Li Qian, commander of the second column Hu Bin, commander of the third column Wei Baqun and others are holding an emergency meeting. The seriousness of the situation has been noticed by all the participants. But everyone agrees that this operation is the first contest with the enemy after the establishment of the Red Seventh Army and the Red Eighth Army. action.At present, the land and water Red Army has assembled in Long'an. If they withdraw without fighting, it will not only affect the morale of all officers and soldiers, but also hit the enthusiasm and enthusiasm of the people in Youjiang area to support the Red Army.

The meeting decided to launch a life-and-death battle with the enemy in Long'an. When Li Mingrui arrived at the headquarters, Zhang Yunyi and others had quickly formulated the specific combat deployment, and each column was required to implement it separately. "Mr. Zhang, it looks like the enemy is gaining momentum!" Li Mingrui took the glass of water Zhang Yunyi handed over and drank it down in one gulp. "I judge that it is Li and Bai's regular troops, at least 10,000 troops." "Brother Yusheng is familiar with the enemy's nature, and he really knows the enemy like a god!" Zhang Yunyi handed a telegram of enemy information sent from Longzhou to Li Mingrui, "This is a telegram from Wan Danping. Li, Bai, and Huang have announced in Nanning Come back again. Bai Chongxi mobilized four regiments to go to Youjiang to carry out a "congress suppression" against me, plus the Zuojiang and Youjiang militia groups, there are actually more than ten thousand people, and the background is indeed not small."

Li Mingrui finished reading the telegram, thought for a moment, and said: "This information came in a timely manner. If we act a few days in advance, even if we take Nanning, we will meet Li, Bai, and Huang on a narrow road, and a fierce battle will be inevitable." Zhang Yunyi said: "Sooner or later, we will have to fight fiercely with them. It is the same in Long'an as in Nanning. From a strategic point of view, it is more beneficial to fight the enemy in Long'an than in Nanning." Li Mingrui nodded, and pondered: "The way to use troops is to encircle them if they are ten, to attack them if they are five, to divide them if they are twice as many, to fight them if they are few, to escape them if they are few, and to avoid them if they are not so small. Jian, the brother who wins the enemy's capture, since he is here to fight the enemy, but my point is, don't love to fight."

It can be seen that Li Mingrui's tone of voice at this time is very inconsistent with his usual stubborn and confident expression. The excited impulse and decisive "do not hesitate to fight" expression at the beginning have been covered by a kind of depression: he is worried about the newly established The young Red Army suffered unforeseen losses.The current army is no longer the team that he and his cousin Yu Zuobai ruled in Guangxi.The nature of teams has fundamentally changed. Li Mingrui's heart was filled with a kind of ridiculed anger. He felt that the cunning history had deceived him again: the attack on Nanning failed halfway before he failed in his righteous campaign against Jiang!

Zhang Yunyi said: "Let's go if we can't win! We will lead the bull's nose around the mountains and rivers!" The enemy's fierce artillery fire has already stripped the trees on several hills near and far east of Long'an Town. February 12.This is the second day of the war.The soldiers of the first column of the Seventh Red Army used shell craters and mountain ravines as resistance fortifications to fight desperately with the enemy.In the afternoon, the frontline position of the first column was submerged in the enemy's artillery fire. Flesh and flesh flew across the sky, shrapnel screamed, and the heaven-shaking cry Lying vertically were the wounded on the verge of death of the opposing sides.

The landslide and earth-shattering struggle has lasted for two days.Clouds of black gunpowder smoke swept over the position, like the shadow cast by the wings of the god of war.Li Qian, commander of the column, stood on a hill on the right side of the position, raised his binoculars and inspected the positions that were about to fall to more than a dozen hills, as if he had entered a sinister dream: the wounded on both sides, who were dying, were fighting and biting together , are using their last breath to strangle or bite each other to death, while those who have already died are staring proudly at the sky full of gunpowder with their eyes that are about to burst.

The scorching mountain wind hit his face with a cloudy and sluggish smell of blood, like a fluttering fire, and the acrid gunpowder smoke pierced his nostrils, making his mouth parched and suffocated. This is an intermission in the battle, which means that the enemy with absolute advantage will launch a more violent attack after reorganizing and adjusting its forces.The wave-like repeated impact was like a turbulent wave breaking the shore, and the positions collapsed one by one, indicating that it was about to sink. "Report to the commander, Commander Li is here." A scruffy guard who looked only fifteen or sixteen years old ran up to him and reported.

Li Qian hurriedly walked down the mountain bag to meet Li Mingrui. "Commander, you shouldn't be here!" Li Qian said hoarsely. "The first column fought tenaciously. But they can't fight any longer, and must evacuate their positions immediately!" Li Mingrui said in an orderly tone. "You mean, we want us to take the initiative to give up the position?" "yes!" "Hi! Now both sides are on the same page, like brown candy that can't be torn apart." Li Mingrui raised his binoculars and looked around, then said: "Just now Commander Zhang and I received an urgent telegram from Political Commissar Deng from Longzhou , suggesting that we should quickly withdraw from the fight"

"Oh, Political Commissar Deng is back from Shanghai." "He's in Longzhou now." Li Qian stared at the commander-in-chief's dark, rock-like face with a bitter and tragic mood: Damn, the start was bad, and this battle was a bit useless! Li Mingrui extended the binoculars to the enemy's depth, only from the depth can he see whether the enemy has follow-up forces.The line of fire is clear at a glance, and he set his sights on the enemy's place where the mystery is hidden.He judged that the enemy was stepping up their movement to the two wings, intending to encircle and annihilate the Red Army in the Youjiang Valley: "It seems that the opponent is by no means an idler, but a very experienced commander." "Who is he?" "The second child of Bai, known as 'Little Zhuge'." "I'm afraid he's a dick! After two days of fighting, his white cock is nothing more than that." Li Mingrui glanced at the 25-year-old commander of the first-year Huangpu column, as if he saw his shadow a few years ago, and saw the fierce battle at Hesheng Bridge on the Northern Expedition Road. On the battlefield, every soldier has become a hero in his own mind, and the fierce battle has aroused all the enthusiasm of every participant. What they see is not how cruel the battle is (that is obvious), but the human beings. The return of primitive wildness and even animal nature, the fire of duel makes every vessel expand rapidly, and every tendon is stretched and trembling.It is an emotion that is incomprehensible to those outside the battlefield—just as they cannot experience the high excitement and heroism of a moth flying to a flame.Any warrior needs that fighting atmosphere, just like the brass drums that make the blood boil and the symphony that rolls up the spiritual storm-this is a fighting atmosphere that makes the dead stand up, covered in blood, and their clothes burnt Rotten, panting, screaming madly Li Mingrui has experienced this kind of passion many times, and has repeatedly created this kind of atmosphere.He called this passion, this atmosphere: war intoxication!The scene in front of me was still the same: the violent fighting nature of both sides was stimulated by the crazy attack and tenacious resistance.Here is neither a cheetah against a hungry wolf, nor a tiger against a sheep, but a red god of war against a white god of war, a red male against a white lion.The intermittent calm of the fierce battle on the front line is even more unpredictable. It hides deceit and danger, and it will suddenly send out thunder that shakes the sky and the earth! "Brother Zhongwu (Li Qian's character), some of the commanders and division commanders on the other side are probably mostly classmates of you and me from the Whampoa Military Academy and the Army Lecture Hall. They also had outstanding achievements in the Northern Expedition." "Yeah, later, due to different ambitions, they parted ways and became enemies." "It doesn't make them cowards and fools because of their reactionary behavior?" "That is. The success or failure of both parties does not depend on the talent or virtue of a certain person, but represents the decay or rebirth of a group, a party or even a class." "Brother Zhongwu made a lot of sense." The naked and majestic sunset has smashed into the cliffs in the west, and half of the cloud sky is blood-red, setting the mountains and forests into black silhouettes.The enemy's new round of attack has begun again.They had obviously realized that the Red Army was about to evacuate their positions, so they mobilized artillery to violently bombard the ships and beachheads at Long'an Ferry.In fact, there are only a dozen wooden boats moored at the ferry.Except for two of the seven or eight motor sailboats that broke down and were blown up, the rest carried the wounded and sick back to Pingma in the morning and afternoon.The first part of the third column guarding the beachhead, under the leadership of Wei Baqun, also withdrew to the west gate of Long'an Town to stand by before dusk. The sky darkened quickly, and the misty mist engulfed the river, and the village houses and mountains were filled with sticky mist like milk. This is not good for defense, but very good for evacuation. The enemy couldn't see the target clearly, so they fired shells indiscriminately, preventing the Red Army from having a moment to breathe.The sound of the cannon appeared dull and hasty in the fog, with scattered spots.However, such shells with scattered targets sometimes do great harm, and they often hit right on the wrong side—one shell just landed in the yard of the Red Seventh Army headquarters, splitting a trunk of the big camphor tree, and the thick trunk blocked it. The strong shock wave when the shell exploded saved the headquarters from being destroyed.When the army commander Zhang Yunyi was about to withdraw, he bowed deeply to the injured big camphor tree.Later he recalled: "It's so dangerous! Thanks to the big camphor tree, I and my headquarters would cease to exist. After liberation, when I was the chairman of the Guangxi Provincial Government, I went to Long'an, but the courtyard and that big camphor tree have been destroyed by the war.” At that time, Zhang Yunyi was giving orders to Feng Dafei, commander of the Second Battalion of the Second Column, to use mountain artillery to attack the enemy's No. 1 and artillery positions, and to cover the withdrawal of the First Column. Feng Dafei, a first-year student in Whampoa, was a military instructor who went to the Soviet Union (July 1925) to study artillery. He immediately commanded six mountain cannons and ten mortars to shoot at the enemy's front line with the accuracy and positioning he had already calculated during the day. The positions and artillery positions launched a counterattack. The air waves of the gunfire stirred up the dense fog and made it flow. In the torn milky fog, streaks of bullets like golden whips continuously flashed out.I saw the enemy, under the supervision of the company, battalion, and regimental commanders, roaring like wasps, stinging and biting wildly, stepping over the corpses of their own brothers, and charging towards the first column of the Red Army. Li Mingrui knew that the Guangxi army was famous for its bravery and skill during the Northern Expedition.Whenever the battle situation is critical, on the verge of despair or a critical moment of desperate struggle, the company, battalion, regiment, and even the brigade and division commanders will go into battle shirtless, leading the death squad to supervise the battle and charge.Li Mingrui glanced at Li Qian with a stern gaze that could not be neglected: "Hurry up and take advantage of our artillery cover and withdraw from the position! The battlefield requires reason, not emotion!" "Withdraw!" Li Qian yelled at the correspondent. I saw that on the ground, the enemy rushed up and was beaten down; when he was beaten down, he rushed up again.Bunkers, trenches, rocks, and bomb craters are gained and lost, and lost and found again. This kind of tug-of-war and hand-to-hand combat is extremely harsh and heroic.The two companies in the front line were red-eyed and refused to retreat.Once the mad fighting nature of human beings is stimulated and erupted, fighting becomes the goal.It was not until night covered everything and the enemy stopped their assault that they bid farewell to the blood-soaked position with tears.