Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 300: Taking Over the Defense of Xuzhou
After receiving the order from the war zone headquarters, Yue Qianli immediately dispatched a supplementary detachment as a pioneer to rush to Xuzhou to take over the defense;

Chen Zhongyuan and Tian Yuanxi led the column headquarters and the troops directly under them to follow up, and the independent detachment and the second detachment provided protection on the left and right.
The first team retreated to the northwest, first retreating to the Longhai Line to wait for an opportunity to control Lanfeng;

Yue Qianli led the third detachment to cover the rear. Tian Yuanxi raised objections on the spot. He hoped to replace Yue Qianli as the rear guard, because Yue Qianli was too important to the entire guerrilla column.

"Old Yue, a gentleman does not stand under a wall. You are the backbone of the 4 soldiers of the guerrilla column—"

Yue Qianli immediately interrupted him and said:
"Opposition is useless. As I said before, you are not important enough!

With me in Fujita, the old devils dare not act rashly. I need the guerrilla column to withdraw to Xuzhou unscathed, and then control the Longhai Line;

The guerrilla column's reputation was used to attract the Japanese and cover the smooth evacuation of the main force of the Fifth War Zone.

The matter has been decided, execute the order! "

Seeing that Old Yue had made up his mind, Tian Yuanxi had no choice but to follow orders and lead the column to evacuate first, while Yue Qianli stayed behind with the third detachment to cover their retreat.

Beicheng is about 160 kilometers away from Xuzhou. The military situation is urgent, and the supplementary detachment can arrive by train in half a day. The main force retreats to Xuzhou on foot to take over the defense, continue to attract the main force of the Japanese, and cover the retreat of the main force of the Fifth War Zone.

After the main force withdrew, the Third Detachment continued to stay in Bengbu with great fanfare. The two divisions on the south bank of the Huaihe River acted like ostriches and dared not act rashly.

Although the Japanese army had completed the encirclement of Xuzhou, it was only strategic, and it would take a long time to tighten the encirclement.
Commander Li had a very keen sense of the battlefield. He would not give the Japanese any chance and immediately gave the order to retreat.

After receiving the order from the headquarters, the various units immediately evacuated the defense line and broke out towards the mountainous area at the border between Henan and Anhui;
After the main force broke through, Commander Li and his headquarters began to break out, crossing the Wohe River through Suxian and entering the defense area of ​​the 21st Army.

Commander Li had already reserved the 21st Army as a backup, so the retreat was very calm. Beyond the mountainous area at the border of Henan and Anhui is the Dabie Mountains, with sufficient strategic airspace. It is no exaggeration to say that the headquarters of the Fifth War Zone is safe.

In fact, the Battle of Xuzhou had already ended at this time. The main force and headquarters of the Fifth War Zone had evacuated smoothly. Until Liu Ruming of the 68th Army, who was left behind, voluntarily gave up Xuzhou, the Japanese army of 30 did not gain a penny and at most got an empty city of Xuzhou.

Commander Li was very careful in planning the retreat and was very experienced in using his troops. If the Battle of Xuzhou ended here;
The result should be that the Japanese win in face and China wins in substance. There is no need for Yue Qianli to get involved in this muddy water. They only need to retreat to the mountainous areas of Henan and Anhui.

But unexpectedly, a replica of the Battle of Lanfeng was created, and the 14th Division turned the Longhai Line upside down;
More than 100,000 central troops were unable to subdue this wild bull, which resulted in the catastrophe of the century. This forced Yue Qianli, who had a God's perspective, to defy fate and change his destiny in the hope of preventing the catastrophe, even at the cost of wiping out the guerrilla column.

Yue Qianli chose two breakthrough points. One was Xuzhou. He would not give up too early and would even fight a battle with the pursuing devils. This would buy a few more days for the deployment of the first war zone.

The other one is Lanfeng. He will take over the defense of Lanfeng so that Xue Lao Hu can concentrate on encircling and annihilating the 14th Division.

Finally, he had to lead the main force to retreat to Kaifeng, keep the Japanese out of Kaifeng, ensure the safety of the Longhai Line, and thus Zhengzhou would be safe. After completing the above operations, he should be able to prevent the catastrophe from happening.

This was all he could do. He could not possibly occupy Zhengzhou, which was the headquarters of the First War Zone, with 8 troops. If he approached without permission, it would be tantamount to rebellion. He did not want to fight with the main force of the First War Zone.

In Xuzhou, the Supplementary Column completed the handover with Liu Ruming's 68th Army and officially took over the city defense;

The first thing Wang Jianfei did was to evacuate the people and at the same time sent the 1st and 2nd Battalions to guard the two wings. Yue Qianli had told him that even if the Japanese arrived, they would only be some vanguard troops, at most a battalion level, or even a squadron;
The task of the supplementary detachment is to gather troops, set up an ambush and defeat them. It will take at least two days for the main force of the Japanese to arrive.

"Captain, we've made a fortune. The strategic warehouses left by the commander-in-chief have piles of supplies and ammunition piled high. They are enough to last the entire column for a month."

Battalion Commander Ai Jian's words also aroused Wang Jianfei's interest. Previously, Commander Liu said he would give him a war reserve warehouse, but he thought it was just a few small things. He didn't expect it to be full of supplies and ammunition.

Since this war preparedness warehouse was far away from the urban area, Commander Liu was not interested in it, so he did not take it over, which gave them a good bargain.

After listening to this, Wang Jianfei asked excitedly:
"Old Ai, are there any mines or explosives in the warehouse?"

Ai Jian had already counted the items like a miser and immediately replied:
"Yes, there are at least dozens of tons of explosives and tens of thousands of mines. They are all imported goods and the boxes haven't even been opened."

Wang Jianfei was not surprised at all after hearing this. This was the headquarters of the war zone, storing supplies for hundreds of thousands of troops.

Even if most of them were consumed, the remaining number would still be an astronomical number. Once the National Army retreated, no one would be willing to retreat with these burdens, and some even wanted to throw away their guns.

During the September 18 Incident, the equipment left by the Shenyang Arsenal to the Japanese was enough to arm hundreds of thousands of troops, including hundreds of aircraft.

If they couldn't take it away, they could have just blown it up. But they left it intact to the Japanese and fed them into fat pigs, which then gave them the strength to attack the interior.

Wang Jianfei seriously suspected that Lao Yue came to Xuzhou just to get his eyes on these supplies, but he had no evidence, so he had to discard this speculation that would damage Lao Yue's glorious image and continued to say to Ai Jian:
"The south and west are still controlled by the Nationalist Army. If the Japanese invaders come, they will come from the east and north first.
I have sent a battalion to each of these two directions. Their mission is to destroy the Japanese vanguard, and then block the main force of the Japanese that will arrive later in stages, and use mobile warfare to hold them back for a week.

You send someone to deliver the mines and some explosives to them. With the minefield, they will be more relaxed.

"Please take good care of the remaining explosives, as they are Lao Yue's favorite. We need them to build rockets."

Ai Jian also knew this and took the order excitedly. Yue Qianli did not intend to fight street fighting in Xuzhou. He just wanted to use mobile warfare to delay the Japanese for ten days or half a month to buy time for Xue Laohu to encircle and annihilate the isolated 14th Division.

Two days later, north of Xuzhou, Lizhuang, 2nd Battalion ambush position

Deng Zhuzheng, deputy detachment commander and commander of the 2nd Battalion, was patiently waiting for the Japanese to enter the pocket when the reconnaissance platoon sent a message that several hundred Japanese were heading straight for Xuzhou.

So he sent out a company to harass the Japanese and lure them into the pocket formation he had carefully arranged.

Now everything is ready, only the east wind is missing!

Captain Liao Tao said anxiously:
"Isn't this kid Yue Wanli going to mess up his job?"

(End of this chapter)