The Fourth Outstanding Person of Huangpu Military Academy

Lu Deming was responsible for coordinating the operations of the railway attack columns. There were two attack columns, each consisting of two trains. The leading train was an assault vehicle equipped with mortars and flat-fire guns, followed by a troop carrier. The two trains had to maintain a distance of 8 to 10 kilometers while traveling.

Chen Mingren: "A train is not a carriage or a car. A train is so long and heavy that it can travel several miles from the moment the brakes are applied to the moment it comes to a complete stop.

Chen Tianheng: "Besides the difficulty of braking, there are also the limitations on the train crew's visual range. On a clear day on a plain, they can see about a kilometer ahead, but in heavy rain and fog, they can't see even a hundred or two hundred meters ahead. Therefore, the railway line has set up blocked sections for trains. Under normal circumstances, only one train can pass through each section. The attack column of the first division had to occupy two sections.

Huang Wei: "If we reach a station, the number of sections will be greater than or equal to two. Only then can we overtake or form a platoon."

Lu Deming: "That's why the front and rear vehicles of the attacking column can complete the exchange of forces, right?"

Of the 24 stations on the Shanghai-Hangzhou line, Nanxingqiao and Hangzhouzhakou were already under Northern Expeditionary control. The station just before that, Qingtai, had just been captured by the Second Regiment's reconnaissance company. Tomorrow morning's battle would begin at the fourth station, Liangshanmen.

Genshanmen is a small station with only one platform. The trains on the branch line that stop at the platform will not affect the operation of the main railway line, but only one train can stop there.

The lead vehicle of the attack column stopped briefly 500 meters before the train station. The infantry disembarked, seized the station, and established defenses. The assault vehicle then moved on to the next station. A troop carrier arrived at the station, depositing a platoon of soldiers from the replacement battalion. The elite infantrymen who had just captured the station boarded the vehicle.

The assault vehicle launched a battle at the next station, Gangqiao Station. After capturing the station, the troop carrier arrived and sent a supplementary company to guard Gangqiao Station, and the elite infantry then boarded the vehicle.

However, Jianqiao Station was a slightly larger station, with two platforms, essentially two sidings for trains. Assault vehicles and troop carriers could park side by side at Jianqiao Station to exchange troops. Elite infantrymen taken by troop carriers at Minshan Gate were transferred to assault vehicles, which then continued their advance to capture the next station.

The First Attack Column was responsible for capturing and occupying the area from Hangzhou to Jiaxing, while the Second Attack Column was responsible for capturing and occupying the area from Jiaxing to Shanghai.

It has to be said that in order to make the nearly 10,000 people of the First Division advance in an orderly manner on this railway line, Lu Deming and Huang Wei were both overwhelmed.

不但要井然有序，而且还要快速推进。1月16日凌晨四时战斗打响，1月16日下午5时要打到上海。

In one day, the 1st Division advanced over 100 kilometers. This was, of course, a special case, an offensive along the railway, not a field battle. Otherwise, this speed of advance would have frightened Guderian to death.

"There are commercial passenger and freight trains operating from Jiaxing to Shanghai. Will there be any problems if our attack column breaks into them?"

Lu Deming asked a question.

Chen Tianheng: "Yesterday at 5 pm, after Shanghai learned that Hangzhou had been occupied by the Northern Expedition Army, the entire Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway was suspended. However, even if it had not been suspended, as long as the railway signals were normal and the drivers operated normally during the attack tomorrow, there would not have been a collision. The reason is the railway line block system I just mentioned. Lu Deming, please go through the Jiaxing battle again and see if there are any uncertainties.

Lu Deming: "Jiaxing is a fairly large city...but it only has one security regiment, 630 men. The Second Column's Third Regiment rushed over, and that security regiment was instantly shattered."

Huang Wei: "Is it possible to occupy and control the Jiaxing Railway Station without annihilating this security group?"

Lu Deming said, "The Jiaxing Railway Station is one thousand meters from the center of Jiaxing city. This distance is neither short nor long, which is rather awkward. If we only control the railway station, we have to worry about the security group launching a frenzied attack on the station, which would require a large garrison at the station. Instead of this, it would be better to completely disarm the security group. In this way, Jiaxing can be safely controlled by a company of the replacement battalion and heavy machine guns, and then Jiaxing will be handed over to the Second Division, which will arrive as a replacement."

anaab

The First Division headquarters stayed up all night in Hangzhou, and a group of people on the Shanghai-Hangzhou-Shanghai-Nanjing line also stayed up all night.

The railway line between Nanxiang Station and Shanghai North Station is very quiet at night. This railway is not so busy that it runs day and night. From midnight to midnight, after the last group of patrol workers passed by, the soldiers of the 5th Battalion of the Reconnaissance Battalion of the 30st Division - the Reconnaissance and Demolition Battalion, walked onto the railway line.

"Boss, should we blow up the bridge?

"Well, blowing up a bridge is easy, but it can't be repaired after it's blown up," Huang Yinglong said. "Blowing up a section of the railway above ground is enough to alarm the whole country. If we blow up a railway bridge, there will be more than a dozen people in the country calling the shots. Even if we blow up the section of the railway above ground, the division commander said that it depends on the battlefield situation. The main thing is to bury it, but detonating it is not necessarily necessary.

"What does it mean to depend on the battlefield situation?

Huang Yinglong: "If the First Division had attacked quickly and surrounded Li Baozhang in a flash, he wouldn't have had time to escape by train, and we wouldn't have had to blow up the railway.

"Captain! Captain! The road station has been taken!"

In the dark of night, a member of the reconnaissance and blasting team came to report.

Huang Yinglong: "The four of you stay where you are and keep in touch. The rest of you, go!"

Hangzhou.

"Ding ding ding--"

Chen Tianheng: "It's a railway phone!

Qian Deng Ruoxian picked up the microphone: "I am from Hangzhou Railway Station.

Huang Yinglong: "I am Huang Duanchang of Nanxiang Station. Frost has fallen on the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway. Frost has fallen on the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway.

Qian Deng Ruoxian: "The train will run as it should, there is no need to defrost.

"Duanzhang Huang understands.

Qian Deng Ruoxian put down the phone and said, "Division Commander, the reconnaissance and blasting team has already planted explosives at the Nanxiang Station section of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway.

The reconnaissance battalion occupied a maintenance shed on the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway and used the railway telephone there to communicate with Hangzhou. The First Division had also extended a line from the Hangzhou Zhakou Railway Station to division headquarters. This made telephone communication very convenient, but the railway telephones were operated by human operators who could hear both ends of the conversation.

It would be fine if the operator was too lazy to pay attention to the content of the call, but if the operator was bored and carefully eavesdropped on the conversation, "I am from the reconnaissance battalion of the 1st Division of the Northern Expedition! We have buried explosives on the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway!" The operator would explode on the spot before the explosives exploded.

So the reconnaissance and blasting team in front had to use some code words to pass the message

3: in the morning.

All the officers and men of the First Division were up, and the First and Second Regiments were ready to depart. Under the flickering lights of the station, the entire First Battalion of the First Regiment lined up for departure, with the heavily armed assault train of the First Railway Attack Column behind them.

"Quickly capture the Shanghai-Hangzhou line and launch a surprise attack on Shanghai. Capture Li Baozhang before he can react." Chen Tianheng said, "First Regiment, and all the participants, after the liberation of Shanghai, I will treat you to a movie.

"Set off!"

The large combat map currently hanging at the First Division headquarters is not the Jiangsu-Shanghai map, but the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway line map.

The route map lacks topography; it represents abstract railway lines, sections, and stations along the Chongqing-Jiangsu Railway—just points and lines. The First Division's current operations had little to do with Jiangsu's terrain, but rather with the sections and stations along the railway lines. Therefore, the route map serves as today's operational map.

At 4:30, the railway telephone in the headquarters rang.

"I'm the new stationmaster of Genshanmen Railway Station, Song Xilian!

Chen Tianheng: "Stationmaster Song, are there any staff members who have resigned?"

“The staff found the job easy and no one resigned.

Chen Tianheng: “I understand. …I understand.

Chen Mingren: "Genshan Gate is done, let's exchange the Jue Bridge map!

The staff officer of the General Staff found the map of Gangqiao and spread it out on the table. Now, on the wall of the division headquarters was a map of the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway, and on the table were maps of the cities corresponding to the battles on the front lines.

However, the divisional staff did not directly command the battles to capture stations or other cities along the way. The maps were only used as a precaution. The actual combat on the ground was decided by the temporary command post on the assault train. The divisional staff only focused on the results.

Four fifty-five in the morning.

"Ding ding ding--"

"I'm the new stationmaster of Jianqiao Railway Station, Song Xilian!

Five thirty in the morning.

"Ding ding ding--"

"I'm the new stationmaster of Linping Railway Station, Song Xilian!

The staff quickly removed the map of Linping and switched to the map of the next station, Xucun Station. Chen Mingren facepalmed: "Is this still a code? Song Xilian is the stationmaster of several train stations.

Qian Deng Ruoxian: "The codewords can't be too complex, otherwise both parties will forget the rules. Anyway, the purpose is just to confuse the operator for a while. Besides, the operator may not try hard to guess what the words mean."

Jiaxing, the largest city on the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway, was suddenly attacked by an unexpected battle on the morning of January 16.

Jiaxing Railway Station had long since ceased operations, but that morning, a train arrived from the south, with two locomotives and ten carriages. It stopped a few hundred meters outside the station, and a large crowd of people got off.

The police at the station and the security team outside the station were watching the excitement curiously when they heard two whistling sounds overhead. "Boom" and "Boom" two mortar shells exploded, and the security team and the police fled in all directions like ordinary people.

The station was taken in an instant. The soldiers of the Second Regiment took great efforts to chase the fleeing crowd, because when the troop transport arrived in Jiaxing later, they could not let the train station staff run away with the security team.

If these people run away, the engineers on the train can also switch the switches, but it is best to have local railway staff do it because they are more familiar with the specific conditions of the train and station.

After the station was taken, the assault train started up again and drove a few hundred meters into the station. Wei Lihuang was on the train, with the Second Regiment's radio station next to him.

Wei Lihuang: "Before attacking Jiaxing City, we should negotiate once. If their security group is willing to surrender, we should accept it immediately.

"yes!

The negotiation process of long bursts of heavy machine gun fire and shouting was extremely ineffective. Six of the ten stations captured by the First Regiment had surrendered in this manner. A battalion from the Second Regiment set out from the station, trotting a little over 300 meters and turning a street before approaching the Jiaxing city walls. Li Guangshao raised his binoculars and saw that a white flag had been hoisted over the walls.

Commanders of the Northern Expedition! Stop fighting! We surrender! Surrender!"

Hangzhou First Division Command.

The map of Jiaxing was taken down and the map of Jiashan Station was put on the table.

Chen Tianheng looked at his watch and said, "Compared to the expected time, we are already 15 minutes ahead of schedule."

Chen Mingren: "It's not that much. 11 stations, 15 minutes. On average, it takes less than two minutes to get to each station.

Lu Deming: "Six of the stations surrendered directly, no, seven

Chen Tianheng: "That is to say, whether it was surrender or captured in battle, the time it took the First Division to capture a station was about the same as the original plan."

Lu Deming: “The main and most time-consuming process is walking rather than fighting.

Chapter 47: Li Baozhang's business is still going strong

Shanghai, Songhu Protectorate Office.

Li Baozhang, commander of the 9th Division of the Five Provinces Allied Forces, Protector of Shanghai, and commander of the Shanghai Martial Law, had been cursing since early morning.

…The Northern Expedition Army lost Hangzhou yesterday, which was something that had been expected.

Damn, the 卄楞 is so powerful.

So, what should Shanghai do now?

Li Baozhang had been contacting Sun Chuanfang in Nanjing yesterday, asking the Marshal for reinforcements. However, Sun Chuanfang hesitated for a long time but did not give a direct answer until this morning when he finally gave a definite answer:

Shanghai can no longer be defended, you should retreat.

Sun Chuanfang now had no mobile forces at his disposal. His tens of thousands of troops in western Zhejiang had been wiped out at Hangzhou. Despite minor victories in eastern Zhejiang, it was now geographically isolated and lacked shipping, making it impossible to send reinforcements to Shanghai. Anhui was under heavy attack from the Fourth and Seventh Armies. Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Zongchang had agreed to provide assistance, but the Zhili-Shandong coalition had just been formed and was too late to reach Jiangnan.

Marshal Sun was going to withdraw, and Li Baozhang's business was going to fail. So how could he not be angry?

"Cotton, cotton, and cotton again! Load the entire wagon with cotton!" Li Baozhang shouted to the adjutant who came to report the news. "Oh, by the way, it can't be all cotton. We need to add two more wagons of kerosene!"

Adjutant: "Commander, the Marshal said that the guns and ammunition in the Shanghai Arsenal warehouse should be transported away first.

"What else? Oh, there's a little left, but not much. Let's wait for the next train."

Adjutant: "Okay, then we'll take the ammunition on that afternoon train.

Li Baozhang: "No, I need to move by train this afternoon. Tomorrow's train will bring ammunition."

adjutant:"

The Songhu Protectorate's Office was located in Shanghai's Nancheng District, actually within the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Administration (Shanghai Arsenal). However, the Shanghai Arsenal was not Li Baozhang's property; it was owned by the Beiyang government or, more accurately, Sun Chuanfang. Li Baozhang's assets were elsewhere. He owned cotton cloth and kerosene, but not guns and ammunition. Therefore, it was clear that cotton cloth and kerosene should be prioritized.

Sun Chuanfang had ordered him to evacuate Shanghai on January 19th, leaving him only four days. Li Baozhang felt that four days was too tight and asked Marshal Sun to extend it to January 20th. Sun Chuanfang asked him, "If the Northern Expedition Army attacked on January 19th, could you hold on?" Li Baozhang, feeling guilty, gritted his teeth and said, "Yes, the Ninth Division can hold on for a day."

On the first and second days, they would rush to transport all kinds of materials from their own industries and their own belongings. On the third and fourth days, they would transport the 9th Division's supplies and baggage. On the fifth day, the entire 9th Division would leave by train. This should be no problem, right?

If I leave Shanghai, this good place, I won’t be able to continue my business, but I have to take away the goods I have in my hands. In the future, no matter whether my troops are stationed in Nanjing or northern Jiangsu, cotton cloth and kerosene will be easy to sell.

"Adjutant! Find my pass. I'm going to the concession this afternoon," Li Baozhang summoned him. "I might not be back tonight. Don't tell the Marshal about this, don't tell anyone else."

“Commander, if there is an emergency,” “If there is an emergency, you take charge.”

"Ah?! Commander, what if the Northern Expedition Army attacks us..."

"Even if the Northern Expedition Army were to arrive soon, I would still talk to Cui Hua!

Don't! Cuihua is the woman I love the most..." Li Baozhang yelled, feeling sad.

Hangzhou.

"I am Du Yuming, the new stationmaster of Songtiao Sujiang Station!

The telephone buzzed in the First Division Command Headquarters. Not only Chief of Staff Chen Mingren, who was holding the microphone, could hear it, but Chen Tianheng, who was standing next to him, could also hear it.

"Excuse me, when will the train carrying the heavy equipment arrive at Songjiang Station? I don't see any trains coming from the southern railway line yet!"

Big tool = mountain artillery of the artillery battalion, small tool = mortar.

Chen Mingren covered the microphone and said, "Lu Deming! The location of the artillery battalion's train!

Lu Deming, sweating profusely, searched for the small flag on the Shanghai-Hangzhou line map. "Found it! The artillery battalion departed from Shihu Dang five minutes ago, and there's only one section ahead! We'll definitely see the train in Songjiang in five minutes!"

Chen Mingren: "You should be able to see it in 5 minutes! Once the tools arrive, you can start repairing it right away!"

"clear!"

Repairing on the spot meant that the artillery battalion's artillery would be deployed on the spot after unloading. The coalition camp in Songjiang Prefecture was only three kilometers away from the train station, and the mountain artillery could cover the camp as soon as it was unloaded.

This camp was located in Songjiang (now the southern suburbs of Shanghai) and was the base of two infantry regiments and an artillery battalion of Li Baozhang's 9th Division. This was the biggest battle that had to be fought to capture Shanghai.

However, there were no two full regiments in the camp at that time. Now that Shanghai was under martial law, Li Baozhang had transferred two battalions from here to patrol the streets of Shanghai.

Another regiment of Li Baozhang was stationed in the Songhu Guarding Army Headquarters/Shanghai Arsenal factory area.

Five minutes later, the train carrying the mountain artillery battalion entered Songjiang Station Platform 2. While unloading, the train carrying the 5st Regiment Assault Column passed by and continued forward.