The lakeside was the weakest link of the defenders. It was natural for the Red Army to choose this place to attack. Even the defenders themselves knew that they could not stop the Red Army from taking boats ashore from the lake under the cover of artillery fire.
In fact, the Red Army did not just rely on the artillery and heavy machine guns equipped by gunboats and patrol boats to fire. Anyway, the defenders did not have aircraft or heavy artillery, so they openly bullied the opponent, modified the troop carriers, and several troop carriers. It became an artillery position.
Several troop carriers are several artillery positions. Artillery and mortars of various calibers on the "positions" together send powerful shells into the defenders' ranks.
The battle was as expected by the commanders of both sides. After only fifteen minutes of shelling, the defenders collapsed. The unlucky defenders on the lakeside positions either died or fled.
Just as the artillery fire from the warships on the lake extended towards Yueyang City, the artillery on land also began bombing. Its shells were connected with the artillery shells on the warships on the lake, forming a complete coverage of Yueyang City. of fire net.
The poor defenders had no power to fight back. A few minutes later, the defender's Hunan Army division commander shouted for surrender via a clear telegram, asking the Red Army to stop shelling.
At this point, in less than thirty minutes, the huge Yueyang City easily fell into the hands of the Red Army.
With the change of hands of Yue Yang, the north gate of the Hunan Army was completely opened. The leader of the Hunan Army, He Jian, was horrified and repeatedly issued orders to the defenders of Changde, an important town in the northwest of Hunan, to strengthen the construction of city defenses and strengthen the fortifications along the Yuanshui River. In defense, whoever escapes or surrenders will be shot and his family members will be killed
" However, it is not just Yueyang and Changde that are on fire in Hunan. soon. He Jian received reports from Hengyang, Shaoyang and other southern cities: tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers came from Jiangxi. Unstoppable!
Until this is. He Jian then understood that the Red Army was trying to make dumplings out of the Hunan Army. It was trying to take him, the most ruthless warlord leader who killed the Communist Party, into political law and avenge those innocent people who were killed and injured!
Thinking that he had personally ordered the killing of Mao Rundong's wife and the excavation of the Mao family's ancestral graves, He Jian, who had previously been so complacent, was dripping with cold sweat. He knew that there were only two roads in front of him, and one was to run away immediately. Run to an unknown place to hide, or take refuge with forces that the Red Army cannot attack temporarily. The second is to wait for the Red Army to come over and be shot or executed by them after being captured.
Of course, being a warlord, he couldn't just sit back and wait for death, but he didn't have the guts to fight to the end. On the one hand, he publicly publicized that he was sworn in with the Communist Party and would fight the Communist army to the end. At the same time, he secretly threatened Yan Xishan of Nanjing. He waited for someone to rescue him and called for help from Chiang Kai-shek in Hong Kong.
¡°As everyone knows, Yan Xishan and Jiang Gaishi are both in dire straits now. Although they called back quickly, the contents of their calls were almost identical. It was as if the two had copied each other, and the tone of the messages was the same. That is, the situation of the entire China depends on you, General He Jian. If you cannot stop the Red Army, China will become completely red, and China will enter the abyss of suffering.
You, He Jian, must put the party and the country first, must stop the Red Army to the death, and must eliminate all the Red Army that enters Hunan. The party-state believes in you, and we have great trust in you. As long as you block the Red Army this time, we will immediately let you occupy more territory and give you greater support. Now we will go all out to help you. We will organize troops to send you food and ammunition right away.
?Brother, you must resist!
He Jian read the telegrams they sent back and knew that the situation was over. They were all guys who paid lip service but didn't deliver what they said. They yelled fiercely, but in fact they didn't provide any substantial help.
Needless to say, Jiang Jieshi has become an apartment man himself. I am afraid he himself does not know how many soldiers and horses his subordinates can control. This time the Red Army came out of Yichang without anyone noticing. The Central Army stationed in Yichang was either completely wiped out or all defected to the Red Army.
This not only shows that the number of troops controlled by Jiang Jingshi has been greatly reduced, but also that Jiang Jingshi's control over his troops is far less powerful than what he himself advertised and what others thought. At this stage, it is better to count on Chiang Kai-shek for help than to count on being his neighbor after escaping to Hong Kong and having a cup of tea with him when he is bored.
He Jian didn't understand Yan Xishan's situation, so Yan Laoxi was only happy for a few days. He originally thought that by sitting on the throne of the President, he could control the wind and rain, and that he could overlook all living beings in the world. Who knew that what was waiting for him was not all people's admiration and flattery, but more people asking him for money, money, guns and cannons and so on. He fulfilled the promises he made to other warlords before coming to power.
If saying this doesn¡¯t make him regretful and entangled, after all, as long as he sits in this position, others will just curse, but they dare not curse in front of him, and his promise can be fulfilled slowly, or"Tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall, or paint a bigger picture for those greedy people. Let's fool them for a while first."
However, the Red Army's attack was not based on his will. It could not be solved by burying its head in the sand and ignoring it.
He Jian's estimate was good. Yan Xishan was really unable to protect himself now, because when General Lin's First Army and the garrison troops of Chen Yi and Su Yu surrounded He Jian's Hunan Army in Hunan, Peng Dehuai's The Second Army also set out from Yichang and rushed to Henan, heading straight for the heart of Yan Xishan.
Henan is the core of the Central Plains in people's minds. It is often said that "whoever wins the Central Plains will win the world" and "compete in the Central Plains." Once Peng Dehuai's troops gain a foothold in Henan, Yan Xishan's Nanjing government will He will lose a lot of points politically, and his justice in the world will be greatly compromised.
Even putting aside these political things, in terms of military significance alone, Peng Dehuai's troops were enough to make Yan Xishan and Zhang Xueliang tremble with fear: because Henan and several surrounding Henan This province is their home base and the foundation of their army. As long as Henan is lost, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei and other places where they have been operating for many years will be completely isolated from Nanjing, and they will become A source without water, a tree without roots.
Now they are only thinking about how to defend Henan and must not let Henan fall into the hands of the Red Army. How can they care about He Jian in Hunan? What's more, He Jian's performance during this dynasty change was such a disappointment to President Yan Xishan. With his own army, this guy actually played the trick of sitting on a mountain and watching the tiger fight, waiting for who would win in the end between Jiang Gaishi and Yan Xishan. Really win and decide to join.
Thinking of what He Jian had said before, Yan Xishan became angry: "Humph! Don't you, He Jian, like to sit on the fence and wait for the final result? Then just wait!"
When Chen Yi and Su Yu's troops captured Hengyang after fierce fighting, He Jian finally determined that the power he had had reached its end. He looked at his panicked subordinates and the streets, secretly waiting for the arrival of the Red Army. As a citizen, he soon showed his true character as a brave man who cut off his wrists, and told the whole country that he had been abandoned by Yan Xishan's government. Yan Xishan and others were simply local warlords, doing things for the purposes of their own small circle. Excluding dissidents and winning over his cronies, he ignored the Hunan Army's pleas for help. In order to prevent his hometown from suffering war, in order to prevent innocent people from dying, and in order to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Hunan troops, he decided to let everyone The Hunan Army surrendered to the Red Army and handed over the entire Hunan to the Red Army.
The only requirement is that he bring part of his family property and his subordinates who are willing to follow him to live in an apartment in Hong Kong.
I have to say that this guy is still courageous and dares to take risks. Isn't he afraid that the Red Army will catch him and let the survivors of the martyrs trample him to death?
The talented and ambitious Mao Rundong did not care about personal grudges. He immediately responded to He Jian's request by telegram and agreed to He Jian's request. At the same time, he personally signed the order and announced it to the world, saying that no matter which warlord he was, as long as he surrendered his arms and promised not to be an enemy of the people in the future, The Red Army pardoned him for his past crimes and was willing to send him abroad as a gift.
With He Jian's departure, the Red Army occupied Changsha, an important town in the south, without any bloodshed!
In fact, He Jian had to leave, because after the Red Army captured Yueyang, Changsha, which is located on the edge of the Xiangjiang River, was almost undefended against the Red Army. It only took a few days for warships to travel from Yueyang to Changsha along the Xiangjiang River. Hours later, Changsha's defenders were similar to Yueyang's defenders. They both focused on land defense and neglected waterway defense. Although after the fall of Yueyang, the Changsha defenders strengthened the two sides of the Xiangjiang River to a certain extent and repaired some The fortifications also sank many robbed civilian ships to block the river, but they still felt insufficient in the face of the fierce firepower of the Red Army warships.
Moreover, the defense of the river will inevitably greatly weaken the defensive power on land. The division of troops on the two lines will make Changsha's defense even more dwarfed. Except for the defenders who have a certain degree of confidence in the position on Yuelu Mountain, they are not confident in other aspects of defense. .
Both the leader of the Hunan Army, He Jian, and his officers knew that it was only a matter of time before Changsha changed hands. It was better to hand it over before it changed hands in exchange for a little benefit of their own. Accompanying He Jian this time were many senior generals, senior officials of the local government, and those who knew that their hands were stained with the blood of revolutionary martyrs, as well as some big landowners and wealthy businessmen.
With the change of hands in Changsha, Hunan was completely reddened. The military and political power of the Red Army suddenly increased, and its weight increased in the comparison of various forces across the country.
Yan Xishan's Nanjing government was even more panicked. Some people began to publicly ask Yan Xishan and others why they allowed the Hunan Army to be surrounded by the Red Army and why they did not send troops to rescue them. Did they, like Chiang Kai-shek, only trust their direct descendants and not Carry out ruthless attacks on miscellaneous troops
The thorn He Jian planted before leaving began to take effect.
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