After repelling another enemy charge, Li Qiufan led the guards to the front line.
"Erhu, how are the troop casualties?"
Li Qiufan went to Erhu and asked about the casualties of the troops. After two days of fighting, Erhu's art master also suffered considerable losses.
"The troops suffered about one-third casualties, but they can still withstand it!"
Erhu reported the casualties to Li Qiufan and said that there was no problem on his side.
"Lao Li is probably the same as you, telling the soldiers that there is no need to save ammunition, lives are more important than anything else!"
Li Qiufan nodded towards Erhu and then returned to his command post.
Looking at the national army's position opposite, Li Qiufan fell into deep thought.
At this time, the casualties of Li Qiufan's two divisions were already around 10,000, and as the attacking party, the national army's casualties would only be even greater.
A conservative estimate would be around 17,000 to 8,000 people, or even more.
But it would be too uncomfortable if it continued like this. The enemy might not care about the loss of troops, but Li Qiufan felt sorry for his own troops.
"Damn it, I'll give you a trick to surround Wei and save Zhao!"
After pondering for a moment, Li Qiufan had an idea. He wanted to play Sun Tzu's Art of War with the old fox.
"Send a telegram to the Fourth Division and ask them to rush to Manger Ping immediately. When they arrive, they will set up an ambush circle based on the terrain!"
Mancaoping is to the north of Yangping and is also the only way to Jingbian. Li Qiufan asked the correspondent to send a telegram to the Fourth Division, asking them to rush there as soon as possible.
Originally, Li Qiufan was not going to use the Fourth Division in this operation, but he felt sorry for the soldiers who would die in this fight.
After thinking about it, he was ready to stop clinging on. Anyway, the boss had given him autonomy, so he would have a good fight with the old fox.
"Inform the commanders of the 1st and 5th divisions to come to the command post for a meeting!"
After sending a telegram to the Fourth Division, Li Qiufan asked Er Hu and Li Yunlong to come over for a meeting, intending to tell them his thoughts.
Soon Erhu and Li Yunlong arrived here. Both of them were very confused as to why Li Qiufan was looking for them. After all, the enemy was attacking at this moment.
"To make a long story short, if we continue to defend like this, the casualties will be too great. To be honest, I feel a little distressed!"
"So I'm not going to defend anymore and have a good fight with the old fox!"
After the two arrived, Li Qiufan said straight to the point, but was interrupted before he could finish speaking.
"No more guarding? What if we don't guard that side?"
Erhu's eyes widened when he heard Li Qiufan say he couldn't defend anymore. Li Yunlong beside him also looked at Li Qiufan in confusion.
"I have sent a telegram to the Fourth Division, asking them to set up an ambush at Manger Ping to the north of us."
"After they have arranged their arrangements, we will lead the enemy troops to retreat towards Mancaoping, where we will join the Fourth Division and kill these idiots!"
Li Qiufan told them his plan and at the same time informed them of the arrangements for the Fourth Division. After hearing this, the two suddenly realized.
"But even if this group of enemy troops is annihilated, the old fox will continue to send reinforcements, and may mobilize heavy troops. So what will we do then?"
After Li Yunlong learned about Li Qiufan's plan, he frowned and asked Li Qiufan.
"Haha, I said I don't plan to defend anymore, I'm going to attack this time!"
Li Qiufan smiled at Li Yunlong and said something that left the two of them confused.
"Attack? Where to attack?"
Erhu scratched his head and asked Li Qiufan with a puzzled face.
"Yan'an!"
Li Qiufan told the two of them his goal, which made Li Yunlong and Er Hudou widen their eyes.
"Are we going to fight in Yan'an? What about Jing? If we let the enemy go, the boss will punish us with military law!"
Li Yunlong said to Li Qiufan in disbelief. He didn't dare to mess with his boss, Li Yunlong. When the boss said he was going to take care of people, he really took care of them.
But he didn't expect that Li Qiufan would play such a big role and go to attack Yan'an instead of following the boss's order to stop the attack. If something happened to him, he would probably be shot several times.
"Why are you so anxious? Let me analyze it for you!"
Li Qiufan waved his hand towards Li Yunlong and said.
"The old fox attaches great importance to Yan'an, otherwise we wouldn't have sent hundreds of thousands of troops to attack Yan'an."
"And the enemy troops we are blocking now are most likely transferred from Yan'an. This shows that there are not many national troops in the Yan'an area."
"If we go to attack Yan'an, which one do you think Jingbian and Yan'an Old Fox will choose?"
Li Qiufan analyzed the situation for the two of them, then looked at them and waited for their reaction.
You must know that Li Qiufan's column is not an ordinary column. Although the first division and the fifth division have casualties, the two divisions still have more than 25,000 people in total.
When the time comes, the four divisions plus the heavy artillery division will be combined, and a force of about 60,000 will launch an attack on Yan'an. The old fox cannot help but ignore it.
Unless he gives up Yan'an for the trilateral area, but this is obviously impossible. He will definitely not be able to do it as long as the old fox is not stupid.
After thinking about this, the two people's eyes gradually brightened, and they finally understood Li Qiufan's idea of surrounding Wei and rescuing Zhao.
"What a great idea! If the old fox doesn't fall for the trick, then we'll really fight him. If he does, then we'll deal with him. Then he will be the one with the headache!"
Li Yunlong was the first to agree and said excitedly to Li Qiufan.
"Yes, we will pin the old fox's troops to the Yan'an area so that he does not dare to move!"
Li Qiufan nodded towards Li Yunlong with satisfaction and said.
"Okay, you go back and continue to command the battle, and arrange your troops to be ready to withdraw to Manger Ping at any time!"
After confirming the plan, Li Qiufan asked the two of them to return to the position and continue to direct the battle. On his side, he sent a telegram to the Fourth Division again, urging them to arrive at Mancaoping as soon as possible.
After receiving the order from the Fourth Division, Li Xiping directly divided the troops into two parts.
Some of them took the lead in cars and rushed to Mancaoping, while the other group marched towards Macheping on foot.
Today's Fourth Division's vehicles are not enough, so they can only transport part of them and then return to continue transporting troops.
But even this was much faster than a pure infantry force. It only took more than a day for all four divisions to arrive at Mancaoping.
After arriving at Mancaoping, Li Xiping selected the ambush location after observing the terrain, then ordered the soldiers to quickly build a position and sent a telegram to Li Qiufan.
After receiving the telegram that the Fourth Division had arrived at Mancaoping, Li Qiufan first calculated the time, and found that the time was enough, and then notified Li Yunlong and Erhu to start retreating.
At the same time, Li Qiufan issued an order to the heavy artillery division, asking Lao Ma to launch a violent bombardment of the enemy and cover the first and fifth divisions to evacuate the battlefield.
Under the cover of artillery fire from the heavy artillery division, the 1st and 5th divisions successfully withdrew from the battlefield and began to advance towards Manger Ping.
After the shelling ended, the national army immediately discovered the situation on Li Qiufan's side and commanded the troops to pursue him.
