More than half a month later, at this time and the army had replenished its troops and restored its original strength.
Most of them were captured national army soldiers who chose to join the People's Liberation Army after undergoing ideological work by political cadres.
A small number are recruits recruited locally by various units. Since the war is imminent, the selection requirements are very strict and there is no large-scale recruitment.
The number of captured national soldiers far exceeded the attrition of each unit, and all the extra troops were stuffed into the security brigade by Li Qiufan.
Although the garrison brigade is now a brigade-level organization, it already has about 20,000 troops, which is almost the same as the number of the third column, which has one less division.
"Brother, are you planning to establish a fifth column?"
After learning that Li Qiufan had put all the extra troops into the security brigade, Heizi asked him with a smile.
"What, how about letting you be the commander of the fifth column?"
Li Qiufan smiled after hearing Heizi's words, and then teased him.
"Okay! I've wanted to lead troops for a long time!"
After hearing Li Qiufan's words, Heizi instantly became excited and hurriedly said to Li Qiufan.
"Uh, are you serious?"
Li Qiufan was stunned when he saw Heizi's reaction, and then asked him.
"of course it's true!"
Heizi nodded towards Li Qiufan, his expression was quite serious and he was not joking at all.
"Ahem, let's talk about this later!"
Seeing that Heizi was really not joking, Li Qiufan coughed twice in embarrassment and said.
"Brother, you fooled me again!"
Seeing Li Qiufan's expression, Heizi instantly understood that he was just teasing him, and glared at Li Qiufan with resentment.
"Report to the commander, the boss is calling urgently!"
Just when Li Qiufan didn't know how to round out his words, suddenly the correspondent ran over with a telegram.
Upon seeing this, Li Qiufan quickly took it over, then lowered his head and looked at it.
"Heizi, gather the troops immediately, we are going to fight Xi'an!"
After reading the telegram, Li Qiufan's eyes lit up, and then he shouted to Heizi.
"yes!"
Hearing that Li Qiufan said that he was going to attack Xi'an, Heizi didn't care about what happened just now and quickly arranged for people to assemble the troops.
At this time, the other units were finally ready, and the boss also decided to take action against Xi'an.
The order given to Li Qiufan was to start from Fufeng County and fight all the way towards Xianyang.
After the troops were assembled, Li Qiufan immediately ordered the first column and the second column to be the vanguard and advance towards their first stop, Yangling.
Since external support has been blocked, it is impossible to support Xi'an at all, so the old fox has shrunk all the troops outside Xi'an and gathered them not far around Xi'an.
Therefore, Li Qiufan did not encounter any resistance along the way and arrived at Wugong County through Yangling smoothly.
Their next goal is Xingping, which is their gateway to Xianyang. One of their old rivals is stationed there, reorganizing the 36th Division.
The reorganized 36th Division fought against them several times. Although they were beaten and fled every time, they were not eliminated after all.
Now that they were facing each other again, Li Qiufan couldn't let him escape no matter what he said.
Then the second column was ordered to attack it from Zhuangtou Town on the south side of Xingping, and the fourth column was ordered to attack from Nanshi Town on the north side of Xingping.
The Third Column detoured back to Wangjiacun between Xingping and Xianyang, cutting off the retreat route for the reorganized 36th Division.
In addition, Li Qiufan led the first column, security brigade and heavy artillery division to attack the reorganized 36th Division from the front.
Today, the reorganized 36th Division still has more than 30,000 people, and with the addition of various security groups, etc., it barely has more than 40,000 troops.
When Li Qiufan set off from Wugong County, he had already ordered Li Yunlong to lead the three columns to attack our village in a roundabout way.
The reorganized 36th Division in Xingping never expected that his retreat would be cut off before the People's Liberation Army arrived.
After Li Yunlong led his troops to the Wangjiacun area, he went into hiding. He turned a blind eye to the enemy's supply team in Xingping, and only waited for Li Qiufan's order to intercept the reorganized 36th Division.
The Second Column and the Fourth Column moved around to the north and south sides of Xingping with great fanfare. The reorganized 36th Division was not worried about this. After all, they could retreat to Xianyang if they could not be defeated.
After the second and fourth columns were in place, Li Qiufan issued the attack order without hesitation and asked all troops to attack Xingping.
The first was the artillery bombardment. Direct artillery fire covered all the main positions of the reorganized 36th Division. This made the commander of the reorganized 36th Division almost stare out of his eyes.
He didn't expect that his old rival already had such powerful firepower, and the firepower coverage left no good spot for him.
Immediately afterwards came the charge of the first column, and then the battles on both sides of the second and fourth columns also started.
Facing the attack of about 90,000 people from three fully-equipped columns, coupled with the powerful artillery fire suppression of the heavy artillery division, the enemy's first-line position was captured in less than two hours.
In less than two hours, the enemy's total strength of more than 40,000 troops suffered more than 10,000 casualties, which made the commander of the reorganized 36th Division doubt his life.
However, he did not flee, but retreated to the second line with his troops to continue defensive counterattacks.
Seeing that the opponent was so stubborn, Li Qiufan waved his hand and told the troops to continue attacking with all their strength. It took more than an hour to capture the enemy's second-line position.
In just four hours, the enemy's two lines of defense were directly breached, and nearly 20,000 people were killed or injured. This was simply not a war, but a cannibalism!
The division commander who reorganized the 36th Division was completely frightened. He did not expect that this People's Liberation Army unit had grown to such an extent.
Looking at the corpses piled up in the trenches, the commander of the reorganized 36th Division issued a retreat order without hesitation and began to flee towards Xianyang.
"Send a telegram to the Third Column. It's time for them to take action!"
Seeing that the enemy troops began to retreat, Li Qiufan immediately asked his correspondent to send a telegram to Li Yunlong, asking him to prepare to intercept the reorganized 36th Division.
After receiving the telegram, Li Yunlong directly asked the troops to rush to the road section that had been scouted in advance to deploy defenses, waiting for the arrival of the reorganized 36th Division.
The reorganized 36th Division didn't even know that its retreat had been cut off, and plunged into the three-column interception defense line.
After being blocked, the commander of the reorganized 36th Division suddenly felt a thump in his heart. He knew that he was about to be handed over here.
Only then did he understand why the other party would attack Xingping with great fanfare. It turned out that they had cut off his escape long ago and were not worried about him escaping at all.
With the interception of the third column, the first, second and fourth columns responsible for the pursuit quickly caught up and directly surrounded the reorganized 36th Division.
