Southern guerrilla warfare: I led the Red Seventh Army Corps to amassed a million troops.

Two days later, it appeared that the Nationalist army had ceased its activities.

This allowed the Red Army commanders and soldiers to breathe a sigh of relief.

Immediately following was jubilation!

The occupation of Pingnan meant more than just gaining more territory for the Mindong base area.

The more significant meaning lies in the fact that he and Su Yu's newly established Jiufeng Mountain base area were now connected.

This newly established base area encompassed the three county towns of Zhenghe, Songxi, and Qingyuan.

Zhenghe and Songxi are located in northern Fujian, and the largest mountain range in their territory is the Jiufeng Mountain Range.

To the east lies Zhenghe, to the west Songxi, and the northern part of the mountain range extends all the way to the Zhejiang-Fujian border, connecting with Qingyuan County in southern Zhejiang.

The original plan was for Su Yu to lead the First Division to advance into Zhenghe and join forces with Huang Ligui's Red 58th Regiment.

This unit was originally part of the Seventh Red Army Corps, and it is only natural that it has been reintegrated into the Northern Expeditionary Anti-Japanese Vanguard.

After the two armies joined forces, they prepared to seize Zhenghe and Songxi counties and control the main passes of the Jiufeng Mountains in order to deal with the Kuomintang's counterattack.

However, because the local Party committee represented by Huang Ligui had a good foundation among the local people and a smooth intelligence network, it also recruited many officers and soldiers of the county security regiment into Party members.

The 6000 officers and soldiers of the First Division were far too strong for the local Kuomintang armed forces.

The operation to capture the two counties went very smoothly. The Nationalist Army Security Regiment collapsed at the first contact, and white flags were raised all around the county towns.

At that time, the Ninth Division was stationed in Nanping. It had just completed the rotation with the troops transferred from the Northern Route Army and was assigned to the Fujian Bandit Suppression Command.

At that time, there were no main forces of the National Revolutionary Army around the Jiufeng Mountains.

Huang Ligui then suggested that Qingyuan County should also be included in the fold.

In this way, the three county towns are arranged in a triangular shape, supporting each other and increasing the defensive depth of the Jiufeng Mountain base area.

Su Yu considered that the Seventh Red Army Corps would eventually have to head north, so it would be beneficial to first establish a foothold in southern Zhejiang.

So he mobilized two regiments and marched north to attack Qingyuan.

The reason for such a large-scale mobilization is that the security forces in southern Zhejiang are not on the same level as those in Fujian.

Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit; this has always been Su Yu's military style.

As fate would have it, the 9th Division, after completing its troop rotation, quickly moved eastward.

This really put Su Yu in a sorry state for a while.

The two regiments under his command, not to mention the main force regiment of the 1st Division, were certainly very strong in combat, but they were exhausted from marching and fighting all the way north.

The other was Huang Ligui's 58th Regiment, which had decent combat capabilities and was also an old comrade-in-arms of their 7th Army Corps, so commanding it was quite smooth.

But Su Yu discovered that the combat effectiveness of this unit seemed to have "degenerated".

Therefore, he had no choice but to arrange for them to harass and delay the enemy through guerrilla warfare, in order to buy time for the main force to assemble.

This critical situation immediately dissipated as the Third Division of the National Revolutionary Army withdrew from Pingnan.

Even without this incident, Su Yu wouldn't have lost the battle to defend the base, but he would certainly have suffered some casualties.

The Nationalist Ninth Division's voluntary withdrawal from the battle was naturally more beneficial than harmful to the Red Army.

Soon after, good news also came from the Third Division of the Northern Expeditionary Anti-Japanese Vanguard.

After capturing Zhouning, our army continued northward and captured Shouning and Taishun.

They annihilated two enemy security regiments, along with other scattered armed forces, totaling 2,000 men, and captured more than 800 rifles and pistols, as well as 1200 tons of grain.

Of course, these grains include not only staple grains, but also miscellaneous grains such as dried sweet potatoes and corn.

But for the Red Army soldiers of that time, and especially for the poor people under the rule of the base areas, both coarse grains and staple grains were grains.

Regardless of whether the texture is coarse or fine, as long as it can fill your stomach, it's good food.

Next, cadres in the Soviet area carried out activities to seize land from local tyrants and distribute it to the peasants in Pingnan, Zhenghe, Songxi, Qingyuan and other places, and collected the grain stored in the official granaries.

After distributing some of the grain to the poor, there were still thousands of tons of grain left from this batch of seized grain.

Thus, the grain reserves in the entire Mindong Soviet Area, after being consumed by the Red Seventh Army Corps for more than half a month after its arrival in Mindong, not only did not decrease but increased, reaching an astonishing 9,200 tons.

Don't ask how adding two thousand and six thousand can calculate to nine thousand; there is grain stored in Lianjiang and Luoyuan.

However, these two counties are not grain-producing areas, and it is already difficult for them to maintain self-sufficiency, so they really cannot support too many full-time workers.

All of the above is good news, but there is also bad news.

The Nationalist army suffered a major defeat and retreated!

They abandoned a large number of guns, but the ammunition captured by the Red Army was far from abundant.

In particular, when Xun Huaizhou attacked Pingnan, after the battle, a count revealed that there were more than 2000 more rifles and more than 40 more machine guns, but 13 fewer rounds of ammunition.

The amount of ammunition captured was far from enough to cover the costs of the battle.

Li Yutang didn't have much ammunition stockpiled to begin with, and he even took half of it with him when he left.

If it weren't for the fact that the Nationalist troops carrying out the order to blow up the armory became increasingly frightened halfway there and simply turned tail and ran, they wouldn't have been able to escape.

In that battle, the Red Army suffered a devastating loss.

Zhou Zeyuan was determined to give his legion commander a thorough dressing-down.

Ultimately, they were a force that fought by capturing spoils, and they had to calculate the gains and losses in every battle.

This counter-encirclement campaign in eastern Fujian gave the Seventh Red Army Corps more than 7000 intact rifles, but in terms of ammunition, a basic balance was maintained.

With more guns, there are more soldiers carrying guns.

To date, the five field divisions have only maintained full strength and have not been expanded.

However, local armed forces in Pingnan, Zhenghe, Songxi, Zhouning and other places have ushered in a wave of expansion.

Previously, there were people but no guns, and a large number of militiamen were scattered in various places.

Now, with the support of field troops, all the major transportation routes have been cleared, and the obsolete weapons and equipment have been distributed to them.

In a short time, the Mindong Soviet Area had six more independent regiments.

The smallest group had 600 people, while the largest group had 1500 people.

However, with a large number of soldiers, the average amount of ammunition per person has been passively reduced.

Thankfully, in another month, Mayer's fleet will arrive.

According to Zhou Zeyuan's estimate, it is unlikely that the National Revolutionary Army will send a large-scale reinforcement to the eastern Fujian region within a month.

The sudden outbreak and rapid end of the Battle of Pingnan.

This essentially brought the counter-encirclement campaign in eastern Fujian to a successful conclusion.

The top brass of the National Revolutionary Army was greatly shocked; the losses were secondary.

The main reason was that they discovered that even one of their main divisions, relying on well-constructed fortifications and favorable terrain, could not withstand the Red Army's attack.

Therefore, the node defense previously implemented using a main division as a unit has been declared a failure.

From then on, the Nationalist army felt completely insecure in this small area of ​​eastern Fujian without gathering two divisions of troops.

Li Yannian, who was in Gutian County, felt like he had thorns in his back. With the loss of Pingnan, Gutian was the first to be affected.

Could Song Xilian's 36th Division withstand the Red Army's thunderous attack?

Song Xilian assured him, "No problem! Bring it on!"

Li Yannian verbally agreed, but then turned around and withdrew one of Lu Xingbang's brigades back to the county town.

They also dispatched a security regiment each from Youxi in the south and Houguan in the lower reaches of the Minjiang River to provide reinforcements.

At this time, a formidable force of 15,000 men, comprising eight regiments, had gathered around Gutian County.

Li Yannian finally breathed a sigh of relief.

His forward command post was truly at the forefront, bearing the brunt of the attack.

If things go wrong, it could really be a tragic end.