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

No sooner had he finished speaking than a burst of intense gunfire erupted from the direction of Quzhou City.

The sound traveled several miles away and was still clearly audible.

Clearly, the pursuing Red Army had already begun its assault on the city.

The group of routed soldiers, who were exhausted to the point of collapse, were instantly energized upon hearing the sound of gunfire, as if they had been given a shot of adrenaline.

They gritted their teeth and quickened their pace, not daring to even look back, focusing only on running forward.

The team's speed picked up again after a brief dip.

After running for a while, they had gone about three or four miles.

By this time, the sky had brightened considerably, and the eastern horizon was beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn.

But the team's speed clearly slowed down again. There is a limit to human physical strength. Running all night long, even the strongest body can't take it.

People in the group would fall down from time to time, then struggle to get up and keep running; some would start gagging while running, bend over and vomit a few mouthfuls of sour water, wipe their mouths and continue running.

The sound of horses' hooves came from ahead.

An aide rode a gray horse up to Zhou Hunyuan, dismounted, and saluted him.

"Commander, I have already given instructions to the towns ahead. They have prepared a hot meal and some herbal tea."

He glanced at Zhou Hunyuan's dust-covered military uniform, hesitated for a moment, and then added, "Commander, you have great stamina. Why don't you mount your horse and rest for a while?"

Zhou Hunyuan took a couple of breaths, not stopping his pace, and waved his hand: "No. I need to set an example at this time. If I get on a horse, the brothers below will be even less able to run. Besides, can someone who can't even run properly be called a soldier?"

The staff officer opened his mouth but said nothing more, leading his horse and walking forward beside Zhou Hunyuan.

Before they had gone half a mile, the sound of rapid hoofbeats came from behind.

A fast horse galloped from the direction of Quzhou, and the signalman on horseback, crouching low, began shouting from afar: "Commander! Commander! Quzhou has fallen! The Red Army is on their way again!"

That shout was like a bomb exploding in the ranks.

A chorus of curses immediately erupted from the fleeing soldiers. Some cursed Zhou Hunyuan for his poor command, some cursed the Red Army for being a persistent ghost, some cursed God for being blind, and most of them didn't curse at all, but just gritted their teeth and quickened their pace.

Without any instructions, the speed of the entire team suddenly increased significantly.

Those who were too exhausted fell behind last night. Those who are still running in the group now are the ones who still have some strength left.

It's not just about having good physical strength, but more importantly, having experience in long-distance marches and knowing how to allocate physical strength.

This is also a major difference between veterans and new recruits.

What Zhou Hunyuan never expected was that the Red Army seemed to have some deep-seated grudge against him, and actually chased him all the way to Jiangshan County.

They forced them to take off their uniforms, break up into smaller groups, and scatter throughout the countryside before they finally stopped.

Xun Huaizhou intended to take advantage of the great victory to wipe out all the Nationalist troops in the Jinqu Basin.

This will leave sufficient strategic buffer space for dealing with the next large-scale suppression by the Nationalist army.

And let me tell you, chasing after Zhou Hunyuan's remnants, they captured Longyou and Quzhou with ease.

When the local garrison saw that even the regular army had suffered such a crushing defeat, their morale collapsed immediately when faced with the ferocious Red Army soldiers.

The task previously assigned by the central government was to cut off the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, which was clearly not something that could be accomplished by simply dismantling a section of track and shutting down the railway line for three to five days.

Like now, they can directly control the cities along the line and the train stations, completely paralyzing the railway line.

This is exactly the result the central government wanted!

Of course, it's also possible that even the central government didn't expect Xun Huaizhou to complete the task so well!

Xun Huaizhou chose to split his forces into two routes, one on the left and one on the right, aiming to take both Jiangshan County and Changshan County.

Moreover, after a day of rest, the two armies continued their attack and advance.

After capturing Jiangshan, the 7th Red Army Division dispatched one unit to hunt down and eliminate the remaining Kuomintang troops in various places, while another unit advanced and captured Yushan County.

They then began to construct defensive fortifications on the spot and strengthen the city's defenses in order to deal with the counterattack of the Kuomintang army from the direction of Shangrao.

Only then did the Red Army finish tallying up the results and spoils of the battle.

In this battle, the Nationalist Army deployed two divisions, plus approximately 1.8 troops from the column headquarters.

However, in the first round of the three-pronged attack, more than 10,000 prisoners were killed or captured.

In the ensuing pursuit, nearly 4000 more people were captured or killed.

Including those who died unexpectedly during the escape, the estimated casualties of the National Army are no less than 1.5.

The spoils of war were quite substantial, totaling 6800 rifles and pistols, over 100 light machine guns, over 30 heavy machine guns, and over 20 mortars.

More than 100 million bullets, 1200 mortar shells, and more than 18000 hand grenades.

In contrast, the spoils obtained by Su Yu's side after defeating four divisions were significantly more abundant in terms of ammunition.

This is not surprising, as Zhou Hunyuan's column had been holding out for a long time and had stockpiled plenty of ammunition.

Their transportation mainly relied on the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, and when the army set off, they took more than half of the ammunition from their garrison with them.

Although Xun Huaizhou's column and Zhou Hunyuan's column fought fiercely in Longyou County for a day, the first half of the day's battles were all at the regimental level.

Neither side used their full strength!

When the Nationalist army was defeated, Zhou Hunyuan's order to destroy the ammunition was basically useless, and the logistics support personnel simply ran away.

Xun Huaizhou suddenly gained several times the amount of ammunition reserves.

But that wasn't all. In order to meet the needs of the bandit suppression, Zhou Hunyuan's column set off, and there were still railcars on the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway that were being used to stockpile logistical supplies in Quzhou.

As a result, the Red Army soldiers launched a sudden attack, seized control of the train station, and immediately confiscated more than 60 rounds of ammunition, as well as large quantities of food, clothing, and medicine.

After this battle, Xun Huaizhou's column had more than 200 guns and more than 2 million bullets in total.

After capturing Changshan, the First Division advanced northward, suffering 200 casualties, along with a ragtag brigade and a security regiment from the enemy.

They captured Kaihua County.

It was here that Xun Huaizhou's column received its first large-scale troop replenishment.

Indeed, after nearly half a month of arduous struggle, they finally arrived at the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi Soviet Area.

The "Zhe" in the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi Soviet Area refers to western Zhejiang.

Kaihua County was the core of the Zhejiang West Base Area!

This is a new Soviet area opened up last year by Wang Rui'ou, the former commander and political commissar of the 10th Red Army.

At the beginning of this year, this key figure of the 10th Red Army was falsely accused of being a right-wing conservative and was forced to resign, and was reassigned as the commander of the Anhui-Jiangxi Independent Division.

The current commander of the 10th Red Army is Liu Chouxi, a graduate of the first class of the Whampoa Military Academy!