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

That night, the two flanking forces of the Red Army launched their operations almost simultaneously.

The team on the southern route started from Xibin Town and moved south along the west bank of the Youxi River, aiming to reach the fork in the road south of Luxia Town before dawn.

The road is not short; it passes through three villages and a large hilly area.

The Nationalist army did set up checkpoints in these areas, but the forces were weak, and the assigned troops were the weakest security regiments.

Their orders were to guard the rear and prevent small guerrilla groups from infiltrating; they never imagined they would run into the main force of the Red Army.

The forwards opened fire at the first checkpoint.

A sneak attack ended the battle, and they continued their advance.

The second sentry post heard the gunfire and sent men out to investigate. They ran right into the Red Army vanguard platoon, which was rapidly deploying. After a three-to-five-minute firefight, the Nationalist troops were scattered.

The news only began to spread at this point, and a Nationalist army infantry battalion on a nearby hill was thus alerted.

However, the consequences of Jiang Dingwen's neglect of the flanks began to show; a single battalion was simply no match for the Red Army's advance.

This is also the core logic of flanking maneuvers. It is best to sneak around, but most of the time the enemy cannot get around, and you can only rely on strength to break through the enemy's flank defenses.

The Nationalist army's flank forces were already weak and lacked vigilance. Once they were attacked, their first reaction was not to organize resistance, but to run back towards the main force.

The escape brought the message back, but it also completely broke the defenses.

Another flanking force was on the north bank of the Minjiang River, and the landing troops chose to land during the darkest period before dawn.

There was a company of soldiers stationed on the riverbank. Their main task was to guard the dock and prevent the Red Army from using the waterway for their own purposes.

They built simple fortifications on the shore and set up a machine gun.

When the landing craft docked, the sentries did notice the commotion and fired, but before the machine guns could be turned around, more than a dozen bar guns on the ship went off.

One burst of bullets silenced the machine gun nest.

Subsequent troops arrived at the shore one boat after another, landing so quickly that the defending forces had no time to organize a second resistance.

By the time dawn broke, both routes had breached the flank defenses and were advancing towards the pre-arranged encirclement position.

The southern route had already blocked the main road to Yanping, while the northern route occupied the high ground along the river, sealing off the retreat route along the river.

Throughout the entire process, every checkpoint was taken down and every stronghold was breached, all cleanly and decisively.

But then again, when did our Flying General's retreat ever drag on?

Although the Red Army marched swiftly, it had fought its way through and had taken a roundabout route.

Each member of Commander-in-Chief Chiang's guard battalion was equipped with a warhorse. By the time the Red Army completed the encirclement, they had almost escaped to Yanping.

On the Nationalist Army's side, the first to discover the problem were the retreating flank troops.

When they ran back to the main force, they brought back all sorts of news.

Some say tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers have arrived from the south, some say the river to the east is full of boats, and some say the rear route has been cut off.

These messages all have one thing in common: they are all bad news.

Each division and regiment began sending people to contact the general headquarters.

The phone calls went unanswered, and the radio calls went unanswered as well.

So they sent a communications soldier to the command post.

Then, not long after, a message spread like wildfire across the battlefield: the commander-in-chief had fled.

This was a fatal turning point.

If Jiang Dingwen were still alive, even in an unfavorable situation, the troops could at least maintain basic order and retreat in an alternating manner according to orders.

Before the encirclement is completely sealed, some of them can still escape!

But with the headquarters empty, coordination between the regiments was lost, and no one knew what the neighboring units were doing, which direction to defend, or which direction to yield.

At this critical moment, when the Red Army had already blocked their retreat, Jiang Dingwen's order to retreat finally arrived belatedly.

This immediately drew a barrage of curses from the frontline commanders.

Leaving the defensive position at this time would be like throwing lambs to the slaughter.

This was the thought in the minds of most Nationalist Army officers.

However, a small number of officers still decided to carry out the order. They were not stubborn or inflexible, but rather wanted to take a gamble.

Before dawn, we might be able to escape.

But their escape had a significant impact, as it suddenly created several large gaps in the previously relatively intact defensive perimeter!

The Red Army's commandos shoved directly into the cracks and continued to create chaos.

After cutting off the main road, the troops on the southern front detached a portion of their forces to advance along both sides of the road.

At each intersection and at each high point, a platoon or company would be left to hold the line before continuing forward.

By the time the Nationalist army reacted, more than a dozen such strongholds had already been densely packed into the rear, cutting the entire retreat route into several sections.

The troops on the east side did not stop after occupying the high ground on the riverbank.

They deployed along the riverbank, using firepower to block several possible ferry crossings and shallows, cutting off any escape routes along the river.

Several heavy machine guns were positioned in key locations, their firing arc covering the entire riverbank. Any team attempting to break out from this direction would be exposed to crossfire.

By daybreak, the encirclement was effectively complete.

The Nationalist troops from several directions were squeezed into a small area.

Communication between them was completely cut off, and they fought independently, not knowing where their allies were or which direction to break out in.

Luo Lin's troops were the only ones that managed to maintain their organizational structure amidst the chaos.

Because most of his troops were concentrated around Wufeng Mountain, he had already withdrawn all his troops to the mountain when the chaos began.

The chaos in other Nationalist troops did not affect him.

But with their retreat route cut off, this seemingly impregnable mountain defensive position was now an isolated island.

He stood in the trench on the mountaintop, a trench that had been fought over repeatedly, watching the skirmish lines closing in below, seeing torches converging in the same direction from all directions, and seeing the encirclement tightening at a visible speed.

The only saving grace was that the Red Army troops at the foot of the mountain did not rush uphill.

To be honest, even though the situation changed so quickly, Luo Lin didn't panic!

He himself had personally experienced how cunningly the Red Army's position on this hilltop was arranged.

As long as you still have military power, you still have bargaining power, and protecting your life and property is not a problem.

At this moment, he remained calm and even had time to ponder whether Jiang Dingwen had been captured alive, given how suddenly the chaos had arisen.

Sure enough, a quarter of an hour later, he saw a white flag appear at the foot of the mountain.