.On the morning of the 23rd, the exhausted and heavily damaged Third Infantry Division took the lead in surrendering to the Volunteer Army on the position.

Four hours later, at about 2 p.m., the Fourth Infantry Division also laid down its weapons.

Although the second battle ended according to the standards of the US military, in Huang Zhibo's eyes, the second battle was not over yet.

At that time, the 2nd Infantry Brigade was still holding on and did not surrender to the 39th Army until the evening of the 25th.

In addition, more than 100,000 Korean troops were gathering in Haizhou and preparing to leave North Korea by boat.

Although the purpose of the campaign has been achieved, the 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions of the US Army were annihilated, the 7th Infantry Division was almost wiped out, and the Second Infantry Division was also destroyed, from a political perspective, the biggest gain of the Volunteer Army was to recapture Pyongyang and push the front southward to the vicinity of Kaesong.

During lunch, Lu Fenglie called and personally commended Huang Zhibo and other senior volunteer officers.

The next day, Fu Xiubo also sent Ambassador Kim Seung-hwan to accompany several leaders of the North Korean authorities to the Volunteer Army Headquarters, awarding Huang Zhibo and others honorary titles such as "Hero of the North Korean People's Army" and formally awarding Huang Zhibo the rank of "The Honorary Second Commander of the Korean People's Army".

Obviously, this honor is not a little bit.

In the Korean People's Army, the supreme commander is the Grand Marshal, followed by the Marshal, and then the Second Marshal.

Because the Grand Marshal only had an honorary rank, only one person, that is, the founder of North Korea, was the highest rank in the People's Army, and only a very small number of people were qualified to obtain it. After the demise of the Kim family, there was no real marshal in the People's Army.

In a sense, the second commander is the supreme commander of the People's Army.

Although it is only an honorary rank, the North Korean authorities used this move to show that Huang Zhibo is not only the commander-in-chief of the Volunteer Army, but also the honorary commander-in-chief of the People's Army.

In fact, after the Volunteer Army joined the war, the Volunteer Army was commanded by the People's Army to fight.

The award of Huang Zhiboci's military rank was just a formal procedure.

As the saying goes, one person can attain the truth, and the chicken and dog can ascend to heaven.

Huang Zhibo is the second commander of the People's Army, and the officers and soldiers of the Volunteer Army Command, especially the senior staff who have made significant contributions in combat, have benefited.

As a lieutenant colonel, Mu Haoyang won the rank of honorary major general in the People's Army and enjoyed the treatment of major general.

This is not just an honorary title, but it is not the benefit of being arrogant in front of the People's Army officers and soldiers, but real benefits. According to the People's Army's standards, the annual salary of the major general is 150,000 yuan, while Mu Haoyang's annual salary before the war was only tens of thousands of yuan. However, Huang Zhibo's high attitude greatly reduced these very realistic benefits. At that time, Huang Zhibo did not ask the People's Army to immediately fulfill the treatment of honorary ranks, but out of "deep traditional friendship between China and North Korea", he decided to pay the allowances to the North Korean authorities after North Korea completed the post-war reconstruction. In this way, when Mu Haoyang received the allowances of the People's Army more than ten years later, not only did the amount shrink significantly, but he no longer needed the money to buy a house.

After walking through the political show, Huang Zhibo focused his energy on the battlefield.

At that time, the situation was not as good as expected.

Although the coalition forces were defeated, the coalition forces did several very important things when they retreated. First, the Korean army fled to Nanpu and transported the hoarded materials to Haizhou as much as possible, mainly fuel, food, and large-caliber shells that could be used directly by the volunteers. All those who had no time to transport them were burned by the Korean army. When the volunteers arrived in Nanpu on the afternoon of the 24th, the fire had been burned all day, and the rest was devastated.

Next, tens of thousands of South Korean troops retreated to Haizhou successfully boarded the transport ship and returned to Incheon on the 25th. Since then, these South Korean troops have been sent to the 38th parallel one after another, becoming the main force of the South Korean army on the 38th parallel. Finally, before leaving, the South Korean troops destroyed all infrastructure in the Haizhou port and laid thousands of mines inside and outside the port, many of which were the inventory of the People's Army, making it impossible for the volunteers to use ships to transport combat supplies to the front line after occupying Haizhou.

The Korean army did all these moves very well.

Although Huang Zhibo did not expect to get the ammunition from the coalition forces, many ammunitions could not be used. If the ammunition left by the coalition forces, such as the armor-piercing ammunition of the 120 tank gun, was obviously not worth the cost, but Huang Zhibo had long focused on other coalition forces' supplies, especially fuel and food.

Relatively speaking, the latter is more important.

Before the coalition forces occupied Pyongyang, North Korea did not have much strategic food reserves. After the restoration of Pyongyang, the North Korean authorities would definitely return to the capital, with tens of thousands of government personnel alone. With the Pyongyang residents who returned one after another, the volunteer army would have to solve the problem of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. If we include the officers and soldiers of the Volunteer Army and the People's Army that fought together, at least three million people would be waiting to fill our stomachs.

In fact, the problem is not that simple.

When attacking Pyongyang, the volunteers used thousands of tons of bombs and tens of thousands of tons of artillery shells to almost completely destroy this small city. According to statistics made by the North Korean government after the war, 100,000 houses were destroyed in the city of Pyongyang, and about the same number of houses were severely damaged. Although the North Korean government did not blame the volunteers, but instead took the account on the "hapless invaders", the reality is that when a large number of people returned to Pyongyang one after another, Huang Zhibo had to ask the General Logistics Department to send 100,000 prefabricated houses as soon as possible to resettle the North Korean people. In addition, he had to mobilize a group of engineering personnel to build prefabricated houses delivered in the outskirts of Pyongyang, which invisibly increased the logistics burden.

300,000 tons of grain are not too much. If it is supplied to three million people, it will last for up to three months.

The problem is that if there are these 300,000 tons of grain, within three months, the volunteers will no longer have to distribute their forces to transport grain and can transport more combat supplies to the front line.

As for fuel, it is mainly used by the army, and it is also very important.

After the Korean army did this, Huang Zhibo had to consider the problem from a more realistic perspective, that is, after the restoration of Pyongyang, did the volunteer army need to continue to work hard and march towards Kaicheng?

Whether to open the city or not is not a problem, but when to play is the problem.

At that time, in the Volunteer Army Command, this issue was also very controversial.

Most of the staff believed that after a major victory had been achieved, especially after the surrender of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, the campaign purpose of annihilation of four main divisions of the US military had been achieved, and the strategic purpose of restoring Pyongyang was also achieved, so there was no need to attack and open the city immediately.

However, some staff members still believe it is necessary to attack and open the city immediately, and are mainly senior staff members.

The most active ones are Qi Kaiwei, his mother Qi Tie, Yang Yufang, Zhou Yusheng and Mu Haoyang.

In any case, they were closest to Huang Zhibo and knew the idea of ​​the commander-in-chief best. The result of the battle was decided, but Huang Zhibo was reluctant to issue an order to withdraw troops, indicating that he was also considering this issue and was more inclined to attack and open the city immediately, rather than wait until the coalition forces recovered before taking action.

Objectively speaking, the five senior staff members do not fully agree with Huang Zhibo's ideas.

At that time, even Qi Kaiwei believed that it was necessary to let the combat troops breathe a sigh of relief, and there was no need to attack Kaicheng immediately. After the coalition was severely damaged, it could not recover its vitality in a short period of time. With the Korean army's combat effectiveness alone, it could not defend Kaicheng at all, so the troops could be given a temporary rest. Even if the situation changed, the front-line troops could be organized immediately to launch an attack on Kaicheng before the coalition forces strengthened their defense.

Just to take care of the commander-in-chief's face, none of the five senior staff members raised objections.

In fact, after spending so long with Huang Zhibo, all five senior staff members realized that as long as Huang Zhibo made up his mind, no one could change it.

Huang Zhibo did not issue an order immediately, indicating that he was still hesitating, but did not mean that he had no opinion.

Perhaps, he was just waiting for the opportunity, or waiting for accurate battlefield intelligence.

What made Huang Zhibo decide was a piece of information sent by the Second Department.

On the night of the 24th, Li Mingyang personally rushed to the Volunteer Army Headquarters and handed over the documents marked "top secret" to Huang Zhibo.

In this information, Li Guoqiang repeatedly emphasized that the US authorities have made a decision to increase troops. Two heavy armored divisions will arrive in South Korea before the end of October and will be able to form combat capabilities by November 5 at the latest. In addition, the US President has appointed the Central Theater Commander Botsman as Commander-in-Chief of the coalition forces.

In order to attract Huang Zhibo's attention, Li Guoqiang also provided Botsman's personal information.

In fact, Huang Zhibo is also a "fan" of Botsman. In his bookcase, Botsman's book about the Russian Civil War was placed, and he read it several times. Huang Zhibo and Botsman have the same view that in the near future, the United States will participate in a large-scale local war and have a head-on conflict with a major power. However, Huang Zhibo does not think that Russia will be the one who fights the United States.

When he was the chief of staff of the Nanjing Military Region, Huang Zhibo studied in-depth the new military ideas proposed by Botsman.

In many ways, he believed that Botsman was a very talented general, and even believed that Botsman had been born in the wrong era. If he had been born seventy years ago, Botsman would have been a powerful general like Patton. These understandings made Huang Zhibo believe that if Botsman was not a guy who only knew how to talk about war on paper, he would be the last opponent any general wanted to meet, and the opponent that any general dreamed of defeating.

The US President sent Botsman over and added two divisions again, indicating that the US authorities have not given up yet.

From the perspective of military strength, perhaps the US president has been shaken and does not believe that the coalition forces can win this war, but the US president definitely does not want to sign a ceasefire agreement with the volunteers in absolutely unfavorable circumstances. Therefore, the coalition forces must have big moves and may even launch an extremely threatening attack.

Since the war will not end, we should seize the opportunity and create favorable conditions as much as possible.
Chapter completed!