Back to the Republic of China as a commander

Zhou Zefan quickly got in touch with his backer, his classmate Cheng Qian who is currently in the provincial capital who wants to get wind and rain.And through Cheng Qian, he found out who Wang Zhenyu was, and he was quite surprised at the time. It turned out that it was this person who wiped out the Fifth Division in Changsha.

After the military chaos in Changsha subsided, Cheng Qian had been doing well in the provincial military government recently. In the eyes of outsiders, he was Tan Yankai's second general who lived side by side with Zhao Hengti.But in fact, Cheng Qian almost controlled the Hunan Army. Not long ago, he succeeded Zhang Xiaozhun as the director of the Provincial Military Department because of the veterans' disturbance.The limelight in the provincial capital was the same for a while, and even Tan Yankai had to give way in many things.But as soon as the Zhou Zhou telegram came out, Cheng Qian was dumbfounded. This matter was too difficult. Even if he sent a telegram to stop the war as the director of the Military Department, he probably wouldn't pay attention to this daring Wang Zhenyu.He had to pull the banner of the governor, so he immediately ran to Tan Yankai and angrily accused Wang Longzhong of the Fourth Division of the Hunan Army for provoking war for no reason, secretly instigating his troops to attack friendly troops, robbing the territory, and destroying the good situation of stability and unity in Hunan.

Zhao Hengti happened to be there too, but he didn't express his opinion lightly.From an emotional point of view, he and Wang Zhenyu are sworn brothers, so it is certain to help speak at this time.But it shouldn't be too obvious. If it arouses Tan Dudu's suspicion and rejection, it will not be worth the loss. After all, I am now living under Tan Dudu's banner.It is not advisable to smash your job just to beg for mercy.

However, Zhao Hengti is indeed a character. In the face of Cheng Qian's anger, he solved a big problem for Wang Zhenyu with a single sentence: "Tan Dudu, we are planning to abolish all divisions, especially this Wang Longzhong. The Baoqing Mansion is very big. A piece of land must be taken back safely. As for now, I personally feel that I should not make a big mistake because of a small mistake, and startle the snake, and mess myself up."

When Tan Yankai heard it, he immediately took it seriously, and then he said a word of comfort to Cheng Qian, and he was perfunctory.

So the provincial military government only issued a non-painful truce order, requiring both parties to return to their respective camps and not to cause trouble.I will no longer express any opinions and opinions on Hongjiang's affairs, as if it is very harmonious and healthy there, and nothing has happened.

In fact, neither of the warring parties took the order of the provincial government seriously, and various military deployments continued as usual. . .

Zhou Zefan soon received the news that the invading Ninth Brigade had only two regiments of more than 800 people.He was immediately laughed out of anger. Is the Tiger Brigade awesome?How dare you look down on people like this?In addition to the 6000 regular troops, there are [-] militiamen under my command. You must know that Hongjiang's militias are no better than the rogue militias in other places.And more importantly, because of the support of the merchants, the equipment of these militias is no less than that of the regular army.In this way, I have an advantage in terms of military strength, and I can do four against one. I am a serious non-commissioned officer student studying in Japan. If I can't win in this case, I should commit seppuku. .

Thinking of this, Zhou Zefan couldn't help but burst out laughing. Chief of Staff Yang Yusheng was very surprised: "Why is the commander laughing?"

Zhou Zefan laughed for a while, and replied very complacently: "I laugh that Wang Zhensheng doesn't know the art of war, and he doesn't know how to be a general. He dared to hold back in this kind of battle, and the 4000 troops were less than half. , It's ridiculous."

Yang Yusheng thought about it, yes, so he nodded in agreement.

At this time, Liu Qishan asked to see him, saying that he wanted to subsidize Commander Zhou Zefan Zhou's 50 yuan for the expedition. Of course, the reason was very good, Hongjiang City could not be a battlefield.Everyone's property is here, Commander Zhou, you are the patron saint of Hongjiang, and it is only reasonable to defend the enemy from outside the country.

Zhou Zefan thought about it too. He led Cai Juxian and Liu Xuyi's two regiments, six battalions, 800 people, plus 600 elites drawn from the regiment training office, and marched in the direction of the Ninth Brigade.And Yang Yusheng led three battalions of [-] people and [-] militia groups to stay behind in Hongjiang.

In fact, the news sent back by Zhou Zefan's scouts was correct. It was Hao Bing and Song Xianfu who were attacking Hongjiang along the official road. They each brought a regiment and three battalions. One thousand eight hundred people.What's more serious is the current state of the two colonel heads, a serious lack of confidence.However, Wang Zhenyu seems to have great confidence in them. In order to coordinate the relationship between the two departments, Wang Zhenyu appointed Wan Yaohuang as the war supervisor this time. As for whether this lieutenant colonel can supervise the battle between the two colonels, only God knows.

And Wang Zhenyu personally led the guard team, the teaching team, the secret service team, the reconnaissance team, and the advance team of the first battalion, under the leadership of the guide sent by the Hongjiang merchant gang, took a small road and ran all the way to Hongjiang across the mountains.

Zhou Zefan naturally didn't know this, although he was worried, but since Hongjiang had left three battalions and three thousand regiments to practice, even if Wang Zhenyu, a lunatic, really climbed the mountain, he didn't need to worry.

So his plan is to lead nearly 5000 people to fight in a mighty manner, and first defeat Wang Zhenyu, the main force of 800 people.As long as he defeated Wang Zhenyu, he would have one more Jingzhou Prefecture under his control, and Zhou Zefan's ambition to rule the roost was suddenly ignited.

According to this idea, the two armies started to move in the same direction, and encounters were inevitable.

The encounter took place in Ma'an Town, Huitong County, which is a full forty miles away from Hongjiang.

Since the scouts discovered the enemy's situation before the opponent and reported back in time, the Tiger Brigade took the lead and grabbed a favorable terrain.

By the time Zhou Zefan's men and horses arrived in mighty force, the Tiger Brigade had already completed their positioning.

Song Xianfu and Hao Bing didn't even need to think about it, they knew that there must be more people on the opposite side than their own.So when the scouts reported, they ordered all the ministries to form a defensive formation relying on Ma'an Town without saying a word.

The plan of these two people is very simple, that is to rely on the mountain to protect Ma'an Town, and drag Zhou Zefan here to complete the project.Wan Yaohuang shook his head dissatisfied with this, but he was just a war supervisor, not a commander in chief.Therefore, the only thing he could do was to insist that the second and third regiments deploy their defenses in a V-shape as usual. Li Hongkui's fourth battalion went out to the left to ambush, and Zhou Zhengming's seventh battalion went to the right to go out to ambush.Song Xianfu and Hao Bing agreed, it doesn't matter.

Even so, Wan Yaohuang was not at ease. He repeatedly told Li Hongkui and Zhou Zhengming: "No matter how many casualties you have suffered or how the battle situation is, you must firmly stay in your position. If you don't have a charge number, you are not allowed to attack. Listen! do you understand?"

Li Hongkui and Zhou Zhengming looked at each other, then saluted and replied: "Yes."

The other four battalions were responsible for guarding the bottom of the V-shape in Ma'an Town. Wan Yaohuang took a closer look. Although Song Xianfu and Hao Bing's combat command capabilities were terrible, they still had a good way of leading troops.The second and fourth regiments were quite capable of civil engineering work. In just half an hour, the second simple blocking position was completed.

But when Zhou Zefan took a look through the binoculars, he immediately burst out laughing. Cai Juxian, who was following him, was very puzzled: "The enemy is at hand, why is the commander laughing?"

Zhou Zefan withdrew his smile and looked back to Cai Juxian and said, "When I was studying in a military academy in Japan, the instructors told me that the most important thing for this army is its morale. But look, the Tiger Brigade on the opposite side only saw it." When they arrived at our army, they immediately put on a posture of defense and attack. What kind of tiger is this? It is clearly a paper tiger! Commander Cai, bring your brothers to charge and defeat them."

This Cai Juxian is not tall, but he has a tiger's aura on his body, he looks like an extremely fierce person.It can also be regarded as the number one general under Zhou Zefan's banner, and his qualifications are even higher than Zhou Zefan's airborne cadre.It's just a pity that Cai Juxian was from the old army. After being assigned to the new army, he was able to lead troops in western Hunan only by relying on the care of his old superior, Huang Zhonghao from Qianyang.In the previous campaigns to suppress the bandits in Western Hunan, this person was brave and brave, and made many military exploits. He is also a well-known character in the local area. The bandits in Guizhou have not dared to invade Hongjiang for ten years because of Cai Juxian.

As a result, Cai Juxian climbed to the position of standard authority. Unexpectedly, when the Revolution of [-] broke out, his biggest backer Huang Zhonghao was actually revolutionized.Losing his backer, Cai Juxian, who has a bleak future, had to choose to attach himself to Zhou Zefan, an officer who was sent to Japan who was seven years younger than himself, in order to make a living.

In the process of Zhou Zefan's taking over Hongjiang, Cai Juxian made the first contribution. He defeated the coalition composed of two bandit forces, the Yao family and the Tan family, who took advantage of the chaos to attack Hongjiang with 800 people. I had to escape from Xiangxi overnight to avoid the limelight.

Zhou Zefan also trusted and reused Cai Juxian very much, so this time the vanguard job was naturally given to him again.

The charging whistle was blown, and more than 200 Hongjiang garrison officers and soldiers launched the first wave of attacks on the Tiger Brigade.

If Wang Zhenyu was there, he would definitely feel that the scene in front of him is very familiar, because the fighting style of Cai Juxian's troops is very similar to the battle scene of the later American movie "Patriot".All the soldiers lined up and stepped on the drums, but it was a little different from the movie when they were less than 80 meters away from each other.Stepping in unison turned into a gallop, and the Hongjiang defense team pressed down very aggressively.

"Fire" Song Xianfu shot first after he finished speaking. After the Ninth Brigade went through Hanyang training and Nanjing reorganization, the biggest improvement was that the soldiers would no longer shoot indiscriminately.

In this era, due to the constraints of various factors such as cultural education and productivity levels, soldiers' shooting training is a mere formality.It is often impossible to get a live ammunition shooting training once a year, which also leads to inexperienced soldiers often shooting indiscriminately before the enemy has entered the effective range.Fortunately, the soldiers of the Ninth Brigade, relying on Wang Zhenyu's money and through sufficient training, have overcome this stubborn illness.

Neither Song Xianfu nor Hao Bing chose to throw grenades or use mortars at the first moment, because the brigade commander said that those are the bottom of the box, and they cannot be used casually until the last moment (Use it at the last moment, suicide? ).

However, under Wan Yaohuang's insistence, they all strictly implemented Wang Zhenyu's tactical training requirements during the training period in Nanjing, and arranged the entire defense line in a V-shape, or reversed character, relying on the favorable terrain of the mountains to face, Arrange the six battalions in your hands into three positions, forming an angle of fire, and opened fire on the enemy's attacking troops.

This tactic was obtained after repeated discussions between Wang Zhenyu and Wan Yaohuang, combined with an article about the tactics of the German army in World War I that later generations personally read on the Internet.At that time, the German army took advantage of the bush terrain to line up a company of German troops in reverse order. As a result, the French army of the same company suffered a devastating blow when they attacked. They felt that bullets were shot from all directions. There was no way to hide himself, and the casualties soared.What's more terrible is that the French army could not cause effective damage to the German army at all because they could not find the key attack point.

During the Nanjing reorganization period, Yang Wangui, Song Xianfu, Hao Bing and others did not take this tactic seriously at first, and even challenged it at one point.However, after three simulations, all ended in failure, and everyone finally accepted this defensive tactic.

This incident also made Wang Zhenyu sigh, the soldiers really deserve to be the most conservative group in the world, bar none.