Mengshan Army

The official army occupying Zhangjiazhai is a reinforced team of Cao Kun's third battalion.There are about 200 troops, and the team officer is called Li Fu.According to Cao Kun's order, Ma Jianxun, the battalion officer of the third battalion, sent Li Fu's troops to occupy Zhangjiazhai as an outpost to attack Mengshan.After getting rid of Li Fu's headquarters, Ma Jianxun sent him an engineering platoon.

Li Fu led his team to successfully occupy Zhangjiazhai.Because the village was already at the foot of Mount Meng, Li Fu did not dare to slack off. While checking the terrain and arranging defenses to deal with possible attacks by thieves, he investigated the villagers in the village and asked two very old men in the village to inquire. Regarding the situation of the bandits in Mengshan, the old men could not give any valuable information, they just repeated that people from the mountain often come down.

Li Fu graduated from the school attached to Yuan Shikai's new army, and he had received modern military education. He believed that the thieves must have got the news of the official army's attack.Perhaps, the thief's spies are hidden among the villagers.So Li Fu didn't dare to be careless, and repeatedly told his subordinates to pay attention to anti-spies. While sending people back to Maoyang Town to report to Master Cao Kun, he deployed defenses and waited for the arrival of follow-up troops.

After looking at the terrain, Li Fu focused his defense on the east and south of the village. He only arranged two incomplete sheds (squads) on the north side, and he still held a smaller platoon of reserve teams in his hands.Tomorrow, Ma Yingguan's brigade will come up with reinforcements, and then there will be no more danger.

In fact, Li Fu didn't look down on the bandits on the mountain at all.With more than 100 foreign guns and sufficient ammunition in his hands, the bandits died as many as they came.

Sure enough, the bandits really attacked at night, and they came from three directions.Li Fu, who was commanding from the gate tower of Dongzhai, saw with satisfaction that his soldiers turned the people beaten by the thieves on their backs with accurate and quick shots, and the thieves retreated like a tide crying.

This was his team's first actual battle since training at the small station. Li Fu was very satisfied with the performance of his men, but he soon got reports that the south route was repelled but the north route's fierce offensive had broken through the wall.Li Fu regretted that nearly two platoons of troops had been deployed to the east. It seemed that the main attack direction of the bandits was north, not east.

Upon receiving the report, Li Fu ordered the leader of the first platoon to take his platoon and the reserve team that stayed in the village—the engineering platoon that was strengthened for him to fight back against the bandits on the North Road, and drive the bandits out of the village.As long as it lasts until dawn, Ma Yingguan's brigade will come to support him.Then he ordered his signal soldiers to immediately go out of the west gate and return to Maoyang Town to report to the camp, requesting immediate reinforcements.

Asking for reinforcements is shameful, but it's better than losing the stronghold and letting the bandit army be defeated.If that happens, his future in the new army may be over.

A platoon leader led his [-]-odd soldiers down the wall of the East Walled Wall and along the Central Street (this name is a bit exaggerated) to kill in the village. The village was already on fire, and there were messy figures everywhere. The platoon leader did not dare to shoot at will. , for fear of accidentally injuring friendly troops.He caught a retreating soldier head-on, who was from the third platoon that had been defending the north wall. After asking, he found out that the brigade of the bandit army had entered Zhuangzi, and the leader of the third platoon had been killed. As for the engineers, he had no news.

A row of grown-ups was terrified, because he knew that once in hand-to-hand combat, the primitive weapons of the thieves might be more practical than the German-made m1888 rifles they were equipped with.

The officers and soldiers all knew that the number of thieves was far greater than their own, and this stockade could not deploy many troops, a few hundred people would fill it up, which is why the Ma Yingguan only sent one team to Zhangjiazhai.

The first row quickly caught fire with the bandit, and soldiers around him had already been shot and fell to the ground. The bandit was also equipped with an advanced breech-loading rifle!

"Lie down! Get down quickly!" A platoon leader shouted, "Shoot! Shoot!" He lay down on the ground first, and quickly fired the five bullets in his gun through the flames in front of him, and someone was faintly knocked down. , he couldn't tell whether he was the brother of the engineering platoon, the scene was too chaotic.

The task of the engineer platoon temporarily assigned to Li Fu's team was to strengthen the village. After entering Zhangjiazhai, the engineers concentrated their efforts on renovating the east wall facing Mengshan, and also tidied up the too damaged south wall. I set up a few fixed firepower points, and after a busy day, I was already terribly tired.Because they were guest troops, Li Fu didn't assign them any task of guarding. The engineers and soldiers went to sleep after dinner. There were quite a few empty houses in the village.Li Fu thought about it for a while, and pointed out the best courtyard in the village to the engineers, letting them stay and rest.

As soon as the battle started, the engineer platoon leader immediately gathered his team. Their weapons were insufficient. The whole platoon only had ten rifles and more than a hundred hand-thrown bombs made by Hanyang Arsenal.The enemy attacked from three sides, and Li Fu's infantry went up to the wall of the village. As soon as the engineers assembled, the eighth team broke in. Long Qian's soldiers attacked fiercely, heading straight to the core.

But what Long Qian didn't expect was that the engineer platoon didn't attack rashly, but occupied the tallest courtyard in the village to resist.This courtyard was Zhang Fu's courtyard, the only land in the original Zhangjiazhai. Zhang Fu had already moved out of the village and fled to Yanzhou, so the courtyard was empty.The engineers were taken care of and lived in this large courtyard. Under the order of the platoon leader, dozens of people immediately blocked the front and rear doors, and ten rifles were divided into two groups and went to the roof.

This was undoubtedly a correct decision. The engineer platoon leader obviously realized that the bandits had entered Zhuangzi, and it would be more beneficial to occupy the courtyard and wait for rescue than to escape.

Lu Shan's small team rushed to the gate of the courtyard first, but was repelled by a volley of guns. This line of precise shooting caused at least two deaths and two injuries to the small team.Lu Shan jumped anxiously, ready to attack, but was stopped by Long Qian who was chasing up.

At this time, Feng Guozhu's people also came.

The wounded were still moaning on the ground, but no one dared to rush into the open space to rescue the wounded.Taking advantage of the growing flames not far away, Long Qian sullenly judged the situation in his mind.The courtyard occupied by the officers and soldiers was the meeting place for the various teams. As far as the difficulty of attacking was concerned, it was much higher than the wall of the village.For the eighth team that lacked explosive equipment, it would cost a lot of casualties to enter the courtyard.

The key problem is that the status of the third team and the first team is still unclear.

"Don't be reckless. The third team first surrounded the yard and shouted inside, no attack without my order! Ning Shijun!" Long Qian called Ning Shijun, Shi Chang, under Feng Guozhu, "Take your people to clear the village Pay attention to collecting weapons and ammunition for the remnants of the enemy. Send two smart people to contact the southeast two roads to contact them, and let Wang Mingyuan's team come in. Lu Shan, you take your team to defend the east. , The main force of the official army is at the East Wall.”

After Ning Shijun and the others left, Long Qian asked the third team to send a guard to the west, and the reinforcements from the government army obviously came from the west.

The fire and shouts in the village reminded Sun Deming in the south that the eighth or third team had already entered the village. Sun Deming organized his team and launched an attack again. This time it went smoothly. The firepower on the wall of the village was obviously weakened. One team rushed into the stockade one at a time, and Sun Deming, who was in high spirits, soon saw Long Qian on the roof of a house across the street from the main entrance of Zhang's house.

"It was a good fight," Sun Deming slapped Long Qian on the shoulder vigorously, expressing his satisfaction, "Why did you stop here?" The officers and soldiers on the wall of Zhang's house were still shooting, and there were violent explosions from time to time. The hand-throwing bombs thrown by the officers and soldiers were exploding, and the officers and soldiers of the eighth team hid.

"It's not easy." Long Qian observed Zhang's house, "We lack heavy weapons, and this house is not easy to fight."

"How many of them are there?" Sun Deming asked beside Long Qian.

"According to the confession of the captives, there is an engineering platoon inside, with about three, no. 40 people." Long Qian thought to himself, this platoon leader has some brains, and when he saw that the situation was wrong, the whole platoon retreated into the strongest courtyard in the stockade, which was obviously worse than Recklessly rushed out to fight for Gaoming in the village.

"F*** Mao! Isn't it just dozens of people? The village has been laid down, so why are you afraid of its small yard?" Sun Deming was lost in the attack on Zhangjiazhai, and he led the most elite team in the village to be killed. Blocked from the outside, but let a newest team attack in, this field must be found!

"Xiao Longzi, you take your men to deal with the officers and soldiers at Dongzhai Gate, contact Zhou Yi, flank them and destroy them, and definitely kill them all. I will fight this yard." Sun Deming made a decision in a moment.

"Yes." Long Qian agreed and left the room.

Li Fu on the gate of Dongzhai was caught in a dilemma. He still had a platoon of soldiers in his hands. The gunshots and shouts of killing from the village told him that the village had fallen, and if he turned around to deal with those who entered the village, The bandits, the bandits from the east will attack, and Li Fu is in a dilemma whether to hold on to the East Wall and wait for reinforcements or turn around and fight into the village.After thinking for a while, Li Fu made the right decision and stuck to the spot!He knew that his reinforcements would arrive after dawn, and as long as they occupied a stronghold in Zhangjiazhai, the bandits' attack tonight would fail.

Naturally, Sun Deming's thoughts couldn't be hidden from Long Qian, he couldn't compete with the third master.Moreover, that house is not a soft bone at all.Since Sun Deming asked him to leave, Long Qian quickly jumped out of the room and asked Jiang Yun and Gu Xiaolin to find the two team leaders Lu Shan and Feng Guozhu. Seeing that Wang Mingyuan had entered the village with the second team, Long Qian nodded and sorted out. The team, after taking the wounded soldiers and the captured weapons, led the eighth team and left Zhang Mansion.

The members of the eighth team were very dissatisfied with Sun Deming's actions. They all knew that if the eighth team took down the house, most of the supplies inside would be theirs.Feng Guozhu said, "Why did you let us leave? Isn't this bullying?"

"Don't talk nonsense!" Long Qian scolded, "Count the number of people. Erhu, what happened to the officers and soldiers at Dongzhai Gate?"

"No, no." Wang Mingyuan's subordinate named Cheng Erhu had already entered.

"Collect weapons and prepare to retreat." Long Qian said softly.

"Stop fighting?" Wang Mingyuan asked in amazement, the second team barely made any money to fight tonight.

"The officers and soldiers are very clever. If they counterattack the stockade, we can take the opportunity to make a fortune, but if they don't come out, I have nothing to do." Long Qian lowered his voice, "We must not attack by force! Mingyuan, your team is facing east. Set up defenses, and each person shoots at most two shots, and the rest move north, preparing to return the same way. When Sun San's attack fails, we should retreat."

What happened next basically confirmed Long Qian's judgment. Sun Deming commanded a team to attack twice, but was beaten back by the officers.More than a dozen people were killed and injured in vain, and even a hair of the officers and soldiers was not touched.However, Dongzhai Gate was still firmly in the hands of the officers and soldiers, and Zhou Yi's third team could not be contacted, so it was estimated that they were still blocked from outside.When Sun Deming learned that the reinforcements from Maoyang Town had appeared, he had no choice but to order a retreat.

This was an unsuccessful sneak attack. After removing the eighth team, the third team and the first team suffered a lot. There were many casualties but nothing was gained.According to the direction they came from, the three teams withdrew back to Mount Meng in three ways.