When the People's Army in the Far East sub-war zone was fighting fiercely with the Russian army, the Qing army's attack on the river and lake bases also began, so the second anti-encirclement and suppression operation of the river and lake bases was launched.

The Qing army launched an attack on the river and lake bases in four routes. However, the Qing army's attack was quite unsuccessful from the beginning. First of all, the villages along the road were basically moved away and nothing was left for the Qing army. Although they did not encounter the brigade of the Volunteer Army, the attack never stopped.

Moreover, the Volunteers attacked the Qing army in a variety of ways and could not be defended. Sometimes the Qing army marched well and suddenly there was a "bang" sound from the dense forests on both sides of the road, and Qing soldiers were shot and fell to the ground; or they fell from the air several artillery shells that were fired from there, and they fell into the Qing army's queue and exploded, killing and injuring more than 10 Qing soldiers. Sometimes, in the Qing army's queue, there was a "boom" sound, and sand and gravel flew around them, and several Qing soldiers were immediately bombed into the sky, and the Qing soldiers around them were even more injured.

It turned out that the Volunteer Army used mortars to carry out long-range strikes on the Qing army. They set up mortars on the high ground near the necessary locations of the Qing army and set up shooting units. After the Qing army entered the range, they fired guns and fired three shots in a row. They retreated immediately after the shooting, never dragging on the mud. By the time the Qing army arrived, they were already running out of sight; and another weapon used by the Volunteer Army was the trigger*.

This type of * is still a new weapon in this era. The East China government has just developed it and has not been mass-produced. The first batch of products was first used for river and lake bases. The main thing is to test the performance. It is buried on the road of the Qing army. It is not too much buried, just 3 or 4 of them. Although the performance of these * is not very good, mainly because the trigger structure is insufficient, it cannot withstand the number of people in the Qing army. If there are too many people trampling on it, it will always trigger *. Moreover, the * is loaded with a large amount of medicine and much lethality is much stronger.

Of course, sometimes the Qing army could find the attacking Volunteer soldiers, so the Qing army would naturally pursue them. However, the volunteer soldiers drilled into the mountains and forests, crossed mountains and ridges as if they were walking on flat ground, running faster than rabbits, and disappeared in a blink of an eye. However, some Qing army still did not believe in evil. Although they could not catch up with the Volunteer soldiers, they still rushed towards the direction of the Volunteer soldiers' escape. However, after the Qing army and the brigade distanced, countless volunteer soldiers suddenly appeared in front, back, left and right, surrounding and eliminating the pursuing Qing army. Therefore, after several pursuits, the Qing army did not dare to pursue them easily.

Such attacks will occur several times a day. Although each attack does not cause much damage to the Qing army, and can only kill a few Qing soldiers at a time, at most more than 10 people, the psychological attack on the Qing army is very serious. Bi Jing did not even see the shadow of the enemy, but he was constantly attacked, and some people were killed. No one would remain calm in his heart. Therefore, he was worried and trembling. What is the reason why there are all soldiers. Whenever there is a turbulence, the nearby soldiers immediately raise their guns and shoot, and then put a series of guns first.

This is the case during the day, and at night it is even more of a nightmare for the Qing army. Almost every 1 or 2 hours, artillery shells would fall and explode. In fact, many artillery shells did not really fall into the Qing army's camp, but the explosion sound made the Qing soldiers very nervous and they were sleeping well there. The teams patrolling outside the camp in the Qing army company would be attacked by the Volunteers, and they could not come back in 13 or 14. Therefore, the Qing army's patrol team did not dare to stay away from the camp, and the Volunteers did not take any jealousy in their activities at night.

If you can't sleep well at night, you naturally have no energy when you advance during the day. You will yawn when you walk for two or three days. Some Qing soldiers fell asleep while walking, and then fell to the ground. Therefore, the Qing army was forced to stop and rest, sleep during the day to make up for the lack of at night. In this way, the Qing army's advance speed naturally slowed down. After nearly 10 days of fighting, three of the 4 Qing army had not exceeded 50 kilometers.

Seeing that he had to camp for rest during the day, and there was a lot of snoring in the camp, the commander of the Qing army, Tie Liang, was so angry that he stamped his feet in the tent and cursed: What kind of heroic gangsters are this group of bandits? If you have the ability, you will come out and set up a formation. You will do it with real swords and guns. Everyone will fight one-on-one, fighting for 300 rounds, and hiding in the secret and attacking is what is the ability.

Fengshan, the commander of Beiyang Town, just rolled his eyes when he heard this. What era is this? He still "a one-on-one single fight, a three-hundred round of battles". Is it a performance to fight? However, Fengshan is a subordinate after all, so it is hard to say much. He can only persuade Tieliang and Liangbi to calm down and have a good rest.

At this moment, someone suddenly reported that it was a Qing army's transportation team that was attacked by the People's Army. The food and supplies were burned by the People's Army. The main general of the transportation team fled back to the Qing army's camp to report the news. Tieliang was already angry, but after hearing this, he was furious and immediately ordered the main general of the transportation team to be shot to serve as a warning to You.

However, it is easy to shoot the main general of the transport team, but it is even more difficult to stop the harassing tactics of the Volunteers. It is useless to lose their temper. In just 6 days, Wu Fengling, the commander of the four towns of Beiyang who sent troops from Luoyang, reported to Tieliang, saying that he was attacked by the Volunteers along the way and fought with dozens of bandits, causing great losses. Moreover, according to spies, a volunteer army attacked Luoyang, so Wu Fengling had to return to defend Luoyang and could not continue to march. The next day, the new Hubei army also reported to Tieliang that one of his granaries was burned by the Volunteers and could only temporarily stop advancing.

After receiving these two reports, Tieliang and Liangbi were also shocked and angry. The four armies marched, and two armies stopped. How could they fight this battle? Therefore, they were about to order the two armies to continue their march, but at this moment, someone reported to the two men, and the court issued an order to grant Duan Qirui, the commander of the three towns of Beiyang, who had sent troops from Baoding, as the acting governor of Henan.

It turned out that among the four armies of the Qing army, only Duan Qirui's army advanced smoothly and gained a lot. At this time, the four prefectures of Guangping Prefecture, Jizhou Prefecture, Shunde Prefecture, and Zhaozhou Prefecture had been continuously recovered, and the troops had reached Daming Prefecture, the southernmost tip of Hebei Province.

Although giving up the territory of Hebei is a planned plan for river and lake bases, because the foundation of river and lake bases in Hebei is not deep and it is also to lure the enemy into deep, the river and lake bases will not easily let Duan Qirui take these territory, and the attacks that should be encountered will not be less than the other three routes.

It turns out that Duan Qirui, the title of "Beiyang Tiger", is not a waste of time. His marching and fighting is indeed a bit of rules. After three days of dispatch, he discovered the attack tactics of the Volunteers. Therefore, Duan Qirui also changed his plan of march. First, the army was divided into two groups, marched in turn, covering each other, and ensuring that several artillery were in preparation for war. Once an attack was encountered, he immediately opened fire in the direction of the attack. Even if he could not fight, he could still capture the enemy. Moreover, when he marched every day, Duan Qirui would send a large number of scouts to the surrounding army to conduct reconnaissance and patrols to protect the safety of the army. He would spare no effort to camp every day, strengthen the camp gate facilities, and set up sentinel points outside the camp, increase night watchmen, etc.

After these measures, the impact was indeed achieved. The obstacles to Duan Qirui's army were indeed reduced a lot. Although the marching speed was much slower and he could not even walk 20 kilometers a day, it was steadily advancing. This accumulated a lot of small amounts, but it was progressing much faster than the other three routes. Seeing that Duan Qirui's army was strictly guarded and the army was purged, there was no opportunity to take advantage of it. Moreover, the Volunteer Army did not intend to fight the Qing army in Hebei Province, so they fought and retreated, giving all the Guangping Prefecture, Jizhou Prefecture, Shunde Prefecture, and Zhaozhou Prefecture to the Qing army, and gradually withdrew from Hebei Province. As a result, the results achieved by Duan Qirui's army were the only one among the four Qing armies.

In fact, Wang Yingkai from the Second Town of Beiyang and Wu Fengling from the Fourth Town are not incompetent people. If you really put your heart into it, you may not have come up with similar measures as Duan Qirui. However, Wang and Wu both remember Yuan Shikai's instructions to preserve their strength and not to make arbitrary moves. It is best to let Tieliang and Liangbi fight against the bandits, so the two of them were not very concerned about it.

Duan Qirui is more scheming than the two of them. If they deliberately eliminated the war, they could indeed achieve the goal of pulling Tieliang and Liangbi's back. However, Tieliang and Liangbi are now popular people in the dynasty. Now that they cheated him, they will inevitably take revenge after the war is over, and Yuan Shikai may not be able to protect himself, so it is inevitable that he will be dismissed from office and demoted. Although Yuan Shikai will find ways to reactivate himself in the future, Duan Qirui still does not want to lose his post because of it. So Duan Qirui was foolish, that is, when the war started, he would put some effort into winning a few battles, and then preserve his strength. In this way, even if he was punished in the future, he could destroy his merits and protect himself.

However, after the Volunteers retreated to Daming Prefecture, they no longer gave in. First, they had already given in enough, and Duan Qirui should know that they should not continue to march. Otherwise, they would break the tacit understanding reached with the East China government. The Volunteers would definitely teach Duan Qirui a lesson and let Duan Qirui know that the Volunteers are not easy to mess with; second, Daming Prefecture is located at the junction of Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces. The geographical location is very important, and it also goes directly to the capital of the river and lake bases Guide Prefecture, so the Volunteers would not give up Daming Prefecture easily.

So the Volunteers set up positions near Huilong Town, at the junction of Daming Prefecture and Zhangde Prefecture, preparing to fight against the Qing army.
Chapter completed!