On the first day of the Qing army's attack, it was extremely fierce, and the Qing army in Hubei was probably full of breath, and the fighting spirit was very high, and launched one charge after another to the position of the volunteers. However, the Qing army's charge was stubbornly resisted by the volunteers, who organized a fierce fire network, and the Qing army suffered heavy casualties.

The battle began in the morning and continued until dusk, and the position of the volunteers remained unsteady, and even in the afternoon, the vigor of the Qing army was finally gradually exhausted by the brutal battle; after all, although the Hubei New Army was an army trained and organized according to the modern military system, first, it still had a large number of feudal characteristics, and it was not a standard modern army; second, the Hubei New Army lacked actual combat experience, and it was easy to fight a warhead war, but it was difficult to fight a war against the wind.

At this time, the Volunteers took advantage of the unsuccessful attack of the Qing army and launched a counterattack against the Qing army when they retreated. The soldiers of the Volunteers jumped out of the trenches one after another, and pounced after the retreating Qing troops. As a result, under the oppression of the astonishing momentum of the volunteers, the retreating Qing army suddenly panicked, and the retreat turned into a rout. Fortunately, the position of the Qing army was also quite tightly defended, so it was not dispersed by the counterattack of the volunteers, but the attack on this day was completely interrupted. In this day's battle, the Qing army lost more than 350 people killed and another 400 wounded, which was not a small loss.

This result also shocked Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong, although the two did not hope to completely break through the positions of the volunteers in one day, but they should always have some gains, at least they could break through a few local positions, after all, the Qing army had an absolute advantage in strength. Of course, the volunteers are so stubbornly defending this line of defense, there must be their reasons, although Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong are not famous generals, but after all, they are also people who have learned the art of war, and the bandits' strength is of course more than these 2,000 people, if other armies are coming, they can just encircle the Qing army in Hubei here.

Of course, now that the Qing army has withdrawn from the battlefield, it is still extremely good, after all, the road for the Qing army to retreat to Hubei is still smooth, but Zhang Biao, Li Yuanhong was a little unwilling, if he returned to Hubei like this, the future of the two would basically be over, and it would take more than 10 days to enter Henan, and the enemy bandits were always the only ones with these more than 2,000 troops to deal with themselves, so there was still some luck mentality, thinking that the reinforcements of the enemy bandits might not come so quickly, and in today's battle, the enemy bandits could not have no casualties, maybe the position was already precarious, as long as they worked harder, they could break through the enemy bandits' position.

So after consulting in the middle of the night, the two finally decided to fight for another day, and if they could break through the position of the enemy bandits, then they would go to Xinye to rest and recuperate, and then wait for the opportunity to move; if they could not break through the position on this day, they would withdraw to Hubei.

This time, the Qing army no longer had reservations, but went all out, and at the beginning, all the artillery of the whole army, and without saving shells, opened fire with all their might, and bombarded the positions of the volunteers.

For a while, the artillery shells fell on the positions of the volunteers like a torrential rain, which also made the officers and soldiers of the volunteers realize that this time the Qing army was probably going to fight hard. The artillery bombardment of the Qing army lasted for more than 30 minutes, although the volunteers dug trench fortifications, used the anticline of the trenches to protect themselves, and defended against the enemy's artillery fire, but the Qing army's artillery bombardment was too fierce, and the time for the volunteers to arrange their positions was limited, so the trenches dug were not perfect, and the artillery bombardment of the Qing army did cause certain losses to the volunteers.

In order to let the soldiers fight to the death, Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong also set up a supervision team, of course, they also set up a heavy reward, in short, they will show all the strength of the Qing army today.

After the shelling, the Qing army again launched a ground attack on the positions of the volunteers, and from the hillside where the volunteers were located, the Qing soldiers looked like ants, covering almost the entire hillside.

Although the artillery bombardment of the Qing army destroyed part of the fortifications on the position, the volunteers still held on to their positions, and at this time, the volunteers also went all out, rifles, mortars, * and other weapons were all dispatched to give the Qing army a fierce blow. The Qing army's attacks were repelled again and again, but under the command of Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong, the Qing army relied on the advantage of more troops, and the Qing army in front had just withdrawn, and the later Qing army immediately took over, round after round, almost never stopped, and did not give the volunteers a respite. The artillery fire filled the battlefield with gunsmoke, and it was almost impossible to distinguish the battle lines of the enemy and us, and the sound of gunfire, artillery, and * was completely connected.

It should be said that the Qing army's crazy attack at any cost still achieved certain results, after all, the volunteer army was insufficient in strength, and under the repeated attacks of the Qing army, it was finally a little unbearable, and there were several times when the Qing army attacked the position, and there were close fights. But despite this, the soldiers of the Volunteer Army still held their positions, did not flinch, and repelled the attacks of the Qing army many times, and some positions even appeared repeatedly fought by the two sides, changing hands several times, and the corpses of soldiers on both sides lay all over the position.

The battle lasted for a whole morning, and despite the fierce resistance of the volunteers, two positions were lost due to insufficient troops, and the combat attrition of the whole regiment exceeded 700 men, and it had approached the cordon with the loss of one-third of the troops. Although the losses of the Qing army were greater than those of the volunteers, the number of the Qing army was far greater than that of the volunteers, so there was still room for further battles, and if the Qing army continued to attack in the afternoon, it was indeed very likely to break through the defense line of the volunteers.

But the Qing army's attack ended here, and in the afternoon, the Qing army did not attack again, so the third regiment also got a rare respite. The reason why the Qing army could no longer insist on the offensive was that the reinforcements of the Volunteer Army finally arrived at the battlefield, and they came from two directions, the second regiment was stationed about 10 kilometers east of the Qing army, and the first regiment went directly around the south of the Qing army, cutting off the Qing army's return route back to Hubei, and the three regiments formed an inverted triangle, trapping the Qing army in the core.

Under these circumstances, the Qing army in Hubei naturally did not dare to attack the positions of the Third Regiment anymore, and could only be forced to turn to the defensive. And Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong also completely gave up continuing the attack, but how to break through the encirclement of the volunteers and retreat to Hubei. However, due to the failure of the attack in the previous two days, the Qing army in Hubei not only suffered huge losses, but also exhausted its troops, so Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong decided to let the soldiers rest for the night and launch a breakthrough tomorrow.

In fact, at this time, although the Volunteer Army formed an encirclement of the Qing army in Hubei, a regiment, The second regiment has just arrived at the battlefield, not only its own physical consumption is huge, but also did not build a good defensive position in Hubei, although the Qing army has suffered considerable losses, but on the whole there is still more than seventy percent of the combat effectiveness, although the soldiers are tired, it is not that there is no strength to fight again, after all, it is now the time when the life of the Qing army in Hubei is at stake, if the main general can agitate the whole army, at this time to launch a resolute breakthrough action, the probability of success is very large, although there will be some losses, but can still keep most of the troops. It's a pity that Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong are not decisive people, so the last chance of the Qing army was given up like this.

The first regiment and the second regiment made full use of the time of this night, and built a simple position, although it was not too ideal, but it also had a certain amount of resistance, and also seized the time to rest and recover physical strength, so in the early morning of the next day, when the Qing army in Hubei launched an attack on the position of the first regiment, the volunteers were also fully prepared.

This time, the Qing army in Hubei still opened the way with artillery, because yesterday's battle proved that the intensive firing of artillery was a very effective tactical means, after the previous battle, the artillery shells of the Qing army in Hubei were still about half, and at this time, of course, the Qing army in Hubei would not be retained, Zhang Biao ordered that all the shells should be exhausted, first, to intensify the attack on the volunteers; second, after the shells were exhausted, the Qing army could also lighten its own burden and break through lightly. Of course, the Qing army did not forget that there were still two volunteer armies eyeing each other, leaving 1,000 troops on each side to block them.

So the Hubei Qing army concentrated all its more than 30 artillery pieces of various kinds and launched a fierce artillery bombardment on the position of the volunteers, but when the artillery bombardment of the Qing army in Hubei was carried out for 5 or 6 minutes, the artillery sound also sounded on the positions of the volunteers, and the shells fell on the artillery positions of the Qing army.

In fact, the Volunteer Army has only one field artillery company, equipped with six 75 mm caliber field guns, of course, the number is much less than that of the Hubei Qing Army, and it is definitely impossible to fight an artillery battle with the Hubei Qing Army, but it is absolutely possible to seize an opportunity to sneak attack. Therefore, before the start of the battle, the field artillery company was ambushed near the position, anyway, it was 6 guns, and it was much easier to conceal.

After the artillery of the Qing army opened fire, the position of their artillery positions was exposed, and the volunteers had already carried out serious surveying and mapping of this area, and drew accurate detailed drawings, once the location of the enemy's artillery positions was discovered, various firing units could be immediately calculated, so six 75 mm caliber field guns immediately calibrated the firing parameters and bombarded the artillery positions of the Qing army.

Although the artillery of the volunteers was small, the rate of fire was fast, and it only took more than a minute to shoot nearly 100 shells, and then quickly evacuated the artillery position, which is also the advantage of less artillery, and the action was fast and convenient.

In fact, the field artillery company of the Volunteer Army did not need to evacuate its position at all, because in the round of shelling just now, more than seventy percent of the shells fell on the artillery positions of the Qing army, which was enough to destroy the artillery positions of the Qing army.

In addition, the Qing army concentrated all the artillery shells on the artillery positions, and did not arrange them according to the principle of separating the artillery and artillery, and the artillery bombardment of the Qing troops caused many shells to explode, forming a chain effect, with the result that almost the entire artillery position of the Qing army was covered by an explosion, and the artillery was blown to pieces, while the soldiers were blown to pieces and their limbs were shattered.