At this moment, Li Yuanhong received a report from the spies, and not far ahead, he found traces of the enemy army's station.

Li Yuanhong immediately led the army to the scene and carefully observed. Although most of the traces of the garrison have been cleaned up, Li Yuanhong is from a new-style army after all, and he can also see some ways from it. Judging from the scope of the garrison area, the army stationed here is about 2,000 people, and it is orderly and well-organized, showing not weak military qualities, which is obviously not as simple as ordinary bandits.

However, Li Yuanhong estimated that now he has 2,000 troops under his command, and he can have the strength to fight with this bandit army, and he still has Zhang Biao's army behind him, and he is not afraid of the enemy's reinforcements. So he ordered the whole army to pursue.

Because the traces of the enemy's march were very clear at this time, the pursuit of the Qing army in Hubei was also very easy, and the army chased forward for more than 2 hours, and walked out of nearly 20 kilometers, but found that the enemy's marching route was along the border between Nanyang and Xiangyang, heading east, if it continued to pursue, it would only be farther and farther away from the target of this advance, Tang County. At this time, the Qing army in Hubei was faced with two choices: First, they would give up the pursuit and turn back and continue to march toward Tang County, but with an army of 2,000 men on their side, would the Qing army in Hubei still be able to successfully capture Tang County? Second, they would continue to pursue until they caught up with the enemy army, and then turn back to attack Tang County after annihilating this enemy army.

Li Yuanhong couldn't help but hesitate a little, although Li Yuanhong is a new-style soldier, and he does have some talents, but his personality is quite indecisive, soft-eared and lively, and he is known as the "mud bodhisattva", so in the face of such a choice, Li Yuanhong couldn't make up his mind for a while, so he immediately ordered to stop the pursuit, rest on the spot, and sent someone to notify Zhang Biao to come to the meeting and negotiation.

An hour later, Zhang Biao led the brigade to come, and the two got together to discuss and think that they should still pursue this group of enemy bandits first, because Bijing in Tang County is a county seat, and it is an important gathering point for this group of bandits, so the bandits will set up heavy troops in Tang County, and may not be able to easily capture, in case they can't be attacked for a long time, this group of enemy bandits will be killed again, I'm afraid it will be difficult to deal with, it is better to annihilate this group of enemy bandits first, and then try to attack the city. At the same time, Zhang Biao also asked Li Yuanhong to go into battle lightly and leave artillery and baggage and other weapons in the brigade, so that he could speed up the march and after catching up with the enemy bandits, he did not have to rush to annihilate the enemy bandits, but dragged the enemy bandits, and waited for Zhang Biao to lead the brigade to arrive and then work together to gather and destroy the enemy bandits.

The next day, Li Yuanhong left the artillery and baggage, only brought 6 58mm mountain guns, and then led the whole army, a total of about 1,500 people, to continue the pursuit. Sure enough, after traveling lightly, Li Yuanhong's march speed was much faster, and in one day, he chased more than 50 kilometers, and at dusk, the spies reported that they had found enemy bandits in front and attacked the headquarters.

Li Yuanhong heard this, and hurriedly ordered the whole army to prepare for battle.

The commander of the Third Regiment of the Volunteer Army was a traverser named Liu Hexing, who was only a deputy battalion commander before coming to the base area, but he participated in all the battles that the East China Government had experienced before, and it can be said that he fought step by step from the grassroots level, and he had a lot of combat experience. After receiving the task of containing the Qing army in Hubei, Liu Dipeng also carefully considered that if he successfully completed his task, he would not only attract the Qing army, but also teach the Qing army a lesson.

The total strength of the Qing army in Hubei is far above itself, of course, it cannot be a hard enemy, and it must find a way to divide the troops of the Qing army in Hubei to break them one by one, and first of all, we must test the details of the enemy, so in the first three days, Liu Hexing used the tactics of avoiding but not fighting, and deliberately showed some marching, The traces of the garrison are, first, to lead the Hubei Qing army to pursue and stay away from Tang County; second, to let the Hubei Qing army divide its troops, because in order to catch up with the volunteers, the Hubei Qing army must divide part of its forces and travel lightly, so that it will have a chance; third, it is also through the pursuit to see the reaction of the Hubei Qing army, so as to judge the strength of the Qing army, so as to use different tactics to deal with it.

If the Qing army in Hubei is cautious, timid, and slow, it means that the Qing army in Hubei is timid and can use bluff tactics or sneak attack tactics to deal with it.

Because the volunteers are familiar with the terrain, and there are a large number of militia and people to support, so the whereabouts of the Qing army in Hubei have always been in the hands of the volunteers, but the pursuit of the Qing army in Hubei is not in a hurry, neither rushing nor slow, but also sent a large number of spies to check in the front, left and right, and keep a distance of no more than 20 kilometers from the brigade behind, showing quite strong quality, indicating that this Qing army has received relatively strict training and has a certain combat effectiveness, which also makes the volunteers basically have no chance to take advantage of.

However, after the 4th day of pursuit, the Qing army finally lost its breath, leaving the artillery baggage and lightly armed on the road, not only reducing the number of people, and speeding up the march, and after a day of pursuit, and the Qing army behind opened a distance of nearly 30 kilometers, Liu Hexing also realized that the fighter was coming, although it was too late to organize an ambush position at this time, but even if it was a head-on battle, Liu Hexing thought that he had 6 or 7 percent certainty. Because now I have a slight advantage in numbers, and I am taking the initiative to attack, there is a certain suddenness.

The battlefield chosen by Liu Hexing was in the Jiepaikou area of Tongbai Mountain, and the three battalions were divided into three routes to launch an attack on the Qing army in Hubei, which was also the first formal battle between the two sides after the Qing army launched a clearance.

Li Yuanhong was also mentally prepared for being attacked by enemy bandits, so he did not panic when he heard the news, and immediately ordered the Qing army to organize a defense on the spot, and sent someone to inform Zhang Biao in the back, asking him to rush to reinforcements immediately.

After Li Yuanhong gave the order, the Qing soldiers immediately found bunkers to hide, prepare, and arrange positions, and Li Yuanhong also found a place to set up his own headquarters, but before the Qing army was completely ready, the volunteers had already killed, the first to hit the Qing army was a round of artillery bombardment, the 18 60MM mortars of the 60 mortar company of the three regiments fired together, and hundreds of shells were fired in a short time.

In fact, this series of explosions did not cause much damage to the Qing army, because the volunteers did not find the position of the Qing army's position at all, first, because the time was in a hurry, and there was no time to observe and correct, and second, because the Qing army itself had not yet arranged its position, anyway, as long as the shells were fired in a general direction. However, this round of artillery bombardment caused a great shock to the Qing army, and even Li Yuanhong was a little frightened; the round of shelling just now, without 20 guns, would not be too bad, did this group of enemy bandits have so many artillery? Now they only have 6 mountain guns, and they have not yet assembled them, how can this battle be fought, and can they carry Zhang Biao to rush to reinforcements?

After the shelling, the volunteers immediately launched an attack on the Qing army, and the Qing army had no choice but to meet it, and the two sides soon collided like two floods together, entering a fierce hand-to-hand combat. The soldiers on both sides fought bayonets against bayonets, white blades against white blades, and in the blink of an eye, they were intertwined with each other in a desperate battle.

At this time, the tactics have not made much sense, the competition is the individual combat strength and courage of the soldiers on both sides, as well as the teamwork ability of the squad as a unit, although the total number of volunteers is above the Qing army, but the artillery does not participate in this kind of hand-to-hand combat, so the number of volunteers participating in the war is not much more than the Qing army, in fact, in all fairness, the combat effectiveness of the Qing army in Hubei is indeed not bad, the personal quality of the soldiers, morale, Brave, not under the soldiers of the volunteers, but after all, it was a hasty response, and just a round of shelling, also had a certain impact on the Qing army in Hubei, more importantly, although the fire support weapons of the volunteers are not as good as the people's army, but the basic weapons are the same, the army is equipped with a large number of 96 pistols, in this kind of close combat, 96 pistols can play a great role.

Under such a few advantages that are not too big, after half an hour of fierce fighting between the two sides, the volunteers gradually gained the upper hand, so everyone became more and more courageous, and although the Qing army in Hubei was well-trained, it was not a really strong army after all, and it was okay to fight a tailwind war, but once the battlefield fell into an unfavorable situation, it was suddenly unbearable, and was killed by the volunteers and retreated.

At this time, Li Yuanhong was taking his own guards, watching the battle on a small hill, because at this time he did not need to command the battle, seeing that the Qing army was invincible, they were defeated and retreated, and many soldiers fled in the direction of their own mountain, Li Yuanhong couldn't help but be shocked, at this time, he naturally did not dare to stay on the mountain for a long time, and hurriedly led his guards to escape down the mountain.

After Li Yuanhong fled from the battlefield, the Qing army finally fell into a comprehensive rout, fleeing in all directions, fortunately, the volunteers were not pressing, only chased out of 2 or 3 kilometers, and they stopped and did not chase, and Liu Hexing also ordered the whole army to simply clean up the battlefield, contain the remains of the dead soldiers, simply treat the wounded soldiers, and bring the guns and weapons abandoned by the Qing army, and immediately evacuate from the battlefield, the first battle after the Qing army entered the suppression, ended with the victory of the volunteers.

About half an hour later, when Zhang Biao and Li Yuanhong led a large group of Qing troops to the battlefield, the volunteers had already disappeared, leaving only a large number of corpses of Qing soldiers, and a small number of Qing soldiers who were unable to move due to serious injuries. When the volunteers withdrew, they did not kill all the wounded Qing soldiers, and even many Qing soldiers thought that they were certain to die, but the soldiers of the volunteers only looked at their injuries, and some tried to pull them up from the ground, but seeing that they were too seriously injured, they finally gave up, but they did not kill these wounded Qing soldiers, but just took away their weapons, and then left them to fend for themselves. Therefore, although a small number of Qing soldiers died because their injuries were too serious to receive timely treatment, most of the wounded soldiers were very fortunate to wait for the Qing army's brigade to arrive.