When the People's Army of the Far Eastern Theater was fighting fiercely with the Russian army, the Qing army's attack on the Hehu base area also began, so the second anti-encirclement and suppression operation in the Hehu base area was also launched.

The Qing army launched an attack on the river and lake base area in four directions. However, the Qing army's offensive was quite unsmooth from the beginning, first of all, the villages along the road were basically all gone, leaving nothing for the Qing army, and although they did not encounter the brigade of the volunteers, the attack never stopped.

Moreover, the attack of the volunteers on the Qing army was also full of tricks, and it was impossible to prevent it, sometimes the Qing army marched well, and suddenly from the dense forest on both sides of the road, "suddenly" gunshots rang out, and suddenly some Qing soldiers were shot and fell to the ground; or a few shells fell from the air and did not know where they were launched, and they fell into the queue of the Qing army and exploded, killing and injuring more than 10 Qing soldiers at once, and even sometimes in the queue of the Qing army, there was a sound of sand and gravel flying wildly, and several Qing soldiers were immediately blown up into the sky, and the surrounding Qing soldiers were even more killed and wounded.

It turned out that the Volunteers used mortars to carry out long-range strikes on the Qing army, set up mortars on the high ground near the Qing army's necessary places in advance, and set up firing units, and after the Qing army entered the firing range, they opened fire and fired three shots in a row, and immediately retreated after the fight, never dragging mud and water, and by the time the Qing army arrived, it had already run away;

This kind of * is still a new type of weapon in this era, and the East China government has just researched it out, and it has not yet been mass-produced, and the first batch of products was first used in the river and lake base areas, mainly to test the performance, and it was buried on the road of the Qing army's march, and it was not buried more, only 3 or 4 were buried. Although the performance of these * is not very good, mainly because the response of the trigger structure is insufficient, but there are many people who can't stand the Qing army, and there are many people who step on it, and it will always trigger *. And the charge of * is large and much more lethal.

Of course, sometimes the Qing army can find the attacking volunteer soldiers, and the Qing army will naturally pursue, but the soldiers of the volunteer army drill into the mountains and forests, climb over the mountains and mountains like walking on flat ground, run faster than rabbits, and disappear in a blink of an eye, and the Qing army can catch up. However, some Qing troops still do not believe in evil, although they can't catch up with the volunteers, but they still rush in the direction of the volunteers' escape, but after the Qing army and the brigade have distanced, countless soldiers of the volunteers will suddenly be killed before and after, and the pursuing Qing army will be surrounded and eliminated, so after chasing a few times, the Qing army does not dare to pursue easily.

Such an attack will happen several times a day, although each attack on the Qing army caused not much damage, only a few Qing soldiers can be killed at a time, at most more than 10 people, but the psychological blow to 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 died, no one will remain calm in their hearts, so they are all worried, trembling, and even grass and trees, as soon as there is a wind and grass, the nearby soldiers will immediately raise their guns to shoot, first put a burst of guns and then say.

This is the case during the day, and at night it is a nightmare for the Qing army, almost every 1 or 2 hours, there will be shells falling and exploding, in fact, many shells did not really fall into the camp of the Qing army, but the sound of the explosion made the Qing soldiers very nervous, and they slept well, and the Qing army patrolled outside the camp between the squads would be attacked by the volunteers, and three or four out of ten could not come back, so later the Qing army's patrols did not dare to stay away from the camp, and this time the activities of the volunteers at night were even more unscrupulous.

And I couldn't sleep well at night, and the march during the day was naturally not energetic, and I yawned when I walked, and after two or three days in a row, some Qing soldiers even fell asleep while walking, and then fell to the ground. Therefore, the Qing army could only be forced to stop and rest, sleep during the day to make up for the lack at night, and in this way, the Qing army's march speed naturally slowed down, and after nearly 10 days of fighting, 3 of the 4 Qing troops did not march more than 5 0 kilometers.

Seeing that they had to camp and rest during the day, and there was a lot of snoring in the camp, the main generals of the Qing army, Tie Liang and Liangbi, were so angry that they stomped their feet in the tent and scolded: What kind of heroic heroes are this gang of bandits, if they have the ability, they will come out and open a formation, do it with real swords and guns, everyone will fight one-on-one, and fight for 300 rounds, and what kind of ability is it to hide in the secret and sneak attack.

Feng Shan, the commander of a town in Beiyang, only rolled his eyes when he heard this, what era is this, and he is still "one-on-one heads-up, fighting three hundred rounds", is it singing when fighting? But Feng Shan is a subordinate after all, and he can't say much, so he can only persuade Tie Liang and Liang Bi to dissipate their anger and have a good rest.

At this moment, someone suddenly came to report that a transportation and supply team of the Qing army had been attacked by the People's Army, and that the food and materials had been burned by the People's Army, and that the main general of the transportation team had fled back to the camp of the Qing army to report the news. And Tie Liang was already angry, and after hearing this, he was immediately furious, and immediately ordered the main general of this transportation team to be shot to set an example.

However, it is easy to shoot the commander of the transportation team, but it is even more difficult to stop this attack tactic of the volunteers, and it is useless for Tie Liang to lose his temper again. And on the 6th day, 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 more than a dozen bandits, with heavy losses, and according to the spies, there was a volunteer army B attacking Luoyang, so Wu Fengling had to return to Luoyang and could not continue to march. The next day, the Hubei New Army also reported to Tie Liang that one of its granaries had been burned down by the Volunteers, and it could only temporarily stop marching.

After receiving these two reports, Tie Liang and Liang Bi couldn't help but be shocked and angry, the four roads marched, and two of them stopped, how to fight this battle, so they were about to order the two armies to continue to march, but at this moment, someone reported to the two of them, and the imperial court issued an order to crown Duan Qirui, the commander of the three towns of Beiyang who sent troops from Baoding, as the acting governor of Henan.

It turned out that among the 4 armies of the Qing army, only Duan Qirui's march was smooth, and there was quite a gain, at this time it had successively recovered the 4 state capitals of Guangping Mansion, Jizhou Mansion, Shunde Mansion and Zhaozhou Mansion, and the soldiers had approached the southernmost Daimyofu of Hebei Province.

Although giving up the territory of Hebei is the established plan of the Hehu base area, because the foundation of the Hehu base area in Hebei is not deep, and it is also to lure the enemy to go deeper, but the Hehu base area will not easily give up these territories to Duan Qirui, and the attacks that should be arranged will not be less than the other three roads.

It turns out that Duan Qirui's title of "Tiger of the North Ocean" is not in vain, its marching operations are indeed some rules, after 3 days of dispatching troops, the attack tactics of the volunteers were discovered, so Duan Qirui also changed the plan of the march, first of all, the army was divided into two groups, taking turns to march, covering each other, and ensuring that there were several artillery pieces in a state of readiness, once encountering an attack, they immediately fired in the direction of the attack, even if they couldn't hit, they could also deter the enemy. Moreover, every day when marching into the army, Duan Qirui will send a large number of scouts to reconnoiter and inspect the periphery of the army to protect the safety of the army, and every day he does not hesitate to camp at any cost, strengthen the camp gate facilities, and set up more outposts on the periphery of the camp, increase the number of night watch patrol personnel, and so on.

After these measures, it really had an effect, and the obstacles to Duan Qirui's department were really reduced a lot, although the speed of the march also slowed down a lot, and he couldn't even walk 20 kilometers a day, but it was steadily advancing, so that it added up to a lot, and it was much faster than the progress of the other three roads. The volunteers saw that Duan Qirui's defense was strict, and the army was purged, and there was not much opportunity to take advantage of, and the volunteers did not intend to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army in Hebei Province, so they fought and retreated, and gave all the 4 prefectures of Guangping Mansion, Jizhou Mansion, Shunde Mansion and Zhaozhou Mansion to the Qing army, and gradually withdrew from Hebei Province. As a result, the results achieved by Duan Qirui's department can be regarded as outstanding among the four Qing armies.

In fact, Wang Yingkai of Beiyang Second Town and Wu Fengling of Fourth Town are not incompetent, if they are really attentive, they may not come up with similar measures as Duan Qirui, but Wang and Wu both remember Yuan Shikai's advice, save their strength, do not rush forward, it is best to let Tie Liang and Liangbi fight with the bandits, so the two of them are not very concerned.

And Duan Qirui is more attentive than the two of them, if he deliberately eliminates and slacks off the war, he can indeed achieve the goal of pulling Tie Liang and Liang Bi's hind legs, but Tie Liang and Liang Bi are now both celebrities in the dynasty, and now they have cheated him, and after the war is over, the two will inevitably retaliate, and Yuan Shikai may not be able to keep himself, so dismissal and demotion are inevitable. Although Yuan Shikai will find a way to reactivate himself in the future, from Duan Qirui's heart, he still does not want to lose his official position because of this. So Duan Qirui played a trick, that is, when he first started the war, he made some efforts, won a few battles, and then preserved his strength, so that even if he was punished in the future, he would be able to dismantle his merits and protect himself.

However, after the volunteers retreated to the Daimyo's Mansion, they no longer gave in, first, they had retreated enough, Duan Qirui should also know what was wrong, and don't continue to march, otherwise it would break the tacit agreement reached with the East China government, and the Volunteers would definitely give Duan Qirui a lesson, let Duan Qirui know that the Volunteers were not easy to mess with; second, the Daimyo's Mansion was located at the junction of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan provinces, and the geographical location was very important, and it also went directly to the location of the river and lake base area to the Defu, so the Volunteers would not easily give up the Daimyo's Mansion.

So the Volunteers set up positions near Huilong Town on the border between the Daimyo Mansion and the Zhangde Mansion to prepare to meet the Qing army.

At this time, Duan Qirui also received a letter from Yuan Shikai, Yuan Shikai first congratulated Duan Qirui on his victory in the letter, saying that Duan Qirui greatly increased the prestige of the Beiyang New Army, but immediately changed the conversation and reminded Duan Qirui that "the thieves are cunning and resourceful, and they must have good intentions when they abandon the land easily. ”