"The head of the report, Zhang Zuolin, the commander of the 8th Field Army and the 191st Regiment of the 191st Division, was ordered to report for duty. ”

Chen Jingang nodded, looked at the little officer in front of him, and said, "You are Zhang Zuolin!"

Zhang Zuolin was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly said: "Yes, I am Zhang Zuolin." In fact, Zhang Zuolin is also very strange in his heart, almost every new chief who sees him will ask such a sentence after he reports his number, position, and name, and some people even ask if his son is called Zhang Xueliang, which makes Zhang Zuolin indeed a little inexplicable. He also found an opportunity to ask his boss Ouyang Longxing, but Ouyang Longxing told Zhang Zuolin that because he was the first local force in the Northeast to defect to East China, and he performed well, he became a typical representative, and he was very famous in the People's Army, so other leaders also wanted to see him. When Zhang Zuolin heard this, he was quite happy, and he didn't think it would be strange in the future.

Chen Jingang said: "The train is still 1 hour away from Chifeng, are the camps ready?"

Zhang Zuolin said: "Report to the chief, all of them are ready as required, please rest assured." ”

Chen Jingang said: "Well, I have seen your Senior Commander Ouyang in Jinzhou, and I heard him say that you are still very reassuring, and I know the vision of Senior Commander Ouyang, but this time the stakes are very important, and there is no room for carelessness, so you take me to the camp to have a look first." ”

Zhang Zuolin nodded and said, "Yes, please come with me, it's not far from the train station." ”

Saying that, a few soldiers led a few horses, and everyone got on the horses together, and under the leadership of Zhang Zuolin, they left the railway station, and about 10 minutes later, they came to the military base of the People's Army in Chifeng.

Now Chifeng is an important garrison in East China ** in Mongolia, although now there is only 1 regiment stationed here, but the scale of the base is divisional, the main road into the base is paved by cinders, very flat, extending from the railway station to the interior of the base, the periphery of the base is a fence formed by wooden fence and barbed wire, about 4 meters high, it has been covered with vines, which can completely block the line of sight, and there is a 4 on the periphery. The 5-meter-wide trench, with towers built every 20-30 meters, was built on which soldiers were stationed to look out, and it looked like it was very well guarded. And Chen Jingang also nodded, at least from the outside, it was still satisfactory.

Zhang Zuolin pointed to the side of the main road to enter the base, separated by an iron fence more than 2 meters high, and tied up with several rows of dark green tents, and said: "Chief, this is it." ”

Chen Jingang looked at it on his horse, and the open space was about the size of a football field, with an exit on each side, several rows of tents on each side, and an open space about 40 meters wide in the middle.

Zhang Zuolin said: "This vacant land is the closest to the door, the largest reserved land, after I received the order of Commander Ouyang, I ordered this place to be surrounded and set up a tent. ”

Everyone entered the iron fence and got off the horse in the open space in the middle, Chen Jingang stepped on the ground hard, obviously hardened, and went into a few tents to take a look, and also gestured at the door of the tent, measured the size of the door, nodded, and said, "Very good." He looked at Zhang Zuolin again and said, "Commander Zhang, you did a good job, I will tell you about your Commander Ouyang." ”

Zhang Zuolin hurriedly said: "There, there, these are what I should do." ”

Chen Jingang took out his pocket watch, looked at it, and said, "Okay, the train is almost here, let's go, let's go to the train station to pick up the train." ”

Everyone left the camp and returned to the railway station, at this time, there were already soldiers of the People's Army guarding the entrance of the railway station, and several soldiers seemed to be looking, seeing Chen Jingang and others, an officer immediately rushed over, saluted Chen Jingang, and said, "Hello chief." ”

Zhang Zuolin paid close attention to his epaulettes and saw that it was a company commander. And Chen Jingang nodded and said, "Company Commander Zhao, has the train arrived?"

Company Commander Zhao said: "Report to the chief, it's been 10 minutes, just wait for the chief to give an order." ”

Chen Jingang said: "Okay, let's go and have a look first." As he spoke, he took the lead in entering the train station, and Zhang Zuolin, Zhao Lianchang and others also followed closely behind him.

Zhang Zuolin followed Chen Jingang to the platform, only to see that there was a train parked on the platform at this time, each carriage did not have a roof and a surrounding wall, just a bottom plate, and I don't know what was placed on the bottom board, covered with a canvas bag, and tied with a rope, and on the side of the carriage, three or three, there were many soldiers.

Seeing Chen Jingang bringing people over, he saw a soldier coming over and said, "Old Chen, didn't you arrive first? ”

Chen Jingang said: "I went to the camp to have a look, and then I rushed back from the camp." ”

The man said, "Alright, alright, can you unload the car now?"

Chen Jingang said: "Yes, I went to the camp to see it, and it was well prepared, now immediately unload the car and go to the camp." ”

The man said, "Good!" and immediately shouted to the others, "Unload the truck, unload the truck." ”

When the others heard this, they all started to unbuckle the rope and tear off the canvas to reveal the contents inside.

Zhang Zuolin looked carefully, and saw that the appearance of this thing was very strange, the size of a carriage, the whole body was made of steel, the body was large and the top was small, there were 5 solid iron wheels on each side, but there was also an iron belt on the wheel, and a cannon was installed at the front end of the top cover, but the caliber was only 5 or 60 mm. Zhang Zuolin has also seen a lot of artillery, but the caliber and shape of this kind of artillery are completely disproportionate.

After pulling down the canvas and untying the steel cables, the other soldiers got into the car one after another, either from the roof or from the body, and got in.

Zhang Zuolin looked a little puzzled, and asked Chen Jingang: "Chief, this is ...... What the hell is this? ”

Chen Jingang laughed and said: "This is our new weapon, this time we will fight Mongolia, but it will all depend on them." ”

―――――――― Divider ――――――――― Dividing Line――――――――

Originally, East China planned to launch a limited attack on Mongolia at the beginning of 1908, with the goal of bringing all the areas from Chifeng to Manchuria into the control of East China, on the one hand, to expand the influence of East China on Mongolia, and on the other hand, to ensure the safety of the Binman Line of the Middle East Railway.

For this war, East China began to prepare in 1907, and the establishment of a military base in Chifeng was part of the preparations, and it was also planned to establish a cavalry base in Mongolia after the completion of this war.

However, just after the departure of the East China delegation to Germany, the situation in Mongolia has also changed dramatically. It turned out that with the support of Russia, the Mongol aristocratic forces led by Jebtsundamba VIII decided to make a comprehensive enemy of East China** and planned to implement Mongolian self-reliance.

Although the area controlled by Mongolia is not large and the population is not large, its influence is very huge and far-reaching, because East China has liberated the herdsmen, punished a group of noble leaders who have done many evils and are very angry with the people, and dispersed their livestock and property to the herdsmen. Although most of the cattle and property of the noble chiefs who were not much evil were retained, all their pastoral areas were nationalized and distributed equally among the herdsmen.

In this way, the herdsmen have their own livestock, property, and pastoral areas to graze, and at the same time, East China ** organized caravans to trade with herdsmen in the grassland, so they can be completely independent economically, no longer need to rely on the aristocratic heads, and although the nobles still have livestock and property, but there are no herdsmen to serve them, some people can only pay a high price to hire people to work, and some people take livestock and property, and flee from the control area of East China. In short, although East China has not been in Mongolia for a long time, what it has done is to subvert the tradition of the Mongolian steppe for nearly a thousand years.

The Mongolian aristocratic leaders naturally hated the behavior of East China, but the ordinary Mongolian herdsmen who knew all this were full of expectations for East China, and some of the bold ones mainly fled to the controlled areas of East China, while those who did not dare to escape hoped that East China would be able to fight and rescue themselves. But there are also some aristocratic leaders who went to Kulen and complained to Jebtsundamba VIII, hoping that Jebtsundamba VIII could organize an army, defeat East China**, and return to his previous life.

Although Jebtsundamba VIII was also very annoyed, after all, he was the current supreme ruler of Mongolia, and he still had some understanding of the general trend of the world, and even world-class powers such as Russia and Japan were defeated by East China, which was by no means an opponent that Mongolia could deal with. Moreover, the area controlled by East China is still far away from Kulen, and the Mongolian upper echelons have not yet felt a personal threat, so they have no intention of all-out hostility with East China. On the contrary, they are more inclined to negotiate with East China, and even do not rule out the possibility of defecting to East China, as long as East China is also the same as the Qing court, adopting the policy of Mongolian autonomy or co-governance, so as to ensure the rich life and power of the Mongolian high-level.

Although Jebtsundamba VIII hoped that Mongolia could break away from the Qing court and become a country on its own, he also knew that if he wanted to really build a country, he must wait for the opportunity.

But after Tauktahu, who had been defeated by the KPA at the Battle of Jinzhou, fled to Kulen and met with Jebtsundamba VIII, the attitude of the Mongol elite changed. The news that Tauktaohu brought to Kulen was that the purpose of East China ** was to rule the entire Inner and Outer Mongolia regions, and use their system to turn over ordinary herdsmen, suppress the aristocratic heads, and completely change the social system of Mongolia for hundreds of years, so Mongolia can only be tough on East China ** to the end, and compromise and surrender are a dead end. Tao Ke Taohu is the person who took the lead in resisting the Qing court's reclamation policy in Mongolia, and he is quite popular in Mongolia, because he is a person who hopes to split Mongolia from the Qing court, and he regards Tao Ke Taohu as a banner of ****, and his words also have a certain weight in Kulen.

The news brought by Tauktahu finally caused a panic among the Mongolian high-level headed by Jebtsundamba VIII, and at this time, some Qing court officials in Mongolia were also fanning the flames, vigorously encouraging Mongolia and East China to be enemies, so that the Qing court could also pull a helper, so after consulting with Jebtsundamba VIII and other Mongolian high-level leaders, they finally decided to give up negotiations with East China, but to reorganize their arms and prepare to be an all-round enemy with East China.