The banditry in the Northeast is indeed serious.

A "circular" from the "Intelligence Department of the Patrol Embassy of the Three Eastern Provinces" said: In the basic area of South Manchuria, there are about 50,000 bandits, with 5,000 and 3,000 people operating in larger groups, and the main activities are in the Tonghua, Harbin, and Andong triangle areas, and the number of counties west of the Middle East Road to Rehe is relatively small, but there are about 1,000 people in each county on average.

The number of North Manchurian bandits was huge, at least no less than 100,000 people, and most of them were often entrenched in several counties, and they were well-equipped, and some even had field heavy artillery---- which was left over from the Russo-Japanese war. What is even more odious is that some Japanese ronins also instigated the Koreans who crossed the river to disguise themselves as bandits and take advantage of the opportunity to cause chaos in order to create a false pretense.

What's more, Redbeard's forces have created a quasi-administrative body. The border between China and North Korea is the paradise of the red beard, the border between the two countries is extended to a buffer area of 890 kilometers wide, after the red beard enters the buffer zone, it is close to the lofty mountains and mountains, and has established a base camp near today's Dandong, and continues to grow and develop, and it is called the "Red Beard Republic of Jiapigou" to the outside world. After that, some North Koreans heard about it and even crossed the border to join. The Guards Division was engaged in the battle with Gao Shifu at the beginning, and the first battle was also in Jiapigou.

The northeast is vast and sparsely populated, and the strength of the general headquarters is extremely limited, and most of the bandits are scattered in the inaccessible mountains and old forests. "Wildfires burn inexhaustibly, and spring breezes blow and regenerate." Now, with the great turmoil of the international situation, the Middle East Road, the Russian Civil War, the new actions of the intervention army in the Northeast, and the beginning of the New Deal in the Northeast, etc., Zhang Hanqing still has a lot of work to do, and he can't spend too much time playing hide and seek with bandits in the vast Northeast; But the hard-won situation, once relaxed, the bandits will make a comeback.

The most infuriating thing is Gao Shiwei, who has a good major general and brigade commander who does not do it, and has to go to the mountains to fall into the grass, I heard that he also got in touch with the Japanese, and was named the commander of the "Northeast Coalition Army", and accepted the support of the Japanese together with the bandit king Lu Yonggui, and officially worked against the autonomous government.

Whether or not these stubborn bandits can be defeated in the Northeast is related to whether Feng Jun, Zhang Zuolin, and his son can control the Northeast and serve as a support for dominating China. Since it is a major thing to do, it must be done well. In any case, the strength of the bandits is still not enough compared to the regular army, otherwise it would not be Zhang Zuolin but them who are sitting in Fengtian City.

On the basis of his previous experience in suppressing bandits, Zhang Zuolin put forward the principle of "striking hard and chasing after all the people, nailing down the wedges, and completely eliminating them" for Zhang Hanqing, who was just starting out in the work of suppressing bandits. The three eastern provincial inspection embassies asked all localities to issue notices to exert influence on the bandits: those who rein in the precipice and take the initiative to surrender will not be blamed for the past; Those who continue to do evil and stain the blood of the bandit army will be pursued to the end and will never be let go!

At first, everyone did not realize the difficulty of the work of suppressing bandits, Zhang Zuoxiang, Wu Junsheng and others were all transformed into national defense soldiers from the middle of their beards, and they also felt that these former "companions" scattered in various places could not make the climate, and as soon as the soldiers arrived, they would immediately return me a clear sky. Zhang Hanqing is also full of excitement, having experienced the baptism of exterminating the Ba Bandits and Gao Shiwei's regular army, and he now has incomparable confidence in military command. Watching "The Story of Bandits in Xiangxi" before crossing over is more of an entertainment, and hundreds of thousands of bandits are not just a matter of the year! His mind was still on how to carry out a grand plan for economic development, but the facts gave him a slap in the face, and he quickly came to his senses.

The original plan was to encircle, shrink, and annihilate, and this theory is not wrong. The policy of suppressing bandits circled by Zhang Zuoxiang is as follows:

Starting from the mouth of the Meihe River in Jilin, the north of the line of Huinan, Panshi, Jilin, Shulan, and Yushu is the safety zone, and this line should ensure that there is a security brigade stationed in the "rock". In order to prevent the disparity in strength caused by the dispersion of troops, the artillery regiment of the 28th Division was divided into various county towns in company units to form a firepower advantage; The main force of the 28th Division strengthened this line along Jiaohe, Dunhua, Antu, and Yanji in the southeast of Ji, cutting the bandits in Ji Province into two sections, making it impossible to echo.

Heilongjiang, on the other hand, must ensure the safety of all major cities along the China Eastern Railway Line. The three security brigades stationed on the North Manchurian Line were ordered to ensure the safety of the cities around the line. Han Linchun's 1st Division was responsible for clearing out bandits in the area south of the North Manchurian Line bordering the 28th Division, and Wu Junsheng's 29th Division was responsible for the area east and south of the Songhua River.

The Guards Division, on the other hand, is responsible for mobile clearance, strengthening law and order in the areas that have already been cleared, and bringing the localities under control as soon as possible, so as to reduce the pressure on the garrison. Local governance is Zhang Hanqing's strength, and Zhang Zuoxiang's arrangement can be regarded as making the best use of his talents.

A large net covered the beards.

The first results are starting to be seen. The bandits in Kyrgyzstan and Heiji provinces did not expect that Zhang Zuolin would dare to dispatch troops on a large scale to suppress bandits at a time of internal and external difficulties, and at first they did not want to wrestle with the bandit army. Gao Shiwei organized nearly 1,000 bearded men from several newly returned hills to attack the garrison of Dunhua County, and lost more than half of them in less than half a day---- opponent was the elite 28th Division! He was not an opponent in his own heyday, and now he wants to turn the tables with a rabble? It's a bit of!

Lu Yonggui also suffered a lot of losses. When he led the crowd to attack the county town of Panshi, which had only one battalion of defenders, he encountered a counterattack from artillery and was directly stunned. Some bandits had never experienced artillery fire, and when the shells landed, they wanted to run away from the bullet point and were blown up directly into the sky. Witnessing this scene, the beard was so frightened that he lost the idea of fighting against the bandits.

Four regular divisions and four security brigades basically controlled the relatively important county towns in the province in one month, and the bandits were suppressed between the vast white mountains and black waters, and it seemed that the work of suppressing bandits had come to an end. This is also where Zhang Hanqing's confidence lies in the face of Stephen and Hoshino's doubts.

Just as Zhang Hanqing was considering whether to withdraw some of his troops and take advantage of the rare opportunity to recover many territories that had been cut off by Tsarist Russia, the banditry began again. The bandits even attacked a military vehicle running on the Middle East Road, causing a "big surprise" in Japan and an uproar in the international coalition forces. If it weren't for a series of things that gave Zhang Hanqing a headache and kept scolding his mother, he really wanted to write a "Surprise Theory of Friendly States".

This time, Stephen pretended to be a good man: "Your Excellency, in view of the continuous banditry on the Middle East Road, which has affected the fighting of our coalition forces in the Far East, we consider whether it is necessary to assist you in the work of suppressing bandits. Hoshino said aggressively: "The Japanese side has suffered heavy losses, and the Feng army is unable to hold the Middle East Road, and it urgently needs the assistance of the Japanese Empire!" ”

It's nothing new for Redbeard to attack traffic, and the Eastern Railway, which is in the Northeast, has always been the main target of Redbeard's looting. At that time, although the trains to and from Russia were escorted by soldiers, they were often attacked and robbed, and people and property were lost. The Russians tried to clear the plains along the railway, but Redbeard never left the sides of the railway for ten kilometers. Redbeard objectively saved the Northeast from the Russian army, so there is a reason why Russians hate Redbeard. The Red Beard's intrusion on the Middle East Road increased day by day, so much so that in 1907, Lieutenant General Tsychagov, head of the Russian Later Amur Border Guard, and the then Russian ambassador to Beijing, Bogdilov, repeatedly discussed a good way to strengthen the defense and counter the Red Beard, but there was no solution.

This is a legacy of history!

Although Zhang Hanqing was distressed, he also had to stand up and not let the Japanese interfere. He replied unceremoniously: "Freezing three feet is not a day's cold. The attack on bandits by the Middle East Road Guards has been very effective, and our efforts are precisely to assist your army in the Far East War. I would like to personally express my sadness at the loss suffered by your country this time. It's just that unfortunately we caught many of the culprits of this attack, and there were some Japanese in it! I can only regret this. ”

What Zhang Hanqing said is true and false. It's really that in addition to the Russians, there are indeed Japanese among the redbeards. After 1905, the South Manchurian Railway Barrier was guarded by the Japanese army, and after a short time, the area became a paradise for Japanese criminals. What's more, the Japanese Hinata Shirahiro and Nonaka Shinichiro also personally led the main force of the Redbeard to fight in the east and west, and did all the banditry. However, they worked with the regular forces of the Japanese army, especially the intelligence services, to serve the Japanese in the Japanese-controlled areas established by the Portsmouth Treaty. From this point of view, these Japanese redbeards were actually spies for the Japanese army.

What is false is that these captured Japanese bandits were actually captured during the many crackdowns on bandits in many places, and they were not the ones who attacked the military columns. But in a hurry, it's not bad to use them as a top cylinder. What does it matter to me that your own family attacked your car!

Hoshino was helpless, so he could only throw out a stupid sentence: "I don't care about the course of the matter, this kind of thing can't happen again in the future, otherwise, the Japanese army will definitely arm to protect our military column from being harassed!" ”

You still need to say it! But we can't do it again, we can't let the Middle East Road that has just been recovered be chaotic again, otherwise the Japanese will really be able to do this.

It's one thing to think, but the struggle against bandits is a special battle that is different from the regular army's operations, and it has a whole set of special laws and tactical principles. In the initial struggle against bandits, because most of the bandits were small groups, scattered in the mountains and forests, it was not easy to fight a war of annihilation, so they focused more on defeat. Over time, the bandits also figured out the tactics of the Feng army, and they withdrew from the city, avoiding confrontation, preserving strength, and waiting for a counterattack.

It is useless to defeat them, they take advantage of the familiar terrain, and soon get together again to form a local advantage, and repeat the cycle, not only will they drag down the bandit army, but also have a chance to turn the tables, this is like the "guerrilla warfare" in history, if it does not hurt the muscles and bones, even if the bandit is not successful.

Lu Yonggui, the largest bandit leader in the southeast of Ji Province, had suffered the loss of the Guards Division last time, and knew that the hard and Feng troops were desperate to hit the stone with eggs, so he wisely gave up the idea of attacking. He adopted the method of breaking the whole into pieces and wandered with the large force of the bandit suppression army, and taking advantage of his familiarity with the terrain, he suddenly bypassed the main force and gently and skillfully penetrated into the territory that the bandit suppression army had just pacified. In the same way, the battle of the bandit army against Redbeard began to enter the hide-and-seek stage.

Zhang Hanqing was the first in the Feng army to understand the power of "guerrilla warfare": When the enemy advances, we retreat, when the enemy moves, we disturb the enemy, when the enemy is tired, we fight, and when the enemy retreats, we advance. This was the germ of Grandpa Mao's military thinking later in history, relying on it to defeat the encirclement and suppression of the powerful Kuomintang superior forces four times in a row. Now, the bandits who have learned from the battle will do the same, and it will be up to the bandit army to respond.