It is clear that the Tsarist side will not be easily fooled, and Cao Yanzhong, who deliberately divided his troops repeatedly to lead the snake out of the hole, was of course prepared to wait patiently, and the result was not as Cao Yanzhong expected, on the day of the division of troops, the Tsarist Russian army and the Qing army in Shenyang stood still, and on the morning of the next day, the main force of the Tsarist Russian army and the Qing army in Shenyang still did not move, but the Qing army sent some scout light cavalry to cruise near the Wu army's Dashiqiao camp, carefully probing the various conditions of the Wu army's camp, and unless it happened to meet the Wu army scouts head-on, will shoot each other with the Wu army scouts, otherwise they will generally see the Wu army scouts from a distance and immediately run away, and try to avoid conflicts with the Wu army scouts.

This situation did not change until the afternoon, and as a result, not only Qian Wei and Jiang Yutai and other generals of the Wu army, but even Cao Yanzhong, who was a bamboo in his chest, was inevitably a little up, and couldn't help but say to Wu Guanli, Yan Xian, Li Hongzhang and other staff officials: "Strange? Why hasn't there been any movement in Shenyang? Even if the Rakshasa foreign devil will definitely suspect that we are dividing our troops to lure the enemy, we should also send some chaotic troops to test our strength? Could it be that the Rakshasa foreign devil has completely seen through our purpose and made up his mind not to be fooled? ”

Wu Guanli, Yan Xian and others are relatively traditional civil officials, good at money and food, writing and governance, but short of military strategy, naturally they can't see the strangeness, and they don't dare to talk nonsense to disturb Cao Yanzhong's judgment, only Li Hongzhang, who Cao Yanzhong borrowed from Jiang Zhongji, immediately opened his mouth and replied: "It is certain that the Rakshasas can see through our purpose, and they are so bold in dividing their troops under their noses, anyone who changes will suspect that we are luring the snake out of the hole." But it is absolutely impossible to say that the Rakshasa foreign devil is determined not to be fooled by us. ”

"What do you mean by this? Try to be as plain as possible. Cao Yanzhong asked.

"It's very simple, this is the only chance for the Rakshasa foreign devil to grasp the initiative." Li Hongzhang replied loudly: "The current situation is that if the Rakshasa foreign devils refuse to seize this opportunity to send troops to fight a decisive battle with us, and when our partial division takes Tieling and retreats back, the initiative on the Shenyang battlefield will be completely in our hands, and the Rakshasa foreigners will only have the choice of defending the city to the death." ”

"And if the Rakshasa foreign devils want to change this situation and grasp the initiative in the northeast battlefield, the only way is to quickly send troops to fight our Dashiqiao camp, burn the grain, grass and ammunition we have hoarded in Dashiqiao, and lay the victory in one fell swoop.

"Although it makes sense, why haven't the foreign devils made any moves yet?" Cao Yanzhong asked.

"When the fish eats the bait, they have to go around the bait and touch it, to see if the bait is hidden in the hook, let alone people?" Li Hongzhang said confidently: "Wait patiently, there will definitely be action on the side of the Rakshasa foreign devils, but there is still plenty of time for them now, so there is no need to test us in a hurry." ”

After listening to Li Hongzhang's analysis, Cao Yanzhong was a little relieved, and he no longer worried in vain about whether the Tsarist army would not be fooled, and he just patiently waited for the enemy's next move, while Li Hongzhang worked very hard to meet with the Wu army scouts who came out of the camp one by one, and learned about the various subtle situations found by the Wu army scouts during their patrols and inspections, so as to analyze the enemy's strategic plans.

There was no movement for the whole day, but at the second watch in the evening, when most of the Wu soldiers had fallen asleep, the Wu army secret post outside the camp suddenly fired a warning gun, warning that the enemy was coming to launch a sneak attack, and the Wu soldiers on duty at night hurriedly entered their respective positions to prepare for battle, and then soon, there was really a Qing army wearing a red tasseled hat appeared in the southwest outside the Wu army camp and launched an attack on the Wu army camp.

The battle was not very fierce, and the Qing troops who sneaked over to attack lightly did not even carry relatively light mountain-splitting guns, and simply relying on shooting and throwing firebombs made of black powder to burn the fortifications of the Wu army camp naturally did not pose a major threat to the Wu army camp. However, even so, Cao Yanzhong hurriedly got up in his clothes, rushed to the big tent of the Chinese army and dispatched a reserve team to wait for the emergency, and Li Hongzhang, Wu Guanli and others also hurried to the big tent of the Chinese army to wait for Cao Yanzhong's orders.

Cao Yanzhong and Li Hongzhang unanimously concluded that there were only more than 1,000 people at most on the battlefield, and most of them were equipped with relatively backward Minnie guns and flintlock pistols. Then Li Hongzhang quickly said to Cao Yanzhong: "Cao Dashuai, the fish are starting to touch the bait." The purpose of the enemy is not to break our camp, or even to find out what our equipment is like, but to test our reaction and see how we respond to their sneak attack. ”

"So what do you think we should do?" Cao Yanzhong asked.

"I think I should fight back hard." Li Hongzhang replied in a deep voice, and said: "But it is too risky to rush out of the camp to fight back in the dark night, so let's use our rear-loading explosives and shoot some bitter acid cannons to pop out." ”

"It's just a very ordinary rebel army, and the equipment is generally not much, so it's too wasteful to be entertained directly with picric acid shells, right?" Cao Yanzhong asked thoughtfully.

"Marshal Cao, if you were the commander of the Rakshasa foreign devils, what would you think when you saw us entertaining unqualified rebel troops with picric acid cannonballs?" Li Hongzhang asked rhetorically.

Li Hongzhang's rhetorical question made Cao Yanzhong use his brain, and after thinking carefully for a while, Cao Yanzhong woke up and said, "That's right, what should be done." If I were the commander of the Rakshasa foreign devils, and I saw us meet their sneak attack with the most important picric acid shells, I would definitely suspect that we were strong and middle-class, lacking confidence, not daring to take risks, and even a little timid, so that I would have more courage to send troops to a decisive battle. ”

"The handsome man is smart, and the lowly position thinks the same." Li Hongzhang nodded, and said: "I also think that if the rebel army comes to test us during the day, we should fight back more toughly, so as to confuse the judgment of the Rakshasa foreign devils and strengthen their determination to fight a decisive battle." Otherwise, once the enemy is shown to be weak, the Rakshasas will definitely suspect that we are showing weakness to lure the enemy, but they will not dare to make up their minds to send troops to a decisive battle. ”

"It is worthy of being the senior brother of our Zhennan King, and he is really good at improvising." Cao Yanzhong praised Li Hongzhang again, and then sent someone to send an order, ordering the dispatch of ten rear-loading rifled guns to the camp to help in the battle, use cannons to fight mosquitoes, and use picric acid shells to bombard the enemy outside the camp who was indeed not qualified to be treated like this.

Although the hit rate of the shells in the dark night was not high, and the formation of the Qing army was relatively loose, which led to the reduction of the artillery fire of the Wu army, the flying shrapnel still killed and injured a lot of Qing soldiers, and at the same time, the burning bitter acid flame also illuminated the wilderness, exposing the figure of many Qing soldiers, and the musket hit rate of the Wu army soldiers also began to rise, so not much time later, this Qing army with low morale took the initiative to retreat and fled to the direction of Shenyang, Wu Jun did not chase after him according to the order, and this small night harassment battle ended.

…………

The battle situation was soon reported to the Russian commander Kazakevich by the Tsarist military officers who went to the front line with the Qing army to watch the battle, and the result was the same as Li Hongzhang's judgment, knowing that the Wu army actually directly used picric acid shells in this small night battle, Kazakevich couldn't help but be a little surprised, and only made up his mind in less than five minutes, and shouted: "Go and tell those yellow-skinned monkeys in Manchuria, and tell them to send me five thousand ...... tomorrow, no, seven thousand!" Tell them to send 7,000 troops tomorrow to fight the yellow-skinned monkey camp in Dashiqiao, and see how the yellow-skinned monkeys in Dashiqiao react! ”

Purely taking the lives of the Qing army officers and soldiers, Kazakiewicz's request was of course strongly opposed by the Qing army commander Chonghou, but unfortunately the opposition was useless, and the devils who temporarily took the power of regent of Manchukuo could not resist Rhemeni and Kazakevich repeatedly persecuted and coerced, even coaxed and deceived, even threatened and pleaded, so to speak, no matter how to force Chonghou to accept and obey the demands of the Russian army. Chonghou had no choice but to swallow his anger and send the Qing army commander Chen Ming to lead 7,000 troops out of the city and rush to the big stone bridge to attack the Wu army camp. At the same time, it is natural that Chonghou must of course ask Chen Ming to give priority to preserving his strength, and not to be too desperate when attacking the Wu army's camp, and to retreat quickly if the situation is not right.

Chonghou's secret order was a waste of saliva, because the 7,000 Qing army led by the Qing army commander Chen Ming had not been able to fight any tough battles at all-just after finding out that the enemy was all the Qing army in Shenyang, Li Hongzhang immediately suggested that Cao Yanzhong take the initiative to send troops to meet the attack, and also suggested that it was best to ask Cao Yanzhong to personally lead the army to meet the enemy. Cao Yanzhong, who understood Li Hongzhang's hard intentions, immediately personally led more than 4,000 elite people from his headquarters to carry 50 rear-loading rifled guns out of the camp, lined up in the wilderness in front of the camp, and directly launched a field battle with the incoming enemy.

The weapons and equipment, training experience, and morale of the two belligerents are not on the same level, and the result of this battle is naturally no suspense, and the battle has just begun, and the rear-loading rifled guns of the Wu army use picric acid shells to bombard the front team of the Qing army, and then Cao Yanzhong decisively used four battalions of troops to launch an attack on the front of the Qing army's position, and the soldiers of the Wu army, who lined up in a dense horizontal line, strode forward, and rushed until the Qing army's position was only 50 meters away before lying down and shooting. Soon, the Qing army suffered heavy casualties and scattered with rapid reloading pin guns and grenadiers, and the 2,000 Wu troops continued to advance and directly attacked the Qing army's flag formation.

I never dreamed that I could defeat the Wu army, but seeing the collapse of the Chinese army, Chen Ming, the main general of the Qing army, saved the strength to use the soldiers on both wings to rescue, and directly fled with his own personal battalion, and the Qing army on both wings also retreated. When Cao Yanzhong saw that the opportunity had come, he decisively threw in a battalion of cavalry directly under him to launch a pursuit, striving to expand the results of the battle, and also trying to create the illusion that he was strong outside the army. The Wu army and cavalry joined forces to chase and kill, the Qing army completely collapsed, collapsed, suffered many casualties in the escape, and was captured and surrendered on its own initiative.

After the Wu army returned to the camp in triumph, Li Hongzhang, who was full of bad water, did not rush to Cao Yanzhong to congratulate him like others, but rushed to the captive crowd to search for suitable Qing prisoners at the first time, and a Manchurian general called Xingyi was also quickly picked up by Li Hongzhang from the captive crowd and brought to the Chinese army camp of the Wu army, first asked Langzhong military doctor to treat his injuries, and then ran to Cao Yanzhong's front to give bad ideas and bad ideas, Cao Yanzhong was overjoyed when he heard it, and hurriedly asked Li Hongzhang to prepare a letter immediately, On the one hand, he asked people to bring the art to him and act according to the plan.

Similar situations have happened countless times, and the specific process this time will not be described in detail, in short, after the Manchurian ginseng general Xingyi who walked the dog Xiangyun was brought to Cao Yanzhong, in addition to receiving wine and meat hospitality, he also received an official reward promised by Cao Yanzhong himself, and a cash reward similar to a deposit. And after Xingyi kowtowed to Cao Yanzhong and thanked him, Cao Yanzhong also immediately tried to see the poor dagger - to Xingyi returned to Shenyang City with a letter of persuasion, and tried to hand over the letter of persuasion to General Sheng Jing, the commander of the Qing army in Shenyang.

Neither dared to disobey Cao Yanzhong's request, but also somewhat coveted Cao Yanzhong's promised reward, Xingyi of course agreed to Cao Yanzhong's request tremblingly, and after Li Hongzhang personally handed over the letter to Xingyi's hands, Cao Yanzhong said: "General Xing, there is one more thing you have to take to heart, after you hand over this letter to Chonghou, if he scolds or shouts to kill you, forget it, you can find an excuse to save your life, saying that I forced you to do this, I won't blame you." But....... ”

Speaking of this, Cao Yanzhong slowed down his speech a little, and said very clearly: "But if Chonghou's performance is shaken, or he agrees directly, you can bring him a message for me, and let him find a way to persuade the Rakshasa foreign devil to quickly dispatch the main force to save Tieling, if this is successful, I guarantee that he will still be a first-class member in the future!" In addition, the reward is 3,000 taels of silver and 100 taels of gold! His children and grandchildren, I also promise to seek a hereditary title for him in front of the king of Zhennan! Did you hear me clearly? ”

"Hear me." Xingyi hurriedly nodded and said: "Don't worry, as long as there is a chance, I promise to bring the word to Chong Dashuai, and let him find a way to persuade the Rakshasa foreign devil to send troops to save Tieling." ”

Cao Yanzhong nodded with satisfaction and ordered: "Okay, take the general to Shenyang, find a place where no one is and quietly release him, and let him return to the city quickly." Otherwise, the rebels and Rakshasa foreign devils should be suspicious. ”

According to Cao Yanzhong's orders, several capable Cao Yanzhong's personal soldiers came to Shenyang with Xingyi, and then according to Li Hongzhang's prior arrangement, these Cao Yanzhong's personal soldiers accidentally did not notice the Qing army scouts lurking on the high ground not far away, and released the general Xingyi Xing in front of the Qing army scouts. Then, naturally, as soon as Cao Yanzhong's personal soldiers left, the back feet of the Qing army scouts appeared like ghosts, asking why Xingyi was released by Wu Jun?

Then, more naturally, after returning to the city of Shenyang, Xingyi could only confess his crimes to Chonghou like pouring beans from a bamboo tube, and insisted that he was forced to surrender in order to save his life, but in fact he was still loyal to the Manchurian court. Fortunately, Chonghou didn't pursue this point too much, but asked again: "In addition to asking you to bring me a letter of persuasion, did the thief ask you to do anything else?" ”

After hesitating for a moment, thinking about it, he found that since he had become a double traitor, if he didn't honestly confess, he would definitely die in the future once the news leaked, and the unlucky general had no choice but to say truthfully: "Back to the Chong Dashuai, the thief commander surnamed Cao of the Wu thief also asked me to check your reaction for him, if you waver or agree to surrender to him, please find a way to persuade the main force of the Rakshasa soldiers to hurry up to save Tieling, and also said that if this matter is done, he will definitely give you a reward." ”

"Let me find a way to persuade the main force of the Rakshasa soldiers to hurry up and save Tieling? Why? Why did Wu thief want me to do this? ”

Chonghou was suspicious, but because of his serious lack of actual combat experience, he couldn't see through Cao Yanzhong's true intentions. But it doesn't matter, when Chonghou informed the news to Remeni, Kazakievic and others, Kazakievic immediately guessed Cao Yanzhong's purpose with a cruel smile, and said: "The cunning yellow-skinned monkey really wants to set a trap in Tieling and wait for us to drill, but unfortunately I just won't be fooled!" If you want to lure me into sending troops, you can, but I don't send troops to fight Tieling, but to attack your main camp of Dashiqiao! I'd like to see how many elite troops you personally brought to the battlefield today in your main camp at Dashiqiao?! ”