So, under the threat of British artillery, instead of evading, the troop carriers of the Zhenbian Army forced the British warships to drive over, and continued to sail west through the British fleet.

In fact, the three British river warships could not really threaten the more than 70 troop transports of the Zhenbian Army, they were just intimidating, but unfortunately their intimidation was useless, and the Zhenbian Army went their own way, making the British disgraced, and for the first time felt that they were injured, and they almost vomited blood in one breath.

Li Shirui could see that the British were just bluffing, although he didn't know that the British were preparing to fight with the Germans in Europe, but he knew that the Zhenbian army went to the river to clean up the Zang army that had been bewitched by the British. Since sooner or later they will offend the British, at this time, in the face of the British cowards, what is the military prestige of the town border army.

Thanks to the successive victories of the Jiangbei army, it brought them the prestige of the victorious army, and it was precisely because of the repeated victories of the Jiangbei army that the British were afraid. In this attempted rape case, the four British sailors who were beaten were not seriously injured, but the British lost face. But for the four British sailors to directly shell the opposing troop carrier, if it causes a war between the two sides, then how can this crime be borne?

The British government immediately put pressure on the local government of Hubei, and finally the governor of Hubei, Li Yuanhong, had to come forward to apologize to the British and offer 2,000 pounds for medical expenses. However, in this series of games, many people only saw the backbone of the Zhenbian Army, which was a hard-headed army, and even dared to fight the British, the boss of the Hankou Five Concessions, was simply too handsome, and countless Wuhan Revolutionary Party turned fans of Jiangbei to black......

Wang Yongan was already the second day after the departure of the Ninth Division after learning of this, but he could not criticize Li Shirui, after all, if Li Shirui showed weakness, the Zhenbian army would be cowardly before fighting, and it would become disgraced when entering Sichuan. But Wang Yongan couldn't praise Li Shirui, because Li Shirui's various behaviors did not go through the town border army headquarters, but made his own decisions. Regarding Li Shirui's unauthorized action, Wang Yongan vaguely felt that it might have a serious impact on future development.

Li Shirui has some pride, yes, Li Shirui does have some pride, he does not support Wang Yongan, nor does he want to betray the Jiangbei system, but he has the ninth division with the strongest combat effectiveness in the four towns of Jiangbei, and Li Shirui's influence has vaguely surpassed others. Pride and complacency made him even report to Wang Yongan the next day, and by this time he had already received a telegram from Yuan Shikai, ordering him to strictly control the army on the border of the town.

The whole world knew about the Hankou conflict, but Li Shirui was the last to tell him, how could he let Wang Yongan settle down?

The army continued to advance westward, and was affected by the conflict in the British concession in Hankow, all of which forbade the soldiers of the border army to enter the concession while resting in the three towns of Wuhan, and the foreign teachers were not even willing to sell them anything. Wang Yongan felt the arrogance and prejudice of the gringos, and ordered the army not to provoke, but also ordered the troops not to purchase gringos, and the cold trembling of both sides ended after all the rear guards of the Zhenbian Army left Wuhan, but speaking of which, the army needed to spend a lot of money on procurement, and the Chinese shops and merchants who supported the Zhenbian Army made a lot of money, while the foreign stores did not make a penny, and many people began to complain about the British, thinking that they were pulling themselves to "sanction" the Zhenbian Army It was pure nonsense, but it did not affect the Zhenbian Army, but let his business plummet.

Not to mention the dispute between the two sides, the town border army slowly marched west step by step, without stopping at all, because the propaganda effect was very good, and the people and the government along the way actively supported it. The military discipline of the Zhenbian Army was very strict, and Wang Yongan ordered that the people should not be harassed in private, and those who violated the order were killed without mercy, which made the Zhenbian Army win wide acclaim along the way to the west.

New Year's Day in 1913 came, but the townside army did not feel anything special at all, and they continued to march towards the river in the bitter cold. Three days before the Spring Festival, the Zhenbian Army finally crossed Chongqing and came to Yibin, which was the first station to enter the Sichuan Special Zone.

Li Shirui, commander of the Ninth Division of the Forward Army, proposed to the Sichuan soldiers in Yibin to hire some people who were familiar with the Sichuan side as guides, but he did not expect that there were many applicants, and they expressed their willingness to join the National Defense Force. The reason why the Sichuan army was so enthusiastic and active was because Yuan Shikai only gave the Sichuan army the establishment of a national defense army division.

The first thing Hu Jingyi did after returning to Chengdu was to announce the reorganization of the Sichuan Army into the 17th Army Division of the National Defense Army, so the future Sichuan Army disarmament quota was very large. Sichuan is a place with a lot of people and little land, and many low-level soldiers have no land to cultivate even if they put down their guns, so they hope to be able to make a living in the well-paid town-border army.

Li Shirui was still not completely dizzy in the end, and sent a telegram to Wang Yongan to ask if he could recruit the Sichuan army who was familiar with the terrain of the Sichuan border to join the Zhenbian army, so as to avoid the Zhenbian army getting lost after entering the Sichuanbian.

Wang Yongan quickly replied, allowing the Sichuan army to be recruited into the Zhenbian army, but he made three demands:

First, the recruitment of Sichuan soldiers must have no bad habits (opium smoking), be physically strong, and be familiar with the terrain and dialect of the Sichuan.

Second, each squad recruits one Sichuan soldier, and no separate Sichuan soldier squad shall be established.

Third, the recruitment of Sichuan soldiers requires the consent of the Sichuan army, and deserters must not be taken in.

Although Wang Yongan did not think about it thoroughly, he did his best to take care of the face of the Sichuan army, although Li Shirui felt troublesome, but he was always obedient. I have to say that the Sichuan soldiers of this era did not have the prestige of the "double spearmen" during the Anti-Japanese War (one hand with a long gun, the other hand with an opium smoking gun), after all, the appearance of the double spearmen was because the 20 years of war in Sichuan Province led to a serious regression in the economy of Sichuan Province, and the warlords used opium as a military salary to pay soldiers, making many Sichuan soldiers become double spearmen in the eyes of the people, and were looked down upon by many people. Before the War of Resistance Against Japan, the reputation of the Sichuan army's double-spearmen was too bad, which led to the Sichuan army being repeatedly disliked when they went out of the province to resist Japan, and no one was willing to accept reinforcements from the Sichuan army, for fear that their bad habit of smoking big cigarettes would affect their army. However, although there are still many warlords in Sichuan Province, because of the strong central government, the small warlords will only intrigue with each other, and there has not been a war in Sichuan Province, so the soldiers of the Sichuan army rarely smoke opium, and Li Shirui's recruitment work is very smooth.

Only 1,200 people were recruited, and the number of people in each squad increased to 14 people. Taking into account the relationship between the fraternal units, Li Shirui continued to recruit 2,200 people and prepared for the 8th and 10th Divisions to increase troops.