On July 24, 1907, Li Yuanhong sat on the warship of the Hubei Navy Army, and he was rightfully commanding the troops of the Hubei New Army, preparing to capture the city of Hefei occupied by the "Yan Chen Bandit Army". At this time, it has entered the dog days, and the inside of the warship is already hot, and now it is like a furnace. Li Yuan was in good shape again, his whole person was sweating like rain, and a large area was already wet behind his thin summer military uniform. I don't know how many times I wiped my face, Li Yuanhong felt that his head was a little messy. He couldn't help but think of his concubine, if he was in Wuhan, his concubine would be fanning Li Yuanhong at this time, and trying his best to please Li Yuanhong. Thinking about it, Li Yuanhong still didn't have the courage to openly bring his concubine from Wuhan to a warship to serve him during the war. Wiping his face with a sweat towel, while pretending to look at the map, Li Yuanhong sighed slightly.

The staff officer standing next to him completely misunderstood Li Yuanhong's thoughts, and the staff officer immediately said: "Lord Xietong, although the rebel parties are stubbornly resisting, our army will definitely be able to take Hefei this time. ”

Looking at the subordinates who were trying to "make contributions", Li Yuanhong felt very helpless. He knew what the staff officers were referring to by "rebellious party and stubborn resistance." Not long after the capture of Anqing, Li Yuanhong began to send a large number of spies northward, and the spies of the Hubei New Army were able to approach and even enter Hefei City, where the People's Party was weak, and it was very easy to inquire about Hefei. But as soon as the spies continued north, there was no news of them. So far, more than 40 spies of the Hubei New Army have lost news, and this is more than 40 horses and more than 40 elites. It stands to reason that Hefei should be difficult to enter, while the countryside in the north is easy to access. The current situation has just turned upside down, and this abnormal situation has made the Hubei New Army completely unable to understand what is going on.

As a guest army, the Hubei New Army does not want to rely on the locals, and the locals in Anhui do not want to see the Hubei people. The New Army's behavior of taking advantage of the fire and looting in Anqing aroused dissatisfaction from top to bottom, and although no one dared to resist, no one was willing to cooperate with the Hubei New Army. This lack of cooperation has led to the passivity of the intelligence work of the Hubei New Army, and the information collected from the locals is varied, and all kinds of strange theories have made the Hubei New Army itself dare not believe it.

The number of troops of the People's Party alone varies from hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands. Everyone who provided information swore by it. But the difference of this order of magnitude is too large. As for the characteristics of the BJP, from being dressed in blue, to having blue hair and blue eyes, in addition to not having blue teeth, the BJP party members even have rumors of blue skin color.

Although Li Yuanhong is not a knowledgeable person, he graduated from the Beiyang Naval Academy and has seen many foreigners. There are blue-eyed foreigners, but blue-haired ones are unheard of. Li Yuanhong did not believe this fallacy at all.

After losing trust in local news in Anhui, Li Yuanhong simply stopped caring so much. At that time, he thought that he would soon be able to return to Hubei. But I didn't expect that the change of things was far from being something I could grasp. Li Yuanhong is not the kind of tender doll who doesn't know the depth of officialdom, when he first laid down Anqing, there was a rumor that Zhang Biao was ready to come to Anqing to replace Li Yuanhong. However, as soon as Ding Wei's political tide was over, Zhang Biao's command immediately had no news of his departure. Li Yuanhong also asked to bring his troops back to Wuhan several times, but each time he received a reply of "strictly guarding Anqing". These people are all old fritters, and the Hubei New Army is stationed in Anqing, which is a position that will cause countless troubles. As soon as there is a change in the political situation, everyone has the attitude of "more things are better than less things", and they do not get involved in such troublesome things at all.

The dust began to settle on Ding Wei's political tide, and the news of Lord Zhang Zhidong's appointment as Minister of Military Aircraft soon spread to Hubei, and the entire Hubei officialdom was boiling. This appointment means that Lord Jang Zhidong will take over the "constitutional" authority in the imperial court. Now the "constitutional" has become the expectation of the public, especially in the southeast, since the "southeast self-preservation", the officials and gentry in these regions hope to be able to obtain greater political independence power, especially to seize the power that originally belonged to the imperial court through the constitution. Now that the constitution is presided over by Lord Zhang Zhidong, they naturally feel that Hubei can naturally get great benefits. If you want to have a greater voice, you need to have political performance. Although Master Zhang had outstanding achievements in the local government, he did not have many achievements in the imperial court. In the near future, only by exterminating the "Yan Chen bandits" can we get the right to speak.

When Master Zhang ordered Li Yuanhong to go north to exterminate the "Yan Chen bandits", Li Yuanhong felt a sense of unease, and he regretted why he didn't run back to Wuhan as soon as possible to pretend to be sick. If he ran back to Wuhan and pretended to be sick at that time, Li Yuanhong, as a hero who recaptured Anqing and Chizhou, would be able to benefit no matter how things develop in the future. Now the situation is completely different, whether it is Beijing or Wuhan, how many people's eyes are looking at themselves. At such a time when you can gain fame and status as long as you succeed, officialdom has always dismantled more and helped less.

People up and down were urging Li Yuanhong to hurry up and march into the army, but there was basically no supply of weapons and ammunition. Such a trivial matter is enough to show that someone has begun to stumble on Li Yuanhong. And the excuses used by these people are also very justifiable, Li Yuanhong did not consume too much ammunition to fight Anqing, and the ammunition brought out now is enough to support. Li Yuanhong is not a three-year-old doll, he knows very well that this is not the case at all. Li Yuanhong is indeed not short of ammunition, but even a symbolic shipment of ammunition from the rear can also show the attitude of those behind him. Their practice of paying more attention to the quantity of supplies than Li Yuanhong shows that some people are starting to do badly.

But Li Yuanhong now doesn't even have the opportunity to pretend to be sick in battle, there is Lord Zhang in the court, and there are a bunch of civil and military officials who are "eagerly looking forward to victory" behind them, and the idea of pretending to be sick can't be hidden from them at all. Therefore, after Lord Zhang personally sent a telegram urging Li Yuanhong to enter the army, Li Yuanhong had no choice but to send troops.

With extreme helplessness, Li Yuanhong continued to wipe his sweat while facing the sweaty staff officers who were also on the ship, and asked, "How is the news of the horses?" ”

"Except for the remnants of the Yue Wanghui stationed in Hefei City, there are still not many people from the People's Party in Hefei City." The staff officers immediately replied excitedly.

The People's Party didn't seem to care about Hefei's gains and losses at all, except for the remnants of the Yue Wanghui stationed near Hefei, there were not many bandits in the city at all. The current strength of the Hubei New Army can definitely take Hefei City lightly. This time, the troops were dispatched by water, and a large number of official ships and civilian ships carried nearly 5,000 Hubei New Army. The fleet entered Chaohu Lake from the Yangtze River, and then attacked Hefei along the Huai River.

Although it was impossible to find out the exact information about the People's Party's base areas, the General Staff of the Hubei New Army believed that it would take Hefei in one fell swoop while the city was empty. At that time, no matter what tricks the bandits had, as long as we occupied Hefei City, the bandits would be helpless. This kind of combat plan has become a common conventional combat method in this era, and Li Yuanhong does not feel that there is anything wrong with it. No matter what uneasiness he had in his heart, he also believed that these troubles would only be encountered after the capture of Hefei, and with the strength and equipment of the Hubei New Army's naval army and army, it would be absolutely impossible for the People's Party to stop the Hubei New Army.

Unlike what the staff officers thought, Li Yuanhong had already decided in his heart that after taking Hefei, he would hold his troops for the first time. Wait until the BJP's territory is clarified and the truth is real. There is a military merit of regaining fat, no matter how Li Yuanhong pauses, others have nothing to say.

The long fleet of the Hubei New Army was sailing on the water, and the leading ships had already entered Chaohu Lake. Chaohu Lake is located in the central part of Anhui Province, bordering the Yangtze River, also known as Jiaohu Lake, and is the largest lake in Anhui Province. The water system of Chaohu Lake is developed, it is known as "360 water" since ancient times, and the Nanqi River is called Shishui in ancient times, which originates from the southern foot of the Jianghuai watershed Daqian Mountain Yumai Changgang (ground elevation of 72 meters). The southeast flow direction, to the summer Daying into the Dongpu Reservoir, after the south of Dayangdian out of the reservoir, through the Bozhou Road Bridge, through the Hefei City Zuona Sili River, Banqiao River to the water, through the Tunxi Road Bridge to the monk mouth Zuo Na 20 Port River to the water, to the Sanchai River Zuo Nadian River to the water, turn southwest flow, in Shikou into Chaohu Lake, a total length of 70 kilometers.

The ultimate target of the Hubei New Army, Anhui, formerly known as Luzhou, is located in the central part of Anhui, between the Yangtze River and the Huai River, on the shore of Chaohu Lake, known as "the head of the south of the Yangtze River, the throat of the Central Plains", "the right throat of Huai, the lips and teeth of the south of the Yangtze River". Through the Nanqi River to the river to the sea, with the east to the west, connecting the Central Plains, through the north and south of the important geographical advantages, Hefei because of the confluence of the East and the South River here and get the name (one said because of the ancient Luzhou changed its name from Hezhou), known as "Huai right throat, Jiangnan lips and teeth", "the old land of the Three Kingdoms, Bao Zheng's hometown" is famous all over the world. The name of Hefei first appeared in the great writer and historian Sima Qian's "Historical Records 61 Colony Biography": "Hehuai is subject to the north and south tides, and leather, abalone, and wood will also be lost."

The site of Hefei has changed repeatedly. "Taiping Huanyu Ji" records: Hefei County in the Han Dynasty "in the north of the present county (city)", located near the present-day Sili River, the area is very small. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the war continued, and the old city was abandoned. In the fifth year of Jian'an in the Eastern Han Dynasty (200 AD), Liu Fu, the assassin of Yangzhou, rode alone to rebuild Hefei City. During the period of the Three Kingdoms, Hefei was an important military town, which was favored by Cao Cao, and the Eastern Wu launched more than ten battles for Hefei, giving birth to the famous Battle of Xiaoyaojin. In the first year of Wei Qinglong (233), Wei will be full of favor to build another "Hefei New Town" at the foot of Jiming Mountain in the west of the old city, so as to compete with the old city. After the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, the new city built during the abolition of the Three Kingdoms was moved back to the old site. The old city of Hefei, the terrain is low-lying, and the Liang general Wei Rui broke through Hefei during the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

The famous Battle of Weishui broke out near here, Li Yuanhong did not expect this war of "the wind and the grass and trees are all soldiers", he was just concerned about whether the Nanqi River can now allow the warships of the Hubei Navy to pass freely. The small boat, which was the pilot, had begun to measure the depth of the water, and the speed of the entire fleet had slowed down. No one noticed that every two hours a pigeon flew from its shelter along the coast, flying alone towards the northern sky.