Sun Liangcheng arrived in Zhengzhou in the early hours of the morning, and as soon as he arrived in Zhengzhou, Pang Bingxun hurriedly met with Sun Liangcheng, and on the pretext that he was anxious to go to Gongxian to deploy defenses and make room for Sun Liangcheng's troops to rest in the barracks, he led his provisional 14th Division to retreat west to Gongxian overnight.

Sun Liangcheng not only didn't think much about Pang Bingxun's approach, but was very grateful to Pang Bingxun, but Feng Yuxiang's order to withdraw westward was also very urgent, and he was unwilling to stay in Zhengzhou longer, so he arranged for a brigade to wait in Zhengzhou for the military train behind, and other troops also withdrew west to Tongguan one after another after Pang Bingxun left.

Sun Liangcheng set off from Zhengzhou at 4 a.m., because as soon as the munitions train arrived, he had to evacuate Zhengzhou immediately, and the brigade that remained behind did not enter the barracks left by the former Pang Bingxun unit, but only rested on the spot at the station, buried the pot to cook, and prepared breakfast. After all, the troops of the Fourth Route Army were stationed here, and the brigade commander Zhao Fengwu sent a cavalry reconnaissance platoon to the east to reconnoiter and receive the munitions train.

Since it was about to evacuate Zhengzhou, the brigade did not even take over the defense of Zhengzhou, but only set up a cordon around the station.

At about half past five in the morning, the cavalry platoon commander who had been sent out to the east to meet the reconnaissance ran back with two wounded cavalrymen, and reported that they had encountered an ambush by the Fourth Route Army at Zhanghu Bridge, where the Fourth Route Army had set up a blocking position.

Zhao Fengwu knew that the quartermaster train and the reinforced battalion escorted were finished, since the Fourth Route Army had attacked his cavalry platoon, that is to say, the Fourth Route Army had already started a war against them, and the Fourth Route Army had sixty or seventy thousand people near Zhengzhou, which he knew, and it was impossible for his brigade to go to the rescue of the quartermaster train, and it was impossible to even take his brigade into it. Moreover, since the Fourth Route Army has already started, it will be dangerous for him to stay in Zhengzhou any longer. At the moment, he didn't dare to slack off, and he didn't even take care of breakfast, so he ordered the whole brigade to immediately get on the bus and retreat westward, and at the same time sent a telegram to Sun Liangcheng to report the situation.

Although Zhao Fengwu did not have any delay, it was still late, and as soon as his train left the station, the troops of Song Zhewu's guard brigade rushed into Zhengzhou and immediately launched defenses.

In the early hours of the morning, when Song Zhewu learned that Pang Bingxun and Sun Liangcheng's troops had evacuated Zhengzhou overnight, he knew that his plan was too conservative, and the troops he left behind in Liulin included the Second Regiment, the Guard Brigade, the First Division Artillery Regiment, and the Baggage Regiment.

The reason why he left so many troops was that Sun Liangcheng would be angry and attack Liulin Town after learning that his munitions train had been attacked, but now Sun Liangcheng's troops did not stop in Zhengzhou at all, leaving only one brigade in Zhengzhou, and it seemed that they were waiting for the munitions train to arrive and retreat westward together.

In this way, he left too many troops in Liulin, and Zhang Yafei, who was going to fight the ambush of the Northwest Army, only brought a regiment that was missing two battalions.

Song Zhewu immediately changed his order, ordered the Second Regiment and the Artillery Regiment to immediately rush to Xushui overnight to strengthen the ambush force, and ordered Sun Li's Third Regiment to rush to Xushui immediately after solving the escort troops of the Northwest Army's quartermaster train, and cooperate with Zhang Yafei to encircle and annihilate the Zhao Fengwu Brigade of the Northwest Army. Sending a guard brigade to closely monitor the movements of the Northwest Army in Zhengzhou Station, but not to attack them, as long as they leave the station, occupy Zhengzhou as soon as possible, and prevent them from retreating to Zhengzhou when they see that they are blocked, Song Zhewu is not willing to fight the Northwest Army in Zhengzhou City. The Fourth Route Army has strong firepower, and it is in the field that their firepower advantage can be best used.

Zhang Yafei's ambush position east of Xushui is only 15 miles away from Zhengzhou, which is the outskirts of Zhengzhou due to the great expansion of the urban area of Zhengzhou in modern times.

Zhang Yafei was afraid that Zhao Fengwu would find out that the situation was wrong, so he shrank in Zhengzhou and did not come out, did not dismantle the railway in advance, and did not set up roadblocks, until the train was more than two miles away from his position, he ordered to blow up a section of the railway track in front of the position.

The sound of the explosion made the military column of Zhao Fengwu's brigade brake urgently and stopped, and Zhao Fengwu hurriedly sent a company out to check the situation.

When the company cautiously approached the explosion point, a dense rain of bullets immediately knocked down dozens of people, and the others immediately retreated, killing and wounding more than 20 people by dozens of mortar shells on the way back.

Zhao Fengwu knew that this was the Fourth Route Army's refusal to let go of his brigade, so he immediately ordered the troops to get out of the car and deploy, and he had to organize the troops to rush over as soon as possible, otherwise, as soon as the large army of the Fourth Route Army came up, his 4,000 people were not enough to stuff their teeth.

The distance of two miles was completely within the range of mortars, and as soon as his troops got off the car, they were immediately bombarded by a large number of mortar shells flying from the opposite side, and the troops who got off the car immediately became chaotic and scattered to avoid the shell bombardment, and the troops who did not get off the car hesitated and did not dare to get out of the car, so angry that Zhao Fengwu scolded and forced the troops to get out of the car.

Zhao Fengwu hurriedly observed the opponent's position, the position of the Fourth Route Army was supported by several slightly higher soil bags and platforms on both sides of the railway, and trench positions were set up on three sides of them in a semicircle, his troops were now almost surrounded, and now if they retreated to Zhengzhou, one of his brigades wanted to hold Zhengzhou for reinforcements, it was almost impossible, there was only one way in front of him, that is, to rush over at the risk of death, Sun Liangcheng knew that the military train was attacked, and he must have turned back to meet him.

Zhao Fengwu immediately commanded his regiment as the vanguard of the whole brigade to attack the position of the Fourth Route Army in front, in order to break through the opponent's position in one fell swoop and open the passage for the whole brigade.

Several regiment commanders took great difficulty to organize the troops, and Zhao Fengwu's regiment was unable to organize a decent charging formation under artillery fire, and simply attacked in three waves with the battalion as a unit.

Because there were ambush positions of the Fourth Route Army on both sides, Zhao Fengwu's troops did not dare to spread too much, and the formation was relatively dense, and under the bombardment of dozens of mortars, huge casualties continued to occur, and almost every shell killed or injured more than a dozen people.

The only few mortars in Zhao Fengwu's brigade had just fired two or three rounds in order to cover the attacking troops, and they were immediately covered by dozens of mortar shells that were whistling and flying, and the explosion of the shells detonated the shell boxes next to the position, and after the huge thick smoke and dust that rose cleared, there was no one alive on the mortar positions of the Northwest Army, and several mortars were blown into scattered parts.

When the troops of the Northwest Army were 100 meters away from the blocking position of the Fourth Route Army, the light and heavy machine guns and various weapons on the position of the Fourth Route Army began to fire fiercely, and the dense rain of bullets made the charging troops of the Northwest Army pay huge casualties every time they took a step forward.

Under the intense firepower, the ranks of the first wave of the Northwest Army became more and more sparse, and when they rushed to a distance of more than 60 meters from the position of the Fourth Route Army, they could no longer rush, and they fell to the ground one after another to shoot at the troops of the Fourth Route Army on the position.

The firepower on the position was obviously dispersed and weakened because it was about to suppress the Northwest Army lying on the ground and to block the second wave of the Northwest Army's attack, and the second wave of the Northwest Army soon rushed forward a little more than the first wave of troops, and was unable to charge forward again in the new and dense fire, but with the support of another battalion that followed later, the remnants regained the courage to rush to the position.

Seeing that the Northwest Army was about to rush to the position, at this time, a group of grenades suddenly flew out of the position, and then a fierce killing sound broke out on the position, jumping out of a group of grass-green figures, holding a bright bayonet, pounced on the Northwest Army that was blown up by the grenade and was much sparser, the two sides immediately collided fiercely together, the sound of bayonets colliding, the terrible sound of bones breaking with the butt of the gun hitting the skull.

The regiment of the charging Northwest Army, under the blows of artillery shells and various weapons along the way, suffered three or four hundred casualties, and only about 600 of the 1,000 people remained. The Fourth Route Army, which was defending the frontal position, was more than 2,800 men from Zhang Yafei's regiment, two battalions, and eight combat companies, and although the Northwest Army was fierce, there was a huge disparity in numbers, and the Fourth Route Army was not only skilled in fighting, but also not inferior to the Northwest Army in terms of ferocious momentum. Soon, the Northwest Army assault unit was repulsed.

Looking at the only 200 officers and soldiers of the 1st Regiment who had withdrawn, the 2nd Regiment Commander reached out and grabbed a rifle with red eyes, and shouted: "Brigade Commander, let my regiment rush again, I don't believe that I can't kill it!" ”

Zhao Fengwu retracted his surprised gaze, looked at the second regiment commander, and looked at the corpses of the officers and soldiers in the northwest who had fallen all over the road from his eyes to the front of the Fourth Route Army's position a few hundred meters away, as well as the incessant shelling around, shook his head and said, "Surrender!" We can't rush out, so don't let the brothers give their lives in vain. ”

Sun Liangcheng's troops arrived at Xushui at noon, and after Zhang Yafei demonstratively fired three rapid shots at the open space hundreds of meters away in front of the Northwest Army, Sun Liangcheng, who was observing with a telescope, reluctantly ordered the troops to withdraw. There was no longer any gunfire to the east of Xushui, indicating that his Zhao Fengwu Brigade no longer existed. Moreover, the firing of these dozens of mountain guns in front of him also shows that the main force of the Fourth Route Army is in front of him, and his 20,000 or so people are definitely not the opponent of the opponent's 60,000 or 70,000 people. He also completely understood the reason why Pang Bingxun retreated west to Gong County overnight, and couldn't help but curse in his heart, "This Pang lame man is really not a thing." ”

However, Sun Liangcheng also secretly rejoiced, "Thanks to my main force, I didn't stay in Zhengzhou for too long, otherwise the consequences are unimaginable."

Song Zhewu had already moved his headquarters to Zhengzhou City, located in Pang Bingxun's original division headquarters.

Since there were no troops of the Northwest Army east of Zhengzhou, Song Zhewu readjusted his subordinates: a regiment was stationed at Huayuankou and was responsible for the safety of the Yellow River Iron Bridge; The 2nd Regiment and the Artillery Regiment were stationed in Xushui to guard Luoyang and Gongxian; The cavalry brigade that went north of the Yellow River to pick up the grain and baggage given by Yan Xishan has returned and has been restationed in Liulin, Biyuan Village and other places; The 1st Division and 3rd Regiment, the Guard Brigade, and the Baggage Regiment were stationed in Zhengzhou City.

At the same time, all the officials of the Northwest Army in the municipal axe were concentrated, and they were asked to hand over their weapons and voluntarily choose to stay, and those who were willing to return to the Northwest Army were immediately expelled from Zhengzhou, and those who were willing to continue to stay in Zhengzhou were required to continue to maintain the operation of the city, but they were not allowed to engage in acts that endangered the Fourth Route Army.

(To be continued)