Bao Guiqing's surrender to the army and the rebuilding of the 1st Mixed Brigade had little impact on the Zhifeng War at this moment, because although the reconstruction of the 1st Mixed Brigade was based on thousands of captured soldiers, it still needed to transfer a large number of officers, replenish a large number of heavy weapons, and carry out adaptive training, and it was almost impossible for the 1st Mixed Brigade to regain its previous combat effectiveness, even if it was a qiē shun lì, it would take a month or two for Bao Guiqing's 1st Mixed Brigade to re-enter the war.

The political significance of Bao Guiqing's surrender is far greater than the military significance, and this move can be said to have greatly damaged the morale of the direct army and the confidence of the senior generals of the direct army.

This can be seen from Wang Yingkai's fury after learning the news!

When Zhao Dongyun used Bao Guiqing to buy horse bones with his daughter, showing that he had the belly of the prime minister and could tolerate what ordinary people could not, the war between the two armies broke out on a large scale again in early July.

Except for the Ninth Division, together with the Fourth Mixed Brigade and the Fifth Mixed Brigade, which continued to launch an unhurried attack on the Beijing Division, the focus of the battle of the two armies had shifted to Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division.

On July 3, the forward cavalry regiment of the 3rd Division and the cavalry units of Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division made their first foundation, and the cavalry of both sides launched the first large-scale cavalry battle between the two armies.

Whether it was last year's entry operation or this year's entry operation, although the Feng army participated in the battle with a large number of cavalry units, and the cavalry units of the direct army were not small, most of the time the cavalry on both sides were either used for reconnaissance or used as dismounted infantry, and there was no large-scale battle between cavalry except for small-scale battles between reconnaissance cavalry.

However, on July 3, in the Yongqing area, the cavalry regiment of the 3rd Division made contact with the cavalry regiment of the 7th Division, and the cavalry regiment of the 3rd Division was carrying out forward reconnaissance missions, while the cavalry regiment of the 7th Division was ordered to go to the Jingfeng Railway to attack the dense supply lines of the Feng army on the line.

The main force of the Feng army gathered along the railway line from Beijing to Tianjin, because it was able to use the Beijing-Feng railway to get close to the supply, Wang Zhanyuan also saw this, and it was naturally inappropriate to send infantry to directly capture and cut off the railway line, and it was estimated that it would fall into the heavy encirclement of the Feng army, but it was different to send cavalry.

One of the main tasks of the contemporary cavalry is to attack the enemy's supply lines!

On that day, after more than 1,000 cavalry from both sides came into contact in the Yongqing area, Colonel Wang Quanyun of the cavalry regiment of the 3rd Division decisively ordered the cavalry to dismount, and then set up four heavy machine guns and two 60-millimeter mortars carried by the army.

The cavalry unit of the Feng army was equipped with mortars and heavy machine guns, and the tradition of heavy machine guns began in the era of the third town, and the cavalry boss Meng Enyuan in the original Feng army system strived to be equipped with heavy machine guns and mortars in the cavalry standard, and then the cavalry of the Feng army was changed to the Dalian small regiment system, and a large number of cavalry were transferred to form the first cavalry brigade and the second cavalry brigade, although the cavalry regiment of the division was reduced to 600 cavalry, but the equipment of heavy machine guns and mortars was retained. Two sixty-mm mortars.

In addition to heavy machine guns and 60-millimeter mortars, the two cavalry brigades were also equipped with 80-millimeter mortars.

The Third Cavalry Regiment dismounted and set up machine guns and mortars to play foot combat, and the Seventh Cavalry Regiment under Wang Zhanyuan on the opposite side naturally did not ride a horse stupidly to charge, but also quickly dismounted and then played foot combat.

So the two cavalry units dug trenches on the spot and played with rifles, just like the infantrymen!

However, this situation did not last long, and soon the 2nd Battalion of the 11th Regiment of the 3rd Division, which received the news not far away, quickly arrived.

Although the strength of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment is not small, it is still lacking in foot combat with the infantry battalion, so it is very simple to turn around and retreat, people are cavalry, but they can't run but they run fast, and the Third Cavalry Regiment can only sit back and watch the retreat of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment because of its small strength and dare not blindly pursue.

However, although this contact battle between the two sides, with only a few dozen casualties, did not seem like a big deal, it frustrated the tactical purpose of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment to attack the Gyeongbong railway line.

Since the cavalry units of the two sides came into contact, both Wang Zhanyuan and Chen Guangyuan of the Third Division already knew that the enemy was not far from him.

Since both sides knew that the enemy on the opposite side was not a simple object, so every move could be described as very conservative, Wang Zhanyuan did not go north on a large scale regardless of the body and formation of the soldiers as before, but marched step by step to avoid being ambushed by the Feng army.

Chen Guangyuan of the Third Division did not dare to blindly launch a large-scale attack, but maintained contact with the Seventh Division, and on the other hand, waited for reinforcements from the Tenth Division.

"Now the situation is already obvious, according to the information learned by our reconnaissance cavalry division, the main force of the seventh division should be in the area of Bazhou!" Yang Deming took the command list and instructed him to continue to move on the map: "And the third division of our army has been stationed in Yongqing, and the tenth division is in the area of Liuquan, as long as these two divisions cooperate properly, his Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division must not break through the blockade of our army and go north to the Beijing division!" ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "It's not enough to stop them, we must defeat this seventh division, and then we can quickly go south to Nanzhili and Shandong, and we can also dispatch the main force to completely solve Wang Yingkai of the Beijing Division!" ”

In the temporary headquarters of Langfang, Zhao Dongyun once again discussed the military situation with Yang Deming, since Zhao Dongyun entered the customs, his headquarters moved several times, and advanced with the troops, first in Shanhaiguan, then in Tangshan, and a few days ago he set up his headquarters in Langfang, commanding the troops besieging the Beijing division and intercepting Wang Zhanyuan's troops nearby.

"Many colleagues in the War Department believe that we should follow the example of the Tangshan Campaign, defend first and then attack!" Yang Deming said: "As we all know, our army has outstanding defensive capabilities, if we can build a solid defensive line on the front line of Liuquan and Yongqing for a while, and wait for the defending troops to hold the Seventh Division, we can attack from other directions in a roundabout way and annihilate the division in one fell swoop!" Yang Deming said.

However, Zhao Dongyun shook his head: "This move can deal with Lu Yongxiang, but it can't deal with Wang Zhanyuan!" ”

"Wang Zichun has served in my army for many years, not to mention that he knows everything about my army, but everyone who should know will know that he knows very well what we are good at and what our shortcomings are!" Zhao Dongyun said: "Our army has vigorously advocated roundabout attacks in the past two years, and he Wang Zichun is clear!" ”

Wang Zhanyuan has served in the Fengjun for many years, although most of the time he was overshadowed by Zhao Dongyun and in front of the nominal Fifth Coordinator, but Wang Zhanyuan still participated in the construction and expansion of the Fengjun from the beginning, Lu Yongxiang may not know the role of 60-mm mortars and 120-mm mortars, but Wang Zhanyuan absolutely knows.

For such an opponent who understands his strengths and weaknesses, Zhao Dongyun knows that Wang Zhanyuan is more difficult to deal with than Lu Yongxiang.

If the Feng army builds a defense line on the front line of Yongqing and Liuquan, Wang Zhanyuan will definitely not be stupid enough to collide directly, the biggest possibility is to directly detour to the north in other directions, the North China Plain is so big, it is impossible for Zhao Dongyun's Feng army to block every place.

"Pass the order and let the Third Division continue to go south to Bazhou, but also let Chen Guangyuan grasp the square inch well, don't rashly launch a large-scale attack!" Zhao Dongyun said again: "Let Xu Bangjie's 10th Division continue to move south, and at the same time let him think about the west to avoid letting Wang Zhanyuan's troops detour to the west." ”

Zhao Dongyun wants to drag Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division in Bazhou, regardless of whether he can annihilate this Seventh Division or not, at least he must first block the northward pace of this Seventh Division, and mainly drag this Seventh Division in Bazhou to prevent him from going north, then Wang Yingkai's idea of converging the Seventh Division and the remnants of the Beijing Division will be frustrated, and then he will be able to calmly withdraw troops and deploy tactics to destroy this Seventh Division.

Zhao Dongyun's order was the highest criterion for the army's actions, and after Chen Guangyuan received the order written by Zhao Dongyun from the herald of the headquarters, he did not hesitate to order the entire Third Division to continue to move south.

Chen Guangyuan didn't want Zhao Dongyun to think that he was a person who disobeyed orders, in recent years, as Zhao Dongyun's power has grown, his control over the Feng army has become more and more powerful, and many senior generals at the division and brigade level below have also felt huge pressure.

The power of the senior generals at the division and brigade level in the Feng army is far inferior to that of the division and brigade generals of other warlord troops, and they are also division commanders, but the division commanders of the Feng army are completely different from the division commanders in other warlord troops.

For example, Wu Fengling is the commander of the Second Division, but he is in charge of Shanxi, Zhang Huaizhi is also the commander of the Fifth Division, he is the governor of Anhui, even if it is Lu Yongxiang and Wang Zhanyuan, their political influence is very great. However, although the senior generals in the Feng army commanded a lot of troops, their political influence was quite low, and people only knew Zhao Dongyun when they talked about the Feng army, but they did not know Meng Enyuan and Chen Guangyuan.

This is just like when people talked about the Beiyang Standing Army, people only knew Yuan Shikai but did not know Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui, and when the political influence of the top boss was too strong enough to deal with the national situation, this kind of result would be caused.

Especially after this year, if the division commanders of other warlords are a combination of military generals and political generals, then the generals under the Feng military system, especially senior generals, are very simple military generals, and their political influence is very small.

Coupled with the independence of recruitment and military spending, it also led to the fact that the senior generals of the Soviet Fengjun army were rarely able to stand on their own, when Meng Enyuan sat in Shanhaiguan for more than half a year, leading tens of thousands, if this was changed to other warlord systems, this Meng Enyuan would have called himself a family and become a bigwig, but what about the actual situation?

Every time Zhao Dongyun sent a telegram edict, Meng Enyuan often did not dare to delay for a day or quickly rushed back to Shenyang to listen to the instructions, just like when Yuan Shikai wanted to see Zhao Dongyun, Zhao Dongyun immediately had to rush from Jinzhou to Baoding.

In addition to this realistic pressure, Zhao Dongyun also said at the military meeting in Langfang that this army will definitely continue to expand, and it is inevitable that it will fight south in the future, and he has now considered the commander of the follow-up army to fight south.