In order to surround Lu Shuanggun, Meng Enyuan was marching in a hurry for almost three consecutive days, and the cavalry troops in the vanguard were directly inserted into the northeast of Hongjiatun, when Meng Enyuan's troops appeared outside Hongjiatun, Lu Shuanggun naturally felt bad, at first he was fighting the idea of hard resistance, and sent the cavalry bandits and Hua Zhenji's cavalry to conduct a skirmish, but was wiped out by Hua Zhenji's two cavalry teams of more than 20 people, and only escaped back less than 10 people, so Lu Shuanggun knew that the comer was not good and immediately wanted to run.

However, it was too late at this time, Hua Zhenji's two cavalry teams had already controlled the Dongba Ditch in the northeast of Hongjiatun, and it was impossible for Lu Shuanggun to break through the interception in the north and escape, and there was a large area of mountains in the west, and those cavalry bandits could not climb the mountain unless they gave up their horses and took foot, and Meng Enyuan also deployed a platoon of troops there, and it was not a big problem to hold the west mountain.

The south side is the direction of Meng Enyuan's main attack, they naturally can't hit head-on, the only thing that can escape is the east, and the east is where Meng Enyuan is ambushed, where three cavalry teams and two cavalry machine guns are deployed, I'm afraid that if they don't come out, they will have to beat them into a hornet's nest as soon as they come out.

In terms of tactical arrangement, the encirclement task has been successfully completed, and unless the Lu Shuanggun has wings, it will definitely not be able to fly.

Now the problem that Meng Enyuan has to consider is: how to take this Hongjiatun with as few casualties as possible.

Victory is certain, the question is how much to pay for it.

"Brother Liu, it's still early, wait for ......" As he spoke, Meng Enyuan looked at the pocket watch in his hand and continued: "When it comes to seven thirty o'clock, send a team over to test and test the test to see their firepower arrangement!" ”

In Meng Enyuan's northward detachment of bandits, in addition to the two cavalry battalions, there is also a first battalion of the ninth standard as the main force of the attack, led by Liu Fu, the leader of the battalion, who was a member of Duan Qirui's faction in the early days, Zhao Dongyun and Chen Guangyuan were-for-tat during the Third Association period, because he was under Chen Guangyuan, it can be said that he suffered a lot, and the remaining old army of Su Yi's army was young and strong at the beginning, almost all of them were stuffed into the first battalion under Liu Fu by Chen Guangyuan, in order to train and recover those soldiers. Liu Fufu doesn't know how much hardship he has endured, of course, because of this, his first battalion is the first infantry battalion in the entire Third Mixed Association, as early as the early winter of last year, it has been roughly formed, after a year of rigorous training, the original soldiers were either dismissed, or trained into real soldiers, which can be regarded as making the first battalion a real Beiyang new army.

The reason why Liu Fufu's first battalion was able to send troops to suppress bandits this time was that on the one hand, it was Zhao Dongyun's compensation to him, and on the other hand, it was also related to the fact that his first battalion was formed earlier.

After Liu Fu went out to suppress the bandits, he was also ambitious, as long as he fought a few beautiful battles when he suppressed the bandits, and when the third mixed army expanded into the third town, who dared to say that he couldn't be a standard commander?

If Lin Yongquan, Chen Guangyuan, Meng Enyuan and others are aiming at one of the two co-unification positions of the third town in the future, then many pipe bands in the third mixed association are aiming at the position of the standard system, but there are more than a dozen pipe bands, and the standard position is only a total of six in four steps, one cavalry and one artillery, and the cavalry and artillery in it have nothing to do with Liu Fu, plus there are Kong Guanbei, Pei Lianying, Lin Yongquan, Chen Guangyuan, these people If they don't become co-commanders, Then there is a high probability that it will occupy a position in the belt, so there are not many positions left for the existing pipe belts in the third town in the future.

Even if it is estimated optimistically, there are only two positions that can be freed up for each pipe belt in the future.

With few positions and many people, this competition naturally becomes fierce, and in the process of this competition, there is nothing more convincing than military merit.

And this is also the real reason why Zhao Dongyun dispatched Hua Zhenji and Liu Fufu to Meng Enyuan to suppress the bandits, in order to let them establish military merits, accumulate qualifications, and prepare for subsequent training and promotion.

Promoting the lineage can only give them opportunities to create and remove bottlenecks, and it depends on them whether they can rise or not.

This is the same as Yuan Shikai and Duan Qirui promoting Zhao Dongyun, they first gave Zhao Dongyun opportunities, such as training machine gun teams and suppressing the Guangzong Civil Rebellion, and after Zhao Dongyun seized the opportunity and made achievements, they would continue to promote Zhao Dongyun to be the leader of the First Association, and when Zhao Dongyun started the Third Association from scratch and practiced it in just over half a year, Yuan Shikai turned the Third Association into the Third Mixed Association.

There needs to be a process here, and no matter how much Yuan Shikai admired Zhao Dongyun in 1901, it was impossible for him to directly let him bring a mixed association.

Killing Lu Shuanggun in front of him is his chance to be rich!

Now it is time to descend the mountain, leading his first battalion to prepare to send a team of troops to conduct early fire reconnaissance.

As soon as Liu Fu left, Meng Enyuan said to a young officer on the side: "An Po, how is your mortar team prepared, wait for the first battalion to reconnoiter the enemy's fire position, but it will depend on you to defeat it!" ”

The young officer's surname is Wei, his name is Anpo, he was an officer of the third battalion of the third mixed artillery team, this person graduated from the battalion school of the Wuwei Right Army in his early years, studied artillery surveying and mapping, and was transferred from the artillery unit of the Wuwei Right Army to the third battalion of the artillery team under the command of Zhao Dongyun at the beginning of the year, and served as a rear team officer.

At the end of August, after the arrival of the first batch of mortars and six mortars ordered by the Third Mixed Association from the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, a mortar team was formed and temporarily placed under the third battalion of the artillery team, and Wei Anpo was dispatched as the first officer.

This time, the mortar team followed the bandit detachment to the north, and there were not only officers and men who had just established a mortar team, but also several technicians from the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, who mainly acted as technical guides, and also came to collect the actual combat numbers of mortars, so as to improve the design of subsequent mortars.

Therefore, this time the participation of the mortar team in the battle has a strong attitude towards weapon testing.

Wei Anpo said: "Lord Meng, don't worry, my mortar team has already started preparing yesterday, and now the position has been selected, and it can be fought at any time!" ”

Speaking of this, Wei Anpo felt the need to remind Meng Enyuan: "In addition, because my mortar team is participating in the war for the first time, the training of the soldiers is less than a month, and there may be a slight gap in the accuracy of artillery and the rate of fire at that time, please make proper arrangements for adults!" ”

The mortar team is here to conduct live-fire tests, and striking the enemy can only be regarded as an incidental task, Wei Anpo doesn't want Meng Enyuan to operate them as actual combat troops, if the expectations are too high, then it may cause unnecessary misunderstandings!

Meng Enyuan frowned slightly when he heard this, this Wei Anpo looked young, and it was very neat to shirk responsibility, but he didn't care, he also knew that mortars were only here to test, and he couldn't count on them to take Hongjiatun, and he had to rely on cavalry and infantry.

As time passed, Liu Fu's first battalion also sent a team of troops forward, this team took the platoon as the basic unit, the two platoons went around from both sides, and the other platoon acted as a reserve.

The topography of Hongjiatun is located between mountains and plains, with high mountains in the west, woodland and small highlands raised hundreds of meters in the north, and a series of undulating low hills in the south, and a relatively gentle undulating plain in the east.

If you look down from the air, then in the middle of the farmland is a large village of houses, this village is Hongjiatun, the original inhabitants of the village have been gone, and in their place are hundreds of bandits and their families.

It's a veritable den of bandits.

Due to the terrain, it was naturally impossible for the two platoons that went out to reconnaisance fire to rush directly in formation, and the tactics were also different from the traditional infantry tactics of the early years, they did not directly form a skirmish formation on the wilderness and rushed forward, but took a detour, detoured, and relied on obstacles to cover the advance, and in the process of marching, they were rolling and climbing, which was rarely seen in previous infantry attacks.

In a certain way, the Third Mixed Association under Zhao Dongyun already had the style of the twenties and thirties in terms of specific infantry tactics, and if it could be equipped with squad machine guns and mortars of 50 to 60 mm caliber, then it would be a living World War II light infantry.

At this time, Liu Fufu was also lying outside the bunker outside the command of the hidden battalion headquarters, holding a telescope to observe his attacking troops.

In his sight, a few soldiers in gray uniforms flashed from time to time among the grass and trees, they were holding guns, and cats were quietly approaching, at this time he was still very satisfied with the tactical actions of the soldiers, but he always felt that it was still not hidden enough, and it seemed that the gray military uniform was too obvious to attack in the low woods, and he could see it from so far away, would the enemy on the opposite side find it?

Although the blue-gray military uniform of the Beiyang Army has considered the need for concealment to a certain extent, it is still not a modern military uniform with concealment function, and it is naturally inferior to the later military uniforms of grass green, earth yellow and other colors specially designed for battlefield concealment.

Just when Liu Fu felt that the gray military color was too eye-catching, suddenly a crisp gunshot sounded in the distance, followed by bursts of crackling gunshots that rang out one after another.

The soldiers who attacked in a roundabout way were discovered!

Liu Fu continued to frown, although it was a matter of time before the attacking troops were discovered, but this distance was still far from reaching the purpose of his tone, which was still more than four hundred meters away from the periphery of Hongjiatun, and it was much more difficult to get through the more than four hundred meters after being discovered.

And since the platoon attacking from the west was in a low forest, as soon as it crossed this low forest, it was able to penetrate under a ditch in a field as cover, which would then be the best cover for the attacking troops, but now it had been discovered in advance.

The second platoon, which had attacked from the low woods, was now mostly in the woods, and was suddenly intercepted by intensive fire, although it was impossible to inflict a large number of casualties on them with the firepower of the bandits, but many people were still shot, and more importantly, they were suppressed.