Everyone hurriedly rescued the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Empress Dowager Cixi sighed and said angrily to the left and right: "There is no one among the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty who can stop the snitch?" ”

At this time, the ministers around the Empress Dowager Cixi were mainly divided into two parts, one was the princes and nobles who fled from the capital, headed by Prince Gong, who was a Manchu magnate and a famous minister in the Lin Fei era; The other part was the magistrates of Shaanxi, led by Sheng Yun, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, who was also a famous minister in Lin Fei's era.

Sheng Yun first knelt on the ground, kowtowed and said: "Lafayette, please rest assured, Xi'an has the danger of Tongguan Huashan, and the snitch will never be able to beat Xi'an." ”

The Empress Dowager Cixi was furious, "The snitch intends to embezzle the two-hundred-year-old foundation of the Qing Dynasty, how can the mourning family be in a corner of peace." ”

Sheng Yun saw that the Empress Dowager Cixi was angry, lowered his head, and did not dare to speak again, at this time Prince Gong stood up, knelt down in front of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and said loudly: "Lafayette, although the snitch has captured a few cities, but Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces are still in the hands of my Qing Dynasty, these provinces are the richest provinces in my Qing Dynasty, and they are the income of my Qing Dynasty. ”

"The Snitch is extremely strong, how can these provinces be kept?"

"Qi Qi Lafayette, if you want to hold these provinces, you must use the generals, if you say that I am a Qing general, it should be Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong, at this time Yuan Shikai garrisoned Henan, Zhang Zhidong stuck to Hunan, why not Lafayette issued an order, appointed Yuan Shikai as the general of the rebellion against the north, Zhang Zhidong as the general of the southern bandits, one in command of the armies of Henan and Shandong, and one in command of the armies of Hunan and Hubei, each crusading against the snitch."

"I also have a fierce general in the Qing Dynasty, this person is Li Zhongtang, when the bandits were exterminated, Li Zhongtang once personally organized the Huai Army, and the bandits fought a bloody battle, Li Zhongtang is a native of Hefei, Anhui, Anhui and Zhejiang have many protégés, so Li Zhongtang should be allowed to lead the defenders in Anhui and Zhejiang, Li Zhongtang is already a very popular minister, and there is no need to add a general."

Empress Dowager Cixi nodded lightly, "Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong, Li Hongzhang, I can recruit the generals who are accustomed to war in the Qing Dynasty, but Li Hongzhang is still in charge of the Prime Minister's national affairs Yamen, if Li Hongzhang is transferred to fight and deal with foreigners, who will do it?" ”

"Lafayette, at this time, the Western powers are too busy to take care of themselves, we have no foreign aid, so don't take care of them, if there are things that need to be taken care of in various countries, Li Jing, the son of Li Zhongtang, can take on a big responsibility."

The Empress Dowager Cixi thought for a while and ordered: "Okay, this matter is settled, you go to the emperor to discuss it again, just say that this matter is the meaning of the mourning family, let him consider the decree." ”

When Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi escaped from the Forbidden City, Empress Dowager Cixi left Concubine Zhen behind and let Concubine Zhen go to death, which made Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi completely fall out.

Emperor Guangxu saw that it was the order of the Empress Dowager Cixi, so he had to obey it, so he issued an edict, so that the Qing State actually formed three theaters, Henan and Shandong were the northern theaters, commanded by Yuan Shikai; Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang are the central theaters of operations, commanded by Li Hongzhang; Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi were the southern theaters of operations, commanded by Zhang Zhidong.

As for Shanxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Gansu, Mongolia and other provinces of the Qing Dynasty, due to their remoteness, the Huaxia Army could not fight for a while, so there was no war zone (although Shanxi is very close to Zhili, the border between Shanxi and Zhili is Taihang Mountain, and the terrain is extremely dangerous, and it is difficult for the Huaxia Army to break in).

As soon as the three major theaters of the Qing Dynasty were established, the first to take action was Yuan Shikai.

Yuan Shikai summed up the lessons of the failure of the Battle of Guangzhou and the Battle of Fuzhou, and believed that the Qing army was defeated in the city, and the firepower of the Huaxia army was extremely strong, and even the Japanese and French troops were afraid of three points, and the Qing army was holding the city, how could it be their opponent.

Yuan Shikai believes that fighting with the Huaxia Army and holding on to the city will definitely fail, so how should the Qing army fight with the Huaxia Army, Yuan Shikai believes that the Qing Army has two biggest advantages compared with the Huaxia Army, one is a large number of people, and the other is familiar with the terrain, so Yuan Shikai decided to use these two points to start a field battle with the Huaxia Army.

At this time, Yuan Shikai's immediate enemies were the Huaxia Tianjin Dispatch Army, which had already conquered Shijiazhuang, and the 9th Division, which had conquered Jinan, and the 900th, 901st, and 902nd Divisions that had been expanded on the basis of the 9th Division, of which the number of Tianjin Dispatched Army did not exceed 10,000, and the total strength of each unit of the 9th Division was more than 60,000.

In Yuan Shikai's hands, the original new army of 10,000 people, but in the Tianjin War, the Huaxia army was both a naval gun and an airship, and the new army was blown up to more than 3,000 people, fortunately, Henan has a large population, Yuan Shikai soon pulled up a force of 100,000 people, plus the original Qing army in Henan and Shandong, the total strength is close to 200,000.

Yuan Shikai had the greatest military advantage over the Tianjin Dispatch Army, so Yuan Shikai decided to concentrate his troops in Shijiazhuang, storm the Tianjin Dispatch Army in Shijiazhuang, and annihilate all the Tianjin Dispatch Army.

Because Jinan is relatively close to Shijiazhuang, Yuan Shikai was worried that Jinan's Huaxia army would go north to help, so he ordered his henchman Duan Qirui, a confidant, to lead 50,000 troops to Hengshui to block Jinan's reinforcements.

When Yuan Shikai mobilized his troops, the Huaxia army did not continue to march, because they were accumulating strength and conquering four cities, although they did not suffer too many casualties, but they consumed a lot of ammunition, especially the Huaxia army was equipped with a large number of automatic weapons, which made the Huaxia army's ammunition consumption amazing, so the Huaxia army had to stop for a period of time and replenish weapons and ammunition, so as to continue the next offensive.

On March 6, the Tianjin Dispatch Army suddenly discovered that a large number of Qing troops were outflanking Shijiazhuang, and Li Mingming, commander-in-chief of the Tianjin Dispatch Army, immediately reported the news to Lin Fei in Dayu City.

After declaring war on the Qing State, Lin Fei has been paying attention to the battlefield situation, thanks to the submarine cable, Lin Fei can learn about the battlefield situation at the first time, and make decisions and command the troops.

At this time, Lin Fei already knew about the Qing State's establishment of three major war zones, and he was keenly aware that the Qing State might launch a counteroffensive, because Lin Fei had already threatened the richest areas of the Qing Kingdom, and if Lin Fei knocked down these richest areas, the Qing State's supply of money and grain would be cut off.

Lin Fei didn't expect that Yuan Shikai was the first to launch a counteroffensive, Lin Fei carefully read Li Mingming's report, and comprehensively analyzed the battlefield situation, and decided to conduct a decisive battle with Yuan Shikai in the Shijiazhuang area, and strive to defeat Yuan Shikai's main force in a battle.

Lin Fei formulated such a strategic plan for the Tianjin dispatch army - first hold on to Tianjin, attract a large number of Qing troops, and then, together with the Jinan garrison in the south, encircle the attracted Qing army, and then annihilate it in one fell swoop.

It was not unreasonable for Lin Fei to do this, although the number of troops dispatched from Tianjin was small, but it had a large amount of high-performance equipment, including fifty LCC-5-1 trucks, eight Monkey King airships, and the airborne troops led by Yu Ningshuang were now stationed in Beijing and could be transferred to Shijiazhuang at any time.

From Tianjin to Shijiazhuang, about 200 kilometers, it takes almost four hours for fifty trucks to drive over, and there is no problem at all with the transportation of ammunition, not to mention the low combat effectiveness of the Qing army, and there is no problem at all in holding Shijiazhuang.

Lin Fei then issued an order to the troops, and the troops stationed in Jinan immediately went north, and the troops stationed in Shijiazhuang immediately rushed to repair the fortifications and prepare to defend and annihilate the enemy.

On March 9, Yuan Shikai issued the order for a general attack, and the Central Plains Campaign officially began.

The first to attack were the Qing troops temporarily recruited by Yuan Shikai, most of whom were young and middle-aged peasants recruited from Henan and Zhili, all of whom were illiterate and did not understand anything, and many of them had not even heard of what Huaxia was.

Yuan Shikai told them that when the soldiers had meat to eat and money to earn, they came, and when they arrived at the front line, Yuan Shikai told them that whoever rushed into the position of the Huaxia army would be given ten taels of silver, and ten taels of silver was a great temptation for these peasants, so they desperately launched a charge.

The Huaxia army repelled the Qing army's attacks again and again with intensive firepower, but this group of Qing troops did not shoot to death at all, but rushed upward, and the Huaxia army dug an anti-infantry trench in front of the position, that is, a deep ditch, and there were sharp wooden stakes at the bottom of the ditch, and people who fell into the trench would be nailed to death on the sharp wooden stakes.

The frantic charge of the Qing army lasted for a whole day, and the dead bodies were piled up in front of the Huaxia army's position, this March was exceptionally warm, and the highest temperature during the day was close to 20 degrees Celsius, in such a high temperature, the corpses began to decompose, and the entire battlefield was densely filled with a thick smell of corpses.

A recruit once asked a veteran, what does corpse smell like? The veteran told the recruit to find a rotten egg, break it and put it in a basin, sprinkle a soak of urine in it, stir and stir, and the smell is the smell of corpses.

In the evening, the battle came to an end, and most of the ammunition of the Huaxia army was lost, and if there was no ammunition replenishment tonight, then tomorrow there would be a hand-to-hand fight with the Qing army.

Afraid of what, at midnight that day, there was a sudden fierce gunfire in the east of Shijiazhuang, a Qing army sneak attacked the transport team of the Huaxia Army, and all the ammunition transported was destroyed, this news made Lin Fei angry, which Qing army unit had this ability to sneak attack the transport team of the Huaxia Army. (Welcome to join the Canghai Readership Group - 423214695)