Due to the preservation of the Jinghan Railway, the southward reinforcements of the Third Army of the Feng Army were quite fast, and it took almost a few days for the first batch of reinforcements of the Third Army to arrive outside Zhengzhou.

In fact, the construction of railways in contemporary China, one of the very important reasons is the military role, such as the previous railway inside and outside the Guan, now the Jingfeng Railway, the original goal of the Qing Dynasty to build this railway is not to develop the economy of the three eastern provinces, but to facilitate the transfer of troops from inside the customs to outside the customs.

The same Jinghan Railway also has a heavy military role, when the Feng army in other directions needs to march on foot, and can only walk twenty or thirty kilometers a day, the Feng army on the Jinghan Line can maneuver hundreds of kilometers a day, and the troops of more than 30,000 troops from two divisions of the Third Army from Beijing to Zhengzhou only took a week!

With the reinforcement of Zhengzhou by the Third Army, Meng Enyuan's First Army and Chen Guangyuan's Third Army carried out the final encirclement attack on Zhengzhou, and the more than 10,000 remnants of Wang Ruxian and Wang Shizhen, who defended Zhengzhou, could not resist the onslaught of more than 70,000 troops of the Feng army, and Zhengzhou was not backed by Mount Tai like Jinan, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, so this Zhengzhou campaign was much easier than many people imagined.

Two days after the Feng army launched the attack, the remnants of Wang Ruxian's Eighth Division, which was demoralized, suffered a large-scale rout, and the rout of the remnants of the Eighth Division directly led to the nearly 10,000 people under Wang Shizhen's command, followed by large-scale surrender and rout.

In this battle, the Eighth Division under Wang Ruxian and part of the Henan Provincial Army and Wang Shizhen's troops had nearly 3,000 casualties, nearly 10,000 surrendered and were captured, and another 7,000 or 8,000 people fled.

And the combined casualties of the First and Third Armies were only eight hundred!

From this Zhengzhou Campaign, it can almost be seen that the Shijiazhuang Campaign and the Anyang Campaign have already caused Wang Ruxian's Eighth Division to suffer heavy losses, and the Eighth Division in the Zhengzhou Campaign is just a remnant of the Battle.

And in the Battle of Zhengzhou, the Feng army also had an unexpected gain, that is, they captured Wang Ruxian.

"Brother Meng, what do you say about this person? Sent directly back to Jingshi? Chen Guangyuan felt a little headache for Wang Ruxian, who was captured, this person is really, if you are defeated in the battle, you will run away, or you will learn from Wang Yingkai and they will announce their departure and then flee into the foreign embassy, or simply commit suicide.

However, this Wang Ruxian was so good that he did not succeed in escaping, but was captured by the Feng army and became a veritable prisoner.

Meng Enyuan also rushed to Wang Ruxian with a headache, you must know that these big warlords in China are not simple people, and although Wang Ruxian's reputation cannot be compared with Duan Qirui and them, but he is also a famous domestic warlord, and according to the Beiyang tradition from last year to the present, the Feng army generally does not kill all the warlords in Beiyang, basically if you surrender, you will selectively accept, if you announce that you will go out of the country, you can also be a prince in the concession.

How to say it, after all, the big guys were all colleagues last year, and everyone in the Yuan Shikai era was also called brothers, and they drank together and fooled around, and the Beiyang system was too strongly influenced by Confucianism, especially the high-level leaders in Beiyang generally have a strong feudal Confucian complex, very vain reputation, cherish reputation, and those revolutionaries who play assassination every day are completely different.

So throughout the history of Beiyang, you will find two very interesting terms, that is: Shimono, Yugong!

Failed warlords all announced their departure from the wilderness and then ran to the concession to serve as dukes, and it was rare to say that there was such a thing as a rush to extermination, which is not seen in other systems.

Originally, this Wang Ruxian had already been defeated, so he didn't need to be arrested by the army to arrest him, he should have published the Xiaye telegram with interest, and then ran to the concession as a duke, but this person didn't release the Xiaye telegram, nor did he run away or commit suicide, which made Meng Enyuan feel a little difficult to deal with.

In fact, Wang Ruxian can't be blamed for this, people also want to escape, but the speed of the fall of Zhengzhou is too fast, only three days before and after, this time is just a blink of an eye for a large-scale battle, before he can react, the army has been defeated, there is no time for him to have enough time to announce what to send a telegram or something, and before he even has time to lead the guards to escape, the Feng army has already killed in front of his headquarters, so he is very helpless to become a prisoner of war!

"Send a report first to ask the president what he means, and then deal with it!" Meng Enyuan didn't seem to do anything without authorization, although Wang Ruxian was a warlord who rose later, but this person's identity was too special, and it would be of no benefit to him to deal with it without authorization, and Meng Enyuan didn't plan to stay in Zhengzhou for long.

The General Staff has called him many times, asking him to lead the First Army eastward to Kaifeng, and then go straight to Xuzhou!

This Zhengzhou has already been taken, so he does not plan to stay in Zhengzhou for longer, and is ready to let the forward troops advance eastward tomorrow, and he is also leading the main force to keep up, and the task of Zhengzhou's defense and subsequent southward operations is naturally responsible for Chen Guangyuan's Third Army.

When the telegram that captured Wang Ruxian arrived in Zhao Dongyun's hands, it also made Zhao Dongyun a little surprised, but he didn't have much feeling for Wang Ruxian, let alone now, even in the Beiyang era, Wang Ruxian's status was far inferior to him Zhao Dongyun, at that time, Zhao Dongyun was with Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui and called the three big bosses in Beiyang, even Zhang Huaizhi, Wu Fengling and others had to consider themselves second-rate, and Wang Ruxian was just the leader of the Henan New Army last year. If Wang Yingkai hadn't co-opted him and given him the number of the Eighth Division, he would not have developed into the current situation.

So Zhao Dongyun just called back, asked Wang Ruxian to send a telegram to the lower field first, and then arranged for him to enter Beijing, anyway, this person can't be killed, and he can't be released, first put under house arrest, and then talk about it, and when the situation stabilizes in the future, you can consider letting him go to the concession as a duke.

"Now that Zhengzhou has been taken, does the next transfer of the combat department have a plan?" Zhao Dongyun said.

Shi Yanglin said: "The War Department has ordered the First Army to move east to Kaifeng and Guide on the same day, approaching Xuzhou. In addition, the Third Army has also been asked to send troops to continue to go south to Ruzhou, Xuzhou, Nanyang, Runing and other prefectures and counties, but considering that the border between Henan and Hubei provinces is mountainous, and Wusheng Pass is difficult to attack and easy to defend, so the follow-up operations of the Third Army are mainly to peep at Wusheng Pass in addition to recovering the prefectures and counties in southern Henan. ”

Zhao Dongyun nodded: "Wusheng Pass and Hubei don't have to worry first, first control Henan and clear the remnants of the enemy army, hum, they can guard at Wusheng Pass, and we can also block their northbound passage at Wusheng Pass." ”

"The follow-up strategic focus has to be placed on the Xuzhou side, I have asked the Quartermaster Department and the Ordnance Department to make relevant adjustments, and the ammunition supply in Henan will be reduced a lot in the future, and the freed up part will be used to supply the Xuzhou direction, so the combat department should take this into account when considering the war in Henan and Hubei."

Shi Yanglin said: "The ministry understands! ”

Now the senior generals of the Feng army basically know that the life and death enemy of the Feng army is not Wang Shizhen, nor the Southern Federation, but Duan Qirui, and it can even be said that the reason why he is in such a hurry to take Zhengzhou is also to be able to transfer troops to the front line of Xuzhou, in order to ensure that the troops and ammunition on the front line of Xuzhou are sufficient, it is natural to appropriately shrink the troops and supplies of other fronts.

And Shi Yanglin naturally understands that with the end of the Zhengzhou Campaign, the strategic focus of the follow-up Feng army will be fully shifted to the front line with Xuzhou, and the Henan side will be transferred to a strategic defensive posture, on the one hand, it is to eliminate the remnants of the enemy, bandits, and other armed forces in Henan, and on the other hand, it is enough to stop Wang Shizhen's troops and prevent them from going north.

And these tasks are the tasks of the newly formed Third Army, one of the two divisions in the Third Army is newly formed, and the other is the reorganization of the soldiers of the direct army to surrender to Cheng, so it can be said that the combat effectiveness is actually limited, and leaving them in Henan will not affect the strength of the Feng army's troops participating in the battle on the front line in Xuzhou.

With Chen Guangyuan's Third Army attacking in Henan, quickly captured a number of towns, including the 13th Division all the way south to reach Wusheng Pass, but what reassured Wang Shizhen was that the 13th Division of the Feng Army did not launch a large-scale attack, but dug trenches not far away, set up tent barracks, Feng Army naturally did not take the initiative to attack, the troops in his hands were in short supply, and Wang Shizhen, who was fighting on two fronts, also had no intention of counterattacking Henan, and sent more than 10,000 people to garrison Wusheng Pass.

Wusheng Pass, a famous Xiongguan in the world, although it is no longer the era of cold weapons, the importance of these so-called Xiongguan in the world has decreased significantly, but the terrain that is easy to defend and difficult to attack is still very conducive to defense, Wang Shizhen estimates that there are more than 10,000 people to defend, and the Feng army on the opposite side does not have 40,000 or 50,000 people who don't want to attack.

So, after the Battle of Zhengzhou, Wang Shizhen was sitting and watching the war between Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun, and at the same time thinking about how to take down the damn Wuchang and completely destroy Zhang Zhidong and control Hubei.

With the development of the situation, unconsciously, people are staring at the front line of Xuzhou, not to mention the people of the Soviet Union and the Anhui system, even the Duan Fang and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation are also staring at the front line of Xuzhou with wide eyes, because if nothing else, there is about to break out here A war of the largest scale so far last year, when the Soviet Feng army and the Anhui army will gather more than 100,000 or even more than 200,000 troops to conduct a super-large-scale battle, and the victory or defeat of this battle will directly affect the development of the subsequent situation in China.

To put it bluntly, this imminent war will directly determine who can reach the pinnacle of power and unify China between Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui!