Qiyunzhuang, a small village in Gwangju, Henan Province, was just an ordinary town in the past, and there was nothing worth noting.

At the beginning of the month, the 23rd Patrol Regiment suffered a crushing defeat in the area, with more than 1,000 troops overcoming the bandits entrenched in the place, and in the end not only failed to defeat them, but killed and wounded more than 300 people.

This incident certainly reflects the fact that the patrol force under the Feng army system has low combat effectiveness, but it also reflects how chaotic the situation in Henan is, after all, even if the patrol force of the Feng army is slag in combat effectiveness, it also represents the official government army, and it was defeated by a group of bandits.

Facing the big nail of Qiyunzhuang, Qin Luanyun hated it so much, although he suffered a fiasco, but he quickly transferred the 21st Patrol Police Regiment from several other directions, preparing to gather the remnants of the 23rd Patrol Police Regiment to conquer Qiyunzhuang again, and personally came to the door to ask Yang Deming, the commander of the 14th Division of the Central Army, who had only arrived in Zhengzhou a few days ago, and asked Yang Deming to send a regular army to help him.

Yang Deming was speechless about this!

The 14th Division under his command was the main force of the new formation, which was pinned on by countless people, including Zhao Dongyun, and many military and political dignitaries of the Soviet Department hoped that the 14th Division would be able to play the same tremendous role as the Third, Ninth, and Tenth Divisions, and even exert its combat effectiveness beyond the above three divisions, so as to lead them onto the broad road of reunification.

However, the first battle of such an elite division, which took countless manpower and material resources to build, was not to fight with the Anhui army or the Southern Federation, but to deal with small bandits.

This somewhat makes Yang Deming, who thinks highly of himself, a little unacceptable.

However, there is no way to accept it, he knows very well that the reason why Zhao Dongyun gave him the order to cooperate with the local patrol force to exterminate the bandits in Henan and suppress the local situation is naturally due to Zhao Dongyun's own reasons.

That is, I hope that through a series of anti-bandit battles, the 14th Division will quickly increase its actual combat experience!

Although the actual combat experience of suppressing bandits is not very useful for regular battles, it is much better to let soldiers see blood anyway than to go directly to the cruel battlefield without seeing blood and corpses.

When Zhao Dongyun was in Jinzhou and had only one third mixed association under his command, he killed the bandits in western Liaoning, which not only played a role in training troops, but also captured a large number of trophies, and the original expansion of the army provided a lot of help.

Later, Zhao Dongyun became the general of Shengjing, and after successively controlling the entire three eastern provinces, he also vigorously suppressed bandits, and the bandits in the past few years were suppressed by Guò, and today in 1908, the famous Northeast bandits in the late Qing Dynasty have become the dust of history.

After Zhao Dongyun successively took control of Zhili, Shandong and other places, he also carried out vigorous rectification of Zhili and Shandong in the early stage, but he did not mobilize many main forces to launch a large-scale anti-bandit operation as he did in the Northeast.

Now here in Henan, the Feng army continues the tradition of suppressing bandits!

In order to cooperate with the patrol force in the operation of Qiyunzhuang in Gwangju, Yang Deming sent an infantry battalion to the south to support, of course, the task of this infantry battalion is not only to fight a Qiyunzhuang, in fact, the task area of this infantry battalion is much broader, it wants to clear the bandit activities from Gwangju in Henan to Lu'anzhou in Anhui, and make preliminary preparations for the subsequent opening up of a land supply channel from Xinyang to Gwangju, then to Lu'anzhou, and then to Anqingfu.

At present, the vanguard troops of the First Army of the Feng Army, which is currently operating in Anhui, have already marched to Anqing Mansion, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they have reached the edge of the Yangtze River.

However, at this time, all kinds of ordnance and ammunition of the First Army need to be transferred from distant Zhengzhou or Lianyungang, and the length of its supply line is as high as seven or eight hundred kilometers, in order to shorten the distance of supply on foot, but also to make better use of the Jinghan Railway, so the Ministry of Munitions proposed to take Xinyang as a new supply transit station, and open up a supply and transportation channel starting from Xinyang, passing through Ruzhou and Guangzhou in the southeast of Henan, and entering Lu'an Prefecture and Anqing Prefecture in Anhui.

If this supply line can be successfully opened, then the First Army's supply distance on foot can be reduced by more than half.

However, this area, especially in the Ruzhou and Gwangju areas in Henan, is entrenched in a large number of bandits, militia groups and other informal armed forces, if a large number of illegal armed forces in this area are not cleared, then it is impossible for the Feng army to let a large number of baggage pass from here with peace of mind, as for the armed escort, once or twice is fine, if the distance is short, it does not hurt to have a lot of times, but the key is that this distance is not short, and it is impossible for the Feng army to draw at least tens of thousands of main troops for the armed escort of this supply line.

If you want to avoid armed escorts in the future, then the easiest way is to wipe out the bandits and militias entrenched in this area.

The military has this strategic need, and for the sake of training!

Only then did the 14th Division go south, and instead of going to the front line as soon as possible, it ran to southern Henan to suppress bandits!

With the addition of the 14th Division, the bandits in southern Henan are naturally unable to resist, and Qiyunzhuang is no exception.

Qi Yunzhuang was originally controlled by a family surnamed Qi, but later in the civil war between the north and the south, a group of more than 300 Southern Federation rout troops arrived here, and I don't know what means to pass guò, what agreement was reached between the leader of the rout army 'Colonel Liu' and the head of the Qi family, not only promised to provide for the needs of this rout army, but even married his daughter to the officer. At that time, Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation had retreated to Wuchang, and Wang Shizhen soon took control of the southern Henan region, and this group of Southern Federation routs soon changed their ways, calling themselves the Qiyunzhuang Security Corps, absorbing Zhuang Ding Nursing Courtyard, and then going out to plunder everywhere, and soon it developed to a scale of nearly 1,000 people.

And unlike ordinary bandits and militia groups who lack soldiers and guns, this Qiyunzhuang security regiment has more than 700 new-style rifles, which is placed on its base of less than 1,000 people, and the combatants can be regarded as a quick robbery, which is not counted, and more importantly, Colonel Liu does not know where to get a Makqin machine gun.

You must know that this is a machine gun, let alone bandits, and there are not many of the regular troops of those warlords, although there are more regular troops in the Feng army, but the patrol force also does not have this kind of killing weapon.

When the 23rd Patrol Regiment of the Feng Army attacked Qiyunzhuang, it was stunned by this heavy machine gun!

However, this 'security regiment', which made the Zhengzhou Garrison Command helpless, was vulnerable in front of the 14th Division!

Looking at the white dust raised by the explosion of mortar shells in the distance, Major Pan Tongjun, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the 55th Regiment under the command of the 14th Division, showed a satisfied smile.

"These boys didn't waste so much live-fire training, it's still pretty good!"

The young adjutant on the side also smiled and admitted: "What the battalion commander said is right, our third battalion doesn't dare to say anything else, but with the battalion commander who was born as a mortar officer, you personally know the training, and the artillery skills of this mortar are naturally the first class in the whole division!" ”

For the flattery of the adjutant, Pan Tongjun also smiled!

Not to mention, he is still relatively confident in the mortar artillery skills of the third battalion under his command, he himself is not the same as most of the other officers of the 14th Division is from Germany or advanced study, he used to be the first batch of mortar gunners in the Feng army, and later because of his superb artillery skills, coupled with the appreciation of his superiors, he was recommended to enter the crash course of the Fengjun Military Academy, and his graduation results can only be regarded as average, so he naturally cannot get the opportunity to study in Germany or enter the Army University, After a few years, he was promoted from platoon commander to company commander, deputy battalion commander, and battalion commander.

Although he does not have the dazzling education and talent of those sons of heaven, but if you talk about combat experience, he is definitely the first person in the twelve infantry battalion commanders of the 14th Division, this person joined the army before Gengzi, fought boxers, followed Zhao Dongyun to suppress the Guangzong rebellion, fought bandits after arriving in western Liaoning, fought with Wang Shizhen's sixth town in 1906, and later followed the third town to participate in many battles.

In the Battle of Xuzhou, his immediate boss battalion commander was injured and was forced to stay in the rear to recuperate, he acted as the deputy battalion commander of the captain, and then commanded the battalion to participate in the Battle of Bengbu and the Battle of Chuzhou, after the Battle of Chuzhou he was transferred to the 14th Division as the commander of the third battalion, and the rank was finally promoted to major.

Born in the first batch of mortar artillerymen, he was naturally extremely proficient in mortar artillery, and the mortar artillerymanship of the third battalion, which he had personally trained, greatly improved.

The effectiveness of mortar shelling of the 3rd battalion today is ample proof of this!

After seeing an overwhelming explosion, the machine gun position of Qiyunzhuang in the distance to protect the safety was already full of blood, and without the machine gun fire to block it, the Qiyunzhuang security regiment on the opposite side would be even more unable to stop the attack of the third battalion.

In just half an hour, the Qiyunzhuang security regiment of nearly 1,000 people became the dust of history, in addition to more than 60 people who were killed by bullets and shells, more than 100 people were injured, more than 400 people were captured, and more than 300 people turned around and ran.

Pan Tongjun didn't look much at the dejected captives: "Tell you to go down, be sure to catch up, well, don't let them enter the depths of Dabie Mountain, it's not good to find." In addition, we are not familiar with the terrain here, so we will chase after the patrol force! ”

Although the combat effectiveness of the patrol police force is not good, but it is a snake on the ground, and the patrol police units in the Fengjun system basically follow the principle of local formation and local garrison, so most of the patrol police units are familiar with the local situation. However, there are a few exceptions, such as the original Tangshan First Patrol Police Regiment, and now the 13th Patrol Police Regiment after the unified patrol number, although the regiment used to have the name of Tangshan, but it was actually recruited and formed in western Liaoning, and then went to Tangshan to garrison. The same situation is also the Third Patrol Police Regiment and the Sixth Patrol Police Regiment now stationed in Shandong, and the Fifth Patrol Police Regiment, the Eighth Patrol Police Regiment, and the Sixteenth Patrol Police Regiment stationed in northern Jiangsu.

These patrol regiments are the only patrol regiments among the dozens of patrol regiments of the Feng Army, which are organized in different places and garrisons. As for the patrol cavalry battalion, it is not among them, the patrol cavalry battalion has always been used as a regular army in the Fengjun sequence, and it is different from the patrol regiment.

Since the vast majority of patrol police regiments follow the principle of local formation and local garrison, most of these patrol regiments can be regarded as local snakes, which is conducive to the suppression of localities.

Therefore, even if the third battalion of the 14th Division is strong in combat, the ten 21st Patrol Police Regiments combined can't beat them if they only talk about fighting, but in specific operations, the 3rd Battalion is more dependent on the 21st Patrol Regiment in some cooperation in intelligence!

As a result, in this 'Southern Henan Public Security Enhancement Operation' jointly launched by the Zhengzhou Garrison Command and the 14th Division, the 14th Division and the four patrol regiments under the jurisdiction of the Zhengzhou Garrison Command worked vigorously together, basically the patrol regiment led the way, and the troops of the 14th Division were brought to a bandit den. After the militia regiment, those patrol regiments would come out of nowhere, and then clean up the battlefield while shouting about their military exploits.

If it is seen by a person who has experienced the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, it is estimated that his jaw will drop: Isn't this the Imperial Army and the Imperial Army? How did you get here!