In a sense, the reason why the situation in Hubei has become so complicated is directly related to the entry of the Feng army.

Zhao Dongyun's large-scale entry into the customs was to break the superficial unity within Beiyang at once, and the Beiyang system was completely split after the establishment of the republican government last year, and the coalition army led by Zhao Dongyun and Wu Fengling and the coalition forces of Wang Yingkai, Wang Ruxian, Zhang Huaizhi, Duan Qirui, and Wang Shizhen fought fiercely, and the war spread from Zhili to Shandong, Henan, and Jiangsu provinces, forcing Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen, Zhang Huaizhi, and Wang Ruxian, who were fighting in the south, to send troops north to resist the southward movement of the Feng army.

With the complete defeat of Wang Yingkai and Wang Ruxian, and after Zhang Huaizhi's Lu army suffered heavy losses in Shandong, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen faced greater pressure on the Feng army, which was better for Duan Qirui, who had strong troops, although he was forced to draw a large number of troops from the southern front line to resist the Feng army in the north, but the Anhui army still retained a large number of troops in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces in the south, and even was able to fight Duanfang and Xiliangjie were defeated and retreated, and the troops were directed at Guangdong.

However, the situation has changed extremely bad for Wang Shizhen, Wang Shizhen's strength is far inferior to Duan Qirui, when he led the Second Army to the south, the troops under his command not only have his lineage's Sixth Division, Eighth Mixed Brigade, but also Wang Ruxian's Eighth Division.

However, with the annihilation of Wang Ruxian's Eighth Division and several mixed brigades of the Hubei Provincial Army sent to Henan by Wang Shizhen, the forces under Wang Shizhen's control were greatly reduced, and his condition deteriorated further because of the loss of this territory in southern Henan.

After Wang Shizhen and Wang Ruxian's troops were defeated in Henan, Wang Shizhen only had 60,000 troops left, and finally he was forced to transfer troops from Hankou and Hanyang to the north to Wushengguan to block the Feng army to the south, so that Wang Shizhen's troops in Hanyang and Hankou were only more than 30,000 people.

Not only the rapid reduction of troops, but also the rapid reduction of his ammunition inventory, originally before Zhao Dongyun entered the customs, Wang Shizhen was also able to obtain shells and bullets and rifles from Zhao Dongyun from the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but with the entry of the Feng army into the customs, the source of ammunition in this area was naturally cut off, although it was possible to purchase some ammunition by way of outsourcing, but the price of imported ordnance was extremely expensive, and because several major warlords in China were rushing to import weapons and ammunition, the amount of ammunition that could be obtained in time was very limited.

Coupled with his limited financial resources, this has led Wang Shizhen to be in a very bad situation in the past month or two!

After half a year of recovery, the First Army of the Northern Expedition under Zhang Zhidong and the newly formed Fourth Army of the Northern Expedition have swelled to more than 150,000, although the weapons and equipment are not good, but so many people are there, and it is reasonable to take the opportunity to launch a counteroffensive to take Xiaogan with more fights and fewer and then divide Wang Shizhen's troops in the north and south.

If only from a military and strategic point of view, Feng Jun is actually barely half an ally with the Southern Federation, because they both have the same enemy, that is, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen.

However, the reality cannot be looked at so simply, because the Southern Federation and the Feng army are also hostile, and this hostile relationship is even stronger than the hostile relationship between the Feng army and the Anhui army.

If the war between the Feng army, the Anhui army, and the Hubei army is only an internal war in Beiyang, then the war between Beiyang and the Southern Federation is an external war. If the internal war in Beiyang is a conflict of interests, then the war between Beiyang and the Southern Federation is a conflict of principle.

Unless the Southern Federation is willing to give up its independence and is willing to obey the leadership of the Northern Republican Government, no matter who is in charge of the Northern Republican Government, then it will continue to fight with the Southern Federation until the winner is decided.

So from this point of view, it is impossible for Zhao Dongyun to reach a de facto alliance with the Southern Federation, and even a superficial alliance is impossible, although they face the same enemy, they are also enemies of each other.

Zhao Dongyun not only wants to fight Wang Shizhen, but also fights the Southern Federation.

However, in the strategy envisaged by Zhao Dongyun before, it was to slow down Hubei, let Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation continue to hold on, and then he concentrated most of his troops and resources to take northern Jiangsu first, and suppressed the momentum of Duan Qirui's rapid expansion, of course, it is unrealistic to completely cross the Yangtze River to control the two rivers, after all, the Anhui army has more than 100,000 people, even if half of the troops are wiped out in northern Jiangsu, the Anhui army can still draw troops from the southern front to the north to aid the Yangtze River moat, and even if the Feng army can take northern Jiangsu, Its own losses will not be small, and after half a year of entering the customs and fighting southward, the Feng army also needs time to rest and recuperate in order to restore the combat effectiveness of the troops, and more importantly, the Feng army needs time to restock ammunition, food and other military supplies to prepare for the next large-scale battle.

In order to prepare for the Northern Jiangsu Campaign, the Feng army prepared for more than a month, and this was still in the case of a qiēshun lì.

Therefore, from a practical point of view, after the Feng army takes northern Jiangsu, it needs at least one more time to rest and recuperate, and then it can relaunch a large-scale southward combat operation.

Therefore, the war in the direction of the two rivers is not a matter of one or two months, but will take three or four months, or even half a year or even longer.

In this case, Zhao Dongyun needs to maintain calm on other fronts during this time period, especially in the direction of Henan and Hubei.

However, the changes in the situation in Hubei have exceeded Zhao Dongyun's imagination, Wang Shizhen is in danger in Hubei, this Wang Shizhen himself failed and is a small matter, and more importantly, it will make the Feng army directly face the threat of more than 100,000 troops under Zhang Zhidong in the future.

Although Zhao Dongyun was confident that Zhang Zhidong's hundreds of thousands of people would not be able to fight all the way up along the Jinghan line, in order to deal with Zhang Zhidong, he had to be forced to draw troops and materials from other directions to Henan, and this would directly affect the war in northern Jiangsu.

In the case of a two-front battle, it will be difficult for Zhao Dongyun to guarantee that his troops will still be able to achieve a key victory in northern Jiangsu, and if he fails to take Jiangsu and Anhui provinces for a long time, it will have an irreparable impact on his subsequent strategy of unifying China.

When he figured this out, Zhao Dongyun felt that it was necessary to intervene in the situation in Hubei, and Wang Shizhen could not be defeated, at least not until the Feng army took Jiangsu and Anhui.

At this time, the generals in the conference room continued to discuss, but Zhao Dongyun spoke: "No matter how Hubei changes, the war in northern Jiangsu will remain the same, and the strategic focus of our army will still be in northern Jiangsu, which I think you all understand!" And the Henan side can't ignore it, although the 11th Division has to end its deployment in other areas and then station in Xinyang, and the patrol force needs to assume the necessary responsibilities for the garrison tasks in other areas of Henan! ”

"Then the Eighth Division will be transferred to Zhengzhou, and the defense tasks on the front line of Shijiazhuang and along the Jinghan Railway will be temporarily transferred to other troops, and the specific transfer of that unit will be arranged by your combat office!"

Speaking of this, Zhao Dongyun said again: "In addition, in the future, it is necessary for us to continue to strengthen the training and tasks of the patrol police force, and the three patrol police regiments sent to northern Jiangsu through the three patrol police regiments can still serve as part of the combat mission after reorganization." For example, many local defenses in Henan and Nanzhili can be handed over to the patrol force to be responsible! ”

In the past month or two, the patrol police units within the Fengjun system have undertaken more and more tasks, in addition to the newly formed patrol police units in Shandong and Henan provinces, a number of patrol police regiments formed in the three eastern provinces in the early years have in fact undertaken tasks that should have been undertaken by the regular army, such as the three patrol police regiments in northern Jiangsu, and the tasks they are responsible for are usually tasks that are the responsibility of the regular army.

And with a large number of the main forces of the Feng army fighting in the south, a lot of the combat readiness tasks in the rear are actually taken over by the patrol forces, especially in the three eastern provinces and the two regions of Zhili, although there is still a certain number of regular troops, but there is only one tenth mixed brigade left in the huge three eastern provinces, but only one mixed brigade can not control the huge area of the three eastern provinces, so most of the areas are actually dependent on the patrol force to control the deployment, such as the Anton Garrison Command, the Harbin Garrison Command, etc., They are all patrol police officers.

It's just that even a few patrol units have a certain combat capacity, but in fact, these patrol units are not regular troops no matter what, not only do they have no artillery, they don't even have heavy machine guns, and in addition to the original patrol units in the three eastern provinces, all of them are equipped with Fuyuan 88 rifles, and those patrol police units formed on the spot after entering the customs even have rifles in a mess, and even have rear-loading rifles.

Except for a very small number of patrol police units whose combat effectiveness is barely passable, the combat effectiveness of the vast majority of patrol police units is very worrying, and even those provincial armies under Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen, and Wu Fengling are not as good as those provincial troops, although the combat effectiveness of those provincial troops is not good, but people still have new rifles such as Type 88 rifles or Japanese-style rifles, and there will also be a considerable number of artillery and heavy machine guns.

Although these provincial troops are not as good as those old Beiyang troops, they can still be pulled into the battlefield to fight, but the patrol troops made by Zhao Dongyun lack this ability.

Otherwise, Zhao Dongyun would have transferred these patrol police units to the front line to fight the enemy.

As for the large-scale arming of these patrol units, it is too cost-effective, these patrol police units are complex, old and young, and weak, even if they are equipped with artillery and heavy machine guns, unless all the soldiers are replaced, and then the treatment of soldiers is raised, otherwise don't expect them to become a regular army.

Don't look at the patrol police in the Feng army, there are dozens of patrol police regiments in all provinces now, and the total number of troops is more than 60,000, but in fact, the cost of these patrol police units is very limited, the salaries of soldiers are very low, there are no heavy weapons, and they can't even shoot a few bullets for training, and the cost of raising these people is not even as much as the cost of Zhao Dongyun raising a mixed brigade.

If there is money to build these patrol police units into regular troops, then Zhao Dongyun might as well directly form a few new divisions!

Therefore, Zhao Dongyun would rather directly reorganize the 14th and 15th Divisions than spend great efforts to strengthen the training and equipment level of the patrol force.

It's just that the situation is so tense now, even if the combat effectiveness of these patrol forces is poor, Zhao Dongyun is forced to gradually reuse them.

Zhao Dongyun once again mobilized a number of patrol regiments with better conditions to enter Henan and Nanzhili on a large scale, but it was far from enough to station patrol regiments in strategic places like Shijiazhuang.

Naturally, it is not feasible to transfer a certain brigade or regiment on a large scale, and every main force of the Feng army cannot be transferred lightly, so Zhao Dongyun has no choice but to follow the old method of the past, draw troops from various units on a small scale, and then organize them into a new unit.

Specifically, one infantry battalion of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, one infantry battalion of the Seventh Mixed Brigade, and two infantry battalions of the Eighth Division were transferred, and the Eleventh Mixed Brigade was formed with these four infantry battalions as the backbone.

As for the missing cavalry company, it was first transferred from the First Cavalry Brigade a cavalry platoon to top it first, although there were many of them in the Feng army, but the recent expansion of the Feng army was too rapid, the First Cavalry Brigade has successively transferred up to four cavalry companies to other newly formed troops, and the follow-up cavalry had to be transferred to the 14th Division and the 15th Division as the backbone of the divisional cavalry regiment, so there was no more at all, so it could only be made a cavalry platoon to the 11th Mixed Brigade first.

As for the artillery battalion, only one artillery company with four 75-mm mountain guns was transferred from the 7th Mixed Brigade.

In this patchwork way, the 11th Mixed Brigade was finally able to come up with an 11th Mixed Brigade to garrison Shijiazhuang, but this 11th Mixed Brigade was said to be a mixed brigade, but in fact it was only the size of a reinforced regiment, with a total strength of less than 3,000.

When Zhao Dongyun sent troops to reinforce Henan, Hankou, Hubei.

Wang Shizhen's face was gloomy, and a young general beside him who was full of anxiety said in a panicked tone: "Dashuai, it's too late if we don't break through!" ”

"Now there are at least 40,000 enemy troops in Xiaogan going south, and there are 50,000 enemy troops who crossed the river to counterattack yesterday, and now there are only more than 20,000 soldiers in our army, plus the lack of ammunition, the soldiers are exhausted from fighting for many days, and if it drags on, I am afraid it will ......" another person persuaded.

Wang Shizhen didn't answer immediately, but stood up and looked outside, the smoke rising from the explosion of the shells could be vaguely seen in the distance, and the sound of shells and machine guns was also coming into his ears one after another, and the army of the Southern Federation was getting closer and closer.

At this moment, he remembered that he led the army to fight south at the beginning of the year, and fought all the way from Zhili to Hankou, Hubei in less than two months, what a scenery it was at that time!

But today, half a year later, I was forced to flee from the wolf?

Wang Shizhen's clenched fist was full of hideous blood vessels, making people feel as if he was even crushing his finger bones!

Wang Shizhen continued to be silent, and the more than ten generals of the Hubei army behind him were all you look at me, I look at you, most of them looked anxious, and after waiting for a while, they saw Wang Shizhen turn around.

Then I just listened to him: "Contact Jurentang in the north, and say that I want to talk to him!" ”