On November 15, after arriving in Bengbu, the 3rd Division of the Gu Lanyu Division of the Feng Army quickly launched an attack on Bengbu.

However, the attack was unsatisfactory, although the Anhui army in Bengbu was far less strong than in Xuzhou, and the defense line was not as large as the Xuzhou defense line, but only a third division attacked Bengbu.

With a force of more than 10,000 people, he attacked the Anhui army of more than 20,000 people, and most of the more than 20,000 people were Duan Qirui's descendant of the Fourth Division.

At the same time, in order to avoid excessive casualties, Gu Lanyu did not launch a large-scale assault, but thought about delaying time and waiting for the arrival of the follow-up Ninth Division, the First Division, the Fourth Mixed Brigade and other troops.

But what he didn't know was that Duan Qirui also wanted to delay time, if it weren't for the fact that he was delaying more time to draw reinforcements from the southern troops to the north, in order to establish a solid Yangtze River defense line in the future, Duan Qirui would not have risked fighting a defensive battle in Bengbu.

As a result, the battle on the 15th was somewhat dull, Gu Lanyu only dispatched a regiment to attack, and it was mainly based on fire reconnaissance. Duan Qirui saw that the Third Division did not have many offensive troops, so naturally he would not send too many troops to play counteroffensive or the like, but continued to build a defensive line in one go.

However, while the Bengbu front line was calm, the rear of the two sides was frequent.

Duan Qirui has issued orders many times in a row, dispatching troops stationed in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and even Fujian to the north to reinforce them, and these troops do not directly cross the river to reinforce Bengbu, but go to Shanghai, Zhenjiang, Jinling, Anqing and other places, and use the above-mentioned important cities along the Yangtze River as the base points to form a complete Yangtze River defense line.

On the side of the Feng army, the follow-up Ninth Division, the Fourth Mixed Brigade, the First Division and other troops did not stay too long after successively taking Xuzhou, Suzhou and other places, but continued to go south to reinforce Bengbu and other central Anhui regions.

It is worth noting that the First Army of the Feng Army in the Anhui region faced not only the Anhui Army in Bengbu, but also Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division of nearly 10,000 people, and Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division entrenched in the border area of Anhui and Henan.

Although Zhang Huaizhi's Lu army suffered successive heavy defeats, it went relatively early on the Suzhou side, successfully escaped from the encirclement of the Feng army with nearly 10,000 people of the Fifth Division, and then continued to retreat south along the Mengcheng area, followed by the 4th Mixed Brigade and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the Feng Army, which were in hot pursuit.

In addition, as the Feng army moved south, Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division also made small-scale contact with the Feng army.

Since Wang Zhanyuan entered the western part of Anhui, he forcibly took control of this area despite Zhang Huaizhi's opposition, and then wantonly collected money in the local area, and he also knew that he could not occupy these territories for a long time, so the means of looting were very ruthless. Wang Zhanyuan used the money he collected to recruit soldiers on a large scale on the one hand, and to buy ordnance from foreign foreign companies on the other.

Although it was not possible to recover a large number of artillery, heavy machine guns, and other weapons that had been lost in the past three or four months, the armaments such as rifles and bullets were still replenished, and the number of the Seventh Division under his command increased from 10,000 to more than 20,000.

Although the Seventh Division under Wang Zhanyuan is said to be a division, it is actually the same as the Fourth Division, which is overstaffed, and in addition to the two infantry brigades and an artillery regiment, it also has two so-called independent regiments.

The Fourth Division under Duan Qirui had three brigades and one regiment, and although the Second Mixed Brigade was also a mixed brigade, it had three infantry regiments and two artillery battalions, with a strength of tens of thousands of troops, far exceeding the establishment of four or five thousand ordinary mixed brigades. This is the case with the Seventh Division under Wang Zhanyuan and the Sixth Division under Wang Shizhen, in addition to the formal establishment, there are also so-called supplementary brigades, independent regiments and the like.

This is not only the case with the descendants of many warlords in Beiyang, but also with the few main forces of the Southern Federation, such as the nineteenth town under Zhao Erxun, which is called a town, but it has three infantry associations and one cavalry association, with nearly 30,000 people.

The strength has recovered, and Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division is also an opponent that cannot be ignored for the Feng army!

In this way, there are four large-scale and different troops in Anhui, namely the Feng Army, the Anhui Army, the Lu Army, and the Seventh Division.

And what is very unfortunate is that the latter three troops are all enemies of the Feng army!

In order to deal with Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division and Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division, it was actually difficult for the First Army under Meng Enyuan to reinforce the Bengbu front line in a short period of time to support the operations of the Third Division under Xu Bangjie's Second Army. The 4th Mixed Brigade of the 1st Army was in the vicinity of Mengcheng, and the 1st Division was to reinforce the western part of Anhui from Xuzhou in the rear to guard against Wang Zhanyuan's 7th Division. As for the Ninth Division, it is also divided into troops to reinforce the Fourth Mixed Brigade, and the one that can reinforce the Third Division in a short period of time is at most a brigade.

As for the 10th Division, the other main force of the Second Army, since the battles of Suqian and Wanglanzhen, this division has continued to move south along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and has successively conquered Qingjiangpu and many prefectures and counties around Hongze Lake, and their task is not to go to Bengbu, Anhui, but to continue to take the entire northern Jiangsu region on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and is now marching towards Taizhou, Yangzhou, and other places.

As a result, the 3rd Division on the Bengbu front was able to obtain extremely limited reinforcements in the future.

And this situation undoubtedly gave Duan Qirui a great strategic buffer time!

On the one hand, he transferred troops from Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other places to the north to build a defense line on the Yangtze River, and on the other hand, he also actively contacted Zhang Huaizhi and Wang Zhanyuan, trying to get them to build a so-called Anhui defense line with him, but Zhang Huaizhi didn't know that Duan Qirui didn't plan to stay in Bengbu for a long time, as long as he let him take a breath and wait for the defense line on the Yangtze River to be completed, his next step was to run away immediately.

It's just that Duan Qirui doesn't know that he, Duan Qirui, is wooing them, and Zhao Dongyun is also wooing Zhang Huaizhi and Wang Zhanyuan, especially Wang Zhanyuan.

Fuyang, Yingzhou, like most of the prefectures and counties under the rule of the Beiyang Republican Government, still has old government signboards hanging on the door of the former government offices. After the republic last year, although it was already a republic on the surface, neither Wang Yingkai nor Zhao Dongyun had changed their local administrative organs on a large scale, and still maintained the provincial, prefectural, and county administrative organs, and most of the names had not changed, and only a small number of relatively large cities had been changed to 'cities' directly under the cabinet or provinces, such as Yingkou City, Tianjin City, and Shanghai Municipality.

After all, Zhao Dongyun's main energy is now focused on fighting wars, and even local government affairs are mainly focused on financial rectification and the development of industry and commerce.

Of course, there will also be changes in some areas that need to be changed, such as Huludao Industrial Zone, and Tangshan Special Administrative Office.

However, unlike other places, in addition to the distinctive signboard of the government, there is also a sign of the headquarters of the Seventh Division.

Since Wang Zhanyuan took control of the entire territory of Yingzhou Prefecture, the troops of Fengyang Prefecture, and part of Lu'an in southern Anhui, he set up his headquarters in Fuyang.

And Fuyang, which has been calm in the past two or three months, has not been very calm in recent days.

In the headquarters of the Seventh Division, Wang Zhanyuan and his subordinates were discussing with frowns!

"That Zhao Ziyang is not a good thing, he said that he wanted to cooperate with us, but he said that he wanted to send instructors over, and said that he could not build troops and collect taxes without authorization, which clearly means that he wants to annex us, if this is thrown at Zhao Ziyang, we will be the same as Lu Yongxiang and them at most in the future!" The middle-aged officer continued:

"But that Duan Qirui is not a good thing, saying that he is cooperating with us to fight against Zhao Ziyang, but this clearly wants us to use him as cannon fodder to block bullets, in the past half a month, we already have the first division and the fourth mixed brigade of the Feng Army on our side, and he Duan Qirui is still staying in Fengyang Bengbu!"

The more this man spoke, the more angry he became: "And that Zhang Huaizhi is also a wreck, tens of thousands of people have fought before, but there are less than 10,000 people left, if he wasn't defeated so quickly in Suzhou, how could we face the threat of the Feng army!" ”

Wang Zhanyuan listened to these words, and said in his heart that it was impossible not to be depressed!

Damn, he fled all the way from Zhili to Yingzhou, and finally occupied some territory and recovered a little vitality, but within two months, the army came to the side again, and it was not easy to be a warlord this year!

Originally, he still thought that the Anhui army and the Lu army would join forces, and he blocked the third army of the Feng army in Henan on the Yingzhou side, which was equivalent to indirectly protecting the safety of the hinterland of Anhui, so how could the Anhui army and the Lu army of 8'90,000 people not win, but how could they hold it in Xuzhou, even if they couldn't hold it, they should be able to support it until next year, but what he didn't expect was that the Lu army and the Anhui army were so unbeatable, and the Feng army that people came to attack was not much more than them, but they couldn't hold it. This made Wang Zhanyuan very despised, Duan Qirui and Zhang Huaizhi.

I think that when my Wang Zhanyuan was in Bazhou, there were only 10,000 people, but they resisted the attack of more than twice the strength of the Feng army, and the fifth brigade of the Feng army on the opposite side was in crisis in the early stage, and almost wrapped the dumplings of the fifth brigade of the Feng army. If it weren't for Wang Yingkai on the Jingshi side, who couldn't hold it first, it was uncertain who would win and who would lose in the battle of Bazhou.

Wang Zhanyuan, who thought like this, naturally ignored it, the seventh division he led at the beginning was the main force of Beiyang, and although the total strength of the Anhui army and the Lu army in the battle of northern Jiangsu was a lot, the main force was actually only a fourth division and the remnants of the fifth division, and it was not the above two old Beiyang troops that were defeated and retreated, but those Liangjiang Army, Zhejiang Provincial Army, and Anhui Provincial Army.

No matter how disdainful he is for Zhang Huaizhi and Duan Qirui in his heart, but in this situation now, he Wang Zhanyuan must make a choice, either choose to cooperate with Duan Qirui and Zhang Huaizhi to stop the southward momentum of the Feng army, or follow Lu Yongxiang and Zhang Dianru and they to take refuge in Zhao Dongyun, or just turn around and run away as when they were in Kaifeng, Henan, and then go to Jiangxi and other provinces to shoot a piece of land.

However, none of the above three are what he wants, although he Wang Zhanyuan has not risen for a long time, and it has only been two or three months since he entered the field of vision of the major warlords, but he still has ambitions, whether it is to take refuge in Duan Qirui or Zhao Dongyun, it is not what he wants.

Of course, it is not what he wants to resist the Feng army or give up the current territory, what he really wants is a territory and opportunity that can be used for his own development.

In this case, he has the intention to emulate Wang Shizhen, if he can reach an agreement with Zhao Dongyun, and he recognizes Zhao Dongyun as the president of the central government, and Zhao Dongyun also recognizes his actual control of power in the western part of Anhui, then he does not mind declaring allegiance to the central government like Wang Shizhen.

It's just that he wants to do something, but Zhao Dongyun doesn't want to!

Although he Zhao Dongyun is also called Zhao Guangtou, he is not Jiang Guangtou, he wants complete unification, not ostensibly the provinces are loyal to the central government, but in fact they all play independence. As for Meng Enyuan and Wang Shizhen, Zhao Dongyun cooperated with them for special reasons, and Wang Zhanyuan did not have the qualifications to let Zhao Dongyun be treated specially for the time being.

Although the Feng army that went south is now fighting hard, the overall trouble is not big, and in terms of the strength of the Feng army in the Jiangbei region, it is already a sure thing to completely capture northern Jiangsu, and the difference is nothing more than whether it takes one month or two months.

And in this process, it won't take long for Feng Jun to clean up Wang Zhanyuan and Zhang Huaizhi, and in fact, Feng Jun is doing this now.

The Fourth Mixed Brigade, the First Division, and the Ninth Division of the First Army have gathered in the central and western parts of Anhui, and the Third Army on the Henan side has also begun to draw troops to prepare for the eastward advance, facing the attack of the main force of more than 50,000 people in the Feng Army.

Wang Shizhen, Duan Qirui, Meng Enyuan, and Zhang Zhidong are qualified to negotiate conditions with Zhao Dongyun, but he Wang Zhanyuan is not qualified!

Fight, surrender, or flee!

In addition, Zhao Dongyun does not plan to give him a fourth option!