Xinmin Mansion is located in the west of Fengtian, although this place can be said to be the western barrier of Fengtian, but considering that it is located in the vast northeast plain, in fact, the strategic value is quite low, it belongs to the place where there is no defense and no attack, and the strategic value is far from being comparable with Jinzhou, Liaoyang or Jinzhou.

However, with the construction of the railway, the importance of the new civil government is becoming more and more important, with the gradual completion of the railway inside and outside the Guan, the new civil government located along the railway has become the only passage to the east to Fengtian, especially the rapid development of modern military equipment, the amount of logistics supply is also increasing day by day, so that when a large-scale land war is carried out, there must be railway transportation to provide logistical support.

This can be seen from the fact that in the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese army specially built a number of military railways in order to solve the logistical problem.

Although the railway from Xinminfu to Fengtian has not been completed, the railway from Jinzhou to Xinminfu has been completed.

However, the Xinmin Mansion is located in western Liaoning, even if it is close to Mukden, even if it has a certain strategic value, but because it belongs to the actual control area of China, neither Japan nor Russia has sent troops here.

However, this place is also related to the road traffic between Mukden and Jinzhou, Guannai and other places, although the Japanese themselves did not directly send troops to cross the Liao River, but they were recruited by the northeastern bandits to infiltrate and control this area, and to destroy the Russian forces and supply lines in the area.

This kind of thing is logically a matter between Japan and Russia, but the problem is that this move also undermined the arms trade behavior of Zhao Dongyun and the Russians!

"The total value of ordnance we lost in Xinmin last month exceeded 100,000 taels of silver, which is enough for us to make another infantry mark!" Zhao Dongping showed ruthlessness: "This time we must completely clean up the Xinmin Mansion, no matter what Zhang Zuolin or Wang Xiaobraid is, he has all his brains!" ”

Wang Xiaobraid, as mentioned earlier, this person is also one of the bandit leaders in the Northeast, but he is also a Japanese himself, and during the Russo-Japanese War, he actively cooperated with the Japanese to win over the so-called Manchurian Volunteer Army in Liaoxi, and he personally led a group of hundreds of horse bandits to be active in the northern areas of Xinmin and Mukden, and carried out any harassment of the Russian army.

According to the information obtained from multiple sources, it was he who intercepted two batches of ordnance sold by Zhao Dongyun to the Russians, and Zhao Dongyun suffered a lot of losses.

As for Zhang Zuolin, although he did not personally participate, he also secretly had a good relationship with the Japanese, and provided a lot of intelligence and logistical support to Wang Xiaobraid's horse bandits, after all, Xinmin Mansion was his Zhang Zuolin's territory, without his acquiescence and support, Wang Xiaobraid would not have been able to be so unscrupulous, and it was even more impossible to accurately know the ordnance transportation route of Lu Shuanggun's department several times in a row, so as to ambush in advance.

"They all deserve to die!" Although Meng Enyuan doesn't know the detailed trade situation between Zhao Dongyun and the Russians, he is not stupid, in the past six months, the small treasury of the third town has been continuously coming up with funds to support the expansion of the third town and the Jinzhou patrol battalion, where does the money come from?

In addition to the looting of the territory in western Liaoning and the income from the suppression of bandits in the early stage, there is definitely another source of income, and when Zhao Dongyun told him that the goods he had as high as 100,000 taels of silver were robbed by Xinmin's side.

He immediately had a great connection with the Russians, but he was puzzled in his heart, but he expressed his political attitude for the first time.

That is, he didn't care what method Zhao Dongyun used to make money, he only knew that the money was used to expand the army in his third town, and the money was robbed.

Therefore, like Chen Guangyuan, when Zhao Dongyun said that he would send troops to Xinmin Mansion to carry out a large-scale crackdown on bandits, he immediately expressed his opinion, that is, strong support.

With this incident, Meng Enyuan and Chen Guangyuan also vaguely knew about the arms trade between their third town and the Russians, but the others still didn't know.

For this military operation in Xinminfu, Zhao Dongyun used the same reason both internally and externally: that is, the bandits in Xinminfu were rampant, and Zhang Zuolin was appeased and rebelled, not only robbing the villagers and merchants, but also robbing the ordnance and materials of the third town.

The implication of this is: Zhang Zuolin and other horse bandits who are active in Xinmin Mansion rob the villagers and merchants, even if they dare to rob the ordnance and materials of my third town, if they don't clean them up, then the third town doesn't need to say anything like bulleting the ground in western Liaoning.

In the face of Zhao Dongyun's posture of sending troops to retaliate, even Zengqi, who has a good impression of Zhang Zuolin, is not easy to say, or he actually can't say anything, he can't control Zhao Dongyun's head, and he won't offend Zhao Dongyun for the sake of a little bandit leader who has just been appeased, and then offend the entire Beiyang.

Logically speaking, this matter could only be regarded as China's internal fighting, and it had nothing to do with the Russian army and the Japanese army, but Zhao Dongyun dispatched more than 2,000 troops, and went to Xinmin Mansion, which was not far from Fengtian City, which naturally attracted the attention of the two countries, and even some of the severely victimized fantasized that the patients were already shouting that China had entered the war and something like that.

On a certain official road in Xinmin Mansion, countless Beiyang soldiers wearing khaki military uniforms are striding forward, and the infantry is also mixed with mortars and heavy machine guns carried by horses, behind these infantry, there are horses and horses-drawn artillery, carefully count the whole battalion of more than ten artillery, after the artillery battalion, there are nearly 100 four-wheeled carts pulled by mules and horses, these logistics carts carry a lot of combat materials, among which ammunition is the mainstay.

In the rear of the logistics unit, there is another infantry battalion, but the clothing of this infantry battalion is slightly different from the clothing of the infantry of the third town in front, although the style is the same, but the color is slightly different, the soldiers' uniforms are mostly inclined to earth gray, and the officer on the tall horse is almost the same as the third town officer in front.

The guns of the soldiers of the battalion are also very easy to distinguish the Fuzao 88 rifle, the Fuzao 88 rifle and the 88 rifle of other domestic factories and bureaus and the 88 rifle imported from Germany have obvious differences, that is, the barrel sleeve is canceled, the handguard is replaced, and many details such as magazine and aiming are also more inclined to the Mauser 1898 rifle in design.

In addition to the same rifles as the Third Town, they are also equipped with machine guns and mortars, albeit in larger quantities.

This infantry battalion is the second battalion of the Jinzhou patrol battalion, because the Jinzhou patrol battalion is relatively short of funds, so in terms of heavy weapons and equipment and other treatment, it is slightly worse than the third town, in the small faction of Zhao Dongyun, it is generally similar to the relationship between the Wuwei Right Army and the Wuwei Right Army vanguard in Gengzi year, both of which belong to Yuan Shikai's descendants, but one is the main combat force, and the other is the secondary combat force.

This time he sent troops to Xinmin Mansion, because he needed to face not only bandits, but also semi-official troops like Zhang Zuolin, with the attitude of fighting rabbits with lions, Zhao Dongyun did not have any contempt, but an army of more than 3,000 people as soon as he struck.

In addition to the troops mainly of nearly 2,000 cavalry sent in the early stage, Zhao Dongyun later transferred an infantry battalion and an artillery battalion of the Jinzhou patrol battalion to support the operation.

In this way, more than 3,000 troops were led to Xinmin to participate in the suppression of bandits.

This temporarily formed 'Liaoxi Bandit Suppression Detachment' was drawn from the 1st Battalion and 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Cavalry of the 3rd Town, and the 2nd Battalion of the Infantry Detachment under the 9th Standard of the 5th Infantry Association. At the same time, there are nearly 700 cavalry battalions of the Jinzhou patrol battalion, the first battalion of the infantry team, and the first battalion of the artillery team.

In general, there were two battalions of infantry of about 1,500 men, two small battalions of cavalry, a large battalion of about 1,300 cavalry, 1 battalion of artillery with 16 guns, and some logistical supplies and baggage troops. Therefore, the upper unit also has more than 30 80-mm and 60-mm mortars and 18 Makqin heavy machine guns.

If only the combat units are counted, the combat strength of the 'Liaoxi Bandit Suppression Detachment' is about 2,300,400 people, and the remaining 1,000 or so people are all baggage troops and auxiliary personnel such as the chiefs and husbands of various units.

With the addition of combat strength and logistics personnel, it is still possible to claim an army of 3,000!

The 'Liaoxi Bandit Suppression Detachment' was led by the ninth standard commander with Kong Guanbei as the supreme commander, among which the cavalry of the Jinzhou patrol battalion with Lu Shuanggun and the cavalry of the third standard of the cavalry formed the forward force, and the gang commander of the third standard of the cavalry team concurrently served as the first battalion management band, that is, Zhao Dongyun's upright descendant Hua Zhenji served as the forward commander.

The remaining two infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, and the logistics baggage unit were personally commanded by the Ninth Standard Commander Kong Guanbei.

From this appointment, it can be seen that Zhao Dongyun is extremely partial to his own descendant officers, whether it is Hua Zhenji or Kong Weibei, they are all his descendants, in fact, not only these two main commanders, but also several other battalion management bands are basically Zhao Dongyun's descendants.

Why do they all send their descendants to the battlefield to fight?

You must know that they are all soldiers, what is the best use for a soldier to want to be promoted? Naturally, it is military merit, and in addition to military merit, it is necessary to have qualifications, and when China does not break out into large-scale wars with foreign countries, if officers want to be promoted, the task of suppressing bandits and pressing the ground has become the main military merit and the way to accumulate seniority.

Just as Duan Qirui was responsible for exterminating the Guangzong Minhe and bringing Zhao Dongyun to the Mintuo, so that the people of Duan Qirui's faction took almost all the credit, Zhao Dongyun wanted to exterminate the bandits in Xinmin Mansion, so he naturally gave priority to his subordinates, whether it was Hua Zhenji or Kong Weibei, they were now in urgent need of more military merits and qualifications, so that Zhao Dongyun could arrange their follow-up promotions.

Now, although the size of the third town has been decided, with Zhao Dongyun's decision to expand the Jinzhou patrol battalion on a large scale, there will be a mixed association in the future, and the position of the commander of a mixed association and the two infantry standard bands is enough for many middle-level officers in the third town to compete for.

When the large army was advancing, dozens of horses were parked on one side of the road, and bypassing the horses, you could see a leeward col, and a small table composed of several empty ammunition boxes was covered with a map. The freehand landscape map is different, this map is a standard military map, this map includes other detailed military maps in Fengtian Province, but they are the results of the efforts of many surveying and mapping officers in the third town in the past year, this is still with the help of the civilian map published by foreigners, the detailed military map of Fengtian Province can be quickly drawn, otherwise it will be more difficult for a small number of surveying and mapping officers in the third town.

Around the map, there is a group of officers dressed in khaki officer uniforms, half of these officers are bald, with long command knives hanging from their waists, and they are also pinned with six-shot revolvers, judging from their armbands and epaulettes, they are cavalry, infantry, and artillery, from the joint military academy to the chief staff.

In this army, with the rank of leading the army, naturally only Kong Guanbei, the ninth standard, is the commander, I saw him talking: "Brother Fang Cai has already said, if our army fights so aggressively, I am afraid that Zhang Zuolin and Wang Xiaobraid will flee from the wind, and in this battle, we will not only take Xinmin, but more importantly, recapture that batch of goods!" ”