After learning that Suining County had not yet fallen, but the Fourth Brigade that went to reinforce had been swallowed by the Feng army, Duan Qirui also felt a sense of crisis for the first time.

Although he led his army north to fight with the Feng army for a long time, and the battle in the past two months was not satisfactory, Duan Qirui only felt troublesome at most, but he was far from Cheng Dù, who had a sense of crisis.

However, today, for the first time, he felt a sense of crisis, a crisis that his main force might be surrounded in Xuzhou!

"What about Suining? Did they just watch the Fourth Brigade meet the enemy attack and remain indifferent? Duan Qirui asked angrily.

The adjutant next to him said cautiously: "Sui Ning said that at that time, they had Feng troops in front of them to contain them, and they could not send troops north to reinforce Wang Lan Town. ”

"Suining has more than 13,000 troops, and how many of the 10th Division can there be in front of you, and the scattered enemy army can only gather 10,000 people at most, since the main force is going to Wang Lan Town, how many troops can there be to contain them!" Duan Qirui was dissatisfied with the disadvantage of the Anhui army in the direction of Suining, and he was even more dissatisfied after hearing the adjutant's answer.

"It is reported that there are at least two battalions of enemy troops in front of Suining!"

It's okay if the adjutant doesn't answer, but Duan Qirui directly shouted and scolded for this answer.

"It's just bastards, just two battalions of more than 1,000 people scared them into a battle of more than 13,000 people, are they the same as those bastards in the 1st Mixed Brigade in Zhejiang?"

If Duan Qirui knew that in fact, there was not a single Feng army outside Suining City, I don't know how he would feel!

In fact, when the 10th Division of the Feng Army attacked Wang Lan Town, in order to concentrate its forces, it did not send troops to the direction of Suining to contain it, that is to say, when the 10th Division and the 4th Brigade of Liangjiang outside Wang Lan Town were engaged in fierce battles, the Anhui army in the direction of Suining did not encounter any danger, but they did not dare to fight in the face of Wang Lanzhen's request for help, and finally sat back and watched the defeat of the friendly army.

In order to shirk their responsibility, they had no intention of lying about the military situation, saying that there were at least two battalions of enemy troops outside Suining City.

As for why no more, no less, just two battalions? Because there is more Duan Qirui, he will definitely not believe it, and if there is less, Duan Qirui will be dissatisfied. Considering that there is a precedent for a battalion of the Feng army in Taoyuan County to defend and fight against the 1st Mixed Brigade of Zhejiang, the Suining defenders are facing the containment of two battalions of the Feng army, and it is reasonable not to dare to act rashly and rashly.

However, Duan Qirui was still strictly dissatisfied with this, and the two battalions were so frightened that his 10,000-strong army did not dare to go to ask for help, and he had already made up his mind that after the war, he must change all the senior generals of the Fifth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade.

It's just that after the war, whether the Fifth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade still exist has to be said separately.

At this moment in Suining, the senior officers of the Fifth Division of the Liangjiang Army and the Second Mixed Brigade of the Liangjiang Army sat together, and although Zhang Dianru, the commander of the Fifth Division, had a flat face, those who were familiar with it would know that Zhang Dianru was in a very bad mood at this time.

And his old subordinate, Liu Chaolu, the current commander of the Second Mixed Brigade of the Liangjiang Army, also did not look very good.

"Boss, what should we do in this situation, you have an idea!" Liu Chaolu said to Zhang Dianru: "Now that the 19th Brigade of the Feng Army has turned back to the outside of the city, it won't take a few hours for them to be ready to attack. ”

Although Liu Chaolu asked Zhang Dianru to make a decision, and did not explicitly say what decision Zhang Dianru would make, the meaning of his words was very obvious, that is, to persuade Zhang Dianru to lead the army to retreat.

Liu Chaolu was still secretive when he spoke, but several other subordinates spoke more obviously, and one of the middle-aged young generals, that is, Li Chengbing, the commander of the Ninth Brigade of the Fifth Division, said: "Commander, if you don't leave again, I'm afraid it won't be easy to leave when the Feng army comes!" ”

However, when Li Chengbing directly opened his mouth to retreat, there were also people next to him who had concerns, but Han Chenghao, the commander of the 10th Brigade, had a different opinion: "Xuzhou is asking us to defend Suining, if we retreat without authorization, I am afraid that everyone here will be ...... in the future."

He didn't continue, because needless to say, everyone knew that this was not a big defeat and ran away, but to flee without a fight, and more importantly, there was still a situation where Duan Qirui strictly ordered them to defend Suining, if they fled, then Duan Qirui would definitely hold them accountable next.

What if Duan Qirui pushes them to the end? What if Duan Qirui announced that he wanted to kill chickens and make an example of monkeys, and use military law to shoot them?

At that time, I am afraid that I will not even have a chance to escape, let alone resist.

In this era, although the warlords began to gradually take shape, the control of the major warlord leaders over their armies was still relatively strong, Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen, Zhao Dongyun, they relied on the prestige built in the old Beiyang era is not so easy to shake, so the possibility of the army to mutiny is relatively small, and the small warlord who broke away from the above few big warlords and stood on his own after the republic is actually only Wang Zhanyuan alone.

And Wang Zhanyuan's self-reliance was only gradually self-reliant after Wang Yingkai's complete defeat.

In these years, if you want to be a warlord, you want to play the set of self-respect for the army, then there are two necessary conditions, the first is naturally strength, you must have enough troops under your hands, and it is loyal to your army to play the self-reliance, when a fact is a warlord.

And it's not enough to have strength, you have to have enough prestige.

Prestige is also an illusory thing, but it is an indispensable factor for politicians in this era.

There are many problems with why the Southern Federation still exists and continues to resist the Beiyang after successive defeats, a large part of it is because they have the banner of Zhang Zhidong.

Even the Manchu generals such as Duanfang, Xiliang, and Shu Qing'a, they had to raise the banner of Zhang Zhidong, otherwise they would not be able to gather the strength of the southern provinces to fight against Beiyang.

And now, the war between the North and the South has gradually evolved into a war between the interests of the North and the South, and it has nothing to do with the nationality and the political system.

The war between the Northern Republican Government and the Southern Federal Empire was not a national dispute, nor was it a dispute between the imperial system and the republic, but a war between the interests of the North and the South.

If you want to talk about ethnic disputes, just kidding, don't look at the Manchu high-ranking officials such as Duan Fang and Xiliang in the Southern Federation, but the main force is actually Han Chinese, and they are mainly students studying in Japan, I have to say that this is an extremely ironic fact in history.

And there are also many Manchus in the Beiyang Republican government, whether it is in the Feng army or the Anhui army, in fact, there are a large number of Manchu officers.

As for the dispute between the imperial system and the republic, this is also relatively nonsense, although the Southern Federal Empire holds the banner of the imperial system, but you can see that he has the word federation, you know, this is a provincial federal political system, although the name is hung with the signboard of Guangxu, but in fact they are all provincial autonomy, and there is also a parliament, Zhang Zhidong can command Duanfang and Xiliang and even Zhao Erxun.

On the other hand, Beiyang, although holding the banner of the republic, but if you really want to talk about the republic with the Beiyang people, you can only say the word 'hehe', whether it is Zhao Dongyun or Duan Qirui, they all maintain absolute dictatorship in their respective ruling areas, and the parliament in Beijing has not held even one meeting since the founding of the country last year, and Zhao Dongyun did not go through the choice of the congress when he came to power.

In short, if you really want to talk about the republic, everyone in the Southern Federation and the Northern Republic is half a pound and eight taels, and no one can say who is not.

The war between the north and the south was a war of interests between the industrial and commercial landlord strata in the north and the industrial and commercial landlord strata in the south and south, and it had no direct connection with the mess of all kinds of lofty slogans.

Let's not talk about the essence of the war between the North and the South, but in the background of this era, if you want to become a leading figure in the North and the South, then one thing is indispensable, and that is prestige!

And prestige is something that those generals in the northern military circles lack, to be honest, except for a few big warlord leaders, that is, Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui, the generals under their command generally lack prestige, even if it was Chen Guangyuan, Meng Enyuan, Cao Kun, and Wang Zhanyuan in the second echelon of Beiyang, they also lack prestige, and it is estimated that after leaving their respective armies, no one knows their names.

After all, it has only been a year since the Chinese melee began, and if the melee is a few more years, it is estimated that these military generals will be able to gradually grow up, but now, their strength is still very poor, not to mention others, even Wang Zhanyuan, who has now implemented independence, can only hide in the border area between Henan and Anhui like a lost dog, and Duan Qirui, Zhang Huaizhi, and Zhao Dongyun outside are all trying to absorb him or simply destroy him.

Therefore, when faced with Duan Qirui's reproach, the few of them who fled from Suining without a fight did not have much hope of resisting or even standing on their own.

If you don't escape, you will be killed by the Feng army, and if you escape, you will be executed by Duan Qirui!

This made Zhang Dianru and them fall into the dilemma of choice!

Zhang Dianru looked at a few people under his command, many years flashed in his heart, he has been in the army for a long time, but he is a veteran of the old Beiyang era, when the fourth division was established, he was the standard commander, and it didn't take two years for the four big Beiyang bigwigs to raise troops and split, and then Zhang Dianru followed Duan Qirui south to Liangjiang, after the Anhui army incorporated a large number of Southern Federation routs, Duan Qirui organized six Liangjiang infantry divisions and two two Liangjiang mixed brigades, as well as a number of Zhejiang Provincial Army, where did the middle and senior officers needed for these troops come from? There is no doubt that they are all from the Fourth Division.

Therefore, Zhang Dianru suddenly crossed over from a title in front of the station to the position of commander of the Fifth Division of Liangjiang, and even his old subordinate Liu Chaolu was promoted from the commander of the first battalion to the commander of the mixed brigade.

In the past year, the Anhui army has expanded from a few tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and they have all grown from battalion commanders and regiment commanders to division commanders and brigade commanders.

People, when you get up, you naturally don't want to fall down again!

After Zhang Dianru pondered for a long time, when he heard that the Feng army outside had begun to bombard, he took a deep breath and said, "How about you say that we should follow Lu Yongxiang's example?" ”

Lu Yongxiang?

Who is Lo Wing Cheung? He is the commander of the first division, before Wang Yingkai's descendant general, after the Feng army conquered the Beijing division, he announced in Nanyuan to surrender to the army, please note that this is not the same as Bao Guiqing of the first mixed brigade at the beginning is a surrender, but a surrender, the difference of one word is a thousand miles.

Now that Zhang Dianru said this person's name, the sound in the room stopped in an instant, and the faces of everyone present changed in an instant!