After Wang Sanwu retreated, Li Yongji successively summoned the meritorious men of the Huai'an Defense War, such as Feng Zicai, Zhu Fugui, Deng Huaien and others, who bravely killed the enemy.

In this, Li Yongji especially values Feng Zicai, not only because his appearance is the most eye-catching in the defense of Huai'an, but his name is also one of the reasons why Li Yongji values it.

Feng Zicai, another moment of history textbooks is a big character, is a famous patriotic general, once fought in the Qing and French War, the French hugged their heads and scurried, not for anything else, just for this, he also has to be promoted, not to mention that Feng Zicai is indeed talented.

At this time, Feng Zicai was already in his forties, because he had been fighting for many years, his face was full of wind and frost, and he looked older than he actually was, like an old farmer of nearly fifty.

Perhaps it is precisely because he is old enough and has rich experience that when facing Li Yongji, Feng Zi is neither humble nor arrogant, neither showing surprise because Li Yongji is too young, nor appearing submissive because of the identity of the other party, which increases Li Yongji's favorability.

After the greetings, after Li Yongji also passed the addiction of appreciating historical celebrities, he began to talk to Feng Zicai about serious matters, that is, about Feng Zicai's future whereabouts.

"General Feng stood out in this battle, and I will not forget this." Li Yongji smiled and said, "My elite military pays attention to rewards and punishments, and promotion is certain, but your situation is special, so I would like to ask your opinion on your reward." ”

"Don't dare." Feng Zicai hugged his fists and said, "There is no opinion on the lowly position, it is all up to the orders of the marshal." ”

"Listen before you talk." Li Yongji said with a smile, "Regarding you personally, I will reward you with two thousand yuan." Oh, Huayuan is our new silver dollar, the fineness is better than Yingyang, and the market price is one to one with snowflake silver. That is, one dollar is equal to one tael of silver. In addition, I will give you the rank of colonel, the military rank is brigade commander, I don't know if you know about these military ranks and military positions? ”

"I've heard a little." Feng Zicai said, "A brigade has two infantry regiments, and the number is about 6,000 to 10,000. ”

"That's right." Li Yongji nodded, "At present, the brigade is only in the second-level troops. That is, it is more popular among the garrison troops, like the main forces have not yet begun to be implemented. I also gave you this seat because I took into account your men. Of course, you actually have two other options here.

First, you get the colonel brigade commander, you can command your headquarters and use it as a local garrison, but you can only get the treatment and equipment of the local garrison.

Second, you're still a colonel. However, your headquarters will be scattered and resettled, and you yourself will go back to the Qingpu Military Academy to study and learn the tactics of the main force of our elite army, and you will have almost learned it. It is estimated that the expansion of our main force will be carried out similarly, and when the time comes, you can join our main force and command the main force of the elite army.

Don't know which one you're going to choose? ”

"This, if you can. I also want to take command of my headquarters. Feng Zicai finished speaking, and then said, "Dashuai." It's not that I'm selfish, it's really that my old brothers have too many small problems, and they are unruly, and they usually only listen to me, I'm afraid that I will ignore them, they lack control, and it won't be good if something happens, or I'll take care of them first, take my time, and then ......"

"Okay, okay, needless to say, I see what you mean." Li Yongji nodded, "I know what you're worried about, in fact, it doesn't matter, you are willing to continue to lead your soldiers, and you will depend on you, but as I said, it can only be a local garrison force, and the treatment can only be the treatment of the garrison force."

Of course, regardless of whether it is a secondary unit or not, you must abide by the military discipline of the Jingwu Army, and when the time comes, I will send someone from the Judge Advocate General's Department to preach to you the discipline and policies of the Jingwu Army, and strictly control it in accordance with our discipline, and at the same time, I will also arrange for the chief of staff to join your unit and be fully responsible for the equipment, logistics, and training of the troops. You must take the initiative to cooperate with this, there can be no ambiguity in military discipline, the punishment that should be punished, the killing that should be killed, whoever harms the people, even if the merit is great, you know? Of course, it is up to you to command the operation, they do not interfere, I hope you can understand. ”

"The lowly official understands that the lowly official must take the initiative to cooperate with the people of the Judge Advocate General's Department." Feng Zicai nodded, it seemed that he had expected this.

"Good." Seeing him say this, Li Yongji nodded again, "Take advantage of this time, I will do my best to equip your soldiers and horses with new weapons and equipment, you must do a good job of changing clothes and familiarize yourself with the new weapons as soon as possible, because we are about to fight a big battle." ”

"Yes!" When Feng Zicai heard this, he was slightly surprised and said, "Can we also change our clothes?" ”

"Of course." Li Yongji said, "Under the command of my elite army, there has always been clear rewards and punishments, and the class is clear, since you are a garrison force, you must change the weapons of the garrison force."

However, this batch of new weapons is different from the guns and earthen cannons that you have come into contact with in the past, they are all new-style rear-loading guns, so you must ask the staff officers to help you familiarize yourself with the new weapons. ”

"Yes, I understand." Feng Zicai hugged his fists and said, "I must live up to the expectations of the handsome!" ”

……

Three days after entering Huai'an City, he got the news that the officers and soldiers of the First Division of the Jingwu Army, who had abandoned a heavy baggage, finally arrived in Huai'an, and at the same time, the Shengbao Department who also got the news also took the initiative to retreat, but he did not retreat to Taoyuan County, but retreated directly to Linyi, and re-deployed in Linyi.

Although the 8th Infantry Regiment in Haizhou could not move because of the need to be vigilant against Shengbao's troops, after having the 1st Division, Li Yongji had enough confidence to launch a general decisive battle with the Qing army.

At this time, the main force in Huai'an totaled 16,000 men of the First Division, 6,100 men of Li Yongji's mixed independent guard brigade, 3,600 men of the 7th Infantry Regiment under the direct jurisdiction of Wang Sanwu, 3,600 men of Jiang Yun's 9th Infantry Regiment, and 1,000 men of Jiang Feng's cavalry regiment, totaling more than 30,000 people.

In addition to the main force, there are also a large number of second-line garrison troops and militia troops, including Feng Zicai's 10,000 troops, a total of more than 60,000 people, half of these 60,000 people use cold weapons. The other half used Sharps rifles, but lacked the heavy firepower of artillery.

It's not that Li Yongji doesn't want to equip the second-line troops with artillery, it's really unnecessary, because artillery is a technical branch of the army and needs a lot of time to learn, and these second-line troops obviously lack time to learn, and in comparison, rifles are much easier to get started.

After five days of reorganization and revision, the troops were regained and their morale was high. Li Yongji chose a sunny day, left 10,000 militiamen to defend the city, and then personally led an army of 80,000, and temporarily recruited 50,000 people to escort grain and grass, and then swaggered straight to the camp in Taoyuan County.

This is the first time since the establishment of the Jingwu Army, and the goal of this attack is not only to break the big camp in Taoyuan County, but on the contrary. This time, Li Yongji officially raised the banner of "driving out the Tatars and restoring China", and officially demonstrated to the world the ambition of the elite army to overthrow the Manchu Qing Dynasty and rebuild China.

This is known as the Great Counterattack. It first happened three days later, and the first exchange of fire with the Qing army was the first division led by Zhou Da, which was arranged after the realization. The purpose is to give credit to the first division.

The officers and men of the 1st Division did not lose Li Yongji's face, and it only took two hours to break through the first line of defense defended by Yuan Jiasan. Then he took advantage of the situation to cover up and kill, and successively broke the second line of defense of Kuiyu and Zheng Kuishi, and went straight into the camp of the Chinese army.

When the First Division broke through the first and second lines of defense of the Qing army, the second-level troops led by Feng Zicai also immediately followed up and continued to expand the results of the battle.

There was no suspense in the whole operation, in the face of the ferocious attack of the first division, the Qing army was completely unable to resist, and finally it turned into a rout, but this time, the Jingwu army would not watch them flee along the way, but closely pursued behind the butts of these Qing troops and covered all the way.

Because the Qing army was fleeing, it had long been out of organization, and it was completely a swarm of bees, and although the Jingwu army was also chasing and fighting, it was relatively orderly, that is, it adopted the snake pursuit method.

The so-called snake pursuit method, in fact, is a common name, which mainly refers to the division of the troops into three parts, one is the attack force called the snake head, the other is the pursuit force of the snake body, and the last is the suppression force called the snake tail.

The attacking troops refer to those main infantry, whose task is to break through the opponent's organized defense, and when they break through the opponent's defenses and begin to rout, they will no longer chase and fight, no longer care about these routs, but ride on bicycles, continue to march wildly, continue to fight the enemy troops in front of them who have not yet broken up, and as for those soldiers who have fled in all directions, they will be handed over to the pursuing troops behind.

The Serpent-Bodyed Pursuit Force consisted mainly of Level 2 troops armed with a large number of Sharps rifles, and their role was to follow the attacking troops, pursue and contain the scattered routers, tie them up on the spot, and then continue to advance forward.

Finally, the final suppression force is composed of some second-level troops equipped with cold weapons and Li Yongji's independent mixed brigade, whose task is to completely contain those Qing prisoners who are tied to the ground, and suppress the entire battlefield position, and maintain follow-up logistics supplies.

In short, the fastest and most powerful troops are divided into groups to take the lead; The troops with the second fastest speed and second attack power kept up with the expansion of the results, and finally Li Yongji's pro-army led a group of secondary troops with the worst attack power to collect and surrender troops.

On the whole, it is the most powerful head and tail, but the middle part of the force is the largest, and under the current situation, the pursuit ability of the elite army can be maximized and the Qing army can be killed and injured to the greatest extent.

Such a chase and escape, due to the proper use of the tactics of the Jingwu Army and the resolute will to pursue, this process of great pursuit lasted for five days, and the Jingwu Army finally chased the tail of the Qing army to Xuzhou City.

Then, as the head of the snake, under the joint command of Wang Sanwu and Zhou Da, with a small number of elite cavalry, captured part of the surrendered Qing army, and then disguised as the rout of the Qing army, launched a surprise attack, in one fell swoop to capture the city gate of Xuzhou, and then the follow-up large army launched a quick attack, only half a day's effort to capture Xuzhou City, this time, the Qing army completely closed the door to escape.

Knowing that Xuzhou was captured, the Qing army was no longer able to escape, and the Jingwu army had been preaching that those who surrendered would not be killed, but only pursued the first evil, so most of the Qing army surrendered on the spot, so by the sixth day, the Qing army's 300,000 troops either died or surrendered, and basically disappeared. (To be continued......)