It is really not an easy thing to eliminate Zeng Qinglin's gang of horse bandits, and these horse bandits cannot be allowed to escape, if they are allowed to get the news and escape, it will be a little difficult to find them again. ∮ Ding ∮ ∮ Xiao ∮ said, www.These people have horses, and Xiao Zhenlei basically only has horses on his side, so Zeng Qinglin and these people can't find out that there are already troops coming, so the march must be secret.

In the afternoon, Xiao Zhenlei did not let the soldiers continue to march, but ordered to rest in the afternoon and march again in the evening, so that they could go out at night, and the temperature at night was lower than during the day, and the march was not as hot as during the day, and the marching speed was faster.

It is not enough to make the march secret and not reveal their whereabouts, but also to surround Zeng Qinglin and other horse bandits unknowingly, and prevent any of them from escaping.

At one o'clock in the morning of October 31, Xiao Zhenlei led his army to the vicinity of Yanghu Lake and joined the soldiers of the reconnaissance platoon who was monitoring Zeng Qinglin's gang of horse bandits. According to the soldiers of the reconnaissance platoon of the joint, the current position of the army is still 30 miles away from Beitang Village, where Zeng Qinglin and his gang of horse bandits are hiding, and Xiao Zhenlei asked the soldiers of the reconnaissance platoon to draw out the situation in Beitang Village, and indicate where the horse bandits are in the village, how many troops they have, and what their current weapons and equipment are.

Since Zeng Qinglin is hiding, he does not want to be discovered by the officers and soldiers, then the Beitang Village where he is hiding is naturally not on the main traffic road, it is difficult for strangers to come here all the year round, and it is located between two lakes, the terrain is long and narrow, from the southwest to the northeast, if the officers and soldiers attack from one side, Zeng Qinglin and others can escape from the other side, if the two ends are blocked, it is really not possible to jump into the lake to escape. It depends on whether the lake is big or not, although the lake is not very big. But it's not small, if you don't have the strength to swim, you haven't reached the shore yet. Then you can only sigh that your fate is not good.

The soldiers of the reconnaissance platoon did not mark the places where Zeng Qinglin and others were deployed in the village, and they did not know what the strength was, nor did they know the situation of the weapons, according to what he obtained, there were very few outsiders in Beitang Village, and this was a fishing village, because they were worried that they would be discovered by Zeng Qinglin and his group when they were close to the reconnaissance, so the soldiers of the reconnaissance platoon did not approach the vicinity of Beitang Village, but only sent people to squat in the southwest and northeast directions to monitor.

If you want Zeng Qinglin and the others to not escape. It is necessary to realize the siege of Beitang Village on all sides, Xiao Zhenlei took out his pocket watch and looked at it, it is already half past one, there are still four and a half hours before six o'clock, and it should be too late to complete the siege of Beitang Village within four and a half hours.

Xiao Zhenlei immediately handed over the task of besieging Zeng Qinglin's gang of horse bandits to the first company of the first battalion and the fourth company of the second battalion, and asked the machine gun platoon and the artillery company to cooperate. He was responsible for collecting the fishing boats of the nearby people on the shore of the lake on the right, and then sent a part of the soldiers to approach Beitang Village on the lake by boat.

The 2nd Battalion and the 1st Company approached Beitang Village slowly from the southwest, and was responsible for collecting fishermen's boats along the lake on the left, and sent some soldiers to approach Beitang Village from the lake by boat. In order not to be discovered by Zeng Qinglin and others, only when all the people and horses arrived at the designated place to surround Beitang Village could they launch an attack, Xiao Zhenlei estimated that it would be dawn after completing the encirclement. In order to agree on the steps of the operation, Xiao Zhenlei stipulated that both the troops by land and the troops by water must arrive at the designated position before half past five. Whether to attack or not still has to wait for orders, after all, there may be innocent villagers in the village. There is a high risk that an unwarranted attack will hurt innocent villagers.

After all, the 2nd Battalion and 1st Company from the southwest did not have the slightest pressure, they had enough time, while the 1st Battalion and 1st Company had pressure, and they had to march quickly to bypass the lake on the right in order to reach the designated position within the stipulated time to complete the encirclement.

At the same time, Xiao Zhenlei also gave the soldiers who took a boat from the lake a task, when they arrived on the lake near Beitang Village, they should tow the nearby fishing boats from the shore as soon as possible, so as to prevent Zeng Qinglin and others from running to the lake to take a boat to forcibly break through after discovering that they were surrounded, but if there were no boats, it would not be easy for them to break through, because it was already dawn at that time, and there were soldiers on the lake to monitor, as long as they were exposed to the water, they might be killed.

As the second battalion and the first company slowly moved to Beitang Village, after all, Xiao Zhenlei and other senior officers also followed behind the first company to grasp first-hand information at any time and prepare to deal with emergencies.

Several people were on horses, and the second battalion commander Chen Jizu asked: "Regiment commander, why do we have to exterminate Zeng Qinglin and others?" Didn't you let him go the last time you caught him? Then now that they are coming to exterminate them again, wouldn't there be nothing if they didn't let him go in the first place? ”

Several other officers also looked at Xiao Zhenlei when they heard this, obviously they were also quite puzzled by this matter.

Xiao Zhenlei said: "At this time and that time, it was not Zeng Qinglin but Yang Fei who I wanted to exterminate at that time, it was just an accident to catch him, Jiang Guodong didn't deal with us, you all know this, and Jiang Guodong wanted to exterminate Zeng Qinglin, so Zeng Qinglin was the enemy of our enemy, and the enemy of the enemy was a friend, since releasing Zeng Qinglin could block Jiang Guodong, why shouldn't I do it?" Jiang Guodong's talent is also scarce, more than 600 horses in the two patrol battalions were suddenly attacked by Zeng Qinglin and others with less than 100 people, and he himself was killed, and only less than 200 people fled back.

But now the situation is different, Cai Naihuang's hometown ordered me to exterminate Zeng Qinglin, and promised to sponsor me to be the 46th standard commander of the 23rd Mixed Association of the New Army, and our 8th Patrol Battalion was directly renamed the 46th Standard of the 23rd Mixed Association, and I had to exterminate Zeng Qinglin for this. Of course, I am not an uncommon official position in the Qing court, but to do this standard, and to upgrade our army to the 23rd and 46th standard of the Mixed Association, can allow us to expand the army blatantly, and the military expenses and food are provided by the Qing court, why should we not do it? You must know that the number of regular full-strength personnel in the new army is about 2,000, and although all localities are not full of personnel because they want to save military spending, they are not too much different, and the Qing court will not provide us with full military expenses and food salaries. We'll need to figure out the rest ourselves, but that's not something you should worry about. Your task is to lead good soldiers and learn more. Read more books on military affairs and strive to improve your military skills.

Besides, although most of the reasons why Zeng Qinglin and others became horse bandits were forced by the harsh government of the Qing court, are they really good people? What are the rich robbing the poor and the heroes of the green forest, these are all made up by those storytellers, even if they were honest and responsible people before they became horse bandits, but they haven't done a bad thing since they became horse bandits? If they don't rob homes and houses, kill people and steal goods, what do they eat and drink? Where did the money come from to buy guns and horses? It's not wrong to kill them at all! ”

All the officers were silent when they heard this, and everyone was thinking about what Xiao Zhenlei said. It does make a lot of sense.

Xiao Zhenlei said again: "Have you read all the military books I bought for you?" ”

"Look!"

"Reading!"

"None of you have attended a regular military school, so you have to study extra hard, read more books and ponder, and after the completion of this task of suppressing bandits, I will specially organize a study and refresher class for you, the battalion and company platoon commanders, to teach you two hours every night, and when you graduate from me, you will teach the squad leaders and soldiers below!"

"Yes!"

It was about four o'clock in the morning. The soldiers of the 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion had arrived at the predetermined location, a mile from the southwest entrance of Beitang Village, where there was a forest with trees growing all the way to the lake on both sides. The middle path is the road for the villagers to leave the village.

Under the command of the commander of the fourth company, the soldiers hid at the edge of the woods and began to dig trenches with sapper shovels, and the muzzles of their guns were pointed in the direction of Beitang Village. Among them, there is also a heavy machine gun to press the formation, you must know that Zeng Qinglin and the others are cavalry. Without heavy machine guns to press the formation, it would be a disaster for the soldiers of the fourth company to get close to the cavalry.

Soon. Some soldiers came to report that the two platoons that had advanced by boat on the lake on both sides had also arrived at their predetermined positions, and had begun to take away the fishing boats on the lake in Beitang Village, and that under the condition that there was a platoon of soldiers on the lake on both sides of the lake to monitor by boat, it was basically impossible for Zeng Qinglin and the others to break through the encirclement and escape from the lake on both sides, unless they could swim from the water to the opposite shore in one go, which was in fact impossible.

All these three parties had to do after arriving at the predetermined place was to wait until a battalion and a company arrived at the predetermined place from the northeast.

The time finally arrived at half past five in the morning, but Xiao Zhenlei did not give the order to attack, because fog suddenly began to rise on the lake, and the fog quickly spread to Beitang Village, and the visibility in this haze was only less than thirty meters, and it was a little unwise to launch an attack when the internal situation of Beitang Village was not clear, so he could only wait for the fog to dissipate before making a decision.

However, this did not prevent the soldiers from eating breakfast, which was dry food anyway, and could be eaten at any time, and not long after the fog rose, the sun rose from the horizon, and as the time went on, the temperature began to rise under the sun's rays, and the fog began to slowly dissipate.

Beitang Village.

Ma Jiu watched the two villagers with a gun and walked to the lake to fetch water and prepare to make breakfast for the brothers.

"Hurry up, hurry up, make breakfast early for my brothers to eat, you can go back and continue to sleep, if we get up and find that we haven't eaten breakfast yet, then a whip is inevitable, and even eating a gun is not impossible!"

The two villagers each carried a bucket of water, listening to Ma Jiu's words and being afraid, they couldn't help but speed up their pace, and the three of them soon arrived at the small wharf by the lake, where they could not only dock fishing boats, but also wash vegetables and clothes, and the villagers' draft was also picked up from here.

When the three of them walked to the small dock by the lake, a villager suddenly said, "Hey, how did our fishing boat get there?" ”

Ma Jiu and another villager looked at it, and sure enough, they saw that the fishing boats that had been parked near the small pier were all parked on the lake dozens of meters from the shore, and if they wanted to row the fishing boats back, they had to swim over.

After driving the two villagers back to the village, Ma Jiu thought about it and reported to Zeng Qinglin about the fishing boat drifting offshore, Zeng Qinglin felt that something was not right after getting the news, those fishing boats were tied to the small dock by the lake, how could they go offshore and float on the lake for no reason? He felt a bad feeling in his heart, and at this time the sun had risen, and the fog that shrouded the earth began to slowly dissipate, so he immediately led people to the dock, and at the same time sent people to the southwest and northeast village heads and villages to check the situation.

When Zeng Qinglin rushed to the small wharf with his people, he saw that there were some fishing boats moored on the lake dozens of meters away from the shore, and the number was a little larger, then he found that something was wrong, and after a while, he was sent to the head of the village and the end of the village to check the situation, and came back separately to report that the entrance and the end of the village had been blocked by officers and soldiers.

This situation shocked Zeng Qinglin and the others, and the horse bandits suddenly panicked one by one, Zeng Qinglin deserved to be the leader, he immediately stabilized the scene and sent two people into the water to the lake to pull the boat back.

But the two horse bandits who had entered the water had just swam less than 30 meters when they heard several gunshots from those fishing boats, "bang bang bang", and I saw that the two horse bandits who were swimming in the water were suddenly shot and sank into the water.

These gunshots frightened Zeng Qinglin and the others to hide immediately, and when they saw the two horse bandits in the water sinking to the bottom of the water, their hearts were half cold, and the officers and soldiers had already besieged them on all sides.

Half an hour, Zeng Qinglin, who was unwilling to be captured, took all the horse bandits to gather at the entrance of the village on war horses and charged at the position of the second battalion and the fourth company blocking the entrance of the village, and the cavalry charge of nearly 100 was still quite imposing, but in front of the heavy machine gun, the era of cavalry was over, Zeng Qinglin, who rushed to the front, was the first to be killed and fell off his horse, and after more than 20 horses were strafed off the horse on the way to charge, the other horse bandits were frightened and turned around and ran back to the village.

Soon, a head popped out of the entrance of the village and shouted: "Brothers officers and soldiers, we will not fight, we will surrender, if you as an official promise not to harm our lives, our brothers will throw away guns, ammunition and horses and come out to surrender, if you don't agree, we have to kill everyone in the village first, and then fight with you, if you agree, call your lord in charge to come out and swear a poisonous oath!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei got the news after thinking about it or decided to accept their surrender, now the horse bandits still have fifty or sixty horses left, these are very good riding horse bandits, if they are well trained, use them as a foundation to build a cavalry, although now the cavalry has declined, under the charge against the heavy machine gun is definitely looking for death, but in many cases it is still very useful, such as rapid mobile support, surprise attacks on the enemy's weak links, as long as the cavalry is close, the heavy machine gun has to sink into the sand and fold.

So Xiao Zhenlei accepted the surrender of the remaining horse bandits, and sent people into the village to release the villagers who were locked in a house, and received the horses and all the weapons and baggage stolen from Jiang Guodong. (To be continued......) R527