The officers and troops occupying Zhangjiazhai were a reinforced unit of Cao Kun's 3rd Battalion. The strength was about 200 people, and the officer was called Li Fu. Ma Jianxun, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, sent Li Fu's infantry to occupy Zhangjiazhai as an outpost for the attack on Mengshan according to Cao Kun's order. Got rid of Li Fu's headquarters, Ma Jianxun also sent him an engineer platoon.

Li Fu led the team to successfully occupy Zhangjiazhai. Because the village was already at the foot of Mengshan Mountain, Li Fu did not dare to slack off, while checking the terrain to arrange defense, in order to deal with the possible attack of the thieves, while investigating the villagers in the village, and finding two very old men in the village to ask about the situation of the Mengshan bandits, the old men could not say valuable information, but repeatedly said that the people on the mountain often came down.

Li Fu graduated from Yuan Shikai's new army camp school, and militarily he was considered to have received a modern education, and he believed that the thieves must have received the news of the official army's attack. Perhaps, the thieves' spies are hiding among the villagers. Therefore, Li Fu did not dare to be careless, and repeatedly told his subordinates to pay attention to anti-espionage, while sending people back to Maoyang Town to report to Lord Cao Kun, while deploying defenses and waiting for the arrival of follow-up troops.

After looking at the terrain, Li Fu focused his defense on the east and south of the stockade, and only arranged two incomplete sheds (squads) in the north, and he still had a reserve of a small platoon in his hands. Tomorrow, the battalion officer's brigade will be reinforced, and there will be no more danger then.

In fact, Li Fu didn't look down on the bandits on the mountain at all. With more than 100 foreign guns and sufficient ammunition in his hands, the bandits came and died as many as they could.

Sure enough, the bandits really attacked at night, and they came in three ways. Li Fu, who was commanding from the gatehouse of Dongzhai, was satisfied to see his soldiers turning the thieves on their backs with accurate and rapid shots, and the thieves retreated like a tide of cries.

This was his team's first actual battle since the small station training, and Li Fu was deeply satisfied with the performance of his men, but soon received a report that the south road was repulsed, but the north road offensive was fierce and had broken through the wall. Li Fu regretted that nearly two platoons of troops were deployed in the east, and it seemed that the main direction of attack of the thieves was in the north rather than in the east.

After receiving the report, Li Fu ordered the commander of the first platoon to take his platoon and the reserve team left behind in the village, the engineer platoon that had reinforced him, to counterattack the thieves on the north road, and be sure to drive the thieves out of the village. As long as it is supported until dawn, the battalion officer's brigade will come to support. He then ordered his communications corps to immediately go out of the West Gate and return to Maoyang Town to report to the battalion and ask for rapid reinforcements.

Asking for reinforcements is shameful, but it's much better than throwing away the stockade and letting the thieves crush it. If that happens, his future in the new army will be over.

A platoon commander led his more than 30 soldiers down the east wall of the village along the central street (this name is a bit too much) to kill in the village, the village has been on fire, everywhere is a mess of figures, a platoon leader does not dare to shoot at will, for fear of accidentally injuring friendly soldiers. Caught a soldier who retreated head-on, it was a soldier of the third platoon that originally defended the north wall, and when he asked, he learned that the brigade of the Lu Dao thief army had entered Zhuangzi, and the third platoon commander had been killed, and as for the sappers, he had no news.

The platoon grew up horrified, knowing that in the event of hand-to-hand combat, the thieves' primitive weapons might be more practical than the German-made M1888 rifles they were equipped with.

The officers and soldiers all knew that the number of thieves was far superior to their own, and this village could not show much troops, and hundreds of people filled it, which is also the reason why the Ma Yingguan only sent a team to Zhangjiazhai.

A platoon quickly got into contact with the thieves, and there were already soldiers around them who had been shot and fell to the ground, and the thieves were also equipped with advanced breech-loading rifles!

"Lie down! Get down! The platoon leader shouted, "Shoot!" Shoot! He first lay on the ground, and the five bullets in his gun were quickly shot out by the light of the fire in front of him, and someone was faintly knocked down, and he couldn't tell whether it was the brother of the engineer platoon, the scene was too chaotic.

After entering Zhangjiazhai, the sappers concentrated their efforts on rectifying the east wall facing Mengshan, and also sorted out the too damaged south wall, and built several fixed fire points. Because it was a guest army, Li Fu did not arrange a guard task for them, and the sappers found a place to sleep after dinner, and there were many empty houses in the stockade, although there were no doors or windows in tatters, but they could still do it to shelter from the wind and rain. Li Fu thought about it for a while, and pointed out the best courtyard in the village to the sappers and let them move in and rest.

As soon as the battle began, the engineer platoon commander immediately assembled his ranks, their weapons were insufficient, and the whole platoon had only ten rifles and more than 100 hand-thrown bombs made by the Hanyang Arsenal. The enemy attacked from three sides, Li Fu's infantry were on the wall, and as soon as the sappers were assembled, the eighth team came in, and Long Qian's troops attacked very fiercely, going straight to the core.

But what Long Qian didn't expect was that the engineer platoon did not attack rashly, but occupied the tallest courtyard in the stockade to resist. This courtyard is the only courtyard of the original Zhangjiazhai landlord, Zhang Fu has already moved out of the village and ran to Yanzhou, and the courtyard is so empty. The sappers were taken care of in this large compound, and by order of the platoon commander, dozens of people immediately blocked the front and rear doors, and ten rifles went up to the roof in two groups.

This was undoubtedly the right decision, and the engineer platoon commander obviously realized that the bandits had already entered Zhuangzi, and it was more advantageous to occupy this courtyard and wait for rescue than to fight out.

Lu Shan's squad was the first to rush to the gate of the compound, but was repelled by a volley of guns whose accurate fire killed at least two of them. Lu Shan was so anxious that he jumped to his feet, ready to attack, but was stopped by Long Qian, who was catching up.

At this time, the people who sealed the national pillar also came.

The wounded were still moaning on the ground, but no one dared to rush into the open space to save the wounded. With the growing light of the fire not far away, Long Qian's face was gloomy, and his mind was quickly judging the situation. The courtyard occupied by the officers and soldiers was the meeting place of the teams, and in terms of the difficulty of the attack, it was much higher than the wall. For the eight teams, which lacked explosives, they had to pay a lot of casualties when they entered the compound.

The key problem is that it is still unclear what the situation is like for the third team and the first team.

"Don't be reckless. The three squads first fenced off the courtyard and shouted inside, no strong attack without my order! Ning Shijun! Long Qian shouted to Shi Changning Shijun under Feng Guozhu, "Take your people to clear the remnants of the enemy in the village, pay attention to collecting weapons and ammunition, and catch the best alive." Send two clever people to contact the southeast and southeast roads to contact them, and let Wang Mingyuan's team come in, Lu Shan, you take your team to the east to deploy defenses, and the main force of the official army is in the east wall. ”

After Ning Shijun and the others left, Long Qian asked the third squad to send a shixiang west to guard, and the reinforcements of the official army were obviously from the west.

The firelight and shouting in the stockade reminded Sun Deming in the south that the eighth or third team had already attacked the stockade, Sun Deming sorted out the team and launched an attack again, this time it was relatively smooth, the firepower on the walled wall was significantly weakened, and a team rushed into the stockade one by one, and Sun Deming, who was in high spirits, soon saw Long Qian on the roof of a house across the street outside the main gate of Zhang's house.

"It's a good fight," Sun Deming patted Long Qian's shoulder vigorously, expressing his satisfaction, "Why are you stopping here?" "The officers and soldiers on the wall of Zhang's house were still shooting, and from time to time there were violent explosions, which were hand-thrown bombs thrown by the officers and soldiers, and the officers and men of the Eighth Brigade were hiding.

"It's not easy." Long Qian observed Zhang's house, "We lack heavy weapons, this house is not easy to fight." ”

"How many of them are in there?" Sun Deming asked as he leaned beside Long Qian.

"According to the prisoner's confession, there is a sapper platoon inside, about thirty or forty people." Long Qian thought to himself, this platoon commander had some brains, and when he saw that the situation was not right, the whole platoon retreated into the strongest courtyard in the stockade, which was obviously better than rushing out to fight for the stockade recklessly.

"**Mao! Isn't it just dozens of people, the stockade has been laid, and you are still afraid of its small courtyard? "Sun Deming lost people in the attack on Zhangjiazhai, and he led the most elite team in the village to be blocked, but let a newest team attack it, and this field must be recovered!

"Xiaolongzi, you take your people to deal with the officials and soldiers of Dongzhaimen, contact Zhou Yi, flank and destroy them, and you will definitely kill them all. I'll fight this yard. Sun Deming made a decision in a moment.

"Yes." Long Qian agreed and went down to the room.

Li Fu on the door of the east village is in a dilemma, he still has a platoon of troops in his hands, the gunfire and shouts from the village tell him that the village has been lost, if he turns around to deal with the bandits who have entered the village, the bandits in the east will attack, hold the wall of the east village and wait for help or turn around and fight in the village, which makes Li Fu feel embarrassed. After thinking for a moment, Li Fu made the right decision and stuck to the spot! He knew that his reinforcements would come up after dawn, and as long as he occupied a stronghold in Zhangjiazhai at this moment, the bandits' attack tonight would fail.

Sun Deming's mind naturally couldn't hide from Long Qian, and he couldn't compete with the three masters. Moreover, the house was not a soft bone at all. Since Sun Deming asked him to leave, Long Qian jumped out of the room happily, and asked Jiang Yun and Gu Xiaolin to find the two team leaders Lu Shan and Feng Guozhu, seeing that Wang Mingyuan had entered the village with the second team, Long Qian nodded, sorted out the team, and after bringing the wounded soldiers and captured weapons, he left Zhang's house with the eighth team.

The people of Team Eight were very dissatisfied with Sun Deming's approach, and they all knew that if Team Eight built the house, most of the materials in it would be their own. Feng Guozhu said, "Why do you want us to leave? Isn't that bullying? ”

"Don't talk nonsense!" Long Qian scolded, "Count the number of people." Erhu, what are the movements of the officers and troops in Dongzhaimen? ”

"No, no." Wang Mingyuan's chief named Cheng Erhu had already come in.

"Gather your weapons and prepare to retreat." Long Qian said softly.

"Won't fight?" Wang Mingyuan asked in surprise, the second squad barely fought tonight.

"The officers and soldiers are very clever, if they counterattack the village, we can take the opportunity to get a handful, but if they don't come out, I can't do anything." Long Qian lowered his voice, "You must not attack!" Mingyuan, your squad will be deployed to the east, each of them will shoot a maximum of two shots, and the rest will move north, preparing to return the same way. When Sun San's attack fails, we should retreat. ”

What happened next basically confirmed Long Qian's judgment, Sun Deming commanded a team to attack twice, but they were all beaten back by the official army. More than a dozen people were killed and wounded in vain, and they didn't even touch a single hair of the officers and soldiers. And Dongzhai Gate is still firmly in the hands of the officials and soldiers, and Zhou Yi's three teams have not been able to contact, so it is estimated that they are still blocked out. When Sun Deming learned that the reinforcements from Maoyang Town had appeared, he had no choice but to order a retreat.

It was an unsuccessful sneak attack, eliminating eight teams, three teams and one team all suffered heavy losses, with many casualties but no gain. The three infantry teams withdrew to Mengshan in three directions in the direction they came.