Chapter 369 Chaos

Guangzhou, Henan, located in the southeast of Henan, is not only located at the junction of Henan, Hubei and Anhui provinces, but also facing Dabie Mountain in the south.

Due to its location at the junction of the three provinces and the complex terrain, many armed forces such as defeated troops and bandits appeared here after the North-South Civil War last year.

The Southern Federation and the Anhui army were defeated one after another. After withdrawing from Henan and Anhui, many defeated soldiers and deserters of the Southern Federation and Anhui army were exiled here. Then they saw that it belonged to the junction of the three provinces and the complex terrain, so they came down, either became bandits, or pulled up the name of a civilian regiment. .

Whether it is bandits or civil groups, these civilian armed forces have always been the targets of the Feng army's vigorous suppression!

A few years ago, when Zhao Dongyun was in charge of Fengtian, he almost wiped out the large-scale bandits in Northeast. Even Zhang Zuolin, the famous bandit leader of later generations, was hanged, while Feng Delin, an equally famous bandit, simply threw himself into the Feng army. With the growth of the Feng army, his status was also The water rises and the ship rises, and now he is the brigade commander of the 25th Brigade.

Major General Lu Chengtong, the commander of the First Cavalry Brigade from the same bandits, can be said to be an alien in the Feng army!

After the Soviets entered Zhili, they also vigorously eliminated bandits, civil groups and other civilian armed forces in Zhili and Mongolia, and subsequently captured Shandong, Henan and Jiangbei regions. Fortunately in the direction of Shandong, this province is not too chaotic. In addition, heavy troops were deployed in this area when the Feng army went south. In addition, during the Jiangbei Campaign, the canal in Shandong was an important supply channel for the Feng army to go south, so the Feng army made great efforts to clean up Shandong.

Not only did the field troops take the opportunity to eliminate several large-scale civil regiments in the process of fighting south, but also several relatively powerful patrol troops were stationed in Shandong.

The number of patrol troops in Shandong Province is still relatively large. In addition to the three patrol police regiments formed on the spot, the Feng army also transferred a patrol regiment from Jilin Province and a patrol cavalry battalion from Chengde to Shandong as the main force to suppress bandits and press the ground. Although the total number of more than 2,000 patrol troops is not much, and its combat effectiveness cannot be compared with that of the regular army of the Feng army, it is still not a problem to fight against small bandits and civilian groups.

Under the strong suppression of the Feng army, the situation in Shandong under the control of the Feng army is now stable like Zhili!

North Jiangsu, North Anhui and other Jiangbei regions, due to their location on the front line, there are more than 100,000 main troops of the Feng army, and some local civil groups, bandits and other civilian armed forces can't turn back the storm. Nowadays, the public security situation in this area is even better than that of Zhili and Shandong provinces.

However, in Henan, the situation is much worse!

The Feng army successively invested two armies and up to six infantry divisions in Henan. However, after capturing Zhengzhou, Meng Enyuan's first army turned east, then participated in the battle of Xuzhou, and then went south to Anhui.

The first army was replaced by the third army under the command of Chen Guangyuan.

At the beginning, there were only two 11th and 12th divisions of the Third Army that had not yet been trained into the army. However, this Henan was the place of four wars. There were Wang Shizhen in the south, Zhao Erxun in the west, and Wang Zhanyuan in the east. In addition, they had to guard against Wu Fengling, so the two divisions of the Third Army were basically incompetence and could only be stationed through key points. , limited control of faith, Zhengzhou and other areas along the Beijing-Han Railway, this situation did not improve until the 8th Division went south to reinforce and joined the third army's combat sequence.

After Wang Zhanyuan fled to the south, Zhao Dongyun and Wang Shizhen reached a superficial alliance agreement, the strategic situation in Henan improved slightly.

Later, many prefectures and counties in Henan were actually controlled, instead of just ostensibly recovering the whole Henan as before. In fact, it only controlled the Beijing-Han Railway.

However, at this time, the situation in Henan has become a little chaotic. Due to the period of war, a large number of defeated soldiers and deserters fled from the front line of the war to all parts of Henan. While they harmed the people, they also let many gentry begin to form their own armed forces to protect themselves. Taking advantage of the war between the two armies of Feng and Anhui, various famous armed forces of civil groups, county teams and security regiments from all over Henan sprung up like bamboo shoots.

These local governments or simply civil armed forces formed by big landlords and gentry, together with the original bandits, defeated soldiers and other armed groups, have led to the rampant armed forces in various parts of Henan, especially in remote and complex areas.

This greatly weakened the Soviet rule over Henan. The autumn tax collected at the end of last year was only more than 6 million yuan, which made Zhao Dongyun quite dissatisfied. Although Henan is not a rich province, it will not be only 6 million yuan a year!

So at the end of last year, Zhao Dongyun strictly ordered the local garrison in Henan to improve the security situation in Henan!

And it is not the third army led by Chen Guangyuan who is responsible for this matter!

Although the regular army in the Soviet Feng army will also suppress bandits, suppress bandits is not the task of the regular army. The task of the 8th Division, 11th Division and 12th Division of the Third Army stationed in Henan is not light. They need to guard against Wang Shizhen, Wu Fengling and Zhao Erxun. At the same time, they also need to send troops to support the The battle of the army in Anhui!

The patrol forces that are also under the jurisdiction of the command of the command department are responsible for the local security situation. For this reason, Zhao Dongyun specially set up the Zhengzhou Garrison Command in Henan, which is under the jurisdiction of four patrol regiments established locally in Henan.

However, in the 'South Henan Public Security Operation' launched by the Zhengzhou Garrison Command in early January this year, two patrol police regiments gathered to sweep the civilian armed forces around Ruzhou and Gwangju, but suffered a fiasco in a famous Qiyunzhuang in the south of Gwangju.

The Zhengzhou Garrison Command received an online report in advance that the site had hundreds of defeated soldiers, bandits, blackmailed business travelers, and even collected the so-called preservation tax, which was completely a replica of Zhang Zuolin, Feng Delin and others in the northeast. Naturally, the Zhengzhou Garrison Command would not allow them to harm the local area, and immediately sent Two patrol regiments were sent to prepare for the suppression of illegal armed bandits in one fell swoop.

However, the result was very speechless. A patrol regiment participated in the battle with nearly 1,000 troops. However, when attacking a small Qi Yunzhuang, it was beaten by less than a thousand people of the other party, and more than 300 soldiers were damaged.

The matter was learned by the Henan Provincial Government, which had just been established. The Henan Provincial Government rudely sent a telegram to Xiyuan Jurentang, saying that the public security situation in Henan Province had reached the point where the people could live, and pleaded with the president to save the lives and property safety of tens of millions of people in Henan.

Zhao Dongyun once again sent a telegram to Major General Qin Luanyun, the commander of the Zhengzhou Garrison Command, asking the Zhengzhou Garrison Command to strengthen the public security operations in Henan, and personally order that the 14th Division, which was recently going south, would send some troops to cooperate with the operation.

Qin Luanyun, like several other senior officials of the patrol force, is from the army. He has served as the head of the patrol police regiment in Fengtian, Heilongjiang and northern Jiangsu. He has rich experience in public security warfare. This person may not have a good ability to fight regular warfare, but he has played public security warfare. , suppress bandits, suppress the place, and maintain the logistics of the army are at the top. Otherwise, Zhao Dongyun would not have specially transferred him to serve as the commander of the Zhengzhou Garrison Command when he established the fourth police headquarters in the Fengjun system, and also gave him a special patrol officer along with three other police commanders. The rank of general.

Qin Luanyun also felt a little helpless after receiving Zhao Dongyun's telegram!

The public security situation in Henan has not been good for a day or two. It can be said that the public security situation in Henan began to deteriorate at the beginning of the civil war in 1906. Today, there are countless illegal armed groups in Henan, with a total of 780,000, but 30,000 to 40,000 There are still some people. As for his patrol police force, although there are four patrol police regiments, these four patrol police regiments were formed on the spot after the Feng army conquered Henan, and their combat effectiveness is very low. Not to mention the regular army of the Feng army, they are far worse than the patrol troops that carry out public security operations in Shandong, northern Jiangsu and other places.

Just like the strength of the troops in the regular moment, the combat effectiveness of the patrol forces in the Feng army is also strong and weak. Among them, the best ones are those patrol cavalry battalions. The combat effectiveness of these patrol cavalry battalions is not inferior to that of the cavalry units under the regular army of the Feng army, such as the patrol led by Wu Junsheng. The 6th Cavalry Battalion, which is currently stationed in Mongolia, once suppressed the rebellion of the Mongol king, and won 900 horses against the enemy with 300 horses.

Although the patrol cavalry battalion still has the name of patrol, it is used as a regular army in the Feng army sequence, and often cooperates with the regular army of the Feng army.

The second-class are several patrol police regiments set up in Fengtian and Tangshan in the early years. Due to the formation of these patrol police regiments for many years, soldiers are also recruited, and there are also more specially trained patrol officers. Although these patrol regiments are not equipped with heavy weapons, the daily live ammunition training is not as good as that of the regular army. But reluctantly, you can also be dragged out to fight. Therefore, these few patrol regiments have maintained a full formation. Except for a few important areas deployed in Tangshan and other important areas, most of them are deployed in northern Jiangsu, Shandong and other places, shouldering the heavy responsibility of maintaining the logistics supply line of the Feng army going south.

And once again, those ordinary patrol forces are the first-class. Most of the officers of these patrol forces accept various patrol battalions, county troops and other former Qing old armies. The equipment and combat effectiveness are worse. However, although they are poor, it is still barely possible to fight bandits and press the place.

As for the worst, it is the patrol force that has just been formed and formed by the enemy's old army. The personnel quality, training, weapons and equipment of these patrol forces are very poor, and sometimes they can't defeat bandits.

The four patrol regiments in Henan are all locally formed, and their combat effectiveness is generally very poor.

As for why the Feng army commander-in-chief in such an important place in Henan did not send a more combat-combat patrol force is because the northern Jiangsu region needs more strong patrol troops, but also related to the overall strategy of the commander-in-chief department. The task given by the commander-in-chief to the Third Army is not to control the whole of Henan, Chen Guangyuan's third What is the biggest task of the army is to defend the Jinghan Line? As for other areas of Henan, the combined importance is not as much as any town along the Yangtze River in the eyes of many staff of the command.

And the Jinghan Line is under the personal control of the Third Army of the Feng Army, and there is no need for patrol troops at all!

As for replacing the Third Army with the patrol force and freeing up the Third Army, to be honest, it is not qualified to set up those more combat effectiveness patrol regiments in the early years.

The Jinghan Line is the lifeline of the Feng army's south troops. Every day, countless trains carry guns and ammunition from Tangshan, and then go all the way south along the Beijing-Feng Railway and Jinghan Railway, or go straight to Xinyang or to stations on the Jinghan Railway such as Zhengzhou, and then transport them by land to the Third Army and the First Army of the Feng Army. .

The safety of this railway is so important that it is not surprising that Fengjun attaches so much importance to it!

This has led to an equally serious problem, that is, the Feng army lacks effective control over other areas of Henan, especially in relatively cheap areas, while the patrol forces, as the main force of public security warfare, have low combat effectiveness and too few people.

In this case, it is quite difficult for Qin Luanyun to solve all kinds of chaotic illegal armed forces in Henan.

However, no matter how difficult it is, Qin Luanyun also knows that he will grit his teeth!