The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 379 Frightened
As soon as Teng Yuzao's words came out, Liu Yuzhi, Li Xiange, and Hu Dianjia all looked happy.

This shows that once they have a organizational number, they can immediately change from an assistant commander to a town commander.

Seeing that Cao Futian and Liu Shijiu looked unhappy, Teng Yuzao smiled and spoke again.

"Although the court has concerns about the backgrounds of Big Brother and Big Brother Cao, in our vanguard army, you are no different from other generals. I treat you all equally."

Hu Dianjia frowned slightly at Teng Yuzhao's blatant expression of the court's concerns about the two's backgrounds.

As expected, Teng Yuzhao's words made Liu Shijiu and Cao Futian look annoyed.

Teng Yuzao ignored the expressions of Cao Futian, Liu Shijiu, and even Hu Dianjia, and continued speaking.

"Although our weapons and equipment cannot meet the needs of large-scale military expansion for the time being, we cannot let weapons and equipment wait for people. We must let the well-trained soldiers wait for equipment."

"Therefore, the assault column and the independent column, including the Guard Association, must also actively recruit new soldiers according to the town's standards. In terms of troops, in addition to having Hanhun contact the Vanguard Army Support Associations in various places to ask them to help us recruit new soldiers, I will also arrange for people to recruit from Henan and Shanxi, and intensify training."

"A large-scale expansion of the army obviously requires a large number of officers. The few hundred students in our camp academy's crash course are not enough. This is another reason why I just mentioned that we need to accept these officers from all over the country."

"Not only that, I also wrote letters to some of my former classmates, including Wang Shizhen, who is now the director of the camp office, Shang Dequan, who is the assistant director of the artillery, Duan Qirui, who is the director of the artillery school, and Wu Dingyuan, the captain, hoping that they can come to our vanguard army to serve, and also ask them to help contact some of my former classmates."

These people are now highly valued by Yuan Shikai, so the possibility of them coming is not very high. However, Teng Yuzhao still wants to establish contact with them first, in case they may be of use in the future.

Among them, Duan Qirui, Shang Dequan and Wu Dingyuan went to study in Germany with him.

The original Teng Yuzhao was not good at socializing, or had low emotional intelligence. When he was in the Beiyang Military Academy, he did not have close contacts with these people, or even most of his classmates. But now that a new person has been appointed, changes must be made.

Among the five people who went abroad, there was also Kong Qingtang, but he was in the Wuwei Left Army, and Empress Dowager Cixi valued him very much during her Western Expedition. Now he is in his prime, so it is estimated that he will not come to work here.

Seeing that Liu Shijiu and Cao Futian's faces turned back to excitement, Teng Yuzao continued.

"In addition, we need to organize two more troops according to the town's standards. For the time being, we will designate them as the Fourth Mixed Brigade and the Second Guard Brigade of the Vanguard Army."

Liu Yuanshou had just been promoted, and now two more associations were suddenly to be established. Everyone couldn't help but wonder who these two candidates would be.

Teng Yuzao did not keep the secret, but directly said, "The commander of the Fourth Mixed Brigade will be Pan Jinshan, and the Second Guard Brigade will be expanded from the guard force that currently follows the camp office."

After the meeting, after the necessary preparations were made by all the troops, it was already after 1:00 p.m. Since all the troops needed to march quickly at night, it was necessary to maintain physical strength.

Although this place is located in the North China Plain and the roads are relatively easy to travel, it is still more than 80 miles to travel. In order to maintain the energy of the troops, all troops except the guard troops are in a state of rest.

After three o'clock in the afternoon, news came one after another from the reconnaissance personnel and the guard troops that they had discovered a small group of cavalry from the coalition forces, and that the cavalry were Americans.

Teng Yuzhao knew that the Americans had a Sixth Cavalry Regiment in the Allied Forces. The base of the British, American and French Allied Forces was just south of the capital. Now part of the Japanese Fifth Division and the main force of the Ninth Division should also be there. When they received the news that the Allied Forces' transport troops had been ambushed, the first to rush over would definitely be the Allied Forces in the south of the city.

This should be the advance reconnaissance force they sent out, and since they arrived in such a short time, they must be all cavalry troops.

The Japanese army also has cavalry, and each division has regiment-level cavalry. The reason why the Japanese cavalry did not appear at the same time is very simple.

The Japanese's short horses could not outrun the Americans' big horses. They must have fallen behind on the road.

Otherwise, the American Sixth Cavalry Regiment would never dare to come alone.

Although the coalition cavalry units would never dare to attack an army of tens of thousands, especially a large army stationed in the village, these cavalry units could be completely ignored.

However, Teng Yuzhao did not ignore these cavalrymen, and even did not ignore the reconnaissance team of American cavalry sent by the Allied cavalry to approach within a few miles. On the contrary, he sent out the three patrols of three mixed brigades and drove away the American cavalry with great fanfare.

Sure enough, two hours later, the scouts discovered a large cavalry unit of the US and Japanese armies, but they did not conduct reconnaissance close to the dozen or so villages where the vanguard troops were stationed. Instead, they stopped the large cavalry unit on the official road ten miles away and continuously sent out small reconnaissance units to harass and conduct reconnaissance close to the dozen or so villages where the vanguard troops were stationed.

More than 3,000 Allied cavalry did not even dare to cross the ambush area and rushed south to Langfang to check the situation.

The coalition cavalry did not take the initiative to attack, and Teng Yuzhao did not pay any more attention to them. He just needed them to pass on the news that the main force of the vanguard army was still here and let the main force of the coalition stationed near the capital know.

After dark, several troops began to quietly move westward one after another according to the predetermined plan. In order not to attract the attention of the coalition cavalry ten miles away, these troops did not light torches to hurry on.

Fortunately, the moonlight is very good tonight, and although it is night, it is still no problem to see the road clearly.

This brought a lot of convenience to Liu Yuzhi and Hu Dianjia, who were leading nearly a thousand carts and thousands of pack horses.

Although these troops did not light torches when they retreated westward, they still lit bonfires outside the village they evacuated, and even torches were lit in many places in the village. The purpose was to take advantage of the fact that the Allied cavalry did not dare to approach and deliberately confuse the Allied cavalry, creating the illusion that the army was still stationed in the village.

Wei Jinghai led the headquarters, the directly affiliated troops and the third battalion of troops brought by Cao Futian, driving thousands of carts loaded with captured arms and supplies and thousands of pack horses also loaded with arms and supplies on their backs, as well as the five artillery battalions and field hospitals of the artillery brigade, and they had just set out under the escort of Liu Yuzhi and Hu Dianjia's two mixed brigades.

Wu Peifu hurried back with the six infantry battalions and the guard battalion of the Imperial Guard, driving hundreds of carts full of weapons, ammunition and supplies.

The Imperial Guards Association had three other battalions cooperating with Liu Shijiu's assault column, so they stayed in the village.

Since they had received the news sent back by Wu Peifu in advance, the three battalions had already prepared hot meals for them. They arranged for the soldiers to eat quickly, and then they had to arrange an hour of rest for these officers and soldiers who had been tired and busy all day.

While they were eating, the three battalions that had been in the village for a long time had quietly left their base and rushed to the villages of all sizes that they needed to pass along the way, to take over the troops left behind by the front troops to be on guard.

The task of these three battalions was to provide cover and support for Teng Yuzhao and his special guard squadron when they retreated with the Royal Guards.

At the same time, in order to prevent the Allied cavalry units from discovering that the main vanguard army had begun to retreat, they occupied villages along the way to block their retreat.

During the meal, Wu Peifu and Li Jinyu had already reported on their blocking of the U.S. troops, killing the Japanese brigade commander Ogawa Matatsugu, letting the remnants of the Japanese 8th Brigade escape, and then pursuing them.

More than 2,000 US troops were bombarded by their mortars and subsequently chased all the way. When the coalition forces fled to Langfang, there were less than a thousand people left. With the support of mortars, they rushed into Langfang closely behind the US troops.

The more than 1,000 American troops who remained in Langfang did not resist, but directly abandoned Langfang and fled all the way towards Tianjin.

In this battle, not only more than 1,200 American soldiers were wiped out, but also the remnants of the 4th Brigade of the Japanese Army were completely wiped out. However, the commander of another regiment of the 8th Brigade, along with more than a dozen staff officers and flag guards, escaped with their regiment flag.

The battle yielded considerable rewards. A moderate arsenal of the US military was discovered in Langfang. Together with the spoils from the pursuit and destruction of more than a thousand American soldiers, more than 2,000 American rifles were obtained, six heavy machine guns, six French Schneider 87mm field guns, and a large number of bullets and artillery shells. A lot of food, canned food, butter, coffee shops, and foreign liquor were also seized.

From the captured American military documents brought back by Wu Peifu, Teng Yuzhao learned that the American military number in Langfang was the 15th Regiment of the U.S. Army.

Teng Yuzhao remembered that when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, there was indeed this 15th Regiment and an artillery company.

These six cannons should have been left behind by this artillery company.

Langfang is most likely the US military’s own military station.

When talking about the prisoners, Wu Peifu and Li Jinyu seemed a little embarrassed. Teng Yuzhao smiled bitterly in his heart, knowing that they must have encountered the "stubborn" American and Japanese troops again.

Teng Yuzao waved his hand, took out a piece of paper with pen writing on it from his pocket, handed it to Wu Peifu, and spoke casually.

"We are going to march quickly. It is not a bad thing to have no prisoners. It will save us a lot of trouble."

"However, you must remember that next time you encounter Americans, Germans, or British, you must capture some prisoners. When we negotiate peace in the future, these people will be very valuable bargaining chips in our hands."

Teng Yuzhao pointed to the piece of paper he had just handed to Wu Peifu.

"Both of you take a look. After you're done, listen to me."

Seeing that Teng Yuzhao did not pursue the matter of the prisoners, Wu Peifu and Li Jinyu both breathed a sigh of relief.

Wu Peifu unfolded the paper that Teng Yuzao handed over, and just after he and Li Jinyu looked at it for a few seconds, their expressions changed drastically.
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Due to the enthusiasm of the book friends and too many votes, I will thank the remaining book friends tomorrow!!!

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(End of this chapter)