Beiyang reactionaries

The bigger reason, the real reason is that Duan Qirui made a promise to Cao Kun, a big promise.Duan Qirui told Cao Kun that as long as he returned to the authority, he would definitely support Cao Kun as vice president.This promise immediately made Cao Kun choose to betray Feng Guozhang.

Cao Kun is definitely an official fan.

Now he is coveting the position of a vice president. In history, after the Zhiwan War, he coveted the position of the president.Cao Kun was elected president by bribery, and many people opposed it, but Cao Kun wanted to be president.

In fact, after the Zhiwan War, Cao Kun was already the actual controller of the Beijing government.But Cao Kun wanted to live the addiction of the president, and finally made the notorious incident of bribing the election of the president.As a result, Cao Kun was condemned by the population, and suddenly became the most hated person in the national newspapers.

This is Cao Kun.

Cao Kun is completely different from Duan Qirui.

Duan Qirui is a person with his own political ambitions. Although it is not clear, he also has his own political views.But Cao Kun is different.He is the most typical warlord, he is said to be a general of the direct lineage, but he hooks up with the Anhui faction.As long as there are enough interests, he doesn't care about Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang, and he will rebel if he says rebellion.Speaking of it so far, Cao Kun's most loyal estimate is only Yuan Shikai.

That's it this time.

Originally, the cooperation between Cao Kun and Feng Guozhang had already driven Duan Qirui away, which can be regarded as a phased victory.But when Duan Qirui promised to give Cao Kun the position of vice president, Cao Kun immediately fought back and participated in the Tianjin meeting.Cao Kun's weight is very heavy.As the backbone of Yuan Shikai's military training at the small station, as the officer of Yuan Shikai's most direct lineage, he was in charge of the third Beiyang town as early as the end of the Qing Dynasty, and continued to serve as the commander of the third division of the Beiyang Army after the Republic of China.Now serving as the governor of Zhili, he has a lot of power.

Cao Kun's participation in the Tianjin meeting was a great blow to Feng Guozhang and the others.

The people who participated in this Tianjin meeting were no worse than the members of the warlord regiment who participated in opposing Li Yuanhong.That is to say, without the current three governors of the Yangtze River, all other Beiyang troops who should come have come.It can also be seen that Duan Qirui's strength.

During the meeting, the representatives of the direct descendants of the Anhui Clan revealed the contents of the Southwest Wuzhou Conference.The Wuzhou military meeting was a very large-scale meeting. About 20 days ago, all the forces in the south who participated in the law protection war participated.There were representatives of the Guangxi Army, the Guangdong Army, the Guangdong and Yunnan Army, the Hunan Army, the Navy, and the Guangdong Military Government. People from all walks of life participated in this meeting to discuss how to deal with the Hunan War.

There were many agreements reached at that time.

Just like in Guangdong, they are very dissatisfied with Chen Bingkun, the Guangdong governor appointed by Lu Rongting, and hope to remove him from his post.Lu Rongting readily agreed to promote Cheng Biguang as the governor of Guangdong. The 20th Battalion of the Provincial Governor's Pro-Army that Chen Bingkun received from Zhu Qinglan was also assigned to Chen Jiongming's command to attack Fujian, but it was subject to Cheng Biguang's restraint.And Chen Bingkun was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the troops who conquered Long Jiguang.

But when they had a meeting on how to deal with the Beiyang Army, Wang Ruxian and Fan Guozhang in Hunan sent a request for peace.Therefore, the Wuzhou meeting was not actually finished, and even many resolutions were terminated before the results were negotiated, because the situation changed too fast.

However, the Anhui generals took advantage of this Wuzhou meeting to make a big fuss.

It is said that the Wuzhou meeting reached several proposals.First: welcome Li Yuanhong's return as president.Second: let Feng Guozhang step down.Third: punish Duan Qirui and Liang Qichao, the chief culprits of the war.Fourth: Restore the old Congress.Fifth: Tan Yankai was reappointed as the governor of Hunan.

Who are the warlords of the Beiyang Army?

All of them are arrogant and arrogant, and they look down on the southern army at all.After all, the Beiyang Army has run across China in the past ten years and defeated countless troops.Every time the southern army fought against the Beiyang army, they suffered most.

Even in the War to Protect the Nation, although it was said to be the final victory, the National Defense Army did not take much advantage on the battlefield.Therefore, it is understandable that the generals of the Beiyang Army have their eyes higher than the top.

Seeing such a thing suddenly now, these people were all furious.One by one, they said that these people in the Southwest are too crazy to be successful.Then satirize Feng Guozhang one by one, and want to negotiate peace every day, people don't want you to be the president at all.

To fight.

The decision of the meeting was simple, that is to go to war.

But how to fight the war was also decided at the meeting.The first point is that since Feng Guozhang is the president, there is no military expenditure from the Ministry of the Army.Each province sent its own troops and raised its own military expenses.

This is the favorite of these warlords, and it is also Duan Qirui's desperation to give in.

Because one of the decisions here is to raise military expenses by yourself.Once they decide to raise their own military expenses, it means that these provinces can monopolize the finances of the provinces aboveboard and expand their military at will.In the future, the central government will have no way to control them.

The power of the local overseers continued to grow.

Then a three-way attack plan was decided.

The first route is Cao Kun as the commander, leading the army to go south from the Beijing-Hanzhou Railway to attack northern Hunan through Hubei; the second route is Zhang Huaizhi as the commander, leading the army to go south from Jinpu Road and attacking eastern Hunan through Jiangxi.The third route is Duan Xun as the commander-in-chief, leading the army from Guizhou to Hunan to attack western Hunan.

Regarding the distribution of troops sent by the provinces, Zhili, Shandong, and Anhui each sent [-] troops, Fengtian sent [-] troops, and Shanxi and Shaanxi sent [-] troops each.For Duan Xun, [-] from Sichuan, [-] from Yunnan, and [-] from Guizhou.

After the meeting, it was decided that Duan Zhigui would be the representative and Feng Guozhang would split the money.Now unless the troops of the French Guardian Army withdraw from Hunan and then dissolve the Extraordinary Parliament, everyone will consider peace talks. This is the most basic condition for peace talks.If this condition is not met, there will be absolutely no peace talks.However, Feng Guozhang did not accept this condition and continued to negotiate peace with the southern army. Then everyone would declare that the provinces would separate from the central government and stand on their own, just like they did with Li Yuanhong and Zhang Xun.

After the Tianjin meeting, the military governors became more powerful than the previous one led by Zhang Xun. Cao Kun, the first honest man, was publicly elected as the eldest brother, Zhang Huaizhi, the second honest man, was elected as the second elder brother, and Duan Xun was officially elected as the leader in Southwest Province.But the real behind-the-scenes leader is Duan Qirui. Duan Qirui used the unity of the Beiyang faction as his call, calling the master and the peace faction a traitor.

These warlords gathered together, and it was inconvenient to publicly scold Feng Guozhang directly.After all, Feng Guozhang is a veteran of the Beiyang Army, a senior of the Beiyang Army, and the current president.Therefore, everyone focused their firepower on Feng Guozhang's first direct descendant, Jiangsu Governor Li Chun.

Everyone cursed Li Chun as a traitor of the Beiyang Army and a "traitor" of the Beiyang Army.And everyone jointly sent a question to Li Chun, why Feng Yuxiang's No.16 mixed brigade was originally ordered to go south into Fujian to stop the French defenders, but you stopped him and prevented him from entering Fujian.What is your heart, Li Chun, and are you a "traitor" of the Beiyang Army.

Loud.

Li Chun really didn't expect to anger so many Beiyang army warlords, and he was under a lot of pressure all of a sudden.Therefore, he hastily stated that he never stopped Feng Yuxiang from going south.In fact, Feng Yuxiang did not go south, but supported the peace talks between the north and the south. That was because of the support of Lu Jianzhang behind him.Although Lu Jianzhang is from Anhui, he is the direct boss of Feng Guozhang.That's why Feng Yuxiang was made to stay where he was.Didn't expect this to be the target now.

Li Chun can only say that he will urge Feng Yuxiang's No.16 mixed brigade to go south and enter Fujian.

After persecuting Li Chun, Duan Qirui once again encouraged the warlords of the Beiyang Army to start persecuting Feng Guozhang. On November 1917, 11, Cao Kun, Zhang Huaizhi, Duan Xun, Zhang Zuolin, Ni Sichong, Yan Xishan, Chen Shufan, Zhao Ti, Yang Shande, Lu Yongxiang, Zhang Jingyao and other ten individuals jointly sent a telegram requesting the Beijing government to issue an order to crusade against the Southwest.And before Feng Guozhang agreed, Cao Kun, the governor of Zhili, had already begun to rectify his troops and horses and was about to go south. Before leaving, he appointed his younger brother Cao Rui to act as the governor of Zhili.

All of a sudden, there was constant shouting and killing.

The main combatants of the Beiyang Army were all murderous and began to rectify the army.In fact, they are really not excited about fighting, but excited that they can privately raise military salaries, privately expand the army, and even privately expand their territory.After obtaining this permission, they began to blatantly withhold taxes and apportion military expenses to major merchants in order to expand their troops.

Some provinces in the north, because they are the traditional territory of the Beiyang Army, so the taxes here are not all local.Taxation is the same as later, divided into national tax and local tax, and national tax needs to be handed over to the central government.Although these local warlords will do everything possible to reduce the amount of national taxes, they dare not really withhold these national taxes.

But after the Tianjin meeting, it was completely different.

Not only did they embezzle land taxes at will, but they even withheld national taxes, never handing them over to the national treasury, and using them all on their own military expenses.It can be said that this meeting has raised the strength of these warlords of the Beiyang Army to a big level, and the central government can no longer control them.Duan Qirui's retreat this time left hidden dangers that Duan Qirui himself could not deal with.

The sound of killing and cutting can be heard endlessly, putting tremendous pressure on Feng Guozhang.

At this time, Feng Guozhang had no power to parry. After all, so many generals of the Beiyang Army were supporting Duan Qirui.Feng Guozhang had no choice but to call Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen to a meeting at the presidential palace.

The three heroes of Beiyang gathered, and Feng Guozhang wanted to have a good talk with Duan Qirui.

It's a pity that Feng Guozhang is known as the "dog of Beiyang" for a reason.Wang Shizhen has never participated in factional disputes because he has no direct lineage in the Beiyang Army.So it's just a mess, and when conflicts really arise, Wang Shizhen just avoids them cleverly, and won't really get involved.Therefore, this presidential palace meeting turned into a face-to-face meeting between Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui.

Duan Qirui is full of murderous intent, he must send troops to wipe out the southern army, and must restore the glory of the Beiyang army.Feng Guozhang was frightened by Duan Qirui,

Therefore, on the second day of this meeting, that is, on November 1917, 11, Feng Guozhang issued a telegram, appointing Cao Kun, Zhang Huaizhi, and Duan Xun as the first, second, and third commanders-in-chief.

However, as soon as Feng Guozhang's order came down, Cao Kun, Zhang Huaizhi, and Duan Xun asked Feng Guozhang for 200 million military expenses.In an instant, other warlords who wanted to participate in the war asked Feng Guozhang for their salary.Not paying the military, not only will the national tax of their own provinces be withheld, but they will also start to expand their territory and expand their military strength.

Feng Guozhang is now forced to retreat step by step.

On November 1917, 11, Duan Qirui was appointed as the war supervisor.Feng Guozhang originally hoped that Duan Qirui would be the superintendent of participating in the war, and let Duan Qirui mainly take care of how to participate in the European war.Don't make waves on domestic issues.

Duan Qirui accepted the position with pleasure.

In the eyes of others, this position seems like shit, but in Duan Qirui's eyes, this is the most difficult position to get.Because all the affairs of participating in the war are handed over to the supervisor of participating in the war, and all affairs do not need to go through the presidential palace, the cabinet, or the Congress.Feng Guozhang completely handed over external power to Duan Qirui, and then handled domestic affairs by himself.But things are not that simple.

After Duan Qirui has this position, he does not need to negotiate with foreign countries through the Congress or the cabinet, and borrow money from them.You can also use this money to train the army.Especially after experiencing this incident, Duan Qirui also understands that it will be difficult for these warlord troops to mobilize in the future.So Duan Qirui is going to start training a direct army that only obeys his orders.As for non-interference in domestic affairs?Just kidding, Duan Qirui can use this supervising office to command the troops under the supervising office at will.As long as the army can be mobilized, Duan Qirui can interfere in domestic affairs if he wants to, and who can stop it.

At the same time, under pressure, Feng Guozhang could only let Wang Shizhen give up his position and appointed Duan Zhigui, Duan Qirui's direct general, as the chief of the Army Department.

It has only been a month since Duan Qirui resigned on October 10.Duan Qirui used the Governor Army to make a comeback again and returned to the central organization, indicating that Feng Guozhang was completely defeated in the battle with Duan Qirui.The second court battle still ended in Duan Qirui's victory.

141 Seventh Division

"General Yuan, I have admired his name for a long time. At the beginning of the fifth year of the Republic of China, General Yuan was in Xiangxi, and he was really like a thunderbolt."

Although Feng Guozhang lost a round, Feng Guozhang was still not reconciled, he still refused to issue combat orders, and wanted to wrestle with Duan Qirui.Although it was basically just the last struggle, Feng Guozhang was the leader of the Beiyang Army after all, he was still the current president of the government, and there were a large number of warlords who supported Feng Guozhang.