The Qing court finally decided to send troops, but the happiest person was Yuan Shikai in Tianjin, and his plan finally succeeded, of course, this is only the first step, and further efforts are needed to achieve complete success. Yuan Shikai can be regarded as a big gamble this time, it can be said that he has bet all his capital, and if he wins, he can win everything, and if he loses, he has nothing.

Of course, it is not possible for Yuan Shikai to work alone, Bi Jing is fighting against the Qing army on the battlefield against the army of the East China government, if the East China government does not give strength, all the efforts made by Yuan Shikai will be in vain. Therefore, Yuan Shikai, who was idle by the Qing court during this time, was very busy, and frequently met and talked with the person in charge of the Tianjin New Area Government to understand the preparations of the East China government, so as to have a good understanding of it.

However, the East China government can not fully trust Yuan Shikai, first, Yuan Shikai's reputation in the old time and space is too stinky, although when crossing over, the evaluation of Yuan Shikai in the historical circle has changed, because he is in the network world, and even whitewashed the old Yuan into a great man in history, of course, in all fairness, Yuan Shikai is indeed a capable, and in a certain historical stage, he has also made considerable achievements, but there is one thing that the old Yuan can not be washed away, that is, the later emperor, so the reputation of stealing the country is not wrong to put on Yuan Shikai, which also determines that the East China government is impossible to fully trust Yuan Shikai; second, to exclude the historical factors of the old time and spaceNow Yuan Shikai is still an official of the Qing court after all, although he said that he was helping the East China government for the political struggle of the Qing court, but who knows whether it is true or not, what if the old Yuan plays Infernal Affairs? Naturally, he can't hand over his details to Yuan Shikai.

But one thing is still clear to Yuan Shikai, that is, the river and lake base areas are also the territory of the East China government, and the East China government will never let the Qing court take it away easily, so it will definitely do its best to defend it, so that Yuan Shikai can rest assured.

Yuan Shikai also knew that it was impossible for the East China government to hand over the truth to him, but this statement was still very reasonable, and he just tried his best to help the East China government win this battle.

Before the Qing court sent troops, Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui, and Wu Fengling, the commanders of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th towns of the Beiyang New Army, came to Tianjin and asked Yuan Shikai for advice on how to fight this battle.

These three people are Yuan Shikai's old subordinates and confidants, it can be said that the three of them can have today, they were all pulled up by Yuan Shikai, so the three of them are also grateful to Yuan Shikai. However, now the three of them can only be regarded as middle-level generals, and they don't have much understanding of the intrigue between the DPRK and China, but they can only see that Yuan Shikai is now suppressed by the imperial court, and they are also quite angry with Yuan Shikai, and Tie Liang and Liangbi, who led the army this time, are all political enemies of Yuan Shikai, and the three of them naturally regard them as enemies in peacetime.

The visit of the three also made Yuan Shikai very happy, which showed that the three of them were still quite loyal to themselves, which was naturally a good thing, so Yuan Shikai set up a banquet in Tianjin to entertain the three of them, and also spent a lot of money to invite a film projection team from Tianjin New Area to show a movie to the three of them. The three of them are watching a movie for the first time, of course, they have heard about it before, and today they finally opened their eyes, and they are naturally full of praise for the movie.

After entertaining the three of them, Yuan Shikai had a formal secret talk with the three of them, for this war, Yuan Shikai only told the three of them that overseas Chinese should not underestimate the enemy, so they should not rush forward, and everything should be done to preserve their strength and preserve the army, and not to fight hard with the army of overseas Chinese.

But the three of them heard it in a fog, and they felt as if they had said a lot, but they were still confused about what to do. After all, the transaction between Yuan Shikai and the East China government was carried out in secret, and the fewer people who knew about it, the better, even if the three of them were his confidants, he couldn't hand over all the bottom to them, so he could only say it vaguely. And these three people are still a little tender now, and they don't understand the meaning of this string.

However, Yuan Shikai also knew the comprehension ability of these three people, so on the same night, he arranged for Xu Shichang to meet the three of them, and first gave each of them 10,000 taels of silver to show his kindness, and Xu Shichang taught the three of them what he was inconvenient to say.

Xu Shichang told the three that now Yuan Shikai has been suppressed by the Manchu magnates in the DPRK and has lost his military power, and the plan of the Manchu magnates is of course not only to suppress Yuan Shikai alone, but to take over the six towns of Beiyang and replace all the commanders of the six towns with Manchurians, but now that the war is imminent, it is the time to employ people, so three people have to be appointed, once the war is over, they will inevitably put the three of them in their posts, or give them a fictitious position to be idle, just like the current Yuan Shikai.

After the three of them listened, they were all nervous, although they did not have the same ambition as Yuan Shikai, but they still had the idea of getting ahead and glorifying their ancestors, and now they finally climbed to this point, naturally they are not willing to lose their current official position and power, because they are now lost purely because of political fighting, but now the three of them are only middle-level military attachés, and they have no background, and the biggest backer is Yuan Shikai, but now even Yuan Shikai is idle, what else can the three of them do.

Seeing that the three of them were in a hurry, Xu Shichang told the three of them unhurriedly that there was still a way, that is, to let Yuan Shikai return to power, only if Yuan Shikai regained the power of the army, could the current power of the three be preserved, and the only way to let Yuan Shikai return to power was to let the Qing court be defeated in this war. The first town controlled by Liangbi lost the battle, and the worse the defeat, the better, only in this way will the imperial court let Yuan Shikai regain control of the army, and the power of the three people can be preserved, of course, the strength of their own army still has to be preserved, in this era, there are soldiers in hand to have everything. In addition, if there are any actions, you should report to Yuan Shikai more and follow Yuan Shikai's instructions.

After listening to Xu Shichang's words, the three of them suddenly realized that they also understood the meaning of Yuan Shikai's words, this trip to Tianjin was really not in vain, they learned a lot of things, and also opened a new window for the three of them, understanding that the struggle is not only on the battlefield.

Early the next morning, the three of them bid farewell to Yuan Shikai and returned to their respective armies with the silver. At this time, the Qing court also ordered that each army start to move, enter their respective battlefields, and wait for an order to advance in three directions and launch an attack on the river and lake base area. And Yuan Shikai is very

In accordance with Yuan Shikai's instructions, Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui, and Wu Fengling also told Yuan Shikai in detail about the layout of the Qing army, the dispatch of troops, and the attack plan, so that Yuan Shikai knew the layout of the Qing army well. And Yuan Shikai did not dare to slack off, and immediately handed over all this information to the East China government, and also told the East China government that Beiyang 2, 3, and 4 towns had been persuaded by themselves that they would not fight the battlefield, so the East China government only needed to guard against Beiyang Town.

After receiving this information, the Hehu base area certainly did not dare to completely believe it, but it was possible to instruct the reconnaissance personnel to conduct reconnaissance in accordance with this information, and sure enough, it was found that in Baoding, Taiyuan, Luoyang, Hubei, and other places, there were traces of large-scale army deployments, and it was impossible for Bi Jing to completely conceal the movement of tens of thousands of troops, not to mention that the Qing army did not even think of covering it up.

The direction of the Qing army's march is consistent with the information provided by Yuan Shikai, so that the preparation of the river and lake base areas is also targeted, first of all, it can be determined that the Hubei army is the weakest in the 4 Qing army, and the position is also the farthest, even if this army is eliminated, it will not have a great impact on the overall situation, so there is no need to focus on the Hubei direction, only 1 regiment can contain them, and the focus of the response to the Genhu base area is still from the northwest, and the Qing army with the six towns of Beiyang as the main force.

Although Yuan Shikai assured that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th towns of the Beiyang New Army would not do their best to fight, the government of the base area could not fully believe it, and could only talk about it when the war started.

However, Yuan Shikai provided the correct information after all, so the information he provided cannot be ignored, if Beiyang 2, 3, and 4 towns really do not work hard, of course, it is also beneficial to the base area, so in the end, the base headquarters also formulated two battle plans, one is if it is really as Yuan Shikai said, Beiyang 2, 3, and 4 towns are indeed not working hard, then the volunteers will concentrate their forces to deal with the first town of Beiyang, but this cannot be taken lightly to the other three towns, and must be guarded against. Maybe Yuan Shikai is playing the trick of killing people with a knife, using the volunteers to annihilate a town in Beiyang, and then the other three towns will work together to defeat the volunteers, in short, Yuan Shikai must not be trusted and despised.

Another plan is that if the other three towns in Beiyang did not fight to Yuan Shikai as Yuan Shikai said, but all worked hard to forge ahead, then the Volunteers would give priority to dealing with Duan Qirui from the north, and then attack the other Qing troops, because the route of Duan Qirui's march was basically along the border between Hebei and Shandong, then the Volunteers could make full use of the boundaries of Shandong to outflank them, and the East China government also decided to send a division of troops to garrison Shandong after the war began. The border area of Hebei is mainly to deter the Qing army and prevent the Qing army from invading Shandong, of course, when necessary, it can also help the river and lake base areas, so it is natural to put the annihilation of Duan Qirui's department in the first place.

The 1st and 2nd regiments were responsible for containing Duan Qirui's troops attacking from Baoding; the 3rd and 4th regiments were responsible for containing the Tieliang and Liangbi divisions attacking from Taiyuan; the 5th and 6th regiments were responsible for containing Wu Fengling's troops attacking from Luoyang; and the 7th regiment was responsible for containing the Hubei New Army. In addition, on the march route of the Qing army, the walls were cleared, and all the residents and materials were evacuated backwards, leaving no supplies for the Qing army. The remaining three divisions were stationed around Kaifeng Province, waiting for fighters to be put into the battlefield or to reinforce them.