Regarding Feng Guozhang's telegram, Yuan Shikai could not do without an attitude. With Yuan Shikai's shrewdness, how could he not see what Feng's telegram was referring to, but he preferred to pretend to be confused, and said left and right:

"Milling the electricity. The general was worried about the overall situation, made a real statement, and looked at it again and again, inexplicably admiring. The dispute over centralized power comes from the eastern neighbors, and legal experts make sense. It is not good to implement it, and the benefits are less and the harm is more, as the general said. If the piano is not in tune, it will change its tune, and it should be decided not to make a political plan to protect the country. If the general has any means, he still hopes to give detailed instructions for use,...... During the armistice period, it is urgent to resolve the matter at an early date and calm the situation. The general was sincere in his plans for the country, and he hoped to consult with the provinces and quickly prepare a method of mediation. As for the blame for the past, make up for the future, and dare to forget the advice even if it is not virtuous! ”

By April 26, Feng Guozhang was no longer ambiguous, and sent a telegram to Xu Shichang, Wang Shizhen, and Duan Qirui, the "three elders":

"The head of state ruled the Republic of China for four years, and he was one of the people who ruled the state system. It was the occurrence of the imperial system, and in less than a few months, public opinion changed greatly, the prestige of the real cause had fallen, the people's hearts had been weakened, and it was difficult to chase after the horses. Guozhang has a special affection for the head of state, especially with his uprightness, unable to pitch at any time, and the slander of others will inevitably infiltrate the deepening, so that because of the alienation, because of suspicion, jealousy, relying on the confidant, and the secret is not not exhausted, responsible for the work, and the actions are more involved. Reducing its military spending, reducing its actual power, dividing the strength of the provinces into four parts, and having different systems, the first corner of Shanghai, and the central government is directly restored. …… Near Politics. The settlement conditions of the agreement between the government and the Sichuan Province are slightly the same as those of Guozhang, and Fang served as the mediator, hoping to return the robbery.

However, the report contained a telegram from the Central Committee sent by General Chen, stating that after Cai Yi put forward the conditions, Yunnan and Guizhou were not satisfied with the first article, and this indirectly transferred Chen Dian, which seemed to have abridged the first paragraph. At the time of this critical moment, if you still refuse to meet with sincerity, and you will transfer people to the content, where will you start? …… The president is a heroic man of this generation, and he has been forgotten in the general trend of the whole country. General Duan left Feng and entered Beijing (was expelled), and there was no explicit order, and General Ni transferred to Hunan Province, but Hunan refused. …… As for the financial embarrassment, the slackness of the military's morale, the difficulty of handing over the goods, and the boiling of material discussions, the facts are obvious and cannot be denied. …… Observe the time, rather than be honorable, and urgently plan for self-improvement. …… After a long period of delay, the provinces are shaken, and the transportation is cut off, even if the country does not forget the old friendship and supports the call of the central government, but also fears that there will be no one to respond, then the president will be isolated and have no support, and the future is unimaginable. …… Zhu Gongyi belongs to the deceased, and the important information is close to the secret, please use the Guozhang telegram to Chen to read it. ”

Yuan was most afraid of reading this kind of telegram, and he thought that his own telegram was more terrible than the telegrams of Cai Yi and Tang Jiyao.

Since Feng Guozhang took the lead, everyone's courage became bigger, and the bigwigs in the provinces persuaded them to withdraw one after another. It soon became a trend, a trend, and some people were afraid of falling behind. Interestingly, the most persuasive people are often those who have called for the urgency of the right position.

Although Yuan Shikai was in a panic, he knew in his heart that the key person was Feng Guozhang, so he sent Ruan Zhongshu south to do Feng Guozhang's work.

On the other hand, Yuan Shikai saw that Li Yuanhong's prestige was getting higher and higher, both inside and outside, and he started Li's idea again.

On this day, Yuan found Zhang Guogan, an adviser to the public government, and said to him: "I plan to give way to Song Qing (Li Yuanhong), but Song Qing does not understand business. Please tell him that he will come to the house and work with me, so that he can get acquainted with his official affairs, and I will abdicate with peace of mind. ”

Zhang thought for a while and said, "Between the president and the vice president, who communicates on weekdays?" ”

Yuan replied, "Yang Wu (Yang Shiqi)." ”

Zhang Shifu said: "Then it's better to ask Xingcheng to pass the word." ”

Zhang Guogan, a native of Puqi, Hubei, lived in Anhui with his father when he was a child, was promoted in 1902, and was admitted to the cabinet in 1904. In 1906, he served as a librarian of the Constitutional Archives and Archives and the following year he served as the secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial Fuyuan, the general office of the Investigation Bureau, and the secretary of the Finance Bureau. Before Wuchang's first uprising, he was transferred to Beijing as deputy director of the Cabinet Statistics Bureau. Later, he participated in the north-south peace conference with Tang Shaoyi as a "senator", which was valued by Yuan Shikai. From April 1912 onwards, he served successively as a member of the State Council. Business. Director of the Bureau, Director of the National Bureau. Business. Secretary-General of the Academy, and later successively served as Secretary-General of the Presidential Office, Undersecretary of the Interior, and Minister of Education.

He is also a scholar, and his representative works are "Examination of the Stone Classics of the Past Dynasties" and "A Brief History of Russia's Eastward Expansion".

Because Zhang Guogan is a native of Hubei, Yuan Shikai wants to use his qualification as a fellow villager to listen to Li Yuanhong's tone. Zhang refused to go, and Yuan could not force it.

I wanted to hear Zhang's views on the current situation, so I had the following conversation:

"How has public opinion been in the outside world recently?" Yuan Shikai asked.

Zhang replied: "They are all discussing the issue of abdication. ”

Yuan asked: "Look, is it better to abdicate or not?" ”

Zhang replied: "We should analyze it from three aspects: diplomacy, military affairs, and public opinion. ”

Yuan said: "What public opinion? I don't think China has that kind of thing. I'm pretty sure about diplomacy (I'm not sure, I'm obviously talking big). The focus of the three is the military. Look, can Cai Songpo beat me? ”

Zhang replied: "The center of gravity of the current situation is in the southeast, not the southwest. ”

Yuan asked: "What, did you say Huafu (Feng Guozhang)?" ”

Zhang replied: "Hua Fu has been a subordinate of the president for decades, and he knows him as much as the president. I'm an outsider, and I don't dare to say anything. ”

Yuan asked: "Do you think that if Huafu is on the left, he will win on the left, and if he is on the right, he will win on the right?" ”

Zhang replied: "I'm not afraid of the left and right, but I'm afraid that he won't be left or right!" ”

Yuan obviously understood the meaning of the account: claiming to be a third party is the most difficult to deal with between friends and foes.

Seeing that Yuan was silent, Zhang continued: "I want to contribute to the president with eight words: - the rapid retreat is well deserved." ”

Yuan snorted noncommittally.

When Zhang Xiang left, Yuan called him again and said, "You go and talk to the chrysanthemum." ”

Zhang's brother Guorong was Xu Shichang's protégé, and he immediately went to Xu's house.

Xu Shichang had just finished driving the car and said to him, "Please sit down for a while." I will be called back at once at the request of the government. ”

Xu Guoran quickly returned from Yuan Shikai's place and said to Zhang, who had been waiting for him: "What you just said to him (referring to Yuan Shikai): 'No left, no right', he heard it quite well. So he asked me to go, and when I asked me about it, I replied indiscriminately, 'Send someone to clear it up,' and he said that he had already called Dou Zhan (Nguyen Trung Shu) to go. ”

When the Sichuan side ceased fighting, Yuan Shikai spread a rumor: "Cai Ye has recognized that the head of state is still in the position of president." ”

He did this because he wanted to tell his Beiyang subordinates that the Protector Army did not ask him to abdicate, what reason did the insiders have to do so? The main purpose of sending Ruan Zhongshu to visit Feng in Nanjing was to ask Feng to contact the military and civilian governors of the provinces that had not yet become independent and send a joint telegram supporting Yuan's position as president, so as to show that the Beiyang system was united and supported him.

Feng Guozhang is not stupid, of course he can see through Yuan Shikai's intentions. But he is very ghostly, and he does not say anything about it, nor does he refuse, but proposes: At present, he is negotiating peace with the National Protector Army, and he cannot create an excessively tense atmosphere to worsen the situation. He advocated that it would be better to first coordinate internally, unite with the military and political leaders of the non-independent provinces, hold a meeting in Nanjing, and obtain the same opinion and pace in order to have the right to speak.

Of course, Yuan agrees with Feng's opinion, in fact, Feng Guozhang has already planned for this matter, and now he has an opportunity.

He wants to take advantage of this opportunity to fish in troubled waters, and the powerful faction of the Beiyang system will take advantage of this to achieve the real Beiyang leader. He even wanted to follow the example of the representatives of the Xinhai Revolutionary provinces in organizing a provisional senate in Nanjing, elect a provisional president, and then convene the National Assembly to elect a full president.

And it is possible that he, Feng Guozhang, will be promoted as interim president with the qualifications of host and alliance leader.

If conditions such as punishing the culprits of Hong Xian and amnesty for the party members are put forward, the Protector Army and the Kuomintang can be appeased.

In Feng's calculations, in addition to his own status in the Beiyang Department, there is also a great advantage, that is, his good relationship with Liang Qichao and Lu Rongting.

Claiming to be a transcendent third party, on the one hand, he used the Protector Army to suppress Yuan, and on the other hand, he used Yuan and the Beiyang Army to suppress the Protector Army. In the competition between the snipe and the clam clams, he, the "fisherman", benefited. It is exactly the same as what Yuan Shikai did when he lived between the Qing court and the revolutionary party.

He believed that the Protector Army would win him over to overthrow Yuan, and if he was really promoted to the provisional president, wouldn't Yuan "not push himself down". In the case of the Protector Army, there is no need to shed any more blood to achieve the goal of victory against Yuan.

Feng Guozhang's wishful thinking played very well, but he overestimated himself a little. At the beginning, Yuan Shikai could do this, there were two conditions, one was that he could control the Beiyang Army, and the other was that he was under one person in the Qing court and above everyone. At this time, Feng Guozhang did not have any of these two.

Based on this hypothesis, Feng Guozhang sent a telegram asking Zhang Xun and Ni Sichong to propose a concrete solution to the current situation, so that they could be submitted to the Nanjing Conference to be convened as a joint opinion of the three of them.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Xun's purpose was completely different from Feng's, Zhang Xun was bent on restoration, and pushed Dai Xun to abolish the emperor's unification. Zhang believes that before the conditions for restoration are ripe, it is better to continue to use Yuan as a transition.

After the Second Revolution, Zhang Xun occupied Nanjing, but Yuan Shikai forced him to go to Xuzhou under the pretext of an excuse, and Zhang Xun had a grudge against Yuan. However, recently, Ruan Zhongshu went to Xuzhou three times, passed Yuan Shikai's words, promised him many benefits, and asked him to supervise Anhui's military affairs, which made his resentment against Yuan resolve a lot.

Zhang Xun was not optimistic about Feng Guozhang, compared with Yuan Shikai, he felt that it was more beneficial to him to maintain Yuan than to praise Feng. His explanation was that since Yuan recognized the throne, the presidency had been lost, and the future president could neither be elected by the National Assembly, but could only organize a republican government according to the Qing emperor's grant to Yuan. The sovereign order of the government has extended the validity period of this order to the present, and it is legitimate and justifiable for Yuan to be the president.

Zhang Xun's proposition is a set of techniques for transferring flowers and trees, because since Xunqing's order is valid, the throne of the deposed emperor can also be resurrected at any time.

On the issue of convening the Congress, Zhang Benxin was completely opposed, and Feng proposed to convene the Congress, and he added the words "carefully selected members" to it, indicating that the convening would be limited. Feng proposed to punish the culprit instead, but instead he punished the traitor, the word "traitor" has a vague meaning, which can be interpreted as either the culprit of Hong Xian, or the Kuomintang, or the so-called southern "thugs" (referring to the people who defend the country). ”

Feng Guozhang knew that if he and Zhang Xun's opinions could not be communicated and coordinated, nothing could be done, and Feng had no other choice but to compromise with Zhang Xun and accept Zhang's opinion. Although, the ideas of the two people are 108,000 miles apart.

On April 18, Feng Guozhang and Zhang Xun jointly proposed eight solutions to the current situation:

1. In accordance with the Qing Dynasty's mandate to "organize a republican government. The original purpose of the government is full of powers, recognizing that Xiang Cheng still holds the position of the president;

2. Carefully elect legislators and reconvene the National Assembly:

3. Punish the adulterers;

4. The provincial armies shall be numbered according to the number of the national armed forces, and the conscription system shall be adopted;

5. The Constitution is clearly enacted, and the "Provisional Covenant Law" of the first year of the Republic of China is still observed;

6. The generals and envoys of the provinces before the fourth winter of the Republic of China shall continue to serve as before;

7. All enemy armies in front of Sichuan and Hunan will be withdrawn;

8. Amnesty Party members.

This kind of vague thing can neither satisfy Zhang Xun's requirements. It is impossible to meet Feng Guozhang's own requirements, let alone meet the demands of other parties. Therefore, as soon as these eight articles were released, they naturally aroused opposition from all sides.