Wang Hengyue forcibly landed in Qiongzhou with the strength of two divisions, and while relieving the rear security of the Northern Expedition, the north also fell into a dispute over whether to fight or peace!

And there is a very key figure in this:

Xu Shuzheng!

Xu Shuzheng was a busy man, who had to single-handedly preside over the election of the new parliament and preside over the military against the south, so he often traveled back and forth between Yanjing and Hankou.

Because the two generals of the main battle faction, Cao Kun and Zhang Huaizhi, suddenly changed their minds and refused to listen to the dispatch, he planned to rely on the Feng army alone, set up a general headquarters of the former enemy of the Feng army in Hankou, and put all the six mixed brigades that Zhang Zuolin admitted to being transferred to the Hunan battlefield.

He sent Sun Liechen, commander of the 27th Division of the Feng Army, Ji Jinchun, commander of the 28th Division, and Wu Junsheng, commander of the 29th Division, to Changsha to arrange for the Feng Army to enter Hunan to fight. He rushed back to Hankou from Yanjing to supervise the progress. However, this plan aroused great disgust among the two armies of Cao Kun and Zhang Huaizhi, who were directly related to him, so their war-weariness was even higher. At the same time, this plan unexpectedly aroused Zhang Zuolin's disgust. Zhang Zuolin sent troops for another purpose, and putting all the troops on the battlefield was obviously inconsistent with his purpose; He couldn't tolerate Xu Shuzheng's blatant regard the Feng army as his own and arbitrarily dispatch it, so he recalled the three Feng army division commanders, and under the pretext that the border defense was urgent, he wanted to transfer back the Feng army that had already driven to Xiangdong.

But Xu Shuzheng was not discouraged by this. He traveled from Hankou to Changsha, and then to Hengyang to deal with Wu Peifu in person. He thinks that Wu Peifu is a real thug, Cao Kun just sits back and enjoys his success, and if Wu Peifu is pulled over, Cao Kun will become an insignificant character.

Xu Shuzheng hurried back to Yanjing from the front and suggested to Duan Qirui to step up the encirclement of Wu Peifu to dismantle Cao Kun's platform. Duan Qirui thought so, and immediately directly telegraphed Wu Peifu to show his excellence. The Prime Minister of the Cabinet has rarely spoken directly to a division commander. On June 3, Yanjing Zhengax appointed Wu Peifu as "General Fuwei". Although the general is a title in name only, it is a "special" rank in the official system, parallel to the Overseer, and a soldier with real power plus this title is the alternate Overseer, which is completely different from the role of the Overseer who was appointed as a general after the Overseer stepped down.

However, this pacification did not have the desired effect, and after Wu Peifu arrived in Hengyang, he never marched forward. There are several reasons for Wu Peifu's change in attitude: First, the soldiers are tired from fighting for a long time, and in fact, they cannot go further south. The second is that the Hunan War was his first achievement, but the overseers were robbed by Zhang Jingyao, which inevitably made him resentful. Third, there is a strong atmosphere of opposition to the civil war and pro-war in China, and contradictions are also arising within the main war faction. Fourth, internationally, Britain and the United States gradually resumed their intervention in the East at the end of the European war, and are trying to support the anti-Duan forces to resist the foundation behind the Duan system.

And the object of British and American support is the person who Beiyang fears the most:

Wang Hengyue!

When Xu Shuzheng went to Hengyang to visit Wu Peifu, Wu Peifu invited him to dinner, and after the meal, he had a secret conversation by a big goldfish tank in the courtyard, and the conversation was very speculative.

Although Xu Shuzheng was very good at playing politics, this time it was in vain, he talked very speculatively with Wu in Hengyang, promised to subsidize Wu some military expenses, and published Wu Peifu's name as General Fuwei in exchange for Wu Peifu's complete obedience. Unexpectedly, the scene of Hengyang's secret conversation was known to Cao Kun, and he was furious, thinking that Xu Shuzheng had actually bribed his subordinates, and immediately raised serious questions. And Wu Peifu thought that Xu Shuzheng deliberately leaked to make Cao Kun ashamed of Wu and make him unable to be a man, so he turned his face all of a sudden.

Zhang Huaizhi and Cao Kun were originally fierce main battle factions, but suddenly there was an atmosphere of war weariness, Cao Kun repeatedly asked to return to Zhili to recuperate, and without waiting for Duan Qirui's consent, he left Hankou and took all the first road headquarters away. Subsequently, Zhang Huaizhi also led his cronies back to Shandong. Before leaving Hankou, these two generals exchanged views with Wang Zhanyuan, Zhao Qi, Chen Guangyuan, and Li Chun, intending to send a telegram under the pretense that "the people's livelihood is withering and it is unbearable to fight again" and ordering the front to "cease fighting and stand by."

Duan Qirui was shocked when he heard that the front-line generals were openly peaceful, and he hurriedly moved to dredge up, and it took a lot of effort to convince them that they did not send this telegram. Despite this, Duan Qirui has deeply felt that in his camp, the main battle faction has all changed the main and peace faction, this is the new main and peace faction, three of which are the original main and three are the original main battle faction, and now they are combined. The most unfortunate thing is that the new leader of the Lord's Peace Sect is Cao Kun.

All the officers and men on the front line of the direct army also jointly issued a telegram, saying that the floods in Hunan Province were monstrous, the plague was epidemic, and the soldiers were tired and could not fight again. At the same time, the five brigade commanders of the front-line direct army also jointly issued a telegram asking for leave, the so-called leave is a sabotage demonstration, and the five brigade commanders jointly asking for leave is a collective sabotage!

The emergence of the new Zhuhe faction shows that the contradictions within the Beiyang faction have become extremely complicated. In the past, Duan Qirui's Anhui main battle, Feng Guozhang's direct main war, and Cao Kun's participation in the main battle faction as a direct general contributed to Duan's victory in the Feng Duan battle. Now, just as the favorable situation of the Civil War was falling into the hands of the Northern Army, it was a great change that all the original main battle factions were transferred to the main peace faction. Due to the great increase in the power of the main war, the war-weariness spread to the entire main battle camp like an epidemic, and even Ni Sichong, who was extremely in the main battle, did not want to let his Anwu army take the brunt alone, so he also asked Yan Jing to transfer his army back to rest.

Why did the generals of the main battle make peace at a critical juncture? There were also practical factors in this, as the military discipline of Zhang Jingyao's troops was too bad, which made the Northern Army completely unpopular in Hunan. The people of Hunan hated the Northern Army, which put the Northern Army in a completely disadvantageous position in Hunan. On the other hand, the main forces of the Southern Army against the Northern Army were completely unharmed.

Under such circumstances, Duan Qirui thought that it was impossible to further urge the northern army on the front line to attack, so he decided to change the attack on Hunan to Fu, and sent Zhao Chunting as the envoy of the southern Hunan town and the director of the Hunan Zhaofu Clean-up Bureau. This was a very vicious strategy to divide the southern army, especially the Hunan army.

However, Duan Qirui himself has never intended to end the policy of unification by force.

Duan Qirui drew up the fifth phase of the battle plan in Yanjing, which was to take a defensive position in Hunan, but to take an offensive in Guangdong.

On June 10, Duan Qirui summoned Wang Jiaxiang, the former speaker of the Senate, and said that he would now send 45,000 people to attack Guangdong. Anyone who is attached to the south will be killed.

On June 15, the Governors went to Yanjing to meet Feng Guozhang and asked Feng Guozhang if he could retire as vice president, Feng Guozhang said "no", so Feng Duan and both of them gave up the position of vice president, and Cao Kun had the hope of serving as vice president.

On the 19th, the Tianjin Conference was officially held, and the meeting unanimously decided to approve Xu Shichang as the next president and to continue military operations against the south.

Cao Kun was because the vice president had already said that he could get it, so he switched from the main peace to the main war, as for Zhang Huaizhi's war-weariness because he wanted to return to Shandong's nest, but after he returned to Shandong, Zhang Shuyuan, the acting overseer of Shandong, must really get rid of it, and refused to return the overseer position, so he had to give in, and this time he was disappointed, so he had to find territory in the south, so he also changed from the main peace to the main war.

Zhang Huaizhi's willingness to go to the south to command the military just met the needs of the time, because since Cao Kun was going to be vice president, he was naturally reluctant to go to the south, and other generals in the main battle, such as Zhang Zuolin and Ni Sichong, were unwilling to leave his territory.

Although Zhang Huaizhi is not a good general who can fight habitually, it is better than sending unknown or shallow people, so Zhang Huaizhi naturally became the main general of the southern expedition.

Although Zhang Huaizhi is brave and willing to serve as the commander of the expedition to the south, he is still very strong, and he must find a thug. At this time, it is Wu Peifu who deserves it!

On June 20, he went from Tianjin to Yanjing to report the decision of the Tianjin Conference, so he quietly made this request to Duan Qirui, who was glad that he was willing to put on his battle robe and go to the front line in person, so he naturally agreed immediately, and on this day, Yanjing issued the following orders:

Cao Kun was specially appointed as the economic envoy of Sichuan, Guangdong, Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces. Zhang Huaizhi was specially appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Army, and Wu Peifu was appointed as the deputy commander. Li Houji was appointed commander-in-chief of the Fujian-Zhejiang-aided Guangdong Army, and Tong Baoxuan was appointed deputy commander. Wei Zonghan was appointed commander of the Ninth Division of the Army. He ordered Zhang Shuyuan to take care of the overseer and governor of Shandong.

Cao Kun jumped from the "Two Lakes Xuanfu Envoy" to the "Four Provinces Economic and Strategic Envoy", and this is still the largest magistrate in the Republic of China. The Printing and Casting Bureau specially cast a silver lion seal weighing more than two catties for this new official, which is larger than the seal of the special official. This shows that Cao Kun's status is above the provincial overseers, that is, the candidate for vice president. On the surface, it seems that Duan Qirui is very fond of Cao Kun, but in fact, he is very reluctant, Duan has the most important qualifications in his life, and he used to look down on Li Yuanhong, because he only achieved co-unification in the Manchu Dynasty, Cao Kun was born as a cloth seller, how could Duan look down on him!

Cao Kun was originally known as an "honest man" in the Beiyang faction, but this time it was repeated to prove that honest people can also play tricks, and Duan Zai looked down on Cao's background and added distrust to him.

However, the four provinces are really an empty name. Not to mention anything else, Sichuan and Guangdong alone are now under the control of that generalissimo Wang Hengyue.

Could it be that Wang Hengyue will hand over Sichuan?

It was also in this state of mind that Cao Kun stayed in the garden of his private residence in Tianjin to drink and watch the flowers, and had no intention of going south. Duan Qirui wanted to increase his military responsibility for Sichuan and Guangdong provinces, but he took a good time to avoid the important and light.

Yanjing repeatedly telegraphed to go south, and he called back to ask him to pay off the arrears first, delineate the authority of the economic envoy, and never mention going south to take up a post, and asked him to go to Yanjing, but he didn't agree to anything!

(To be continued)