After the debriefing of the National Assembly was completed, Yang Chao became responsible to Li Yuanhong. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Yang Chao immediately came up with his plan for the reorganization of the national army, the principle of which was to eliminate the weak and retain the strong, and to reorganize the national army into 300 divisions, with a total of 30,000 people. That is, the 2 million Model Army, 1 million Beiyang Army, and 100,000 Southern Protector Army should be reduced to 100 divisions, and the Northeast Army could not move.

Li Yuanhong agreed in principle and immediately issued a presidential decree, he had been authorized by the National Assembly to have the power to reorganize the army, although the Jiangnan overseers were opposed, but the National Assembly still passed, after all, Jiangnan is only three provinces.

With the order issued by Li Yuanhong, Yang Chao immediately reorganized the 500,000 Beiyang Army left behind in Beijing in the name of the Minister of National Defense.

At the same time, the officer has no financial power in his hands, and the officer must be a professional officer.

Under the pressure of Duan Qirui's bullets, Yuan Keding also kept making peace, and the Beijing Beiyang Army was first sent to the Northeast without panic, and then dispersed and organized into the Northeast Army, and then slowly eliminated the old and weak, and each person was paid a military salary, and then let the train send them back to their hometowns.

Then bypassed Jiangnan, starting from the north, Henan and Shaanxi advanced step by step, Yang Chao's army used trains as a means of transport, and wherever the railway reached, they were all integrated, and the Henan army was easily reorganized, but when it came to Shaanxi, it encountered trouble, and Chen Shufan resisted stubbornly.

"Our principle is not to spare casualties, nor to spare the casualties of the other side, or even the casualties of civilians. The fastest and shortest time to end the war is the best way to preserve vitality. ”

Under Yang Chao's guiding ideology, the Northeast Army fought and rushed violently, and the Beiyang Army, an army that bullied and bullied the common people and the rabble of the artillery brothers, was okay, but when it came to the regular artillery team and airship bombing, basically those who did not insist on fighting surrendered one after another.

Chen Shufan finally opened the city gate in Xi'an City and surrendered, but was arrested and taken to Beijing and shot directly to set an example.

With Chen Shufan's example, the Gansu army surrendered without consideration, and then Yan Xishan of Shanxi voluntarily surrendered the army, and he was able to continue as governor in Shanxi.

At the same time, the Sichuan Protector Army, with the weapons and equipment supported by Yang Chao, also left Sichuan and invaded the Huguang area.

The Beiyang Army of Liangjiang was too busy to take care of itself, and the Beiyang Army of Huguang was panicked, and they were soon absorbed, and they also went directly to the Northeast by train, where to receive the reorganization, there was a huge pressure on the Northeast Army, and they could not turn over the big waves, and they also sent the old and weak back to China.

In the end, Cai Ye personally went to the Sichuan area, and sent the Yunnan army and the Protector Army from Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Huguang to the train and sent them to the Northeast, leaving Liangjiang and Guangdong.

The Peking army began to move south, along the Jinpu Road to Nanjing.

Yang Chao sent telegrams to Li Chun, the overseer of Jiangsu, Chen Guangyuan, the overseer of Jiangxi, and Wang Zhanyuan, the overseer of Hubei, but these three formed an alliance and resisted stubbornly, unmoved, and entangled Zhang Xun and others in Xuzhou's pigtail army.

Seeing this situation, Yang Chao knew that he couldn't fight anymore, the army accelerated forward, and the airship followed, but he didn't bomb in advance, Yang Chao wanted to use the greatest strength to concentrate together, win with one blow, and try to cause short-term damage.

Seeing that a major war was inevitable, the three governors of the Yangtze River would inevitably be wiped out under the attack of the Northeast Army, and Li Chun and others would also be escorted to Beijing to be shot.

The three governors were able to rein in the precipice, Yang Chao also reciprocated, and the three of them were still local governors.

Then there is only one Guangdong and one Fujian, Fujian is good to say, after the three governors of the Yangtze River surrendered, they surrendered, Guangdong under the leadership of Li Liejun, has been reorganizing the army for war, Brother Cannon got a large number of weapons and equipment from the Japanese, he thought that the soldiers were strong and strong, and even began to form the Guangdong revolutionary government, intending to continue the revolution.

It's a pity that Brother Pao didn't have the courage, when Yang Chao's army marched into Jiangxi, he fled to Japan, and then Li Liejun's 100,000 Cantonese army and 300,000 Northeast Army fought in Shaoguan, Li Liejun was killed on the spot, and the last province returned to the country.

The era of warlords fighting and separating as kings is over!

By this time, it was March 1916, and it took Yang Chao three months to wipe out all the separatist armies in China.

"This official asks the president to issue an ultimatum to the Japanese, demanding that they withdraw from our territory in the northeast!"

In the Zhongnanhai Presidential Palace, at Li Yuanhong's cabinet meeting, Yang Chao finally wanted to do something to the Japanese after completing the internal integration.

During this time, the Japanese were eating and drinking oil, robbing a large number of markets valued by Yang Chao, and the munitions industry that they had expanded due to the war with the Russians started on a large scale, producing millions of rifles, thousands of cannons, machine guns, and even their inferior airships, which the British purchased in large quantities.

Of course, the largest order was still the naval order, the Japanese slipway was always full, and the capacity of the Japanese shipbuilding industry was doubled compared to before the war.

Japan's industrial output value has reached 4 billion US dollars, and all foreign debts have been paid off, and the economic situation is very good.

"Lord Yang, do you have the confidence to fight Japan?"

"Rest assured, the president, our army has the belief that it will win."

Li Yuanhong nodded, he was the president, but he was more moisturized than Yuan Shikai at that time, and the ministers were really responsible to him, even if he was as strong as Yang Chao, he had to go through formal procedures, and never took a step beyond Lei Chi, which was the most satisfying for him, although he also knew that in fact, he couldn't command the army under Yang Chao, but as long as he didn't break it, he was the highest power person, and after a few years of forming a habit, everyone got used to it, and he became the president of real power.

It's like no one punctured Zaifeng's bubble back then, he was the emperor, and when it was punctured, everyone realized that he was nothing, and what Li Yuanhong is doing now is reversing that process.

"Lord Liang, is our military budget sufficient?"

Li Yuanhong asked Finance Minister Liang Shiyi again.

Liang Shiyi said: "This year, the factory tax collected from Shandong alone is as high as 200 million taels, which is enough to deal with a big war." If it is delayed for a long time, I want to issue some treasury bonds from Shanghai, which will be enough to deal with. ”

After speaking, Liang Shiyi looked at Yang Chao, he became the minister of finance, and after getting the share of factory tax from Shandong and Northeast China from Yang Chao, he found that Yang Chao had built such a huge industry over the years, so much that he was shocked, thinking that he was also known as Yuan Shikai's God of Wealth, compared with Yang Chao, it was just, but Yang Chao is the richest man in the world, with the huge inheritance left by his pirate ancestors who don't know how many lifetimes, he didn't lose unjustly.

"Lord Lu, you can draft it and send a telegram to the Japanese. Naturally, our territory will be recovered. ”

Lu Zhengxiang nodded: "Ultimatum to Japan, we completely possess legal reason, the foreigners are fighting, they are overwhelmed, as long as we can defeat Japan, we can take back the Northeast." ”

In April 1916, just after the reorganization of the national army was completed, the Republic of China was authorized by the National Assembly to make an ultimatum to Japan, and at the same time, all powers were temporarily returned to the president, which could not be reported to the National Assembly.

Previously, this newly established republic has not been recognized by many countries, such as Britain and Japan, which hope to use recognition as a condition in exchange for some benefits.

The British demanded that China cut off trade with the Germans and guarantee a series of treaties and agreements from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, especially the continuation of the British control of customs.

The Japanese were busy making money at this time, and they did not want to fight, and their purpose in blackmailing China was to get China to recognize their possession of the Heilongjiang area, and at the same time to get China to allow them to completely turn Dalian into a leased port.

France and Russia did not take a stand. The Americans were silent for a moment and waited to see what happened.

Only Germany was the first to stand up for the nascent Republic of China and make a high-profile announcement that it would upgrade its envoy to China to ambassador. At the same time, the Republic of China promoted its envoy to Germany to ambassador. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been upgraded to the ambassadorial level. It was only after that that the Russians recognized the Republic of China. Until now, only two countries have recognized it.

"Carry out the bombing plan against Japan!"

Yang Chao immediately gave an order to Gong Mingde, the commander of the airship force.

He felt extremely happy at this time, uniting the power of the whole country and carrying out this war, so that he did not have any worries, he did not have to worry about Yuan Shikai putting a gun behind his back, he did not have to worry about the interference of other forces, the whole country was united, but that kind of psychological relaxation made Yang Chao full of confidence.

On April 2, 24 hours after the ultimatum to Japan, and after the Japanese categorically rejected the Chinese ultimatum, Yang Chao's airship unit set out from Shandong.

Foreign Minister Lu Zhengxiang personally sent a telegram announcing to the world that the Republic of China and Japan had entered a state of war, and the reason why the telegram was used instead of the diplomats handing over the credentials was because the two countries had not yet established diplomatic relations, and Japan had not yet recognized the legitimacy of the Republic of China.

At the same time, Li Yuanhong summoned the Russian minister and the German ambassador to announce to the two countries that China and Japan were in a state of war. However, it will not affect relations with other countries, which are only disputes between the two countries, and Li Yuanhong asked the countries concerned to remain neutral.

At this time, Britain, France, and other countries found that they could no longer control the Republic of China, and immediately submitted their credentials, expressing their recognition of the legal rationality of the Republic of China, recognizing the government of the Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, and at the same time launching intensive diplomatic activities, hoping to resolve the war between China and Japan, which was very unfavorable to the European countries that were already entangled in Europe and had no time to take care of themselves, because they could not intervene in the Sino-Japanese war at all, nor could they take into account their interests in the war. (To be continued.) )