Guangdong, Guangzhou, Yuexiu Building.

"The Dian army has entered Sichuan, but our army has not made progress for a long time, but why? Could it be that the Gan army is really invincible? ”

The leader slammed his fist on the table and yelled.

"The Jiangxi army is well-equipped and battle-hardened, and it is beyond the hasty assembly of our army that lacks training to resist." Chen Jiongming, commander of the Guangdong First Division of the Chinese Revolutionary Army and concurrently governor of Guangdong Province, said: "There is a huge disparity between the strength of the enemy and us, and our army has done its best to prevent it from entering Guangdong." ”

"It's not like you said it, Compete for Survival." The leader looked at Chen Jiongming, who was standing straight in front of him with a military hat in his hand, with a stern gaze, and said in a deep voice.

"The fact is that the Jiangxi army fought in Qingdao that year, drove out the army, and the name of the war is known to the world, and our army has been recovering the entire territory of Guangdong, although the whole territory of Guangdong has been recovered, but the weight of sacrifice is seen by everyone, and the generals of the fathers and generals have withered." Chen Jiongming met the leader's gaze and said, "Whether our army can protect itself now is still unknown. ”

Listening to Chen Jiongming's words, the leader's face turned blue for a while.

The leader at this time didn't know that Chen Jiongming didn't pour out all the bitter water in his stomach in order to take care of his emotions.

When he thought of the many soldiers who had sacrificed their lives for the great cause of the revolution at the front, he could not help but feel a pang of heartache.

Chen Jiongming, who had been to the front line in person, already had a profound understanding of the advanced weaponry and combat quality of the Jiangxi army.

No matter how loud and seductive the revolutionary slogans are, they are all floating clouds in the face of a formidable opponent armed with artillery, chariots, and airplanes.

For the sacrifice of so many comrades for that unattainable goal, Chen Jiongming already felt unbearable.

"If the Gan army can fight again, how many people are there in total? How many of us are there, can't ten of us beat one of them? The leader's words could not hide the deep anger, "If it was as you say, they should have fought here a long time ago!" ”

Listening to the leader's words, Chen Jiongming closed his mouth helplessly.

Of course, he couldn't tell the leader, in his opinion, the reason why the Gan army never reached the city of Guangzhou was not because it didn't have this ability, but because it was probably unwilling to do so.

During the period when the two sides were fighting, the Jiangxi army dealt a heavy blow to the Guangdong Revolutionary Army from the very beginning, not only annihilating all the front of the Guangdong Revolutionary Army that tried to enter Jiangxi, but also being able to send a small force to attack the rear of the revolutionary army, killing Chen Yingshi and all his guards.

Not only were the revolutionary troops attacking Jiangxi beaten back, but the revolutionary armies that attempted to enter Hunan and Fujian also suffered serious setbacks and retreated in disgrace.

After the failure of the strategic plan of the three-way northern expedition of the revolutionary army drawn up by the leader, Chen Jiongming and other revolutionary army generals were most worried about the powerful Jiangxi army taking advantage of the victory to chase and kill, but what surprised him was that after driving the revolutionary army back to Guangdong, the Jiangxi army inexplicably stopped the pursuit, and was only satisfied with preventing the revolutionary army from invading Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces.

Regarding the actions of the Jiangxi army, the generals of the revolutionary army were very puzzled while rejoicing.

In Chen Jiongming's view, the reason why the Gan army is so "merciful" is that he does not want to "kill each other".

For Chen Jiongming, who has always been in favor of "inter-provincial autonomy," there are some things he has no way to say to the leader.

Looking at Chen Jiongming, who was silent, the leader waved his hand a little annoyedly, signaling that he could go.

Chen Jiongming was putting on his military hat, giving a military salute to the leader, and was about to leave, when there were suddenly bursts of artillery in the distance.

The leader calmly straightened up, came to the window, and stretched out his hand, and Haruko Yoshida, who had been standing beside him, immediately handed him a pair of binoculars respectfully.

The leader held up the binoculars and looked at the sea in the distance, but found nothing unusual except for a faint black smoke.

But Chen Jiongming felt an ominous atmosphere from the rumbling cannon.

"Have someone find out what's going on and report back right away." The leader put down the binoculars and turned to Chen Jiongming.

"Yes." Chen Jiongming saluted the leader again, then turned around and left quickly.

The leader watched Chen Jiongming's figure disappear into the doorway, frowned, sighed, and shook his head.

"Sir, are you worried that General Chen's troops can't defeat the Jiangxi soldiers?" Haruko Yoshida asked suddenly.

"It's not that they can't beat it, it's that they don't want to fight it well." The leader turned back to the table and sat down, and said in a slightly hoarse voice, "He Chen Jingcun has always advocated the autonomy of the five southern provinces and provinces, and he has not much enthusiasm for the great cause of the Northern Expedition to recover. ”

Haruko Yoshida listened to the leader's words, and her big beautiful eyes flashed with a hint of sadness.

"I can't just let them lead me by the nose." The leader's eyes flashed with fierce killing intent, "The revolution has reached the critical point of life and death, and there is no room for any hesitation and weakness. ”

As soon as the leader's words fell, the distant cannon fire suddenly became dense.

The leader came to the window again, stared at the smoke rising in the distance, and suddenly seemed to remember something, and his face could not help but change.

"Sure enough, it's the fucking ghost I'm doing!"

Chen Entao, who was standing on the shallow gunboat "Icheon," sneered as he looked at the armed freighter that was constantly exploding in front of him and the crew members who were constantly jumping into the river from above.

"Yes! Look at this explosion like fireworks, if there is no ammunition, it will be fucking hell! Zhang Binyuan, the captain of the "Lichuan" ship standing beside Chen Entao, pointed to the sailors who were floating on the river and shouted for help in Chinese and said, "I can't deny it this time. ”

"Send a small boat down, rescue all those who have fallen into the water, and go back so that we can fight a lawsuit with Yu himself." Chen Entao ordered.

Zhang Binyuan agreed and gave a few orders to an officer.

At this moment, several red lights flashed on the shore in the distance, accompanied by the sound of cannonballs, and the sound of cannonballs breaking through the air was heard, and then a high column of water rose on the sea not far from the "Icheon".

"Fuck! Lao Tzu does not beat you, because the instructions above are all Chinese try not to kill each other, you fucking dare to provoke Lao Tzu! Zhang Binyuan waved his fist at the shore and scolded loudly.

"They are a little anxious when they see that the arms I gave them are gone." Chen Entao sneered, "It's just that with their ability to shoot artillery, it's a joke to want to hit us." ”

For Chen Entao, commander of the Navy's river defense fleet, it was not a problem at all to use the four cutting-edge shallow water heavy gunboats in his hands to deal with the Humen Fort occupied by the revolutionaries.

After the resumption of work at the Mawei Shipyard, the Navy's river defense fleet, which had been relying on dilapidated gunboats and merchant ships in the late Qing Dynasty, was suddenly notified that the Admiralty had ordered four new inland river shallow draft heavy gunboats for them at the Mawei Shipyard, and the construction had already begun. Chen Entao, who was overjoyed, went to Mawei Shipyard to inquire about the news. At this time, the shipyard had completed the design of a heavy artillery type river gunboat at an unprecedented speed, which could meet the firepower needs of the navy's river defense fleet with a lack of ships and ships, and could even be used to provide fire support to the army. Moreover, after this design plan was sent to the Admiralty, it was also approved by the Admiralty, and the drawings of the plan were sent to the Jiangnan Shipyard and the Dagu Shipyard, requesting that four more ships be built according to this plan to strengthen the maritime defense forces of Tianjin.

The design of the Mawei shipyard emphasizes firepower, protection and residential surname, this heavy gunboat is 61 meters long, 12 meters wide, 1.2 meters draft, 680 tons of standard row, powered by steam reciprocating engines, coal-fired boilers, twin shafts and double propellers, with a maximum speed of 12 knots and a cruising range of 10 knots of up to 1,500 nautical miles.

The armament of this class of gunboats includes a single 180 mm main gun in the bow with a wall thickness of 76 mm in the armored turret, which is the product of the modification of the 180 mm heavy gun of the "Man and Gun Factory", in addition to two single 105 mm guns, one single 150 mm gun, and two 20 mm machine guns. The ship is equipped with a searchlight and a 3-meter rangefinder.

Under the night rush of the workers of the Mawei Shipyard, four new-type gunboats soon entered service with the Jiangfang fleet, which were named "Lichuan", "Liluan", "Lijiang", and "Liping", cruising in the Haijiang River.

"Grandma's Long Jiguang, a good fort, all of them were given to the chaotic party without a single shot, it's a fucking shame!" Zhang Binyuan looked at the constantly firing forts on the shore, and said to Chen Entao with some annoyance, "Do you want to give them something powerful?" ”

Chen Entao looked at the two armed freighters that were still blazing on the sea, turned his eyes to the fort on the shore, and shook his head.

"Forget it, anyway, our interception mission has been completed, let's let them go this time." Chen Entao thought of his old comrade-in-arms Cheng Biguang who joined the camp of the revolutionary party, and his expression couldn't help but be a little gloomy.

Listening to Chen Entao's words, Zhang Binyuan also sighed and ordered to notify all ships to gather and retreat to Haikou.

At this time, Cheng Biguang, who was standing in a fort, watched the four gunboats not fire at the shore, but slowly turned around and sailed into the distance, and tears couldn't help but ooze out of the corners of his eyes.

At this time, Cheng Biguang felt deep regret for his previous behavior.

Cheng Biguang is a native of Xiangshan County, Guangdong, his father Cheng Peifang is an overseas Chinese in the United States, and Cheng Biguang is the third oldest among the brothers. Cheng Biguang was admitted to the driving class of Fuzhou Mawei Shipbuilding School at the age of 15, and after graduation, he successively served as the "Chaowu" gunboat pipe belt of the Nanyang Naval Division, the "Yuankai" gunboat pipe belt, the Fujian Naval Academy, and the "Guangjia" cruiser of the Guangdong Naval Division. In the Battle of Dadonggou in the First Sino-Japanese War, Cheng Biguang commanded the "Guangbing" ship to fire artillery and wound the ship "Xijing Maru." In this naval battle, Cheng Biguang was hit by shrapnel in the abdomen, and his robe was stained with blood. After the defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War, Cheng Biguang was sent to submit a surrender to the commander of the navy Ito Youheng, was dismissed by the Qing court, returned to his hometown, and later under the persuasion of his brother Cheng Kuiguang, joined the anti-Qing secret organization Xingzhong Society, after the failure of the anti-Qing uprising, Cheng Biguang fled to Singapore, and was strongly recommended by Li Hongzhang, please exempt Cheng Biguang from all guilt and be reinstated. Cheng Biguang continued to serve in the Navy after returning to China. Later, he successively served as the warship management belt, the director of the Harbour Master's Department, and the commander of the cruiser fleet. In 1911, Cheng Biguang led the cruiser "Haiqi" to England to participate in the coronation ceremony of the British king. Later, large-scale anti-Chinese incidents occurred in Cuba and Mexico. Cheng Biguang then led a ship to visit Cuba, and the local Chinese warmly welcomed him, but the Cuban president was intimidated by the military might of the "Haiqi" warship, so he had no choice but to say to Cheng Biguang: "The Cuban military and people will never discriminate against overseas Chinese." The "Haiqi" warship anchored in Cuba and planned to visit Mexico after resting and recuperating, but the Mexican political axe did not wait for the "Haiqi" to visit, so it apologized to the Qing Zhengaxe for the anti-Chinese incident and compensated the victims of the loss of life and property of the Chinese nationals. The [***] ship then canceled the visit. Cheng Biguang carried out the first successful gunboat diplomacy in the history of Chinese diplomacy during the voyage. After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing Dynasty navy joined the revolutionary camp one after another, and the representatives of the rebel ships jointly elected him as the commander-in-chief of the rebel naval headquarters. After the establishment of the Republic of China, because Cheng Biguang was inclined to revolution, Yuan Shikai was very uneasy about him, so he summoned Cheng Biguang to Beijing and appointed him as a senior adviser to the navy and a counselor of the generalissimo of the army and navy. After learning that Yuan Shikai planned to restore the imperial system, Cheng Biguang was very depressed, and once wrote in a letter to a friend, "But the current affairs are not good, it is really disgusting to the world, and I can't wait to die early to ...... soon".

After the establishment of the Chinese Empire, Cheng Biguang, like Duan Qirui, chose to resign due to illness, but Yuan Shikai did not embarrass him too much, but let him go back to his hometown in Guangdong. After returning home, Cheng Biguang originally planned to never ask about the world, but after the Chinese Revolutionary Party launched an uprising against Yuan Shikai in Guangdong, Cheng Biguang, who received an invitation from the leader of the revolutionary party, still chose to join the uprising.

But what Cheng Biguang didn't expect was that this seemingly vigorous uprising against Yuan Shikai's Chinese Empire was very different from what he had imagined.

Soon after the establishment of the Guangdong Revolutionary Army and the political axe, it began a large-scale Northern Expedition, and the reinforcements of Yunnan and Guizhou Province also drove to Guangdong one after another to support the Northern Expedition of the Revolutionary Army. The army directly under the central government" (to put it bluntly, it is adapted from bandits), with a total of no less than 200,000 people, not including the "people's army" under various names. Under the pretext that they were not well armed, these armies intercepted the taxes of their garrisons in order to replenish their food. As a result, the income of Guangdong Province was intercepted by the army and not returned to the provincial treasury at all. In particular, the Yunnan and Gui armies, which occupied the rich lands along the Guangzhou-Kowloon, Guangzhou-San, and Guangdong-Hanzhou railways, intercepted local tax revenues, resulting in a serious impact on Guangdong's fiscal and taxation system, and all major tax revenues showed a sharp decline.

In order to raise military expenses for the Northern Expedition and meet the needs of the large number of soldiers pressing the border, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army and the political axe adopted the financial policy of "military priority" and wantonly looted from the people. The revolutionary army and political axes began to urgently assess military expenses to the merchants of Guangzhou City and neighboring counties. Soon after the Northern Expedition began, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army and Political Axe asked all chambers of commerce and charities to raise 600,000 yuan in military expenses within five days, and asked silk and pawnshop merchants to "donate" 400,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan respectively for emergency military expenses. The Guangdong Revolutionary Army's Political Axe Finance Department also ordered all local taxes and centiths to be increased by 20 percent and 50 percent respectively, to be paid every five days. Soon after, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army and the Political Axe ordered Dongguan, Panyu, Xiangshan, Xinhui and Shunde to levy a special military fee of 2 jiao per mu for Shatian early rice. Two months later, the more affluent counties of Xiangshan, Nanhai, Panyu, Shunde, Xinhui, Taishan, Heshan, and Kaiping were ordered to pay 800 to 3,000 yuan each to the provincial capital to meet the "urgent military needs." In order to collect more military spending, the revolutionary military government also ordered the whole province to levy money and grain for the following year in advance, and then ordered the chief executives of the regions under the jurisdiction of the provincial administration to raise 200,000 yuan in emergency military expenses within half a month, and each locality raised 500 to 2,000 yuan according to the size of the region. Soon after, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance ordered a collection of "Kwai Mu Donation" in Xinhui County, with a fee of 1 yuan per mu or 3,000 Kwai fans for 1 mu.

In addition to these taxation methods, which are tantamount to direct and open robbery, the Guangdong revolutionary military and political axes have also come up with various indirect methods to open up other sources of income, one is to relax the prohibition of gambling and smoking. Since gambling has always been very popular among the people of Guangdong, gambling tax revenue has become an important part of the political axe tax revenue. After the Yunnan-Guizhou coalition army entered Guangdong, it was quickly divided into prisons, opened gambling bans, and collected gambling taxes. In particular, the Dian army occupied the areas of Guangzhou and Foshan, where gambling was most prevalent, and collected gambling salaries, the largest of which was the "Fan Tan Gambling Tax" of about 1 million yuan per month. In order to raise military expenses and openly legalize them, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army and Political Axe set up a special "fund-raising bureau," the main source of which was the "gambling tax." The function of the "Funding Bureau" is to centralize the management of the scattered gambling tax. After the Yunnan Gui army entered Guangdong, under the pretext that there was no military spending, they openly bought and sold opium, and openly used tobacco as a substitute for wages, ranging from 2 yuan to 3 yuan per tael.

In addition to opening up gambling and banning smoking, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army and political axe also adopted the methods of auctioning and reporting official and public property to increase revenue. The so-called official property and public property, the former refers to the land formed by the gradual siltation along the Pearl River, the settlement of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty and their families, etc., and the latter refers to public property, such as temples, monasteries, and ancestral halls, academies, and guild halls of the major clans in Guangdong (mainly Guangzhou).

Although all official property auctions with notices have auction reserve prices, it is difficult to see the final public transaction price. This is because a large number of official property auctions were not handled in strict accordance with the original procedures, but were sold in secret, and powerful people took the opportunity to enrich themselves.

(To be continued)