On October 15, 1903, in the Xilin area of the Yunnan-Guizhou border area, a huge military camp was busy and orderly, with groups of soldiers running back and forth, trucks and jeeps shuttling back and forth. This is the starting point of the First Division of the Sixth Army, and the management of an army is a complicated job, with infantry, artillery, engineers, baggage soldiers, medical guards, and other arms, all of which are being intensively prepared before the war.

Unlike in the past, Le Fei was very busy at the battalion headquarters, and he was still more willing to crawl on the training ground than before. After the suspension of military academy training, Le Fei was selected by the Sixth Army to become the commander of the first battalion of the third regiment of the first division of the Sixth Army, and his old partner Dong Dashan served as the deputy battalion commander. Battalion commanders under the age of thirty are not uncommon in the army, a microcosm of the lack of officers in the army and a result of the army's rapid expansion.

In less than four years since the founding of the Zhenguo Army, the number of people has expanded from a few thousand to more than 200,000. Even with sufficient funds, weapons and equipment, and logistical supplies, combat effectiveness is unknown.

The lack of staff officers made many things run by Le Fei and Dong Dashan personally, and the jeep, which was very fresh at the beginning, is now tired of sitting on it, and the two jeeps at the battalion headquarters, driven by Le Fei and Dong Dashan personally, are running around the training ground, logistics department, soldiers' camp, field hospital, and regiment headquarters.

"Come back, Lao Le, drink some water first." Dong Dashan handed a glass of water to Le Fei, who had just entered the battalion, and Le Fei took it up and drank it all, sat down and took a breath.

"How is it, has the regimental headquarters given an order?"

Le Fei: "Our hard days are finally over!" The combat mission of the 3rd Regiment was to capture Yuxi, south of Kunming, and to form an encirclement of Kunming from the south. The task of our 1st battalion was to capture Yuxi and then go all the way north, and finally stop in the border areas of Yunnan and Sichuan, which was the specific route and detailed battle plan, and the time was set for 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. ”

Dong Dashan took it and looked at it carefully, and looked up at Le Fei in surprise: "We don't have many combat missions, the task of attacking Kunming was handed over to the Second Division, and most of the tasks of capturing other places were handed over to our maiden troops, the First Mountain Brigade and the Second Mountain Brigade, we are actually going to receive it, damn!" This time it's an armed march! ”

"The regular military force in the Yunnan-Guizhou region is relatively weak, but it does not mean that we can be idle, the terrain there is complicated, the march is difficult, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and there are a large number of landlords, bandits, and parties in the local area, we are not familiar with the place, whether we can stand firm is still a problem. Moreover, I estimate that our footsteps will not stop after the capture of Yungui, Sichuan is the country of abundance, and the chiefs will let it go? ”

"Okay, it's time to exercise the team, and it's not easy to suppress bandits. I said Lao Le, has the Two Lakes region been taken down? ”

"You old Dong, let you read more of the war briefing, you always run to the training ground, and throw me all the mess. The report said that our trump card No. 1 Army had all entered the two lakes on the 3rd, and all cities, traffic arteries, including Wuhan and Changsha, had entered our control. On the 4th, all the Qing troops on the east side were driven out of Hubei, and in addition, two regiments of the 1st Division confronted the 3rd Town of Beiyang in the north of Hubei, and the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Divisions controlled the place. In addition, the 3rd Mountain Brigade was already stationed in the Huaihua area in western Hunan, preparing to attack Guizhou to the west. The two lakes are restored, and that old lady in Beijing is going crazy! ”

"Tsk, the first army is neat, and it will pacify Hubei in less than three days, speaking of which, it is also our old army, the heart of the chief. If there is any good equipment, give it to the First Army first, I heard that there is a new type of machine gun, which will soon be able to equip the troops, and our Sixth Army will definitely be the latest to equip it. ”

"You are very well informed in this regard, and I also know something about this, the logistical pressure of our army is too great, and it has been decided to produce a new machine gun, called a 'general-purpose machine gun', which is fed by a chain, and the weight is not much heavier than that of a light machine gun, and the rate of fire and stability are much better. You also know that one of the reasons why they only entered the two lakes and did not attack Yungui and Zhejiangjiang together was the heavy logistical pressure. ”

Dong Dashan was drooling over the "general-purpose machine gun" mentioned by Le Fei, and suddenly saw Le Fei pick up a few documents, stand up and walk out the door.

"Battalion commander, tomorrow will be launched, I'll go below to see the preparations of the various departments." Before he finished speaking, he had already walked out of the battalion headquarters, which made Le Fei cry and laugh, Dong Dashan has always been like this, and he ran away when he saw the documents.

The imperial court did its best, but still could not prevent the national army from recovering the two lakes, when it was reported on October 5 that Zhang Zhidong joined the Zhenguo Party and became the vice premier of the revolutionary government, the Empress Dowager Cixi finally lay down, and she was not so pessimistic about the foreigners entering Beijing, and Zhang Zhidong, who was known as the pillar of the country, defected to the enemy but she could not support it. On the sickbed, Cixi said to everyone: "Give Yuan Shikai the right, he will give whatever he wants, as long as we keep our people, as long as Yuan Shikai is not the emperor, we will satisfy him!" ”

Zhili Governor's Palace, Yuan Shikai convened his staff to discuss, he held the latest appointment letter of the imperial court, the governor of Zhili and the Minister of Military Aircraft, and the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the imperial court was cornered.

"My lord, don't be fooled by the appointment of the imperial court, this is only an expedient measure made under the pressure of the southern rebel party. Even if the sick Empress Dowager wants you to have more power, those Manchu magnates will not hand it over. This can be seen by the fact that all the people in the cabinet are in power, and we have to stretch it. It was Yang Du who spoke, and the advanced road he created for Yuan Shikai is now moving towards reality step by step.

"What Wanzi said is true, the court has no other way out except to rely on the lord. Now foreigners are putting their bets on us, which is a good opportunity for adults! The response was Liang Dunyan, who was one of the young children studying in the United States, erudite and talented, and was entrusted by Yuan Shikai with an important task to deal with the affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Yuan Shikai: "Songsheng (Liang Dunyan's character), what do the British say?" ”

"The British were very angry about the sinking of the three warships, which was regarded as an act of war, and they heard that there was a discussion in the country about whether to send troops. I estimate that they will not send an army to directly attack the rebels, at most they will send warships to bombard the southern coast. Therefore, they will spend a lot of money and weapons on us to resist the expansion of the rebel party. My lord, in addition to the British, there are two other countries that are very zealous. ”

"Which two countries?" Yuan Shikai asked.

"One is Japan, the Japanese minister has visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs many times recently, and they have suffered great losses in Guangdong, and they are very concerned about exterminating the chaotic party, but Japan is very poor and cannot get much substantial benefit. The second is Russia, but I think that Russia's wolf ambitions, occupying our good port of Lushun, and still running rampant in the northeast, should not have deep relations with it. ”

"Yes, with the support of the British, we can ignore Japan and Russia. According to Song Sheng, the British will definitely invest a lot of money in us, and this is a good opportunity for us to expand our strength. My lord, I propose to expand the scale of the six towns of Beiyang, or form a new army, even if the imperial court does not allow it, we can also do it secretly, what can the imperial court do to me? Wang Shizhen said.

Yuan Shikai nodded, his psychology had already planned, the chaotic party and Beiyang are separated by the Yangtze River, the north must not be occupied by the chaotic party, and it is not easy to fight with the chaotic party, and the chaotic party can be used to obtain the greatest benefits.

"Send electricity to Duan Qirui, the third town must not be moved lightly, nor can it easily fight with the national army, and we can't get the rich land in the south, so let the chaotic party take it. The Liangjiang area has always been the sphere of influence of foreigners, and the chaotic party entering Liangjiang is indispensable to face trouble, so let's sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight for the time being. ”

In addition to the western part of Guangxi, the eastern part of Hunan and the northern part of Fujian were all ready for the Nationalist Army, and the Second Army arrived near Changsha by train and attacked Jiangxi from here. Fujian also had good road and railway transportation conditions, and the Third Army would attack Zhejiang from Ningde in northern Fujian, and the two armies would then continue north to the south bank of the Yangtze River and capture Shanghai in the east.

In the early morning of October 16, 1903, the three armies launched an attack at the same time, and the Northern Expedition entered its peak. With three armies and three mountain brigades, more than 150,000 troops roared and the earth shook, and more than 1 million logistical support troops moved forward, and nearly 10,000 large and small factories in the rear were fully operationalized to meet the needs of the troops at the front.

At this time, Lü Liang quietly arrived in Wuhan, the victory of the Northern Expedition was almost a foregone conclusion, and the center of military administration was about to move north accordingly. It's just that this time Lu Liang went to Wuhan just to make a front stop, and also to discuss with Zhang Zhidong about the establishment of the country, after all, Zhang Zhidong is already old, and he should run hard when he is younger.