"Xiang Shuai, Liu Xianzhuang, the governor of the two lakes, sent someone to deliver a letter." A servant walked to Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, with a letter, and Zhang Zhidong was still worried about the letter in his hand and the holy decree.

"Oh? Take it for me to see. Zhang Zhidong came back to his senses slightly.

Immediately after, the servant handed over the letter, and Zhang Zhidong read the letter at a glance, the content of the letter was roughly the same as the situation on Zhang Zhidong's side, and there may be discrepancies in some details, but it doesn't matter.

After reading this letter, Zhang Zhidong shook his head helplessly and sighed heavily, "It seems that this rumor is indeed true." ”

The servants on the side also sighed after seeing Zhang Zhidong's helpless sigh, but there was nothing he could do about it, what idea could he have as a servant?

Although he has been by Zhang Zhidong's side for a long time and knows more or less about some political matters, he has never handled it himself after all.

"Junlai, what do you think I should do?" Zhang Zhidong was in a dilemma, and couldn't help but look at this old guy who had been with him for decades.

Although Chunlai always calls himself a servant, Zhang Zhidong has never regarded Chunlai as a servant, and more often regards Zhang Zhidong as his sibling.

This is a person who has never changed his position for decades and has always followed him, and sometimes, when Zhang Zhidong is helpless, he will always ask for Chunlai's opinion.

"Xiang Shuai, in recent years, there have been continuous wars in the country, foreigners have invaded five times, the people have been separated, and they are even more miserable, as a common people, I naturally hope that the world can be peaceful and everyone can have a good life, but I am afraid that this war will start again." He was purely talking about his own thoughts, but he was thinking about this issue from the perspective of the people.

"Yes, if it weren't for the sake of allowing the people to have a stable life, Da Zhuang and I would not have reached an agreement with the foreigner last year." Zhang Zhidong nodded, and Chunlai's words spoke to his heart.

When the coalition invaded last year, Seymour, as the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, never appeared on the battlefield, but roamed the southeast coastal area from the beginning.

The purpose was to reach an agreement with Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kun and other powerful governors, hoping that they could suppress the Boxers and prevent them from going north. At the same time, in exchange, Seymour also gave them assurances that the coalition forces would not attack their jurisdiction, so as to ensure that the people in the jurisdiction could have a stable living environment.

It was precisely because of this guarantee from the foreigners that the powerful governors such as Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kun finally agreed to the foreigners' request.

It's just that what they didn't expect was that Wang Sirui was killed again on the way, defeating the foreigners in one fell swoop, and even capturing the coalition headquarters alive.

The situation at that time made Zhang Zhidong and others even more shocked, but because they had promised the foreigners in advance, they could only do things according to the agreement.

In the end, the foreigners still won, although they were defeated by Wang Sirui in some areas, but they still could not change the final outcome.

And when he knew the news, Zhang Zhidong was even more angry that he hadn't eaten a grain for three days, and even fell seriously ill because of it.

And now, in just a few months, there is news that Wang Sirui is controlling the imperial court? And now Wang Sirui is coercing the Son of Heaven to order the princes, and the twists and turns they send can all be approved by the above, and it is precisely for this reason that these powerful governors dare not act rashly, for fear that the message outside is fake.

"If you accept it, you can at least get a peace in the short term, but if you refuse, you will be ruined. To pick up or not to connect? It's hard! Zhang Zhidong shook his head again.

If it was really an order from the imperial court, he Zhang Zhidong would never shake his head, and he would not even blink an eye before agreeing directly. But now the message that is spreading outside makes Zhang Zhidong dare not make any moves easily.

He was afraid that his actions would set an example for the other governors, if it was true, then naturally everything would be easy to say, but if it was false, this Zhang Zhidong would become Wang Sirui's comrade.

Of course, now a more difficult problem is in front of Zhang Zhidong, because he has confirmed the rumors outside, and Wang Sirui has already had a showdown with him in the letter.

'The European and American powers are bullying and domineering, Oriental Japan is barbaric and unreasonable, peeping into our Chinese territory is not a moment, but Japan is not bullying our troops enough, the Shengjing war is coming, I have hundreds of thousands of troops, just for the peace of the country and the people, I hope the king will help it! ’

There is only this short sentence in Wang Sirui's letter, but it reveals a huge amount of information to Zhang Zhidong, and even makes Zhang Zhidong a little hard to believe.

"Xiang Shuai, whether you accept it or not, we must express our stance now!" Junlai continued.

This is also Wang Sirui's cleverness, before the war, he used the holy decree to command them these feudal officials, although it is possible to leak the news of the war, but who can guarantee that Wang Sirui did not deliberately want to pass the information to the Japanese?

It's not a matter of a day or two that the Japanese want their resources, and the Hanyang Iron Works has basically been slowly infiltrated by the Japanese, and now there has begun to happen that raw materials are directly loaded and shipped to Japan, but Zhang Zhidong can only sigh.

There was no way he could stop the Japanese from transporting the ore away, because the Japanese had quietly bought some of the shares in the mine, and they had the right to dispose of the iron ore.

"yes, I have to take a stand." Zhang Zhidong sighed, shook his head immediately, and said helplessly: "Reply to them, just say that we will carry out military reform in strict accordance with the instructions of the imperial court." But secretly, we still maintain the current size of the army, which is the bottom line. ”

"In addition, I will also reply to Da Xianzhuang like this, although the foreign war is coming, although we do not support it, we must not delay it, so as not to be scolded by future generations." Immediately after, Zhang Zhidong continued.

"Xiang Shuai, I'll reply to them." Junlai nodded and left the study.

Regarding Zhang Zhidong's reply, it was actually for three people, the first one was naturally for Wang Sirui, who represented the imperial court, so that he could fight the Japanese with peace of mind, the second one, to maintain the size of the army, this was an order issued internally, and the third was naturally a reply to Liu Kunyi.

After Chunlai left, Zhang Zhidong once again set his eyes on the holy decree, and after a long time, he came back to his senses.

Military reform has a great impact on him, and can even directly subvert his current position. But in the same way, Wang Sirui also gave corresponding compensation, in terms of personnel appointment, Zhang Zhidong is completely in charge, and only needs to report to the imperial court, Wang Sirui will not interfere in personnel matters.

But even so, if it is really reformed according to Wang Sirui's method, then the army after the reform does not know if its strength will increase dramatically? It's still a big loss of vitality.

According to Wang Sirui's order, the army in the Huguang area will be reorganized into the 9th Division of the Qing Army, and the 20th and 21st Divisions of the Qing Army.

In other words, the troops in Zhang Zhidong's hands will be reorganized into three divisions, as the name suggests, the ninth division of the army is a regular army unit, which is a combat unit, and this division has an establishment of 15,000 people, which is 3,000 less than Wang Sirui's division.

And this division was to be stationed in Wuhan along the Yangtze River, responsible for monitoring the movement of the Yangtze River. The 20th Garrison Division was stationed in Hunan and was mainly responsible for local public security issues, while the 21st Division was stationed in Hubei and was also responsible for public security issues.

The entire unit was divided into two parts by Wang Sirui, the combat unit and the garrison unit, with the total number of combat troops being 15,000 and the garrison being 10,000. Except for the combat units, which have a clear stipulation on the location of the troops, the garrison forces only specify the provinces in which they are stationed, but do not specify the detailed locations.

In other words, after the adaptation, Zhang Zhidong will only have an army of 35,000 people, which is twice as small as now.

According to Wang Sirui's division, the combat troops have been reduced by tens of thousands, from 60,000 to 15,000, which can definitely hurt Zhang Zhidong's vitality.

Compared with Zhang Zhidong's side, Liu Kun's troops have one more division. Because the Governor of Liangjiang needed to govern three provinces, namely Zhejiang, Anhui, and Jiangxi. The extra one is naturally the 31st Army Garrison Division stationed in Anhui.

All Western-style adaptations, it doesn't matter if it was a few years earlier, but now, Wang Sirui is in charge, and he is facing foreign wars, which makes them very uncomfortable for the real power.

If they refuse to obey the order, Wang Sirui only needs to issue a holy decree in the name of the imperial court, and they will immediately lose these, even if they pretend not to receive the holy decree, they will be instructed by tens of thousands of people.

But if they agree, it means that they have been calculated by Wang Sirui, and if they want to refute it in the future, I am afraid that they will be a little weak.

But no matter whether they enter this circle or not, since Wang Sirui has told them in private that he, Wang Sirui, is about to start a war with the Japanese army, then these powerful figures can only obey, but cannot resist.

This is morality, no matter what you do, you must first occupy a reason before you can continue to act, otherwise you will be reviled by all people.

At the same time, almost all the governors of all regions of the country received Wang Sirui's holy decree and secret letters.

According to Wang Sirui's plan, the whole country will be reorganized into 10 combat divisions and 17 garrison divisions, with a total scale of 330,000 people.

In fact, to put it bluntly, Wang Sirui just wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to weaken the strength in the hands of the governors as much as possible and prepare for future reunification.

As for whether those governors are serious about implementation, this Wang Sirui doesn't care, he only cares whether these people respond to his call, for Wang Sirui, this is enough.

And this is also the first plan that Wang Shizhen made for Wang Sirui after he took refuge in him. (To be continued.) )