Li Xiangjun's matter was just a glimmer of trouble before the army marched to Cangzhou, and it did not attract more people's attention, but Wang Qiang still mentioned it in his urgent report to Luo Jian.

Although it has not yet come out of the New Year, the city of Nanjing has slowly returned to its previous state, and the government has started work on the seventh day of the first lunar month, and the new year has begun again.

At the beginning of the new year, Luo Jian convened a meeting behind closed doors, and the topic of the meeting was very clear, mainly military issues.

Luo Jian first briefed everyone on the current deployment of troops in the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The latest intelligence shows that Duoduo, the prince of Yu of the Manchu Qing Dynasty who was stationed in Guide in Henan, has led a large army to withdraw to Beijing, and there are 120,000 Qing soldiers who have returned to Beijing with him, which means that the main force of the Qing troops in Henan has basically changed to the area around Gyeonggi, and with the original Qing soldiers in Shandong and Hebei, there are more than 300,000 Qing soldiers on this line.

The defense of Henan was taken over by the army of Prince Su Haoge, which had 1340,000 horses and horses, including more than 40,000 cavalry, which had withdrawn from Yunnan and Guizhou.

Hong Chengchou's group in Lianghu currently has more than 300,000 men and horses, and Hong Chengchou, who has already been equipped with a large number of Mini guns, has launched an offensive against the front line in Yongzhou, Hunan, where Li Chengdong's Second Army is stationed, since the end of last year.

At present, the National Defense Forces have assembled nearly 100,000 horses and horses from the four main divisions and logistics support units in the Shandong direction, with the Seventh Division as the sharp knife, and with the cooperation of the Fourth Division, the Sixth Division, and the Ma Yingkui Garrison Division, they are ready to start attacking the Cangzhou front line when the weather is slightly warmer.

Luo Jian did not count the two cavalry brigades in the Shandong direction, these two cavalry brigades were adapted from Wu Sangui's cavalry, and they are still being trained. It will take some time to take up combat duty.

In the direction of Xuzhou. Weng Zhiqi's fifth division, which was originally stationed in Xuzhou, had already moved to Anqing. The defense of the front line in Xuzhou has been taken over by the first army that arrived in advance. Only the 1st Division and the Cavalry Brigade of the First Army replaced the Yangzhou Type 2 rifle, although Liu Zhaoji really wanted the whole army to change to new equipment, but Nanjing's production capacity really couldn't keep up, and Luo Jian had no way to solve it, so he could only change it while fighting.

Two main divisions were concentrated in the Anqing direction, and the third and fifth divisions were about to march up the river and march to Hubei with the cooperation of the naval division, so as to reduce the pressure of Hong Chengchou's group on the second army.

"It's not a big deal in these directions. The point is, is our command weaker? Shi Kefa pointed to the large map on the table and said, he pointed to the direction of Anqing.

"I also thought about this problem yesterday, I think so, can you see it?" Luo Jian knew what Shi Kefa meant, Li Benshen's third division basically had not participated in decent battles, and Weng Zhiqi's command ability did not seem to be enough to grasp the overall situation.

Everyone turned their eyes to Luo Jian, and they all wanted to hear what he thought.

"I personally went to Shandong, transferred Lao Huang to Anqing, and commanded the march to Hubei. What do you think? ”

Luo Jian This is after careful consideration, the big war after the beginning of spring this year will be a national war. Now that many of the rules and regulations of the Nanjing government have taken shape, there is a history and a law to grasp the overall situation in Nanjing, and there will certainly not be much chaos.

Shi Kefa also knew that this year was the most critical year, especially the Shandong front, once it was fought, it could directly threaten the foundation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Seeing that Shi Kefa had already nodded, Ren Minyu and the others also nodded.

"Our Marines have been hiding for so long, and it's time for them to make their debut this year." Luo Jian went on to say that he left the "Yue Fei" and "Ran Min" behind for this battle.

"Xiao Liu, you have to give priority to replenishing enough ammunition for the Marine Corps during this time, they will be fighting behind enemy lines, we have difficulty in supplying, we must carry enough ammunition, you personally go to the Marine Corps and discuss it with Yan Yingyuan, their requirements must be met as much as possible." Luo Jian explained to Liu Weimin.

The Marines will land in the northeast at an appropriate time and directly cut off the Manchu retreat to the northeast.

As a matter of fact, the current situation is very clear, and the key lies in how well the troops on the front line fight, but there is no more strategy and tactics to talk about; in the final analysis, war is still a contest of comprehensive strength, and now it is time to fight for the bottom of the family.

At the meeting, Luo Jian told everyone about Li Xiangjun, which aroused everyone's curiosity.

"Alas, Hou Fangyu became like this, I really didn't expect it." Shi Kefa sighed, Hou Fangyu was one of his staff at the beginning, Shi Kefa's reply to Dolgon was drafted by him, and Hou Fangyu was the first in the "Four Sons of the Restoration Society".

"Yes, there is no comparison between people and people! Chen Zilong and Fang Yizhi are also one of the four sons of the Restoration Society, they are now all dedicated to the country, but Hou Fangyu forgets his ancestors for personal interests, he is really a villain! Lu Zhenfei said hatefully.

"Who's to say it isn't? Mao Xiang is also working in the government now, and his development is also very good, this kid was blindfolded by Ronghua Valuable, but he can't jump for a few days, Cangzhou is about to be beaten down, where do I think this kid is running? Yuan Jixian was also very emotional.

Hou Fangyu's topic has not been discussed for long, there are still more things to study, this year's economic development must continue, and development cannot be stopped just because of the war.

Chemical fertilizer has been produced a lot, how to send fertilizer to farmers, so that farmers know that the use of chemical fertilizer can increase production and income, this has to be done patiently by the government, not all farmers know that Shi Kefa has done experiments in the field of Zhang Laohan's family outside Yangzhou.

The government must make a long-term plan now to prevent peasants from increasing grain production without increasing income after using chemical fertilizers, otherwise it will be too late to find a solution.

"We must not allow farmers to increase production without increasing income, this absolutely cannot be!" Shi Kefa said very resolutely.

"If grain production increases, prices will definitely fall, and unless the government pays for food, this problem still objectively exists." Ren Minyu said very calmly.

"The government must start stockpiling a lot of food from now on, and as the army moves forward, we must be ready to provide relief to the victims. Although the areas under the jurisdiction of the Manchu Qing Dynasty have been basically smooth in the past two years. But the Manchus raised so many troops. This money and food are all pulled out of the mouths of the people, and once the war is raging, there will inevitably be a large number of victims, and we must take care of them. Luo Jian said.

"It must be managed, but how to manage it, where to raise all this money, the Ministry of Finance must start planning from now on, in order to solve these problems. We also do not hesitate to stop some basic construction. "Shi Kefa is afraid that the life of the common people will not be able to go on, and he is not too afraid of slower development.

Finance Minister Zhang Youyu kept making records in a small book, as the big housekeeper of the whole country, he is now even sleeping at night calculating the income and expenditure of the whole country, except for the army construction and education expenditures on the two Zhang Youyu is basically not stuck, other expenditures can be said to be carefully calculated to the extreme, many people began to call him "Zhang Laojiao".

Zhang Youyu also laughed at this nickname, and even said with a smile: "I will always pick it, I'll be a little looser here." The country should do more with less, and then be generous when the country's finances are relaxed. ”

Luo Jian and Shi Kefa are also extremely satisfied with what Zhang Youyu has done since he became Minister of Finance. It is indeed reassuring to have someone as responsible and shrewd as him in charge of finances.

The closed-door meeting lasted for three days, and the work of the whole year has been made detailed arrangements and deployments, and there are also some plans to deal with emergencies, Luo Jian began to prepare to leave for Shandong again, and the instructions to Huang Degong have been issued two days ago, Luo Jian can still meet Huang Degong on the road, and some things will be discussed at that time.

Before leaving, Luo Jian came to the station of the Marine Corps again, although he came a year ago, he did not make specific requests to the Marine Corps, which was of a condolence nature.

"Governor, are you going to let us go?" Yan Yingyuan received Luo Jian at the gate, and asked after saluting.

"Brother Liheng, are you in a hurry? It's almost time for you to play. Luo Jian said with a smile.

"Metropolitan Governor, the boys are already holding back, please take a look at their training level today?" Yan Yingyuan said to Luo Jian very seriously.

"I won't look at it, I'm going to leave for Shandong in two days, and this time I'm here to have a good talk with you." Luo Jian had great confidence in Yan Yingyuan's ability, as long as he mastered the correct training method, the combat effectiveness of the troops would not have to worry about himself.

After receiving a scroll of maps from the staff officer, Luo Jian and Yan Yingyuan talked behind closed doors for most of the day, no one knew what they talked about, anyway, the expression on Yan Yingyuan's face when he came out was both excited and a little dignified.

was about to set off on the twelfth day of the first lunar month, but a good news made Luo Jian stop.

The good news was sent by Zhu Cihuan, and the telegraph finally made significant progress, which made Luo Jian excited, and decided to let Yi Bangcai take the staff officers of the General Staff to Shandong first, and wait for the telegraph to have results before catching up.

"Uncle Luo, we have done the test, dozens of miles of road has been completely fine, I think if we build a transmission tower on the mountain, the propagation distance will definitely be much farther, and now we don't dare to increase the power of the transmitter, for fear of problems."

Zhu Cihuan kept explaining to Luo Jian all the way, he was also very excited, he tested his personal participation a few days ago, and he hoped that the telegram could be sent across the ocean and his sister could be contacted directly, but he also knew that it was unrealistic at present, and he could only come step by step.

"Dozens of miles? This distance is not very practical, let's go and see what can be directly improved. Luo Jian was a little disappointed, wireless telegraphy is much more complicated than cable telegraphy, involving some electromagnetic principles, I don't know how they solve it.

In the Institute of Physics, Luo Jian saw the telegraph developed by Zhu Cihuan, the size of which looked not small, the generator was driven by a steam engine, and the generator did not look very bulky, but the telegraph took up half of the room.

Tubes have not yet been developed, some of them are in the most primitive way, the capacitor is two copper plates, the coil looks like a mace, and the wire is extremely crudely made.

Luo Jian did not dwell on the primitive of the components, but looked at the entire working principle and felt that their thinking was correct, it was Luo Jian who designed it according to the telegraph principle provided by Luo Jian, and the problem of components could only be solved slowly.

Seeing this, Luo Jian gave up the idea of directly bringing a telegraph to the front line, and he stayed in the Institute of Physics for two days, teaching Zhu Cihuan in detail some principles of electron tubes, capacitors, and resistors, hoping that they could successfully develop a practical telegraph in a short time. (To be continued.) )