With the extermination of the Kuomintang anti-Yuan forces that had retreated to Hunan, Guangdong, Fujian and other places, and the failure of the "Second Revolution" that lasted for half a year, President Yuan Shikai was finally able to free up his hands and remove the governors of all provinces in the country.

Yuan Shikai's methods were very tough, he first listed the charges, and threw Zhang Peijue, the head of the Sichuan civil affairs who was ousted from power and lost his face, and Yin Changheng, the former governor of Sichuan, to prison, and the trial was concluded within a month, and Zhang Peijue, the "leader of the rebellious party," was sentenced to death, and Yin Changheng, who was "greedy for military salaries and filled his own pockets," was sentenced to nine years in prison and imprisoned in the Yanjing Army Prison.

Immediately afterwards, Yuan Shikai sent his confidant general Zhang Yi to Sichuan to serve as the envoy of Chuankang Town, in an attempt to control the Sichuan border army through Zhang Yi, the envoy of the town, and then cooperate with Hu Jingyi, the governor of Sichuan, to suppress local forces and completely realize the control of Sichuan.

Perhaps it was the powerful Beiyang Army that showed a devastating and devastating combat power in the process of exterminating the Kuomintang forces, which made Yuan Shikai's ambitions unprecedentedly inflated; Perhaps it was Hu Jingyi, the governor of Sichuan, who strictly followed his orders and exterminated Xiong Kewu's troops with a surprising speed, showing good overall control and loyalty, which greatly increased Yuan Shikai's confidence in Hu Jingyi; Or perhaps it was Xiao Yimin, commander of the Sichuan Frontier Army, who blindly retreated in terms of political status and military rank over the years, which made Yuan Shikai feel that Xiao Yimin did not dare to openly violate his will, which made Yuan Shikai impatient to reach out to Sichuan.

There is also an extremely key factor in this, Sichuan's annual total tax revenue of 40 million has always been Yuan Shikai's greedy goal.

In order to firmly grasp Sichuan, in addition to controlling Sichuan's army, it is even more necessary to weaken the tremendous power of Sichuan's local forces, and there can no longer be such an act as the Sichuan parliament dismissing the civil chief sent by the central government, which openly provokes the central leadership.

Therefore, Yuan Shikai relied on the majesty of the "Second Revolution" to dismiss more than 500 Kuomintang members of the Central Senate and the House of Representatives, shot seven of them on charges of treason, and imprisoned more than 30 people.

In the end, Yuan Shikai also set up a more powerful "National Political Conference" on top of the national parliament that had not yet been reorganized, and installed a group of confidants and meritorious generals around him, so as to complete the strong control of state power.

It's a pity that although Yuan Shikai had great expectations and his methods were also ruthless, he still underestimated the determination of the local forces in Sichuan to resist, and underestimated the ability and intelligence of Xiao Yimin, commander-in-chief of the Sichuan border army.

At this time, all the laws and regulations of the former Qing Dynasty were overturned, and the draft of the new national constitution was still being revised, and the Sichuan Parliament, under the impetus of a group of elite members who had returned from abroad, stubbornly seized on this loophole, openly refused to dissolve the Sichuan Provincial Assembly on the grounds that "there was no legal basis", and began to revise a series of laws and regulations on local surnames in full swing, and quickly established its own political party, the China Mingzhuo Party, through the "Sichuan Provincial Federation of Industry and Commerce", and issued the party constitution and declaration on October 10, the commemoration of the Xinhai Revolution. Continue to control the political situation in Sichuan and enjoy the joy of being in power.

To paraphrase a joke from the Sichuan Provincial Councillors: Since there is no royal law, let's work hard and create our own royal law to use!

In contrast, Xiao Yimin, commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Frontier Army, was much more gentle; after receiving Yuan Shikai's telegram, Xiao Yimin immediately sent a telegram back, expressing his welcome and support for Zhang Yi, the envoy to the town of Chuankang sent by the central authorities, and expressing his promise once again that all the officers and men of the border army would support the decision of the Central Political Axe and the War Department, and would work together with General Zhang Yi, the envoy of the town, to defend the homeland and the country.

After the telegram was sent, Xiao Yimin immediately convened a meeting and soon came up with a series of countermeasures, quietly abolishing the office set up by the Chuankang garrison in Chengdu, and convening the highest military meeting of the Sichuan Frontier Army, and setting up the camp of the Chuankang town guard in Kangding in the form of a written resolution.

Xiao Yimin, who seems to be passive, has always held the initiative firmly in his own hands.

More than a year ago, he and Chief of Staff Bao Jiqing, Chief of Staff Zou Wenhan and others had already begun to make arrangements, in order to prevent the rapidly growing border army from becoming the target of public criticism, Xiao Yimin through a clever exchange of interests, the confidant general Wang Jianbu 11,000 brothers were stripped out and turned into a permanent army division in Sichuan; Before the crusade against Xiong Kewu's department, the 8,000 border army brothers under his command Wang Lingji were successfully transferred to the permanent army sequence, replacing the number of Xiong Kewu's 5th Division stationed in Yucheng.

Second, Xiao Yimin took advantage of the opportunity of Sichuan Kang to quell the rebellion, and on the basis of expanding the first mixed brigade of the Sichuan Frontier Army in the Qiluo part of the former border army, he decisively supported the Phuntsok department of the "Shouzi Battalion" of the former border army, and generously provided equipment and military salaries to the Phuntsok department of Du Runian, so that Phuntsok won the number of the second mixed brigade of the Sichuan Border Army, and a group of generals, including Phuntsok, were promoted to the ranks, and quickly recruited more than 3,000 young and strong men of the Yi and Miao ethnic groups to supplement the soldiers of a mixed brigade, and obeyed the orders of the border army headquarters. Occupying the wealthy Yanjing area and garrisoning it for a long time, it took only three months to achieve self-sufficiency in food.

Judging from the recent report sent by Phuntsok and the list of weapons and equipment purchased, the Second Mixed Brigade, with the support of the task force dispatched by the border army headquarters, has gradually won the trust of the local people of all nationalities.

On December 20, Zhang Yicai, the envoy of Chuankang Town sent by Yuan Shikai, came belatedly, and Xiao Yimin, the commander of the border army, led his generals to greet him warmly, and the grandeur of the etiquette was much more than Zhang Yi expected:

In the sound of majestic military music, Xiao Yimin accompanied Zhang Yi to inspect the well-equipped and high-morale 3,000 soldiers of the frontier army, and then led Zhang Yi and his more than 30 attendants to rest in the specially prepared exquisite courtyard, and then held a grand dust-washing banquet in the evening, and the leading figures from all walks of life in Sichuan came to cheer, so that Zhang Yi's self-esteem and vanity were greatly satisfied.

After drinking wine for three days in a row, Zhang Yi and his entourage were not happy, and the envoy of Chuankang Town was camped in Kangding, a bitter cold place.

Although General Qi Luo's First Mixed Brigade of the Frontier Army was located in the Kangding Battalion, the Kang-Tibet rebels did not dare to annoy the officers and soldiers of the fierce and cruel First Mixed Brigade, and this place that has always produced beautiful women is very safe, but all this is thousands of miles away from Zhang Yi's wish in Yanjing City for a long time.

In any case, this boy was reluctant to go to the camp in Kangding, and finally found a clumsy and very practical reason to continue to stay in Chengdu, where singing and dancing was peaceful.

Xiao Yimin deeply understands this, and is also very concerned, he sends people to send gifts at both ends in three days, and takes time out every week to visit the door, send money and medicine to ask for warmth, behave benevolently and righteously, and are very friends, so that Zhang Yi and his entourage give a thumbs up and praise as long as Xiao Yimin is mentioned.

In fact, Xiao Yimin was so busy that he even canceled the routine inspection for the New Year.

The German engineer Max and his entourage returned to Chengdu before Christmas, not only bringing back a large number of special raw materials, advanced machinery and equipment, and a large number of materials, but also bringing the old Powers family to Chengdu and began to resume all the delayed work.

The simple and serious old Powers only rested for three days, and then took two assistants to the foundry, commanded the workers to install the production line for the production of steel helmets, and took out his own well-designed drawings and samples of six kinds of steel helmets, and conducted repeated studies with Xiao Yimin and other generals, according to the head shape of the Chinese officers and soldiers and Xiao Yimin's several opinions, quickly revised the design drawings, and began to process molds with various departments.

During Christmas, the German military attache in Chengdu Sharpler quietly told his good friend Xiao Yimin at the reception that he would leave office within 30 days, and he would leave China after the handover of work was completed, and return to Germany to report to the General Staff of the German Army.

Xiao Yimin immediately realized that the turbulent European continent was about to ignite a raging war!

After Christmas, Xiao Yimin quickly adjusted his work procedures, put off all entertainment, canceled routine inspections, soaked in the Ordnance Research Institute and several factories every morning, went to the military academy and headquarters in the afternoon to deal with the military affairs that had to be handled, and returned home in the evening to tease his son and love his wife, and then wrote a book night after night, and after more than half a month of hard thinking and repeated revisions, he finally wrote a military monograph of 180,000 words.

The monograph, entitled "Exploration of Modern Military Equipment and Tactics," is rigorously structured and well argued, and the chapter on "The Impact of the Emergence of New Weapons on Modern Warfare" is particularly detailed, and was unanimously praised by [***] experts around the world a few years later.

Due to the successful development of 60mm, 81mm, and 100mm mortars, as well as the rapid development of armored vehicles by European and American powers, Xiao Yimin focused on the research and development background and current situation of these two new types of equipment, the tactical concept of the strike effect and equipment application, and elaborated on the tactical application and future development trend of tracked armored vehicles on the battlefield, and clearly put forward the new viewpoint that "mortars have an irreplaceable and important position in modern warfare".

In the last part of the monograph, Xiao Yimin boldly predicted:

The three kinds of small and medium-caliber mortars will become the main force of battalion and company firepower in the modern army, and will show amazing striking effects and far-reaching significance in local battles such as brutal trench battles, fire suppression, and annihilation. The extensive use of steel-armored tracked armored vehicles will trigger a new revolution in military thinking, and armored vehicles will effectively destroy all existing battlefield defense systems with their solid armor, large-caliber dense firepower, unprecedented raid speed and flexible use.

On January 16, 1914, 10 days before the Chinese New Year, Xiao Yimin presented the book "Exploration of Modern Military Equipment and Tactics" that he had painstakingly written to his friend Sharpler, who was about to leave his post and return to Germany.

Sharpler was very grateful for this, and also attached great importance to it, remembering Xiao Yimin's almost god-like prediction ability and lofty gaze in the past few years, Sharpler immediately grabbed Xiao Yimin, did not eat or drink, and asked Xiao Yimin to briefly describe the content of the book.

Sharple's Chinese level is limited, although Xiao Yimin can speak fluently in German after several years of study, but still unable to translate this rigorous military monograph in German, and finally Xiao Yimin had to say the content of the book chapter by chapter in the way the two usually communicate, and when encountering unclear places, it is often Chinese, German, and English used together with gestures, until the next day when the sky is bright, so that Sharpler can understand most of the content of the book.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Xiao Yimin sent Sharpler and the twelve young officers selected by the Sichuan Frontier Army Command to Germany for further study to the East Wharf.

"My dear brother, I have nothing to give you, only a book, but I believe that if enough attention is paid to it, my book will have a positive impact on your upcoming war, and its power will be at least as powerful as an army division!"

Sharpler nodded without doubt: "I am convinced!" Xiao, I will do my best to complete the things you have entrusted me, and besides, and most importantly, I ask you not to release this book to the public, and to keep this secret for at least two years, is it okay? ”

"Absolutely! You are my brother, Germany is our closest collaborator and good friend, and I am willing to do anything to enhance our friendship. Xiao Yimin said with a smile.

Sharper finally breathed a sigh of relief, and held Xiao Yimin's hand for a long time and was reluctant to let go.

(To be continued)