In September 1913, at the end of the Second Revolution, the last revolts disappeared everywhere, and all the provinces declared their independence, heralding Yuan Shikai's complete victory in this struggle.

And then came, the whole of China came under the control of the Beiyang warlords, and the Beiyang military group completely became the largest military group in China and reached the peak of power.

And Han Zheng, as an emerging general in the Beiyang Army, and has contributed to the neutrality of the Beiyang Army's Anhui strategy, naturally benefited a lot, and followed a lot of light.

After the war, when the spoils were divided, Han Zheng not only obtained a series of benefits from Yuan Shikai's Beiyang government, but more importantly, what he got from the foreigners one after another, which provided a good foundation for Han Zheng's development in the next few years.

Soon after the United States negotiated with Han Zheng, Japan, which smelled the fishy smell, was not to be left behind, and successively sent several people to come, and then Germany and several other great powers sent people to meet Han Zheng several times, and as a result of the meeting, Han Zheng's military weapons were strengthened again, and the speed of light industry construction was even faster.

However, the development of Han Zheng is not something that everyone is happy to see, and in the process of Han Zheng's vigorous development, it will naturally touch the interests of some people intentionally or unintentionally.

And the first to bear the brunt is not Hu Wantai, the new governor of Anhui Province who has an unstable foothold in southern Anhui, but his former superior, Zhang Xun, who is now stationed in Henan!

In fact, this matter has to start from the beginning of September.

On September 1, 1913, I don't know what Yuan Shikai thought, but despite the opposition of several generals under his command, he gave Zhang Xun such a credit for attacking Nanjing.

In the early morning of September 1, Zhang Xun broke through the defense line of the defenders of Nanjing, and then led the army into the city of Nanjing, and completely received the symbolic and important place of Nanjing into the hands of Beiyang, and it was precisely because the fall of Nanjing had a major blow to the anti-Yuan army that was still struggling to hold on in other places, and the other provinces failed one after another.

However, Zhang Xun had always been at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and he was naturally extremely resentful of the revolutionaries in the south, and after the capture of Nanjing, he wantonly arrested revolutionaries and soldiers, and carried out a large-scale purge.

However, Zhang Xun's actions were soon exposed, and Yuan Shikai arranged Zhang Xun to eat in a place, and Xuzhou became Zhang Xun's place to stay.

And Xuzhou is just in the northeast corner of Han Zheng's current territory, and it is the energy base of heavy industry that Han Zheng values the most, bordering Huaibei!

It was not until this time that Yuan Shikai's generals realized Yuan Shikai's old spiciness, and forcibly drove Zhang Xun out of the Beiyang Army, away from the Beijing Division, and at the same time, put together with the popular Northern Anhui Patrol Envoy to contain each other.

And that's where the conflict begins.

First of all, Zhang Xun in mid-September, led his own pigtail army, after more than ten days of marching to Xuzhou, after just taking over Xuzhou to stabilize, only to find that Xuzhou is broken, and the neighboring Bozhou area, but it is prosperous, there are a large number of displaced people to run to the direction of Bozhou, so that Zhang Xun's army source is greatly reduced.

Therefore, after learning of the situation, Zhang Xun, as a senior and superior, sent a telegram to Han Zheng, saying that the people's livelihood in Xuzhou was withering, and ordered Han Zheng to provide grain and grass supplies, and at the same time, all the displaced people who fled from Xuzhou were returned, and the Xuzhou displaced people were forbidden to be accepted.

That's not all, even Zhang Xun ordered Han Zheng to put forward a jurisdiction request for the Huaibei region, let Han Zheng let the Huaibei region out, temporarily assigned to Zhang Xun to take over for a period of time, and three years later, wait until Xuzhou slowly recovers, and then discuss the issue of Huaibei's ownership!

Not to mention the problem of displaced people, it is impossible for Han Zheng to agree, it is the Huaibei issue, and it is the reverse scale of Han Zheng!

In the development plan in the next few years, a large amount of coal energy in Huaibei can be said to be the key to the success of the plan, how can Han Zheng be willing to hand over such an important place to the other party? Besides, Han Zheng is not a fool, he still knows the story of "borrowing Jingzhou" during the Three Kingdoms period in ancient times.

However, for the sake of temporary stability, Han Zheng seriously replied to the other party, saying that he was a patrol envoy in northern Anhui and had the responsibility of guarding the land and the people, and Huaibei was his own jurisdiction, so he did not dare to borrow lightly, and this was appointed by President Yuan.

As for the displaced people, Han Zheng said that he did not know about this matter, and he would arrange for someone to make statistics when he returned.

Zhang Xun was ready to accept Han Zheng's filial piety, but he didn't expect to receive a soft and hard receipt letter!

After receiving the letter, Zhang Xun was naturally furious, but at this time, he had no reason, and it was not good to tear his face directly with the northern Anhui region, but if he wanted to find trouble, could he still have no choice? !

So, Zhang Xun first played his subordinates as bandits and displaced people to sabotage several newly opened coal mining bases in Huaibei, and then condemned Han Zheng, saying that he was ineffective in governing the local area and had the responsibility of dereliction of duty, and for a while, Han Zheng's side suffered heavy losses.

However, this approach completely angered Han Zheng, who planned to calm things down, although Han Zheng wanted a calm environment to seek development, but since the other party bullied the door, he naturally had to show his tough side, only in this way can he better maintain order!

Therefore, the northern Anhui direction first sent two regiments of the Second Brigade under the direct leadership of Xiang Jie to enter Huaibei strongly, and at the same time carried out an ambush and attack on these fake rogues, completely wiped out these well-equipped, well-disciplined, and even braid "rogues" on the back of their heads, and slapped Zhang Xun in the face.

Zhang Xun has never been worried that Han Zheng will dare to take the initiative to provoke a war between the two sides, so he sent more than 200 of his subordinates to act as bandits, and he didn't even have the heart to cover it up.

However, the result of the matter was to make Zhang Xun angry, who knew that Han Zheng directly completely disintegrated these people, which was equivalent to slapping Zhang Xun in the face and trampling on it a few times, how could he rest!

On September 25, Zhang Xun was furious in the Yangtze River Patrol Embassy in Xuzhou, and there were fragments of teacups on the ground, and his face was flushed, especially when he saw that the newspaper he had obtained said that the people he sent out were not only killed, but also the prisoners who were captured by the subordinates of the little man in the south ignored them when they told their identities, and were directly shot!

He walked around the hall from time to time, showing the anger in his heart, and after a long time, he smiled gloomily: "Since you toast and don't eat and drink, then I'm welcome!" ”

So, Zhang Xun, who had made up his mind, said to the guards guarding outside: "Go, bring Staff Officer Li!" ”

Li Yan is his confidant, and he has always been used as a think tank, and when such a big thing happens this time, he naturally has to find the other party to discuss.

The guards answered, and then the footsteps faded away, walking towards the office of the officials of the outer courtyard of the Patrol Embassy

Li Yan has been idle since he came to Xuzhou recently, and a series of problems such as the handover between the army and the locality, stationing, etc., have almost all pressed on him, and the location of Xuzhou is extremely important, but in the past two years, there have been no small and large disturbances, especially in the past two years, the country has not been peaceful, where is there any peace to talk about? I had to slowly close the place to see if I could find more ways, and I had to feed the army under Zhang Xun anyway.

However, in the past two days, Li Yan has been a little distressed in his heart, speaking of which, the root cause of many problems is that the people here are barren, and according to the current situation, it is difficult to feed Zhang Xun's army, not to mention that Zhang Xun is still thinking about expanding the army.

But seeing that the Huaibei area around him was rumbling about coal mining recently, and it could also be sold to Shanghai and other places, it really made Zhang Xun's eyes a little hot at this time, so he moved his mind to insert it.

When Zhang Xun sent a telegram to Han Zheng at the beginning, Li Yan felt a little inappropriate at that time, no matter what, Han Zheng at this time was no longer the young man who was nothing a year ago, and now Han Zheng can be regarded as a rising star, and I heard that President Yuan Da also left his name in his ear.

The most important thing is that I heard that this person is Duan Qirui's person, so what Zhang Xun did this time seemed to be a little urgent.

Moreover, in Li Yan's heart, he did not have the intention of fighting for an alliance with Han, so that the two could take care of each other and resist the pressure of the north and the south.

But what happened later made Li Yan helpless, and all his plans became meaningless!

The boss of his own benevolence actually came up with a way to oppress Han Zheng by arsoning the army as bandits and robbing places, and at that time he knew that this matter would inevitably be counterattacked, but he didn't know when it would break out.

For this reason, Li Yan persuaded twice, but it had no effect, so he had to give up, and he had to hope that nothing would happen in his heart.

However, many things are so interesting, and when Li Yan was sitting at his desk thinking about this, his brows furrowed a little, what he was worried about really happened.

Li Yan's position looks very beautiful to outsiders, who knows the pain in this position? Every day, I not only have to deal with a lot of local official business, but also have to deal with some military affairs, and once I make a mistake, I don't know how many people will be staring.

shouted that the guards outside brought him a pot of hot tea, and after taking a sip, Li Yan breathed a sigh of relief, and planned to move his stiff muscles and bones.

However, today he was destined to have no comfortable days, and as soon as he put down the cup in his hand, a voice came from outside: "Chief of Staff, Commander, please come over quickly, there is something important to discuss." ”

"Okay, you go first, I'll be right away." Li Yan didn't know what was going on, so he answered the outside, instructed the others in the room, and then walked towards the inner courtyard to inspect the place where the adults rested in the eyes of the people around him.

He didn't think much about it at this time, Zhang Xun often asked him to discuss things on weekdays, this time Li Yan thought it was still as usual, how could he not expect that after this time, such a big series of unexpected things would happen.

Li Yan came all the way to Zhang Xun's study, and the two didn't say much to each other, and after Li Yan sat down, Zhang Xun directly opened his mouth and said the matter: "Brother Li, this is what just happened yesterday. ”

As he spoke, Zhang Xun handed Li Yan the piece of information he was looking at in Li Yan's puzzled gaze.

Li Yan didn't know what was going on, so he couldn't help but glance at Zhang Xun, and when he noticed the expression on the other party's face, he knew that it would probably not be a good thing.

However, when Li Yan really saw the above content, he couldn't help but be taken aback, and almost slammed the water cup next to him, obviously Li Yan didn't expect Han Zheng's counterattack to come so quickly!

"Is there anything wrong with this, my lord? How can it be?! ”

"Nothing is impossible, this news is credible enough, we have lost contact with that side. We are no longer in a matter of investigating who is right and who is wrong in this matter, and once this matter spreads, how can we still subdue our soldiers? This time it seems that it can't be stopped, we must teach the juniors a good lesson, no matter how I say that I am also a Yangtze River patrol envoy, can I still be frightened by a northern Anhui patrol envoy? ”

Li Yan didn't care much about this sentence, the Yangtze River Patrol Envoy and the Northern Anhui Patrol Envoy are not both the same position, if you want to rely on this point to control the other party, it is a fool's dream, but this is not possible to say at this time.

"My lord, is there another hidden situation here, let's stop sending a letter to the Han Patrol Envoy, and negotiate first, once there is a war, it will not be a good thing for both of us."

Li Yan knew that his benefactor was really angry, but this was not the result he wanted, if there was a fight, even if this side could win, but from now on there was a bad neighbor by his side, and it would be difficult to get stability in the future, and the north didn't know how many people would be happy.

"Brother Li, I heard that you used to have a lot of dealings with this Han Zheng, you know each other very well?" Zhang Xun did not directly answer Li Yan's words, but opened his mouth to say a word.

Li Yan didn't react for a while, and nodded yes, besides, his relationship with Han Zheng at that time, his benefactor also knew that there was nothing that he couldn't see.

"Oh, that's nothing, I've made up my mind, you go down first." Zhang Xun said, picked up the cup in his hand and said.

"My lord" Li Yan still wanted to persuade him, but when he saw that Zhang Xun's face had dropped, he suddenly stopped, so he had to hug his fists and say, "Then I'll go down." ”

"Well, go ahead."

When Li Yan's mind left without belonging, Zhang Xun shouted into the study: "Come out." ”

I saw that after this sentence, a middle-aged man in his thirties came out from behind the bookshelf and stood respectfully beside Zhang Xun.

"Has Han Xiao'er sent someone to contact Staff Officer Li recently?" Zhang Xun seemed to ask unintentionally.

This person knew what Zhang Xun meant, and said directly: "Not recently, but when attacking Nanjing, it seems that there were correspondence, and the others did not find out." ”

"Well, you go down, pay more attention lately, by the way, I don't want to hear the conversation between you and me today." When Zhang Xun heard this, his eyes flashed, and then he said.

"Yes, don't worry, I know how to do it." The man answered, then turned and walked towards the back door.

Zhang Xun thought for a while with the cup in his hand, and then muttered to himself: "Brother Li, Brother Li, since you did something wrong this time, but after all, you are an old man who follows you, I don't know this time, I hope you won't do something out of the ordinary next time." (To be continued.) )