In his heart, Hu Chuyuan may be thinking about another question...... Was he too merciful and indulgent to these people?

Although Duan Qirui's descendants of these generals wanted to force him to come to power and mutinied, would they also rebel one day in order to force him to step down?

Once there is a beginning in the world, it is difficult to prohibit a second time.

Duan Qirui and Chen Shanyuan agreed to mutiny with Lu Guangquan in order to make Hu Chuyuan the founding president of China, because they knew that even a death sentence would mean nothing to Hu Chuyuan, and Hu Chuyuan had always had his own plan and was unhurried.

More importantly, the relationship between Hu Chuyuan and Guangxu Zaiyan is indeed very good, and Duan Qirui and others are very worried that Hu Chuyuan will not be able to do it.

From this point of view, most of the generals of these new armies would not have taken measures against him, and Lu Guangquan just took advantage of everyone's loyalty to him to do another thing.

Everyone thought that this matter was over, as long as Hu Chuyuan agreed to lead the mutiny, even if it was to lead the mutiny in secret, the world would be a major event, and the matter of pointing the gun at him would be over.

Is that really the case?

If this is really the case, why is only Duan Qirui daring?

Hu Chuyuan didn't think that this matter would pass, and for him, it would never pass.

Lu Guangquan and Duan Qirui succeeded, they achieved the goal of completely making the Manchurians disappear, but an invisible crack was also torn between them and Hu Chuyuan, no matter how hard they tried later, this crack would not be repaired.

Hu Chuyuan kept his eyes closed and refused to get up, and everyone couldn't help but be a little panicked.

Duan Qirui had already led his troops to Beijing, and except for him, no one dared to really point his gun at Hu Chuyuan and force him to come to power.

Lan Jianshu couldn't help but ask Hu Chuyuan, "My lord, don't you want to go back to Beijing?" ”

Hu Chuyuan hummed slightly.

His voice was not loud, but everyone was scared into a cold sweat.

Sun Zongyuan said: "My lord, if you don't return to Beijing, the government will really be in chaos, and China is afraid that it will also be chaotic......!" ”

Hu Chuyuan pointed to his temples and said, "Use your brain, how did we say the same thing before, but now the situation has changed...... Will the original method still work? ”

"...... this?"

Everyone hesitated.

Sun Zongyuan reacted faster, and immediately said, "My lord...... Do you mean to wait and let General Lu go first? ”

Hu Chuyuan hummed again and said, "Don't surround me with such a large number of people, I am not in good health, and I have to recuperate for a while for the time being." Jianshu, Zongyuan, you stay, and the others go out and wait first. ”

"Yes...... Take care of yourself, my lord! ”

Sun Yuanheng and the others secretly whispered in their hearts, and they didn't know what to do, so they could only leave Hu Chuyuan's room first.

After a group of people withdrew, Lan Jianshu closed the door and asked Hu Chuyuan, "My lord, what are you going to do now?" ”

Hu Chuyuan was not in a hurry to answer, and asked the two of them to sit down first.

He thought about it for a moment in his heart, and after a while, he asked Sun Zongyuan, "Do you think I should go back immediately?" ”

Sun Zongyuan said: "Of course, the sooner you go back, the easier it will be to control the situation...... However, there may be other benefits to not rushing back for the time being. ”

Hu Chuyuan bowed slightly, got up and paced, and said: "Yes, internal and external troubles are intertwined, even if I go back now, it will still be the military and political axe." When the time comes, it is inevitable that you will leave a tongue for others. Tell Lu Guangquan that he can remove me from all my posts first, and he will serve as interim prime minister first. You send another telegram to the other people to calm them down. ”

"Yes."

Sun Zongyuan nodded, and his heart became clearer and clearer.

He knew what Hu Chuyuan was roughly planning, first, if Hu Chuyuan returned to Beijing now, even if he stabilized the situation, the political axe cabinet he led would be regarded as a member of the military and political axe and military mutiny; Hu Chuyuan seems to be deliberately trying to teach Lu Guangquan a lesson.

Seeing that Sun Zongyuan seemed to be aware of some clues, Hu Chuyuan explained to him and Lan Jianshu: "If I go back now, it will be no different from Lu Guangquan directly becoming prime minister." The most urgent task at the moment is to get Britain, the United States, Germany, and other countries to recognize the new policy and preserve all the original agreements and bilateral relations, and in particular, to dispel the pretext of military aggression of France and Russia. Whoever wins the hearts of the people wins the world! ”

Hearing this, Lan Jianshu sighed: "My lord is wise! ”

Hu Chuyuan hummed indifferently.

Immediately, he and Lan Jianshu instructed: "You personally go to Jingshi, tell Duan Qirui and Lu Guangquan, let them hold on first, the means can be tougher, all the Manchurian officials will be abolished, and Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong will go to the wilderness if they should go into the wilderness." Braids can be cut strongly...... Take this opportunity to do some hard work, if something goes wrong, I'll come back and clean them up. ”

Lan Jianshu nodded and said, "Okay, I'll leave for Jingshi to meet Duan Qirui." ”

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly, and then instructed Sun Zongyuan: "You don't need to stay in this place in Dezhou, just say that I want to go back to Shanghai to retire and arrange a train to Laiwu." ”

Sun Zongyuan also nodded immediately.

He and Lan Jianshu slowly exited Hu Chuyuan's room one after the other, and went to do their own things.

In order to prevent Lu Guangquan and Duan Qirui from feeling like cannon fodder, Hu Chuyuan personally wrote a letter for Lan Jianshu to bring to them, telling them that it was necessary to do so, otherwise, it would be difficult to deal with Russia, France and the Three Kingdoms later.

After doing this, Hu Chuyuan did not leave Texas.

That night, he secretly called Chen Shanyuan to the office, asked Chen Shanyuan to sit down, and made a pot of tea by himself, but he waited for a long time and did not speak.

Chen Shanyuan waited quietly and nervously.

Hu Chuyuan was decorated with warm Biluochun, sprinkled some tea soup in the tea tray, emitting a hot air full of tea fragrance, and drank half of the tea in the cup before he put down the cup and asked Chen Shanyuan: "What do you think, don't you want to do things here with me?" ”

Chen Shanyuan was silent for a moment, then took out a folded letter from his pocket and said, "My lord, I know that you deliberately didn't go to Jingshi to teach Master Lu a lesson, but you really blamed Lord Lu, this matter was actually picked by the third master." Without the support of the third master, how dare we do this? Here is the letter of the third master! ”

Hu Chuyuan frowned slightly, he knew that Hu Yuanyuan's role in this matter was by no means ordinary.

He took the letter and read it word by word.

The letter must have been written by Hu Yuanyuan, and it was written a few months ago, and it has been sitting by Chen Shanyuan's side.

This letter was originally intended to be seen by Hu Chuyuan, and the ins and outs of the whole thing were written very clearly, it was Hu Yuanyuan's idea from the beginning, Lu Guangquan didn't dare to say it to outsiders even if he had this idea, and it was Hu Mingyuan who was really responsible for contacting everyone.

If it weren't for Hu Yuanyuan's assurance, as long as Hu Chuyuan became the founding president of the country, no one would bear any responsibility for the mutiny, and no one would be retaliated against, then no one really had such courage.

It is no wonder that more than a dozen division commanders were involved in this matter, but none of them reported to Hu Chuyuan, including Chen Shanyuan and Lan Jianshu.

Of course, Hu Xuanyuan knew his eldest brother, if he really followed Hu Chuyuan's plan, he would probably deliberately delay until Guangxu died of illness before entering the republic, which would be too slow.

In this letter, Hu Xuanyuan also tried his best to persuade Hu Chuyuan to take the opportunity to take a step forward and ascend to the throne of the founding president, even if he does not become president, he can first put the emperor under house arrest and truly control all the powers.

At the end of the letter, Hu Yuanyuan said, "All the powers in the world, only the true one has the military affairs alone, the brother may have the power of the three armies, or there is no pawn, this matter can be proved one or two, those who want to seek the world, how can they have no iron horseman?" If the name is not good, it is not right, it is advisable to take the opportunity to correct the name and take the authority of the three armies! ”

After reading the letter, Hu Chuyuan just sneered, thinking, third brother, you actually want to teach your eldest brother a lesson.

The article in this matter is not as simple as Lu Guangquan thought, Hu Chuyuan knew it in his heart, but he didn't want to pierce that layer of window paper with Hu Xuanyuan.

Hu Mingyuan played a good game this time, which not only made Hu Chuyuan see everyone clearly, but also saw Lu Guangquan clearly.

But this game of cards is very thrilling after all, in case of carelessness, I am afraid that it can kill Hu Chuyuan.

This made Hu Chuyuan also have some doubts about Hu Xuanyuan.

If he dies, will Hu Jinyuan get all that he has left?

Although Hu Xuanyuan's possible surname for murdering him is very low, it is also a very terrifying thing!

It can also be said that Hu Xuanyuan did give Hu Chuyuan a slap in the face.

After weighing it in their hearts, Hu Chuyuan and Chen Shanyuan asked, "Have you read this letter?" ”

Chen Shanyuan said: "No! ”

Hu Chuyuan took the fire and burned the letter, and said, "It's better that you really haven't read it!" ”

Hearing this, Chen Shanyuan secretly complained, he knew that it was impossible for Hu Chuyuan to trust him as much as before, but he felt that it was all worth it, although he had an unspeakable pain in his heart.

After burning the letter, Hu Chuyuan asked Chen Shanyuan to go back first, but he did not change his decision, he still wanted to continue to wait and see the situation.

Hu Chuyuan decided to do an experiment - he deliberately asked Lu Guangquan to jump into the fire, just to see if Lu Guangquan jumped, jumped, this matter will pass for the time being, if you don't jump, then think about it in the long run.

Killing two birds with one stone, Hu Chuyuan also wanted to test what the bottom line of the Entente's attitude towards China was?

Hu Chuyuan continued to stay in Dezhou for a period of time, and contacted the governors and overseers of various places by telegram, confirming that the vast majority of people still had to continue to follow him, so he really put his mind at ease, and let Ye Bojun and the Fujian and Zhejiang Corps and the East China Sea Division be mobilized to Shanghai, in addition, he wrote a telegram to Ye Fu alone, asking Ye Fu to transfer all the main forces of the Beiyang Naval Division out of Tianjinkou and stationed in Weihai Port, guarding the entrance to the Bohai Sea while keeping a distance from Lu Han, Lu Guangquan and others, and not listening to the dispatch of these people.

After a transfer in Dezhou, Hu Chuyuan has confirmed that the military power of the old and new departments is still largely in his hands, and the governors of various places continue to obey his orders, and Lu Guangquan only has those new divisions in his hands.

By the time Chen Shanyuan continued to return to Yanjing to take charge of intelligence work, Ye Bojun's Fujian and Zhejiang Corps had already sent two brigades to Dezhou and evacuate Dezhou together with Sun Yuanheng's division.

Hu Chuyuan then took the train to Shanghai.

On June 10, 1900, Hu Chuyuan's special train entered Laiwu from Heze and Tai'an counties and arrived in Huangzhuang Town, Laiwu.

This is the Laiwu New District, which was later called the Laiwu Iron and Steel District, with a total land of more than 400 million tons of iron ore and coal reserves, and good quality and low sulfur content.

Beginning in 1886, the Jiangnan Mining Bureau and the Shandong Machinery Bureau explored ore resources in this area, and in 1889 the construction officially kicked off, and in 1894, Hu Chuyuan's cumulative investment in Laiwu reached 130 million yuan.

In addition to heavy industries such as iron and steel machinery, another focus of Hu Chuyuan's investment was education, and he carried out volunteer school education in this area, prepared for the establishment of technical schools, public schools, vocational industrial and mining public schools, and officially donated funds to establish Shandong Institute of Technology in 1894.

The entire construction of the new urban area in Laiwu New District was planned and invested by him, schools, residential areas, sewers, roads, and parks were all his hands and investments, and of course, the increase in land prices, housing prices and long-term rents of shops were enough to recover these investments.

The train passed through the edge of the new district, looking at this new type of city and those beautiful buildings, Hu Chuyuan felt an indescribable satisfaction in his heart.

Laiwu New Area has three large factories, one is Laiwu Iron and Steel Machinery General Factory, the second is the government-run Shandong Machinery Bureau, and the third is Fuguo Machinery General Factory.

There are also a large number of other factories in the area, all of which revolve around the upstream and downstream industries of the three factories, as well as small and medium-sized textile mills, flour mills, and oil mills.

At present, the population of Laiwu County is 1.27 million, and only 31% of the population is agricultural.

In China, this is not the largest city, compared to Shanghai, Fuzhou, Qingdao, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Tangshan are smaller, than Zibo, Ma'anshan is also smaller.

There is a special railway line to the Fuguo Machinery General Factory, and the special train of the Prime Minister's Office directly enters the General Machinery Factory and stops at the mining area of the factory.

Hu Chuyuan wants to come to Fuguo Machinery General Factory at this juncture, and there is always a reason for this.

The reason is simple...... Fuguo Machinery Factory is currently the largest arsenal in China that is completely invested by his reading power, and the consortium formed by it and Laiwu Iron and Steel Machinery General Factory and Shandong Machinery Bureau should also be the largest arsenal in Asia and even in the world.

On the surface, Phu Quoc Machinery General Factory is just a machinery manufacturing plant that produces walk-behind tractors, tracked tractors, wheeled tractors, and tries to carry out the automotive field, but in fact, its real responsibility is to be responsible for the research and development and production of the domestic 9701 project.

In 1897, the Prime Minister's Office led by Hu Chuyuan formulated more than 30 large-scale independent research and development projects, and the 9701 project ranked first, which was armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery systems.

Armored vehicles cannot be regarded as absolute artifacts in this era, Britain began to study armored vehicles in 1898, and in March this year, more than a dozen vehicles were sent for testing and testing in the Boer War in South Africa.

Because of the small scale of the trial and the failure to achieve decent results, it did not attract attention.

Hu Chuyuan's train drove into the industrial and mining area, transferred to a Benz car imported from Germany and entered the seventh field area deeper in the Phu Quoc Machinery General Factory, where the middle zone was very strictly guarded and the protection work was done very well.

After the train stopped in the seventh area, Luo Guorui, the person in charge and chief engineer of the Phu Quoc Machinery General Factory, led the others to greet him.

This is the first time Hu Chuyuan has come to the arsenal codenamed 307 that he invested, and there are layers of seemingly ordinary houses in the distance, where the workers and technicians are stationed.

Here, all the daily necessities are directly transported in, and the personnel are not allowed to go out, and the permanent residence is also in the field of the 307 factory...... The so-called seventh field area.

Luo Guorui, a native of Boluo County, Guangdong, followed the first batch of young children to study in the United States in the eleventh year of Tongzhi, graduated from Yale University with a major in mechanical engineering, went to work for Carnegie Steel Company in 1885, and entered the Oakland Laboratory in 1887.

In the spring of 1894, he returned to China and was responsible for the preparation of the Fuguo Machinery General Factory and the 307 Factory.

Half of these technicians around him have experience in studying abroad and interning, and they belong to the sharp knife team in Shandong, so the 9701 project will fall on their shoulders.

Seeing Hu Chuyuan, Luo Guorui couldn't wait to step forward and say hello: "Lord Shoufu ......!" ”

Before he finished speaking, Hu Chuyuan raised his hand to signal that he didn't need to continue, and he sighed: "It's not Lord Shoufu anymore, you don't have to be restrained, let's go to the factory and have a look!" ”

Luo Guorui wanted to speak and stopped, and after a while, he hated: "Lu Guangquan...... That's not ......! ”

He and Lu Guangquan were classmates in junior high and high school, and it was okay to scold them.

Hu Chuyuan didn't mind too much, and said: "Nothing else matters, let's go and see the status of the 9701 project!" ”

Luo Guorui knew very well the purpose of Hu Chuyuan's trip, everything was ready, nodded immediately, and took Hu Chuyuan and Li Cunyi to the R&D base alone, and even Sun Zongyuan and others could only stay in place and wait.

In 1891, after the end of the Sino-Chinese Gengyin War, Hu Chuyuan knew that there would inevitably be a second ...... In the war that really determines who lives and who dies, China and Russia will have a much larger war, and at that time he was already preparing for war in the industrial system at his disposal.

Although the power of the state at this time is in the hands of Lu Guangquan, the truth of the matter is whether Lu Guangquan's orders can be effective in Yanjing City, it depends on Hu Chuyuan.

China has not yet reached the period of warlord warfare, and holding military power does not mean having everything.

Whether it is in terms of military strength, political prestige, strength and power, even if Lu Guangquan decides to go it alone, the gap between him and Hu Chuyuan is still too big, not to mention that Lu Guangquan has no intention of going it alone at this time...... That's stupid.

The country is still in the hands of Hu Chuyuan, and Hu Chuyuan also knows that sooner or later he will have to regain control of all this, so he has to think about what problems he will face if he becomes prime minister again?

…… The predecessor of Project 9701 was the 9207 and 9504 projects, and at present, the armored vehicles tested by Britain in the Boer War are basically equivalent to the results of Project 9504.

In 1897, after the re-establishment of the armored vehicle and self-propelled artillery system project, the domestic tracked tractor and 150 horsepower gasoline engine truck projects have entered the commercialization process, in addition, the domestic 55mm smoothbore gun, 75mm rifled gun, 25mm retainer machine gun, 7.62mm caliber light machine gun, armored vehicle periscope, electric rotary fire control system, horizontal four-cylinder gasoline engine and other aspects have also been successful.

In the past few years, the main work of the 9701 project has been to continuously test the combination, verify the most stable models and configurations, and continue to make breakthroughs in gasoline engine horsepower as much as possible.

The group rode in the black, more horse-drawn carriage-like Benz car, through the living and production quarters and into a dark tunnel tens of meters long.

The entire laboratory and R&D base are hidden deep in the mountains, and under the cover of underground mines, it will also be a very good bomb shelter in the future.

Entering the base hall in the cave, Hu Chuyuan saw three armored vehicles painted with dark black paint parked in a conspicuous position, waiting for his review.

The reflection of the light through the blue-white stone wall is very bright, and the reflection on the armored vehicle makes it even more powerful.

Hu Chuyuan looked very excited, and as soon as the Benz car stopped, he couldn't wait to jump down and carefully look at the differences and details of the three test cars.

Luo Guorui was also very happy, and hurriedly stepped forward to explain to Hu Chuyuan one by one.

From the very beginning, Project 9701 has developed three sub-projects, namely artillery armored vehicles, machine gun armored vehicles and self-propelled guns, that is, on the basis of the same chassis, there are three models, the V-A model has a 75mm caliber smoothbore gun, the V-B model has a 25mm revolver gun, and the V-C model is equipped with a 75mm caliber howitzer.

Since Shanghai Baosong Machinery Factory is responsible for the new gasoline engine Q-5WL-230P has not yet been finalized, it can only use the Q-3WL-185P gasoline internal combustion engine for the time being, which is the first gasoline engine with horizontal layout in China, which has changed the traditional vertical design.

The Q-3WL-185P is a military engine, the material selection is the best, the manufacturing process is also very fine, the rated horsepower is 185PS, in the case of using the extraction supercharging technology, it can also be increased to 200 horsepower, but it cannot last too long.

Even so, there is still a lot more than the original plan of 230p, and in order to adapt to this change, the three test models that are currently in trial production have been significantly changed compared to the plan.

To put it simply...... Lighter, more expensive, smaller, not to mention the V-A model, the original standard was a 75mm rifled gun, which was temporarily replaced with a lighter 55mm caliber smoothbore gun, which is also the main reason why the 9701 project has not been reported for acceptance.

Listening to Luo Guorui say these precautionary words, Hu Chuyuan didn't mind too much, he just asked Luo Guorui: "Have you analyzed the armored vehicles that Britain used in the Boer War, and what is the rated power?" ”

Luo Guorui sighed and said: "Britain currently only has a gasoline engine of about 130 horsepower, I have seen it, they use wheeled armored vehicles, the thickness of the armor is very thin, just add a 7.62mm caliber Makqin machine gun, not to mention the research and development of the system surname, at most it is something we did in 92." If their armored vehicles are counted as one generation, our current ones can be counted as three generations. ”

The emergence of the Q-3WL-185P gasoline internal combustion engine has a very huge impact on the research and development of domestic armored vehicles, making the body suddenly change from a vertical structure to a low horizontal result, which makes the armored vehicle have a very good off-road and obstacle crossing ability.

Hu Chuyuan read the reports of the three test vehicles, and the numbers were very beautiful, full of beautiful words, and he couldn't tell what the specific surname was.

(To be continued)