Because he still had enough arms and materials to fight two large-scale battles, Song Biao did not rush to purchase arms from foreign countries, and used this as a very important cover card to confuse Yue Ben, and then used the active negotiation posture of Tang Shaoyi's cabinet to constantly convey to Yu Ben that he was not really ready to go to war.

In a country like this, especially when it decides to gamble on its national fortunes, the more you seem to want to talk about peace and are not prepared for it, the more shameless it becomes.

For Yueben, even if it can really achieve its goal through negotiations, it still can't wait to strike at the central authority of the empire that Song Biao has painstakingly established, and sent the newly built battleship Satsuma to Port Arthur, and is waiting for an opportunity to cruise around Yingkou and Jinzhou, this class of battleships has a full load displacement of 20,100 tons, and has two twin main guns of 305mm caliber in terms of firepower, six twin main guns of Vickers 245mm caliber, and 12 single Armstrong 120mm caliber rapid-fire guns, the firepower of one of its battleships far exceeded that of the 1st Heavy Artillery Brigade of the Northeast Army.

The four strongest railway heavy guns of the Northeast Army were simply vulnerable and vulnerable in front of them.

In March, the battleship Anyi of the same level will also be officially installed in the fleet, which is extremely powerful for the strength of the entire navy, and it can even be said that the navy has become one of the top five navies in the world since then, and of course, it is also extremely powerful for the US Navy.

For China, the most embarrassing thing is that these two battleships were built by themselves, although the artillery, boilers, steam engines, and ship steel were all imported from Britain, and even the design drawings were bought from Britain, such an achievement is still enviable.

After the main forces of the Northeast Army retreated to the three eastern provinces, the cabinet once again strengthened its negotiating stance and added two more rampant demands to the original four articles, including the demand that the new Chinese Empire abolish the central bank system and allow the bank to freely issue currency in China.

Tang Shaoyi continued to be personally responsible for holding negotiations with the Chinese and Chinese ministers, and not only held talks with the British minister to China, Ijiin Hikoyoshi, on an equal footing, but also accepted the British request for mediation, and the British minister to China, Zhu Erdian, was in charge of the mediation and negotiations between the two countries, which was tantamount to accepting the British demand for extortion.

Soldiers can be killed, but not humiliated!

Tang Shaoyi was bearing such a job at this time, and the secret preparations of the Northeast Army were also continuing.

By the end of March, the Northeast Army's secret preparations for war had largely ended, and the army had actually reached a state where it could go to war, and it became more and more assertive in the negotiations, and the two sides had no room for concession at all, and even the British, who were trying to profit from the treaty between the two sides through mediation, knew that this war was inevitable.

Song Biao obviously can't hold the enthronement ceremony in April as he wishes, what can he do?

……

On March 30, 1911, Song Biao signed his name on the Prime Minister's Decree No. 10043 "Resolution of the Central Cabinet of the Chinese Empire on Suspending the Settlement of Territory through Consultation with the Emperor" and stamped it with the emperor's seal.

The latest Prime Minister's Decree will be published three days later, on April 2, and will be communicated to the UK.

This moment seemed to mean that the Second Xinhai War was inevitably coming, and when Song Biao finally approved the effective surname of this important decree in his capacity as emperor, he was calmly accompanied by Shu Fangde, Minister of the Army, Jiang Fangzhen, Chief of the General Staff, Jiang Zhengyuan, Minister of Army Intelligence, Zhang Futian, Jiang Zuobin, and Han Chunlin, a newly transferred first-class internal attendant.

Han Chunlin's previous position was a first-class staff officer of the General Staff, because the war was imminent, he was transferred to the inner court as an internal officer to deal with military intelligence and information work, as a young officer who stood out in the Far Eastern Army Sergeant Department, Han Chunlin was known for his proficiency in Russian, and after one year of study at the Russian Staff College, he served as a trainee lieutenant in the Russian artillery unit for a year, and after returning to China, he served as a regimental instructor in the Fourth Infantry Brigade of the Northeast New Army, and then went to the German Army Academy for half a year of study, and after returning to China, he served as Artur in the First Staff Bureau. Chief adjutant of General Maltos.

There are three factions in the Northeast Military Department: the Liaoyang faction, the new faction and the Far Eastern Lu Shi faction, the Liaoyang faction is also called the old school, that is, the officers who have served in the Northeast Army before the Liaoyang Battle, including Cai Yi, Jiang Fangzhen, Zhao Tingzhu, Yang Tiesheng, and the new faction is the non-commissioned officer faction represented by Jiang Zhengyuan and others. Guo Yuchi, a batch of rookies.

On Song Biao's side, Zhang Futian, Jiang Zuobin, and Han Chunlin basically correspond to these three factions, and one of them is a first-class internal officer.

Song Biao approved the resolution order on the suspension of negotiations with the Chinese government, which means that there is only one last step left before the start of the war, and Shu Fangde, Jiang Fangzhen and others know very well in their hearts that the Central Army of the Chinese Empire, which has just completed the preliminary reorganization, will usher in the first large-scale foreign war in the history of the founding of the army.

Song Biao knew better in his heart that before signing, he also hesitated for a moment, but he felt happy after signing the letter, and he had been preparing for so long but not fighting with Yueben, that was called real unhappiness.

After approving the executive order to stop diplomatic negotiations, Song Biao handed the document to Jiang Zuobin, who was standing aside, and instructed Shu Fangde and Jiang Fangzhen: "The work of the Central Committee and the Military Department will be entrusted to the two of you. ”

"Yes!"

Shu Fangde and Jiang Fangzhen agreed together.

Song Biao looked at the time on his watch, then got up and prepared to leave, Han Chunlin, as the accompanying chamberlain, took the dark brown military cloak and draped it over Song Biao's shoulders.

As the supreme commander-in-chief of the navy and army, Song Biao was not only responsible for planning the battle situation, but also had to personally arrive at the northeast battlefield to command and dispatch 300,000 troops.

In fact, apart from him, there are no other generals who have such authority, qualifications and ability.

This news is still highly confidential for the time being, Jiang Yanxing, Zhao Tingzhu and Yang Tiesheng are all serving as the chief and deputy overseers of the Northeast Military Region, Artur. General Maltos served as general adviser and de facto supreme commander-in-chief, and Chen Qicai served as chief of staff of the Northeast Military District of the Reich CSKA Army, Alexandrovich. Lieutenant General Neznamov served as the Supreme Staff Advisor.

Because this operation needs to prepare an artillery corps, the establishment is three artillery divisions, each division four artillery brigades and two heavy brigades, equivalent to the Soviet Army's six-brigade artillery division during World War II, each division has 488 barreled artillery, half of which comes from the Northeast Army and the Russian Far East Army's secret reserve artillery in the Northeast, and the overall three-inch Lucia field artillery is the mainstay.

In order to better command such a large artillery unit, Song Biao invited his old friend General Pakilov to be the chief adviser of the artillery, and in fact asked him to command, and General Pakirov recommended another artillery general of the Russian army, Lieutenant General Gerstrof.

Lieutenant General Gerstrauf served as an artillery instructor for a short period of one year at the Far Eastern Army Noncommissioned Officer School, and the trainees reported that it was still very good; after Song Biao sent someone to make secret contact with the other party, he invited him to serve as the chief artillery adviser of the Central Army, with Xu Baoying as the commander-in-chief of the front-line artillery unit.

Germany and Russia both have professional artillery commanders, and the synchronized troops are coordinated with each other and have the command of reading, while the French and British artillery units are subordinate to the infantry group army and the army level command.

Facts have proved that the core of the Continental Army's doctrine is artillery, and the artillery unit must in principle have the command of reading power, and think about the battle situation from the perspective of the artillery unit, and the entire group army revolves around the artillery unit, especially when your unit has a more powerful and concentrated artillery unit, then it must give full play to its own artillery superiority as much as possible.

After this series of preparations, the newly built Central Army of the Chinese Empire, based on the Northeast Army, the Patrol Army of the Three Eastern Provinces and the new army of various towns in China, ushered in the first war after the founding of the army with such a posture and camp, and the front-line command team was also built.

After saying goodbye to his family in the evening, Song Biao secretly took a train to Benxi, where the new Northeast Army Frontline Headquarters was temporarily set up.

Because it was a secret itinerary, Song Biao did not take the gold-colored Zhonghua special train, but took a freight train arranged by the Secrecy Bureau to secretly set off at night, take the railway to Chengde, and then transfer from Chengde to Fuzhou and Shenyang, and only arrived in Benxi after a circle.

Since the capture of the Beijing Division in August last year, the Far East Railway Corporation has concentrated all its manpower and materials to urgently repair the railway from Yanjing to Chengde, trying to connect the railway from Hulunbuir to Chengde and opening a second railway passage inside and outside the Guan.

With the tension between China and China, the construction of the railway was accelerated again, and the middle 60 kilometers of mountain roads were bypassed the mountain as much as possible, and the four tunnels originally planned were replaced by forced blasting of the mountain, so that the railway could be completed and opened before February 1911.

The significance of this railway lies in the fact that even if Jinzhou is occupied and threatened by the Japanese navy, there are still suitable railway transportation channels in Kannai and Kanto, which is enough to ensure that domestic material resources are continuously transported into Kanto to support the war.

When Song Biao arrived at Benxi by train, it was already two days of dawn, the morning light was faint, the frost was permeated between the mountains, this special special train converted from a freight train slowly drove into Beitai Town, here is a real mountainous area, because it is the only way to connect Benxi and Dandong, after the initial huge cost of building the railway, it has become a key area for the military department to garrison, and it is 140 kilometers away from the real front line Dandong and Yalu River.

At this time, a large number of military institutions and troops were densely stationed around Beitai Town, and temporary military tents were stretched into a row, and for the sake of secrecy, the train continued to enter the more remote backup station, Artur, in the name of transporting military supplies. General Martos, Zhao Tingzhu and Chen Qicai all greeted him at the train station, and Zhang Jun, director of the Secret Bureau, was also present, and there were very few officers accompanying him.

When he saw Song Biao, he bowed to him, including General Martos.

Song Biao looked at the mountains in front of him and the direction of the Yalu River, and after a while, he turned back to look at Martos and the others, and said, "After the victory of the empire, the people should be grateful for every effort you have made here, and I will be grateful." ”

Zhao Tingzhu replied: "This is the duty of the ministers. ”

Song Biao nodded slightly and said, "Speaking of which, this is the responsibility of all of us, let's go to the front-line command post!" ”

What he said was extremely heavy, not because the war situation was dangerous, but because the significance of this war to China was too great, as heavy as a nation of 450 million people.

Everyone was also silent, accompanying Song Biao to the front-line command post of the Northeast Army.

At the command post, Song Biao met two familiar lieutenant generals of the old Russian army, A. Neznamov and Feng. Lieutenant General Baron Esker, both of whom only accepted Song Biao's special invitation at the beginning of last year and returned to the Northeast Army as military advisers.

Prior to that, Lieutenant General A. Neznamov served as deputy director of the Russian Staff College, von. Lieutenant General Baron Esker served as assistant to the commander of the military district in the Siberian Military District, the former currently serving as the rector of the Far Eastern Army and the top military adviser to the Northeast Army, and von. Lieutenant General Baron Esker served as military adviser to the First Army of the Northeast Army.

Lieutenant General Gerstrauf is not currently at the front headquarters because he is secretly preparing for the work of the First Artillery Corps of the Northeast Army in the area of Fengcheng County.

It's all in the familiar old department.

Song Biao took the initiative to step forward and shake hands with the two of them, and said: "Thank you very much for helping me at this critical moment, as well as helping the allies, although the two major empires of China and Russia have not yet formally formed an alliance, we all know that we will always be the strongest allies in the face of the issue of this issue." ”

Lieutenant General Neznamov and Von. Lieutenant General Eske nodded silently in acknowledgement, and then took a step back and saluted Song Biao, the old superior.

In addition to them, there are still many senior officers of the Russian army serving as military advisers in the Northeast Army, and there are 21 staff officers and senior military advisers who remain in the front line headquarters, forming a new Northeast Army Second Staff Bureau, which works in coordination with the First Staff Bureau led by Chen Qicai.

Song Biao shook hands with them one by one and thanked them one by one, the military alliance between the Chinese Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire was solid, and it was precisely because of the existence of the empire that Tsarist Russia could easily suppress its own army without spending a penny of military spending in the Far East, and continued to enjoy all the privileges in the Far East.

Obviously, this is a win-win cooperation.

Song Biao is fundamentally different from the traditional Chinese emperor, because he will always be a soldier, and when he enters the staff headquarters of the Northeast Army, Song Biao does not care about any unnecessary and unnecessary etiquette and itinerary, but says to General Martos and General Neznamov plainly and directly: "Let's see the latest situation at the front!" ”

General Martos nodded solemnly, invited Song Biao to walk to the long table that spread out a general map of the entire front-line military, picked up the baton and explained along the Yalu River: "Your Majesty, as we have predicted many times before, the Sixth Division of the Yue Army has arrived in Guicheng, and the Second Division is stationed in Pyongyang. On the defensive line south of Yanji on the Tumen River were stationed the 8th Division, the 10th Division, and the 3rd Reserve Infantry Brigade, which was the Second Army of the Manchurian Army, while the 2nd Division, the 2nd Artillery Brigade, and the two General Reserve Infantry Brigades of Pyongyang constituted the headquarters of the Manchurian Army and the 3rd Army. In addition, the Korean rebels had two divisions on each side of the army, and the equipment of these Korean rebels was not very sophisticated, and the two divisions of the whole army were only equipped with a small number of machine guns and no artillery. In other words, the total deployment of the Manchurian Army exceeds 11 infantry divisions and regiments, and its total strength is equivalent to the remaining strength of the army, and according to intelligence, it is still possible for the army to continue to send three or four infantry divisions and the last reserve artillery brigade into the battlefield, and the total number of troops that can be dispatched is about 300,000. ”

Song Biao had already mastered this information half a month ago, and adjusted his operational planning and military deployment in response to this information, even so, when he heard these words at this time, he couldn't help but sigh with General Martos: "The size of the Yue army is still much larger than we expected, which shows that there is a strong will to retaliate since the mediation of South Korea, in a vain attempt to force our country, Russia, and other countries to recognize the suzerainty of the whole of South Korea, and to squeeze both China and Russia out of the Korean Peninsula." We have been planning for a long time, and we are still a little late in preparing. ”

General Maltos agreed: "Your Majesty. ”

General Neznamov and Song Biao reminded: "Your Majesty, the Tsar has issued an order to the War Department and the Governor-General of the Far East, asking our country to support Your Majesty and the Chinese Army in defeating the Japanese army, and to ensure that China and Russia continue to maintain part of the prison regime in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in order to protect the special interests of the two countries in the Far East. We believe that in the cooperation between your country and our country, the army will usher in a new battle of Liaoyang here. ”

Song Biao laughed, he also hoped so.

The Russian War Ministry has signed a secret decree granting the commander of the Russian Far East Army, Major General Popnin, the right to make a provisional decision, and the four Russian brigades remaining in Shenyang and Harbin can join the war if the war situation so requires.

This is not important, the real most important thing is that Russia has leased all the stocks and materials of the Far Eastern Army to the Northeast Army, which has allowed Song Biao to increase the reserve of at least 260 artillery pieces and a sufficient amount of ammunition.

In short, Russia still continued to trust Song Biao's miraculous military ability, and preferred to fund the Northeast Army through the original "Material Lend-Lease Pact for the Three Eastern Provinces", so as to defeat the counterattack of the Yue Army in the Far East without sending troops.

Song Biao carefully watched the various markings on the map, corresponding to the deployment of the army's continuous increase in troops, and he also successively transferred the main forces of the Central Army to the Sino-North Korean border battlefield, set up the general headquarters of the Northeast Front Military Department of the Central Army, set up the Western Front Group Army of the three eastern provinces in the Yalu River Defense Area, and set up the Eastern Front Group Army of the three eastern provinces in the Tumen River Defense Area.

The Western Front Group Army is under the jurisdiction of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 12th, 14th, and 15th Infantry Divisions and the Second Artillery Brigade, as well as 15 new regiments of the Northeast Patrol Army, and the 5th, 6th, and 27th Infantry Divisions, 12 new Northeast Patrol Regiments and the 3rd Artillery Brigade under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Front Group Army.

The General Headquarters of the Northeast Front Military Headquarters directly governs the 22nd Infantry Division, the 23rd Infantry Division, the 22nd Northeast Patrol Army, the 1st Artillery Corps in the Northeast, and the 25th Militia Regiment.

In terms of total strength, the entire Northeast Military Headquarters commanded 470,000 troops, with 140,000 infantry divisions reorganized as the main force, 100,000 newly organized infantry divisions reorganized by the new army in Guannai, and 210,000 troops reorganized as the Northeast Patrol Army.

At this time, in the defense line of the Yalu River, Song Biao used four infantry divisions to correspond to the three divisions and one reserve brigade of the Yue Army, which did not occupy a large advantage on the surface, but in fact, he still had a very strong advantage; first of all, the first, third, and fourth integrated divisions were really expanded to the scale of wartime, and the four infantry regiments under the jurisdiction of each division were uniformly expanded to six companies at the battalion level, with a total strength of 28,000 troops, and the reorganized divisions of each town were increased from the original 12,000 to 15,000.

After the completion of the new reorganization, whether it is a reorganized division or a reorganized division, the pressure on logistics and supply will increase greatly, and for this reason, a large number of militia regiments will be required to be responsible for logistics work, and in the real battle plan, Song Biao does not intend to hold on for a long time.

Song Biao quietly looked at the battle map in front of him, constantly deliberating on the advantages and disadvantages of the two sides in his heart, and after a long time, he made up his mind and instructed Chen Qicai: "Send a telegram to the division headquarters and brigade headquarters, just say that I have arrived, pass on my orders, and the armies will quickly advance to the front line as planned. ”

Chen Qicai immediately received the order.

After completing all the required deployments, Song Biao did not intend to wait for another two months, although then there would be 300,000 new recruits into the front, but this kind of recruits was not what he wanted, he preferred to believe that the patrol forces of the three eastern provinces had been continuously recruiting local patrol troops in the past two years.

In addition, the Manchurian Army has been constantly following the deployment of the Northeast Military Headquarters to adjust its deployment, and the current scale of troop expansion has also had a lot of unforeseen urgency for the Army, and much of its work must have not reached a very good state like the Northeast Military Department.

After arriving in Benxi, Song Biao took time out to inspect various operational preparations, and then went to inspect the Dandong Defense Line, where Zhang Xiaohuai's Fourth Infantry Division was located, and 20 kilometers across the river was the Third Division stationed in Longchuan.

There is a hilly section from Longchuan to Shuozhou, where the Fifth Division of the Yue Army is stationed, and this section of the road is the key point that Song Biao deployed in this decisive battle.

Song Biao had no plan to attack the Yue army, he wanted to fight a decisive battle of the army that would decide the fate of the two countries in a bright and open manner, and after secretly inspecting the state of the preparations of all units in the Dandong defense area in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Central Navy and Army, he finally decided to issue an ultimatum to Yue Ben, demanding that the army abide by the "Dandong Agreement" signed at the end of 1907 and withdraw from the 100-kilometer buffer zone along the southern line of the Yalu River.

Because of its extreme naval disadvantage, it was very difficult for China to occupy overall control in the Sino-Japanese war at this time, and the best choice was to let it take the initiative to start a war, avoid giving it a political axe, and then use the victory of the army as much as possible to force the peace talks and continue to buy China about 10 years of development time.

Before arriving in Dandong, Song Biao also had too many worries about the army's preparations, even in the planning and design of the grand strategy, as well as the update, equipment and logistics work, the squadron he led occupied a certain advantage, but the execution level of the junior officers did not make Song Biao 100% confirmed.

Fortunately, the transformation of the Northeast Army in the mechanism of the General Staff was very smooth, which made the whole army reach a very high standard in logistics and other aspects of deployment and preparation.

At this point, a decisive battle in Shuozhou, which had been prepared for four months, finally inevitably kicked off.

From Benxi to Dandong, from Dandong to Kuandian, Song Pu inspected the preparations for war in various localities and ministries non-stop, and on April 4, he put the general headquarters of the front line in Kuandian, and three days earlier, the Imperial Provisional Cabinet had officially notified Britain and the two countries to stop all negotiations on the grounds that "Britain said that the alliance cooperated to deceive and oppress our country, sought to occupy and split our territory, and coerced and coerced our country and the Chinese nation of 40,000 people with astonishing and shameless terms." Withdraw troops from the demilitarized zone a hundred kilometers south of the Yalu River.

At 12 noon on April 4, Song Biao personally sent another telegram in the name of the emperor and the supreme commander-in-chief of the navy and army, demanding that the entire army retreat to the south side of the Qingchuan River, otherwise it would formally attack the army that had been illegally deployed in the demilitarized zone 12 hours later.

This is actually a declaration of war between China and China.

Although the world powers do not want to see the Northeast Army unify the whole of China, they will really send troops to intervene and take the opportunity to invade China.

Since the outbreak of the ronin incident in the three eastern provinces, Yue Ben has been supporting the Qing Zheng Axe to form a new army, trying to contain the Northeast Army, actively provoking the relationship between the Qing Zheng Axe and the Northeast Army, and luring the two sides to war, and Yue Ben also made a plan to take the opportunity to join forces with the Qing Zheng Axe to eliminate the Northeast Army, but Yu Ben never thought that China's Liberation Revolution would come so quickly, so quickly, let alone that the Qing Zheng Axe would collapse so quickly.

During the Liberation Revolution, it was too late to react, but the Sino-Xinhai War was destined to happen, and even if it was another gamble on the national fortunes, it would prevent the Northeast Army and Song Biao from ruling the whole of China.

For him, such a situation is tantamount to destroying all the future of him.

Sixteen years after the end of the First Sino-Japanese War.

On April 5, 1911, the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War broke out in Shuozhou on the Korean Peninsula, which is very similar to the First Sino-Japanese War in that the starting point of this war began on the Korean Peninsula again.

(To be continued)