November 28, 2nd year of Xuanwu, January 1, 1858 in the Western calendar.

On this day, many offices in the Chinese Empire were empty, except for a few people who stayed behind, most of them were not there, because in the imperial holiday regulations issued last year, in addition to the traditional domestic festivals, such as Qingming, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter Solstice, Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, etc., it was also the first time that the New Year's Day holiday of the Western calendar was introduced.

In order to facilitate himself, well, and at the same time, in order to be in line with international standards, Lin Zhe has officially introduced the Western calendar, which is used in parallel with the traditional lunar calendar in China.

At the same time, a seven-day week system was introduced, which stipulates that public servants must work six days and take leave on weekends.

In fact, the introduction of the Western calendar and the seven-day weekly work system has been prevalent as early as in the Shanghai Business Zone, especially in the industrial and commercial circles, which is not to say that the industrial and commercial circles implement any weekend vacation system, but because the current new enterprises in the business area generally implement the weekly salary system.

Although many statistics, especially the salaries of public officials, are calculated on a monthly basis, in the industrial and commercial circles, especially in the new enterprises established after Western-style companies, the weekly salary system is generally adopted, and the recruitment of personnel is not the monthly salary, but the weekly salary.

At the beginning, the weekly wage system was implemented not because it was in line with international standards and admired foreign countries, but because it was because the life of those workers was really difficult.

Many people who work in the business zone to make a living are not a meal, if you drag on a monthly salary, the family will starve to death, so in the beginning, many companies in order to recruit workers, generally take five or seven days to pay a salary, or even a period of temporary workers. Manual laborers adopt a daily settlement system, which prevents the workers' families from cutting off food.

After the beginning, this follow-up continued, and gradually unified the five-day and seven-day knot into a seven-day knot weekly salary system.

Over time, the concept of a seven-day week, Monday, Tuesday, Saturday and weekend in the West gradually became popular.

Later, the empire also officially introduced a system of Sunday rest among state employees. And introduced the New Year's Day holiday in the West.

Today is New Year's Day, and many government offices are empty, but the newly completed Joint Staff Building in Nanjing is full of people.

Those civilian officials can rest on New Year's Day, but for the military, there is no such thing as a holiday, especially when the Northern Expedition is underway and the situation in Jiangxi is also the situation.

The building of the Joint Staff Department and several other departments of the General Headquarters, including the Military Training Department, the Logistics Department, and the Ordnance Department, are adjacent to each other, and are lined up on the left side of the Zhonghua Palace.

On the right side of the Chung Hwa Palace and in front of the square. It is the office building of the cabinet ministries, including the Zhonghua Palace and the square in front of the palace gate, the office buildings of the cabinet ministries on the right and in front of the Zhonghua Palace, and the military department buildings on the left side of the Zhonghua Palace, which form the political heart of the Chinese Empire.

Walking on the streets are either officials or soldiers, and basically no civilians will come here.

However, not all departments work in this area, such as the finance department under the cabinet, which is independent in the city. There is also the Inspectorate and the Grand Court, two institutions that are independent of the Cabinet, nor are they in this area. Instead, there is an independent office building in the city, and the building of the Admiralty is not here, but in the naval base in Nanjing, which is located on the river outside the city.

The office buildings in this area have been renovated over the past two years, some of them are modern Western-style masonry structures, some are purely Chinese-style, and the detailed architectural style and interior decoration are different from one to another. In general, it is still a mixture of Baroque style and traditional architecture in the south of China: in addition to Western style, there is also a strong traditional Chinese style, which is mainly to match the architectural style of Zhonghua Palace.

Including the Ministry Building, the China Palace, and the Palace Square. This whole complex is actually very similar to the Old Summer Palace in Beiping, which is a mixture of Chinese and foreign products.

In the Joint Staff Building, which was still busy during the holidays, a large group of officers were conducting exercises in a hall with a huge map of China on the floor, and some staff officers were occasionally moving small flags representing various departments on the map, while people on the other side were engaged in various arguments.

This kind of exercise basically takes place at both ends of three days, and the main participants are the staff officers of the Operations Division and the Strategic Department under the General Staff.

In fact, many of the strategic plans of the Chinese Empire were constantly refined in these deductions, and then finally formed a battle plan.

"According to the strength of the Second Army, it is not a big problem to take Ganzhou, but it should also be noted that as the Second Army advances northward, the supply line will be further lengthened, which will seriously affect the follow-up northward operations of the Second Army!"

An officer with the rank of major on his shoulder on the sidelines was saying in a loud voice: "If you want to march into the southern Jiangxi region, then the Second Army will have to pass through the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong, there are no rivers to use in this area, and logistics and supplies can only be transported by road, and the terrain in this area is quite harsh. This is bound to cause quite a bit of a problem with logistical replenishment! ”

"The same problem also exists in the First Mixed Brigade from Fujian Shaowu to the west, from Fujian to Jiangxi from the west, the terrain is no less bad than the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong!"

"So I still insist that in my previous past, the attack launched from Guangdong and Fujian can only be used as a companion, and cannot rely on them, to conquer Jiangxi, it is still necessary to start from the northern Jiangxi region, gather the main force to attack Nanchang, and go straight to Huanglong."

"If you take northern Jiangxi as a breakthrough point, then Jiujiang will not be able to get around, and Jiujiang has not only been operated by the Taiping army for many years, and after the Zhenhu army takes Jiujiang, we may need a considerable price to attack Jiujiang, and this price is unacceptable to us!" The other lieutenant colonel on the side immediately retorted.

"Section Chief Chen, since you know that after the Zhenhu army takes Jiujiang, it will be very difficult for us to attack Jiujiang, so why do you insist on opposing us sending troops to Jiujiang in advance!" The major continued:

"If we send troops to Jiujiang now, it is entirely possible to fish in troubled waters and directly capture Jiujiang from the Zhenhu army and the Taiping army!"

Then Section Chief Chen said: "Send troops to Jiujiang now? Although our army has already reinforced some troops in southern Anhui and northern Jiangxi, some of these troops have not yet arrived. The troops who arrived there were also seriously short of ammunition and other related combat materials, and it was enough to carry out strategic defensive tasks, but to launch a large-scale offensive war, unless the headquarters could provide the materials needed to meet the needs of the main force of 30,000 people for at least two months, it would be possible to shoot themselves in the foot if they rashly attacked Jiujiang! ”

"Section Chief Chen did not dare to disagree with this statement...... "Soon, another army captain also joined the debate, and several staff officers spoke one after another after him.

And so. Again, as usual, there was a big debate.

While the staff officers in the deduction hall were debating fiercely, Shi Langyi, who had just returned to Nanjing from the northern Jiangxi front, was also exchanging opinions with Chen Yuntao on the situation in Jiangxi.

"At present, it is true that I can't continue to wait, I also know that the empire is difficult now, and most of the forces have been freed up in order to support the Northern Expedition, but the situation in Jiangxi is becoming more and more tense, and at present, the Zhenhu army has conquered most of the peripheral strongholds of Jiujiang, and launched the final general attack on Jiujiang Fucheng, and the Taiping army reinforced from Hubei was sniped by the Hunan army and retreated, and now the Taiping thief army in Jiujiang has no food and grass. There are no reinforcements from outside, according to the current situation, at least four or five days, at most ten days and half a month, Jiujiang will be broken! And once the Zhenhu army occupies Jiujiang, according to the combat effectiveness of the Zhenhu army, it will be more difficult for us to conquer Jiujiang in the future! ”

Shi Langyi said this, paused slightly and said, "I don't ask for more." As long as the headquarters can support our army to meet the materials needed for the two-month operation, then our Shi Langyi will be sure to send troops to Jiujiang. Directly knock down Jiujiang and provide a strategic front point for the empire's subsequent westward expansion strategy! ”

Listening to Shi Langyi say this, Chen Yuntao on the other side also had a bitter face, although he, the chief of the joint staff, said that he controlled the strategy of the whole army, it was impossible to say that it was decided alone, he had to come up with a plan. It can then be carried out only after His Majesty's approval has been obtained.

As for the war materials that Shi Langyi wants, this is really not easy to do, and at present, the empire has two arsenals, one is the Linde Machinery Factory and the other is the Jinling Arsenal. Both arsenals were already operating at full capacity, and the output of various ordnance products was limited.

And now in order to support Shi Qingxuan's Northern Expedition, the empire has to transport a large amount of supplies to the north almost every day, some time ago, the navy and the logistics department joined forces to transport more than 30 ships of various combat weapons at one time, including guns and artillery to supplement battle damage, as well as a lot of ammunition and food.

At the same time, the empire is not only fighting in the north, in fact, except for the Northern Expedition, although the other fronts remain calm on the whole, but there are no large-scale battles, but small-scale battles basically occur every day, such as Guangdong, and now the Third Army is still in Wuzhou and the local Qing army is engaged in small-scale, but extremely frequent battles, and the Second Army is also busy suppressing local armed forces in Guangdong.

Taking Guangzhou does not mean that we will be able to control the whole of Guangdong, and many places must be cleaned up one by one, especially the Chinese army's execution is to completely strangle all illegal armed forces, regardless of whether it is the Qing army or bandits, or the local county bravery, regimental training, and township bravery, all of them are in the ranks of the clean-up and suppression.

Then, in northern Anhui, Henan, and most of Shandong, in order to eliminate all kinds of bandits and local armed forces in the local area, a small number of local royal armies and a large number of auxiliary defense forces would basically break out into fighting every day.

Although it is impossible to inflict many casualties on the Chinese army in these sweeping battles, it is necessary to spend all kinds of war materials to fight a war, and you need gunpowder, artillery shells, bullets, and food.

This is not a small amount when it all adds up.

At present, it is quite difficult to get the headquarters to gather enough materials for the 30,000 or 40,000 main forces to fight for two months, unless Shi Qingxuan in the north has conquered Beiping and the Northern Expedition is over.

But Chen Yuntao knew this, and he knew very well that Shi Langyi must also know this, but Shi Langyi still personally returned to Nanjing from Anqing to seek the support of the command.

Because Shi Langyi had a reason to do this, he was not only worried that the changes in the situation in Jiangxi would affect the subsequent westward expansion plan of the empire, but he was even more worried that if he continued to sit back and watch the situation in Jiangxi deteriorate, it would affect his influence in His Majesty's heart.

Because of the hesitation two years ago, he Shi Langyi has been snubbed by His Majesty for two years, although he successfully served as the commander of the Fourth Army at the end of last year, but his status in the military is far less than back then, once known as the best general in Yu Sheng's army, the number one general under Lin Zhe, he can't bear to gradually become a second-rate or even third-rate.

He needs a war to show his abilities and worth! (To be continued......)