The city of Nanjing is covered with snow ().

Many people still don't know what the republican people are, so people from nearby provinces and counties have been coming to Nanjing for half a month, just to see how the Republic of China and the Qing Dynasty are different.

After the establishment of the new government, the peace talks between the north and the south reached a stalemate, and the remnants of Beiyang and Zhang Xun's Jiang Defense Army occupied Xuzhou to deter Nanjing, and Ni Sichong gathered more than 20,000 people in Anhui to carry out a brutal massacre in northern Anhui. In addition to the unfavorable war, finance has become the heart of the provisional government, when he first came to office, Chen Qimei actually only gave Sun Wen 1,000 yuan, but he earned 10 million yuan just by issuing public bonds! During this period of time, just to raise money, Huang Keqiang and other ministers have also lost weight, if it weren't for Zhang Jizhi's two Huai salt taxes as collateral to get 2 million at the bottom, it is estimated that the government will go bankrupt before it opens ().

Compared with the huge expenses, this is just a drop in the bucket, the front line in northern Jiangsu and Anhui is like flowing water, and the hundreds of thousands of troops in Nanjing City will cost more than 100,000 yuan a day just to eat and drink, and the money will bottom out after half a month, and the letters of help sent to the governors of the provinces have been returned without exception, so the most important thing now is to end the confrontation as soon as possible and resume production.

"It's just that Guangxi and Yunnan are poor and don't stretch out their hands, but Guangdong and Zhejiang are big tax provinces! It's all a dime, what is this? Song Jiaoren was very angry, and glanced at Tang Shouqian and Hu Hanmin: "You two are both old backbones in Guangdong and Zhejiang, are you really unable to raise any money?" ”

Hu Hanmin didn't speak, but Tang Shouqian spread out his hand: "It's not that you don't know at the beginning of the retreat, the government has just been established, and the taxes in various places have not yet come up, not to mention that it is now winter, and Zhejiang is mainly a spring and autumn agricultural tax, I want to stay up until May." ”

"May? Then it's better for everyone to disperse and go back to their respective homes. Jiang Zuobin, vice minister of the War Department, sighed: "There is another telegram from the front, asking for 200,000 military salaries, 400 boxes of ammunition medicine, and 500,000 yuan from the Jinling Manufacturing Bureau to operate." ”

"Dial! The front line is urgent, and the soldiers must not be allowed to suffer. President Sun Da was about to allocate funds with a stroke of his pen, and Huang Keqiang hurriedly covered his bitterness and said: "President, now there are only a dozen oceans in the account, this." "Sun Wen actually knows that he has no money, but now that he is the president, he can't face the life and death of the front-line soldiers without making a statement.

Wu Tingfang coughed twice and asked, "Did Yang Qiu reply to the money?" ”

Huang Keqiang hurriedly checked the telegrams replied by the provinces, and found that there was really no news from the three upstream provinces, and said: "Maybe it hasn't arrived yet, Brother Wenjue, do you think he will be willing to allocate funds to support us?" ”

Wu Tingfang said: "I don't know if it will be, but I heard from a few friends in Shanghai that he made a big deal with the Germans before the war, ordered thousands of machines and equipment, and now it is being transported overnight, and this time he placed an order with the United States in Shanghai that is said to be tens of millions, all of which are ready to be settled in cash, I think he should have money over there." ”

"That's right! I've heard that there are more machines and equipment than two Hanyangs. ”

"Hubei is rich, Hunan is the land of fish and rice, Sichuan is the land of abundance, and he is the first to end the war, I think." Wu Tingfang glanced at Song Jiaoren: "You have a good relationship with him at the beginning, it's better to send someone to go, if you don't get some money to come here, you really won't be able to open the pot." ”

Song Jiaoren smiled bitterly, if Yang Qiu was willing to listen to him, he was about to shirk this drudgery, but the door of the office was suddenly slammed open from the outside, only to see the secretary panting and shouting: "President! Oh no, something is wrong. ”

Hu Hanmin is the secretary general of the presidential office, and he was a little angry when he saw his subordinates so unruly, and said in a deep voice: "What's the matter, is it that the Beiyang Army has hit outside the city?" ”

The emergency secretary didn't care about the gaffe, and shouted: "Oh no! Just now, Hankou and Beijing sent a telegram at the same time saying that Yang Qiu had been assassinated when he arrived in Hankou this morning! Beijing Yuan Shikai was also bombed! ”

"You say it again?" Huang Keqiang's eyes widened, Song Jiaoren suddenly rose, and Wu Tingfang's face was extremely ugly all of a sudden! Even President Sun Da opened his mouth wide and looked incredulous. Yang Qiu was assassinated? I was talking to him to borrow money just now!

"It's true! The news was sent by Zhang Binglin and Wang Jingwei, Yang Qiu was attacked as soon as he got off the ship, and those assassins shouted that it was an order from Nanjing to kill Yang Qiu! Wang Jingwei in Beijing said that it was three young people who killed Yuan Shikai, and they were all our comrades! The secretary put the two telegrams on Sun Wen's desk, and when he heard that it was actually Sun Wu and Zhang Zhenwu who planned to assassinate Yang Qiu, and they also forged a Nanjing warrant to spread the false news that the central government was going to kill Yang Qiu, Huang Keqiang suddenly looked like an enraged bull, and his eyes began to burn.

As a veteran diplomat, Wu Tingfang was completely dumbfounded. One is a northern tyrant and the other is a rising star, both of whom have a poor relationship with the provisional government, and the outside even compares the current situation to the Three Kingdoms. At this time, the two were assassinated at the same time on the same day, regardless of whether the assassin used the banner of the provisional government or not, everyone would think of Nanjing first! Because these two people died, the most beneficial thing was the Nanjing Provisional Government!

Oh my God, it's better if you kill one! Why kill two at the same time on the same day! Song Jiaoren first recovered from the panic and took the lead in asking, "Is there anything wrong with Yang Qiu and Yuan Shikai?" ”

"It's not ()." The secretary hurriedly said: "Yuan Shikai's carriage broke down, and three guards died, and he rubbed some skin himself. Yang Qiu was fine, he was being guarded at the dock, but Mr. Zhang Binglin called to say that the dock workers and the officials who went to greet him had suffered heavy casualties, and that more than 20 people had been killed by bombs and bullets, including Xia Shoukang, the minister of the Hubei Ministry of Finance. Oh yes! It seems that there is also a woman, I heard that she has a deep relationship with Yang Qiu, and she was also seriously injured and sent to the hospital, and her condition is unknown. ”

"It's okay, it's okay." Wu Tingfang breathed a sigh of relief, but Hu Hanmin said bitterly: "It's okay if it's okay, it's better to die!" ”

Huang Keqiang couldn't sit still, no matter whether the two of them were dead or alive, they had to immediately get rid of the relationship with the Nanjing government at the moment, otherwise they didn't know what was going on. But as soon as he was about to speak, the door was knocked open again, and this time it was Xu Shaozhen, the commander of the Jiangsu Revolution Army, who came in and shouted: "Minister Huang, go and take a look!" Yang Qiu's troops had already blocked the Jiangfang fort and wharf, shouting why they wanted to hand over the culprit, what the hell was going on? ”

Culprit! Wu Tingfang sat down dejectedly, and even Sun Wen slapped his forehead, there was no way.

On the afternoon of the 16th, after the news of Yang Qiu's assassination reached Nanjing, the vanguard regiment that was ordered to cooperate with the Northern Expedition was agitated and immediately forcibly took over the Jiangfang fort and wharf, demanding that the president clarify the facts and hand over the culprit.

In the evening, because Xu Shaozhen transferred a division to alert, the situation deteriorated more and more sharply, and the vanguard regiment of the Northern Expedition of the Wehrmacht, which mistakenly thought that it would be forcibly disarmed, took advantage of the geographical advantage of the Jiangfang battery to set up its machine guns, and also aimed several 120-mm shore guns used for the river defense at the Jiangsu army, and the gunboat Chuqian, who was escorting the fleet along the way, was also ordered to stop outside the Yangtze River, ready to support the army brothers on the battery at any time.

Seeing that the Nanjing government was in danger of falling into civil war only half a month after its establishment, Sun Wen had no choice but to personally send a telegram to Yang Qiu, clarifying that the matter had nothing to do with the Nanjing government, and that the perpetrators would be severely punished to maintain the prestige of the government. However, only half an hour after the telegram was sent, the confessions of Sun Wu and Zhang Zhenwu were sent to the Nanjing Government Secretariat, and Hu Hanming almost fainted when he saw the words "Huang Yiou funded" on it.

At eight o'clock in the evening, when Huang Keqiang, who was furious, had just arrested his son, the situation did not improve but deteriorated again.

First of all, Tang Hualong, minister of civil affairs of Hubei, Hu Ruilin, director of the Yangxia Civil Affairs Department, and more than 20 officials implicated in the assassination were arrested. Immediately after that, the remaining two regiments of the 1st Division and 1st Brigade of the Wehrmacht, which were waiting for ships to go south, suddenly crossed the border into Jiangxi, and at the same time, news came from Shanghai that two gunboats were heading up the river. Before the digestion was finished, the Wehrmacht Headquarters went to war again, ordering the 3rd and 4th Divisions to immediately leave for Hunan and Sichuan, and ordering the 6th and 7th Brigades, which were being trained, to enter a state of combat readiness. The Second Division also pressed forward towards Wusheng Pass step by step, preparing to forcibly regain Wusheng Pass.

In the face of a series of telegrams of questioning in Nanjing, the headquarters of the National Defense Forces only replied with the words "just in case." Just in case?! Against whom? Naturally, it was the "Nanjing government" on the dock who shouted to kill Yang Qiu.

While Nanjing was in a hurry, Yang Qiu and the Wehrmacht had already begun to act step by step and according to plan.

Since the rebels in this assassination were all from Sichuan and Hubei, the General Staff of the National Defense Forces believed that under the poor security situation in the three provinces, it would be difficult for the National Defense Forces to free up their hands to carry out the arduous tasks of the Northern Expedition, so it was necessary to establish special reserve forces and internal affairs units. After final discussions, the Wehrmacht changed the garrison battalion into the National Guard of the three provinces, as a supplement to the regular army, and expanded to 12 light infantry regiments, with Xiao Anguo and Fan Liangshan as the chief and deputy commanders, and the missing soldiers were recruited from the rural areas of the three provinces with innocent young people.

When a steady stream of news came out of Hubei, the Nanjing government was hit hard.

Located in Xuzhou, the third town of Beiyang Eleventh Standard cooperated with Zhang Xun's remnants of the Jiang Defense Army suddenly launched a fierce attack, and the Zhenjiang Revolution Army led by Lin Shuqing fought to the death and was chased to Huaiyin all night before barely gaining a foothold. It was not until the morning that it was learned that the troops had lost more than 5,000 casualties in one night. Lin Shuqing, who had not been paid for a month without munitions, was discouraged and simply went back to Zhenjiang after sending a telegram that he was "not in good health," causing a big gap to suddenly appear on the Jinpu line.

On the morning of the 18th, after newspapers all over South China published the news that Yang Qiu and Yuan Shikai were assassinated on the same day and that Xuzhou had been defeated, the whole of China was in an uproar, and everyone had only one thought.

What the hell are they going to do?!