When Zhao Dongyun buried himself in Mukden to carry out the reform of the New Deal and expand the army, the situation at home and abroad was still turbulent, and after several large-scale offensive and defensive battles fought on the Russo-Japanese War last year, the two countries that had already suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties in this war were exhausted.

Although the Japanese had won a victory at sea, they had not progressed well on land, and the battle line had been stalemate on the line of Liaoyang, Mukden and Fushun, and even if the stalemate was completed, there were still many casualties, and the casualties were hundreds of thousands, not to mention after two years of fighting.

Of course, the Russian army is no better than there, the navy has been almost completely annihilated, and the army is already struggling to survive on Lushun's side, if the Japanese army is willing to pay a certain price to attack, it is estimated that it will be able to take it last year, but the Japanese are not stupid, anyway, now Lushun has no strategic value, so the Japanese only stationed a division here, and if they don't attack, they will wait for the Russian army in Lushun to starve to death!

In the strategic stalemate on the front line of Liaoyang, Mukden and Fushun, the Japanese casualties were extremely large, and the casualties of the Russian army were not less than there, don't think that trench warfare is that everyone squats in the trenches and does not fight, in the era when there are no tanks, the offensive and counterattack speed of both sides is quite limited, so often you overcome a certain tactical point, and the reinforcements dispatched by the enemy will also arrive, and then there will be a war of attrition that repeatedly fights for a certain tactical point, and then whether it is the attacking side or the defending side, in the end will be forced to invest a lot of living forces to consume.

Therefore, in this kind of super-large-scale battle, whether it is the Japanese army as the attacking side or the Russian army as the defensive and counterattacking side, in fact, if the battle starts, the casualties will be half a catty and eight taels, and they will be at least hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded!

Moreover, since last year, there have been frequent revolutionary uprisings in Russia, when the Russian army was fighting fiercely with the Japanese army on the front line, Lenin and others in the rear took the funds supported by the Japanese to launch various uprisings, the arsenal was suspended, the trains were suspended, and the Russian army in the Far East could not be supplied!

In this way, the combat capability of the Russian army will not be weakened, and it will become more and more difficult to maintain the war in the Far East.

More importantly, since the Russian navy was almost wiped out last year, it has become increasingly difficult to sell Russian war bonds on the international market, and even France and Germany, which have always supported the Russians, have begun to reduce their support for Russia.

This makes it even more difficult for the Russian war plane to maintain!

It can be said that by the beginning of 1906, this war promoted by Britain had perfectly achieved the desired result of Britain, that is, the weakening of Russia.

After this war, Russia will not want to expand in the Far East for ten years!

However, after weakening Russia, Britain was naturally unwilling to let its Japanese capital continue to grow, after all, the main purpose of its support for Japan to start a war was not to support Japan's expansion, but to weaken Russia, so once the goal of weakening Russia was achieved, Britain immediately began to reduce its support for Japan.

Just as the reason why the war was launched back then was the impetus of the British, the end of this war was also the impetus of the British, and of course the politicians of various countries will certainly not admit these arguments.

But don't listen to the nonsense of political slogans, just look at the financial markets in Paris, London, and New York to find out who is buying the Japanese war bonds.

When the Japanese bonds in the London and New York markets cannot be sold, then the Japanese side will know that the war is over and should be over.

Thus, from 1906 onwards, Japan and Russia really played a sit-in, let alone large-scale wars, and even small-scale confrontations rarely occurred, and at the same time, diplomats from various countries were already active in trying to negotiate and reach an armistice.

While the Russo-Japanese War had come to an end, China's domestic situation had suddenly become tense since the second half of last year.

Since last year, a full-scale political conflict has broken out between Cen Chunxuan, the governor of Liangguang, and Yuan Shikai, who is directly under the command of the people, and these two are not fighting alone, but with a large number of allies and subordinates, such as Cen Chunxuan in the center of the imperial court has the support of the Minister of Military Aircraft Qu Hongzhen, and Yuan Shikai is the time to promote his staff Xu Shichang to the Military Aircraft Department as the Minister of Military Aircraft, and at the same time, he is also an ally of Prince Qing Yixuan.

Coupled with other centrists, wall grass and the like, almost the entire period from the second half of 1905 to 1906, the political situation in China basically revolved around the struggle between the two political factions, Cen Chunxuan and Yuan Shikai.

If you really want to talk about it, last year's competition between Zhao Dongyun and Zhao Erxun for the post of General Shengjing was actually a battle between these two major political factions.

However, at the beginning of the year, Yuan Shikai and Prince Qing took advantage of their political advantages to persuade Cixi to transfer Cen Chunxuan to serve as the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou.

At the same time, Yuan Shikai promoted Zhou Fu to serve as the governor of Liangguang, who is this Zhou Fu? He is Yuan Shikai's sons and daughters, and it may not be appropriate to say that he is a member of the Beiyang faction, but he is definitely Yuan Shikai's political ally.

However, in this series of struggles between the Southern Cen and Northern Yuan, on the surface, Yuan Shikai seemed to have achieved a huge political victory, but the large-scale expansion of the Beiyang faction in the past two years also caused Cixi to take precautions.

In the past few years, Yuan Shikai led the Beiyang from a small Wuwei right army to start, and then quickly control a province of Zhili, and then organize and train the Beiyang Standing Army, not to mention the previous few years, the Beiyang system alone last year has done many major things that no other political faction can do, not only the six towns of the Beiyang Standing Army and the Beijing Banner Standing Army are all into an army, but also in 1905 to promote Xu Shichang to enter the military aircraft department as the Minister of Military Aircraft, and support Zhao Dongyun to become the general of Shengjing to control Fengtian Province in all aspects, There is even the possibility of radiating control over the entire three eastern provinces, and in addition, Wang Yongqing is also pushed to be appointed as the governor of Jiangbei.

This incident alone is a huge political incident, but in 1905 it happened in the Beiyang system, how can this not attract the attention of outsiders? How not to arouse the precautions of the Qing court?

Although Yuan Shikai sent a lot of money to Prince Qing every year, and Yixuan also supported Yuan Shikai, he couldn't suppress the Qing court's defense against Beiyang!

The most obvious example of this is that in the summer of 1906, when Japan and Russia were negotiating an armistice, the new bureaucratic reform jointly promoted by Yuan Shikai, Yixuan, Xu Shichang and others in China was ostensibly successful, but it was still strongly opposed by Cen Chunxuan's political ally Qu Hongzhen, and it was completely defeated.

Not to mention a lot of irrelevant things in the new bureaucratic reform, the real core of power is the reform of the Military Aircraft Department and various ministries, and many military aircraft ministers in the Military Aircraft Department have lost the right to participate in cardinal affairs, and have turned into a Shangshu in charge of a department, including Yuan Shikai's direct representative Xu Shichang in the Military Aircraft Department, but Yuan Shikai's sworn enemy, Cen Chunxuan's political ally Qu Hongzhen, has not lost any power, and is still in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the Minister of Military Aircraft.

As a result, the Beiyang faction led by Yuan Shikai was completely defeated in this official reform, or in the power struggle in the center!

In July, Yuan Shikai was forced to resign from the part-time post in the face of many impeachment proceedings, but this was not counted, the real blow to Beiyang was the official establishment of the War Department in August, which commanded the new army of the whole country.

As mentioned above, the training department is actually the training department of the Beiyang faction, and since its establishment, it has been fighting for power with the representative of the imperial court, the 'military department', in an attempt to control the new army in the country.

However, the Qing court took advantage of the contradictions and overlaps between the military training department and the military department, and despite the covert opposition of the Beiyang system, directly merged the two departments, and joined the Taifu Temple to establish the War Department.

If the Ministry of War is established, and the secretary of the Ministry of War is served by someone from the Beiyang faction, such as Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai and even Yuan Shikai himself, this is a good thing for the Beiyang system, but the key to the problem is that the secretary of the War Department is not a Beiyang person.

It was the Manchu general Tie Liang, although Tie Liang had a close relationship with Yuan Shikai in the early years, but in recent years, as the imperial court has become more and more obvious to guard against Beiyang, Tie Liang has gradually opened up relations with Beiyang, and then became a Manchu general in the traditional sense.

The establishment of the War Department and Tie Liang's appointment as the secretary of the War Department represented the defeat of the Beiyang system in this war for the power of the whole country.

The specific table is that shortly after the establishment of the War Department, it announced the unification of the new army number of the whole country, and prepared to change the "Beijing Banner Standing Army" to the "First Town of the Army" at the beginning of the year, that is, in 1906, and the six towns of the Beiyang Standing Army to the second to seventh towns of the Army.

At the same time, in the future, the new armies in other provinces that have already formed an army will be awarded, but at the beginning of 1906, but the two towns of Fengtian that Zhao Dongyun has trained in the past two years have not actually formed an army, and the War Department has not yet sent people to review, so for the time being, it will continue to use the number of the Fengtian Standing Army.

However, the establishment of the War Department and the unification of this kind of thing may be a good thing in the eyes of later generations, but it is a great bad thing for the Beiyang system, which relies on military power to survive!

Why?

Because the War Department was established, it has the right to govern all the armies in the country, that is to say, theoretically speaking, whether it is Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Standing Army or Zhao Dongyun's Fengtian Standing Army, they are all under the control of the War Department. Whether or not this War Department is developing a new army in China is more a department of the Qing court trying to weaken the Beiyang faction and regain the military power of the Beiyang.

As soon as this was established, it tried to bring the six towns of the Beiyang Standing Army and the Jingqi Standing Army under the jurisdiction of the War Department!