In October and November 1906, when the Beiyang Mutiny in northern China, especially the three provinces of Zhili and the east, as well as Shandong and Henan provinces, which was triggered by the assassination of Yuan Shikai, continued to be turbulent, many governors in the south did not sit idly and wait for the results of the Beiyang infighting to obediently bow down.

Moreover, many governors in the south, especially Zhang Zhidong and Duanfang, are all sophisticated traditional bureaucrats, and their way of acting is completely different from that of new-school warlords such as Zhao Dongyun in the north, at least they are not connected to Zhao Dongyun and Wang Yingkai one by one, and everyone in the world knows that they are eager to do anything.

Many governors in the south, that is, Zhang Zhidong issued a few telegrams in the early stage, mainly to persuade the Beiyang generals to exercise restraint, but then when the Beiyang generals beat you to the death, many governors in the south did not have much to say.

In the past two months, Duanfang has used rapid means to clean up a large number of officers who are inclined to the Beiyang faction, and then controlled the Ninth Town stationed in Jiangning, the 27th Mixed Association in Jiangxi, and the 31st Mixed Association in Anhui at the level of middle and senior officers.

And Yin Chang was not far behind, and after kicking out some of the middle and senior officers of the Beiyang faction, he also barely controlled the Jiangbei Mixed Association.

It is not only the Liangjiang and Jiangbei sides that are reorganizing their armies and preparing for expansion, but in fact, the southern provinces of Huguang, Fujian, Zhejiang, Liangguang, and even Yunnan and Guizhou have all invariably accelerated the pace of training the new army!

In addition to reorganizing the army, there were also frequent and secret contacts between the southern governors, relying on the prestige of Zhang Zhidong, the leader of the southern governors, and the support of the Manchu ministers headed by Duanfang, in fact, the southern provinces soon reached a situation similar to the alliance of the southern provinces in the year of Gengzi.

Since the start of the army in Beiyang in mid-October, it can be seen that there is no public support from any southern governor, in fact, the southern provinces have no good impression of Beiyang, especially Beiyang after Yuan Shikai's death, let alone support.

In the hearts of many southern governors, this rebellion in Beiyang is a serious rebellion, which is intolerable, not to mention making them bow down to Wang Yingkai or Zhao Dongyun, whether it is Wang Yingkai or Zhao Dongyun, when they talk about prestige and qualifications, they can generally only say it in the Beiyang system, but if this so-called prestige and qualifications are placed on a national scale, it is basically not even second-rate.

Around the year of Gengzi, the leading Han minister in China was naturally Li Hongzhang, and after Li Hongzhang died, although Yuan Shikai was the heir of Beiyang, he actually couldn't suppress many important ministers in the late Qing Dynasty, such as Zhang Zhidong, when people wrestled with Li Hongzhang back then, you Yuan Shikai still hooked up with Concubine Min in the pimple in North Korea.

In addition, among the important ministers whose prestige reaches the whole country, there is also Cen Chunxuan, and then several important ministers of the Manchu nationality are actually not small in prestige, Duanfang and Xiliang are one of the few Manchu important ministers in the late Qing Dynasty who can confront the important ministers of the Han people.

So when it comes to the word prestige in contemporary times, in fact, it is not the turn of Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun to do anything, and a group of governors in the south are stronger than them.

In this case, when the north launched a turmoil, naturally don't expect the southern governor to obey Wang Yingkai or Zhao Dongyun in the Beiyang, at this time, they did not hesitate to raise the banner of another leader, that is, Zhang Zhidong!

In the face of turmoil in the north, it is not the first time that the southern provinces have united to protect each other, they did it once in the year of Gengzi, and now although the situation is different from all that year, it is a fact that the Beijing division has fallen and the north has fallen into war.

Especially after Wang Yingkai forced Guangxu to write the edict of abdication with a gun, the shock to the southern provinces was great, and Duan Fang and others refused to recognize the validity of the edict of abdication.

But even if the southern governors, especially those Manchu governors, are unwilling to admit it, the fact is that the Jingshi has fallen under the control of Beiyang, and a large number of royal families, including Guangxu, Cixi and even Zaifeng and Zaixun, have been arrested and then placed under house arrest, even if a few have escaped into the embassy area, it will not affect the overall situation.

The Beiyang generals jointly attacked the Beijing division before, and adopted the method of encircling and then attacking, plus the Manchu royal family was still relatively confident before, and they did not expect Wang Shizhen to rebel before the battle, and Feng Guozhang would be defeated so simply and miserably, so the Manchu royal family lost the opportunity to hunt the third west very tragically, Guangxu, Cixi, and several imperial brothers of Guangxu Zaifeng, etc., all fell into the hands of the Beiyang army.

In addition, regardless of whether it was forced or voluntary, the abdication edict was actually promulgated, and the national seal on it was genuine, in this case, in fact, from a legal point of view, the southern provinces have lost their allegiance, and it is impossible for them to bow down to Wang Yingkai.

In this case, Duan Fang, who fantasized about the great cause of restoring the country, discussed with Yinchang and several other Manchu governors, and then turned around and expressed his allegiance to Zhang Zhidong!

Their request is very simple, that is, to keep the emperor position of the Aixin Jueluo family!

In other words, they accepted the imitation of the British hypocrisy, and the emperor only kept his false name, and did not want any other power!

And Zhang Zhidong, who was originally quite unhappy with Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun, the leaders of the Beiyang warlords, your new policy was originally playing well, and you Beiyang had to rebel, in Zhang Zhidong's view, the generals of Beiyang, whether they were Wang Yingkai or Zhao Dongyun, were all careerists who brought disaster to the country and the people!

Moreover, as a Confucian child, like many traditional scholars, his instinct is to resent the so-called republic, the Chinese have a history of emperors for thousands of years, once there is no emperor, what is it?

Of course, as the leader of the Han ministers, Zhang Zhidong had no way to accept Guangxu and their continued to stay on the Han ministers to and pee, so he and Yuan Shikai have joined forces to promote the constitutional monarchy in recent years.

In his opinion, the emperor still needs it, otherwise who will you sell the talents of the world's scholars?

But the times have changed now, although this emperor has to have, but it is best not to take care of things, what military affairs are naturally managed by Confucian students such as me, your emperor don't worry about it, just learn from those emperors of the Ming Dynasty, nothing to practice Liandan, sawing wood, occasionally playing with leopards and watching an elephant or something, that is a model of the way of getting along with monarchs and ministers!

Moreover, if you agree to them, then a prime minister will come!

At that time, it will not even be said that one person is below ten thousand people, but absolutely above ten thousand people!

Many reasons add up, and then see that many governors in the south also support themselves, and the armies of the southern provinces seem to add up to a lot, and there are a few towns and associations, if you train again, it is estimated that it is not difficult to make up more than a dozen towns.

As a result, under the tandem of the southern governors, a 'Federal Empire of China' officially appeared on the stage of history!

The reason why it didn't continue to be called the Qing Empire or the like, it was because regardless of Guangxu being forced or voluntary, the abdication edict really couldn't be true, and there was no way to admit it, plus many people were still worried about opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Han Dynasty in recent years, in order to avoid outsiders chewing their tongues, and at the same time, it was also to win over many Han important ministers, so Duan Fang and others took the initiative to build yì, the name of the country had to be changed, and the Qing Dynasty and the like were no longer used, and they were replaced by a tall one.

So these people pondered it, and they came up with a name for the 'Empire of the Federal Republic of China', and then issued a telegram saying that they would continue to respect Guangxu, who was trapped in Beijing, as the first emperor.

On December 2, Zhang Zhidong convened the so-called 'Congress' in Wuhan, and the delegates sent from the southern provinces agreed on the so-called constitution and various systems.

However, Zhang Zhidong became the first imperial prime minister, Yin Chang became the Minister of War, and Beiyang's nemesis Cen Chunxuan also ran from Shanghai, and then served as the minister of the degree branch.

In order to show the outside world that this is definitely not a regime or cabinet belonging to the Manchurians, but a cabinet belonging to the people of the world!

But this is only the appearance, because among the many governors who subsequently issued telegrams allegiance to the Empire of the Federal Republic of China, the names of the Manchu governors accounted for nearly half!

From December 2nd to 3rd, almost all the governors of many southern provinces successively issued telegrams in support of the Chinese Federal Empire, including the Manchurians: Duanfang, the governor of Liangjiang, Yin Chang, the minister of the Ministry of War and the governor of Jiangbei, Xiliang, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, Enming, the governor of Anhui, Ruiliang, the governor of Jiangxi, Liankui, the governor of Xinjiang, and Ruizi of Daotai in Shanghai.

At the same time, there were a large number of Han governors, including Zhou Fu, the governor of Liangguang, Ding Zhenze, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Zhao Erfeng, the governor of Sichuan, Zhao Erxun, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, Chen Kuilong, the governor of Jiangsu, Zhang Zengyang, the governor of Zhejiang, and Pang Hongshu, the governor of Guizhou.

After the news reached Tangshan, Zhao Dongyun, who was originally glad that Zhang Zhidong had established the so-called Empire of the Federal Republic of China, also began to worry.

Why?

Because the struggle between Zhao Dongyun and Wang Yingkai can even be traced back to the previous war with Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen, although the fight was very fierce, but in any case, this is a Beiyang infighting, which is not about the leadership of the country, but the status of the boss of Beiyang.

How to say it, the struggle between the bigwigs in Beiyang is not a life-and-death struggle, although Feng Guozhang was defeated, but now he is still alive and well, even if Wang Yingkai is disgusted with him in his heart, but after Feng Guozhang announced his resignation, Wang Yingkai still has to eat and drink well, after all, the bigwigs in Beiyang have been together for many years, many of them used to be friends, and even have a lot of friendship in private, but the interests of their respective factions make them draw their swords against each other.

Take 10,000 steps back and say, no matter who wins or loses in this infighting in Beiyang, this meat is rotten in the pot of Beiyang, once Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun distinguish the winner and loser, then the next step is to unify Beiyang, and then develop and expand the Beiyang system.

But now Zhang Zhidong and other southern governors have created a so-called Chinese Federal Empire in the south, which has already harmed the overall interests of Beiyang.

If Zhang Zhidong and the others really came up with the Northern Expeditionary Army, and then entered Zhili and defeated Wang Yingkai and others, his fate Zhao Dongyun would not be any better!