If you just say that two or three months ago, that is, before the fall of the former Qing Dynasty, the number of new troops in the south was actually not much, and many of them were in vain, but no matter how many were in the actual battle, but judging from the text, there were still a lot of new troops in the southern provinces!

For example, under the hands of Zhang Zhidong in Hubei, there are the Eighth Town, the 21st Mixed Association, the Ninth Town controlled by Duanfang, the Jiangnan Mixed Association, the Jiangbei Mixed Association under Yin Chang, the 23rd Mixed Association in Jiangsu, the 27th Mixed Association in Jiangxi, the 31st Mixed Association in Anhui, the Shaanxi Army Mixed Association, and the Tenth Town in Fujian.

The above is still the kind that is relatively full, and there are still many new armies in the southern provinces that are short of personnel, such as the 25th Mixed Association in Hunan, which has only one infantry standard; Sichuan also has a 32nd Mixed Association, but this Association is less than half of the rated establishment, and the 43rd Mixed Association in Shanxi has only one infantry standard; There are only four infantry battalions in the Zhejiang Mixed Formation Association, and although most of the new armies in Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and other provinces have the name of a mixed association, in fact they generally have only about one standard strength.

And the above is only infantry, as for the technical arms, such as cavalry, artillery, not to mention, in the armies of the southern provinces, there is a general lack of cavalry troops, the eighth town, the ninth town and the twenty-first mixed association and other Hubei and Liangjiang troops are better, although the cavalry is in short supply, but it can barely be matched.

However, most of the cavalry units in other provinces are in vain, such as the tenth town in Fujian, where the cavalry force is only one team, not even a hundred cavalry.

The situation of the artillery units is similar, and the artillery of the Eighth and Ninth Towns can handle it, but most of them are equipped with 57-mm artillery produced by the Hanyang Factory, not to mention the three-inch tube-annealed artillery installed by the international powers, including the Beiyang Army, and they don't even have many 75-millimeter artillery guns.

As for the new army in other provinces, it is even more tragic, taking the tenth town of Fujian as an example, this town is one of the few three towns in the southern provinces with a tentative name, and it has only 12 old guns. This tenth town is said to be a town, but in fact, the actual strength is just a mixed association that is not satisfied.

And the other provinces are even more tragic, there is no need to mention it!

The above is the situation of the southern armies before Yuan Shikai's death, but since Yuan Shikai's death, the situation in the north has been turbulent, and after the Beiyang army, the southern governors, especially those loyal to the Manchu court, have vigorously expanded the army, and even did not hesitate to reuse those students who had the background of the revolutionary party.

Basically, those new-style officers in the south, as long as they did not have the background of Beiyang, basically gained reuse in a short period of time, and in a certain way, Sun Wen and other revolutionary parties also borrowed the spring breeze of Zhao Dongyun and others, otherwise there would not be so many revolutionaries who would have mixed into the new army in the south in a short period of time.

However, for the time being, at least for the time being, the expansion of the new army in the south has been rapid and powerful, and in just two months, the number of troops under the governors of the southern provinces has increased considerably.

After Zhang Zhidong united with other governors of the Chinese Federal Empire in the city, when he unified the number to form the Northern Expeditionary Army, the number of the town was ranked as many as 26 towns, and no one knew how many of them could fight, and even Zhang Zhidong himself did not know.

But I don't dare what the actual situation is, but the number of these twenty-six towns is still very scaring to everyone, especially when Zhang Zhidong claimed with great fanfare that he would gather the army of twenty towns to go north to crusade against the Beiyang generals and welcome back the holy car, it also scared Wang Yingkai and others in the north, otherwise he would not have hurriedly convened an armistice meeting to negotiate.

If it weren't for Zhang Zhidong making such a big noise in the south, Yan zhòng threatened the overall survival interests of Beiyang, and it is estimated that Zhao Dongyun, Wang Yingkai and others are still fighting now, where would they go to Tianjin to conduct armistice negotiations.

And there are two other reasons for Wang Yingkai, Zhao Dongyun and others to put aside the conflict and negotiate peace, that is, the Southern Federation has an advantage that Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun do not have, what is this advantage?

One word: money!

Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangdong and even Sichuan, these provinces are all large domestic financial provinces, if Zhao Dongyun's territory is in Jiangsu, he dares to storm more than ten divisions, if he is allowed to occupy Jiangsu and Zhejiang at the same time, he doesn't have to bother much, he can directly storm his hundreds of thousands of troops to push down many warlords in the country.

It will be the same there as it is now, and it will be very difficult to raise these three divisions and three brigades in the bitter cold land of the northeast.

Although the southern governors are a little worse in making money and doing foreign affairs, it is still not a big problem to make money and expand a few divisions, so the longer the time drags on, the more time is left for Zhang Zhidong, and the more unfavorable it will be for Beiyang.

This is one of the reasons why Wang Yingkai and others are in a hurry to negotiate, because there is not much time left for Wang Yingkai, Zhao Dongyun and others, once it drags on and allows the Southern Federation to pool financial and manpower to really come up with some 'Twenty-six Towns Northern Expeditionary Army', not to mention that Wang Yingkai has to cry to death, Zhao Dongyun will have to jump into the Liao River.

The current Beiyang is not the Beiyang between 1911 and 1913 in history, although the Beiyang in this period of history has begun to ossify and degenerate, but at least Yuan Shikai is still there, he said to the east, Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui They will never dare to go west, but what about the current Beiyang, saying that the division is light, in fact, it has already been a sword and gun, and they have fought two wars with each other.

As for the southern provinces, after 1911 and even until the twenties, the southern provinces were actually a plate of scattered sand, although the provinces all held the banner of Sun Wen, but in fact, there were few southern governors who listened to Sun Wen's dispatch, otherwise the Nanjing Provisional Government in history would not have been so tragic.

But what about the southern provinces now?

Who is Zhang Zhidong, the leader of the Southern Governor? He was one of the few Han important ministers in the late Qing Dynasty who deserved to be written about, and he was at the same level as Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang in terms of fame. Coupled with the support of the Manchu governors headed by Duan Fang, it was only in just two months that they could unite to create a 'Federal Empire of China'.

Under the framework of this federal empire, the relationship between the provinces and the federal government was similar to that of the former Qing Dynasty, although the governors of the provinces had a certain degree of local autonomy, but in the major matters of right and wrong, especially in the military and political aspects, they were subject to the dispatch of the federal government.

If the military and political appointments can't explain anything, then it can also be seen from Zhang Zhidong's transfer of the Jiangxi New Army to the north that the control of the Southern Federal Imperial Government over the provinces is still quite strong, at least much stronger than the northern republican government made by Wang Yingkai and others, Zhang Zhidong can mobilize troops from Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan-Guizhou and other provinces to go north, but you let Wang Yingkai mobilize Zhao Dongyun's troops to try?

And Wang Yingkai, Zhao Dongyun and others are not all stupid, naturally they saw the huge threat of the Southern Federation, and naturally they also knew that Beiyang continued to fight like this, and it was estimated that it would not be long before the Northern Expeditionary Army in the south of the country would have to enter the Beijing Division, and everyone would still be a mess at that time!

It was precisely because of the threat from the south that Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun were able to make certain concessions in order to reach an alliance agreement to jointly deal with the huge threat of the Southern Federation.

"After the unification of the number, it is also going to fight in the south, and if you go south to fight, you should divide into three routes, all the way from the southeast to Jiangsu, and march to Jiangbei, Jiangning and other two rivers.

The second way is to go south along the Jinghan Railway, go straight to the three towns of Wuhan, and break the puppet capital of the Southern Federation!

There is a third road, which is to go west to Shanxi to ensure the safety of the west! ”

After all, for all of you here, the most important thing is to fight in the south, and the so-called preparations for the establishment of a republican government and the reunification number before were actually prepared for the southward war.

Hearing Wang Yingkai say this, Zhao Dongyun did not speak immediately, but listened quietly!

Wang Yingkai continued: "This southward journey to Liangjiang and all the way is for the First Army, which is commanded by Brother Zhiquan, and this South to Huguang First Army is for the Second Army, which is commanded by Brother Pingqing!" ”

The appointment of the first army and the second army did not come now, but Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen had already discussed before they came to Tianjin, if Wang Yingkai refused to give them the opportunity to go south, it is estimated that Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen would have to turn their faces with Wang Yingkai, and then support Zhao Dongyun to become the head of Beijing.

"As for this third way, there are not many enemy troops in Shanxi, at most there is a new army strength of about the standard, and there are not too many people who go like this, just let Wang Zhanyuan take the seventh division over!"

Wang Zhanyuan was originally placed under house arrest by Zhao Dongyun in Jinzhou, but since the two sides started negotiations, Wang Yingkai personally asked Zhao Dongyun for someone, and also expressed his willingness to exchange more than 20 Soviet officers who were also under house arrest by him. In order not to sabotage the negotiations, and in order to get back those Soviet officers who were under house arrest by Wang Yingkai, Zhao Dongyun released Wang Zhanyuan.

This Wang Zhanyuan just returned to Beijing the day before yesterday, and Wang Yingkai immediately appointed him as the new commander of the Seventh Town, and now after the unified number and title, he is the commander of the Seventh Division.

As soon as Wang Yingkai's words came out, Zhao Dongyun on the opposite side coughed lightly: "Brother Zhiquan and Brother Pingqing each led an army south, according to the ability of the two brothers, this southward battle is naturally captured, and everyone is relieved, but over there in Shanxi, as far as I know, Shanxi Governor Enshou has trained a lot of soldiers in the past two months, not three or fifty thousand, but there are still eight thousand, and it is not the same as before when there were two or three thousand people." Not long after the Seventh Division suffered heavy losses, it will take some time to rebuild its combat strength. ”