But even if it is not clear to see, there are also people who choose to fight in this Fengwan War, this person is not Wu Fengling, nor Wang Shizhen, and it is even more unlikely that it is Zhang Zhidong, Duanfang and others of the Southern Federation, but Wang Zhanyuan, who has been extremely weak in the domestic situation in the past two years.

On April 18, when the two armies of Fengwan and Anhui were engaged in fierce battles around Shanghai and Jinling in the south of the Yangtze River, Wang Zhanyuan, who had always been ignored, suddenly issued a telegram, declaring that Zhao Dongyun, the president of the republic, was unconstitutional, and even more criticized Zhao Dongyun's series of policies after he moved into Beijing, especially the foreign policy, which violated a series of Yuan Gong's last wishes, and even more vigorously criticized Zhao Dongyun's foreign policy, saying that Zhao Dongyun had betrayed a large number of national interests for his own selfish interests. In particular, the aftermath loan and the railway loan described Zhao Dongyun's taking out the salt administration as the biggest traitor in thousands of years, saying that the railway loan had deprived China of the right of way.

This telegram hyped up Zhao Dongyun, its content is not new, Duan Qirui had already said it last year and at the beginning of the year, but these contents are not important, the important thing is that Wang Zhanyuan openly declared his support for Duan Qirui's Northern Expedition, claiming to stand with the Anhui army and jointly resist the Feng army, and even shouted that he would never give up until Zhao Dongyun, a traitor, was pulled down.

The content of these callups is similar to the content of most of the callups against Zhao Dongyun, people don't pay attention to it, what people are more concerned about is, when did Duan Qirui win over Wang Zhanyuan? What price did Duan Qirui pay for this?

Outsiders naturally don't know that the price Duan Qirui paid in order to win over Wang Zhanyuan is huge, since Wang Zhanyuan went south from northern Anhui to southern Anhui, and then entered Jiangxi, Duan Qirui has been courting him.

But Wang Zhanyuan is still relatively cautious, and has been relying on the Seventh Division to walk between Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun, forcing Duan Qirui not to turn his face with him, and even demarcated several prefectures and counties in southern Anhui for the Seventh Division to recuperate.

However, as the war situation became more and more unfavorable to the Anhui army, Duan Qirui also didn't care about letting Wang Zhanyuan lose his tail, and directly promised Wang Zhanyuan the position of Jiangxi military envoy, and also paid Wang Zhanyuan up to 2 million yuan in military expenses and a batch of ordnance.

In exchange for Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division, he went north and joined the ranks of the resistance to the Feng army.

Wang Zhanyuan is honestly disdainful of Duan Qirui's conditions, he is different from Wu Fengling, he is a more realistic person, he doesn't care about the titles of patrol envoy and military envoy, what he wants is real territory, military expenses, and then expand the army with this.

And although this person has never had a fixed territory, and even in several prefectures and counties in southern Anhui, he is a guest resident, but Wang Zhanyuan's ability to make money and expand the army is not bad, he went all the way south from Zhili, like a stray dog, but still makes the seventh division under his command bigger and bigger.

By now, although the 7th Division under his command was only a division, its size had exceeded 20,000 men, and the number of artillery had returned to the size of two battalions.

And a very important point is that his Seventh Division is also an old Beiyang army, and its combat effectiveness may not be as good as those famous third and fourth divisions, but his troops have also been tested in war, and their combat effectiveness is still much stronger than that of ordinary provincial army troops.

As long as he joins the ranks of resisting the Feng army, then Duan Qirui will be equivalent to getting a main force, even if Wang Zhanyuan does not have the strength to die, but at least he can contain the great strength and energy of the Feng army.

So as to relieve the pressure on the Anhui army in Jinling and other directions south of the Yangtze River.

Duan Qirui has his own plans, Wang Zhanyuan also has his own plans, his plan is quite simple to say, it can be described in four words: lips and teeth are cold.

Don't see that the two armies of Fengwan are fighting fiercely now, but Wang Zhanyuan, who served as a brigade commander in the Fengjun army and also fought with the Fengjun army, actually knows the actual combat effectiveness of the Fengjun army better than the generals of other warlords.

Once the Anhui army failed, he didn't care about Duan Qirui's life or death, but if he lost the blocking of the Anhui army, he needed to directly face Zhao Dongyun's Feng army, even if he Wang Zhanyuan was confident, he didn't expect that his seventh division of more than 20,000 people would be able to resist the southward pace of the Feng army alone.

As for Toucheng, Wang Zhanyuan had already talked to the envoy sent by Zhao Dongyun last year, and Toucheng was okay, but he could only become an ordinary general in the Feng army like Lu Yongxiang and Bao Guiqing, which was unacceptable to Wang Zhanyuan, who had great ambitions.

Moreover, to be honest, he also retains a certain degree of dissatisfaction and resentment towards Zhao Dongyun, Wang Zhanyuan is in the Beiyang system, he is a direct general, and Wang Yingkai's former descendant general.

Although Wang Yingkai was defeated, even Lu Yongxiang, the former direct core general, threw himself to Zhao Dongyun, but Wang Zhanyuan did not, in his heart, he is still a direct general, after Wang Yingkai stepped down, he regarded himself as the direct heir of the direct line.

He wanted more, and Zhao Dongyun couldn't give it to him, in fact, Duan Qirui couldn't give it to him, but if they didn't give it, he would take it himself.

Based on this situation, Wang Zhanyuan decided to temporarily support Duan Qirui, and don't care about the rest, and stop the southward momentum of the Feng army first.

As soon as Wang Zhanyuan's telegram was issued, he directly led the army to set off, and he did not go to Anqing and Wuhu, which were closer, but went directly east to northern Zhejiang.

On the one hand, now that the Anhui army in northern Zhejiang is empty, he can take the opportunity to control Huzhou, Hangzhou and other northern Zhejiang regions, and at the same time continue to move east to Shanghai to block the offensive of the second army of the Feng army.

Resisting the Feng army is one thing, and taking the opportunity to control northern Zhejiang and even southern Jiangsu is his biggest goal.

Wang Zhanyuan sent a telegram and joined the ranks of the resistance to the Feng army, which made Zhao Dongyun quite dissatisfied with the work of the Military Intelligence Department and the Second Internal Affairs Section of the Secretariat.

For Wang Zhanyuan in southern Anhui, Zhao Dongyun has also been pulling together, although this kind of co-optation is not sincere, but in order to stabilize Wang Zhanyuan's seventh division, Zhao Dongyun still spent a lot of effort.

The second section of the Presidential Office Secretariat is specifically responsible for this matter, which is mainly responsible for liaising with other warlords in the country and co-opting affairs.

Now that Wang Zhanyuan has been co-opted by Duan Qirui, it means that there has been a serious mistake in the work of the Second Internal Affairs Section, although in a large way, the Second Internal Affairs Section itself has no way to influence Wang Zhanyuan's decision, but Zhao Dongyun is still quite dissatisfied with the work of the Section.

As soon as this incident came out, he called Yang Debiao, the first secretary in charge of the second internal affairs department, over and scolded him: "I think the work of the second internal medicine department needs to be strengthened!" ”

In a nutshell, it directly made the staff of the Second Internal Affairs Section feel the huge pressure, and the follow-up was to increase the co-optation of other warlords in the country, especially the generals under the major warlords.

Zhao Dongyun is not a saint, and he is also the same as Jiang Guangtou in the original time and space, he likes to win over the generals of other factions, give money to those who want money, and give power to those who want power.

It's just that this kind of co-optation has little actual effect, why? Because you can get mixed up with the brigade commander, the generals in the position of division commander actually don't care much about their own private property, and you really can't look down on tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, who want millions of military spending, a lot of ordnance and ammunition, and political status.

Don't think that the generals in other factions are all wine bags and rice bags, high-ranking generals who can mix up in the past two years, not to mention their tactical elements, but they can all be said to be human spirits, and it definitely doesn't mean that you can win them over if you say you can win them over.

Those who can really be co-opted will force the generals of these other factions to turn their heads to the Feng army, and they will have to rely on the Feng army to defeat them directly, so that they can only be co-opted and co-opted when they have no way out.

The most obvious example is Zhang Dianru of the 16th Division, he was not moved by the Fengjun at first, but at the time of the Suzhou Campaign, the 5th Division of Liangjiang led by him was defeated, and finally forced to surrender to the Chengfeng Army in desperation, and then the department was reorganized into the 16th Division, still serving as the division commander.

After surrendering to the army, although the combat effectiveness of the 16th Division has improved, the combat effectiveness is still at the bottom of the Feng army, and more importantly, Zhang Dianru himself is not having a good time, except for the division commander and brigade commander of the 16th Division, the other middle and low-level officers have all been replaced, Zhang Dianru can be said to have been completely hollowed out, and it is impossible to treat the 16th Division as his own private army as before.

This situation is extremely uncomfortable for Zhang Dianru, who is used to being at ease, and even once germinated the idea of quitting the military circle and retreating.

There are many generals who have surrendered to the army, not to mention the middle and low-level officers, and the influence is not great, but the words of those senior generals are actually very big in terms of personal opportunities, such as Lu Yongxiang, he also came to Chengcheng, but since Zhao Dongyun has been prosperous, when he served as the commander of the first division, he was compared by Zhao Dongyun, and his first division is also the main force of the second echelon that can be supplemented after the three main divisions.

Before the Jiangnan Campaign, he was promoted to the commander of the First Army by Zhao Dongyun, plus the rank of 'general' and three honors, which can be said to be among the ranks of the core high-level of the Feng Army.

The second is Bao Guiqing, although he is not as eye-catching as Lu Yongxiang, but he has always served as the brigade commander of the First Mixed Brigade and has fought on the front line many times, and his First Mixed Brigade is also the main force that the Feng army relies on, and it is not difficult for him to continue to be promoted to division commander in the future.

However, the treatment of these two people is in exchange for their loyalty and ability, after Lu Yongxiang and Bao Guiqing switched to the Fengjun, they participated in a series of offensives in the south, and they did not cherish the troops like other officers and generals who surrendered, afraid of losses and the like, and never complained about hard battles and hard battles, and more importantly, their abilities were good.

In the domestic military circles, where there is a general shortage of qualified senior generals, these two rare qualified senior generals, especially senior commanders like Lu Yongxiang, who can command army-level troops, can be said to be very scarce.

There are many reasons why Lu Yongxiang is very prosperous in the Feng army, but it is not good for Zhang Dianru, not to mention that he is extremely dissatisfied with the 16th Division being completely controlled by the Feng army, and his own ability can only be regarded as average. The attitude and ability are average, and it is strange that this can be valued by Zhao Dongyun.

The gap between Lu Yongxiang and Zhang Dianru means that the army may be prosperous, or it may fall into a low point in life, not to mention that if you take refuge in Zhao Dongyun, you will be able to prosper in official fortune.

In the face of the uncertainty of the future, the generals of many other factions will generally refuse in the face of Zhao Dongyun's wooing, and they will generally refuse unless they have to, and there will be no saying that Zhao Dongyun casually throws out a stack of money, and people will betray Duan Qirui and then serve you Zhao Dongyun as the master.