Wang Shizhen, like other high-ranking Beiyang generals, his loyalty to Yuan Shikai was unquestionable, and when he heard of Yuan Shikai's assassination, he immediately led his troops to the rescue, and then sent Yuan Shikai, who was already seriously injured, to the nearest church hospital.

In the hospital, Yuan Shikai left a few vague last words before he died, because he couldn't hear clearly, he could only hear a few rare words, vaguely there were words such as the imperial court, the republic, etc., and there were also words for Shaochen and Zhiquan to prepare for war, and for Dongyun to enter the customs.

Although Yuan Shikai's will is vague, the meaning is very clear, that is, to raise troops and overturn the Manchu Qing Dynasty and establish a republic.

However, after Wang Shizhen thought about it in detail for more than a day, he found that the situation was much worse than he imagined!

First of all, the imperial court continued to send people to win him over, although he was unmoved, but then after hearing that the imperial court successively rewarded several other Beiyang generals, he knew that Beiyang had actually been divided.

The reason why Beiyang is a whole is because of Yuan Shikai's existence!

Just like the Su system under Zhao Dongyun, the reason why the three towns of the Su system can become a whole and be unanimous with the outside world is because of Zhao Dongyun's existence, once Zhao Dongyun is dead, Meng Enyuan, Xu Bangjie, Chen Guangyuan, none of them can inherit Zhao Dongyun's position, then the division of the Soviet system is inevitable.

Under such circumstances, it has become inevitable for the generals of Beiyang to consider their own way out, after all, no one wants to act as a stepping stone for others to ascend to the top.

At this time, the Qing court gave Wang Shizhen a big gift: the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang!

This is the head of the world's frontier ministers, the most prominent position in contemporary China, if he Wang Shizhen says that he is not impressed, it must be fake, but he also knows that this position is an expedient measure for the Qing court to split Beiyang, but he can't care so much now, whether there is a Qing court stirring up or not, the Beiyang split is certain, and now if he can seize the opportunity to become the governor of Zhili, but if he joins forces with Feng Guozhang again, he may not have no hope of competing with Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui.

As long as he is in the governorship of Zhili for two or three years, he will be able to follow the example of Yuan Gong and train a few more towns, who will dare to say that he is not the leader of Beiyang at that time?

Then he turned and walked out into the still brightly lit hallway, the light of the fire stretching his shadow long, long!

On the morning of the 8th, Wang Shizhen did not call himself ill as expected by the outside world, but thanked the court with Feng Guozhang, saying that he would be appointed as the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang from now on.

And in the past night, he has reached a lot of secret agreements with the Qing court, for example, the imperial court has officially approved him to set up two mixed associations, the Zhili Mixed Association and the Gyeonggi Mixed Association, and this approval is not only the approval of the official document, but also real money, and the household department directly approved 5 million taels of silver for him as the fund for the formation and training of the new army.

Of course, the imperial court did not forget to win over Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang, and also approved the War Department's proposal, oh, no, it should be said that Feng Guozhang's plan to train the 'Praetorian Guard', and as soon as it was launched, it was the establishment of a town and five million taels of silver.

Cixi was able to control China for nearly half a century, this courage is also incomparable to ordinary people, a shot is 10 million taels of silver, the household side said that there is not enough silver, Cixi directly ordered Yixuan, Zaifeng and other royal nobles to donate, these Manchu magnates in the face of the Wuchang Uprising in the face of the pair of orphans and widows in Xuantong, a couple of silver refuses to come out.

But now in 1906, under Cixi's obscenity, they didn't dare to put a single fart and obediently pay for it, because they knew that if they didn't pay obediently, it was estimated that Cixi would send someone to raid the house tomorrow.

This woman's political wrist is estimated to be second only to Wu Zetian for thousands of years!

With guò's hand, Cixi successfully pulled the two big men of Beiyang, Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang, into her camp! As for whether these two of them are sincerely loyal to the Qing court, she doesn't care, all about practical interests these years is about practical interests, who cares what you really think, as long as Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen can stand on the side of the court, and then appease Zhao Dongyun, Wu Fengling and Zhang Huaizhi, then it will be much easier to deal with Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai.

In fact, in this series of political measures, Cixi did not say how to deal with Beiyang, she just turned the contradiction between the imperial court and Beiyang into an internal contradiction in Beiyang......

By the time things got to this point, in fact, the focus was no longer on raising troops to overthrow the Qing court, but on the internal dispute in Beiyang.

After Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang openly accepted the appointment and reward of the imperial court, and Zhang Huaizhi was isolated from the news in Shandong, the troops could not be dispatched. Wu Fengling took the second town to Rehe, and these two people played the trick of staying out of the matter.

Their attitude is actually quite obvious, anyway, they are not qualified to compete for the position of the leader of the Beiyang, Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui, Zhao Dongyun in front of them have to die, well, Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang also have to be killed, before it can be their turn! Now it's better to watch the show with heavy troops in hand, you fight first, whoever wins I will call whoever is the boss, of course, if you lose both, don't blame me for playing the yellow finch at that time.

In addition to Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang, who were close to the Qing court, and Wu Fengling and Zhang Huaizhi, who hid to watch the play, the attitude of Zhao Dongyun was very important.

Zhao Dongyun, who holds the three towns, is something that no one can ignore.

It's just that Zhao Dongyun's side didn't have accurate news for a while, which made Wang Yingkai extremely angry and worried.

Duan Qirui of Shanhaiguan didn't feel any better at this moment, in this turmoil, his situation and Wang Yingkai were actually half a catty, and he was also the one who wanted to rebel.

"How's the situation in Jinzhou? Haven't heard any news yet? Duan Qirui's face was full of worry.

"Jinzhou, as we expected, has now begun martial law, and judging from the news we got from the Japanese side, the first and second towns of Fengtian have returned to Jinzhou one after another, and the third town of the army is also making preparations, but it is still difficult to say whether the specific troops will be sent or not!" The young assistant chief replied.

"We've all known this before, so isn't there any other new news?" Duan Qirui said dissatisfied.

"There is no new news from Jinzhou, but there is a rumor from the Japanese side that we will directly establish a republic, and they are willing to provide a certain amount of loans!" The assistant counsellor replied.

Duan Qirui frowned: "These days, I'm thinking about watching a show!" ”

Since the turmoil in the domestic situation in the past two days, the Japanese themselves have been active up and down, not only Duan Qirui's side, Wang Yingkai's side, and Zhao Dongyun's side have also sent diplomats, the purpose is very simple, that is, to persuade the above generals to send troops.

For the Japanese themselves, there is nothing better than seeing a civil war break out in China, once China is in chaos, it will not be good for others, but it will be much better for Japan!

"But if you have a loan, then talk to them, and don't forget, it's not us who ask him for money now, but he wants to send the money to us, so try to keep the interest as low as possible, and don't agree to those messy conditions!" Duan Qirui has no opinion on the loan, but he doesn't want to sign all kinds of messy traitorous treaties, and it will be boring to be poked out and become a traitor when the time comes.

More than a day has passed since the imperial court issued a telegram appointing Zhao Dongyun as the governor of the three eastern provinces on the afternoon of the 7th, but there is still no clear meaning from Zhao Dongyun from Jinzhou, whether he accepts it or not?

This attitude is quite important, it can be said to be a decisive factor affecting the development of the future situation, once Zhao Dongyun does not accept it, then Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui will immediately send troops to Beijing, and then they will definitely invite Zhao Dongyun to enter the customs to join the troops in Beijing, who will become the president, first kill Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen, the two traitors of Beiyang, well, and sweep the Manchu Qing into the garbage heap of history.

But if Zhao Dongyun accepts, then the situation will be very unfavorable for Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui, at this time they may also choose to give in conditionally, such as asking the imperial court to give them funds, training the establishment of the new army, or asking for positions such as governor and governor, well, and Wang Shizhen has to be kicked out of the position of governor of Zhili, which symbolizes the position of the leader of Beiyang, Wang Shizhen is not qualified to sit on it anyway.

Either simply fight, without the support of Zhao Dongyun, send troops to Beijing, and fight Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang to the death.

While everyone was waiting for Zhao Dongyun to make a decision, Zhao Dongyun was actually waiting for others to make a decision!

"What did Zhang Nanpi say?" Zhao Dongyun did not take the report directly, but lay on the chair, closed his eyes and asked, he has been sleeping very, very little in the past few days.

From the beginning of the 6th to the present, he has stayed in the barracks almost during the day, and in the past few days, he has not only visited the battalion-level troops of each third town, but also inspected several targets that have just returned to Jinzhou. In between inspections and in the evenings, he met with many officers one after another, and held successive military meetings, and he slept less than six hours a day for the past few days.

But even if he is sleep deprived, he can't relax, because no matter whether he sends troops or not, but the situation is in a turbulent period, he must calm the morale of the army and firmly control the troops under his command, and then he can say anything about fighting for the leader of Beiyang, rebellion and the like.

Li San on the side is also spreading blood, as Zhao Dongyun's entourage, Zhao Dongyun sleeps less, he naturally may sleep more, at this time he took out a telegram, and then said: "Hubei Zhang Nanpi has sent several telegrams in a row, persuading all parties to exercise restraint. At the same time, he had already received a telegram from the imperial court, ordering the eighth town of Hubei to continue to go north, and it would not be long before he arrived in the territory of Zhili.

Zhao Dongyun snorted coldly: "He is not old-hearted, and it seems that he also wants to participate!" ”

"What about Zhang Huaizhi, what did he say?"

Li San said: "Zhang Huaizhi has sent a secret telegram, saying that he will abide by neutrality, and that if Hubei continues to go north, he will immediately send troops to the west to stop it." ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "He is playing beautifully, he can not go north to get involved, but he can also maintain the righteousness of Beiyang!" But his approach is still good, no matter how much trouble Zhili makes here, it is my internal affairs in Beiyang, hmph, he Zhang Nanpi is not afraid of breaking his hand if he wants to interfere! ”

"And what about Jiangbei and Henan? What do you say? Zhao Dongyun continued to ask.

And Li San said: "The current attitude of the Henan New Army is ambiguous, but they have been following the actions of the Eighth Town of Hubei, I think they may have fallen into the control of Zhang Nanpi, and the Jiangbei New Army has broken out in chaos, and several of our Beiyang officers have been dismissed and transferred from Yinchang, although it is impossible for Yinchang to completely control the Jiangbei Mixed Association to the north in a short period of time, but we can't count on them." ”

Hearing that the Jiangbei Mixed Association was already in chaos, Zhao Dongyun didn't know whether to say happy or depressed, and said happy words because this Jiangbei Mixed Association and Duan Qirui had a close relationship, and if Duan Qirui's power was weakened, Zhao Dongyun would definitely be happy. But no matter what you say, this Jiangbei Mixed Association is also a Beiyang army, and now it has fallen into the hands of the Manchurians, which is not a good thing!

After saying that, listening to Zhao Dongyun who didn't ask for a long time, Li San hesitated for a while, and then cautiously asked, "My lord, what should we do now?" ”

At this time, Zhao Dongyun opened his eyes: "What else can I do?" Entry! If you don't enter the customs, do you have to wait for Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang to practice more than a dozen towns and then fight out of the customs? ”

In fact, from the 6th, Zhao Dongyun's series of actions can be clearly determined, Zhao Dongyun will definitely lead the army out of the customs, otherwise he has been so tired as a dog in the past few days that he has been inspecting the barracks non-stop, meeting with officers to gather the hearts of the army, and preparing food and ammunition and other combat materials.

Isn't it just to fight out of the customs!

Zhao Dongyun didn't think about closing the door to expand the army and develop, but the problem is that others are not stupid, you can train one town in the northeast, Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang can train two towns with the help of the financial resources of the imperial court, this is not counting other Beiyang factions and other provinces, now he has three towns in his hands and has a huge military advantage in contemporary China, but the further this military advantage is, the smaller the military advantage, you see how many years it took Yuan Shikai to establish the seven towns of Beiyang? Zhao Dongyun dares to guarantee that after the turmoil in the past few days, if there is no fight against a riot in the next few years, everyone will definitely play with their lives.

And Zhao Dongyun has no confidence to rely on the undeveloped Northeast to resist the strength of the whole country.

Therefore, it is better to take advantage of the advantage of their own forces to go out to fight directly, first unite with Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai to kill Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen, and then beat Zhang Zhidong and other southern governors, and then put on a posture to compete with Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai for the position of the leader of Beiyang.

Li San is not a stupid person, he also thought of the future Beiyang leader battle at once, and immediately asked in a low voice: "What if Wang Duan wins?" ”

Zhao Dongyun's face showed a fierce look: "Then fight again!" ”