Zhao Dongyun took Fang Ruolian and the guards straight home from the train station, while Lin Yongquan and other officers of the machine gun battalion took the troops back to the barracks outside Baoding Dongguan first.

Although Baoding City is not small in this era, it is actually not very big, it didn't take long for everyone to return to the door, looking at the small building inside the iron fence, Fang Ruolian was slightly surprised, she also thought that officials like Zhao Dongyun would live in a traditional house, such as the kind of mansion that has several entrances, but she didn't expect to live in this kind of Western-style small western-style building.

It made her feel like she was back home, when she lived with her parents before, she also lived in a similar small western-style house, but there was no wide courtyard, and it seemed that the house was not as big as the one in front of her.

But this is actually just her illusion, although Zhao Dongyun's house covers a large area, most of it is empty forests and grasslands, and the small building in the middle covers an area that is not large, but against the backdrop of a large courtyard, it seems that the small building also feels very big.

After entering the courtyard gate, when I arrived at the door of the small building along the bluestone corridor, I could see Steward Xu and several servants bowing and waiting.

"My lord has worked hard all the way!" Steward Xu stepped forward, and then glanced at Fang Ruolian behind Zhao Dongyun, and then said, "I've seen Miss Fang!" ”

At this time, Fang Ruolian did not remind others as usual: I am a nun.

Because she didn't wear a nun's dress at this time, and she didn't know when it started, she didn't insist on justifying herself as a nun.

In this way, Fang Ruolian lived in the name of temporary residence, of course, she also said that she would only stay for a few days, and she would go to the Catholic church in Baoding tomorrow, as for whether she planned to stay in the church in Baoding or said that she was going to go to other places, she did not say.

And since the moment he set foot in Baoding, Zhao Dongyun's mind was actually no longer on Fang Ruolian, it was his hobby to flirt with women when he was idle, but now that the major events were now, he was not in the mood to play with Fang Ruolian and talk about love, as for not saying a word, he went directly to Fang Ruolian's room to do the things of husband and wife, he was not hungry to that extent.

Women are like tea, they always have to brew it first to taste the charm!

Anyway, Fang Ruolian was abducted from Guangzong to Baoding by him, and Zhao Dongyun was not in a hurry for a day or two.

Now Zhao Dongyun's mind is thinking about seeing Yuan Shikai tomorrow and taking office, which is related to his future career development, and he must not relax.

Zhao Dongyun got up late the next day, after freshening up and changing his clothes and going downstairs, he sat down and picked up the newspaper ironed with an iron, and the newspaper in his hand still exuded a burst of ink fragrance, but after the iron was ironed, the ink would no longer be stained.

Most of the newspapers in these years are newspapers run by foreigners, although there are newspapers run by Chinese, but there are still few, and most of them are concentrated in Shanghai, but Baoding is not a newspaper with great influence, but Baoding is the base camp of Beiyang, worthy of the name of the political and military center of North China, in the past few years after the Gengzi year, Baoding's political influence is greater than Beijing.

At least Zhao Dongyun paid a lot of attention to Yuan Shikai's every move, but he didn't care about what other old officials in Beijing said.

There are also a few tabloids in Baoding, although they can't be on the table in China, but they can be regarded as a way to understand the current situation and people's feelings.

Today's tabloids do not say anything big, most of them are idle and interesting things, and most of them introduce various things in the West, and one of the very important functions of Chinese newspapers in this era is to introduce Western political and military culture.

This kind of initiative has played a huge role in broadening the horizons of the Chinese people, but these Western things that have broadened their horizons are not of much use to Zhao Dongyun.

After breakfast, Zhao Dongyun went straight to the Governor's Mansion with a few guards, he was going to see Yuan Shikai!

Along the way, Zhao Dongyun found that there seemed to be more changes on the streets of Baoding, there seemed to be more soldiers in new military uniforms, the shops seemed to be more enthusiastic, and people's laughter seemed to be more. However, when these come together, it seems to be normal.

After arriving at the Governor's Palace, although it was still early, Zhao Dongyun saw several people who were also waiting for Yuan Shikai to summon him, although there were civil and military among these people, but they were all colleagues in the Beiyang system, Zhao Dongyun naturally did not think that he was a young man who had risen in Beiyang and looked down on a group of civil and military officials present, but put on a young junior appearance to talk to everyone.

Most of the people here Zhao Dongyun have never heard their names in later generations, and Beiyang as a system, only a few warlord leaders such as Yuan Shikai, Feng Guozhang, and Duan Qirui have seen in later generations. And other Beiyang dignitaries are buried in the long river of history.

For example, several core bosses in Beiyang today: Liu Yongqing and Wang Yingkai, because they all died before the Xinhai Revolution, so later generations are not familiar with them, but they are real power bosses in today's Beiyang system.

Although these people here today are not well-known in later generations, they are also the backbone officials of the current Beiyang system, and Zhao Dongyun will naturally not ignore them.

After saying a few words to everyone, Zhao Dongyun saw a middle-aged man in a horse coat walking in again, he had never seen this person either, but there were people around him who recognized him, and immediately greeted him: "General Manager Zhou, it's good to be here recently, I still want to see you in front of me, I didn't expect to see you here today!" ”

A person standing next to Zhao Dongyun saw that Zhao Dongyun didn't seem to know this person, and immediately said: "This is Zhou Xuexi, the God of Wealth of the Silver Dollar Bureau!" ”

"Zhou Xuexi?" Although Zhao Dongyun is not an expert and scholar in modern history, at best he can only be regarded as a pseudo-military fan, but since he knows some of the history of Beiyang, and when it comes to the history of Beiyang, he naturally can't avoid Zhou Xuexi, the god of wealth in Beiyang.

Zhao Dongyun, who has this vague memory in his mind, naturally will not let go of the opportunity to get acquainted with Zhou Xuexi, and immediately took the initiative to step forward, and the official who was talking to Zhou Xuexi saw Zhao Dongyun coming, and immediately introduced it with interest: "This is Zhao Dongyun from the coach's office, and he led the army to quell the boiling Guangzong civil rebellion that has been making trouble recently!" ”

Zhao Dongyun's name is also well-known in the Beiyang system, at least when others say the word Zhao Dongyun, most of them recall things like machine guns or counterinsurgency in Guangzong, and although Zhou Xuexi has not dealt with the army, he is a trusted foreign staff member of Yuan Shikai and has been active in the high-level of Beiyang for a long time, so he has also heard a little about Zhao Dongyun, who has been reused by Yuan Shikai recently.

At this time, the person also introduced Zhao Dongyun: "This is Lord Zhou, the general office of the Silver Dollar Bureau!" ”

As a young junior, Zhao Dongyun naturally had to speak first: "I have heard for a long time that Lord Zhou is good at industry, and I have always wanted to see it, but now I finally have a chance, I heard that Lord Zhou rebuilt the Silver Dollar Bureau in a ruin, and made a profit of hundreds of thousands in just a few months, which is really admirable."

Zhou Xuexi listened to him with a little flattery, and Zhao Dongyun mentioned his rebuilding of the Silver Dollar Bureau again, which made him feel very glorious.

The reconstruction of the Beiyang Silver Dollar Bureau is his outstanding political achievement, the Beiyang Silver Dollar Bureau since the destruction of the Eight-Nation Alliance, last year Yuan Shikai found Zhou Xuexi, entrusted him with the task of rebuilding the Beiyang Silver Dollar Bureau, at that time Zhou Xuexi can be described as a self-made man, forced in a ruins to rebuild the Beiyang Silver Dollar Bureau, to achieve a daily output of hundreds of thousands of copper dollars, now less than half a year has produced millions of copper dollars, the first year to break 10 million copper dollars is no problem.

In this era, the profit of making copper dollars is not low, and the continuation of this silver dollar bureau is equivalent to being able to continuously transfuse blood to Beiyang.

In addition to running a silver dollar bureau, he also ran a Tianjin official silver account.

In order to save the financial system of Zhili, Yuan Shikai rebuilt the silver dollar bureau for minting on the one hand, and on the other hand, he founded the official bank of Pingshi to issue coinage and control the financial market, but Yuan Shikai had no money, and the businessmen refused to contribute, and the foreigners were willing to borrow money, but the interest was so high that Yuan Shikai could not bear it.

In this way, this official bank has become a commercial bank with multiple functions such as currency issuance, financial control, deposit absorption, loans, discounts, and exchange, and has been renamed Tianjin Guanyin, and Zhou Xuexi has naturally become the supervisor of Tianjin Guanyin.

And Zhou Xuexi, who holds the Tianjin official silver number and the Beiyang Silver Dollar Bureau, is not an exaggeration to be called the Beiyang God of Wealth.

Zhou Xuexi's status in the Beiyang system was higher than that of everyone present, and he went directly into Yuan Shikai's study without staying too long, and the others could only continue to wait.

After waiting for another half an hour, someone came to call Zhao Dongyun and said that Master Yuan was going to see him!

At this time, Zhao Dongyun entered Yuan Shikai's study under the envious gaze of others.

As soon as I entered, I saw that in addition to Yuan Shikai, Zhou Xuexi was also in the study, and after walking in, Zhao Dongyun gave Yuan Shikai a military salute: "The department has seen an adult!" ”

Yuan Shikai, who was sitting on the top, said directly: "No need to be polite, sit down, it's okay to go all the way north!" ”

"Thanks to the blessing of the adults, the vocational department will go north safely!" Zhao Dongyun also sat down as he spoke, of course he didn't dare to sit full, he just did half of it, and he still straightened his waist and kept the appearance of a soldier at all times.

Obviously, Yuan Shikai has a good impression of Zhao Dongyun's young man who always maintains a military style, at this time he has already left the desk, sat down from the top to the chair next to him, and said: "Dongyun is still in the same spirit as before, very good!" ”

Yuan Shikai didn't say anything polite to Zhao Dongyun, and immediately changed the topic: "This time, I asked you to come back to supervise the machine gun matter, thinking that since the machine gun has already been handled, and all countries are also handling this machine gun, you can't wait any longer." I'm thinking about building a few more machine-gun battalions, what do you think about this? ”