Today's meeting did not only talk about the army defense of the three eastern provinces, but Zhao Dongyun also emphasized the defense of the coastal ports and warned the generals not to neglect the rear defense because of the war in the south.

"The defense of the two port cities of Yingkou and Huludao is particularly important, I heard that the public concession authorities over there in Lushun plan to demolish the fortress, go back and ask people to see if their coastal defense guns are sold, if they are willing to sell them, even if the price is higher, they can buy them, and then install them in various coastal places!" Zhao Dongyun's words did not stop there:

"The navy should also pay attention to anti-landing operations, a few days ago I saw that the Navy Department submitted the purchase of fish and pedo boats, which is good, I have already approved this matter, and the funds for returning will be included in this year's special funds for the navy, well, as for the plan to purchase shallow water gunboats and ocean-going warships, we will postpone it for a while, and then talk about it when the big loan is decided!"

Today's China's coastal defense is almost equal to zero, with the current fleet under the command of the northern republican government, it is okay to fight the domestic warlords who do not have warships such as the Southern Federation and Duan Qirui, but it is not worth mentioning to fight with the foreign powers, so once faced with foreign interference, the naval ships basically go to war and have no return, at most they sink themselves at the mouth of the river to prevent the enemy fleet from moving up the river.

With the current strength of the Chinese Navy, it is not useful to spend a lot of money to buy one or two cruisers and the like, as for those shallow water gunboats, they can only be used in inland rivers, and occasionally support an army to fight or something, but it has little effect on coastal defense, and because the previous Chinese rulers such as Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong prefer these shallow water gunboats, so there are really a lot of shallow water gunboats equipped in the Chinese Navy at present, and there is no need to add them again.

If he had money, Zhao Dongyun would rather buy those torpedo boats of about 100 tons than shallow-water gunboats of 7 or 800 tons or even nearly 1,000 tons. After all, those torpedo boats can still carry torpedoes, if they can also play night torpedo attacks on the enemy's landing fleet during the war, if the character breaks out and sinks an enemy battleship, it will make a lot of money, if there are dozens of torpedo boats swinging into the port cities of Huludao and Yingkou, they will have to weigh when they want to land, after all, even if they lose a battleship, it will be a big loss for them.

And now the Soviet Union and even the whole of China's coastal defense strength is limited, so at present, the so-called coastal defense is actually only for the defense of a few specific coastal cities, such as Huludao and Yingkou, the two coastal cities, so I plan to buy some second-hand coastal defense guns and small torpedo boats to act as the most basic coastal defense force.

Since Lushun became a public concession, the directors sent by various countries have formed a board of directors of the public concession, because the board of directors wants to build Lushun into a public port and strive to compete with the Shanghai public concession, so it has always been committed to the economic construction and development of Lushun. Although the previous Arthur Fortress was famous, but after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese army and the Russian army withdrew one after another, and although the public concession has a concession police, it is impossible for you to let the concession authorities undertake the maintenance and garrison of a huge Arthur fortress, you must know that in the Russo-Japanese War, this Arthur fortress can be described as devastated, and many places collapsed, if you want this fortress to play a role again, you have to invest heavily in repair, and then purchase a large number of artillery, heavy machine gun armament, and more importantly, If this fortress is so big and wants to play a role, it is useless without 10,000 troops stationed there.

But there is money in the Lushun concession to repair and arm an army of tens of thousands of people, and even if there is money, the board of directors might as well pave a few more streets and expand the port.

As for the threat of war, it's not that he scares himself, and he doesn't dare to attack Lushun if he gives the current Zhao Dongyun a hundred dares! In the same way, Japan and Russia did not dare to take the risk of turning their faces with many powers at the same time to occupy Lushun, and the authorities of the Lushun Concession were too lazy to set up an army, which was worse than the China Eastern Railway Company, and the China Eastern Railway Company still had a road escort team.

Therefore, after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the fortress of Lushun was abandoned, and those coastal defense heavy artillery began to rust under the wind and sun because no one took care of it, and finally in order to raise funds, the Lushun concession authorities also planned to sell those rusty coastal defense guns as scrap metal.

Zhao Dongyun naturally wanted to buy these coastal defense guns, and then install them in Yingkou and Huludao or other coastal ports, after all, although these coastal defense heavy guns are all old goods, many of them are purchased in the pre-Qing Dynasty, but they are all coastal defense heavy artillery anyway, and they can still be used reluctantly.

Zhao Dongyun had this thought, and sent someone to the Lushun Concession authorities to ask, as soon as the Lushun Concession authorities saw that Zhao Dongyun wanted these artillery, they immediately opened their mouths and called out a sky-high price, and the people sent by Zhao Dongyun were naturally not stupid and stunned, so they just talked slowly, as for when they could negotiate a price that was satisfactory to both parties, only God knows.

Zhao Dongyun in the rear began to strengthen the defense of the three eastern provinces and Zhili because of Japan's moves, the southward operation of the Feng army was still in full swing, Henan direction, since the Feng army conquered Zhengzhou, Wang Ruxian was captured and escorted to the Beijing Division, this person was forced to issue a telegram to the lower field, Zhao Dongyun casually used a false position as an adviser to place him, well, in fact, he was already under house arrest by Zhao Dongyun, and it is estimated that if you want to regain your freedom, you will have to wait until Zhao Dongyun completely unifies China or is defeated.

After Wang Ruxian was finished, the troops sent by Wang Shizhen to Henan fled all the way south, and then even most of the southern part of Henan was directly abandoned, and then the line of Wusheng Pass was stubbornly defended.

Chen Guangyuan's Third Army, which is now fighting in Henan, annexed nearly 10,000 in front of Wusheng Pass after capturing Xinyang, and more than 20,000 Wang Shizhen's troops on the opposite side were relatively strong, while the other main division of the Third Army attacked the prefectures and counties of Henan by different routes, and successively captured Luoyang, Nanyang, Huaiyang and other prefectures and counties, basically purging the remnants of Wang Ruxian and other chaotic armed forces remaining in Henan, and annihilating several bandits by the way.

At present, the main task of the Feng army in Henan is to completely control the prefectures and counties of Henan in addition to watching Wusheng Pass, in addition to the military clearance, but also from the three provinces of Zhili, a large number of Soviet officials from the three eastern provinces to Henan to serve, plus many officials who surrendered, in order to restore the administrative system of Henan in the shortest possible time, in addition, as in Zhili, and then integrate the irregular armed forces in various places, such as patrol battalions, robbery battalions, and the like to establish patrol police forces. In order to maintain the power of the Soviet system in the local area after the main force of the Feng army withdrew from the prefectures and counties.

After all, the main force of the Feng army is limited in number, and they are all used for front-line operations, so it is impossible to stay in the rear prefectures and counties for a long time.

As mentioned above, the source of the patrol police in the Feng army system is very complicated, and they are basically all incorporated from the old army, mainly the old army such as patrol battalions, training troops, and county teams, and even bandits, militias, landlord armies, etc., basically they can be linked to the army anyway, but the goods that the field army does not look down on, are basically unified by them.

The reason why these low-fighting people, young and weak are unified into patrol police units, on the one hand, is to increase the control of the Feng army over the local area, on the other hand, it is actually to avoid the emergence of a large number of mobile troops and bandits after the war, so as not to let the local disaster suffer, as for how to practice after the incorporation, it is not simple, Zhao Dongyun's means of reorganizing the army is notoriously ruthless, the former Qing Dynasty reorganized the old army dared to kill hundreds of old troops who wanted to mutiny on the spot, this process of reorganizing the patrol police force, Those patrol officers who serve the army will naturally not be soft, killing a few thorns at two ends in three days, and then most of them honestly let them repair the fortifications and dig trenches.

In the direction of Henan, Zhao Dongyun played to consolidate the results of the battle, trying to completely entrench Henan at the same time, it was similar in Shandong, but the situation in Shandong was much simpler, Zhang Huaizhi's original methods were still relatively ruthless, there were not too many chaotic irregular armed forces on the ground in Shandong, and those old armies were basically absorbed by Zhang Huaizhi, otherwise his Lu army would not have swelled to more than 30,000 people, and Shandong was on the front line where the main force of the Feng army gathered, and no one dared to make trouble under the army. Therefore, when the Soviet officials accepted the administrative system of Shandong, they had to be much more obedient.

It was found that there were too few patrol units that could be incorporated when the patrol police units were recruited, and in the end they had to recruit soldiers from the patrol police units on the spot to form a patrol police force, otherwise the three or four patrol police regiments needed in Shandong would not be able to be formed.

The Feng army was doing things to consolidate the results of the war in Henan and Shandong provinces, and although the time for taking it down was short, the civil officials in the cabinet were very anxious to make money.

You must know that there are more than 100,000 troops going south now, and there are countless bullets and shells fired every day, and these ammunition, food and fodder are all purchased with real money, in order to maintain the needs of the war in Xuzhou, not only the generals of the two major departments of the headquarters ordnance and munitions have tried their best to raise military supplies, but even the civilian officials in the cabinet are thinking about how to raise military expenses every day.

And under this background, the Battle of Xuzhou is in full swing!

On October 1, the 3rd Division of the Feng Army Gu Lanyu conquered Zizhuang, an important outlying stronghold of the Xuzhou defense line, and then went straight to Xuzhou City with other troops of the 1st Army, thus meeting with the 1st Army of the Feng Army attacking from the west on the north side of Xuzhou, and forming a siege on the west, north and east of Xuzhou.

The final general attack on Xuzhou is just around the corner!