In recent days, Wang Yingkai has been in a very bad mood, and in the face of the increasingly chaotic situation in the country, he feels more and more powerless to control.

Zhao Dongyun in the east was eyeing the tiger, ready to show his fangs to himself at any time to seek his own presidency, and after Duan Qirui in the south led his army south to Liangjiang, his strength rose sharply, and in just half a year, he expanded a so-called supplementary brigade of the Fourth Division, not to mention, but also incorporated many remnants of the Southern Federation, and reorganized two brigades of the 'Liangjiang Army'.

It's good to have people, but more importantly, Duan Qirui used the large amount of money looted in Beijing and the large amount of money collected after going south to Jiangsu and Anhui to buy arms.

Wang Yingkai is sure that in the past six months, Duan Qirui has purchased at least tens of thousands of rifles from Zhao Dongyun, millions of arrogant, and as for how many arms he has purchased from foreign foreign companies, he doesn't know how much, and Duan Qirui has also captured a large number of ordnance of the Southern Union army when he went south to fight.

It can be said that after Duan Qirui went south to Liangjiang, although he experienced several major battles, the more and more troops under his command fought, and the ordnance also fought, and he even learned from the British minister that Duan Qirui even ordered more than 60 artillery pieces and 20,000 second-hand Type 88 rifles from the German foreign bank.

This qiē shows that Duan Qirui's strength has rapidly swelled to the point where it can threaten Wang Yingkai in less than half a year after going south.

Every time I think about it. Wang Yingkai just regretted letting Duan Qirui go south, and he also went south to fight, but Wang Shizhen's development speed is far less than Duan Qirui's, and now Wang Shizhen controls the southern part of Henan and the northern part of Hubei, but most of the money looted has to be used to maintain the existing army size, and the rest of the money is just for Wang Shizhen to expand a brigade, but Duan Qirui, taking advantage of the prosperity of Jiangnan, this army expansion has begun to double.

But it's useless to regret it, now Wang Yingkai's first task is not to exterminate the so-called Southern Federal Empire, but to weaken Duan Qirui to a certain extent, if you want to weaken Duan Qirui, the best thing is to weaken Duan Qirui's actual control of the territory.

In this case, when Zhao Dongyun acquiesced, Wang Yingkai did not hesitate to take measures, he communicated with the cabinet, directly appointed Zhang Huaizhi as the governor of Anhui, and also sent a secret telegram to Zhang Huaizhi, asking Zhang Huaizhi to suspend the southern offensive, so as to delay Duan Qirui's pace of going south to the south of the Yangtze River.

Zhang Huaizhi is also Wang Yingkai's old subordinate, although he was estranged from Wang Yingkai last year, but later he fell to Wang Yingkai, and became a collateral force under Wang Yingkai like Wang Ruxian, so when Wang Yingkai gave him the territory of Anhui, although he could not die to Wang Yingkai in one day, he still obeyed Wang Yingkai's request for him to suspend the southward attack.

After all, taking the initiative to go south to help Duan Qirui take the rest of Liangjiang is not good for him!

However, this matter has a great impact on Duan Qirui!

"He's a fat man, it's only been half a year and he's turned his face!" After Duan Qirui learned that Wang Yingkai bypassed him and directly appointed Zhang Huaizhi as the governor of Anhui, he naturally couldn't bear it.

But now under this overall situation, Duan Qirui also knows that Wang Yingkai can turn his face against him, but he, Duan Qirui, can't turn his face with Wang Yingkai now.

For the current Duan Qirui, the most important thing is not to compete with Wang Yingkai for power and profit, now his top priority is to cross the Yangtze River, go south to Jiangnan, and then control southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang and even Jiangxi and other places, only after controlling these places, then he will have the confidence to turn his face with Wang Yingkai!

"And that Zhao Ziyang, who was fighting with Wang Fatzi in the past, and now he is wearing the same pants in a blink of an eye!" Duan Qirui was also extremely dissatisfied with Zhao Dongyun's expression in this matter, but he understood more that he could only scold on his lips.

There is no other reason, that is, because he is still more dependent on the arms sold to him by Zhao Dongyun, if he turns his face with Zhao Dongyun, although he will not cut off the source of arms, but if he buys imported goods, he will inevitably have to spend more silver, and now he can save it at this moment.

Wang Yingkai's simple appointment may seem nothing to outsiders, but in the eyes of those who care, it can be clearly found that the fragile alliance of the four major warlords of Beiyang is about to collapse again.

In the face of the competition between Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui, Zhao Dongyun was quite realistic, he put on a posture of watching the play, first of all, he acquiesced to Wang Yingkai's appointment of Zhang Huaizhi as the governor of Anhui, of course, in exchange for Zhao Dongyun's acquiescence, Wang Yingkai promised to reduce the number of garrisons in Ninghe County, Jixian County, and Baodi on the first line of Tangshan.

After Zhao Dongyun and Wang Yingkai reached the Tianjin agreement last year, according to the agreement between the two sides, Zhao Dongyun could only garrison no more than 5,000 troops in the Tangshan area and no more than 5,000 troops in the Chengde area. However, the corresponding thing is that Wang Yingkai took the Beijing division as the core, and deployed more than 30,000 troops around the two key points of Tangshan and Chengde.

Wang Yingkai's three descendant troops: the 1st Division, the 7th Division, and the 1st Mixed Brigade were almost all deployed around this line, and if a war broke out between Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun, then these 30,000 troops would be able to attack Tangshan immediately. The pressure on the two mixed brigades that forced the Feng army in the pass was extremely great.

It can be seen from the strategy of the Feng army in the Guannei area that if war breaks out, what the Fifth Mixed Brigade and the Seventh Mixed Brigade have to do is to 'defend to the death' and wait for the 3rd Division and the 1st Cavalry Brigade, the main force of the Feng Army, deployed in Shanhaiguan to advance westward for reinforcements.

This time, in exchange for Zhao Dongyun's plan to weaken Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai promised that the garrison on the front line of Tangshan and Chengde would not exceed 15,000 people.

Although for Wang Yingkai, if a war breaks out between the two sides, he can still quickly increase his troops from the Beijing division to the front line, and the more than 15,000 troops on the front line are enough to block the existing 10,000 troops of the Feng army in the pass, and there will not be too many problems. The main effect of this promise was that Wang Yingkai gave up the opportunity to attack Tangshan on a large scale.

For Zhao Dongyun, this move will undoubtedly greatly ensure the security of the Guannai area, especially Tangshan, so as to win more time for reinforcements.

With the conclusion of this private garrison agreement, Zhao Dongyun sat and watched Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui fight in the dark on the one hand, but on the other hand, he felt that the sense of crisis had greatly increased, and now the speed of army expansion is still insufficient.

Seeing that Wang Yingkai is building two infantry divisions, and Duan Qirui is expanding his army in the south, who knows in the end that they will have hundreds of thousands of troops.

However, raising the army is so expensive now, and Zhao Dongyun is already very difficult to raise the existing three divisions and five brigades, and it is extremely difficult to expand a new division this year, and it is obviously unrealistic financially if he wants to continue to expand the army.

In this case, Zhao Dongyun has to consider some other methods!

First of all, the salary of the army, the current salary standard adopted by the army is still the high salary of the recruitment era, the basic monthly salary of a second-class soldier is four taels and five yuan, and in peacetime, the military salary is deducted from the food, clothing and other expenses, and the full amount is paid in wartime, and Zhao Dongyun in order to improve the physical fitness of soldiers, and on this basis, he is issued a food allowance of one or two silver per month, although this allowance is impossible for soldiers to get, but if it is added up, the monthly salary of a second-class soldier is actually five taels and five dollars. This salary is quite high compared to the income of ordinary people in contemporary China.

However, now is not the pre-Qing era, Zhao Dongyun also heard that several other Beiyang warlords have successively reduced the salary expenses of personnel, such as Wu Fengling, who is short of financial resources, it is rumored that the so-called appropriation fee has been canceled, that is to say, even when the war is fought, the soldier's food expenses have to be deducted from their own salary, and in addition to the second division, which can also guarantee monthly salary, other newly recruited troops are often paid half salary.

Even if he lived in Jiangsu and looted a lot of money, Duan Qirui often owed his troops salaries, especially the salaries of the newly expanded troops.

As for the Southern Federation, not to mention, many of them only gave a few dollars in settling-in allowances, and as for military salaries, it was even more chaotic, and some troops relied entirely on themselves to plunder among the people.

This kind of thing has already begun to occur even in the Beiyang army, which is still fairly well-disciplined, after all, the higher authorities do not pay the soldiers, and the troops have food and war, so the senior commanders of the troops often turn a blind eye to the plundering behavior of the troops, and many people even think that this can not only solve the problem of shortage of military spending, but also improve the morale of the army......

Compared with the troops of other warlords in China, the troops under Zhao Dongyun were in peacetime, and Zhao Dongyun had always insisted on continuing to pay full military salaries in order to build elite soldiers, which undoubtedly caused a heavy financial burden on the three eastern provinces.

In this case, Zhao Dongyun also has to consider lowering the standard of military salary!

"Remember, in the future, the food and clothing of all non-commissioned officers and soldiers will be borne by the Quartermaster Department regardless of peacetime and wartime, and the soldiers' salaries will no longer be deducted!" Zhao Dongyun pondered and continued to Zhao Dongping: "The officer will bear his own responsibility as usual!" ”

"In the future, the soldiers' salaries and silver will all be 'Fengyuan', and the tentative amount of the second-class soldier is four yuan, and the first-class soldier is five yuan. The salary will be paid in full without any deduction! Zhao Dongyun continued: "Eighty percent of the officers will be issued according to the existing standards!" ”

When Zhao Dongyun said this, Zhao Dongping on the side looked worried when he heard it: "Now I'm afraid there will be trouble below!" ”

Zhao Dongyun said disapprerovitically: "If you don't want to, you will be directly ordered to retire, and the troublemakers will be shot on the spot!" ”

Zhao Dongyun actually doesn't care about the stay of those low-level soldiers, in this era, even if he doesn't pay a dime of military salary, but as long as he says that he is full of military management, so many peasant children will come to join the army, all they do is to eat well, otherwise do you think Duan Qirui and the Southern Federation don't pay the military much, but why do so many people come to recruit as soldiers, because in these years, soldiers can eat well, well, under normal circumstances, the food is better than that of ordinary small landlords.

In these years, there are more rural children who want to come to serve as soldiers, and if Zhao Dongyun is given two months, he will be able to train tens of thousands of cheap cannon fodder soldiers.