On September 30, 1918, at the Zhengyangmen Railway Station in Beijing, all civilian passenger cars and wagons had been suspended. Inside the station, the Beiyang Army, full of gray uniforms, shouted loudly, crowded each other and squeezed into the carriages. There were also more than a dozen large tables on the platform, which were piled up with dry food prepared by the army station of the War Department, all steaming steamed buns and dough cakes. The soldiers crowded and rushed to grab it in an unorderly manner, and the officers at the station shouted loudly to maintain order, but to no avail.

Some of the soldiers were dragging the mules and horses onto the train, but the animals were obviously untrained, and they all neighed loudly and refused to get on the train, so anxious that the soldiers beat and cursed, and made the whole station a little more noisy and chaotic.

Wu Peifu and Xu Shuzheng sat side by side in the carriage of a float The 204th Middle East Road War Five Expedition and Betrayal, looking at this coldly, Xu Shuzheng snorted heavily, and said angrily: "The third division and the sixteenth division are also the elite of my Beiyang, how did they become like this, what kind of system!" ”

Wu Peifu took out a cigarette from his pocket, took a puff on the fire, and said with a wry smile: "You Zheng, don't you know that our Beiyang army is a soldier gathered?" Your War Department has only paid 20 percent or 30 percent of military salaries for most of the year, can you still expect us to bring out elite soldiers and strong futures? As he spoke, he pointed to a particularly chaotic team outside and said: "That's a regiment of the 16th Division, at least half of it is recruits who have only been in the army for a few days, it is estimated that they were newly recruited after the War Department's promotion fee was issued, and it seems that most of them are gangsters and ruffians, such people were not wanted in the army in the past!" And the mules and horses, all of which had just been bought. If people don't have enough to eat, how can they raise livestock? ”

Xu Shuzheng's face sank, and just as he wanted to scold, Wu Peifu sighed again: "Actually, the situation here today is still good!" The appearance of the 7th and 11th Divisions when they set off yesterday was worrying! ”

Xu Shuzheng asked in a calm voice, "Really?" Why didn't I listen to the report from the people below? ”

Wu Peifu sneered at the first 204th Middle Road War and betrayal laughed: "What is there to report? Did you tell you that half of the trains that the Ministry of Transportation was going to get off were empty? The two divisions should have 26,700 people according to the establishment, even if Feng Huanzhang's 11th Division has not completed the expansion, it should be more than 20,000, right? But in fact, two divisions can burn high incense with 10,000 people! Again, it seems that the soldiers of the four divisions are still not enough, can you transfer a little more? ”

Xu Shuzheng smiled. Still want to transfer troops? This Wu Peifu is standing and talking without backache. In order to raise the cost of the four divisions, there was also a full salary for three months, as well as a special fee that I did not know where to spend it. Liang Caishen (Liang Shiyi) is about to lose his hair! In the end, he was stunned to withhold the funds of the various yamen of the central government, and also suspended the salaries of other Beiyang Army Central Army (excluding the troops participating in the war), so he squeezed out this money! We have to transfer troops again. That is to kill Liang Caishen, I'm afraid there is no way.

Besides, Lao Maozi is too late to fight the civil war now, where can he take care of the Middle East Road? Most of this battle could not be fought, and the soldiers of these four divisions were just pulled out to show off and finished.

He smiled faintly: "Brother Ziyu, don't laugh, how can there not be enough soldiers in the four divisions?" Even if it is not enough, there are not the 27th, 28th and 29th divisions of the Feng Army (Wu Junsheng's department, stationed in Heilongjiang), as well as two local divisions in Heilongjiang and Jilin, and some mixed brigades and cavalry brigades, there are always more than 100,000 troops in total! I don't believe that Lao Maozi really dares to go to war with so many of our soldiers! ”

He said so. Wu Peifu only smiled bitterly, the commander of the troops this time was Xu Shuzheng! It is Duan Qirui who appointed the border supervision of the three eastern provinces (not yet disclosed). It seems that this old Duan doesn't think it will really fight!

"Where has the Second Army arrived now?"

"Report, now that we have arrived at the front line of Fengchuan, we will soon be able to enter the territory of Wuzhou, Guangxi."

"What about the Southern Route Army? Did they set off from Qinzhou? ”

"It has already set off, and the vanguard has entered the territory of Guangxi. However, there was no resistance, and we are currently advancing towards Nanning! ”

Chang Ruiqing tapped on the map with satisfaction, and said with a smile: "Our two-way army has 150,000 people!" How many people does Lu Rongting have in his hands? Dingtian can come up with 20,000 and the two battalions they can fight the most have already agreed to defect, and the deployment and battle plan of the Gui army have also arrived in my hands, and this battle can really be won with my eyes closed. ”

Bai Chongxi is now the commander of the Second Army of the National Revolutionary Army, commanding the troops to march towards Wuzhou, Guangxi. Now it is Chen Jiji who introduces Chang Ruiqing to the military situation. This confidant of Jiang Jshi in history graduated from the second phase of Baoding, and he was previously from Nanjing Luzhong and Lu Xiao, and he was from Jiangsu, and Chang Ruiqing was a classmate and fellow villager! According to the standards of employment and refuge in this era, this is of course a permanent person, after Chang Ruiqing took charge of Fujian, he resigned from his hometown Jingjiang County Security Corps errand to Fuzhou to defect.

Chang Ruiqing also knew him before (classmate!) I knew that he was a talent, so I immediately reused it, first to the head of the Fujian Army, and later transferred to the Fujian Army Headquarters as the director of the General Staff Bureau, after the confluence of Fujian and Guangdong, I followed Chang Ruiqing into the War Department of the National Government, and the official worshiped the director of the Military Affairs Bureau! This time, Chang Ruiqing took command of the Western Expedition, and also took him with him as the chief of staff. By the way, Chang Ruiqing's system is now faintly the leader of the Baoding Military Academy classmates, and his system is also called the "Baoding Department" behind his back!

Chen Jiji heard that there were signs of underestimating the enemy in Chang Ruiqing's tone, so he frowned and reminded: "Brother Yaoru, although we have a certain grasp of nine out of ten this time, but we can't underestimate the enemy too much, after all, the Gui army is the elite of the long-term war, and the Dian army is the main force in the war to protect the country!" ”

Chang Ruiqing straightened his belt, shook his head and said: "These elites of them are already in the past tense, this kind of warlord army with many internal mountains and contradictions, it is impossible to be the opponent of our National Revolutionary Army, there is no need to worry about this." By the way, did the representatives of Li Zongren and Ma Xiaojun go to Bai Jiansheng? Who is coming this time? ”

Chen Jiji nodded, took out a telegram from the Wen Jiàn folder in his hand and handed it to Chang Ruiqing. said with a smile: "It's all here, the name of the representative Li Zongren is Yu Zuobai, and he is also the cousin of Li Mingrui, a staff officer who graduated from the first phase of Huangpu in our headquarters (merged from Shaoguan Jiangwutang). On behalf of Ma Xiaojun was a company commander named Zhang Gan, who, along with Li Zongren and Yu Zuobai, all came out of the Guangxi Army Crash School. ”

Chang Ruiqing took the telegram and glanced at it, and just as he wanted to speak, he saw a young officer with handsome eyebrows walking in from outside, it was Li Mingrui mentioned by Chen Jiji just now. Li Mingrui walked up to Chen Jiji with a telegram in his hand. He gave a standard military salute to Chen Jiji, and handed over the telegram with both hands: "Sit, an urgent telegram from the Intelligence Bureau of the War Department." ”

Chen Jiji took the telegram and glanced at it twice. His brow furrowed slightly. He said to Chang Ruiqing: "Brother Yaoru, it's Chen Jiongming who arrived in Wuzhou yesterday morning!" ”

"Chen Jiongming?" Chang Ruiqing was also stunned when he heard this, he knew that it was Lin Hu, the fierce general of the Gui army, who was guarding Wuzhou. Li Zongren is this person's subordinate. This Lin Hu is actually also a member of the old alliance, and Sun Yat-sen once sent people to win him over when he seized Guangdong. However, this person was not accustomed to Sun Yat-sen's behavior of breaking the "Provisional Covenant" and engaging in military dictatorship, and refused to serve Sun Yat-sen. Instead, he led his troops to fight with Sun Yat-sen's Protector Army, and finally retreated to Wuzhou, Guangxi, and was appointed by Lu Rongting as the guard of Wuzhou.

In addition, the relationship between this General Lin Hu and Chen Jiongming is also very close, in history he was a general under Chen Jiongming, and he has always followed Chen Jiongming to oppose Sun Yat-sen, and only when his department was eliminated by Jiang Jishi did he go down to the field and withdraw from the military circle. After that, he still adhered to the position of opposing the dictatorship of the Kuomintang. In the later stage of the Liberation War, he also took refuge in GCD and became the vice chairman of the Guangxi Provincial Political Consultative Conference! It's finally been a day since I saw Sun Yat-sen's power collapse, but I don't know what tricks he and Chen Jiongming can come up with when they get together this time?

At this time, in the yamen of Wuzhou's town guard, General Lin Hu, the town guard of Wuzhou, was pacing irritably. He is only 32 years old. The head is very large, with a baby face, a bit of a tiger head, and a shaved head, and the smooth head is full of sweat beads.

He took out a handkerchief, wiped the beads of sweat from his head, and threw it on the ground. He sighed dejectedly: "200,000 troops! Sun Cannon sent an army of 200,000 to fight the Guangxi Gui army, adding up to 20,000 inside and out, I don't know if there are 20,000, this is a fight of ten, how to fight this battle? Gong Jing, if Marshal Tang doesn't send reinforcements to Guangxi, we Guangxi people will die without a place to be buried! ”

The hall of Nuoda is now empty, only Chen Jiongming, who has just arrived in Wuzhou, is sitting there. The chairman of the China Zhi Gong Party, who bears the names of the overseer of Guangdong and the general of Dingwei, came all the way from Chongqing to Wuzhou. The purpose of his visit to Chongqing was to participate in the joint meeting of the nine provinces and autonomous regions convened by Tang Jiyao, to discuss the implementation of inter-provincial autonomy on the territory of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Hunan, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Fujian, and Hubei, and to elect Tang Jiyao as the commander-in-chief of the allied forces of the eight provinces to lead the allied forces of the nine provinces to crusade against Sun Yat-sen! However, this "Eight Provinces Conference" was very unsuccessful, at the meeting, Tang Jiyao threw out a "Sichuan-Yunnan-Guizhou Alliance Treaty" for Sichuan overseer and governor Xiong Kewu to sign, but a Sichuan army general pointed out that this was a "Treaty of Death in Sichuan", Xiong Kewu also refused to sign, and left Chongqing to return to Chengdu in a huff!

What made Chen Jiongming even more worried was that not long after the end of the Chongqing Conference, the forces of the People's Army of Western Hubei that were originally among the "Nine Provinces Alliance" raised the banner of aiding the bear under the call of Lan Tianwei and invaded eastern Sichuan! Xiong Kewu also convened a meeting of the generals of the Sichuan army in Chengdu, announcing that he would expel the Yunnan army and the Guizhou army and implement "Sichuan people governing Sichuan". At this time, the "Nine Provinces Alliance" has not yet been formed, and the four provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Hubei have started a civil war one step ahead, and it seems that it is unrealistic to expect Tang Jiyao, the joint commander, to send reinforcements to Guangxi.

Thinking of this, Chen Jiongming also sighed: "Yin Qing, something happened in Sichuan this time, Xiong Jinfan and Lan Tianwei in Hubei want to expel the Yunnan army and the Guizhou army, and Tang Beigeng (Tang Jiyao)'s main force has no way to withdraw from Sichuan for the time being, and now there are only two ways left in the situation here in Guangxi." ”

Lin Hu smiled bitterly: "Is it the two methods of abandoning the province and fleeing and staying in Nanning to wait for help?" Jinggong, how long do you think it will take for Tang Beigeng to defeat the Sichuan army and the Hubei army, and then transfer the main force from Sichuan to the south to reinforce Guangxi? ”

Chen Jiongming sighed and remained silent. At present, the strength of the Yunnan army in Sichuan is about six to seven brigades, and the Guizhou army has two brigades, with a total strength of less than 50,000. The total strength of the Sichuan army was not less than 50,000, and the Chengdu Arsenal, one of the four major arsenals in the late Qing Dynasty, was the source of weapons and ammunition. There is also the salt tax from the artesian well as the source of military salaries, plus more than 20,000 Hubei troops as foreign aid, this battle is not the end of the battle is the defeat of the Yunnan and Guizhou armies!

Seeing Chen Jiongming's expression, Lin Hu knew that it was impossible to defend Nanning, and he exhaled heavily: "It seems that the only way to go!" Gong Jing, where do you think we should go? Hunan or Yungui? ”

Chen Jiongming glanced at Lin Hu and asked in a low voice, "Yin Qing." How many centaurs do you have? ”

Lin Hu smiled bitterly: "It's just more than 3,000 people, and more than half of my soldiers were wiped out by Zang Zhiping and Zhu Peide's army when they were in Guangdong!" After returning to Guangxi, I had no money to replenish, so Nanning only sent me a model battalion. There were about 600 people, all of them elite. ”

Chen Jiongming took a breath and asked rhetorically, "Why is it so much?" The opponent is an army of 100,000! Why didn't Lu Ganqing transfer more troops to you? ”

Lin Hu sighed: "The old handsome can't help it!" The hearts of our Guijun people are now scattered. Except for Ma Ji, who brought 8,000 people to protect the old commander in Nanning, the rest of the generals all guarded their own territory, Tan Haoming was stationed in Guilin, Liu Zhenhuan was stationed in Liuzhou, Shen Hongying was stationed in Baise, Lu Yungao was guarding Hechi, and I was the most unlucky to stand in the front of Wuzhou. ”

Chen Jiongming patted his thigh and stood up: "How can you arrange troops like this?" The Gui army is already small, and it is still scattered and deployed, isn't it waiting for death! ”

Lin Hu cast a strange look at Chen Jiongming, and saw that the other party was also so anxious that he was sweating. I only sighed in my heart. The Gui Army is not a "dictatorial" army like the National Revolutionary Army, and the following generals who lead troops are all masters who listen to the tune and do not listen to the propaganda. Now the 200,000 National Revolutionary Army has called, and the commander-in-chief of the coalition army in Yunnan has no reinforcements! Beiyang is also not saved when he sees death, who is willing to rush to the front to die now? They are all making small calculations on their respective turf, not to seize the time to scrape the ground and prepare to run away. Isn't the current situation a miniature version of "inter-provincial autonomy"?

Lin Hu waved his hand and sighed bitterly: "Let's not talk about the arrangement of troops, let's talk about where to run." ”

Chen Jiongming just shook his head and said, "Why is this happening?" Why is this so? The alliance of nine provinces and autonomous regions at the end of the day is fighting on its own, and here in Guangxi, it seems that a catastrophe is coming, and it is not united. If this continues, I am afraid that the southwestern provinces will all have the surname Sun, let's go to Hunan, Tan Zu'an is still really engaged in inter-provincial autonomy. ”

Lin Hu nodded, and loudly ordered the staff officers waiting outside the hall: "Pass my order and let the commanders of each battalion come to the conference room for a meeting!" ”

It's just that he didn't know that the battalion commanders of the two main battalions under him had already fled with his troops to join the side of the National Revolutionary Army.

On the edge of the Xijiang River at the junction of the two Guangzhous, there is a small town called Jiangkou Town. This small town, with only a few thousand inhabitants, was the front line of the confrontation between the National Revolutionary Army and the Gui Army, and a regiment of troops had been stationed here for months. In the past two days, there have been more brigades of officers and men of the National Revolutionary Army who have taken tugboats from the lower reaches of the Xijiang River, and the entire area around the small city, as well as on the other side of the Xijiang River, is densely packed with garrison camps! There was also an artillery regiment of sixteen 75mm mountain guns deployed on the wall of Jiangkou Town, all of which were pointed at the Xijiang River, which was used to block the Xijiang waterway.

On this afternoon, however, a few old-fashioned small steamers towed more than a dozen wooden boats, and drove slowly from the direction of Wuzhou in the upper reaches of the Xijiang River in the face of the warm majesty on the river. On the decks of those wooden boats, they were crowded with heavily armed soldiers, and on each wooden boat, there was a flag flying high in the blue sky and the white sun and the red ground!

On the wharf outside the city wall of Jiangkou Town, dozens of officers of the National Revolutionary Army wearing khaki uniforms were waiting anxiously, and when they saw those wooden boats full of soldiers, they couldn't help but sigh softly, and the expressions on their faces became excited, and some people even whispered orders: "Go and report to the army commander, Ma Xiaojun and Li Zongren's team has come to join us!" Order the artillery regiment and the 16th regiment to be ready for battle! ”

With the order given, the atmosphere on the dock turned out to be a little tense!

It took another half hour or so for the ships laden with soldiers to slowly approach the dock. A person jumped out of the small steamer in front of him, it was Huang Shaohong, and he asked, "What about Bai Jiansheng?" Why didn't he come? ”

An officer of the National Revolutionary Army smiled and said, "Brother Ji Kuan, isn't it enough to have my Xia Wei here to greet you?" Bai Jiansheng is now the leader of an army, and there are many things! ”

Huang Shaohong found a fat man with the rank of major general in the crowd, it was his old classmate Xia Wei, he hurriedly turned around and waved at the boat, shouting: "It's Xia Xucang, everyone come down." After speaking, he held Xia Wei's hand and asked, "Xucang, now there are only 2,000 Gui troops in Wuzhou City, why are you still slow to enter the army?" Aren't you afraid to let Lin Hu run? ”

Xia Wei waved his hand indifferently and said with a smile: "Bai Jiansheng is just waiting for Lin Hu to run away, now it depends on where he runs, if he runs to Hunan, if Granny Tan takes them in, don't we have an excuse to follow up?" ”

"What will you do if he leads his troops into the 60,000 mountains?" At this time, a short officer of the Gui Army who got off the boat with prominent cheekbones suddenly asked in a loud voice.

Xia Wei glanced at the man, as if he was familiar, but he couldn't remember who it was for a while. At this moment, Bai Chongxi's voice came from the side: "This must be the famous Li Delin, right?" Our Commander-in-Chief Chang said that as long as Li Delin votes to our side, the whole of Guangxi will be our world! ”！！！