The domestic situation in China in 1908 mainly revolved around the struggle for hegemony between the two armies of Fenghai and Anhui, the two largest warlords in the Beiyang system fought each other for more than a year, and finally won and lost in the summer of 1908, as for the summer of 1908 after the end of the Jiangnan Campaign, although the two armies of Fengwan and Anhui also fought several large-scale battles, such as the Battle of Jinhua, the Battle of Jiujiang, and the Battle of Nanchang, but in fact these battles did not have much suspense, and the Anhui army was basically beaten by the Feng army, and there was no possibility of turning defeat into victory.

After the Anhui army lost Jiangxi and Fujian one after another, even optimistic people would not think that the Anhui army could still hold on, and the loss of Guangdong in the next step could be expected.

At the beginning of 1909, although Duan Qirui still had nearly 50,000 remnants, he was actually a failure and could not fail again.

Although Duan Qirui was full of unwillingness, he also knew that the situation had reached this point, and it was useless to continue to struggle indifferently.

While he was unwilling, he was also completely desperate.

Now Duan Qirui is not thinking about how to confront Zhao Dongyun and compete for hegemony in China, but about using the only capital in his hand to negotiate with Zhao Dongyun in exchange for the best conditions, he does not expect Zhao Dongyun to be kind to himself, he only hopes to find a way out for his subordinates who have followed him for many years, a way to continue to live.

To this day, the Anhui officials and generals who can still follow Duan Qirui's side can be said to be Duan Qirui's descendants, as for those wall grasses, they have already surrendered to the Soviet system in Jiangxi, Fujian and other places, Duan Qirui no longer has the confidence to lead them to continue to fight for hegemony, but he also does not want these subordinates who have been fighting with him for many years to go to the end of complete failure, being expelled from the country, being exiled to the concession as a duke, and even committing suicide like Lei Zhenchun.

In addition to seeking a future for his subordinates, Duan Qirui also has another idea in his heart, that is, although the Anhui system was defeated, but this is the defeat of the internal war in Beiyang, although Duan Qirui is the head of the Anhui family, but he is a member of the Beiyang system, and now since he can't lead Beiyang to unify China, then as a member of Beiyang, he still hopes to see Zhao Dongyun unify China, for this reason, he intends to contribute his last strength to the Beiyang system.

Faced with Duan Qirui's conditions, Zhao Dongyun didn't think about it for too long and agreed very happily!

He promised Duan Qirui that if the senior generals in the Anhui army were willing to continue to serve in the Central Army, they would be re-awarded military ranks according to the ranks of the Anhui army, and the merit would be enriched to serve in various units.

In terms of dealing with the remnants of the Anhui Army, because the Feng Army itself has successively reorganized the mixed brigade into a division, in principle, there is no new mixed brigade such a unit, and the second mixed brigade is already in name only, with less than 1,000 remnants, so the second mixed brigade will be revoked and the remnants will be incorporated into the fourth division.

The Fourth Division will also be restructured according to the establishment of the Feng Army, the original Fourth Division is a three-brigade system, but since the supplementary brigade was wiped out in Jinling, the Fourth Division only has the Seventh Brigade and the Eighth Brigade left, and by the present time, the Fourth Division has actually only left more than 10,000 people, even if it is added to the 1,000 remnants of the Second Mixed Brigade, it is less than 14,000 people, and this number is actually not enough for the strength of the ordinary infantry division in the Feng Army.

After the Second Mixed Brigade was revoked and the remnants were incorporated into the Fourth Division, Duan Qirui resigned from the post of commander of the division, and Jin Yunpeng, commander of the Second Mixed Brigade, took over as the commander of the Fourth Division.

Moreover, Zhao Dongyun also accepted Duan Qirui's request to pay two months' military salaries to the remnants of the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade, because the Anhui army had retreated in the past few months, and even if it was a descendant of the Fourth Division, Duan Qirui would not be able to pay enough military expenses to pay military salaries.

In addition to the Fourth Division and the Second Mixed Brigade, the other Liangjiang troops of the Anhui Army are uneven, and the remaining 30,000 people will be dealt with as ordinary Toucheng troops, and half of these 30,000 people will be selected and reduced to the 24th Division, and the division commander will be Zhang Yongcheng, another general in the Anhui army.

In addition to these orthodox Anhui troops, there was also a side unit of the Anhui army, that is, Jiang Guidi's Sixth Mixed Brigade, in addition to Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division.

In addition, there was Jiang Gui's Sixth Mixed Brigade of the Central Army, which had not participated in the Jiangbei and Jiangnan campaigns before, and fought in Guangdong and Guangxi from 1907 to 1908, and went north to Jiangxi in the second half of 1908 and fought several skirmishes with the Feng army.

Moreover, although Jiang Gui said that he belonged to the Anhui system, his position in the Anhui system was in a semi-independent state, and he was not considered a descendant of the Anhui army, and the strength of the department was not much, only more than 7,000 people, and the combat effectiveness was stronger than that of the ordinary provincial army, but it could not be compared with the fourth division and the second mixed brigade, and it was generally similar to the sixth division of Liangjiang.

The result of the talks was very simple, that is, Jiang Guidi declared his allegiance to the central government, the Sixth Mixed Brigade remained unchanged, Jiang Guidi accepted the command and dispatch of the central government, and the central side was responsible for supplying the military expenses and personnel replenishment of the Sixth Mixed Brigade.

The relationship between the 6th Mixed Brigade and the Anhui Army was relatively similar to that of the 6th Mixed Brigade and the Anhui Army, both of them were strategically under the command of their superiors, but the management of the troops themselves and the detailed tactics were under Jiang Gui's own control.

Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division is more interesting, this person is the same as Xiaoqiang, when he was in Zhejiang, as soon as Fengjun went south to southern Zhejiang, he immediately gave up the Hangzhou Mansion that was not lightly harmed by him, and then went all the way south to southern Zhejiang, and then went all the way south to Fujian without stopping, after staying in Fujian for a few months, seeing that Feng's army had conquered Fuzhou again, he immediately ran to Guangdong with the seventh division that had swelled to 30,000 people.

However, this person did not stay in Guangzhou and other places for long, but continued to move westward, and is currently stationed in the Wuzhou area of eastern Guangxi, and this person did not ignore the secret ceasefire agreement reached by Duan Qirui and Zhang Zhidong at the beginning, and as soon as he arrived in Guangxi, he couldn't wait to launch an attack on the hinterland of Guangxi.

Because Wang Zhanyuan is not under Duan Qirui's control, and Wang Zhanyuan seems to be unwilling to bow down to Zhao Dongyun like this now, otherwise he would not be so hard to make trouble in Guangxi and want to build a piece of territory.

Therefore, the follow-up handling of Wang Zhanyuan's Seventh Division has nothing to do with Duan Qirui, Zhao Dongyun still has to send someone else to negotiate with Wang Zhanyuan, and whether it can be negotiated depends on the subsequent development of the situation.

In addition to the arrangement of troops and officials, Duan Qirui's own arrangement is also a very tricky problem, first of all, Duan Qirui is not an ordinary warlord, and his political influence in the country is very huge.

In contemporary China, since Yuan Shikai was stabbed to death, Wang Yingkai went into the wilderness, and Zhang Zhidong died of illness, there are only a handful of people who can be regarded as political bigwigs in China, including Zhao Dongyun of the Soviet Union, Duan Qirui of the Anhui Department, and the end of the Southern Federation.

As for Wu Fengling, Wang Shizhen, and Wang Zhanyuan in the Beiyang system, as well as Zhao Erxun and Zhang Biao in the Southern Federation, although they are all considered princes, their influence in the whole country is limited.

Duan Qirui's status is so special, so how to deal with it is a big problem, it is impossible to take it over directly and continue to be important, but it is not possible to directly let Duan Qirui go to the wild and go to the exile concession, and house arrest is even worse.

In the end, after Zhao Dongyun considered many options, he decided to keep the position of chief of the War Department for Duan Qirui, and at the same time let him concurrently serve as the deputy marshal of the General Headquarters.

In the Soviet military system, military power has always been controlled by the high command, and the War Department has long existed in name only, you can see that Duan Qirui has been serving as the chief of the War Department since 1906, and you can see that this War Department is simply an empty shelf.

Within the General Headquarters, all affairs are respectively handled by the General Staff Department, the Ministry of Education, the Ordnance Department, the Quartermaster Department, the Navy Department, the Quanxu Department, and the General Affairs Department, and the above-mentioned departments are directly responsible to Zhao Dongyun, the generalissimo of the General Headquarters. The position of deputy marshal was not established in the headquarters before, and now it can be regarded as setting a precedent for Duan Qirui, but this deputy marshal is still a fictitious title, because this position will not govern any department of the headquarters.

gave Duan Qirui enough political status to make his face look better, but at the same time strictly restricted Duan Qirui's real power, this is Zhao Dongyun's treatment of Duan Qirui.

When Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun reached an agreement on the status of the Anhui army, the status of Anhui officials, and Duan Qirui's personal arrangements, this secret negotiation between the two armies of Feng and Anhui can be regarded as coming to an end.

On March 16, 1909, Duan Qirui took the lead in issuing a national telegram, saying that the whole army of Anhui was deeply disturbed by the separatist situation in the country, and as a member of the country and Beiyang, he Duan was willing to put aside all his past prejudices and instead support the central government to unify China.

Immediately afterwards, Zhao Dongyun issued a telegram, greatly praising Duan Qirui's high-spirited behavior, saying that Duan Shuai's support for the central government will strongly support the central government's complete unification of the whole country, and at the same time, he also invited Duan Qirui to go north and serve as the deputy marshal of the command.

Later, Duan Qirui naturally issued another telegram, saying that he had accepted President Zhao's invitation and was about to go north to take up the post of deputy marshal of the headquarters on the same day.

As soon as the above three telegrams came out, the whole country was in an uproar, whether it was those large and small warlords or ordinary people, they all felt incomprehensible about Duan Qirui's simple surrender to the Soviet Union, you Duan Qirui still has an army of Guangdong and tens of thousands, and you announced your surrender before the Feng Bureau entered Guangdong, this bone is too soft, even if you don't learn from Wang Yingkai and others who were defeated in exile in the concession, you will have to surrender at the last moment.

However, no matter what the Chinese say, it is a fact that Duan Qirui surrendered, oh, no, according to the official statement, it was Duan Qirui who did not surrender, and now he just accepted Zhao Dongyun's invitation to go north to serve as the deputy commander of the command.

On 17 March, Duan Qirui took the navy's cruiser Hairong from Guangzhou to the Beijing Division, and at the same time, many units of the Feng Army began to enter Guangdong, accept the surrender of the Anhui army in Guangdong, and began to reorganize these Anhui troops, and the headquarters also formally established the 24th Division on this day.

He also appointed Jin Yunpeng as the second commander of the Fourth Division, and awarded the rank of lieutenant general and four honors. Zhang Yong was appointed commander of the 24th Division, and was awarded the rank of lieutenant general and four honors.

When the Feng army reorganized the remnants of the Anhui army, Duan Qirui's Hairong also arrived in Tianjin, and after getting off the ship, he took the train of the Beijing-Feng Railway, and arrived in Beijing on March 20.

After getting off the train, seeing this city that had been separated for more than two years, Duan Qirui's heart felt extremely chaotic, he had thought countless times in the past two years that he would re-set foot on the land of Jingshi, but all he imagined was how he led the army to attack the city, and then his combat boots stepped on this land fiercely, he never thought that he would re-set foot on this land as a surrenderer.

Taking a deep breath, he looked up, and saw a young man wearing a black tweed jacket and a beard not far away, facing a smile, he was Zhao Dongyun!

Taking a deep breath again, he cleaned up the mess in his heart, and then squeezed out a smile on his face and walked towards Zhao Dongyun.