On March 14, the sixth year of the Republic of China, the Beijing government announced that it would officially sever diplomatic relations with Germany from now on, and at the same time announced the resumption of the German concessions in Tianjin and Hankow, the suspension of the payment of indemnities and arrears to Germany, the disarmament of the German army in China, the takeover of the Deutsch-Hua Bank, the confiscation of enterprises with German official background in China, and the departure of German diplomats in China within a time limit. However, the German expatriates were still friendly, and the Germans serving in various departments in China were retained, German merchants from all over the country continued to operate as usual, and missionaries continued their religious activities. When the German minister Xin Ci returned to China under the flag, Li Yuanhong also gave him many precious gifts. When Xin Ci returned to China from Shanghai on March 27, Shanghai officials also sent people to the station to greet and see him off, the soldiers raised their guns to salute, and the army played Chinese music as if it were a ritual.

On the same day, Regiment Commander Tang, who had been out for more than half a month, led a "private advisory group" composed of three German officers and three German non-commissioned officers back to Zhangjiakou, and in addition to this, Regiment Commander Tang had also acquired some German industries in China at extremely low prices, including the Baoxing Coal Mine in Xuanhua, the Lihe Machine Milling Factory in Hankou, the Guben Soap Company and the Gali Hardware Company in Tianjin, and the German shares in the remaining Sino-German joint ventures. Minister Xin Ci also fulfilled his promise to secretly hand over some of the weapons of the German troops stationed in China to Commander Tang, and the largest German company in China, Lihe Foreign Bank, also sold part of its inventory of arms at a low price, but the quantity was not very large. Fortunately, there are actually six 1908 Krupp 75mm mountain guns, which are said to have been ordered by the revolutionary party in the south and have not been delivered for several years, but at present these arms can only be placed in the Zeng family's warehouse in the Tianjin concession.

After returning to Zhangjiakou, with the assistance of the German "private advisory group", Tang Zhidao reorganized the mixed regiment, and the most important thing was to disperse the new battalions to the rest of the battalions and companies, so that the veterans could match with the new recruits, and at the same time eliminate the gap between the old and new troops. The First Battle of Duolun not only tempered the mixed regiment, but also exposed many problems, the most prominent of which were the low shooting hit rate, the poor internal coordination ability of the squad and platoon squads, and the coordination of the tactical group in the process of fighting with the tactical level of the grassroots officers. These two or three months are free to start solving these problems in order to eliminate more enemies with minimal casualties in the next battle.

However, the struggle between the various parties in the Guan, especially the two sides of the government and the court, did not stop because of the severance of diplomatic relations with Germany, on the contrary, it became more and more intense. President Li Yuanhong thinks that an article on Germany has been completed, but in Duan Qirui's case, he thinks that this issue is only half the way, and the other half of the declaration of war has not been done. Therefore, the deteriorating relationship between Li and Duan was not eased by the severance of diplomatic relations with Germany, but worsened as a result. Because Duan believes that the case of severing diplomatic relations with Germany is the first step, and the second step is the case of declaring war on Germany.

Local warlords, politicians, and social elites also debated whether or not to participate in the war, and there were different opinions. Kang Youwei first published the article "Urgent Issues after the Severance of Diplomatic Relations" to advocate the declaration of war against Germany, and Kang Youwei said excitedly in a telegram: "Please hang my eyes on the country to see the entry of German ships." "He actually regarded himself as Wu Zixu, but the warlords with heavy troops in various places were unanimous in their opposition to participating in the war.

Premier Duan's original intention in participating in the war was, of course, for the sake of national interests, and the reason why he insisted on declaring war on Germany was influenced by the victory of the Entente powers, believing that if he did not participate in the war, he would not be able to share the fruits of victory after the war. The warlords in various places opposed the war because they were afraid that once they entered the war, they would inevitably abandon their territory, power, wealth, and beautiful wives and concubines, and they would lead their troops to fight in Europe, and the enemy was the German Army, which was the most capable of fighting, so the soldiers sang the opposite tune with Duan. Li Yuanhong had a dispute with Duan's morale, and all he told him was information that was unfavorable to Duan, and these materials were also facts, so Li had objections to Duan's participation in the war. …,

For all these kinds of information, the head of the Tang regiment instructed the Jingshi Cao Lu to collect it as soon as possible and forward it to him through commercial telegrams. Especially with the approach of this year's major event that completely changed the political situation of the Republic of China, Tang Zhidao is becoming more and more uncalm.

Although Zhangjiakou is not too far from the capital, it can be reached by train in one day. But after all, the railway is controlled by the Ministry of Communications, and it is really hard to say whether it will come in handy at that time. If you run over on two legs, maybe the daylily will be cold, not to mention eating meat, you can't gnaw on the bones, at most drink some soup and smell the fragrance, and then I'm afraid that it will only be mixed into a ball. But this kind of thing can only be muttered in the heart of Regiment Leader Tang, and he will not go to the ministry now to tell the ministry what someone will do on a certain day in a certain month, although someone's mind can be described as Sima Zhao's heart, everyone knows it, but almost everyone thinks that someone is just talking, not stupid enough to really do that. The movement of troops is all in the hands of the War Department, but at the moment the situation in Gyeonggi is relatively stable, and the struggle between the government and the court has not reached the point of being exhausted. In Nanyuan and Beiyuan alone, there are the 11th, 12th, and 13th Army Divisions newly reorganized last year, and there are also the 16th Mixed Brigade stationed in Langfang, the Eighth Army Division stationed in Machang, Tianjin, and the Third Army Division stationed in Baoding.

But a sudden incident in mid-April made Tang feel an opportunity to get closer to Gyeonggi, but whether he can seize this opportunity or not does not depend entirely on himself, and may not even have anything to do with himself at all. At this time, it did not happen in the territory of Chahar, but in the territory of Huailai Yanqing, which is close to Chahar. The Fifth Road Patrol Battalion of Zhili stationed here mutinied, looted Huailai County, and is currently spreading to the surrounding counties.

The Republic of China inherited the former Qing Dynasty, in order to prevent local forces from growing, from the early years of the Republic of China, it tried the so-called separation of military and political affairs, and set up military supervisors and military envoys to manage military affairs in provincial-level units, and provincial governors to manage government affairs. Throughout China, almost all the governors looked up to the Overseers' snorts and acted according to the Overseers' eyes. However, there are some outliers in Lin Zida, and there are currently three provincial governors who have real power and can barely compete with the Overseers.

The first is Zhu Qinglan, the governor of Guangdong Province, who was born in the former Qing Dynasty, the commander of the three battalions, Phoenix, Andong Zhi County, the camp office of the three eastern provinces, the army standard, the Sichuan patrol police road, the 33rd mixed into the association, the army 17th town system, after the Wuchang uprising, he joined the revolution, and later served as the governor of Heilongjiang Province (patrol), supervising the army, and the Beiyang system, the revolutionary party, and the Gui department have a certain relationship, protégés and former officials are all over the world, after serving as the governor of Guangdong Province, he absorbed the dilemma of being driven away by the division commander Xu Lanzhou by the lack of descendants in Heilongjiang, The Guangdong People's Army was reorganized into 40 battalions of the Provincial Governor's Guard Army (the predecessor of the later Guangdong Army), which became the third force to stand alongside the Gui Army and the Yunnan Army stationed in Guangdong.

The second is the governor of Anhui Province, Ni Sichong, the governor of this person is a little wronged, in fact, since the second revolution, he has controlled the whole of Anhui, and has the real emperor of Anhui, and has forty or fifty battalions of infantry and artillery workers, twenty or thirty thousand arms, but there is also a more senior and more prestigious warlord on his head, Zhang Xun, the commander of the Dingwu Army, who sits in Xuzhou and divides dozens of counties at the junction of Sulu, Henan, and Anhui provinces. After Yuan Shikai's death, Zhang Xun suspected that the Yangtze River patrol envoy on his head was in name only, and clamored to be an overseer, and the Duan government scoundrel had no choice but to give Ni Sichong's overseer to him. However, Zhang Xun was reluctant to Xuzhou, an important town, and only controlled a few counties in northern Anhui, and he and Ni Sichong, the governor, were regarded as well water and did not interfere with river water, and got along very well. …,

The third is Zhu Jiabao, the governor of Zhili, a former Qing bureaucrat and a hardcore confidant of Yuan Shikai, who is stronger than the first two, and can be said to be the tiger of Zhili. From February 1914, he served as the governor and governor of Zhili (then called the governor and civil governor), until September 1916, when the overseer was replaced by the rising star Cao Kun, who remained only as governor.

In accordance with the "Order on the Separate Jurisdiction of the Military and Civilian Administrations for the Land Defense Army" jointly signed by the government and the court in August of the fifth year of the Republic of China, the provincial army is under the jurisdiction of the superintendent, and the patrol battalion is under the jurisdiction of the provincial governor. In addition to the eighth division commanded by Li Changtai, whose qualifications are on par with Cao Dujun's qualifications, there is only the third division concurrently served by Cao Dujun, and what is even worse is that Zhili is too close to the Beijing Division, and every move of the army is under the command of the Ministry of War, so he is a bit unworthy of the name, and only has a little weight around Baoding City. On the contrary, Zhu Jiabao, the governor, not only controls the 20,000 or 30,000 patrol battalions of dozens of battalions on the province's nine roads, but also controls the province's tens of thousands of JC and Tianjin, the largest commercial port in the north.

The mutiny had been foreshadowed, and in February the soldiers banded together to fight for wages, but not only was it fruitless, but those who led the disturbance were beheaded. In this way, the ostensible wage disturbance was suppressed, and the momentum of deducting money and arrears of military pay not only did not stop, but became more and more intense, until such a big incident occurred. When this kind of thing happened, Zhu Jiabao, as the governor of the province, is naturally to blame, although he has a reputation for being honest, he can't control his son. What is even more embarrassing is that after the outbreak of the mutiny, he was unable to calm down. Although there are dozens of patrol battalions under his command, they can be stationed in dozens of counties throughout the province, and they cannot be assembled at all for a while, and even if they are assembled when they take a step back, he may not dare to use them. Cao Kun, the overseer of Zhili, wanted to meddle in this matter very much, but Baoding was hundreds of miles away, and Zhu Jiabao just didn't let go, so he couldn't take care of it for a while, so he could only sit back and watch the situation deteriorate.

Even if this situation occurs, the head of the Tang regiment, who is only one or two hundred miles away from Huailai, cannot cross the border to quell the rebellion without an order, otherwise it will be a great sin.