The three days of November 23rd, 24th, and 25th can be said to have a decisive impact on the situation in contemporary China, if it is said that the assassination of Yuan Shikai in early October led to a mutiny in Beiyang, and then promoted the republican process.

So a series of events that happened in the past three days directly laid the foundation for China's follow-up republican government, and at the same time, it also directly affected the future choice of several major factions in Beiyang.

On the 23rd, Wang Yingkai's first town took the lead in entering the Beijing Division, and successfully joined forces with Wang Shizhen's sixth town and controlled the key areas in the Beijing Division.

On the same day, a large number of Manchu magnates, including Feng Guozhang, began to flee, and a few people successfully fled into the embassies of various countries to seek political refuge, but at this time it was obvious that they had forgotten about Cixi and Guangxu, and the Forbidden City was still trembling under the iron hooves of the Beiyang Army, but in order to avoid excessive political influence, Wang Yingkai and Wang Shizhen did not show the momentum of the French Revolution, but only surrounded the Forbidden City, and did not directly break into the palace.

At this time, in fact, many people, especially some governors in the south, were able to reach a decent agreement with Beiyang by the Qing court, and even they had the content in mind, that is, let the Beiyang Army clean up a group of satisfied Shaozhuang faction to avenge the so-called Yuan Gong's revenge, but it was to completely implement the constitutional system of the virtual monarch, that is, to hand over the administrative power to Beiyang, but the imperial family continued to retain the title of emperor as the nominal supreme state leader.

In this way, Beiyang gained the power they wanted, and the royal family was able to continue to retain its glory and wealth!

But they obviously underestimated Wang Yingkai's determination!

As the second person in Beiyang after Yuan Shikai, since Yuan Shikai's death, he Wang Yingkai has regarded himself as the new leader of Beiyang!

This change in identity makes him feel that he has taken on the heavy responsibility of the country and the nation, and he has a sense of historical mission since the day he started the army, he has decided to completely sweep the Manchu Dynasty into the garbage heap of history, and let Guangxu's abdication to establish his position as the boss of Beiyang.

He dared to say that as long as he succeeded in ousting Guangxu and Cixi from power, as long as he led the Beiyang people to lay the foundation of the Chinese Republic, then his prestige would definitely soar to the sky, even surpassing Yuan Shikai's level in the past!

When Yuan Shikai was not dead, people's evaluation of him was already quite high, and when he died, in this month, in fact, there was no distinction between north and south, republicans or constitutionalists or imperialists, all of whom unanimously sang praises to Yuan Shikai, not only praising him for taking over a lot of mess left by the Manchu royal family and Li Hongzhang in the Xin Chou year, and then making a lot of noise, but also in a short period of a few years, China's New Deal reform made China progress from an ancient feudal country to a modern country in one fell swoop.

To tell the truth, this kind of boasting is excessive, but people's concept is that the dead are respected, and since Yuan Shikai took charge of Beiyang, the achievements are indeed obvious to all, and even Sun Wen and those revolutionaries have to pinch their noses and compliment, saying that Yuan Gong's death is a pain for the country and the nation.

Yuan Shikai, who was deliberately touted, well, the dead Yuan Shikai has far surpassed Li Hongzhang, the previous generation leader of Beiyang, in terms of reputation, and he is only a small step away from the great man.

This is a world of difference from the situation in history when Yuan Shikai died after he became emperor and left a stench for 10,000 years!

If Yuan Shikai in history hadn't been confused before he died, he would have had to live the addiction of the emperor, and it would be quite easy to get the name of the father of the republic.

The current Wang Yingkai is a kind of Cheng dù, that is, he became the Yuan Shikai in the period from 1911 to 1912 in history, not to mention anything else, just entering the city of Beijing, and then driving Guangxu from power, it is enough to make him a celebrity through the ages, if he can insist on the republican system, then the name of a father of the nation will not run.

Wang Yingkai, who has more expectations for the future, naturally did not lightly agree to the various negotiation conditions proposed by Tieliang and other Manchu royal families, and even Cixi's proposal to appoint him as the first prime minister of the cabinet and take charge of the country's political affairs was rejected, insisting on letting the Manchu royal family abdicate and establish a republic.

On the 26th, in the face of Cixi's stubbornness, Wang Yingkai ordered his troops in the first town to conquer the Forbidden City, and when they fought all the way to Yingtai, they saw Emperor Guangxu who had a calm expression and sad eyes!

"I knew this day was coming, but I didn't expect it to come so soon!" At the last moment, the king of the dead country was still under house arrest by Cixi, which can be regarded as a typical 'tragedy'.

On the 27th, Zhao Dongyun, who had quietly returned to Tangshan, was holding a newspaper in his hand, which could be said to be a major event that had never been seen in China for thousands of years!

The emperor has abdicated!

At the last moment, Emperor Guangxu wrote this abdication edict, and then the soldiers covered it with the national seal found elsewhere in the palace, and this abdication edict was completed!

For the first time in thousands of years, China did not have an emperor on its head, and instead of it, there was a so-called republican government!

In this country that attaches great importance to fame, even if Wang Yingkai has entered the Beijing division before, even if he has been loyal to many Beiyang generals and even a few southern governors, he still has not established a so-called 'government'.

Instead, it was not until after the abdication edict that Emperor Guangxu authorized Beiyang to form a republican government according to the terms of Emperor Guangxu in the abdication edict that the signboard of the republican government was justifiably raised.

On the same day, Wang Yingkai set up the so-called 'Founding Committee' in Beijing, called himself the 'Founding Commander', and appointed Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun as the 'Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Founding of the People's Republic of China'.

And invite the governors of various provinces and the famous gentry from all walks of life to go north to Beijing to discuss the major events of the founding of the country!

Although Wang Yingkai's methods have long been expected, it seems that today it still makes Zhao Dongyun's heart full of envy, jealousy and hatred!

Who conquered Tongzhou, forced Wang Shizhen to betray the imperial court, and then destroyed Feng Guozhang and the Manchu royal family in one fell swoop? It was him Zhao Dongyun, but why did he Wang Yingkai become the commander of the founding of the country in less than three or four days? And then look like a republican leader.

Zhao Dongyun is ambitious, if you say that he doesn't think about the presidential throne in his heart, it must be nonsense, plus Zhao Dongyun has a lot of troops in his hands, which is enough to compete with the coalition forces of other generals in Beiyang, but why is he still forced to live under Wang Yingkai?

Although he knew why, it was nothing more than prestige and seniority!

However, emotionally he couldn't accept it, seeing that what had been hoped for in his hands would run into the hands of others in a blink of an eye, which would be strange if he could be convinced.

Not to mention that he Zhao Dongyun is not convinced, even the other generals of the Soviet system are all black-faced, the struggle between Zhao Dongyun and Wang Yingkai is not just a private struggle between two people, but a struggle between the two major factions led by the two, Zhao Dongyun's defeat represents the defeat of the Soviet system, and this is also unacceptable for Cao Kun, Chen Guangyuan and other Soviet generals.

"Commander, now that we are in this situation, what else is there to say, let's go over directly, Lao Tzu doesn't believe that Wang Yingkai can stop our three towns and three associations!" Meng En sat upright in the distance, although his expression was as strict as ever, but he was full of anger when he spoke.

On the other hand, Chen Guangyuan also said: "How can he, Wang Yingkai, be the leader of Beiyang and the president of the republic?" If we retreat today, according to the past grudges between our two families, will we still have good fruits to eat in the future? I'm afraid the Northeast will not be guaranteed in the future! ”

Zhao Dongyun continued to keep his face calm and did not speak, and Gu Lanyu on the side also said: "The current situation is indeed unbearable, on the issue of the previous joint call or the subsequent abdication, how could he Wang Yingkai ask our opinion?" He did these things by himself, and I heard that the first and sixth towns had hundreds of houses in the capital, plus the silver money obtained from the household department and the bank, at least thirty or fifty million, if this money was used by them, our disadvantage would be even greater in the future! ”

Zhao Dongyun listened to the words of these people, and then looked at Xu Bangjie, who had just arrived in Tangshan: "Old Xu, you can also talk about it!" ”

Xu Bangjie, like everyone else, was also very worried about the current situation, and said with a frown: "Now we are in a dilemma, if we want to fight, even if we wait for my second town and the first mixed association to arrive, our army's troops in the pass are no more than a mixed association of two towns and one mixed association of infantry and one association of cavalry, and the total strength is only 40,000." And Wang Yingkai has three towns in Beijing, plus the troops they accepted and reorganized the seventh town and the first part of the town, and then recently expanded in Zhili and other places, this adds up to more than 60,000. Moreover, Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Town and Henan Wang Ruxian's 29th Mixed Association can also quickly go north, and then our military disadvantage will be even greater, so if this fight starts, it is estimated that it is not a big problem to defend, but it is still relatively difficult to launch an attack and defeat the enemy to conquer the Beijing Division! ”

"But if we don't fight, after this Wang Yingkai and them stabilize their position, then we will probably face not 50,000 or 60,000 enemies, but more than 100,000 or 200,000 enemies, with our population and financial resources outside the pass, it is categorically impossible for us to expand our army to hundreds of thousands, and I am afraid that it will be even more difficult at that time."

Zhao Dongyun also frowned when he heard this, he had also considered these possibilities, but there was a big difference between what he wanted and what others said, which made him feel even more dilemma.

Now Zhao Dongyun regretted entering the customs for the first time, if he didn't enter the customs at the beginning and turned to the Qing court, it is estimated that Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui still have to spend with Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen, if they fight for a year or two, when they expand their army to 100,000, they can go out of the customs and clean up the mess in one fell swoop.

However, this kind of idea can only be thought about, the shock caused by Yuan Gong's death was very great, if Zhao Dongyun still wants to compete with Wang Yingkai and Wang Shizhen for the position of the lord of Beiyang, in fact, it is impossible to watch the play outside the customs all the time, in that case, it will be safe, but in terms of prestige, he will immediately be reduced to a level with Wu Fengling and Zhang Huaizhi.

You look at the seven bigwigs in Beiyang at the beginning, Wu Fengling and Zhang Huaizhi, who avoided at the beginning, are now mixed, in the eyes of the world, they have completely become second-rate warlords, if they can still be mixed in the future, then ten thousand miracles will happen. And the other five people who took the initiative to participate in the war, in fact, even the defeated Feng Guozhang was much better than them in terms of prestige, and Wang Shizhen, Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun, especially Zhao Dongyun and Wang Yingkai, that is even more prestige, at least when people are discussing the future president of the Republic, people have unconsciously listed Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun as candidates, and Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen are considered candidates, but Zhang Huaizhi and Wu Fengling are gone.

Politics is sometimes so realistic, and if you play politics, you can't afford to lose consideration to the so-called interests, because many things even if you know that they will cost you a lot, you have to do it.

Just like now, even if he knew that the chances of winning against Wang Yingkai's coalition army were not good, if he wanted to conquer Jingshi, it was basically like a fool's dream, but this did not prevent Zhao Dongyun from making up his mind to start a war with Wang Yingkai!

When there is a need for politics, even if it is a war that must be lost, then it must be fought, not to mention, who dares to say that he, Zhao Dongyun, will definitely lose?

Are there fewer examples in history of winning more with less?

Although his side has fewer troops, its advantages are also obvious, first of all, he still controls Tangshan, and what does Tangshan have? With this machine factory, Zhao Dongyun was able to obtain seven or eight thousand rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition every month, as well as many ordnance such as barreled artillery, mortars, and heavy machine guns.

With the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, at least Zhao Dongyun doesn't have to worry too much about the follow-up expansion of the army and the replenishment of battle losses.

In addition, Zhao Dongyun has another advantage over Wang Yingkai, that is, the army under Zhao Dongyun is all his Zhao Dongyun's private army, and they all obey his Zhao Dongyun's orders.

However, what about Wang Yingkai, his is a coalition army, and the meaning of the coalition army is that Wang Yingkai can't command Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen, at most, it's just a coordinated battle, and as long as he bites one of them to fight with them, it's still a problem if the other parties come to save him.

In this situation, Wang Yingkai has money, allies, and prestige, while Zhao Dongyun has ordnance and unified command, before the war starts, who dares to say that Zhao Dongyun will definitely lose?

Zhao Dongyun was silent for a long time, and then said: "Now that we are at a life-and-death juncture, further this entire country is ours, and if we take a step back, maybe we will be ruined, so at this moment, I hope that you will work together with me!" ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Dongyun nodded to Fang Biyong next to his right, and immediately Fang Biyong stood up, and then said loudly: "In accordance with the commander's instructions, the General Staff has formulated the following operational arrangements:

"The third town can return to the Tangshan theater from Tongzhou and Jixian counties, and the deployment of the Tangshan theater is detailed as follows, the northwest part of Tangshan, that is, the first line of Yutian and Fengrun, is responsible for the third town, and the first line in the west of Tangshan, that is, the first line of Dazhongzhuang and Bamen City, is responsible for the second town.

The First Mixed Association was stationed in Tangshan, and the first cavalry Association went north to Zunhua, and then threatened the enemy's flank and rear flank, while guarding the second town of Wu Fengling from moving south. ”