Feng Jun simply chose Zhang Guotai, a more influential person, so after three days of negotiations, the Anhui army in Hukou formally surrendered to the Feng army, and its Liangjiang Sixth Division, Liangjiang Third Division, and two independent regiments were reorganized into the 21st Division of the Central Army and the 20th Division of the Central Army respectively, these two divisions formed the Fifth Army of the Central Army, Zhang Guotai served as the commander, and Zhao Dongyun generously directly awarded Zhang Guotai the rank of general, three honors.

The reason why Zhang Guotai was directly awarded the rank of general and the position of army commander is that on the one hand, there are many remnants of the Anhui army in the direction of Hukou and Jiujiang, and there are still nearly 30,000 people, and this army is different from surrendering after being completely defeated.

These 30,000 people are not easy to dismantle, and it is a waste to directly reorganize them into one division, so they simply gave the number of two divisions and formed them into an army.

In addition, Zhang Guotai is also a general in the army on the Anhui army, and Zhao Dongyun gave the title of general to Toucheng, which is generally what was originally and what is given now, Lu Yongxiang is like this, Bao Guiqing is like this, Zhang Dianru is like this, and Zhang Guotai is no exception.

Now give Zhang Guotai preferential treatment, it can be regarded as a gesture of buying a horse's bones, the follow-up Feng army will continue to go south, march to the southwest, if you fight all the way over, it will take too long and more losses, if someone can take the initiative to surrender to Cheng anyway, then how about giving them some preferential treatment, anyway, those surrender troops will be slowly transformed by the Feng army after they come, just like Zhang Dianru, although he is the division commander, but in fact he can't fully control the 16th Division, the combat department asked him to go there, he has to go there, If he didn't go, those Soviet officers under his command would have to cut him down first.

To put it bluntly, Zhao Dongyun gave Zhang Guotai a preferential treatment in terms of identity, a vacant position, you can see that Zhao Dongyun's Fifth Army sent a large number of division, brigade, regiment, and battalion-level officers, and the follow-up Zhang Guotai is also a bald commander who has been overhead, as for what will happen in the future, it depends on his follow-up choices and creation.

Anyway, he, the military commander, doesn't want to compare with several other powerful military commanders in the Feng army.

After the enemy at Hukou was reversed, he quickly turned his guns and Lu Yongxiang's First Army landed in Jiujiang directly with the cooperation of the navy, and at the same time cooperated with the Third Division to fight against the Fifth Army of the Northern Expedition of the Southern Federation, which had just arrived.

Half a month after the battle, the Fifth Army of the Northern Expedition was defeated and was forced to retreat to Hubei.

Up to now, the Battle of Jiujiang has come to an end, and the fall of Jiujiang has a profound impact on the coming of the Anhui army, because it means that nothing can stop the follow-up southward movement of the Feng army.

On September 2, after Xu Bangjie successively captured Jinhua and Taizhou, he led the 10th and 15th Divisions of the Second Army and the 23rd Division, which had just been reorganized from the captured and surrendered troops, to Fujian and reached Fuzhou.

On September 9, the 10th Division of the Feng Army conquered Fuzhou, and the 15th Division conquered Nanping, a military town in the hinterland of Fujian.

On September 12, after consolidating the situation in northern Jiangxi, the Feng army once again moved south to capture Ganzhou, and its ninth division was already directed at the northern Guangdong region.

On September 20, the 14th Division of the Feng Army conquered Pingxiang and other places and entered Hunan.

On the same day, Zhao Dongyun personally ordered the transfer of the Third Division to the command of the First Army, and then Lu Yongxiang led the First Division, the Third Division, and the Eighth Division of the First Army, as well as the 21st and 22nd Divisions of Zhang Guotai's Fifth Army, into Hubei and headed straight for Wuchang.

At this time, looking at the domestic situation, the southward momentum of the Feng army was already unstoppable.

When the First Army of the Feng Army conquered the areas of Huangshi and Ezhou in Hubei Province in October, under the influence of the failure of the front-line connection, Zhang Zhidong's body finally could not support it, and he passed away on October 4, ending his magnificent life.

Zhang Zhidong, the pillar of the Southern Federation, died, which was directly equivalent to putting the Southern Federation on the verge of collapse and disintegration, although Duan Fang announced in time that he would succeed to the post of Prime Minister of the Empire, but Duan Fang, the Manchurian successor Prime Minister, made many of Zhang Zhidong's generals very dissatisfied, Li Yuanhong and Zhang Biao entered Wuchang City for the first time, and drove Duan Fang out of power, and then Zhang Biao announced that he would succeed to the post of Prime Minister of the Empire, which caused more dissatisfaction.

Internal disputes continued, and the outside was facing the attack of Wang Shizhen and Lu Yongxiang, Zhang Biao simply found Zhao Dongyun, saying that he wanted to negotiate an armistice.

Regarding Zhang Biao's request for an armistice, and what he said about maintaining the current military demarcation line, Zhao Dongyun smiled and tore up the telegram and said: "Continue to fight until they surrender unconditionally!" ”

On October 20, Lu Yongxiang and Wang Shizhen jointly launched an attack on Wuchang, and five days later, the Feng army and the Hubei army successfully joined forces in Wuchang City.

Wuchang has conquered!

Throughout the second half of 1908, that was the solo stage of the Feng army, and the Feng army conquered Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan, Hubei, and Guangdong at a faster speed than the original Anhui army went south.

By the time the calendar turned over in 1908 and ushered in the Spring Festival of 1909, Feng's army had de facto controlled most of China, and militarily could no longer find an opponent.

The next thing is a military operation, and it is better to say that it is a political operation!

On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year after the Spring Festival in 1909, Guangzhou.

Duan Qirui saw a guest he hadn't seen for a long time, sitting opposite Duan Qirui was Wang Ruxian, and next to him was a Soviet dignitary who Duan Qirui had never seen but had heard of many times: Yang Debiao, the first secretary of the presidential secretariat.

Since the defeat in Henan in 1907, Wang Ruxian first experienced more than half a year of house arrest, and finally took the initiative to give Zhao Dongyun a soft and freedom, because of the active attitude, so Zhao Dongyun did not directly expel him to the concession to be a duke, but gave him a false title of adviser to the presidential palace, while also retaining his rank of lieutenant general.

Needless to say, as the first secretary of the Secretariat, he is Yang Shumi, and his political status even surpasses that of those cabinet chiefs.

Today, these two people with extremely special status came to Guangzhou, and their purpose is self-evident, that is, Duan Qirui has already connected with Zhao Dongyun, and what else can be talked about, it is nothing more than surrender.

Yang Debiao looked at Duan Qirui, he had seen Duan Qirui a few times before, but today's Duan Qirui and Duan Qirui in his impression seemed to be two people, Duan Qirui he saw a few years ago, it was high-spirited, even if he looked at it from afar, he could see that it was a powerful hero, but now Duan Qirui, it looks like he is already an old man in his seventies, you must know that Duan Qirui is only fifty-four years old this year, for a soldier, a warlord, his age is in the prime of life.

However, now his beard has begun to turn white, the wrinkles on his face are comparable to that of a seventy-year-old man, and more importantly, the momentum of treating the heroes of the world as nothing on his body has completely disappeared, and now he is like a dying old man, not angry at all.

Yang Debiao can also understand Duan Qirui's state, if he is replaced by a hero who controlled most of southern China two years ago, with hundreds of thousands of troops in his hands, after two years of failure, and finally lost Liangjiang, Fujian and Zhejiang, hundreds of thousands of troops were lost, and he could only retreat to Guangdong with less than 50,000 remnants, no one would be able to accept it.

In the second half of last year, after the disastrous defeat in the Jiangnan Campaign, the Anhui army lost Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi successively under the continuous southward offensive of the Feng army, and once again lost the last bit of the Anhui army's belongings in the above three places, and even Jin Yunpeng's second mixed brigade was once again severely damaged in the Ganzhou Campaign, and Jin Yunpeng could only retreat to Guangdong with less than 10,000 people.

Although the Fourth Division, another descendant of the Anhui Army, did not suffer a large-scale defeat, it failed in successive battles, and the cumulative losses were also very astonishing, with a strength of more than 25,000 men in those years, and the Fourth Division, which used more than 75 artillery pieces for four artillery battalions, now has only about 10,000 people left, and less than 30 artillery pieces.

Today's Anhui army has long since lost the grand occasion of the year, and only less than 50,000 remnants of the army are left.

In this case, Duan Qirui also had to take the initiative to pass on a message to Zhao Dongyun of Jurentang, that is, surrender!

Duan Qirui no longer has the luxury of continuing to fight for hegemony, let alone how much political status he can have in the country after he surrenders, he only wants the Fourth Division that he has built up to have a good end, and he does not want the last seed of the Anhui army under his command to be left.

On the other hand, he also saw that the Soviet system and China were already unstoppable, and since they couldn't be stopped, let themselves make the last effort for domestic reunification and republic.

In the final analysis, he is still a Beiyang person, and his feelings for Beiyang are greater than his feelings for the country and the nation.

Whether he wins or Zhao Dongyun wins, this world is Beiyang after all!

The last gift he gave to Zhao Dongyun, Yuan Gong under Jiuquan knew about it, and he must have been pleased.

After learning that Duan Qirui intended to surrender, even if Zhao Dongyun had the confidence to directly take Guangdong by force, the impact of Duan Qirui's initiative was not Zhang Guotai, Zhang Dianru They can be compared, once Duan Qirui surrendered, it means that the Beiyang system has completely recognized Zhao Dongyun as the supreme leader of the Beiyang system, which is of great political significance for the subsequent unification of China.

That's why he sent Yang Debiao and Wang Ruxian, letting Yang Debiao go to show his sincerity, and letting Wang Ruxian go was to contact the feelings of the old people in Beiyang.

Anyway, he, Zhao Dongyun, and Duan Qirui are all part of Beiyang, and Wang Ruxian is also a part of Beiyang.

Therefore, the three people present here today did not talk much and ended the talks.

When Wang Ruxian and Yang Debiao went out, Duan Qirui said the last sentence: "Tell Ziyang, I, Duan, am also from Beiyang!" ”