At any time, when the enemy and us are engaged in a war, it will always be accompanied by various secret negotiations, even when Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui are fighting to the death in Xuzhou, in fact, both sides still retain a little secret negotiation, but the differences between Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui are irresolvable, so the negotiations between the Feng army and the Anhui army are unlikely to achieve any results.

In addition to the direct contact between these two giants, in fact, Zhao Dongyun and Duan Qirui are also doing another thing, that is, to win over each other's middle and high-level generals, Zhang Dianru's rebellion is the most successful example.

The intelligence department under Zhao Dongyun successfully persuaded Zhang Dianru and Li Chengbing and others to rebel against the Anhui army and switch to the Feng army, which not only caused the Anhui army to lose tens of thousands of people, but also these tens of thousands of people immediately turned around and attacked the Anhui army.

The same thing is actually happening elsewhere, but it's rarely so successful and not so influential that it doesn't go unnoticed.

But just because outsiders don't know doesn't mean these things haven't happened.

Yingzhou Fuyang, Shanhetang.

This Shanhetang is a pharmacy with a history of decades in Fuyang, the scale is not large, and the clerks in the past were only a few people, but today's Shanhetang is a lot more people.

Unlike the ordinary Chinese people in this era, who mostly wore horse coats and robes, there were two men in them who were both wearing suits. One of the young men had a shaved head, but the other middle-aged man was bareheaded.

Since the beginning of the past few years, many young people in the country are under the leadership of those students who have returned from studying abroad, setting off a trend of cutting braids, especially after the republic last year, not only the northern republican government encourages braids, and even the Southern Federal Empire has issued a formal braid-cutting order, in less than a year, the vast majority of men in the country have cut off the long braids on the back of their heads, especially military and political officials and young people.

So today, in 1907, it is very normal to see an inch head in China, on the contrary, those old and young people of the former Qing Dynasty with long braids look strange.

However, the inch head is common, but the bald head is still relatively rare, except for a very small number of individuals in contemporary China, in addition to the monks, the shaved head is mostly a soldier, especially the soldiers from the Beiyang system, basically are bareheaded.

Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang are like this, and Zhao Dongyun's bald head is even more famous at home and abroad, and it is not for nothing that those who despise Zhao Dongyun contemptuously call Zhao Dongyun Zhao bald. No matter how many newspapers at home and abroad publish his photo, you can see his bald head and his slightly exaggerated mustache with both sides upturned.

The number of bald heads in the army of the Beiyang system is so large that the Fengjun is even greater, and basically the officers above the colonel level have their heads bare, and the proportion of them can even reach more than 80 percent.

There are many reasons why most of the officers in the Fengjun system are bald, first of all, the former Qing Dynasty has not officially allowed to cut braids in the era of the Beiyang Standing Army, but the braid really affects the battle, and it also affects the battlefield rescue.

So the image of the officers of the contemporary Feng army is very easy to distinguish, and on the battlefield you can see them wearing blue-gray combat uniforms, long leather boots, a telescope on their chests, well, and bareheaded. On formal occasions you can see them wearing the official dress that is characteristic of the Fengjun, they wear dark blue shirts, black trousers, shiny leather shoes, well, bareheaded.

As the weather has become colder recently, many officers have begun to wear German woolen coats.

In contemporary times, except for those soldiers, especially officers, it is actually relatively difficult to see bald heads.

And today there is also a bald middle-aged man in this small pharmacy, and he is a middle-aged man in a suit!

As soon as you look at the clothes and demeanors of the four people inside, you know that they are not ordinary people!

If you walk in, you can hear their conversation!

"Brother Bian, according to your opinion, should we work harder now, otherwise this Wang Zhanyuan will always waver, which is not a good thing for us!" A middle-aged man in a traditional horse coat said to the middle-aged bald man.

However, the bald man surnamed Bian shook his head: "Now we can't push him too hard, otherwise it will easily backfire!" ”

"But it's not a way to drag it out like this!" The young man in the suit next to him frowned: "I have been personally instructed by Secretary Yang before I came, be sure to persuade Wang Zhanyuan, if Stationmaster Bian has any concerns, I can lobby Wang Zhanyuan alone, and your intelligence department only needs to do a good job of bridging the line in the early stage!" ”

When the stationmaster Bian heard this, a trace of inadvertent anger flashed between his eyebrows, but he hid it well! The young man in front of him looks young, but his identity is not simple, this person's name is Qu Quanqing, and he is the third secretary of the Second Internal Affairs Section of the Presidential Office Secretariat, which is responsible for handling domestic negotiations, and he is also in charge of this section is Yang Debiao, one of the four first secretaries of the Secretariat.

In fact, the presidential offices created by Zhao Dongyun are very different from the presidential offices of most countries, not only have the three organs of the advisory office, the inspection office, and the military attache office, but also have the secretariat, which is a very special institution, although the secretariat is only a secretarial organ that assists Zhao Dongyun in handling military and political affairs, but the organization is getting bigger and bigger, especially after Zhao Dongyun moved into Beijing as president, the secretariat has developed into more than ten subordinate institutions.

There is the Foreign Affairs Division in charge of international affairs, which is functionally different from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Cabinet, and the Foreign Affairs Section of the Secretariat mainly serves the two of them, and the main activities are arranged on the occasions of the Zhao Dongyun couple and foreign diplomats.

There is a counselor's section that deals with military affairs, and military affairs will go through the secretaries of this section and then be summarized to Zhao Dongyun.

There is a senior administration section that deals with people's livelihood affairs, and the power of this section is not small, and the cabinet of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and other matters related to domestic development will be summarized and reported to Zhao Dongyun.

There is a Statistics Section in charge of financial affairs, which is called the Statistics Section, but in fact it has become Zhao Dongyun's main advisory body and processing agency for handling financial affairs.

There is a confidential section in charge of secret affairs, which is called the confidential section, and it seems that it only manages archives, but it is not, what is confidential? At the beginning of the year, Zhao Dongyun had limited business energy to report on feelings, but the tasks were too complicated, and it was difficult for the intelligence department to collect military intelligence to have enough energy to collect intelligence in other aspects, so Zhao Dongyun set up such a confidential section in the secretariat, responsible for military intelligence and unexpected intelligence affairs and many shady affairs, such as assassination, kidnapping, intimidation and so on.

There is also the first section of internal affairs and the second section of internal affairs.

Among them, the first section of internal affairs is relatively simple, mainly responsible for the internal affairs of the presidential palace, handling the related life affairs of Zhao Dongyun and his family, and providing personal security services.

The Second Internal Affairs Section sounds very similar to the name of the First Internal Affairs Section, but its functions and powers are completely different, and this Second Internal Affairs Section is responsible for domestic negotiation affairs, mainly to win over or suppress other forces in the country.

The division is personally managed by Yeung Tak-biao, one of the four first secretaries.

Yang Debiao, as one of the four first-class secretaries of the secretariat, although his reputation is not as great as that of the cabinet ministers, his power is not small, and outsiders will call Yang Shumi when he is promoted. In the Secretariat of the Presidential Office, this person is mainly responsible for domestic negotiations, including liaising with many warlords in the country.

When Fengjun and Wu Fengling reached a series of cooperation agreements last year, it was he who personally went to Chengde to persuade Wu Fengling, so that Wu Fengling gave up Chengde and went to Shanxi.

Not long ago, the Su Department and Wang Shizhen reached a series of cooperation agreements, and he was also fully responsible for this matter.

Looking at the affairs that this person is in charge of, it can be generally seen that he is the person in charge of the foreign affairs of the Soviet family to many warlords in the country. In the Soviet Union, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Cabinet was responsible for international affairs, while the Second Internal Affairs Section of the Presidential Office was responsible for domestic negotiations.

Although the Qu Quanqing in front of him is only the third-class secretary of a secretariat, as a subordinate of Yang Debiao and was sent to Fuyang in Yingzhou by Yang Debiao, although his status is not high, he is the person in charge of wooing Wang Zhanyuan this time. Although the Intelligence Division has a lot of help in the middle, at most it is only responsible for connecting the people and assisting them in many matters.

In a word, the person in charge of this matter is not the stationmaster Bian of the Intelligence Department, but Qu Quanqing, the third-class secretary of the presidential office who is only in his twenties.

The third secretary of the Secretariat of the Presidential Office may seem ordinary at first glance, but in fact his powers are not small, and he is in contact with the affairs of the central government, and the affairs he knows and handles are not comparable to those local officials or even those middle-level cabinet officials.

Based on the particularity of the secretariat, when Zhao Dongyun selected people to enter the secretariat, the first choice was personal loyalty, but the second person was talent.

Stationmaster Bian, who knew that this person's identity was not simple, covered up his dissatisfaction very well, but said: "Secretary Qu, don't worry, I Bian is very aware of the importance of this matter, and it will definitely not ruin Secretary Qu's itinerary, I just hope that Secretary Qu will give us two more days!" ”

Qu Quanqing frowned and said: "Now that the situation is urgent, there is a risk of being late for one day, I don't know who Stationmaster Bian is?" ”

His words ended with a long tail note, in which the meaning of the inquiry was very obvious.

Stationmaster Bian didn't intend to hide anything: "We have found out the hiding place of the people from Liangjiang and plan to take action against them!" Speaking of this, Stationmaster Bian showed a ruthless expression: "Didn't he Wang Zhanyuan want to delay on both sides, I want to see if the people on the other side of the two rivers are dead, who else can he talk to!" ”

Hearing Stationmaster Bian's words, Qu Quanqing frowned again, to be honest, he was very indifferent to these people in the intelligence department, and he loved to fight and kill at every turn, and he didn't know how many people had died in their hands since the establishment of the company, which was incompatible with him who admired the gentleman's style in his heart.

Although Qu Quanqing is young, he is also a Confucian official, and the person he admires in the second section of internal affairs is Zhang Yi, who is determined to be a columnist, and what he relies on is a three-inch tongue, not a fight and kill!

Only this time, although he hated the actions of the Intelligence Department, he did not object!

Qu Quanqing didn't speak, and the stationmaster Bian on the side naturally guessed some of his thoughts, and he secretly despised it in his heart: Hmph, it's just a powerless scholar, if it weren't for us spending a lot of effort to escort you all the way, I'm afraid you would have to be killed by people from other forces on the way, and now you still look down on us!

However, although these two people are not quite right, but they dare not mix personal feelings in official affairs, even if Qu Quanqing is not interested in the assassination of the intelligence department, but he also knows that if he assassinates the people from Liangjiang at this critical moment, it will not only delay the relevant negotiations between Wang Zhanyuan and Duan Qirui, but also cause a gap between the two.

The intelligence department's actions have always been very fast, and not long after this secret meeting, several field agents of the intelligence department infiltrated the secret foothold of the Liangjiang side that night, and then bursts of gunfire rang out continuously, and when the soldiers of the 7th Division arrived outside, the three negotiation envoys sent by the Liangjiang side in the room had already fallen in a pool of blood.