Zhao Dongyun didn't plan to give them time to justify, and then said to the other party: "The rest and replenishment of the military side is needed, but there are so many troops, there is always a priority, first replenish the ammunition and ordnance of several main divisions, and the other troops will slow down first!" ”

His words still didn't stop, and he turned to Xiong Xiling again: "How is the issuance of the second phase of patriotic bonds here?" There is also an autumn tax that has been collected, let's see if we can squeeze out some of it! ”

Xiong Xiling said: "Although the second phase of patriotic bonds was issued more at the beginning, it has begun to weaken recently, and the amount of money received this month is not much. Although most of the autumn tax has been collected, this money cannot be taken out as military expenses, and if it is used up now, there will really be no rice to cook next year! ”

After saying these words, Xiong Xiling looked at Zhao Dongyun and Fang Biyong again, and sighed in his heart, he knew that if he didn't take out a few million today, it would be impossible for the military to give up!

"I'll go back and see if I can move some more out there, but there will definitely not be more, and I expect to be able to free up two or three million at most!"

However, Fang Biyong was equally dissatisfied: "Three million is far from enough, just the cost of supplementing the existing main division is not less than 10 million!" ”

This is naturally boasting, tens of millions of yuan can allow the military to build at least three new divisions! And although Xiong Xiling is not familiar with military affairs, he knows more about how much it costs to expand the army and how much it costs to replenish ammunition than Fang Biyong, a military general, so he only heard him snort coldly.

After Fang Biyong paused slightly, he also thought in his heart, if there were fewer other military colleagues, he would definitely be dissatisfied with himself, if he wanted more, it was estimated that the conversation would collapse today, if Xiong Xiling shook his face and didn't give money, I don't know how long this supplementary plan will be delayed.

Besides, Zhao Dongyun's patience is also limited, although Zhao Dongyun is biased towards the military most of the time, but as a supreme ruler, Zhao Dongyun's consideration is not only limited to the situation, the expansion of the army is the same, and other things are equally important.

So he pondered for a long time and said: "The replenishment of those new formations and surrender troops can be postponed, but our old troops must be replenished in time, if it is only to replenish the main force, it will take at least eight million yuan to be ready!" ”

That's not a lot of money!

Don't think that it costs money to expand the army in these years, in fact, it costs more money to raise the army, and the cost of maintaining the army is even more expensive!

To build a new main division, it is actually about three or four million, and in peacetime, it will probably take about three million to raise such a division, but if you want this division to go to war, it will cost hundreds of thousands or even millions a month.

For example, in the small Battle of Xuzhou, the Feng army attacking Xuzhou fired at least tens of thousands of shells. In the entire Jiangbei Campaign, the Feng army fired more than 300,000 rounds of artillery shells of various types, although most of them were relatively cheap 60-millimeter and 80-millimeter mortar shells, but the total cost of all kinds of artillery shells alone was nearly 12 million, and then the cost of bullets and food was also in the millions.

Then there is the loss of artillery, machine guns, rifles and other weapons, don't look at the Feng army is to win the battle in Jiangbei, kill 1,000 enemies and lose 800, although the Feng army is defeated and retreated, but its own ordnance loss is also very great, fortunately, the Feng army can get the ordnance and ammunition captured from the Lu army and the Anhui army, otherwise it will take at least several million to supplement the ordnance of these losses.

The purpose of the military's rest and replenishment plan is to restore the combat effectiveness of the troops at their peak, to put it bluntly, to stock up on enough ammunition, for example, to stock up on at least 500 shells for each 75mm gun!

As long as enough ammunition was stockpiled, the Feng army would be able to carry out the next large-scale battle, which was to cross the river and attack Jiangnan.

The reason why the southward troops of the Feng army began to slow down the offensive after taking Chuzhou and Hefei and marching to Anqing was not that they did not want to cross the river directly in one go, but that they were really exhausted, not only did the physical fitness and morale of the troops drop a lot, and they needed to rest and recuperate, but they were more in urgent need of ammunition, food and other military supplies.

If you rush across the river with insufficient preparation, you will not sweep the south of the Yangtze River at that time, but will be slapped to death by Duan Qirui.

To hoard so much ammunition, the cost of this is naturally not a small amount.

After Xiong Xiling heard this, he also pondered!

Although he won't let go of his mouth many times, no matter who comes to get the money, even if he comes with Zhao Dongyun's handwritten instructions, he Xiong Xiling can push it, and if he can't push it, he will delay it until he can't delay it and then give money. If this were not the case, the money under his Xiong Xiling's hands would have been gone a long time ago, and if he had spent all the money, let alone any expansion of the army, he would not even be able to take out the money to buy ammunition at that time.

In the final analysis, in fact, Xiong Xiling is also just to raise military spending, but those people in the military don't care what Xiong Xiling thinks, they all want to expand the army every day, regardless of whether the cabinet and the Ministry of Finance have money or not!

After pondering for a while, Xiong Xiling spoke: "I still have a sum of money from the Ministry of Education, and if the president allows it, I can also take it out to buy ammunition first!" ”

How much does the Ministry of Education fund? Zhao Dongyun frowned slightly after hearing this, and then said, "How many?" ”

"Two million, is it next year's funding for Fengtian University or Beijing Normal University, Shandong University's domestic colleges and universities, and there is also a fund for students studying in Germany and the United States!" When Xiong Xiling said, it was already predictable, I am afraid that Xu Hongbao and others from the Ministry of Education will hate themselves to the bone, they have delayed and even relied on several funds from the Ministry of Education many times before, and now if they embezzle it, it is estimated that the people on the Ministry of Education will eat their hearts.

Zhao Dongyun also frowned slightly when he heard this, this education fund has been misappropriated many times, and if it is misappropriated, I am afraid that the level of higher education in China will be delayed for a few years! But he quickly made up his mind to use the money to buy ammunition first, and as for education, let's wait until he unified China!

Everyone knows the importance of cultivating people for a hundred years, but now Zhao Dongyun has not completely unified China, if he is not sure that he will be ousted by Duan Qirui or those guys in the Southern Federation, then the talents he has spent a lot of money to cultivate will not fall into the pockets of others.

Now that Yiqiē is focusing on the war, not to mention the education funds, he has even delayed the salaries of officials for a long time, so after thinking about it a little, he said decisively: "Then take it out first, and then plan the funds for colleges and universities required by the Ministry of Education, and the funds for studying abroad, Liang Shiyi is not talking with the Americans about Gengzi refunds, if he can negotiate, let the international students go to the United States to study." ”

Gengzi's refund has been rumored in previous years, but the actual promotion is this year, to be precise, after Zhao Dongyun recruited Liang Shiyi!

Liang Shiyi is also an old Beiyang, and this person is more interesting, he is engaged in several directions, and he has been the general office of the Beiyang Editorial Bureau, which can be regarded as a staff member. Later, he went to Britain with Tang Shaoyi to sign a treaty, and he reluctantly got involved in diplomacy. Later, he served as the chief copywriter of the railway, which can be regarded as having a relationship with the railway. After the republic last year, this person joined Wang Yingkai's command, and in addition to serving as the director of the railway department, he also began to run the Bank of Communications and concurrently served as the general manager of the bank, so this person was involved in finance again.

Looking at the person's resume, you will find that this person is proficient in a lot of things, and of course, there is also the problem of having a lot of things but not being proficient.

After Zhao Dongyun moved into Beijing, he, like most civil officials in the Beiyang system such as Zhou Xuexi, changed his court and began to be loyal to Zhao Dongyun. But then again, including Zhou Xuexi and Tang Shaoyi, these civil officials in the Beiyang system are actually not loyal to any Beiyang bigwig, they are loyal to the Beiyang system, whether Yuan Shikai is in charge or Wang Yingkai is the boss or Zhao Dongyun is the president, they are all mixed in the Beiyang system as always.

After Zhao Dongyun moved into Beijing, he naturally cleaned up the entire government, and directly merged the Bank of Communications, which was still in the initial stage of development, into the central bank, and this Liang Shiyi was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by him and became the deputy director of the Americas Department.

After this person played diplomacy again, he quickly set his sights on the Americans, to be precise, the Americans' Gengzi indemnity, and wanted the Americans to return the Gengzi indemnity to use it for study abroad funds.

Zhao Dongyun is also more concerned about this, although he knows that there is such a thing in history, the Americans refunded the money to set up a Tsinghua University, but now the history has become a mess, Yuan Shikai is dead, a Southern Federation has emerged, Cixi and Guangxu are not dead, the whole China is in chaos, and the bigwigs of all parties have risen and fallen like changing lights. The famous Zhang Zuolin in history was exterminated by Zhao Dongyun as a horse bandit, Feng Guozhang was defeated by himself and fled to the Tianjin Concession as a duke, the original unknown Wang Yingkai replaced Yuan Shikai in the original history, and became the first republican president of China for thousands of years, but he was soon defeated by Zhao Dongyun, and he also ran to Tianjin as a duke, and it is rumored that he and Feng Guozhang often drank together with each other.

Now the China where Zhao Dongyun is located has nothing to do with the original China in history!

Not only was the country instigated by the butterfly of Zhao Dongyun, but even the international shape shì was also affected by the butterfly of Zhao Dongyun, a series of battles in the Russo-Japanese War and history are completely different, the Russo-Japanese War in history is famous at home and abroad for its huge casualties, but in this time and space, the Lushun Battle between Japan and Russia was carried out for a longer time, and the casualties on both sides were much smaller, the Japanese army failed to conquer Liaoyang and Mukden from the beginning to the end, although the Russian Navy suffered huge losses in a sea battle, but the JapaneseI'm not much better.

Historically, after the Russo-Japanese War, the Manchurian Railway did not appear, but a six-nation joint control of the Middle East Railway Company appeared, and Lushun was not occupied by the Japanese, but it became a public concession like Shanghai.

This era is completely different from the era in Zhao Dongyun's memory, so when Zhao Dongyun thinks about things, he rarely relies on the memory of later generations, and analyzes more according to the many situations he controls now, and then makes the most optimal choice.

Since so many things have changed, Zhao Dongyun is not sure if this Gengzi refund will change, but as long as there is hope, he still has to fight for it, so there are tens of millions of dollars, although this money is impossible for him to use to expand the army, but it is enough for him to send many students to study in the United States every year.