Once upon a time, Wang Shizhen was also in the limelight, when he went all the way south from Zhili, successively won Henan and northern Hubei regions, and was about to take Wuchang in one go, and then took the entire Hubei into the bag, but was met with Zhang Zhidong's stubborn resistance, and then formed a stalemate.

In the summer of 1907, as the Feng army defeated the direct army and went south to Henan, Wang Shizhen sent the troops north to resist the Feng army and suffered a series of heavy defeats, and was finally forced to retreat to Wusheng Pass, at this time Zhang Zhidong was also attacked by him, bringing together more than 100,000 troops to launch a counteroffensive against him, once put him in a dangerous situation of two-front warfare, in order to avoid the fate of annihilation, in order to be able to continue to stand on the stage of China's politics, he was forced to choose to give in to Zhao Dongyun.

Following Wu Fengling, he officially announced the legitimacy of recognizing Zhao Dongyun's succession to the presidency, and declared his allegiance to the central government, in exchange for the withdrawal of the Feng army and the subsequent support of ordnance and materials.

In the second half of last year, although most of the eyes of the people in China were focused on the Jiangbei War between the two armies of Fengwan and Anhui, in fact, at that time, many wars broke out in the whole of China, Wu Fengling and Zhao Erxun fought in Shaanxi for several months, and Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong also fought in Hubei for several months, and the Anhui army in Fujian and Guangdong was also fighting with the southern coalition forces led by Xiliang and Duanfang.

It's just that at that time, the eyes of the whole country, including Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen and others, were tightly focused on the Jiangbei War between the two armies of Fengwan and Anhui, so that ordinary people paid little attention to the wars that broke out in other parts of the country.

Last year's Wang Shizhen in order to recapture Jiangbei, the losses were not only heavy, the loss of troops will be as high as more than 20,000, the loss of guns is also as high as more than 10,000, if purely from the perspective of military spending, in the second half of last year Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong fought a series of battles, the military expenditure exceeded 10 million.

It was this war that made Wang Shizhen completely wounded, and the money looted from Zhili, Henan and other places was basically consumed, and then in order to rebuild the troops, pay for conscription and purchase of ordnance, Wang Shizhen had to increase the looting of the northern Hubei region, which once made the local people very resentful of Wang Shizhen.

However, this could not recover his losses in the war in the second half of last year, as can be seen from Wang Shizhen's failure to recover the more than 60,000 troops at the peak of last year.

Wang Shizhen, who was more short of money than Wu Fengling, in order to recruit soldiers and buy ordnance, could be said to have gray hair.

In order to recruit soldiers, he even tried to learn from the great powers to play the so-called compulsory military system, and the result was naturally tragic.

In the end, he was forced to use the method of reducing the salary to reduce the cost of the salary of the personnel, but how to say it, you get what you pay for, and the salary you give is low, and the recruited soldiers will naturally be reduced accordingly, and the principle of getting what you get for is also applicable to the warlord melee period of this era.

In terms of ordnance and ammunition, he also followed the old path of Wu Fengling and began to purchase arms provided by the Soviet Union on a large scale, for the simple reason that he could not buy foreign arms, but because the arms sold to him by the Soviet system were cheaper.

It's cheap, and that's enough!

However, the arms provided to him by the Soviet Department were better last year, when he and Zhao Dongyun had just reached a superficial alliance agreement and publicly allegiance to the republican government, and Zhao Dongyun also needed him to stop Zhang Zhidong's Northern Expedition offensive at that time, so although the Soviet Department's arms supply to Wang Shizhen at that time was also tight, it was enough for Wang Shizhen to launch several counteroffences in a row and recapture Hanyang and other areas.

However, since Wang Shizhen took that and regained control of the northern Hubei region north of the Yangtze River, Zhao Dongyun immediately reduced the supply of ordnance to the Hubei army, and the purpose was very obvious, that is, Zhao Dongyun did not want Wang Shizhen to be able to cross the Yangtze River in one go, so he immediately cut off the possibility of Wang Shizhen's Hubei army continuing to cross the river and attack in terms of logistics.

At the beginning, Wang Shizhen was angry to death by this incident, it was not easy for him to annihilate tens of thousands of Zhang Zhidong troops in Jiangbei, and when he was about to cross the river and take Wuchang in one fell swoop, and completely lay the situation in Hubei, Zhao Dongyun cut off the logistics supply to him, how could this make him not angry.

On the one hand, he was forced to continue to bow to Zhao Dongyun, the so-called is to be able to continue to obtain low-cost ordnance and ammunition from Zhao Dongyun, and on the other hand, he is also re-contacting those foreigners, trying to establish diversified ordnance supply channels, but in the past two years, the price of the arms market in the Far East, especially in China, has risen again and again, and the price of directly importing ordnance from foreign companies in various countries has been much more than before the Russo-Japanese War.

Wang Shizhen, who was shy in his pocket, could not import tens of millions of yuan of artillery from Germany in one go like Zhao Dongyun, he could only buy a small amount of small quantities, and the bulk of it still had to be purchased from the Soviet Union.

Speaking of the strategic environment and economic strength, in fact, Wang Shizhen's situation is worse than Wu Fengling, at least Wu Fengling can still monopolize a Shanxi, and is currently struggling to take Shaanxi. However, Wang Shizhen is sandwiched between the Soviet system and Zhang Zhidong, in the eyes of Zhao Dongyun, Wang Shizhen's purpose is to temporarily act as a buffer zone between the Feng army and the Southern Federation, so as to avoid a direct conflict between the Feng army and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation before completely taking the Anhui army.

This year, in order to prepare for the Jiangnan Campaign, all the ordnance materials were limited to supply their own Feng army, and it reduced the already small ordnance support for Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen.

In order to purchase enough ordnance and ammunition, Wang Shizhen had to buy high-priced imported ordnance and ammunition from foreign companies, which further worsened Wang Shizhen's already tight financial situation.

After entering the summer of 1908, Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen's situation was extremely tragic, the only difference was that Wu Fengling still had a glimmer of hope, as long as he could win Shaanxi, and then march into Gansu and even Sichuan, then there would still be a chance to play chess, and it may not be impossible to continue to develop.

As for Wang Shizhen, he was sandwiched between the Su Department and Zhang Zhidong, and he didn't have any chance to move at all, and what was waiting for him in the end was just destruction.

It's just that Wang Shizhen is not willing!

The reason for his unwillingness is the same as Wu Fengling, Wang Zhanyuan and others: why is he Zhao Dongyun?

Once upon a time, he Zhao Dongyun was just like himself and others, he was just one of the Beiyang bigwigs, compared to his prestige in Beiyang, Zhao Dongyun was far inferior to Wang Yingkai, and even inferior to Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen. Many people will think that the reason why Zhao Dongyun can have today is nothing more than luck.

With Zhao Dongyun's qualifications and prestige in Beiyang in his early years, sitting on today's position as president is unconvincing to many people, and as for Zhao Dongyun's attempt to unify China, this makes more people unconvinced.

Duan Qirui is not convinced, Wang Shizhen is not convinced, Wu Fengling is not convinced, and any of the Beiyang bigwigs are not convinced, not to mention those people in the Southern Federation, in the eyes of Zhang Zhidong, Duan Fang, Zhao Erxun and others in the Southern Federation, that Zhao Dongyun is just a yellow-haired child who has not grown all his hair, when they were fighting with Yuan Shikai, Zhao Dongyun, a little kid, didn't know that the cat was playing with mud in that corner.

The rise of Zhao Dongyun is unconvinced by many people.

What if you just don't accept it?

Zhao Dongyun knows very well that a large number of people in China look at him unpleasantly, and he is even more unconvinced that the Soviet system led by him will unify China, but so what?

My favorite look is the way I look at me, but helpless.

For Zhao Dongyun, other people's feelings are not worth mentioning, no matter who stands in his way to unify China, he will trample on the past mercilessly, even if he dirties his shoes for this.

Duan Qirui stood in his way, was defeated by him, and now he can only flee to Zhejiang, and now he has heard that he has gone to Guangdong, it seems that he is pinning his hopes on Guangdong, and then regain his strength and compete with the Feng army again.

And the subsequent warlords of the Southern Federation, Wu Fengling, Wang Shizhen and others, if they stood in his way, he would also eliminate them all mercilessly.

Of course, now is not the time to turn against Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen, now what Zhao Dongyun has to do is to restrict the development of Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen, and then continue to go south to completely clean up Duan Qirui, as long as Fujian and Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Guangdong are taken down, Duan Qirui is completely destroyed, and then let Zhang Zhidong and Wu Fengling, Wang Shizhen and others struggle, because they can't escape the fate of annihilation one by one.

It's just that Zhao Dongyun can see these things, and others can also see them.

In the former governor's mansion of Guangzhou, now Duan Qirui's Liangjiang Patrol Embassy, Duan Qirui said with a gloomy face:

"Now relying on us alone, it is already difficult to stop Zhao Dongyun from going south, but I don't believe that they will watch Zhao Dongyun go to Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong without being indifferent, and they all understand the truth of cold lips and teeth!"

"Dashuai, if they were going to move, they would have done so last month, but they ......," said one of the people next to him.

Duan Qirui sneered: "I'm not saying that Wang Shizhen and Wu Fengling, these two wall grasses are unreliable!" ”

The others looked suspicious: "Could it be that the marshal means the Southern Federation?" ”

Duan Qirui nodded: "There are no eternal friends, let alone eternal enemies." ”

After saying this, he added: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend!" ”

"Zhang Nanpi is a person who can see the big situation clearly, he won't not know that once we fail, they will also not be able to escape the fate of annihilation, so as long as we take the initiative to show goodwill, we may not be able to pull them together to deal with the Feng army!"

When Duan Qirui said this, it fully proved that he had become a qualified warlord, and a warlord should not have any political factional tendencies, let alone any personal grievances, as long as he can help himself regain his territory and unify China, there is nothing that cannot be done, even if it is to cooperate with the Southern Federation!