As for the officers, they have already broken away from the low-level of the big soldiers, and they do not value a few taels or dozens of taels of silver, they want a better development prospect, simply put, they are promoted and rich. The officers knew that the reduction in salaries was to expand the army, and that the larger the army, the more vacancies, and the promotion.

Since the salary expenditure of the army has been cut, Zhao Dongyun also intends to suppress the civilian official group that has always received high salaries, and many administrative officials in the three eastern provinces spend millions of dollars in salary every year, and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands can be squeezed out if they are squeezed out, and this aspect does not need to be as obvious as the direct reduction of military salaries in the army, because the salary of civilian officials mainly depends on bonuses, and bonuses can be floated, and when the time comes, reducing the amount of bonuses can significantly reduce the salary expenses of administrative officials.

The main reason why Zhao Dongyun has made a move on the salaries of personnel is that the bulk of the army's maintenance in recent years has been in terms of salaries, especially in peacetime, and the bulk of the troops' expenses are the salaries of personnel, and a division alone has more than 3 million yuan in personnel salaries every year, and the normal replacement and training of equipment is far from that much. Of course, when fighting a war, I have to say that the biggest expenditure during the war is the cost of ammunition, especially the cost of artillery shells, and the cost of shells fired by this artillery regiment is casually more than 100,000 yuan, and if you only shoot 10,000 taels of silver for shells, you are embarrassed to say that this is a regiment-level shelling.

"In addition, you have to hurry up with the outfit change work on the patrol force's side! I have instructed the Ministry of Education to carry out an in-depth reduction of the existing patrol regiments, and the Quan Xuan Division has arranged for many active army officers to serve in the patrol units, and I do not want the patrol forces to be completely new and equipped with those old rifles! ”

Zhao Dongping wrote down Zhao Dongyun's words one by one, and thought secretly in his heart: "I'm afraid that the patrol force will be built as a field force!" ”

Different from what Zhao Dongping thought, Zhao Dongyun did not have the idea of treating the patrol force as a field force, although the personnel and rifles of these patrol troops have been replaced one after another, but the habit of the old army is still very strong, and there is no atmosphere of the regular army field troops.

This army, it's not just a young man who can carry a new rifle!

What's more important is all kinds of training and high-quality officers and a large number of heavy weapons, and the era of relying on platoon guns to fight the world has passed for many years!

In the future, these patrol officers will be able to fight in the field troops, and when they lead their troops into the customs in the future, it will be good if they can stabilize the internal situation in the three eastern provinces.

In order to further speed up the pace of army expansion, Zhao Dongyun, who was slightly dissatisfied with the speed of army building of the First Division of the Army in the three eastern provinces, announced in mid-May that he would allocate 300,000 yuan to the embassy for the inspection of the army, which would be used for the department's special army building funds.

At the end of May, Zhao Dongyun ordered the military to prepare for the establishment of two mixed brigades, squeezed out 200,000 yuan from the administrative office funds of the Government Affairs Yuan, transferred 300,000 yuan of profits from the Fengtian Mint Bureau and Fengtian Bank, transferred 200,000 yuan from the Huludao Customs, and sent 300,000 yuan to the special funds of the inspection embassy, a total of 1 million yuan as the preliminary preparation funds, and awarded the titles of "the First Mixed Brigade of the Army of the Three Eastern Provinces" and "the Second Mixed Brigade of the Army of the Three Eastern Provinces."

Of course, if we only rely on the above funds, there is actually no way to build a new division and two mixed brigades, and the shortage is still relatively large, but since the military has cut salaries and expenses, it has freed up more than 1 million yuan, and this is the real solution to the problem of funds for the preparation of the above three units.

From May to June, Zhao Dongyun reversed the suppression of the previous months, regardless of the financial predicament, and stubbornly accelerated and increased the pace of military expansion, which made many people feel unusual.

You must know that Zhao Dongyun raised not only the funds of the government and the military in order to expand the army, but also took out 600,000 'special funds for the inspection of the embassy' out of his own pocket.

What is the special fund for the Patrol Embassy? Under the previous financial system of the three eastern provinces, the money was allocated by the Finance Bureau and at the disposal of the Secretariat of the Visiting Embassy, which was mainly used for Zhao Dongyun's life and office.

However, everyone knows that Zhao Dongyun himself is a millionaire, worth more than 10 million, and his daily use is also a lot of money, plus Fang Ruolian and Li Wan, the two wives are extravagant, among them, Fang Ruolian, who has no big concept of money, is often a spendthrift, and when she went to Shanghai to visit the two elders of the Fang family at the end of last year, she spent more than 20,000 taels of silver for a month in Shanghai.

And Li Wan seems to be a petty bourgeoisie, holding up a book would have given people the influence of not liking to spend money, but to be a petty bourgeois woman in 1907, she has to be in style, this is not good without money, the books she reads are Parisian, the perfume she uses is Parisian, the clothes she wears are Parisian, the shoes she wears are Parisian, and even the crystal cups for drinking coffee are imported from Paris, in order to eat a favorite strawberry cake, the house specially hired an Italian chef, this petty bourgeois woman's daily expenses are actually more than Fang Ruolian.

Well, just like the 'goddess who is not a beauty' in later generations was piled up by money, the petty bourgeois women in these years are also piled up with money, not that the rich family can't afford to play with the word petty bourgeoisie.

Although there are not many people in the Zhao Dongyun family who live in the patrol embassy's mansion, the daily expenses are extremely amazing, and they have to pay more than 100,000 or 200,000 yuan every year, Zhao Dongyun also knows that his own expenses are relatively large, and he is not bad for money, so he also let the Finance Bureau allocate 100,000 yuan a year, and the excess is paid by himself.

However, now in order to expand the army, Zhao Dongyun has taken out two consecutive rounds of 600,000 yuan for the parade funds, and everyone knows that this money is Zhao Dongyun's private money.

It's just that it's not easy for Zhao Dongyun to come up with this money, although he is worth a lot, but most of them are shares of Fuyuan Company, these shares are fixed assets, and there are not many activity funds that he can mobilize, plus in the first half of the year, Fuyuan Company bought more than one million bonds in order to support Zhao Dongyun, which is Yan zhòng squeezed out the liquidity of Fuyuan Company.

Now that he has taken out 600,000 yuan, it is difficult for Zhao Dongyun to take out how much money he can put into the bottomless pit of the army in the short term.

The so-called worth of tens of millions, a certain kind of Cheng dù is just a fictitious head, because most of this money is fixed assets, and it can't be spent at all.

In mid-May, Wang Yingkai announced the establishment of the Third Army, which had Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division and Jiang Guidi's Sixth Mixed Brigade, with Zhang Huaizhi concurrently serving as the commander of the Third Army.

For Wang Yingkai's step-by-step pressing, Duan Qirui gritted his teeth and swallowed back into his stomach, and then gathered several of his descendants to cross the Yangtze River from the Dangtu area, and the remaining warships of the Southern Federation were all in the Nanjing area at this time, and when the Southern Federation reacted, Duan Qirui's main fourth division had already crossed the Yangtze River.

In early June, Duan Qirui personally led the Fourth Division and the Fourth Division's Supplementary Brigade across the Yangtze River, and then advanced eastward toward Nanjing, while on the north bank of Nanjing, Duan Qirui's Second Mixed Brigade of the other subordinate troops joined two mixed brigades of the Liangjiang Army to launch a diversionary attack on the Southern Union Army in Nanjing.

After crossing the Yangtze River, Duan Qirui personally led more than 20,000 people to launch a fierce attack in the direction of the south bank of Nanjing, and in just two days, Duan Qirui's Fourth Division forward troops had arrived outside Nanjing, and then Duan Qirui gathered the Fourth Division, the Second Mixed Brigade, the Fourth Division Supplementary Brigade, and the First Mixed Brigade and the Second Mixed Brigade of the Liangjiang Army, which had just been formed not long ago, to launch a fierce attack on Nanjing.

On June 6, the north bank of Nanjing was conquered by the 2nd Mixed Brigade, and on the 8th, Duanfang fled from Nanjing to Zhenjiang at night.

As soon as the end side left, Yinchang, who was in charge of the actual battle, could no longer control the remaining federal troops in Nanjing, and the next day several units were dispersed, and on the 10th, Yinchang, who could not support it, was also forced to lead 20,000 remnants to escape from Nanjing, all the way to Zhenjiang.

However, on the way to evacuate, there was a remnant army of 4,000 people who were caught up by the cavalry detachment under Duan Qirui, and the cavalry detachment under Duan Qirui was mainly the cavalry regiment of the Fourth Division, and a battalion was forcibly obtained from Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division and a cavalry battalion of the supplementary brigade of the Fourth Division, although the total strength was not as good as one of the two cavalry brigades under Zhao Dongyun, but there were more than 1,600 cavalry. This kind of cavalry strength is not small in the country, especially in the southern region.

After the cavalry of this division caught up with the more than 4,000 troops of the division, they once again completely defeated the division, and even captured more than 2,000 people.

On June 12th, Duan Qirui finally rode his war horse into Nanjing!

Looking at Nanjing, which still exudes a strong smell of gunsmoke, Duan Qirui felt a lot, in order to conquer this Nanjing, in order to seize this Jiangnan, he paid too much, not only endured a lot of suppression brought to him by Wang Yingkai, but also in order to quickly conquer Nanjing, so as not to let the Battle of Nanjing become as long as the Battle of Wuhan, he can be said to have no scruples about casualties to launch a fierce attack, several troops attacking Nanjing have suffered a lot of losses, among which two infantry battalions in the fourth division of the main force of his descendants have been disabled.

However, it was Duan Qirui's fierce attack regardless of casualties that made it difficult for Duanfang and Yinchang to continue, although the strength of the Southern Federation far exceeded Duan Qirui's First Army, but the firepower, morale and officers of the two sides were very different, and it was not surprising that the Fourth Division was defeated.

Duan Qirui was transferred away by Wang Yingkai from the Fifth Division and the Sixth Mixed Brigade, and he still won Nanjing in a short period of time by relying on his descendants, which once again surprised Wang Yingkai and even Zhao Dongyun.

"Without those guys in the south being so useless, the 100,000 army in Nanjing couldn't hold it for even half a month!" Zhao Dongyun also had a headache after learning that Duan Qirui conquered Nanjing, and the development of this Qirui was much faster than he expected.

"You remember, the ordnance ordered by Liangjiang last month was detained first, well, let's just say that the production is insufficient and cannot be delivered for the time being!" Although Zhao Dongyun knew that Duan Qirui could buy ordnance from the foreign bank, and the ordnance he detained Duan Qirui had limited impact on him, but at this time, it was better to limit it!

Zhao Dongyun frowned and wanted to detain Duan Qirui's ordnance, but Duan Qirui's side was very fast, on June 18, his troops conquered Zhenjiang, on the 20th to conquer Shanghai, and on the 24th in Hangzhou, a mixed association of the Southern Federation was incorporated by him anyway, in just six months, he not only captured the entire Jiangnan, but also marched to northern Zhejiang, southern Anhui and other regions.

Since the Battle of Nanjing, Duanfang and Yinchang have not been able to organize a large-scale blockade at all, if it weren't for the troops under Duan Qirui who had to march on two feet, it is estimated that even Zhejiang and Jiangxi would have been taken now.

When Duan Qirui was singing a triumphant song in Liangjiang and was about to completely control Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, southern Anhui and other regions, Wang Yingkai's secret envoy also arrived in Shenyang!