The military base camp of the three eastern provinces, located in the 'Army Headquarters of the Three Eastern Provinces' on the edge of Shenyang's Jinyinku Hutong, a large number of generals and officers gathered together and talked about something in their ears.

Since Zhao Dongyun took charge of Fengtian, the names of various institutions under his command have also been changing, for example, when he only controlled Jinzhou and other western Liaoning regions, the main institutions under his command were the internal departments of the third town, and after he took office as the general of Shengjing, the internal organs of the third town were divided into two, like Li San and the civil officials in the secretariat and the supervision office all entered the general bureaus and departments of the Yamen of the Shengjing General's Mansion, and the military officials successively served as the Fengtian Supervision and Training Office.

At that time, the cultural relics officials under Zhao Dongyun officially parted ways and went their separate ways!

Immediately after Yuan Shikai was assassinated last year, the Qing court quickly appointed Zhao Dongyun as the governor of the three eastern provinces.

At that time, the yamen of the Shengjing General's Mansion became the yamen of the governor of the three eastern provinces, and the Fengtian Governor's Training Office was restructured into the Fengtian Army Headquarters.

A few months later, after the Beiyang generals overthrew the Manchu Qing Dynasty and established the republic, Zhao Dongyun became the vice president and concurrently served as the patrol envoy of the three eastern provinces.

Compared with the successful restructuring of the Government Council last year, the restructuring of the Fengtian Army Headquarters was much delayed, and it was not until late January that Zhao Dongyun changed the 'Fengtian Army Headquarters' to the 'Army Headquarters of the Three Eastern Provinces,' which was under the direct jurisdiction of the Patrol Embassy.

The various organs under the jurisdiction of the headquarters are still the original four major departments of staff, ordnance, quartermaster, and education, but they were reorganized into departments, and then the Navy Department, the General Affairs Office, and the Quanxu Department were added, and so far the headquarters has a total of four departments and three departments directly under its jurisdiction, and Zhao Dongyun personally serves as the commander-in-chief, and there is no post such as deputy commander or chief of general staff, and he manages four departments and three departments vertically.

In the course of the restructuring, Zhao Dongyun also followed the example of the Japanese military headquarters and the German General Staff, emphasizing the powers of the General Staff, and directing the establishment of a series of important departments within the General Staff Department to give full command to the training, deployment, and operational affairs of the whole army. However, in order to contain the General Staff, Zhao Dongyun still maintained the Ministry of Education, and the power of recruitment and recruit training was still independent, and at the same time, the Quanxu Section was separated from the General Staff to establish the Quanxu Department.

What kind of organization is this office? Unlike the Quanxu Department in the Central Committee of the Beijing Division, which only has the power to confer titles, this Quanxu Office in the three eastern provinces is not only in charge of conferring titles, but also actually has the power to appoint officers, except for some important middle-level positions and high-level positions that are personally arranged by Zhao Dongyun, other middle- and low-level appointments are arranged by the Quanxu Office, in other words, this agency has personnel power.

Of course, the most important thing is that Zhao Dongyun has to always grasp the personnel power in his hands, and he cannot allow others to get involved, even the most intimate Soviet generals such as Meng Enyuan and Lin Yongquan.

In fact, the deposit of the Quanxu Department and the deposit of the Ministry of Education, plus even the military salaries were distributed by the Salary Department of the Ordnance Department to the whole army, and they were directly distributed to the soldiers' bank accounts in the Mukden Bank, which led to the fact that the control of the high-ranking generals of the Soviet system was far less powerful than that of several other warlords in Beiyang.

All of the above can be regarded as Zhao Dongyun's measures to reinstate the central military power and strengthen his control over the troops.

Along with the restructuring of the army headquarters of the three eastern provinces, the military also carried out defense work, such as the transfer of the 9th Division to Harbin and the transfer of the 5th Mixed Brigade to Andong.

In mid-January, he abolished the Jinzhou Defense Command and established the Shenyang Defense Command and the Harbin Defense Command, of which the Harbin Defense Command was concurrently served by Lin Yongquan, commander of the Ninth Division, and the Shenyang Defense Command was concurrently served by Xu Bangjie, commander of the 10th Division.

As a result, the three most powerful generals under Zhao Dongyun all sat in the position of defense commander, and their military ranks were all lieutenant generals, and in addition to these three people who had the rank of lieutenant general, there was also the new commander of the Third Division, Chen Guangyuan.

As for the young generals, there are more of them, the brigade commanders of the six infantry brigades such as Kong Weibei, Gu Lanyu and others, the brigade commanders of the three mixed brigades such as Cao Kun and He Zonglian, the brigade commanders of the two cavalry brigades are Hua Zhenji and Lu Shuanggun, and then there are Fang Biyong of the General Staff of the Headquarters, Zhao Dongping of the Ordnance Department, Hong Putao of the Quartermaster Department, and Yang Shande of the Ministry of Education.

There are about 20 high-ranking generals in the three eastern provinces, or the Soviet Union, and it is not too much to say that it is not too little, but today in this small conference room of the headquarters of the three eastern provinces, there are two lieutenant generals and five or six junior generals, which account for a small half of the high-ranking generals of the Soviet system today.

Among them, Xu Bangjie, who was dressed in a senior general's dress and wore a 'general's epaulettes, whispered to Meng Enyuan: "Old Meng, I'm afraid it's not easy to deal with the Government Council this time, that Xiong Xiling's old horseman actually submitted his resignation to the marshal regardless of his face!" ”

Meng Enyuan also frowned: "I knew that the government would definitely not watch us reorganize the army!" ”

"I'll go to see the marshal tomorrow, now Wang Yingkai in the west is reorganizing his army for battle, and as soon as he makes a move, he is going to expand two divisions, and there is a lot of pressure on the Yuguan side now, if we don't expand the army in time to deal with it, and wait for Wang Yingkai's 11th and 12th divisions to become an army, what should we do?" Meng Enyuan's face was ruthless: "We must not let those guys who only know money in the Government Council ruin my plans for the three eastern provinces!" ”

What is the plan of the three eastern provinces? Naturally, he entered the customs and won the Zhili, pushed Zhao Dongyun to the presidential throne, and then the civil officials and military generals under him were addicted to the founding heroes, well, maybe when Zhao Dongyun died, he could also be a president.

Last year, because of the chaos of the situation in the south, and Wang Yingkai's momentum was indeed stronger at that time, Wang Yingkai, who pulled Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen, Wang Ruxian and Zhang Huaizhi, made a so-called coalition army, and the strength exceeded the Soviet army, which forced the two sides to hold peace talks, and then the Soviet troops returned to Fengtian, but everyone knew that this was only temporary, what Zhao Dongyun, the boss, thought Meng Enyuan didn't know, but he knew that whether it was himself or other high-level generals in the military, One by one, they all dreamed of entering the Guannai and controlling Zhili and even the whole of North China.

It can even be said that the plan to fill up the number of men in the previous months and the current plan to expand an infantry division are all prepared for entering the customs.

"I think it's a little hanging, it's been two days of hard work, but the big handsome side has been holding on, maybe it's not accurate, just dragging!"

After Xiong Xiling handed in his resignation, Zhao Dongyun played the trick of staying in the middle and not sending it, he didn't say that he approved Xiong Xiling's resignation, and he didn't say it was uncertain, anyway, it was as if he hadn't received the resignation, Xiong Xiling was also a bachelor, and after the resignation, he didn't go to the Finance Bureau to work, but stayed at home and waited for news.

Although this resignation turmoil was provoked by Xiong Xiling, the main reason was that the military had oppressed him too much, and although Fengtian's financial situation had been supported by the issuance of treasury bonds in the past few months, it was still not much better, and Xiong Xiling had no way to get an extra three or four million military funds for the military.

In addition, Zhao Dongyun also hinted at him, asking the Finance Bureau to make every effort to meet military expenses, and even embezzle part of the administrative and educational funds.

Under the pressure of both ends, Xiong Xiling simply retreated to advance, Lao Tzu quit, you like to find whoever to do.

"You say, are we going to push the government council too much? I don't think they can come up with any money, so why don't they take some of it first, and let's take it step by step, first train a brigade, and then gradually expand and train a division? Major General Lin Pingxiong, commander of the 18th Brigade on the side, said: "I heard that there is a lot of noise in the Government Council! ”

However, Meng Enyuan frowned: "Wang Yingkai and they get two divisions, we only get one division is enough enough, if you still take your time, it is estimated that there will be no way to become an army next year, I am afraid that Wang Yingkai's two divisions will have already been trained, in that case, Tangshan will still be necessary, Chengde will be left?" ”

The next day, Meng Enyuan, who came back to Shenyang to report on his work, saw Zhao Dongyun, and the two talked in Zhao Dongyun's study for more than half an hour.

Fang Biyong of the front staff and Xu Bangjie, commander of the Shenyang Defense Department, just started to promote the expansion plan, and then Meng Enyuan returned to Shenyang to see Zhao Dongyun under the name of reporting on his work.

When the secretariat was guessing, Zhao Dongyun also sighed in his study, this is not easy to be the boss!

Now he can be regarded as having experienced the feeling of Yuan Shikai when he faced Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai and others fighting each other, although it is a good thing to balance his subordinates, it is not a matter to watch them play infighting every day.

The development of the struggle between the military and the government council this time can be said to be beyond his expectations, when he divided the civil and military forces, he did not expect that it would cause such a large competition in the civil and military systems.

But he also understands that the main and most direct reason for the trouble this time is the problem of money.

It's not that there is no money from the Finance Bureau, and you can still take out three or five million if you squeeze it, but they can't give it, because these money are the follow-up administrative and education funds of the three eastern provinces, what are administrative funds? To put it bluntly, it's the salaries of officials!

Because Zhao Dongyun played a similar high-salary system to the pre-Qing Dynasty, simply put, it was to unify all kinds of bad rules and regulations in the pre-Qing era, and then replace them with salaries and bonuses, and the annual salary of a county magistrate was several thousand taels of silver, and at most seventy or eighty thousand or even tens of thousands, for example, when Xiong Xiling served as the manager of Huludao Industrial Zone, the annual salary and bonus combined with an annual income of more than 20,000 taels of silver, which was higher than Zhao Dongyun's salary......

In fact, this income level is far higher than that of ordinary businessmen and landlords, but the salaries of officials are generally high, which is not a small amount of money needed to pay the salaries of so many officials in the three eastern provinces.

Now that the military has put its hands into the administrative funds, isn't this going to directly take away other people's jobs, everyone has a family, how do you let the government support the family if you don't get a salary this month?

But not every government official is worth millions like Zhao Dongyun, although many people have quite a lot of industry, but this salary income is still a large head, the income of tens of thousands of taels of silver a year For the vast majority of middle and senior officials, even if they will take bribes and have other ways to get money, but tens of thousands of taels of silver a year are still their main income.

At least on the surface, those officials will never admit that they can support their families without a salary!

In addition to salaries, there are also education funds, which are not much, and they also have to maintain the educational development of the entire three eastern provinces, and the government-sent students sent out every year also need a lot of money, not to mention the fact that at the beginning of the year, in order to arrange for more than 20 graduates of the Fengtian Military Academy to go to Germany to study military affairs, and to arrange for more than 10 students from Fengtian Middle School, Jinzhou Middle School, and other schools to study at several universities in the United Kingdom, the Education Bureau spent nearly 10,000 pounds of funds.

The cost of sending students to the government is extremely high, and the minimum cost of an international student is more than 300 pounds, and more than 30 people are nearly 10,000 pounds.

In addition, the three eastern provinces are still building primary schools and teacher education on a large scale, which requires a lot of money, and the education funds are already tight, and the military is still planning to reach out, naturally because of the dissatisfaction of the Government Council.

Although Xiong Xiling's resignation is a personal act, it represents the collective will of the civil official group of the Government Council, so Zhao Dongyun cannot deal with it hastily, and this is why he has been pressing Xiong Xiling's resignation letter and has not reacted.

He has to find a balance point, properly handle the contradictions between the government council and the military, and he can't be involved himself, when he is the boss, he has to be the boss, the people below fight each other, what you have to do is to be a good referee, not put on your own armor and go into battle in person!