Yuan Shikai died, and due to the relationship of a certain big butterfly, Yuan Shikai left this troubled country two months earlier than history. What is even more different from history is that Chinese society is entering a period of drastic change, which is not what the Western powers want to see.

After Yuan Shikai's death and Feng Guozhang's surrender, the Beiyang people finally realized the great danger they faced in front of the powerful Protector Army, and the southern provinces seized from Sun Wen during the Second Revolution were completely lost in this Protectorate War. If it was just the loss of territory, it was nothing, the most terrible thing was that it also lost three of the second, fourth and sixth divisions of the seven field divisions in Beiyang, in addition to the third and seventh divisions in Sichuan, so that Cai Yi could not be defeated, and barely fled back to Shaanxi, although Zhang Huaizhi's fifth division preserved its structure, it was also a big loss, to quote Duan Qirui's speech with the Beiyang generals at the Six Nations Hotel, there is no worse moment than now.

In the post-Yuan Shikai era, due to the fall of Feng Guozhang, Duan Qirui became the core of Beiyang. His descendants of the 1st, 5th, 7th, 10th, 15th, and 16th Divisions did not suffer any major blows in the Protectorate War. It can be said that almost all the Anhui systems in history have been preserved, so that after Lao Yuan, Beiyang has become united. Therefore, although in this Protectorate War, Beiyang Shili lost people, land and money, but considering that it still controls the territory and heavy industry in the north and the status of the central government, in the eyes of the great powers, Beiyang is still China's number one Shili group, which cannot be ignored.

And in the south, three bosses popped up at once. The first in this row is not Wang Zhenyu, who has benefited the most from this war, but Cai Yi, who was the first to launch the Protectorate War.

Compared with Wang Zhenyu, Cai Ye's victory is real. The Protectorate War first broke out in Yunnan and fought in Sichuan, which can be said to be the first uprising. But the result of this was that Lao Yuan gave priority to the use of all the troops that could be mobilized and all the materials that could be collected to the Sichuan battlefield. Lao Yuan's abacus is very formulaic, that is, the gun shoots the first bird, relying on the advantage of four or five times the strength of Cai Yi, striving to extinguish Cai Yi's uprising in the shortest possible period, and then killing chickens to show the monkeys. It's a pity that Cai Ye is not Sun Yat-sen, he is a highly talented student who graduated from the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School, and he is a professional military talent who was personally awarded the saber by the Japanese emperor. If it weren't for the fierce general Wu Peifu in the Beiyang Army, Cao Kun himself would have almost fallen into the hands of Cai Yi. So although Yuan Shikai made a lot of money, it is a pity that he lost money.

Although Cai Yi's results were only in Sichuan Province, his outstanding military command ability had attracted the attention of the Western powers, at least he was much better than Wang Zhenyu, who was motionless in Anjiang during the entire Protectorate War.

With such a heroic hero full of positive energy as Cai Yi, Wang Zhenyu, who had no outstanding performance on the battlefield, had no choice but to settle for second, but Wang Zhenyu didn't care about this, because he was the one who benefited the most from that point of view in this Protectorate War.

First of all, in terms of territory, Wang Zhenyu, who originally only owned one province in Guangxi and one place in Hunan and Xiangxi, successfully took advantage of the opportunity of Yuan Shikai's attention to Sichuan, and won the territory of Hunan, Guangdong, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Huzhou, Jiaxing, and Hangzhou in Zhejiang. In the words of the Japanese special high school, this is simply a classic case of a snake swallowing an elephant.

This victory was actually built on the basis of Wang Zhenyu's dedication to industrial and commercial development over the past four years, and on the basis of his 200,000 well-equipped and well-trained youth army. But if you think about it carefully, this is not enough to be a reason for him to defeat the Beiyang Army that the Qing Empire has trained with the strength of the whole country. The most tangible example of Wang Zhenyu's victory is that his military victories in Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, and Jiangxi provinces were to take advantage of the opportunity for the Beiyang Army to send troops from these four provinces to Sichuan to attack Cai Yi in order to guard against emptiness. Although the Battle of the Southeast claimed to be a victory with less, in fact, Feng Guozhang was unable to achieve the concentration of troops from beginning to end because of the lack of military funds and materials and the internal political struggle in Beiyang, Zhang Huaizhi of the Fifth Division did not contribute to the work, Lu Yongxiang of the Tenth Division was slow to act, and the 15th and 16th Divisions commanded by Xu Shuzheng simply pressed Xuzhou and did not move. The most serious consequence of this situation is that Feng Guozhang did a perfect battle, but because of his execution, it became the biggest joke of the Protectorate War. The troops that acted according to Jihua were finally broken by each other, coupled with accidents such as Zhao Yong's night attack, Anglo-French intervention, and fleet counter-water, Feng Guozhang's defeat became helpless for various reasons.

But no matter how lucky, it is a fact that Wang Zhenyu has gained territory in six or seven provinces, and it is also a fact that he successfully owned the Hanyang Arsenal, the Hanyang Iron and Steel Factory, the Jinling Arsenal, and the Shanghai Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and it is a huge fact that he has received dividends of more than 3 billion Chinese dollars in this huge victory and that his annual financial income has jumped from less than 40 million silver dollars (400 million Chinese yuan) to more than 400 million silver dollars (more than 4 billion Chinese dollars). And as his territory expanded, he was able to earn almost 12 billion Chinese dollars (24 billion Chinese dollars were issued to exchange for the currency in the market), which could fully make up for the money he spent to prepare and wage this war, and there was a slight surplus. The influence of the Kuomintang has also expanded greatly with the great victory in this war, and it has become one of the three major political parties in China along with the Chinese Revolutionary Party and the Progressive Party.

There is nothing more satisfying than Wang Zhenyu, but even so, Wang Zhenyu still has some regrets. Because Zhu Rui's performance was really substandard, Sun Wen's revolutionary army seized almost three-quarters of the territory of Zhejiang. But fortunately, Zhu Rui Zuihou bought the strength to successfully block Sun Wen's army in Hangzhou, thus keeping the territory of Shanghai, otherwise Wang Zhenyu would not mind treating Zhu Rui as a war criminal. As a result of the failure of the original intention to limit Sun Wen's shili to the province of Fujian, the affluent Zhejiang made Sun Wen's Chinese Revolutionary Party the third largest shili in the south.

As the smallest of the three major shili in the south, Sun Yat-sen's wealth surpassed that of Cai Yi. After all, the economic income of Zhejiang Province can offset the income of several provinces in the north and west, so now Sun Yat-sen has enough banknotes to support his army of 100,000. And this makes the Ningbo gang in Shanghai have one more choice, they feel that they are now qualified to compete with Wang Zhenyu, who has just entered Shanghai. As for the core of the call is the right to issue the Chinese Yuan, if Wang Zhenyu still does not agree to give them the right to issue currency, they do not mind keeping the Chinese Yuan out of Shanghai, just as they did with the transportation tickets issued by the central government of Yuan Shikai in the first place. In short, they don't like Wang Zhenyu, a nouveau riche in his twenties, because they feel that this young man is unruly and will not protect their interests. So after Chen Qimei was killed, these Shanghai tycoons got closer to Sun Yat-sen's side, at least in their opinion, compared to Wang Zhenyu, a pure warlord, Sun Yat-sen wanted more gentlemen and better fools.

But it doesn't matter, for Shanghai, Wang Zhenyu is not without any means, what really makes him feel a headache is actually Sun Yat-sen, or the 100,000 troops under his command. If this problem cannot be solved, then from Jiangsu to Jiangxi to Guangdong are within the scope of its attack, so don't say that after Cai Yi's death, the southwest will be pacified, and his emerging strength is likely to be wiped out under the tripartite capture of Sun Yat-sen, Duan Qirui, and Tang Jiyao. This is definitely not impossible, Sun Yat-sen's character Wang Zhenyu knows too well that in order to gain Japan's support to overthrow Yuan Shikai, the father of the nation openly declared his support for the co-prosperity of Greater East Asia, and determined that China has only eighteen provinces. In order to gain the support of the Soviet Union to overthrow Beiyang, he even gave the grassroots organization to ***, this person is weak on the outside, but in essence he is a person who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals.

Therefore, long before the five-party talks, Wang Zhenyu decided to win over Sun Yat-sen no matter what, and take advantage of his own lack of strength to achieve convergence. And Zhang Xueji played the role of liaison, but the revolutionary party was on the side because of Chen Qimei's assassination, so the decision to negotiate was arrested by Sun Yat-sen and Hu Hanmin.

Wang Zhenyu's conditions were very simple: to establish a regional coalition government in the south, to be called the Nationalist Government of China, to implement the method of unifying the military and the government, and to set up a military committee to take charge of the government's armed forces. The Kuomintang and the Chinese Revolutionary Party can obtain the power of the Nationalist Government by seeking a merger, but only if the former Kuomintang is in the driver's seat, and of course the former Chinese Revolutionary Party will also receive the unconditional support of the Nationalist Government on the part of the central government in Beijing. The conditions are not very good, but since they are proposed, at least the next step can be contacted. Although Wang Zhenyu is becoming more and more like a **, he is not the kind of political idiot who does not know what to do, and the big and small power is grasped in his hands, he knows that real politics is by no means a ** system, but cooperation and compromise, which is the same as doing business, emphasizing win-win and mutual benefit.

As for Li Yuanhong in the five-party talks, he actually doesn't have much strength, but he has one thing, and the existence of this thing can avoid the division between the north and the south, that is, the righteous name of the head of state.

Wang Zhenyu is still very clear about the history of the Republic of China, this is an era of increased humiliation, so he is unwilling to be scolded in the name of the central government, but is more willing to divide one side and develop silently. After all, China is so big......