Just when the whole world thought that Shandong would become the fuse of a new round of civil war and even the Sino-Japanese war, the silent Shanxi became the ultimate fuse, which surprised everyone, except for Wang Zhenyu.

After the secret talks with Zhang Zongchang, Zhang Zuolin ordered the troops of Sun Liechen and Zhang Jinghui to assemble in Shijiazhuang and Suiyuan. Although Zhang Zuolin began to emphasize secrecy everywhere under the reminder of the Japanese, such an obvious military deployment and the secrecy literacy of the Feng army itself, before these troops were mobilized, the ants in the city of Beijing were running to tell each other: Veteran Zhang was going to fight Yan Laoxi.

The Jin army under Yan Xishan is obviously a soft persimmon, and it is almost an open secret that it was Wang Zhenyu's face that was able to avoid the crisis of being annexed by the Feng army two years ago and not the Jin army under his command. However, Yan Xishan did not fulfill the promises he made when he invited Wang Zhenyu to intervene, that is, to reform the Jin army in the Youth Army and join the Nationalist Government in Shanxi. Wang Zhenyu is also very big about this, if he doesn't honor it, he won't honor it, so Yan Xishan succeeded in repaying his debts.

However, there is a price to pay for doing anything, and now the trouble is coming, Zhang Zuolin is once again overwhelmed by troops, Sun Liechen's eight divisions and Zhang Jinghui's five divisions are not fuel-efficient lamps from any point of view. This is a full 330,000 Feng army, and the Jin army has eight divisions under its name, but they are all the kind of miscellaneous divisions with less than 10,000 people, and with such a force to fight with the Feng army that won the Zhifeng War, Yan Xishan really has no temper.

"Let's talk about it, what should Shanxi do this time?" When there is no idea, it is obviously a good idea to convene a meeting to think of ideas, so Yan Xishan recruited all the officers above the battalion level of the Jin army system to Taiyuan for a meeting.

As soon as Yan Xishan brought out the theme, he looked at these people under his command with great expectations, hoping that they could come up with a good way for themselves. The officers of the Jin Army who attended the meeting, including Shang Zhen, Xu Yongchang, Li Fuying, Zhang Yinwu, Zhou Ying, Chu Xichun, Yang Chengyuan, Yang Aiyuan, Wang Jingguo, Fu Zuoyi, Sun Chu, Li Shengda, Chen Changjie, and Guo Zongfen, immediately fell into thought.

Yan Xishan has always treated his subordinates kindly, which is not uncommon in the Republic of China, but when it comes to treating people sincerely, I am afraid that there is only this Yan Xishan among the warlords of the entire Republic of China. So now that he is in trouble, the people below can only think desperately with their heads stuffy.

But how can the method under this kind of crisis be easy to think, the first to speak is Fu Zuoyi, who has the least qualifications: "Lord Overseer, I am willing to defend the commander according to the danger and block the Feng army, but it is not enough to rely on the Jin army alone, you still have to find some foreign aid......"

Fu Zuoyi, who was known as the most capable of fighting in the Jin army, said so, and other second-level generals such as Shang Zhen and Xu Yongchang naturally followed up one after another, suggesting that the Overseer ask for help from the Nationalist Government.

Yan Xishan is angry and funny, and in the end, he can only be helpless, who let his subordinates be so bearish. Well, Yan Xishan forgot a saying, one soldier will be a bear, and there will be a nest of bears. The key to the lack of combat effectiveness of the Jin army in history is actually in him Yan Xishan himself, otherwise the same Jin army is a soft persimmon in his hands, how can it become "seven and a half roads" in the hands of Fu Zuoyi?

Yan Xishan nodded and agreed with this statement: "In this way, Brother Shang and Brother Xu, you each lead an army to northern Jin and eastern Jin to meet the enemy, remember one thing, as long as the Feng army does not move, you don't want to fire, you can not fight the people or don't fight, and it is the people of Shanxi who are suffering to fight hard." ”

Speaking of this, he looked at Fu Zuoyi again: "Brother Yisheng, you can guard Taiyuan for me." I think about it, I'm afraid this final battle is going to start in Taiyuan City......"

In fact, Yan Xishan and the senior generals of the Jin army thought about the problem a little seriously, Zhang Zuolin actually did not have a plan to start fighting, and he was also good at calculation. According to Zhang Zuolin's calculations, as long as Wang Zhenyu in the south is defeated with the help of the Japanese in Shandong, then the next world is not his old Zhang family, and then he will naturally use the situation of the unification of the world to coerce Yan Xishan to surrender. Of course, it would be better if Yan Xishan surrendered now, but Yan Xishan, who was usually weak, was like taking too much medicine this time, and actually divided the eight divisions of the Jin army under his command into three, Shang Zhen and Xu Yongchang each commanded 2 divisions and Sun Liechen, Zhang Jinghui's troops entered a state of confrontation, and the other four divisions retreated into Taiyuan City. With a posture of fighting to the death and not giving in, this time it was Zhang Zuolin's turn to be unsure. To fight or not to fight, that's the question?

For a time, Shandong and Shanxi became the fuse of the Chinese civil war at the same time. People from all walks of life, especially intellectuals in the north and south of Beijing, have expressed concern about this and issued peace petitions, urging all forces to put the overall interests of the country and the nation first. The British Minister to China, Zhu Erdian, is a contrary example, and this old British colonizer, who has become accustomed to being the emperor in China and dictating to the Chinese central government, is now very excited. Ever since he misjudged the form of support for Yuan Shikai's claim to be emperor and triggered the Protectorate War, the whole of China has fallen into an unstoppable state of rise. Although Whitehall did not blame Zhu Erdian, Zhu Erdian, who has always regarded himself as a first-class diplomatic talent, is very guilty. As a result, he was hostile to the Nationalist government in the south and to Wang Zhenyu himself, which culminated in the defeat of the Germans by the Chinese army. In his annual report to Whitehall on New Year's Day 1919, Jurde repeatedly stressed to London that if he continued to sit idly by and watch China's strength, the empire's interests in China would not only be harmed, but also those in Southeast Asia. Therefore, Zhu Erdian hoped that the imperial government would support Japan to intensify its attack on China, and then use the quagmire of Russia to consume Japan's strength. The calculation was very loud, but unfortunately London did not reply to this in a word, which made Zhu Erdian very frustrated and even dissatisfied, and he said to the rest of the legation: "The people in London are now doing the thing of burying the British Empire, and we can only do nothing." ”

In fact, Zhu Erdian really wronged the decision-makers of the British Empire, they not only saw Zhu Erdian's report, but also attached great importance to it, but the British treasury was too weak. In the aftermath of the European War, the treasury of the richest country in the world was empty, and any measures taken in the Far East could not be supported by the finances of the British Empire, and one carelessness could even trigger the collapse of the entire empire...... Therefore, they could only choose to turn a blind eye to Zhu Erdian's report full of patriotism and responsibility, which was the mentality of the British Empire after World War I most of the time when facing one problem after another, which also laid the groundwork for the later appeasement policy.

Well, now that the Chinese are finally going to fight a civil war, and according to Japanese sources, their emperor's army, which is as poor as Hanako, is about to gamble on national fortunes again. They would fight in Shandong and the Nationalist government in the south, and seek to support the central government in Beijing for the unification of all of China.

In order to gain the support of the British, the Japanese also stated that they would never expand Japan's sphere of influence in China and that they would respect Britain's special rights and interests in southeastern China. In 1916, in order to let China send troops, Britain not only gave up tariffs on nine provinces, but also gave up many powers in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and these areas entered a period of high-speed construction after the ebb of British and French powers, and wealth rolled in, which made him, the minister in China, blush. And now that all this is possible without the support of the imperial government, how do you make Jurdian unhappy?

However, little Japan is not a living Lei Feng, and they do things for benefits, on the condition that the British Empire subscribes to the war bonds issued by the Japanese government, and it costs money to fight a war......

In fact, the world economy in 1919 also showed a decline, and with the end of the European war, market demand changed dramatically. The demand for weapons and raw materials for the military industry has dropped to the lowest point almost overnight, and at the same time, the demand for people's daily consumption has clearly exceeded the supply. At this time, the Japanese, who had a significantly high proportion of heavy industry in the industrial structure, suffered a great loss, many products were backlogged in warehouses, many orders were canceled, and a large number of industrial workers lost their jobs...... On the other side of the river, South China, which was controlled by the Nationalist government, was not affected much. After the decline in orders for heavy industry, it stopped falling and rebounded after only a slight decline, and the expansion of the youth army immediately digested their excess production capacity, and with the rapid economic development in recent years and the emergence of a large number of overseas remittances and European war dividends, the consumption power and purchasing power of the domestic market have also undergone astonishing changes. More importantly, the Nationalist Government put forward the second five-year development plan, and 15 cities, including Chengdu, Kunming, Guiyang, Changsha, Nanchang, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, and Xuzhou, were included in the Nationalist Government's development plan. The Nationalist Government plans to spend 15 billion yuan over a five-year period to develop a large-scale railway and highway transportation network and the construction of a new type of city centered on these 15 cities.

What worries Japanese policymakers even more is that if South China realizes its second five-year plan, it will surpass Japan in national power, even if it does not need to go through war. This basically means that Japan will only become a maritime nation, and once the people of China build a strong enough navy, then Japan's fate can only be destroyed.

"The rise and fall of the imperial kingdom is in this battle," Tanaka shouted hoarsely at the final mobilization meeting of the War Department