No. 3 Tieshi Hutong in Beijing, where Duan Qirui's prime minister's office is located. In the Qing Dynasty, there were three mansions here: Prince He's Mansion in the east, Belle Feisu Mansion in the middle, and Princess Hejing's Mansion in the west. The predecessor of the Prince's Mansion was Bei Ziyun's Mansion. In the 11th year of Yongzheng (1733), the fifth son of Sejong, Hongday, was rebuilt into the palace of Prince He. The Belle Feisu Mansion is the residence of Prince Gong Chang Ying in the early Qing Dynasty. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, all the buildings in the two mansions were demolished and three groups of brick and wood buildings were rebuilt: the main building in the middle was a European classical gray brick building, and there were one building in the east, west and north. The house has a rockery and introduced living water, making it a very livable place.

But now the master who lives here can't sleep in such a livable environment, Duan Qirui has been insomnia for several nights in a row, he just asked his secretary to invite the army chief Xu Shuzheng over, some things still have to be discussed.

"Again, I'm so upset, the current situation doesn't look like it's going in a direction that is beneficial to us. Cao Zhongshan, Wu Ziyu, Feng Huanzhang They are now letting Lu Jianzhang make a fuss, and all of them are concentrating their troops in Baoding Mansion, this battle seems to have an advantage, but I am very bottomless when it comes to fighting. You know, the third division and the eleventh division are all elite in a hundred battles, and they are definitely not something that our newly trained participating army can pick up casually" Duan Qirui, who is quite deep in the city government on weekdays, finally spit out the bitter water that had been brewing in his stomach for many days against Xu Shuzheng, a henchman.

Xu Shuzheng's brows furrowed unconsciously, and it was his own incompetence that caused the current situation. A few days ago, in the face of the aggressive direct lineage, Xu Shuzheng thought about it and still felt that he had to implement a decapitation operation to suppress the opponent and avoid the Beiyang civil war, and only in this way could he go all out to complete the reunification in the south. This beheading is naturally not Cao Kun, although this old boy is the current nominal boss of the direct line, but if the idea of the direct line is taken by this old boy, the direct line does not have to worry. Therefore, the head that is really worth Xu Shuzheng's effort to get rid of is none other than Lu Jianzhang, a big man at the level of a direct military division.

The operation went very smoothly, Lu Jianzhang was deceived by Xu Shuzheng into the preparation office of the military salary of the participating army in Tianjin, and according to Jihua, he was to be killed on the spot. But there was an accident during the operation, and at the moment when Xu Shuzheng's guard pointed the muzzle of the gun at Lu Jianzhang, suddenly a bullet shot from the outside and hit the guard impartially. Immediately after that, someone threw the grenade in, and Xu Shuzheng's other guards hurriedly dragged Xu Shuzheng, and then suddenly a group of people came in over the wall and started a melee with Xu Shuzheng's guards. In a scuffle, Lu Jianzhang survived the catastrophe and rescued these unknown people, and Xu Shuzheng was also killed and injured nine guards. And after Lu Jianzhang escaped from death, he naturally couldn't get along with Anhui with an iron heart, and the contradictions between Zhiwan and Anhui also followed. Thinking of this, Xu Shuzheng couldn't get angry, but because he did it from Duan Qirui, he didn't dare to say it clearly. What can be done now is to comfort the next Duan Qirui, and then cheer him up to get through the difficulties.

"Elder Duan Zhi, you don't have to think too much about this matter, you must first settle down inside, since we have reached the point where we can't unify without leveling the direct line, then let's calm down, just fight, and we can rest assured when we go south after the fight."

Duan Qirui shook his head: "Going south, how easy is it?" How strong is this southern army that can compete with the Germans, have you read the telegram at noon today? Our minister in France, Hu Weide, told us in black and white that the southern expeditionary force helped the French eliminate more than 300,000 German troops in one go, and you must know that the German army is the most powerful existence in Shijie. Can we really win the battle against those armies in the south and unify the whole country? ”

Xu Shuzheng gritted his teeth and said: "I don't know the specific situation, but the army in the south is obviously armed by Britain and France before its combat effectiveness is improved again, if they are really strong enough to easily destroy hundreds of thousands of foreign powers' troops, then we should be destroyed by them when we defend the country." Old Zhi, we can't hesitate any longer, that is, we want to take advantage of the opportunity of these hundreds of thousands of expeditionary forces in Europe to complete the unification of the whole country, and after we defeat the Nationalist Government in Nanjing, no matter how strong these expeditionary forces are, they can only accept our reorganization, and when the time comes, not only will they not endanger us, but they will become part of our national defense, and we will not have to be afraid of the Japanese and Russians in the future. ”

Duan Qirui's eyes lit up and then he said gloomily: "It's not easy to talk about, let's clean up Cao Zhongshan and their pig-like idiots first, it's time for us in Beiyang, and we haven't forgotten our own infighting." ”

When Xu Shuzheng heard this, he couldn't help but sigh......

On May 23, in distant Europe, in Paris, the capital of France, the leaders of the Entente gathered to celebrate the great victory. Hu Weide, the Chinese minister to France, was also invited, and he was arranged on the rostrum for the first time, which was the most proud day for Hu Weide since he became the minister to France. Both British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French Prime Minister Clemenceau personally came to take the hand of the minister to France and walked to the rostrum, which made the Japanese diplomats very dissatisfied and secretly scolded these Westerners for being too practical.

The past three years of war have exhausted everyone's strength, millions of dead and wounded, a large amount of material wear and tear, and a huge amount of money spent like flowing water. Not to mention anything else, just this time the blind cat brought the dead rat to arm hundreds of thousands of Chinese and transport them to Europe to fight spent almost 600 million pounds, of which 300 million pounds is still an interest-free loan to be repaid after 30 years.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the good news that has just been received, that our coalition forces under the personal command of Marshal Pétain have just regained the Duchy of Luxembourg and have once again dealt a heavy blow to the damned Germans" Chancellor Clemenceau's loud voice resounded throughout the banquet hall.

Everyone in the audience spontaneously cheered and applauded, and not far from the banquet hall was the Champs-Elysées, where hundreds of thousands of excited French people poured into the streets to celebrate the victory of the Verdun counterattack. From time to time, fireworks take to the sky and go off, and the whole of Paris is immersed in a festive atmosphere......

At the Wuchang Wharf in Wuhan, Tang Shaoyi, secretary general of the Government Affairs Yuan of the Nanjing National Government, took his son-in-law Gu Weijun and daughter Tang Baoyue off the ship with a bumpy mood. For Shijie, the political center of South China, which has completed reunification, is Nanjing, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, but for high-level figures like Tang Shaoyi, the political center of South China is definitely in Wuhan. The supreme power is not controlled by Sun Wen, the nominal chairman of the Nationalist Government, but has always been firmly controlled by Wang Zhenyu, a soldier. However, what makes Tang Shaoyi, who served as the premier of the Beiyang government, feel good is that this Wang Dashuai seems to be very enlightened, at least unlike Yuan Shikai, who liked to dictate power back then, and basically does not interfere in the financial and personnel issues of Nanjing. Generally speaking, as long as the struggle between the various factions in Nanjing remains within the scope of coexistence, this person will not make a move, but through Wang Jingwei's matter, everyone also knows Wang Dashuai's temper, and once he makes a move, there is no room at all. As a result, although the Nanjing Nationalist Government did not have much decision-making power on military and diplomatic issues, it was relatively independent in other departments.

Unlike in history, Tang Shaoyi was recommended by Xiong Xiling to serve in the south and found that the market in the south was bullish, and at the same time, there was a great lack of diplomatic talents. For example, when discussing cooperation with Britain and France last year, Wang Zhenyu actually came out to talk about it, which opened the eyes of Tang Shaoyi, who participated in the negotiations at that time. This government was led by Xiong Xiling, and its power even exceeded that of the previous Hu Hanmin government, after all, both the League and the Liberation Society now chose to accept a cabinet led by the Progressive Department. And it is said that Xiong Xiling was also the benefactor of Wang Zhenyu when he was born, so in terms of the army, Xiong Xiling's cabinet was also very supportive. In view of this, Tang Shaoyi did not hesitate to write to his son-in-law Gu Weijun, asking him to resign from the position of Beijing government's minister to the United States and return to Nanjing to take up his post. Speaking of Tang Shaoyi's son-in-law, he also snatched it himself, it is said that when Gu Weijun was very young, his first father-in-law Zhang Hengshan saw through his face that this son would be extraordinary in the future, so he took advantage of the ignorance of people to set this son-in-law, but he never married. In 1912, after Gu Weijun received a doctorate in law in Colombia, he was introduced by his father-in-law Zhang Hengshan and went north to meet Tang Shaoyi. Tang Shaoyi was the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, and Gu Weijun became a third-class secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Tang with the qualification of studying in the United States as a doctor. As a young man, he met Tang Shaoyi's daughter Tang Baoyue. Gu Weijun's handsomeness quickly touched Tang Baoyue's heart. Since then, the two have been inseparable. Later, Zhang Hengshan finally learned about his love history with Miss Tang, turned his old face yellow, and wrote a letter to Tang Shaoyi to reprimand Gu Weijun and ask Tang to send Gu back to Shanghai. After Tang Shaoyi read the letter, he was furious, and immediately called Gu to reprimand him, and ordered him to return to Shanghai immediately. Although Gu was reluctant to leave Beijing, he could not stand the reproach of his conscience and the persuasion of relatives and friends, so he had to pack his luggage and prepare to go south. The matter was immediately known by Tang Nu, and she ran in front of her father crying and said, "If the child can't be combined with Wei Jun, he must cut his hair and become a nun!" "My father must intervene in this matter. At that time, Tang Shaoyi had been promoted to prime minister, and he always felt that he should not rely on his power to forcibly seize someone's son-in-law, so he did not agree. Miss Tang still did not give up, and in order to demonstrate and intimidate, she ran to Baiyun Nunnery on the outskirts of Beijing, and asked someone to inform her father that the hair had been selected for a certain date, but Tang Shaoyi still ignored it. Seeing that this plan could not be achieved, the son-in-law returned to the city and had her father informed that if she would not agree to her request, she would have to go to Bada Hutong (the old Beijing prostitution concentration area) to do business, and hang up the gold-lettered signboard of the current Prime Minister's Miss Rose. This slap really knocked Tang Shaoyi unconscious. He immediately called back his daughter and announced his "unconditional surrender". He sent a telegram to He Fenglin, the military envoy (commander-in-chief of the garrison) in Songhu, asking him to be responsible for Gu Weijun's divorce. As a result, He Fenglin happily took away the divorce letter, and Zhang Hengshan sighed: "I can only look at the appearance, not the heart." Soon after, he died of depression. Zhang Run'e recited the Buddha for a long time, and fell in the Lujia Guanyin Hall. Zhang lost his hair, and Tang could naturally not be a nun. Less than a month after He Fenglin sent the divorce letter to Beijing, Gu Weijun and Tang Baoyue held a large-scale wedding at the Beijing Hotel in 1913. When this matter was sent to Wang Zhenyu's desk by the special agents of the Party Affairs Investigation Department, Wang Zhenyu was very embarrassed......