Chapter 436 The enemy of the enemy is a friend

Once upon a time, Wang Shizhen was also very popular. At the beginning, he went all the way south from Zhili and took Henan and northern Hubei one after another. He was about to take Wuchang in one go. Then when he put the whole Hubei into his pocket, he was met Zhang Zhidong's tenacious resistance, and then he formed a stalemate.

In the summer of 1907, as the Feng army defeated the direct army and went south to Henan, Wang Shizhen sent troops to the north to resist the Feng army suffered a series of fiasco, and finally forced to retreat to Wushengguan. At this time, Zhang Zhidong also attacked him and gathered more than 100,000 troops to launch a counterattack against him, which once made him fall into two lines. In order to avoid the fate of destruction and to continue to stand on China's political stage, he was forced to give in to Zhao Dongyun.

After Wu Fengling, she officially recognized the legitimacy of Zhao Dongyun's successor as president and declared her allegiance to the central government, in exchange for the withdrawal of the Feng army and the subsequent support of ordnance materials. After receiving the support of the Feng army, Wang Shizhen blocked Zhang Zhidong's attack and successively in Han in the following months. Yang and other places launched a counterattack, and finally successfully recovered the northern Hubei region north of the Yangtze River and drove the southern federal army back to the Yangtze River.

In the second half of last year, although most of the people in China focused on the Jiangbei War between the Feng and Anhui armies, in fact, many wars broke out throughout China at that time. Wu Fengling and Zhao Erxun fought wars in Shaanxi for several months, and Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong also fought several times in a row in Hubei. At the beginning, the Anhui army in Fujian and Guangdong also fought with the southern coalition led by Xiliang, Duanfang and others.

However, at that time, the eyes of the whole country, including Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen, were closely focused on the Jiangbei war between the two armies of Feng and Anhui, so that ordinary people paid little attention to the wars that broke out in other parts of the country.

Last year, in order to regain Jiangbei, Wang Shizhen lost more than 20,000 soldiers, and more than 10,000 guns were lost. From the perspective of military expenditure alone, Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong spent more than 10 million yuan in a series of battles fought between Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhidong in the second half of last year.

It was this war that completely injured Wang Shizhen. Earlier, the money seized from Zhili, Henan and other places was basically exhausted. Later, in order to rebuild the army and pay for the cost of conscription and purchase of ordnance, Wang Shizhen had to increase the search of northern Hubei, which made the local people Wang Shizhen is very resentful.

However, this cannot save his losses in the second half of last year's war, which can be seen from Wang Shizhen to the peak of last year.

Wang Shizhen, who is more short of money than Wu Fengling, has gray hair in order to recruit soldiers and buy ordnance.

In order to recruit soldiers, he even tried to learn from the countries to play the so-called conscript system. The result is naturally tragic. Isn't it bullshit that you want to play the conscript system these days? Without white silver dollars in front of soldiers, don't want them to carry guns for your life.

In the end, he was forced to reduce the salary to reduce the cost of personnel salaries, but how to say, you get what you pay for, and the salary you give is low, and the quality of the recruited soldiers will naturally be reduced accordingly. The principle of you get what you pay for is also applicable to the melee period of warlords in this era.

In terms of ordnance and ammunition, he also embarked on Wu Fengling's old path and began to purchase arms provided by the Soviet system on a large scale. The reason is very simple, not because he could not buy foreign arms, but because the weapons sold to him by the Soviet system were cheaper.

The price is cheap, which is enough!

However, the arms provided to him by the Soviets were better last year. At the beginning, he and Zhao Dongyun had just reached a superficial alliance agreement to publicly loyal themselves to the republican government. In addition, Zhao Dongyun also needed him to stop Zhang Zhidong's Northern Expedition at that time, so the Soviet supply of arms to Wang Shizhen at that time It is also tense, but it is enough for Wang Shizhen to launch several counterattacks in a row and recapture Hanyang and other areas.

However, since Wang Shizhen took that and regained control of the northern Hubei area north of the Yangtze River, Zhao Dongyun immediately reduced the supply of ordnance to the Hubei army. The purpose is very obvious, that is, Zhao Dongyun did not want Wang Shizhen to fight across the Yangtze River, so he immediately cut off Wang Shizhen in logistics. The possibility of the Hubei army continuing to cross the river.

At the beginning, Wang Shizhen was very angry with this matter. If he had not easily annihilated tens of thousands of Zhang Zhidong troops in Jiangbei, and his morale was about to cross the river and take Wuchang in one fell swoop to completely establish the situation in Hubei, Zhao Dongyun cut off his logistical supplies. How could this not make him angry?

However, he was angry and had no choice. On the one hand, he was forced to continue to bow to Zhao Dongyun. The so-called ability to continue to obtain low-cost ordnance ammunition from Zhao Dongyun, and on the other hand, he also reconnected with those foreigners to try to establish diversified ordnance supply channels, but in the past two years, The price of arms market in the Far East, especially in China, has risen again and again, and the price of importing ordnance directly from foreign countries has been much higher than before the Russo-Japanese War.

Wang Shizhen, who is short-sighted, can't import tens of millions of cannons into Germany in one go. He can only buy a small amount, and the big head still has to be bought from the Soviets.

Speaking of strategic environment and economic strength, Wang Shizhen's situation is actually worse than Wu Fengling. At least Wu Fengling can still monopolize a Shanxi and is currently struggling to win Shaanxi. However, Wang Shizhen was sandwiched between the Soviet system and Zhang Zhidong. In Zhao Dongyun's eyes, the purpose of Wang Shizhen's existence was to temporarily serve as a buffer zone between the Feng army and the Southern Federation to avoid direct conflict between the Feng army and Zhang Zhidong of the Southern Federation before completely capturing the Anhui army.

This year, in order to prepare for the Jiangnan Campaign, all ordnance materials are limited to supply their own Feng army, which reduces the ordnance support for Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen.

In order to buy enough ordnance, Wang Shizhen had to buy high-priced imported ordnance ammunition from the foreign bank, which further worsened Wang Shizhen's originally tense financial situation.

After entering the summer of 1908, the situation of Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen is extremely tragic. The only difference is that Wu Fengling still has a glimmer of hope. As long as he can win Shaanxi and then march into Gansu and even Sichuan, there is still a chance to play chess, which may not continue to develop.

And Wang Shizhen, who was sandwiched between the Soviet system and Zhang Zhidong, had no chance to move at all. In the end, all he was waiting for was to perish.

It's just that Wang Shizhen is not reconciled!

The reason why he is unwilling is the same as that of Wu Fengling, Wang Zhanyuan and others: why Zhao Dongyun?

Once upon a time, Zhao Dongyun was just like himself and others. He was just one of the Beiyang bosses. Compared with his prestige in Beiyang, Zhao Dongyun was far inferior to Wang Yingkai or even Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen. Many people will think that Zhao Dongyun is nothing more than luck that he can be today.

With Zhao Dongyun's seniority and prestige in Beiyang in his early years, many people are unconvinced to sit in the position of president today. As for Zhao Dongyun's attempt to unify China, this makes more people unconvinced.

Duan Qirui is not convinced, Wang Shizhen is not convinced, Wu Fengling is not convinced, and any Beiyang boss is not convinced, not to mention those people in the Southern Federation. In the eyes of Zhang Zhidong, Duan Fang, Zhao Erxun and others of the Southern Federation, Zhao Dongyun is just a yellow-haired child with no hair. They fought with Yuan Shikai at the beginning. At that time, Zhao Dongyun, a little boy, didn't know that the cat was playing with mud in that corner.

The rise of Zhao Dongyun is unconvinced by many people.

What if you just don't accept it?

Zhao Dongyun knows very well that a large number of people in China don't like him and are even more convinced that the Soviet system led him to unify China, but what?

My favorite looks like I'm not happy, but I can't help it.

For Zhao Dongyun, other people's feelings are not worth mentioning. No matter who stands in his way on the road of unifying China, he will trample on it mercilessly, even if his shoes are dirty.

Duan Qirui blocked his way and was defeated by him. Now he can only flee to Zhejiang in confusion. Now he heard that he has gone to Guangdong. It seems that he places his hopes on Guangdong, and then restores his strength and competes with Fengjun.

And if the subsequent warlords of the Southern Federation, Wu Fengling, Wang Shizhen and others stand in his way, he will ruthlessly eliminate them all.

Of course, it is not the time to turn against Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen. Now what Zhao Dongyun has to do is to limit the development of Wu Fengling and Wang Shizhen, and then continue to go south to completely clean up Duan Qirui. As long as they take down Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Guangdong, completely destroy Duan Qirui, and then let Zhang Zhidong and Wu How did Fengling, Wang Shizhen and others struggle, because they could not escape the fate of destruction one by one?

It's just that Zhao Dongyun can see these things, and others can also see them.

In the former governor's mansion of Guangzhou, Duan Qirui's two rivers patrol mansion, Duan Qirui said with a gloomy face:

"Now it is difficult to stop Zhao Dongyun from going south by relying on us alone, but I don't believe that they will be indifferent to see Zhao Dong's Yunnan going down to Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong. They all know the truth!"

"Marshal, if they want to move, they moved as early as last month, but they..." said a man next to him.

Duan Qirui sneered: "I'm not talking about Wang Shizhen and Wu Fengling, these two wall grasses are unreliable!"

Others looked surprised: "Does the marshal mean the Southern Federation?"

Duan Qirui nodded: "There are no eternal friends, let alone eternal enemies."

After saying this, he added: "The enemy of the enemy is a friend!"

"Zhang Nanpi is a person who can see the big situation clearly. He will not know that once we fail, they will also not escape the fate of destruction, so as long as we take the initiative to show our goodwill, we may not be able to pull them to deal with Fengjun together!"

When Duan Qirui said this, he fully proved that he had become a qualified warlord, and the warlord should not have any tendency of political factions, let alone any personal grudges. As long as he can help himself regain his territory and unify China, there is nothing he can do, even with Nan It doesn't matter if the Federation cooperates!