Chapter 243 The Rise of Duan Qirui

As for the officers, they have been separated from the low level of the big-headed soldiers. What they are not looking at is just a few taels or dozens of taels of silver. They want a better future, in short, they are promoted and rich. Those officers knew that the reduction of salaries and expenses was to expand the army, and the size of the army increased to have more vacancies so that they could be promoted.

Since the salary expenditure of the army has been cut, Zhao Dongyun also intends to suppress the civilian group that has been getting high salaries. Many administrative officials in the three eastern provinces spend millions of yuan a year. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people can be squeezed out. In this regard, there is no need to directly reduce military salaries as in this regard as in the army. Obviously, because the salary of civil servants mainly depends on bonuses, and bonuses can be floated, reducing the amount of bonuses can significantly reduce the salary expenses of administrative officials.

The main reason why Zhao Dongyun tampers with the salary of personnel is that the majority of the army is still in terms of salary these days. Especially in peacetime, the majority of the expenditure of the army is the salary of personnel. A division has more than 3 million yuan per year, and the normal replacement and training of equipment are far away. Far from that much. Of course, when fighting, you have to say that the biggest expenditure during the war is the cost of ammunition, especially the cost of shells. The shells fired by this artillery regiment are more than 100,000 casually. If you only shoot 10,000 taels of silver, you will be embarrassed to say that this is a regimental-scale shelling.

"In addition, you should also pay close attention to the dressing work of the patrol force! I have ordered the Ministry of Education to carry out an in-depth reduction of the existing patrol regiment. In addition, the department has arranged many active army officers to serve in the patrol force. I don't want the patrol force personnel to be refreshed and equipped with those old rifles!"

Zhao Dongping wrote down Zhao Dongyun's words one by one and thought to himself: "I'm afraid this is to build the patrol force as a field force!"

Unlike Zhao Dongping, Zhao Dongyun did not think of treating the patrol force as a field force. Although these patrol forces have been replaced one after another, the habits of the old army are still very strong, and there is no atmosphere of regular army field troops at all.

This army can't just pull a young man to carry a new rifle!

More importantly, it is all kinds of training and high-quality officers and a large number of heavy weapons. It has been many years since the era of fighting the world by platooning!

These patrol officers will be able to fight against the field troops in the future. When they lead their own army into the customs in the future, it is good to stabilize the internal situation in the three eastern provinces. As for the war, they have to rely on the newly built field army.

In order to further accelerate the pace of military expansion, Zhao Dongyun, who is slightly dissatisfied with the speed of building the first division of the army in the three eastern provinces, announced in mid-May that he would allocate 300,000 yuan to the embassy for the special military construction funds of the ministry.

At the end of May, Zhao Dongyun also ordered the military to prepare for the construction of two mixed brigades, and squeezed out 200,000 yuan from the administrative office funds of the State Council, withdrawing profits of 300,000 yuan from Fengtian Mint Bureau and Fengtian Bank, 200,000 yuan from Huludao Haihai Customs, and 300,000 yuan of special funds for patrolling the embassy, a total of 1 million yuan as early financing. The funds were handled and awarded the numbers of "First Mixed Brigade of the Army of the Three Eastern Provinces" and "Second Mixed Brigade of the Army of the Three Eastern Provinces".

Of course, relying only on the above funds, in fact, there is no way to build a new division and two mixed brigades. The gap in it is still relatively large, but since the reduction of salary expenses, the military has freed up more than 1 million yuan, which is the real solution to the preparation. The funding of the above three teams.

Zhao Dongyun, contrary to the suppression of the previous months from May to June, stubbornly accelerated and increased the pace of military expansion despite the financial difficulties, which made many people feel unusual.

You should know that Zhao Dongyun raised not only funds from the government and the military for the expansion of the army, but also took out 600,000 'special funds for patrol envoys'.

What is the special fund of the patrol envoy? Under the previous financial system of the three eastern provinces, the money was allocated by the Finance Bureau and controlled by the secretariat of the visiting government. It was mainly used for Zhao Dongyun's life and office.

However, everyone knows that Zhao Dongyun himself is a millionaire, worth more than 10 million yuan, and his daily use is also a lot of things. In addition, Fang Ruolian and Li Wan, two wives, have become extravagant. Among them, Fang Ruolin, who has no big concept of money, often spends money. At the end of last year, she went to Shanghai to visit the two elders of the Fang family. I spent more than 20,000 taels of silver after living in Shanghai for a month.

Li Wan seems to be a petty capitalist. Holding a book would have given people an impact that she doesn't like to spend money indiscriminately, but if she wants to be a petty bourgeois woman in 1907, she has to be out of style. This can't do without money. The books she read is Paris, the perfume she uses is Paris, the clothes she wears in Paris, and the shoes she wears Paris. Even the crystal cups for coffee are imported from Paris. In order to eat a favorite strawberry cake, the house specially hired an Italian chef. This petty woman's daily expenses are actually more than Ruolian.

Well, just like the 'not the goddess of beauty' in later generations is piled up on money. These days, petty women are also piled up with money. It's not that rich families can't afford the word petty bourgeoisie.

Although there are not many people in Zhao Dongyun's family living in the visiting envoy's house, their daily expenses are extremely amazing. Every year, it costs at least 100,000 or 200,000 yuan. Zhao Dongyun also knows that his own expenses are relatively large, and he is not short of money, so he makes the Finance Bureau allocate 100,000 yuan a year, and the surplus is that he I have put it on.

However, in order to expand his army, Zhao Dongyun has taken out two consecutive patrol funds with a total of 600,000 yuan. Everyone knows that this money was privately paid by Zhao Dongyun.

It's just that it's not easy for Zhao Dongyun to take out this money. Although he has a lot of value, most of them are Fuyuan Company shares. These shares are fixed assets. There are not many activity funds he can mobilized. In addition, in the first half of the year, Fuyuan Company purchased more than one million bonds to support Zhao Dongyun, which is It seriously squeezed the liquidity of Fuyuan Company.

Now after taking out another 600,000 yuan, it is difficult for Zhao Dongyun to take out how much money to invest in the bottomless hole of the army in the short term.

The so-called value of tens of millions is just a virtual head to some extent, because most of the money is fixed assets and cannot be spent at all.

When Zhao Dongyun raised funds everywhere to expand his army, the conflict between Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui also became more superficial. In mid-May, Wang Yingkai announced the establishment of the Third Army, with Zhang Huaizhi's Fifth Division and Jiang Guiti's Sixth Mixed Brigade, with Zhang Huaizhi also serving as the commander of the Third Army. In this way, it is equivalent to taking the first army under Duan Qirui. Directly split into two.

For Wang Yingkai's step-by-step pressure, Duan Qirui bit his teeth and swallowed back, and then gathered several of his own troops from Dangtu to cross the Yangtze River. The remaining warships of the Southern Federation were in Nanjing at this time. When the Southern Federation reacted, Duan Qi Rui's main fourth division has crossed the Yangtze River.

In early June, Duan Qirui personally led the fourth division and the supplementary brigade of the fourth division to cross the Yangtze River, and then advanced east to Nanjing. On the north bank of Nanjing, Duan Qirui's second mixed brigade, which had been a direct line of troops, joined two mixed brigades of the two rivers and launched a containment attack against the southern federal army in Nanjing.

After crossing the Yangtze River, Duan Qirui personally led more than 20,000 people to launch a fierce attack on the south bank of Nanjing. In just two days, Duan Qirui's forward troops of the 4th Division had arrived outside Nanjing. Subsequently, Duan Qirui gathered the 4th Division, the 2nd Mixed Brigade, the 4th Division Supplementary Brigade and the Liangjiang Army, which had just been formed. The first mixed brigade and the second mixed brigade launched a fierce attack on Nanjing.

On June 6, the north bank of Nanjing was conquered by the second mixed brigade. On the 8th, Duanfang fled from Nanjing to Zhenjiang at night.

As soon as Duanfang left, Yingchang, who was responsible for the actual battle, could no longer control the remaining federal army in Nanjing. The next day, several units collapsed. On the 10th, Yingchang, who could not support it, was also forced to lead 20,000 remnants to escape from Nanjing and ran all the way to Zhenjiang.

However, on the way to evacuate, 4,000 disabled soldiers were caught up by the cavalry detachment under Duan Qirui's command. The cavalry detachment under Duan Qirui's command was mainly the cavalry regiment of the 4th Division. In front, they also forcibly got a battalion from Zhang Huaizhi's 5th Division and a cavalry battalion of the 4th Division's supplementary brigade. Although the total strength was not as good as Zhao Dongyun's. One of the two cavalry brigades, but there are also more than 1,600 riders. The strength of such cavalry is not small in China, especially in the southern region.

After the cavalry caught up with more than 4,000 troops, they once again completely defeated the troops and even captured more than 2,000 people.

On June 12, Duan Qirui finally entered Nanjing on his horse!

Looking at Nanjing, which still smells of gunpowder smoke, Duan Qirui felt a lot. In order to conquer Nanjing and seize the south of the Yangtze River, he paid too much. He not only endured the many pressure brought to him by Wang Yingkai, but also did not let the Nanjing campaign become as long as the Wuhan battle in order to quickly conquer Nanjing. No, he can be said to have launched a fierce attack without hesitation about casualties, and several troops attacking Nanjing suffered considerable losses. Among them, two infantry battalions in his main force, the Fourth Division, were maimed.

However, it was Duan Qirui's fierce attack regardless of casualties, which made Duan Fang and Yanchang unsustainable. Although the strength of the Southern Federation far exceeded Duan Qirui's first army, the firepower, morale and officer quality of the two sides were very different. It was not surprising to see the fourth division as fierce as a tiger, which was defeated.

Duan Qirui was transferred from the 5th Division and the 6th Mixed Brigade by Wang Yingkai, and still took Nanjing in a short time by relying on his direct line, which once again surprised Wang Yingkai and even Zhao Dongyun.

"With nothing like those guys in the south, Nanjing's 100,000 army can't even hold on for half a month!" Zhao Dongyun also had a headache when he learned that Duan Qirui had conquered Nanjing. Qirui's development was much faster than he expected.

"Remember that the ordnance ordered by Liangjiang last month was detained first. Well, it is said that the output is insufficient and cannot be delivered for the time being!" Although Zhao Dongyun knows that Duan Qirui can buy ordnance from Yanghang, and the ordnance purchased by Duan Qirui has a limited impact on him, it can still be limited at this time!

Zhao Dongyun frowned to detain Duan Qirui's ordnance, but Duan Qirui's side acted very quickly. On June 18, his troops captured Zhenjiang and Shanghai on the 20th. On the 24th, a mixed association of the Southern Federation in Hangzhou was incorporated by him anyway. In just June, he not only captured the whole south of the Yangtze River, but And Bingfeng also marched to northern Zhejiang, southern Anhui and other areas.

The performance of the southern federal army in the Liangjiang region can only be described as a mountain of defeat. Since the Nanjing Campaign, Duanfang and Yingchang have been unable to organize a large-scale blockade. If it hadn't been for Duan Qirui's troops to march with two feet, it is estimated that even Zhejiang and Jiangxi would have been captured now.

When Duan Qirui sang triumphant songs in the two rivers and was about to completely control Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, southern Anhui and other regions, Wang Yingkai's secret envoy also arrived in Shenyang!