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Chapter 453 looks like a god

Beijing's change of name to Peiping began on June 20. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

After the major victory in the Northern War in early June and the overthrow of the rule of the Beiyang warlord government by the Second Northern Expedition, the central government of Nanjing, in view of the situation of one country and two capitals, quickly passed a resolution: to change the direct subordination to Hebei Province and Beijing to Beiping, in order to show that Mr. Zhongshan's long-cherished wish was fulfilled, the country was reunified, and there was only one legitimate government in Nanjing.

On 3 July, Chiang Kai-shek, Li Zongren, and their entourage finally arrived at Changxindian Station on the outskirts of Beijing, where General Yan Xishan, commander of the Third Group Army and commander-in-chief of the Pingjin Garrison, led more than 100 civilian and military officials under his command were already waiting on the platform.

The short meeting ceremony ended quickly, there was no speech, no welcome speech and no thank-you speech, the generals finished saluting each other, and walked out of the station in the salute of nearly 1,000 guards, and boarded the train into the city of Beijing.

An Yi was the first time to see the famous Yan Xishan and Shang Zhen, the former commander-in-chief of the Third Army, and other generals of the Jin Sui Army, and felt that the forty-five-year-old Yan Xishan was far older than his actual age, Yan Xishan was wearing an old-fashioned general's big cap, medium stature, dark face, slightly sunken eyes, raised cheekbones, a neat mustache under the majestic hanging gallbladder nose, and a gentle and calm gaze.

Yan Xishan shook hands with anyone politely, whispered greetings, although it looked cordial but always made people feel alienated, but when he shook hands with the young An Yi, he did not speak, carefully looked at An Yi for a long time, Chiang Kai-shek on the side was stunned for a moment when he saw this, and then introduced An Yi to Yan Xishan and Shang Zhen with a smile on his face.

Yan Xishan and Chiang Kai-shek nodded to each other, smiled knowingly, rarely stretched out his hand, patted An Yi's shoulder gently, and whispered approval: "Not bad, not bad!" Meeting is better than famous, and it really lives up to its name! ”

At present, An Yi did not dare to overstep, and after hearing Yan Xishan's praise, he just nodded with a smile, and then humbly saluted a military salute to show his gratitude, but Shang Zhen was familiar with it, and he took An Yi's hand very warmly and talked in a low voice, laughing heartily from time to time, and seemed quite happy.

This short meeting process made others feel Yan Xishan and Shang Zhen's praise and attention to An Yi, and An Yi also had a more intuitive understanding of Yan Xishan and Shang Zhen from the simple mutual greetings.

Zhongnanhai was built in the Song and Jin dynasties, the stereotype began in the Ming Dynasty, a part of the Ming royal garden, after the Qing Dynasty settled the Central Plains, the Qing emperors of all dynasties built the palace pavilion in Zhongnanhai, as a place to listen to the government in the summer. After the founding of the Republic of China, Zhongnanhai was occupied by Yuan Shikai and became the presidential palace of the Beiyang government, after which Zhongnanhai was successively used as the office of the president and prime minister of the Beiyang government, as well as the "marshal's mansion" of the warlord Zhang Zuolin.

Now that the Northern Expedition was successful, it has become the seat of the Beiping Political Branch of the Central Political Conference of the Kuomintang and the Beiping Special Municipal Government.

As Chiang Kai-shek's attendants, An Yi and other Whampoa generals also followed from afar, walking behind step by step, no one dared to speak loudly, they could only look around the scenery along the way, from the blue brick and gray tile houses, slightly old carved beams and paintings to appreciate the former grandeur of this famous Chinese royal garden.

An Yi's eyes wandered, seemingly careless, but in fact, he had no intention of enjoying the moving scenery around him at all. At this time, his mind was constantly thinking about the delicate relationship between Chiang, Li, Yan, and Feng, and he was deeply worried about the possible split. An Yi could never forget Feng Yuxiang's complicated expression when he saw Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren stepping off the special train carriage together, and he also sighed greatly at Chiang Kai-shek's amazing political skills.

It turned out that long before the three group armies joined forces and besieged Beijing, the two armies of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan both held the mentality of "entering the pass first to be king", and they were determined to win the city of Beijing, and everyone fought bravely to be the first, so Chiang Kai-shek barely took any words, and the revolutionary army swept through the Pingjin area with a devastating momentum.

However, out of concern about Feng Yuxiang's huge military strength and political ambitions, Chiang Kai-shek weighed the pros and cons, repeatedly discussed with his think tanks, and finally submitted to the central government for approval, formally appointed Yan Xishan, commander of the Second Group Army, as commander-in-chief of the Pingjin garrison on 1 June, and handed over the relatively rich territory in the Zhili and Pingjin areas to Yan Xishan, who was relatively weak and had few political demands.

After the appointment was issued, Feng Yuxiang, who was full of expectations after the meeting with Chiang Kai-shek, ran back to Baiquan Village, Weihui, Henan Province to "recuperate" in a fit of anger, and no longer paid attention to Chiang Kai-shek and the central government, but Yan Xishan struck while the iron was hot, and seized all the party and government organs and tax administration organs in the Pingjin area, and even the Fourth Group Army of Bai Chongxi, which arrived later, had no tax source, and it was too late for Feng Yuxiang to wake up, and almost all the Pingjin territory was occupied by the armies under Yan Xishan's command, and Feng Yuxiang, who originally had a series of plans, continued to lie in bed in annoyance"Recuperate", it was not until Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren arrived by special train from Hankou that Feng Yuxiang found that he had taken another bad move.

Feng Yuxiang knew that since the Gui faction headed by Li Zongren forced Chiang Kai-shek to go to the field in August last year, the differences between Chiang Kai-shek and Li not only did not narrow, but on the contrary, there was a tendency to move towards confrontation; for example, Chiang Kai-shek did not invite Li Zongren, commander-in-chief of the Fourth Group Army, to go with him in the name of the Central Party Department and the central government, but only sent Chiang Kai-shek, Feng Yuxiang, and Yan Xishan to the north in the name of the central party department and the central government. Li Zongren was indignant because he had lost this precious political opportunity, and when he received Feng Yuxiang's invitation telegram, he immediately readily agreed, and said in his reply that he would advance and retreat with Feng Yuxiang.

Unfortunately, this matter was soon learned by Chiang Kai-shek, and after repeatedly considering the advantages and disadvantages, Chiang Kai-shek temporarily changed his route to Wuhan and personally invited Li Zongren to go north to worship the spirit.

Feng Yuxiang was full of expectations to greet Chiang Kai-shek and his entourage at the station, and when he saw Li Zongren suddenly coming together with Chiang Kai-shek, he couldn't help but be surprised, and his heart was very disgusted with Li Zongren's reversal and breach of promise, so after a short meeting, he continued his career of "recuperating from illness", unwilling to take the same car with Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren to Beijing, and the possible alliance between Feng Yuxiang and Li Zongren was easily resolved by Chiang Kai-shek.

At this time, Feng Yuxiang didn't know that Li Zongren did not give Chiang Kai-shek any face, on the contrary, they were very unhappy with each other. On the day Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Hankou, Xia Wei, Hu Zongduo, and Tao Jun, the three military commanders of the Gui lineage, did not show up, and at the reception dinner, only Li Zongren led dozens of civilian officials to make false promises, and the atmosphere was neither warm nor harmonious. The next day, Chiang Kai-shek was invited by Li Zongren to inspect the Gui troops, and all the Gui armies sent troops stationed in Wuhan to participate, but Hu Zongduo, the general of the Gui faction, who had not shown up, was unusual, and when Chiang Kai-shek was speaking to more than 20,000 officers and men of the Gui army, he stood up and suddenly attacked, Hu Zongduo questioned the legitimacy of the Nanjing central government in public, and fiercely refuted Chiang Kai-shek's grasp of military and political power to implement dictatorship, and so on. At a loss, dozens of Chinese and foreign reporters who accompanied the interview were shocked and hurriedly recorded this rare scene.

At the critical moment, An Yi, who was still young and vigorous, stood up, and An Yi did not accuse Hu Zongduo of being reckless and rude, but in front of more than 20,000 soldiers, more than 100 generals and central officials, he asked loudly which is the legitimate government in Hu Zongduo's mind?

Hu Zongduo didn't expect An Yi to stand up and ask such a sharp question, Ai Ai didn't know how to deal with it, but An Yi didn't give face at all, and then asked what the 19th Army had done in the past few months, which made the people of Hubei complain and displaced, and tens of thousands of Hubei civilians and businessmen were displaced to Jiujiang, Nanchang and other areas in Jiangxi? Why did thousands of technicians and workers of a good Hanyang Arsenal rush to flee and go out to make a living, so that the arsenal, which originally occupied an important position in the whole industry, was shut down for a long time and was on the verge of bankruptcy?

Hu Zongduo was furious, but he didn't know how to answer An Yi's question for a while, the political and economic level of this fierce general on the battlefield is really limited, the reason why he jumped out in front of the public to question Chiang Kai-shek, if there is no one to instruct and support, this new army commander has only been more than half a year The fierce general does not have this scheming and courage at all, Hu Zongduo, like Li Zongren and other Gui generals, has no mental preparation for the young An Yi to dare to stand up and cross-examine, Knowing that the thousands of technicians and skilled workers of the Hanyang Arsenal have all been quietly poached by An Yi's Jiangnan Arsenal in the past few months, but he can't be accused of digging people's walls, and everyone understands the truth that people go to high places and water flows to low places.

In the end, it was Li Zongren, the commander of the Gui department, who stood up in time, loudly reprimanded Hu Zongduo for being rude and strictly ordered him to retreat, and then Commander-in-Chief Jiang continued his speech in an embarrassing atmosphere, and after some encouragement, he ended hastily, and the entire review ceremony also hurriedly went through the motions. An Yi impressed the central officials, reporters, and many soldiers present because of his extraordinary courage, shrewd words, and uncompromising toughness, and was secretly summoned by Chiang Kai-shek immediately after returning to his residence.

It is precisely because of these things that happened all the way north that An Yi has a more thorough understanding of the relationship between the four major forces of the National Revolutionary Army and the hidden contradictions. From a political point of view, Feng Yuxiang, who has been in the Central Plains for many years, has greater ambitions than Yan Xishan, although Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army and Yan Xishan's Jin Sui Army have been peaceful and harmonious for many years, but the two armies do not interact with each other to guard against each other, and are even happy to see each other suffer and ignore it. The relationship between the two sides is likely to be further distant.

Secondly, Yan Xishan, who is far away in Shanxi, has never had any friendship with Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi led the three armies of the Gui family to enter the battlefield in a hurry and was squeezed to the front line of Tangshan, and could only go to clear the remnants of the Zhilu army to obtain some supplies and capture, Yan Xishan, who has always looked down on the Gui army, has not allocated a single yuan of military expenses to the three armies of the Gui family, Bai Chongxi came to negotiate with Yan Xishan three times, but Yan Xishan skillfully pushed it to the central government, so that Bai Chongxi had a hard time, and returned again and again in vain, except for lamenting that he could only support himself. Previously, in order to take over the military and political power of the two lakes, Li Zongren had said in a high-profile manner that the Gui army was responsible for its military expenses, so as to refuse the central government to send officials at all levels and set up tax agencies, the estrangement between the Jin army and the Gui army was far from being eliminated in a few words; As for the relationship between Feng Yuxiang and Li Zongren, it is even more delicate, Li Zongren was very worried that Feng Yuxiang would take the opportunity to lead the Northwest Army south to occupy Hubei from the beginning of the crusade against Tang Shengzhi, so after he obtained the power in Wuhan, he arranged the 19th Army of the Gui army in Wuhan, and the 18th Army held western and northwest Hubei, and the three main divisions of the Seventh Army that he relied on were simply transferred directly to the Hubei-Henan border for a long time. Then even if he has lived in vain for so many years, coupled with the contradiction that was skillfully provoked by Chiang Kai-shek this time to sacrifice the spirit in the north, the distrust between the two sides will only deepen rather than decrease.

The last and most important relationship between Chiang and Feng is even more complicated, although Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yuxiang are sworn brothers, but in the face of interests, the contradictions between the two are difficult to reconcile, Feng Yuxiang, who has 300,000 troops, has greater political ambitions, in order to realize his ideals, it is impossible for him to hand over the army he relies on to the unified leadership of the central government.

The harsh reality and huge hidden dangers made An Yi worried, and he had a premonition that one day, many people around him might turn from friendly soldiers to enemies.

Looking at Zhongnanhai, where the blue waves were swaying not far away, An Yi suddenly remembered Gong Qian's words: The northern government has perished, the common enemy of the four revolutionary armies is gone, and the contradictions that have been hidden between each other for many years are likely to intensify......

Born in troubled times!