Because the "official property" of the "auction" is actually the property of the common people, the practice of "auctioning off the official property" of the Guangdong revolutionary military and political axe has aroused strong dissatisfaction in society. Representatives from all walks of life in Foshan gathered at the Chamber of Commerce to protest against the auction of the province's official property liquidation office and accused the revolutionary army and political axe of "focusing only on the military for the present and ignoring the localities." ”

However, what caused even greater social turmoil was the "method of reporting official property" subsequently implemented by the provincial government property liquidation department. As soon as this method was introduced, "the owners of the property in the city all ran and sweated, and the people were panicked, and they did not know when their houses were shoveled, and fell into the tide of terror." As opportunists take advantage of the opportunity to frame others for personal gain, society is increasingly plunged into serious turmoil. In addition to these methods, the revolutionary military and political axes also came up with "investment promotion and taxation" (this taxation method first originated from the "donation" system in the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty), "expanding the collection of housing taxes", "forcibly collecting commercial license taxes", etc., and in addition to the new taxes, there are so many other types of taxes that it is difficult to list them one by one.

Along with the serious financial crisis, Guangdong's social contradictions are intensifying. This is mainly manifested in the tension between the military and the people, the reduction of political and financial credit, and the increase in market strikes and tax resistance.

At that time, it was commonplace for the revolutionary army to set up a name for forcible seizure. The most typical is that the army defrauds merchants in the name of "protecting merchants". Revolutionary soldiers generally set up "merchant protection organs" under various names on the water and land routes, and "protection fees" would be levied once the business travels were over. From Shaoguan to Guangzhou alone, there are more than 20 such checkpoints on the way. There are three largest offices: the "Merchant Protection Office" subordinate to the Guangdong River Defense Command, the "Merchant Protection Office" affiliated to the Third Mixed Brigade of the Yunnan Army stationed in Guangdong, and the "Merchant Protection Supervision Office" subordinate to the Guangzhou Garrison Command. "These escort agencies are waiting for the pirate camp."

Due to the loss of financial credibility of the Guangdong revolutionary army and political axe, the trend of tax resistance and market boycotts in society has risen one after another. In desperation, the Generalissimo's Ministry of Finance announced a two-month postponement of the repayment of all debts due. Since then, the Ministry of Finance of the Generalissimo's Office and the Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance have successively issued "military hand bills," "treasury bills," "local short-term payment bills," and "Guangdong treasury bills" that have no collateral and lack credit guarantees. However, almost none of them were completed, and the small amount that flowed to the market was often resisted by Cantonese merchants.

Due to the lack of credit of the revolutionary military and political axes, the merchants of the rice shops in Guangzhou rallied to protest against the political axes borrowing military rations from the rice merchants without collateral. Later, the revolutionary military and political axe financial authorities had to borrow 240,000 yuan of military rations from rice merchants with about 320,000 yuan worth of public land along the river where rice banks were concentrated. When the Military Affairs Department of the Generalissimo's Office again asked the rice merchants to provide 30,000 stone of military rations, the rice merchants refused on the grounds that "the previous arrears of grain have not been paid."

In order to express their dissatisfaction with the authorities' fiscal policies, many businessmen and business owners in various parts of Guangdong have often adopted passive evasive methods. When the Generalissimo's Office announced the implementation of the "Provisional Regulations on the Collection of Stamp Duty on Firecrackers in Guangdong Province", many fireworks and firecrackers factories in the suburbs of Guangzhou either stopped production or moved their factories out of Guangzhou. Subsequently, many directors of the Guangzhou General Chamber of Commerce hid because they could not bear the demands of many parties. At the end of the same month, the Guangzhou office of Hong Kong's Nanyang Tobacco Company suddenly closed its doors in order to avoid a loan request of 50,000 yuan from the provincial finance department.

In addition to the forcible seizure under the pretense of cleverness, what also frightened the people of Guangdong was the forcible seizure by the revolutionary army.

Due to the failure of the "Northern Expedition" and the "Western Expedition", the revolutionary army suffered heavy losses, and the Generalissimo's Office ordered the Guangzhou Municipal Police Department to recruit 30,000 soldiers within 24 hours and send them to the Dongjiang battlefield. However, the director of the base camp station reported that "more than 50,000 men have been recruited in Guangzhou City in the past few months, and they have been hired and recruited." Therefore, the revolutionary army and political axe approved the garrisons in various localities to "replenish their own troops" in the garrisons.

In order to express their dissatisfaction with the revolutionary military and political authorities, many businessmen and business owners in Guangdong initially adopted passive evasive methods, either stopping production or moving factories and enterprises out of Guangzhou. However, the resistance of ordinary people was much more intense, and the boycotts and anti-tax actions came one after another, which tended to intensify the social contradictions in Guangdong. A reporter from the New York Times wrote in a report sent back home: "...... Strikes in Guangzhou have become commonplace. ”

"The residents of Guangzhou have completely lost trust in Sun Zhengaxe and are on the opposite side of the revolutionaries."

"When it comes to the peasants, they think that the cause of the revolutionaries is purely a misservice to the peasants. It was not uncommon for peasants to stop paying taxes, refuse to sell military rations, and go to the rear of the army with weapons to harass them. ”

“…… In today's Guangzhou, shops are closed and factories are closed, which is not the original intention for businessmen and business owners. However, they are indeed unable to survive in the air of revolution, and can only make this helpless choice, and the resulting unemployment of the people, soaring prices, antagonism between officials and businessmen, and intensification of social contradictions are what no rational political axe wants to see......"

And the officials of the local political axe in Guangzhou also admitted in private: "...... Since the rise of the revolutionary army, the people of Guangdong have been supplied with a lot of salaries, and now there is no way to collect military salaries, and the official property (referring to the official property auctioned) has also been exhausted, so that there is a sign of anger and resentment. ”

Due to the reckless expropriation and forced conscription of the people by the revolutionary army and political axe, the people of Guangdong, who originally had a "revolutionary tradition," were greatly disappointed in the revolutionaries, and their active support for the "Northern Expedition" and "Eastern Crusade" launched by the revolutionaries finally turned into a complete loss of interest, and the contradictions between the revolutionaries and the people of Guangdong became increasingly intensified and became irreconcilable.

For all this, Cheng Biguang, who is from Guangdong, sees it in his eyes, but he has no way to think about it.

After seeing with his own eyes what the supreme leader of the revolutionaries had done to Guangdong, Cheng Biguang could only lament in his memoirs, "How innocent are the people of Guangdong?"

However, the Chinese Navy's new-style gunboats, which had just come to intercept and shell the arms transport ship coming from Taiwan, were full of reason and warmth during the battle. Since the start of the war, the Chinese Navy's gunboats have carried out only a limited number of shelling on the shore, and all of them have focused on military targets such as batteries to avoid harming innocent people.

In fact, since the revolutionary army launched the anti-Yuan uprising in Guangdong, the sea routes in and out of Guangzhou have often been intercepted and inspected by ships of the Chinese navy, but as long as they do not carry munitions, "all civilian ships are allowed to sail without violation", which forms a strong contrast with the attitude of the revolutionary army towards the people.

Cheng Biguang was grateful for the Chinese Navy's actions to protect the people in battle, but he also became less disgusted with the Emperor Yuan in Yanjing, whom he had always opposed.

At this time, Cheng Biguang didn't know that the reason why the Chinese Navy had such a move, and why the Jiangxi army fought such a "strange war", was all related to a young man he had never met.

Ganzhou, suburbs, field airfield.

"I finally saw you coming, Hanzhi."

Looking at Yang Shuoming, who jumped out of the military truck, Tang Jing greeted him with a smile.

Although Tang Jing was wearing a military uniform at this time and looked very heroic, he did not salute Yang Shuoming in the face of Yang Shuoming, but stretched out his hand to Yang Shuoming.

Yang Shuoming smiled and shook his hand hard, and the two immediately hugged each other affectionately.

"It's been a hard time for you." After Yang Shuoming and Tang Jing let go of their hands, they walked side by side, and Mrs. Tang, who was behind Tang Jing, saw the two beauties Xi Xue and Xiangyun who accompanied Yang Shuoming, she was stunned at first, and then greeted them with a smile.

Tang Jing also noticed that Yang Shuoming's beloved wife Huang Yunzhi did not follow, and he was accompanied by two other unfamiliar beauties, and couldn't help laughing.

"It's hard without you." Tang Jing's gaze swept over Xi Xue and Xiangyun, and said with a smile, "My side followed your instructions, and the battle was actually quite comfortable, and I got this." He pointed to a White Tiger medal hanging on his chest, "It's just that Li Chun and Zhang Jingyao are not very happy." ”

Yang Shuoming understood the meaning of Tang Jing's words, and couldn't help but smile aloud.

In order to deal with the attack of the revolutionaries, Yuan Shikai appointed Zhang Jingyao as the envoy of southern Hunan Town, sitting in Hengyang, in order to block the northern invasion of the Guangdong Revolutionary Army, and at the same time ordered the Jiangxi general Li Chuntong to lead the Jiangxi army from Jiangxi to attack the Guangdong Revolutionary Army, and ordered Li Houji to be the guard of Fujian Town to prevent the Guangdong Revolutionary Army from entering Fujian. At the same time, Ma Jizeng was ordered to lead the Sixth Division of the Beiyang Army and Tang Tianxi to lead the Seventh Mixed Brigade of the Beiyang Army to support the Jiangxi Army.

Regarding Yuan Shikai's henchmen Ma Jizeng and Tang Tianxi as backups, Li Chun certainly understood what it meant, these two troops were nominally backups, but in fact they meant more to "supervise the war".

For Emperor Yuan's "upper policy", Li Chun, of course, also "has countermeasures", his method is not to dispatch, but to send two other local troops to take the lead, and he himself sits in the provincial capital Nanchang, waiting to see the current situation.

After receiving Yuan Shikai's order to enter the army, Li Chun transferred Tang Jing, the guard of Jiangxi, and Xu Yuanjin, the guard of Nanchang, to lead the army to meet the Guangdong Revolutionary Army, of course he knew that these two people were Yang Shuoming's team and might not obey his own dispatch, but what Li Chun did not expect was that Tang Jing and Xu Yuanjin quickly gathered their headquarters after receiving the order and went to the front.

Of course, Li Chun would not have thought that Tang Jing and Xu Yuanjin would move so quickly after receiving Yang Shuoming's telegram.

Tang Jing led the army to annihilate the front of the Guangdong Revolutionary Army in one fell swoop, and then sent a special operations detachment to behead the leaders of the revolutionary army, Chen Yingshi and Jiang Zhongzheng, who were awarded the praise of Emperor Yuan. At the request of Li Houji, the Fujian town guard, Xu Yuanjin led his army into Fujian, and annihilated most of the "East Road Thief Army" of the Guangdong Revolutionary Army that entered Fujian, killing its leaders Xu Chonghao and Liu Yuying.

The development of events in the future greatly surprised Li Chun. After these "good start" victories, Tang Jing and Xu Yuanjin stopped advancing. Tang Jing was stationed on the Guangdong-Jiangxi border, and Xu Yuanjin was also stationed on the Fujian-Guangdong border, and both Jiangxi armies began to "dig deep trenches, build high walls, and accumulate grain", and no longer took any active offensive military actions.

Faced with such a situation, Li Chun was helpless except to send a few telegrams to "ask about the war situation".

For these two troops trained by Yang Shuoming that can fight habitually, he didn't expect to listen to his own words.

In order to avoid the possible charge of "arsoning with the enemy", Li Chun submitted battle reports to Emperor Yuan of Yanjing many times, but during this period, the defensive operations of the Jiangxi army achieved brilliant results.

After the Jiangxi army stopped advancing, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army, which had a chance to breathe, launched a large-scale attack again, but without exception, it was bloodied in front of the well-fortified Jiangxi army, and after suffering heavy losses and casualties, the Guangdong Revolutionary Army was forced to abandon the offensive and turn to the defense. The Guangdong Revolutionary Army, which only attacked Hunan, made some progress, but after learning that the other two groups had failed, they quickly retreated into the territory to protect themselves for fear of being surrounded and annihilated.

For the victory of the Jiangxi army's defensive war, Yuan Shikai, who has been extremely concerned about the war situation in Europe, gave a high evaluation, he believed that the Jiangxi army learned the essence of the Western "trench warfare", so it was able to "win more with less, break the inferior with fine, and win a complete victory with static braking", so Yuan Shikai did not investigate the reason why Tang Jing and Xu Yuanjin did not enter the army, but gave the two generals rich rewards.

Of course, Yuan Shikai also understood that Tang and Xu may have listened to the behind-the-scenes command of "someone" to do this.

In fact, Yuan Shikai guessed correctly, since the outbreak of the revolution in Guangdong, Yang Shuoming's "behind-the-scenes control" has never stopped.

For the reason for the abnormal battlefield performance of Tang and Xu, Li Chun of course also knew it, he asked for the surname to write to Yuan Shikai, and asked to send Yang Shuoming to "lead the whole army, cooperate to suppress, and make full achievements as soon as possible", Yang Du, the prime minister in Yanjing, in order to extinguish the Guangdong revolution as soon as possible, also recommended Yang Shuoming to Yuan Shikai, but Yuan Shikai was obviously not so at ease with Yang Shuoming, after careful consideration, he gave Yang Shuoming the position of "Nanzhili Patrol Envoy", and sent him south, "Together with the generals to suppress the Guangdong bandits".

Regarding the weight of the authority of the "Nanzhili Patrol Envoy", Yang Shuoming actually knows very clearly.

In fact, the authority of this "Nanzhili Patrol Envoy" is very limited, nominally has the power to command the armies of the southern provinces, but in fact this is not the case, the so-called "one radish and one pit", there are many princes in the south, unless it is beneficial to himself, no one will be willing to obey orders, and Yang Shuoming does not have a division or brigade in his hands, and he can now exert greater influence only on the navy and the newly formed air force, as well as the two Jiangxi armies of Tang Jing and Xu Yuanjin.

"I heard that you have fought a few vicious battles, and even the head of a Cantonese bandit leader like Chen Yingshi has been cut off." Yang Shuoming looked at the fighter planes parked at the field airfield and asked Tang Jing, "The casualties of the brothers are not big, right?" ”

"With so many tanks, artillery, and planes, if there were too many losses, I wouldn't be human." Tang Jing smiled and shook his head, "Don't worry." At this time, the brothers are looking forward to your return so that you can fight a decent battle. ”

"It's not necessarily a big battle." Yang Shuoming smiled and said, "What I'm thinking about now is how to end this war quickly at the lowest cost and in the simplest way." ”

"I know what you want to do." Tang Jing pointed to the large planes parked in the hangar far from the airport, and said with a smile, "From the day you let these bombers fly over, I understand. ”

Yang Shuoming smiled, turned his head and looked in the direction of the hangar, he looked at the "Handley. Pedy 0/100" bomber, a subtle cruel smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

His next move was to rely on these large bombers ordered from the United States and subsequently copied by China.

"Handley. The Pedy 0/100" bomber was the famous aircraft designer Handley. Designed by Pedge. In 1911, Handley. Pej set about designing a twin-engine bomber. In December 1914, according to the technical requirements of the British Admiralty, Handley. Using the accumulation of previous technology, Pedy designed a large twin-engine patrol bomber, the "Handley. Pedy 0/100" bomber.

"Handley. The Pedy 0/100" bomber was all made of wood, with cloth skin, and the twin wings were of a normal layout, with a pronounced upper reverse angle and six sets of interwing struts, and the lower wing was shorter than the upper wing. Interestingly, in order to protect this non-metallic structure from erosion in bad weather and at night, the outer wing of this bomber can be folded back 90 degrees to facilitate the storage of the British army's standard field hangar, which is extremely rare among large aircraft. The aircraft has a long fuselage with a rectangular section, and the belly of the fuselage is inclined upwards towards the head and tail ends. At the nose end was the shooter--bombardier cockpit, which was a common layout among heavy bombers at the time. This is followed by a side-by-side two-seater cockpit, which is the seat of the pilot and navigator or mechanic, all in an open shape. "Handley. The Pedy 0/100" bomber has two flat tails and two vertical tails, which ensure smooth flight times. The landing gear is four single wheels in parallel, with a tail sled. On both sides of the fuselage, between the upper and lower wings, there are two nacelles of the "Eagle" water-cooled piston engine produced by the Roy-Royce company, and under the central wing, usually 8 113-kilogram bombs can be hung, and the aircraft is equipped with 4-5 self-defense machine guns.

"Handley. With a wingspan of 100 feet, the Pedy 0/100" bomber was named the "0/100" type, and with a length of 62 feet 10 inches, an empty weight of 8,000 pounds, a maximum take-off weight of 14,000 pounds, and a top flight speed of 76 miles per hour, it was the largest aircraft built in Britain at the time.

The British gave "Handley. The first task of the Peti 0/100 "bomber was to carry out night bombing missions (because it was too clumsy to evade the hunt of German day fighters), and due to its good performance in battle," Handley. Pedy 0/100" attracted the attention of the American side, and the United States began to copy and equip "Handley. Peti 0/100" bomber, and the actions of the United States have had an extremely important and far-reaching impact on China, where the Air Force is in its infancy.

(To be continued)