readx; When Chen Jingyun was considering Sir Fa Lei's proposal for peace talks, Yuan Shikai also met Zhu Erdian, and after some polite words, Zhu Erdian cautiously expressed his willingness to act as a mediator between the two sides, and from a personal point of view, he was not optimistic that the Beiyang Army would continue to fight with the Nationalist Army in southern Jiangsu. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoBecause this is not the slightest benefit to the Beiyang Army itself, and it also hints that the negotiations on the aftermath of the large loan are progressing smoothly, it is recommended that the Beiyang Army slow down the process of reunification and wait for the aftermath of the big loan to be in place before carrying out relevant military operations.

Yuan Shikai also understood Zhu Erdian's words, and he himself understood even more that the Beiyang Army no longer had much strength to continue fighting, and the Beiyang Army now needed time, and before the Beiyang Army was completely prepared in all aspects, any military action to unify China by force was unrealistic. However, Yuan Shikai still has many other concerns, such as whether the Nationalist Army will further increase its strength after this delay continues, and whether it will encounter greater trouble when the Beiyang Army moves south. Moreover, whether such rash peace talks will cause domestic warlords to follow suit, whether the southern warlords will unite against the enemy after the authority of the central political axe declines, and whether the peace talks will cause a split in the Beiyang system, these are all issues that must be considered.

However, since Zhu Erdian personally proposed peace talks to Yuan Shikai, and the Beiyang Army is also facing practical difficulties on the front line in southern Jiangsu, it is not impossible to talk about this peace talks, of course, various conditions and the like have to be talked about separately.

So Yuan Shikai did not give Zhu Erdian a clear answer, but verbally he would consider it, and at the same time, he discussed the current situation in detail with Duan Qirui, Zhou Xuexi, Zhao Bingjun and others, and then exchanged views with Xu Shichang, an old friend, and although these people were also worried, they all revealed a meaning in their words, that is, the Beiyang Army needs time now.

"It's coming to the end of the year, and then the first parliamentary election will be held, and the president will be re-elected. I heard that Sun Wen and Song Jiaoren were ready to seize control of the parliament and try to re-elect the president when the time came. Yang Du also said another threat to the Beiyang Army.

In addition to facing the military obstacles of the many warlords in the South, the Congress is also a big problem. Although Yuan Shikai is determined to win the position of president, no one can guarantee whether things will change, and if the Beiyang Army continues to fight with the Nationalist Army, Chen Jingyun may unite with Sun Wen's revolutionary party, and if there is an accident in the National Assembly election, it will be a big trouble.

If Yuan Shikai loses the president's thing, Beiyang loses the power to organize the cabinet, and there is no name for the central government, which is an unbearable loss for the Beiyang system.

Faced with so many difficulties and threats, Yuan Shikai gritted his teeth, and immediately ordered the following people to come up with a specific plan for peace talks.

When Sir Fa Lei told Chen Jingyun that the northern political axe was interested in peace talks, Chen Jingyun also convened several high-level officials under him for a detailed discussion on peace talks, and finally came up with a relevant peace talk plan.

Interestingly, neither Yuan Shikai nor Chen Jingyun took the initiative to publicize the peace talks to the outside world, but on the contrary, they kept it secret.

The two sides have not yet come up with a specific plan for peace talks, but in order to show the sincerity of the peace talks, the two sides have stopped large-scale war in Yangzhou, but the small-scale war is still continuing.

There are differences in any peace talks, and the Beiyang Army has not yet come up with a concrete plan, but it has already put forward a precondition, that is, the Nationalist Army troops in Yangzhou must cross the river and make it difficult to return. The Nationalist Army is naturally unwilling to lose Yangzhou, the bridgehead in the north of the Yangtze River. As a matter of fact, the main force of the Fourth Division of the Nationalist Army has completed its preparations, and the troops have crossed the river one after another, preparing to take over the garrison division to defend Yangzhou.

The guard division suffered heavy losses in the early stage of the operation, and now there is no surplus of more than 6,000 people in the whole division, and it is in urgent need of rest and replenishment to restore combat effectiveness, and after the Yangzhou side fell into a stalemate, Feng Guozhang approved the proposal for peace talks, and did not continue to draw Nanjing to reinforce Wang Ruxian's seventh division and the second brigade, so that the national economy got a rare opportunity to withdraw the guard division. In fact, on the other hand, according to the preconditions for peace talks between the two sides, neither side can increase troops on the Yangzhou front, which is also the withdrawal of the guard division after the fourth division goes up.

The secret peace talks between the two sides are easing down, and the war in Yangzhou is slowly calming down and coming to an end. At this time, both sides were taking advantage of this opportunity to adjust their forces, for example, the Nationalist Army sent the Fourth Division to take over the guard division to defend Yangzhou, and Feng Guozhang also formed a mixed brigade of the Fifth Division and the First Brigade after resting and replenishing the soldiers and weapons to go to Yangzhou to replace Wang Ruxian's Seventh Division, which had also suffered heavy losses after many battles. Although the Seventh Division, which had gone through many battles, suffered heavy losses in weapons and equipment, it suffered heavy losses in personnel, and it was also in urgent need of rest and replenishment.

These small troop adjustments on both sides were carried out under the guidance of British observers, and even in order to ensure the outbreak of large-scale fighting between the two sides during the peace talks, the British Chinese fleet in Shanghai sent two warships to the vicinity of Nanjing to signify their presence.

A very important reason is that although neither side wants to fight, they also do not want large-scale peace talks to cause internal turmoil, so that although the peace talks are going on day by day, the conditions for peace talks put forward by both sides are all fantastical talks, and there is no talk of actual issues at all.

For example, Beiyang's demand that the national army must withdraw from southern Jiangsu is absolutely unacceptable to the national army, not to mention a series of requirements put forward later, such as the provincial finances under the control of the national army must be handed over to the central government, and the national army is reorganized by the central government. This is not a conditional peace negotiation at all, but a direct dismemberment of the national army, and if it is really agreed, the direct disbandment of the national army will be more straightforward.

First of all, the Beiyang Army was required to hand over the north bank of Nanjing to the Nationalist Army, and the Beiyang Army must withdraw to Xuzhou, and at the same time recognize the Nationalist Army's control over Fujian, Zhejiang, and the three provinces of the Soviet Union, and demand that the Central Political Axe appoint Chen Jingyun as the southeastern Xuanfu envoy to take charge of the military and political power of the three provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu in an all-round way. This is no different from reading power at all, and Yuan Shikai's head is a mess of paste, and he will not agree. Even at the beginning, he asked the Beiyang military and political axe to remove Feng Guozhang, saying that Feng Guozhang, a reactionary warlord, had undermined domestic peace and was an enemy of the people.

Naturally, this kind of absurd condition can only be said once, and the next day, when the peace talks were held by the Nationalist Army, Guo Hengsi, director of the General Affairs Department of the General Staff Department of the National Army, did not say anything, and then revolved around the withdrawal of the Beiyang Army from Jiangbei and the fact that Chen Jingyun wanted to be the southeastern propaganda envoy. However, both the conditions of the National Army and the Beiyang Army are divorced from reality, and according to this situation, there is no way to succeed in peace talks.

As for the slow progress of the peace talks, Chen Jingyun is not in a hurry, and Yuan Shikai is not in a hurry, anyway, as long as the two sides do not engage in a large-scale war, it is fine, and as for the so-called peace talks, they will be slowly dragged on.

So when the two sides secretly negotiated peace, Chen Jingyun still handled normal official business in Shanghai, but because the war in southern Jiangsu has largely ended, the headquarters of the Nationalist Army cannot always be set up in Shanghai, after all, Shanghai is full of concessions, there are many foreigners, it is not a good place called a political center, Chen Jingyun has already considered whether it is time to go back to Fuzhou, the base camp in Fuzhou has not been back for a long time, as the saying goes, it will change after a long time, Although Chen Jingyun, who is Zheng Zuyin and Lin Wenying in Fuzhou, is not very worried, the necessary precautions are still needed, and it is not good to leave for too long.

Of course, this is just an idea at present, and now that the Nationalist Army is gathering in southern Jiangsu, Chen Jingyun is not at ease to leave these armies alone.

With the further expansion of the total strength of the Nationalist Army, Chen Jingyun felt that it was already necessary to set up a command headquarters at the army level, and he could not have a large-scale war anywhere in the future, and then he would have to rush to the war zone with the entire headquarters.

In the past, there were only five or six divisions in the Nationalist Army, and if one army was attached to two or three divisions, then the force controlled by the army commander would be too great, and if one did not do well, it would be counterattacked, and there was no suitable candidate for the army commander at that time. However, now that there are 10 regular field divisions and one guard division under the Nationalist Army, plus there are still a considerable number of local garrison regiments in important areas of the provinces, this total strength is already more than 100,000, and it is somewhat inconvenient to continue to maintain the direct command of the headquarters to the divisions as stations.

In fact, in the Guangzhou War and the Nanjing War, Chen Jingyun had already tried to use the following people to be in charge of one side, and the person in charge was the same person, that is, Shen Gang. Although it does not have an actual name, only the title of temporary commander, but in fact it is already a command organization equivalent to the military level, and now it is time to put forward the scene.

As for the establishment of a command structure at the military level, Chen Jingyun, as he had made major military decisions in the past, did not discuss with the generals below him or anything like that, but thought about it for a long time before convening a military meeting.

Because Chen Jingyun personally spoke and the fighting on the front line had stopped, the commanders of the divisions who were basically outside had all gone to Shanghai, and even the commanders of the Third Division in Guangzhou, the commanders of the Fifth Division, the Eighth and Ninth Divisions in Fuzhou, and the commanders of the Sixth Division in Jinhua all arrived in Shanghai to attend this high-level military meeting.

On December 20th, Chen Jingyun personally supported this military meeting, the huge meeting was full of generals, the first of which was also a major general, including the commanders of the divisions of the National Army, the deputy commanders of the divisions in southern Jiangsu, and many generals of the headquarters of the National Army, including the directors of various divisions, and even Chen Weihua, who was idle, attended this meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, Yuan Fang, deputy chief of staff, introduced the current situation of the national army, especially the situation in southern Jiangsu, and these contents naturally could not satisfy many generals below, Chen Jingyun convened such a large number of people to participate in the meeting in the future, by no means so simple as introducing the situation, in fact, they more or less heard the rumors, and learned that Chen Jingyun wanted to make a summary of the war in southern Jiangsu, what is the summary, it is nothing more than an appreciation punishment, so they are more or less guessing who will be promoted. Of course, more importantly, they also vaguely heard some rumors that Chen Jingyun was already planning to set up a military-level organization, and this meeting was precisely for this matter.

Now that a command structure at the army level has been established, the selection of the next army commander is a major matter, and there are only so many units of the national army, and according to the establishment of at least two divisions and one army, the maximum number is four to five armies. And there are so many generals here, who doesn't stare at these positions!