September of the first year of the Republic of China is slowly entering the late autumn season, maybe a few days ago it was still very hot, but the autumn wind is coming, after this night of blowing up the next morning, the ground is full of dead branches and yellow leaves blown down last night, and the face can continue to feel the slow and continuous late autumn breeze blowing on the face, this scene is announcing to people that the hot summer has ended, autumn is coming.

On the day of the autumn equinox, there was another gust of wind, and the slightest coolness also attracted the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is among the top few traditional festivals, and it is often a day to eat moon cakes with your family and enjoy the moon, but this year's Fuzhou Mid-Autumn Festival is a little unusual, at least the high-level generals of the National Army are different from previous years.

In the huge conference room in the headquarters of the National Army, in the middle is a huge long table, and on the wall behind the main seat hangs a huge map of the Chinese [***]. In the conference room, a kind of generals in military uniforms were standing or sitting, some were talking in twos and threes, and some were looking at Chen Jingyun on the side.

At this time, Chen Jingyun was also wearing a military uniform, and was talking to several senior generals such as Lin Zhaomin, Chen Weihua, and Feng Qin, and although their expressions were calm, it was obvious that Chen Jingyun's expressions were not good-looking.

After these people talked for a while, Chen Jingyun turned around, and then walked over and said loudly: "Everyone, I still have to call everyone over for the Mid-Autumn Festival, I can't compensate for the delay in reuniting you with your family, but there are still mooncakes!" ”

As Chen Jingyun's voice fell, Yu Shifeng of the Secretariat brought several large plates of moon cakes with two secret techniques, and the generals either took half of it or directly took one and ate it.

Lin Chenkun said loudly: "The mooncakes here are still delicious!" Alas, I haven't eaten such delicious mooncakes in previous years! ”

Chen Jingyun on the side smiled and said: "Everyone has been hungry for several hours, and they haven't even eaten dinner, so it's no wonder it's not delicious!" ”

Many people who eat moon cakes did not swallow slowly, but they all ate quickly, and then sat down one after another without command, after these people sat down, they found that all the high-level generals of the National Army in Fujian were basically brought together in this conference room, not only the chief and deputy chief of the three major departments, but also Sa Zhenbing and Yu Wentao of the Navy Department, and the directors of the other three departments, such as Liang Xunqin, director of the Operations Department, Situ Jun, deputy director of the Operations Department, Chen Yi, director of the Strategy Department, Chen Yanjia, deputy director of the Strategy Department, and Jiang Fangzhen, director of the Education Department. Guo Hengsi, director of the General Affairs Department, Wen Jizhong, deputy director of the General Affairs Department, and some first-class staff officers in the General Staff Department, in addition to the senior officers of the headquarters, also had the chief officers of some combat units, such as Lin Chengkun and Yu Ruofei of the Guard Division, Lin Feitai of the Fifth Division, and then Lin Zhaomin, who had only returned by boat from Zhejiang yesterday, and Chen Weihua of the First Division.

There were more than 20 people in a room, and the most of these people was a colonel, and they were basically generals.

Chen Jingyun also sat down at this time: "Okay, the fifteen-minute break is over, let's continue to discuss!" With that, he looked at Feng Qin on the left: "We talked about it just now?" ”

Feng Qin replied: "Speaking of the equipment configuration of our army or the enemy!" ”

Chen Jingyun nodded: "Okay, go on!" ”

After Chen Jingyun's voice fell, Liang Xunqin of the Operations Department stood up, this person now has the rank of a major general on his shoulders, Liang Xunqin was recruited by Chen Jingyun last year, and joined the national army, at first as an ordinary staff officer, and then slowly rose up, obviously the General Affairs Department was appointed as a deputy director, and when Shen Gang was transferred from the director of the Operations Department to the third division commander, Liang Xunqin was strongly recommended as his successor, and Chen Jingyun also intended to slowly bring Liang Xunqin up, so it was approved. When Beiyang conferred a personal title on Chen Jingyun a few months ago, Chen Jingyun also promoted his subordinates to military ranks. Now the divisions under the three major headquarters of the National Army have become more and more important, and this rank is too low, so Chen Jingyun unified the plan to promote the directors of each division to major general, and the deputy director to colonel. Therefore, Liang Xunqin also followed his friend Shen Gang and wore the rank of major general. Based on the important surname of the Operations Division and Shen Gang's previous example, everyone also speculated that Liang Xunqin was likely to go out to be the commander of the first division in the future.

I saw that after he nodded to everyone, he said loudly: "According to the investigation report of the Military Intelligence Division, it can be determined that the Beiyang Fifth Division in the direction of Xuzhou is still fully manned, the artillery regiment under its jurisdiction and the cavalry regiment have maintained a complete structure, and the caliber of its rifles is also unified into the 1888 Mauser rifle (that is, the 1888 Committee rifle), and the ammunition logistics supply of this unit has also been kept unimpeded. The combat effectiveness of the troops in all aspects has not been weakened much by the large-scale expansion of the Beiyang Army."

Xuzhou, where the Fifth Division was stationed, was a military location, and Yuan Shikai replaced the commander of the Fifth Division with Jin Yunpeng, who was Duan Qirui's confidant, when Duan Qirui was the president of the First Army, he appointed Jin Yunpeng, who fled from Yunnan to Hubei, as the general counselor, and Yuan Shikai became the president, he was personally recommended by Duan Qirui and transferred to the Fifth Town Commander, after the town was reformed into divisions, he served as the commander of the Fifth Division, and was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, leading the Fifth Division to act in charge of Xuzhou defense.

After so many reasons, the Beiyang side can be said to be inclined to take care of the Fifth Division, the Beiyang Army is expanding, the newly established divisions are extremely lacking in grassroots officers and experienced veterans, other troops, even including Cao Kun's Third Division have been transferred a considerable part of the troops to form the Eighth Division, but this Fifth Division is an officer, not a single veteran has been transferred, not only that, in today's Beiyang Army is extremely short of military funds, even if the six towns of Beiyang are Yuan Shikai's descendants, However, there is more or less the problem of unpaid salaries, but the military expenses of the Fifth Division have always been sufficient, of course, the officers above are greedy, and the soldiers below do not have the full salaries.

From these, it can be seen that the combat effectiveness of the Fifth Division has not decreased much compared to before Xinhai, and it can also be seen that Xuzhou has an important surname.

Liang Xunqin of the Operations Division continued: "The Eighth Division of Qingjiangpu in Jiangsu Province was formed by the merger of the former Zhang Xun's Jiangfang Army and part of the Qing Army in the Jiangbei Battalion. Judging from the equipment alone, this Eighth Division is weaker than the Fifth Division, and weaker than our army's regular full-strength division, but Zhang Xun's troops have always been known for daring to fight and fight, and although military discipline is corrupt, their combat effectiveness is not weak.

In addition to the two Beiyang divisions in Jiangsu, it is worth noting that there is also Cao Kun's third division in the Shandong direction, this division is Yuan Shikai's old descendant troops, which performed very eye-catching when attacking Shanxi before, and once defeated the Shanxi People's Army with a battalion of 3,000 people. ”

Liang Xunqin, the combat division, continued: "If the Beiyang Army wants to go south, then the first wave of troops going south will be these three divisions, as for whether the follow-up Beiyang Army will be reinforced, it depends on the development of the battle situation and the follow-up movement of the Beiyang Army!" ”

Liang Xunqin, director of the Operations Department, also sat down again after speaking, but Lin Chengkun, who was on the side of the meeting, asked: "Aren't there two divisions over there in Anhui, how about that side, will they go south with Beiyang?" ”

At this time, Chen Yi, director of the Strategy Department, said: "It's not sure yet, the current commander of the First Division of Anhui is Hu Wantai from the Yue Wang Huihui Party, although he said that he supported the revolution before and was regarded as a confidant by Bai Wenwei. But this person also has some contact with the north, and if there is a real battle at this time, it is difficult to determine whether this person is throwing himself there with the first division of Anhui. As for the Anhui Second Division, it is still an empty shelf, with seven or eight thousand empty people, but the weaponry, equipment, training, etc. are extremely poor, and even if they come, they will not affect the overall situation! ”

Yu Ruofei on the side also spoke: "There are now three divisions of Huang Xing in the south of Jiangsu, and at this time, the two divisions in Beiyang are three divisions moving south, I'm afraid it will be difficult to hold it!" ”

Huang Xing originally wanted to train a division after the major disarmament, and then reserve a lot of ordnance for later use, but the resistance encountered at the time of disarmament was not ordinarily large, and then he reluctantly collected a group of chaotic soldiers to train a division, but with Yuan Shikai as president, it seems that there is a great move to unify the south by force, so he can't take care of the lack of money in Nanjing, and after looting the entire southern part of Jiangsu, he formed a division, so now Huang Xing has the first, second, and third divisions of Jiangsu. Plus a regiment of guards left behind.

It seems that the troops are more than the Beiyang Army in northern Jiangsu, but everyone's combat effectiveness is well known, and the Southern Army has never expected to be able to defeat Beiyang one-on-one, so Huang Xing's three divisions and one regiment have enough to hold Nanjing.

At this time, Chen Yikou, the strategy department, replied: "Now I know that Huang Xing's layout is to spread the troops along the line of Nanjing and Huai'an, and there is no appearance of sticking to the city of Nanjing. Huang Xing may not be able to hold on for a month at most, or even half a month! ”

Seeing that the group of generals below took the Beiyang Army with every word, and the discussion turned out to be that the Beiyang Army was moving south, and those who didn't know thought that the Beiyang Army had gone south.

Actually, no, this will Yuan Shikai's money has not been borrowed, and it is basically impossible to let his army go south without military funds in hand, so Yuan Shikaide will wait until the money is in hand, and then expand the troops and prepare for mobilization, then it will be the time when more than 100,000 Beiyang troops will go south. Now, it's too early.

Since it was not the Beiyang Army that went south, then why were all the generals discussing the issue of the Beiyang Army going south, and why did Chen Jingyun gather so many generals to discuss, and it was still on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The reason for this is not because of what happened in Jiangsu, nor what happened to Huang Xing and Yuan Shikai, nor what happened in northern Zhejiang. Instead, something happened in Guangdong in the south. Guangdong has not been calm since the Wuchang Uprising, and the back is also chaotic, the contradiction between Chen Jiongming and Hu Hanmin is almost known to the whole country, but there is also a Long Jiguang eyeing the tiger.

Under such circumstances, it is difficult for Guangdong not to mess up!