Mao Zd extinguished the cigarette that was still half of the cigarette in his hand in the ashtray, looked at Chang Ruiqing and sat down, and said with a smile: "The reorganization of the new Eighth Division has been completed, and the team of 12,000 people is all formed in accordance with the methods of the Soviet Russian Red Army. I just returned to Guangzhou yesterday, and President Chen assigned me another errand. ”

He took out an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Chang Ruiqing: "I am now the representative of the Government Council to the Northern Expeditionary Army Headquarters, and a temporary appointment is to coordinate the relationship between the Northern Expeditionary Army and the Government Council, as well as the provincial governments. By the way, you can also give your commander-in-chief a staff officer on military affairs. By the way, Comrade Yaoru, how are you going to defeat Wu Ziyu? ”

Staff officers and military affairs, of course, Mao Zd himself made it up, Chen Duxiu, the 230th winner of the Government Affairs Yuan, will not casually interfere in military affairs beyond his authority. However, Chang Ruiqing didn't delve into it, but smiled bitterly and waved his hand: "Wu Ziyu is not easy to defeat...... Because he won't honestly stay still and let me fight! According to the intelligence, he was ready to concentrate his main forces along the Longhai Railway, and was ready to rely on the Longhai Line, the Jinghan Line, and the Jinpu Line to fight a war with us. To be honest, fighting a campaign in the Central Plains is actually the weakness of our Northern Expeditionary Army! ”

Mao Zd sighed and asked rhetorically: "Is it because the Beiyang Army is a long-trained soldier, and most of its officers and soldiers are from the Central Plains, are you familiar with the terrain and environment there?" ”

Chang Ruiqing looked at Mao ZD and nodded: "After all, the three provinces of Zhilu and Henan are the nest of Beiyang, we are not familiar with the land, and the land policy of our national government and the suppression policy of treating local tyrants and powerful will also make the local tyrants and inferior gentry in the three provinces of Zhilu and Henan all stand on the side of Beiyang...... This time, Wu Ziyu has the right place and people, I have the time in my hands, and in addition, the army is strong. And not afraid of consumption! If we can force Wu Ziyu to fight me in a decisive battle near Xuzhou, there should be a 10% chance of victory. ”

Mao ZD lit another cigarette at this time. took a few puffs and said with a light smile: "Then find a way to spread rumors about the 230th championship, ask for a monthly pass, ask for a subscription, and let Wu Peifu stay in Xuzhou and don't leave!" ”

Chang Ruiqing's face was slightly solemn, although he patted his chest at the military meeting just now, but if he really wanted to ask him what he could do, he really didn't think about it for a while!

Mao Zd looked at Chang Ruiqing seriously, and said thoughtfully: "If you want the other party to follow our train of thought, you must first find the weakness of the other party, so that you can prescribe the right medicine." What is the weakness of Beiyang now? I think it's still a warlord system, although Xu Shuzheng and Wu Peifu temporarily twisted Beiyang into a mess, but their division commanders and brigade commanders. Still a warlord after all! If it is a warlord, it will have its own little abacus. That's their biggest weakness right now! ”

Mao Zd thought for a while, and then said slowly: "What Wu Peifu is most afraid of is probably not the battle with the Northern Expeditionary Army. I know a little bit about him, and I think very highly of myself, even if you have more troops than him. He has the confidence to keep fighting. What he is most afraid of now is that the soldiers under him will be co-opted by the Nationalist Government one by one, and finally lose without a fight! That's the best ......."

He saw that Chang Ruiqing was nodding frequently, so he said more energetically: "And what the soldiers under him are most afraid of is probably fighting with the Northern Expeditionary Army, and there is no warlord to do." We can start from this point, and on the one hand send representatives to lobby the division commanders and brigade commanders under Wu Peifu. On the one hand, rumors were released that a certain warlord was bought by us, and he was about to defect soon, so that Wu Peifu and his subordinates were suspicious of each other.

The method of spreading rumors can also be used between Xu Shuzheng, Wu Peifu, and Feng Yuxiang. The three of them are just united by interests. There is no common denominator, ideals and isms. And in the past, there were also many contradictions between them. The trust between them is very fragile and cannot withstand the test. If we spread rumors, we will say that Wu Peifu is secretly negotiating with us to accept the official post appointed by the Nationalist Government...... What do you think Xu Shuzheng and Feng Yuxiang will think? What will Wu Peifu's Beiyang warlord think? ”

Chang Ruiqing listened to Mao Zd's method, and his face couldn't help but be overjoyed. He slapped the table hard: "Good! Comrade Runzhi. You really have a clever plan to calm the world! This time you won the victory of the Northern Expedition, you have made the first contribution...... I must ask for credit for you from Mr. Sun! ”

Mao ZD hurriedly waved his hand, looking indifferent: "If you ask for merit or something, you will be exempted, we GCD people are not doing our lives to be rewarded for meritorious service!" Speaking of this, he sighed softly: "What we GCD people are most afraid of is that there is no chance to do a career...... Comrade Yaoru, why is our new Eighth Division not in the sequence of this northward marching army? Could it be that the command of your Northern Expeditionary Army thinks that the GCD people in the New Eighth Division are not brave enough and are not opponents of the Beiyang Army? ”

At this time, a sudden expression of realization flashed on Chang Ruiqing's face, and he smiled and said: "Okay, the new Eighth Division will be incorporated into the First Front Army to participate in the Northern Expedition, and I will ask the Joint Logistics Command to replenish a batch of seven or nine caliber guns to the new Eighth Division." Brother Run, is this okay? Seeing Mao Zd nodding with a smile, Chang Ruiqing continued: "But Brother Runzhi also has to do me a favor, this time the matter of spreading rumors to Wu Peifu will trouble Brother Runzhi to preside over it, how much money needs to be used, and what personnel to mobilize, just ask." ”

Beginning in mid-January 1919, some Western-language newspapers in Shanghai and Tianjin suddenly revealed the news that General Wu Peifu, chief of staff of the Beiyang Army base camp and commander-in-chief of the southern front, had participated in the GCD of the "China" country when he was in Hunan! According to these newspapers, Mao Zd, a member of the Central Bureau of the Central Committee and head of the Organization Department, was serving as a senior senator in Wu Peifu's Third Division at that time, and the election of Wu Peifu as the overseer of Hunan by the Hunan Local Council was handled by Mao Zd. Immediately after that, all kinds of rumors began to spread in Beijing and Tianjin that Wu Peifu or other Beiyang Army generals were secretly in contact with the Nationalist Government and were preparing to defect and accept official posts in the Nationalist Government. The intelligence agency of the base camp of the Beiyang Army also continued to receive secret reports from the front-line generals of the Beiyang Army and the south, and even seized several handwritten letters written by Chang Ruiqing, Mao Zd and others to the generals of the Northern Army......

In the midst of the rumors, on January 12, 1919, Chang Ruiqing's Northern Expeditionary Army Headquarters was officially stationed in Nanjing, and at the same time, hundreds of thousands of Northern Expeditionary troops along the Yangtze River were also rapidly adjusting their deployment.

……

Chang Ruiqing's intrigues and tricks are now like a haze hanging over the head of the Beiyang Army. The top leaders of the Beiyang Army, including Wu Peifu, have such a point of view: Beiyang has fallen to the current point. It's mainly caused by Chang Ruiqing's tricks! And in the next North and South war, Chang Ruiqing will definitely repeat his old tricks. Use despicable tricks to deal with the resistance of the Beiyang Army.

It should be said that this judgment is completely correct, but correct judgment does not mean that a solution can be found. As the German propaganda minister in history said: a lie repeated a thousand times is the truth! What's more, the rumors released by Comrade Mao ZD are all well-founded, almost seventy or eighty percent of the truth plus two or three percent of artistic processing...... And it is the handwriting of Comrade Mao ZD, a master of truth-making, which really doesn't sound like a fake.

On the desk of Wu Peifu's benefactor, Cao Kun and Cao Zhongshan, there are now a large number of secret reports that "Wu Peifu is a GCD" and "Wu Peifu wants to defect to the Nationalist Government". This Cao Kun is known as the first honest man in Beiyang, and the people in the rivers and lakes call him "Cao San Fool", which is naturally easier to deceive. After getting these reports, he immediately went to Wu Peifu for verification. Well, in fact, Cao Kun has no opinion on Wu Peifu joining the GCD to join the Nationalist Government, but he just wants Commander-in-Chief Wu to take him to participate in the GCD Revolution (there is an example of our Changda Revolution). The current Beiyang warlords have no objection to participating in the GCD). After meeting and talking about this idea. Wu Peifu almost fainted to the ground.

"Zhong Shuai, do you believe such nonsense?" Wu Peifu took Cao Kun's hand and asked rhetorically. He, the commander-in-chief of the Southern Front and the former commander-in-chief of the First Front Army, didn't have much mind to direct the battle in the past two days, and was busy refuting rumors for himself or discerning rumors about other Beiyang Army generals.

But Wu Peifu also knew in his heart that these news about the contact between the generals of the Beiyang Army and the Southern Army would not all be fake. In the final analysis, the Beiyang Army is a warlord army, and the army is the private property of the commanders.

Cao Kun looked disappointed, I don't know if it was because he didn't believe Wu Peifu, or because he didn't find a way to participate in GCD? He probably had little confidence in the upcoming Great War between the North and the South. So he sighed: "Ziyu, in fact, there is nothing wrong with contacting the south and finding a way out for the brothers." It's Xu Youzheng in Beijing, who pretends to be full of confidence in front of the big guys, but in private, he has not been in contact with the south himself? It's just that the price can't be negotiated......"

Wu Peifu also knew that this matter was raised by the "Day" himself. In order to make Beiyang change its banner as a whole, it will continue to divide the north of China in the future, resulting in a de facto division between the north and the south. However, the Nationalist Government ignored it, which also reflected from the side that Sun Yat-sen and Chang Ruiqing had made up their minds to completely smash the Beiyang group. In this case, there are still so many military leaders in the Beiyang system who are in contact with the southern army, is it really the general trend?

Seeing that Wu Peifu was silent, Cao Kun sighed again: "If you don't touch, don't touch...... There will be no good price to take refuge in the past now, we must always fight a good battle, let Sun Cannon and Chang Ruiqing know how powerful our Beiyang is, and then we can negotiate the price. Ziyu, are you sure about the next battle? ”

Cao Kun's mantra is: "Ziyu's grasp is my grasp." This was true when he was the commander of the Third Division, and now he is even more so as the commander-in-chief of the Beiyang First Front Army, which has 12 divisions and six brigades.

Wu Peifu sighed and said with a wry smile: "Zhong Shuai, his subordinates are always seventy percent sure on the battlefield. Although Chang Ruiqing concentrated his forces on Jinpu Road this time, it seemed to be clenched into a fist, and there was no flaw. However, if his 400,000 troops were really placed on the battlefield of the Central Plains, it was impossible for them to gather into groups and not disperse. Once dispersed, it is not difficult to break them individually, but it is difficult to say things outside the battlefield. ”

"What's going on outside of the battlefield?" Cao Kun didn't seem to understand Wu Peifu's last sentence.

"What else could it be? Of course, it's the surname Chang who has made a conspiracy! Wu Peifu sighed again: "We are all private soldiers in Beiyang, and the capital of the big guys to live is the army, if they fight out, there will be nothing, and the current situation is not good, it is not strange for someone to secretly communicate with the south......

Cao Kun finally understood what he meant, he thought for a while, and said slowly: "Ziyu, our Beiyang has lost half of the [China] country in a few months, so everyone feels that there is no hope before they will have the intention of taking refuge in the south. Otherwise, who is full of food and will go to do it with Sun Cannon and GCD? Now I want to calm people's hearts. Only once can you defeat the southern soldiers on the battlefield, so that everyone can see the hope of victory! ”

"Defeat the Southern Soldier once?" Wu Peifu's eyebrows tightened. The Northern Expeditionary Army in the south was concentrating on the front line of Jinpu Road. Their first offensive target is clearly Xuzhou! Xuzhou has been a battleground for soldiers since ancient times, and if it is occupied by the Northern Expeditionary Army, the hearts of the people on their side will only be more fluctuating, right? But if you want to defeat the southern soldiers under the city of Xuzhou, you have to fight a decisive battle of 200,000 against 400,000! At present, the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Army may be stronger than that of the National Revolutionary Army, but it is not strong enough to defeat the opponent's 400,000-strong army with 200,000 people...... Besides, it takes at least five or six thousand to kill 10,000 enemies and lose yourself, right? At present, the territory of the Nationalist Government is much larger than that of Beiyang, and the military and political system of Fujian and Guangdong is gradually being pushed throughout the south, and the ability of the Nationalist Government to replenish war losses is far stronger than that of Beiyang. Even if he can play a one-to-two exchange ratio under Xuzhou City, he can't stand the opponent's steady stream of recruits!

"No, you can't start a war in Xuzhou!" Wu Peifu pondered carefully for a while and shook his head resolutely: "Xuzhou is still conceded to the Northern Expeditionary Army!" Let's look for fighters in Shandong and Henan! ”

……

At this time. The headquarters of the Northern Expeditionary Army, which was located in the yamen of the former governor of Liangjiang in the Qing Dynasty, was full of people. The busy figures of the operational staff officers and intelligence staff officers can be seen everywhere, dozens of telephones are constantly ringing with deafening ringtones, and the sound of ticking and ticking is also constantly coming from the telegraph room. In the command center of the hundreds of thousands of Northern Expeditionary Army, everyone's energy has been thrown into this big battle.

"The Second Army has arrived in Bengbu? Good, good. They were ordered to rest immediately, replenish ammunition and supplies, and prepare for a trip north. ”

"What? The Intelligence Bureau transferred news that the Fifth and Sixth Divisions of the Northern Army stationed in Xuzhou showed signs of disarming! Well, got it, let them keep watching! ”

"Chief of Staff Lu, the Seventh Army stationed in Bengbu reported that the Beiyang Army in front of them also showed signs of retreat...... It seems that Wu Peifu is going to give up Xuzhou. ”

As the chief of staff of the Northern Army, Lu Yixuan now finally has a little bit of his ideal feeling of actually controlling the elite of the General Staff! The Northern Expeditionary Staff he led was built according to German standards. It is a staff organ that can really take over a military command. The Northern Expeditionary Army's operational plans, specific military commands, and transfers were all completed under the leadership of this chief of staff who had returned from studying in Germany. As the commander-in-chief, Chang Ruiqing is just grasping the general direction and making the final determination in the military.

Now intelligence and information from all over the place are pouring like a tide towards this elite staff officer carefully selected by Lu Yixuan: "Most of these people are graduates of the fifth phase of Baoding. Due to a large number of "traitors" led by Chang Ruiqing, Beiyang basically no longer trusts the graduates of the Baoding Military Academy. Therefore, after the graduation of the fifth phase of Baoding. Most of them were not assigned to the Beiyang Army, so they had to go south to join Chang Ruiqing, the big brother.

At this time, Lu Yixuan received a report that had just been sent by the Intelligence Department from a graduate of the fifth phase of Baoding named Zhang Yinwu. This report is marked top secret, and it was transferred by the Military Intelligence Bureau, whose intelligence officers have long infiltrated the base camp of Beiyang and the headquarters of the three front armies like a sieve. If it weren't for the fact that radio technology was not yet developed in this era, Lu Yixuan would definitely have been able to get the order issued by Wu Peifu here earlier than the front-line troops of the Beiyang Army!

The content of this top-secret information is the order issued by Wu Peifu to the military headquarters of the Second Army of the Northern Army stationed in Xuzhou to abandon Xuzhou. Coupled with all kinds of information from Xuzhou and the front line, it is now basically certain that the plan to launch a decisive battle with the main force of the Northern Army on the Xuzhou front line has been blown down. After the Northern Expeditionary Army occupied Xuzhou, the battlefield of the North and South troops could be moved to the open Central Plains, and it was a little difficult to capture Wu Peifu's main force for a decisive battle on this wide battlefield, right?

Thinking of this, Lu Yixuan's brows tightened, and his whole mind was immersed in the ongoing Great War between the North and the South. Even the arrival of Chang Ruiqing and Bai Chongxi did not wake him up. It wasn't until a long time later that he slapped him violently: "That's right, that's it!" ”

Chang Ruiqing and Bai Chongxi glanced at each other, Chang Ruiqing walked up to him and smiled: "What's the trick again?" My Grand Chief of Staff? ”

Lu Yixuan only found out at this time that Chang Ruiqing and Bai Chongxi had arrived, he hurriedly made a military salute, nodded at Bai Chongxi again, and then smiled: "Of course I continue to spread rumors!" If Wu Peifu can abandon Xuzhou without a fight, we will be able to blow Xuzhou, which was captured without blood, into a decisive victory...... In this way, the hearts of the people in the north are even more shaken! Those little warlords who don't know the inside story and the local heroes are all some wall grass that falls with the wind, they see that the northern army is no good, they will definitely want to change the court, and when the time comes, we will seal the official and make a wish to win them over! I don't believe that Wu Peifu can really calm down! ”！！！