The lively Spring Festival passed in the sound of firecrackers, ushering in the ninth year of the Republic of China and the ninth year of Taisho in Japan, and a rare atmosphere of peace appeared in Asia. Under Wang Maoru, Zhang Hongyang conducted a report on the five northeastern provinces, as well as Chahar Province, Xinjiang Province, Taixi Province, and Anxi Province, pointing out that in the whole year of last year, the economy of Northeast China was sharply improved because of the war. The war of intervention against Russia has led to a deformed growth in the economy of Northeast China, which is sufficient to show that war is also one of the means and methods of promoting economic development. In particular, the steel industry and heavy industries such as railways, coal mines, transportation, and machinery in the Northeast have been vigorously developed, and the heavy industry in the Northeast can be said to have grown from scratch and from existence to large, and has been strengthened in several wars.

And because Wang Mao ordered that no war should occur in the territory under his jurisdiction, more migrants poured into the northeast. In the whole year of '99, the number of immigrants from the Central Plains to the north reached 6 million, a record high. According to statistics, the total population of the five northeastern provinces has reached a staggering 42 million, far exceeding the population of Zhang Zuolin's time in history -- of course, the population of 42 million also includes Mongolia and Rehe. The growth of the population has brought about economic prosperity, and the amount of RMB silver dollars issued by the Northeast Huaxia Bank reached an astonishing 1.64 billion yuan last year, and with the growth of the population and the more commercialization of the currency, Song Ziwen predicts that the currency issuance will reach 2 billion silver dollars next year.

It is precisely because of the stability of the Northeast that a large number of Central Plains factories and southern businessmen came to the Northeast to invest, perhaps for them to come to the Northeast just because of the concept of the three caves of the cunning rabbit, but their arrival also enriched the economy and life of the Northeast.

Although the economy of the five northeastern provinces has made tremendous progress, Zhang Hongyang also introduced some deficiencies of the five northeastern provinces to Wang Maoru, such as land annexation and tax evasion, and Chu Yong also raised a problem that the people wantonly reclaimed and led to the problem of soil erosion and poor environment, and this kind of indiscriminate development is especially strict in Mongolia. A small number of Mongolian herders were very angry and demanded that these Han cultivators leave the steppe, and led to Han-Mongolian conflicts in some areas. Wang Maoru immediately asked Lu Shaohua to immediately formulate three laws and regulations: "New Taxation Law - Commercial Tax", "New Land Management Law" and "New Environmental Protection Law" for local taxation.

Among the three laws, the New Tax Law provides for a completely new tax model. Both agricultural and commercial taxes will be settled in RMB, and the strictest punishment for tax evasion will be imposed, and one-third of the property of tax evaders will be confiscated, which can almost bankrupt a merchant and a company. Chinese have always had the habit of tax evasion, and foreigners who come to China are inevitably brought with them this vice. The emergence of the "New Tax Law - Commercial Tax and Local Tax". It is necessary to put an end to this phenomenon of commercial tax evasion. However, for land tax, Wang Maoru's five provinces and regions also made regulations, requiring all land to pay taxes, even the land owned by Wang Maoru himself. Violators will be fined 10 times the amount of the unpaid Government rent.

The "New Land Management Law" stipulates that until now, large-scale landlords will no longer be produced, and the interests of the original landlords will be protected and recognized, but starting from June 1 in the ninth year of the Republic of China, the maximum amount of land owned by individuals is 50 mu. and the recognition of land sale and purchase recognizes that land is protected private property and that individuals have the right to use the land for cultivation and construction in perpetuity. At the same time, the law also protects the vast number of tenants, stipulating that if the tenants pay more than 30 percent of their own output in terms of rent and land tax, they can sue the landlord for illegally forcing the tenants to make it difficult for them to survive, and the police and armed police will cooperate with the court's judgment to confiscate the landlord's land and award it to the tenants, so as to give the tenants the best way to live. Although the "New Land Management Law" was immediately opposed by the Kuomintang (KMT), which was supported by the landlords, it was praised by the broad masses of the people, especially the Huaxia Nationalist Party, which went around to promote the government's policies, and the Zhonghua Party, a new party composed of young people, began to propagate Wang Maoru's land policy. It shows that Wang Maoru's land policy allows everyone to have a field to plant, and everyone can live and live well.

In fact, the most difficult thing for the people to understand is the "New Environmental Protection Law", and even Lu Shaohua, who formulated the law, is not familiar with it, but Wang Maoru worked with him to formulate supplementary provisions of laws and regulations and warned Lu Shaohua that environmental protection is just a concept and idea. However, if we do not pay attention to it, we will leave many problems to future generations. In Outer Mongolia in particular, it is all the more necessary to prohibit the wanton reclamation of barren pasture land and prevent desertification from turning Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia into large deserts.

Wang Maoru did not have a spare Spring Festival and was busy until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. It has entered the end of February of the Gregorian calendar, and at this time, news came from the Central Plains that there was a dispute between the direct Anhui family.

The contradiction between Zhiwan and Anhui is too deep. The war between them will start sooner or later, and on the sixteenth day of the first month, the Anhui family was pitted by Cao Zhi, who is directly related to them.

The beginning of this incident was the beginning of the expulsion of Zhang Jingyao by the Hunan people, but it was said that at the end of the year, the Hunan people drove Zhang everywhere and asked Wang Maoru to come here, although Wang Maoru supported it verbally, but he couldn't reach it, and promised that the national defense army would not enter the customs, and the Hunan people had to go back to find their own people. They found Zhao Hengxi, who led a 3,000-strong Hunan army with only 1,000 broken spears to kill Yueyang and expel Zhang Jingyao. Originally, Zhang Jingyao had more than 10,000 Beiyang soldiers, holding the Seventh Division of the Beiyang Army, how powerful and majestic, how could he care about the 3,000 ragged Hunan army. However, Wang Maoru secretly funded Zhang Jingyao's 2,000 E-type fast guns, and after the Hunan gentry helped prepare 200,000 military salaries, the morale of the Hunan army was greatly boosted, and they all fought bravely.

Wu Peifu and Wu Dashuai, who were far away in Henan, also predicted that the Hunan army would win, and the poor Hunan army would only have their lives left, and the Beiyang army was rampant in Hunan one by one, smoking a lot of cigarettes to loot the people's fat and ointment, which had already rotted into the bone marrow, and would definitely not be able to defeat the poor Hunan army. As a result, the war really came like this, and the 3,000 Hunan army swept through Hunan, causing Zhang Jingyao's 7th Division of the Beiyang Army to abandon the city and flee. Zhang Jingyao was so frightened that he ran to Hubei to hug the thigh of Wang Zhanyuan, the overseer of Hubei, and cried bitterly. President Xu Shichang, who was far away in Beijing, immediately sent troops from various provinces to rescue Hunan, but Xu Shichang was biased towards the direct line, so the troops sent were all direct troops, and to put it bluntly, he took the opportunity to occupy Hunan in the Anhui system.

But the central government is not what the president says, and Xu Shichang has no consciousness of being a puppet, so he can only bitterly regret that his order has been rejected. Hunan overseer Zhang Jingyao had just been dismissed, and Duan Qirui instructed Premier Jin Yunpeng to appoint Wu Guangxin as the new Hunan overseer. This Wu Guangxin is none other than Duan Qirui's brother-in-law, everyone thinks that even if Hunan wins, it will only make a wedding dress for the Anhui family, so everyone withdraws one after another. Wu Peifu's army was stationed in Nanyang, Henan, and he led the army to Wuhan, Hubei, and when he heard the news of Wu Guangxin's new Hunan overseer, he was so angry that he scolded the Anhui system for not being a thing, and led the army back to Henan.

After the withdrawal, Wu Peifu came to Baoding, his hometown of Zhili, to convene a meeting of the eight provincial overseers, including Cao Kun, the overseer of Zhili, Zhao Qi, the overseer of Henan, Wang Zhanyuan, the overseer of Hubei, Li Chun, the overseer of Jiangsu, Chen Guangyuan, the overseer of Jiangxi, Yan Xishan, the overseer of Shanxi, Zhang Shuyuan, the overseer of Shandong, and Li Houji, the overseer of Fujian. This Li Houji swayed back and forth in the middle of the direct Anhui line, and no one could say whether he was a direct or Anhui line, and he was very slippery and duplicitous.

Representatives of the eight provincial overseers came together and threatened to abolish the Anfu Congress, with Wu Peifu presiding over the national assembly and supporting one of the vice presidents, Cao Kun. And Wu Peifu's boss Cao Kun soaked in the eight alleys at this time, spending money with the famous prostitute Hua Baobao, this time it was Cao Kun's rabbit master Li Junqing who came on behalf of Cao Kun, during the meeting, Li Junqin was full of martial arts and prestige, except for being low-key and introverted in front of Wu Peifu, he disdained the rest of the people.

Despite the meeting of the eight provincial superintendents, Wu Peifu was afraid of two points, once the battle of Zhiwan really started, the strength of the Anhui system was not much worse. Now the territory of Anhui has Shandong, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan, the most important thing is that they are the central government, if the direct family faces the central government, it is a rebellion, although no one said anything, but everyone understands in their hearts that what they discuss together is rebellion. In order to increase the momentum, Wu Peifu sent people to find Wang Maoru, but Wang Maoru had long promised that the National Defense Force would not go south or enter the customs and keep all the current territory north of the Great Wall unchanged, and rejected Wu Peifu. However, this made Wu Peifu feel at ease, he did not need Wang Maoru's support, but determined that Wang Maoru's power was no more than the Great Wall, and the warlords in the Central Plains were very determined.

Now the forces in the Guannei have formed four units, the Anhui family, the Cao Zhi family, the Feng Zhi family, and the Northwest Army Zhang Zuolin family, according to the strength on paper, the Anhui system is the most powerful, Cao Zhi is the most capable of fighting, Feng Zhi is a good man, and Zhang Zuolin is the most desperate in the poor mountains and remote areas. However, Cao Zhi and Feng Zhi were both directly united, and they were much stronger than the Anhui system, and their strength was lagging behind the Anhui system, so they immediately sent Xu Shuzheng to Shaanxi to find Zhang Zuolin as an ally.

What kind of person is Zhang Zuolin, that is an ambitious and ambitious hero, although he was driven out of the northeast by Wang Maoru, but within a year he occupied four provinces in the northwest, which is enough to show his ability. Zhang Zuolin has always wanted to develop from the northwest to the Central Plains, and now he is in the middle of the Anhui system, he promised to help the Anhui system on the surface, but in fact, he is ready to enter the Central Plains at the right time.

At this time, there was a military mutiny in Hubei, and Wang Zhanyuan, who was the third governor of the Yangtze River in Hubei, was Feng Zhiyan, but Wang Zhanyuan was a person who loved money and had the habit of eating empty salaries, which caused the soldiers to mutiny. After the mutiny in Yichang, Wang Zhanyuan ordered to appease the sergeant, and said to the sergeant, I will give you twenty yuan of ocean severance pay for each of you. The soldiers happily boarded the train with their severance pay, and the train came to a stop in a desolate place, where 1,800 unarmed soldiers were massacred by a brigade of troops, and only a dozen escaped. At this time, Lu Diping, a subordinate of Zhao Hengxi of the Hunan Revolutionary Army, led the army into Hubei, and Wang Zhanyuan's troops were defeated and lost half of Hubei in a few days. Wang Zhanyuan hurriedly organized an army to attack the Hunan army, and sent a telegram to Wu Peifu in Henan, begging him to save himself in the face of his fellow villagers in Shandong and his direct line.