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After the Qing Army's 9th Army was annihilated, the Imperial Army successfully controlled the three towns of Wuhan and the surrounding areas, and in addition, in addition to the Qing Army's 9th Army, only the Qing Army's 12th Army, which was scattered in various places, remained in Hubei. However, when the Imperial Army besieged the 9th Army of the Qing Army, the 12th Army of the Qing Army had already received an order to withdraw to Henan. Therefore, after receiving the order of the 9th Army Chang Rong Yucai to ask them to rush to the aid of Hankou, the 12th Army of the Qing Army not only did not reinforce Hankou, but accelerated the pace of retreat. Among the two armies deployed by the Qing army in Hubei, the 9th Army has been operating in Hubei for many years and occupies a great advantage. It was often the 9th Army that ate meat, and the 12th Army could only drink some soup. This made the officers and men of the 12th Army very dissatisfied. Now that the 9th Army is under siege by the Imperial Army, they are all applauding, and they will not go to their rescue. What's more, the Chinese Empire is so powerful that it has forced the 9th Army to a dead end, and even if the 12th Army rushes there, it is estimated that there is only a dead end. Therefore, it is better to retreat as soon as possible, anyway, it was the order to withdraw the troops issued by the imperial court, not that they retreated without authorization.

After the Yamen of the Manchu Military Department received Rong Yucai's distress telegram, Yucheng, the Minister of Military Aircraft and the Secretary of the Military Department, did not dare to slack off, and hurriedly asked the regent Aixin Jueluo. Hello. Ai Xin Jueluo. Mianyu had no other choice but to seek advice from the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Albert. Ultimately, Lieutenant General Albert decided that the 9th Army should be abandoned to ensure the implementation of the overall strategy. Although the 9th Army was not willing to give up a full 50,000 men, in order to be able to defeat the Chinese Empire in the end. Ai Xin Jueluo. Mianyu, in the end, did not ask other troops to rescue the 9th Army, but ordered other departments. Retreat as planned.

On the night of September 27, Hankou was brightly lit. After the Imperial Army took control of Hankow, it began to purge the city of some die-hard Manchu loyalists. Most of these people were banner people, and even after Rong Yucai ordered the 9th Army to surrender, they refused to surrender and continued to rely on some buildings in the city to resist stubbornly. For these die-hard elements, the Imperial Army will, of course, wipe them all out. But. There are not many of these people in total, and with the current strength of the Imperial Army, they are going to be eliminated. It's easy, it just takes a little time.

The deputy head of the Operations Department of the Imperial General Staff, under the protection of the guards, went to the Yamen of the governor of Hubei. The guard battalion of the headquarters of the 5th Army, which had already occupied there. Under the leadership of the army commander, Major General Zhao Mingfu. Count the ill-gotten gains of Chang Rong Yucai of the 9th Army of the Qing Army. According to Major General Liu Zhongming's promise to Rong Yucai, one percent of those ill-gotten gains could be returned to Rong Yucai, and the rest would become the spoils of the Imperial Army. Therefore, Major General Zhao Mingfu took over the task of counting the property, which is the future military expenditure of the Imperial Army, and it cannot be missed at all.

When Major General Liu Zhongming arrived, Major General Zhao Mingfu had already completed the inventory. in the open space in the yard. Piled up with gold, silver, and Chinese dollars and pounds, and so on. In addition, there are some antiques, calligraphy and paintings, etc. These are all the gains made by Rong Yucai in scraping land in Hubei in the past few years since he took office.

Rong Yucai stood in the courtyard, looking at the gold and silver treasures. His eyes were full of anger and unwillingness. These are all his wealth, but now, he can only leave a small part, and the rest belongs to the Chinese Empire, how can he be reconciled? Of course, if he had not agreed to the conditions put forward by Major General Liu Zhongming, he would not have left his life behind.

"General Liu, the inventory has been basically completed. However, those antiques and calligraphy and paintings are not easy to convert, so they can only give a price in general. Major General Zhao Mingfu said. Hidden gold in troubled times, hidden jade in prosperous times. Now that the Imperial Army is waging a war of unification against the Manchus, isn't it a chaotic time? Therefore, those antiques, calligraphy and paintings are not valuable. The price given by Major General Zhao Mingfu was also far lower than his price. This is also the reason why Rong Yucai is very dissatisfied, he feels that his wealth has been greatly reduced. However, now people are under the eaves and have to bow their heads! He has no other way than to admit it, who told him that his current life is in the hands of others.

"Well, how many are there?" Major General Liu Zhongming asked after taking a look at the treasures. Even people who didn't care much about money were a little hot in their hearts when they saw the mountains of gold and silver treasures. At the same time, he also sighed that the fact that Rong Yucai scraped the ground was too powerful.

"General Liu, after we counted, after estimating, the total value of Rong Yucai's property is about 14 million yuan." Major General Zhao Mingfu said. Of course, there is a big difference between this number and the actual value. In particular, that pile of antique calligraphy and paintings, if placed in peacetime, will be priceless. I'm afraid the price of these things will exceed this amount.

Major General Liu Zhongming nodded, and then asked, "General Rong Yucai, do you have any objections to this number?" ”

"No, no. The number given by General Zhao is already very reasonable! Rong Yucai smiled with a smile on his face. Does he dare to object? He will live on the territory of the Chinese Empire in the future! If you offend the military generals of the Chinese Empire, you won't give him small shoes to wear in the future! These military generals, if they think of a reason, they have to toss him enough. Rong Yucai could only regard this as giving up his wealth to avoid disaster. For him, being able to pick up a small life is already earned, and the rest of the things outside his body are not counted so much. Of course, it became one-tenth of 14 million Chinese dollars, which was a huge amount of money in this era, enough for him and his family to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. It is not impossible to make some investments and leave a legacy for future generations. After all, now that the Chinese Empire is developing rapidly, all walks of life are full of opportunities, and as long as the luck is not too bad, you can always make a lot of money.

"Well, according to our original agreement. One tenth of that money is for you. However, this money will have to be kept by us for the time being, and we will not be able to give it to you until I have told His Majesty the Emperor. Major General Liu Zhongming said. After all, these conditions were only promised to Rong Yucai by him in private, and he did not have the consent of his superiors. However, Major General Liu Zhongming knew that neither Emperor Long Yufei, nor General Niu Meng, Chief of the General Staff, or Lieutenant General Sun Hao, Minister of Operations, would not dwell too much on this issue. Now that the war has just begun, the Imperial Army needs to speed up its march and not be held back by these small things. Besides, the most important thing is to reduce the casualties of the troops as much as possible.

"Yes, yes! I have no opinion, every qiē has General Liu in charge! Rong Yucai hurriedly said. Things have come to this point, what else can he say? Besides, he believed that Liu Zhongming would not deceive him. In that case, wouldn't it have an impact on Liu Zhongming's own reputation?

"Come on, send General Rong down to rest!" Major General Liu Zhongming said.

After Rong Yu was sent away, Major General Liu Zhongming and Major General Zhao Mingfu found a random place to sit down in the governor's yamen. The two days of fighting have also made them tired enough.

"Lao Zhao, the 5th Army will rest for a day tomorrow, and then march to Xiangyang! There was also the 12th Army of the Qing Army. As for the 3rd Army, it depends on the situation and whether it will go north or east. Major General Liu Zhongming said.

"Yes, General!" Major General Zhao Mingfu nodded. The 9th Army of the Qing Army was killed, and the remaining 12th Army of the Qing Army was no match for the 5th Army of the Imperial Army at all. As long as the Qing army did not come to reinforce the army, the 5th Army of the Imperial Army could easily kill them.

Just when the 9th Army of the Qing Army was surrounded and annihilated, the Qing army's troops in the provinces north of the Yangtze River all began to break away from contact with the Imperial Army and began to retreat north. According to the orders they received from the military headquarters Yamen, they were to withdraw to Henan, northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, where they were to join up with the main forces of the Qing army and fight a decisive battle with the Chinese Empire.

The large-scale retreat of the Qing army also attracted great attention from the imperial army. The Imperial Military Intelligence Bureau has sent a steady stream of relevant information to the General Staff for reference when making decisions.

To this end, General Niu Meng, chief of the General Staff, and Lieutenant General Sun Hao, minister of operations, also made relevant reports to the emperor Long Yufei for the first time.

"It seems that the Qing army wants to preserve its strength! Do they think that if they preserve their strength now, there is still a possibility of a turnaround in the future? Long Yufei asked with some confusion.

"Your Majesty, I don't rule out this possibility. The Qing army may be thinking of waiting for the Russians to arrive and unite the strength of the Russians to deal with us! If the losses are too great at the beginning of the war, they will not be able to confront us in the back. General Niu Meng, Chief of the General Staff, said.

Long Yufei nodded, Niu Meng's analysis was also very reasonable.

"Majesty, there is another possibility. That is, the Qing army wants to fight a decisive battle with us in the Central Plains. The terrain in the Central Plains is flat, suitable for cavalry attacks, and the Qing army has 200,000 cavalry. They probably thought that they could defeat us in one fell swoop with these cavalry! Lieutenant General Sun Hao said.

"Humph! Even if it's a decisive battle with us in the Central Plains? Will they be able to take advantage? The Imperial Army is not something that cavalry with cold weapons can defeat. Long Yufei said confidently. The Imperial Army, known for its powerful firepower, was not afraid of the onslaught of cavalry at all. The cavalry charge, under heavy artillery fire and heavy machine-gun fire, would not have had any effect.

Admiral Niu Meng and Lieutenant General Sun Hao both nodded, no matter what intentions the Manchus had, but in the face of absolute strength, these intentions would be crushed! (To be continued......)