Back to the Republic of China as a commander

Dongjiaomin Lane, Beijing, the British Legation in China, the British Minister Zhu Erdian, who has been in charge of this country for many years, is drinking dull wine on the sofa in his study.He had already telegraphed the battle situation in Shandong, China, to Whitehall, but twelve hours had passed, and Whitehall had not given any reply.Zhu Erdian now understood that the British Empire only had a skeleton left, and it was powerless to fight for the regional hegemony that was going on in the Far East.And myself, the historical mission of the former emperor of the Qing Empire and the Republic of China is coming to an end, which is nothing more than a normal thing.Since the British Empire does not need a tough diplomat to help them gain benefits, it is natural to consider changing to a milder one to safeguard vested interests.

Despite this, Zhu Erdian tried his best to cheer up, put down his wine glass, and began to write his own report. This is the basic duty that every responsible diplomat of the British Empire should perform.

"I don't hate the Chinese, but I have to be vigilant enough to this nation. Such a country that lacks integrity, has no morals, is sycophant externally, and extremely cruel internally has such a huge power in front of the world. At one time, I hoped to control the country by controlling the upper class figures of the country, and the princes of the Qing Dynasty and the dignitaries of Beiyang seemed to have done a good job. But I failed in the end, because I ignored the biggest characteristic of this nation, that is, in their Behind their astonishing endurance, there is a spirit of self-improvement that is not inferior to that of Westerners. If they are given a chance, they will take root and sprout like mushrooms after rain, and strive to grow. Now it seems that letting them participate in the European war is obviously giving Their great opportunity has been denied, and one of their regional regimes has finally swelled to such a terrifying level that Japan, the watchdog of our British Empire, cannot stop its growth. I have to admit that as the person in charge of the Chinese affairs of the empire, I I have stayed in Beijing for too long. I always thought that as the capital of this country, this city can already represent the whole of China. But now I realize that this city does not represent the whole of China at all. They are more like giants in this country. blood-sucking bugs, smelling bad and feeling good about themselves. I ignored the southern part of China and the wisdom of the Chinese people, so we missed the opportunity to curb the further growth and development of this country. This is my personal responsibility, I Willing to take full responsibility for this... But as a proud imperial diplomat, I have to make a necessary reminder to Whitehall before I leave office, we must support Japan, and don't let the footsteps of the Chinese step from this place Get out, otherwise they will be the new America in Asia, and the empire on which the sun never sets will also become history when such an ancient country rises, remember, remember!"

Zhu Erdian's work report finally appeared on the desk of the British Prime Minister, but it was ridiculed, because any fool can see that Japan, which has a powerful navy and tough methods, is the biggest threat to the British Empire in the Far East, and because Japan Controlling the sea power in the Far East, no matter how powerful China is, it can only be reduced to a continental country in front of Japan, just like Germany in Europe.

On December 12th, due to the lack of conclusions and solutions in Tokyo, the siege of Jinan has entered the seventh day. Yuheng Yicheng hid in the temporary underground headquarters and kept sending telegrams to Tokyo for help. It is good to know what to do.

On the first day of the siege, the Chinese squadron bombarded the entire historic city of Jinan.Naturally, the beaten Japanese army fought back immediately, and the two artillery regiments rolled up their sleeves and fired back.The results of it?The Chinese Air Force was recruited, and Yang Xianyi was undoubtedly the most prominent person in this war. The first wave of air strikes achieved great results. If the Japanese army hadn't reacted and moved the artillery positions in time, they would never have lost only thirty heavy artillery pieces.And it is more likely that the three infantry divisions will become a complete rifle division from now on.

So now facing the shelling of the Chinese army, the Japanese army can only look for bunkers to avoid, and dare not fight back at all.

It's nothing, the Chinese army didn't seem to have any plans to attack the fortifications, they were there every day to show off their industrial production capabilities, and kept throwing shells in with cannons, as if the shells were free of money.Just throw it away, the number of Japanese troops that can be killed is limited after all.The real problem was logistics. Since the Japanese army was trapped in Jinan, the entire logistics supply was cut off.Zhang Zizhong's first division did not participate in the siege, but joined forces with Sun Meiyao, and then mopped up the Japanese logistics supply troops.This made Yuheng Yicheng miserable. His Japanese army ration, which was said to be [-], was actually only [-]. It immediately changed from two rice balls a day to one rice ball every two days.What's more terrible is that due to the lack of vegetable and fruit supplies in the Japanese army, soldiers began to suffer from constipation, and finally had to use their fingers to hold each other's excrement to solve the excretion problem. . .

Seeing that the situation was not good, the nearly ten thousand Japanese troops of the three logistics regiments immediately retreated towards Qingdao. There were also more than 5 puppet troops of the three armies retreating together.As a result, in Pingdu, these people had an encounter with Zhu Peide's troops. After fighting for more than three hours, the commanders of the Zhi-Shandong Allied Army of the three armies fled first, causing the entire Japanese army to collapse. Only less than 210 Japanese troops finally entered Qingdao.Zhu Peide's troops didn't dare to pursue too much, because if they chased again, they would be bombarded by the Japanese navy. Thinking of heavy artillery with a caliber above [-] mm, it would be terrible to be hit, so Zhu Peide quickly withdrew his troops and waited for Xue Yue to come up.

So from this moment on, the Shandong battlefield was divided into two, one was in the Jinan area, and the squadrons of seven divisions trapped the three divisions of the Japanese army in the city. He can't afford to lose, so his best plan is for the Japanese to consciously starve to death.In Qingdao, the three divisions of Zhang Zizhong, Xue Yue, and Zhu Peide, who had joined forces, confronted more than 8000 defenders. They dared not attack them. After all, the black muzzles of Japanese warships were not vegetarians.The battle situation has suddenly entered a very delicate moment. For the time being, no one can do anything to anyone. It feels like a dead end. Now it depends on who will break the game.

On December 12, break the game!

On this day, after a fierce quarrel, Prime Minister Yuan Jing finally agreed to transfer the two divisions in Kyushu to Shandong to relieve the siege.But just half an hour after the signing, two bad news came.

One is that the Shandong Fleet of the Japanese Navy was attacked by the submarine formation of the Chinese Navy. One battleship, three cruisers, and four destroyers were sunk and damaged, causing heavy losses.

The second is in the waters of Taiwan. Eleven merchant ships and an escorting destroyer were attacked by the Chinese break-through fleet composed of four cruisers.When the news reached Tokyo, the entire Japanese nation was in an uproar. You must know that the lifeline of Japan is the ocean. Now the very weak China Navy dare not fight with the Japanese Navy. Instead, it broke the rules by playing pirate tactics. Let the Japanese nervous.

So the navy first gave up its position of cooperating with the army, and Dongxiang's suggestion was to attack Shanghai and make an emergency landing on the government of South China.Yuan Jing opposed this, because it was not allowed by the British and French powers. More importantly, the chaebols asked the navy to escort their merchant ships. The total tonnage of the eleven merchant ships that were sunk has reached an astonishing Forty-five thousand tons, such a loss for ordinary merchants would go bankrupt directly.Now, Your Excellency the Prime Minister is about to start a new round of headaches. . .

It wasn't until this time that all parties really realized that the aggressive Japan was not prepared for war at all. They came to Shandong, China purely to pinch the persimmons, but instead suffered a loss and became the biggest war among the great powers. joke.

Just when the Japanese were still in disputes, the actual controller of the central government in Beijing had lost confidence in the Japanese. He secretly called a few hard-core confidants for a secret meeting all night, and declared to the outside world that he would go south to crusade Preparations for rebellion are actually planning to return to the old nest in the Northeast.

"Father, why do we want to go back to Fengtian? I still want to go to the temple fair during the Chinese New Year in Beijing? Fengtian is not as fun as here." Zhang Xueliang, who just turned 15, asked with a childish face.

Zhang Zuolin, who was wearing a mink coat to keep out the cold, looked at his son with a bit of heartache, stroked his head and said, "Little Six, Daddy is incompetent. There is no way for you to stay here in Beijing. Let's go back to our hometown. Let's come back when we finish cultivating our internal strength someday."

Zhang Xueliang nodded sensibly and said nothing more, while Zhang Zuolin looked back at Ju Ren Tang, wondering if he could come back here again in this life.Then he got into the car with his son and went straight to Fengtai Railway Station.

Feng Jun's retreat plan was very concealed, because Zhang Zuolin also hoped that the Japanese in Jinan would last a few more days.Therefore, what Fengjun actually withdrew in the first stage was supplies. Since most of the Japanese consultants went to Tianjin to inquire about the situation in Shandong during this period, although the action was big, they did not leak the news.Zhang Zuolin and his men gave full play to the characteristics of bandits, and absolutely kept a little bit of everything that could be taken away for the youth army.Zhang Zuolin even planned to move the Forbidden City to Fengtian if it wasn't for the Manchu imperial family's refusal to move.

Zhang Zongchang was subsequently appointed as the governor of Zhili and the patrol envoy to North China. Since Xu Shichang's post of president had been vacant for many days due to the war, Zhang Zongchang could not be officially appointed to this position, but could only act as an agent.Zhang Zuolin also trusted Zhang Zongchang to hand over the expanded army after entering the customs. For a while, Zhang Zongchang's troops reached an astonishing 60.On the other hand, the 15 people of Fengjun's direct line took the railway back to the Northeast in a mighty way. When they were interrogated by the Kwantung Army, they said it was a normal deployment. This time, the secrecy was in place.

But no one can hide it from anyone, Major General Wu Junmei, the head of the National Security Bureau Beijing Terminal, has his eyes fixed on the whole of Beijing. . .