Chapter 50: Yuan Shikai and Jiang Yiwu's Military Competition

  Yuan Shikai, who joined the negotiations, however, made Tang Shaoyi pretend to be deaf and dumb. He knew that this was not the time for him to take the lead, and once he shouldered the infamy of betraying his country, he would be despised by the people.

  Once a military victory like the Franco-Prussian War is achieved, but politically weak and defeated, it will inevitably provoke great public outrage.

  Moreover, with Jiang Yu in control of the powerful public opinion machine, if Yuan Shikai dared to show his head at this time, he would inevitably be spurned to death.

  Sun Zhendong proposed in the negotiations that Russia should return the occupied Tangnu Wulianghai area and compensate China for war losses.

  The Russian representative refused on the spot.

  Russia is here to save face, not to lose face.

  If so, both sides will drag on in a state of belligerence! At least that's what Nicholas II thought.

  But the number of Chinese troops in Outer Mongolia has been increasing, and since Jiangsu's military easily defeated the Russians, various warlords saw the benefits and sent troops to Outer Mongolia one after another.

  Especially Yuan Shikai, who had three divisions of troops transferred from Outer Mongolia.

  The spoils were great, but all the Allied forces that arrived in Outer Mongolia were uniformly equipped with single-soldier equipment similar to that of the Reorganization Army. The equipment of the 100,000-strong Allied Forces who participated in the war against Russia was not recovered by Jiangsu and Hubei.

  Moreover, through previous battles, the provincial coalition forces found that Jiang Yu did not treat them as cannon fodder in command, and many times they were allowed to follow behind the Fuxing Army to fight against Russia.

  With the revival of the army's plan to mobilize 200,000 troops from the rear, the number of allied forces in Outer Mongolia will increase by more than 600,000 within a month.

  When the time comes, if China launches an attack on Russia, Russia will have to fight even if it doesn't want to. At that time, at least one million troops will be mobilized directly to the Far East battlefield, and the tactic of adding oil is completely useless.

  This is not in the interest of Britain and France and other Entente Powers.

  In order to end this war as soon as possible, Britain had to threaten Jiang Jue and try to make Jiang Jue surrender by giving some benefits.

  "The Cabinet means that if China does not stop the war against Russia, it will become an enemy of the British Empire. Not only will all commercial loans be cancelled, but also China's imports and exports will be subject to sanctions by the British Empire. If China accepts a ceasefire, the British Empire can offer preferential treatment in transportation costs for China's imports and exports, as well as some tariff concessions." Zhou Dian said in his telegram to Jiang Yu, suggesting that Jiang accept mediation, otherwise he would also find it difficult to do so.

  After receiving the telegram, Jiang Yu knew that it was time to wrap things up. Giving face to the Russians was completely impossible, but not giving face to the British was also out of the question.

  Jiang Yu immediately sent a telegram to Zhu Zhixin, stating that he could temporarily shelve the dispute over Tangnu Wulianghai and reach a peaceful agreement with Russia, but if it was necessary for China to pay a price to save face for the Russians to end this war, he would not hesitate to fight.

  Chu Shih-kuei immediately conveyed Chiang's intentions to the British government.

  The British Cabinet decided after consideration that neither side would give in to the other and agreed to shake hands on current terms.

  Nicholas II accepted the proposal with a heavy heart, and he too did not want to continue this war which brought no benefits.

  Under British mediation, the two sides quickly signed the Sino-Russian Ceasefire Agreement, which stipulated that Outer Mongolia would be the boundary line and all military conflicts would cease immediately. Russia paid for the ransom of prisoners of war, China withdrew its troops from Outer Mongolia, allowing only 200,000 troops to remain, while Russia was also allowed to maintain 200,000 troops in the Far East region.

  After the signing of the agreement, both sides immediately began claiming victory at home.

  Yuan Shikai and Jiang Yiwu in China claimed to have won a victory that was somewhat believable, although the final result was a military victory while political weakness had not fundamentally changed, although politically they did not lose too badly, but also failed to defeat Russia.

  This is a helpless situation, China's political weakness is still due to its weak national strength. But fortunately, it is much better than the Qing dynasty, at least in politics, it has held the bottom line, and this external war can be considered a hard-won victory.

  Because China successfully preserved Outer Mongolia, for a country that had been repeatedly defeated in war, it was already extremely rare to achieve this level, and the people generally understood.

  On the Russian side, Nicholas II declared to the Russian people that Russia's war with China was a victory, but it was just a fig leaf.

  At least in politics, it has brought a very embarrassing fig leaf to Russia, which is just an attitude, and it's better than nothing, and it's better than not covering at all!

  And the countries of the world were astonished in the war that the newly established Republic of China was able to defeat Russia militarily, a country that had just been founded from a semi-feudal and semi-colonial state.

  The Republic of China Army has been listed as one of the most powerful armies by some countries, and later Jiang Jieshi's "Air Force Theory" announced to the world through foreign journalists also received high attention from various countries. This "Air Force Theory" deeply expounded on the strategic significance of air forces and explained the military tactical functions that air forces can undertake.

  This work was quickly praised by military commentators from various countries, who believed that China's pioneering use of air forces as an independent branch on the battlefield was a major revolution in military history.

  Jiang Yu was also called by various countries as the youngest military strategist in history, and the French directly called Jiang Yu 'Napoleon of the Far East'.

  At least Jiang and Yu are famous internationally. As long as Jiang and Yu exist, no one dares to underestimate the Chinese army and air force at this time.

  The Chinese Air Force has now gained the title of the world's first air force, not only in scale but also in pilot training, tactics and strategic exploration.

  After the signing of the Armistice Agreement, China and Russia remained in a state of hostility, but military actions were stopped according to the agreement.

  On August 23, Jiang Yuzhi announced the withdrawal of the provincial coalition forces from Outer Mongolia, leaving only 200,000 coalition forces in Outer Mongolia. After negotiating with Yuan Shikai, Jiang announced that the Revival Army would be reorganized into the East China Defense Army and the Northwest Defense Army, with Jiang serving as the commander-in-chief of both armies.

  Yuan Shikai decided to train a model division in Beijing, which was Yuan Shikai's means of gathering the military power of the Beiyang Army, and the commander of the Model Division was Yuan Keding.

  This model army is actually a "palace guard" cultivated by Yuan Shikai, and in the future, Yuan Shikai can expand it into an army of hundreds of thousands or even millions through this model army.

  Historically, before his death, Yuan Shikai had assembled an army of 1.2 million soldiers and then, with overflowing confidence, abruptly declared himself emperor.

  Yuan Shikai got along very well with War Minister Duan Qirui in order to train a model army, and since Yuan Keding had never been on good terms with Duan Qirui, the latter, being a man of great integrity, though saying nothing, began to slacken his efforts.

  Knowing that Yuan Keding would not achieve great things, Jiang Yiwu expressed support for Yuan Shikai's decision to model the troops.

  "If Yuan Shikai really relies on the loans we provided to train an army of over 10 million, what will we do? Obviously, Yuan Shikai is likely to do so." Jiang Fangzhen and others felt worried. Although Yuan Shikai was not in a favorable position in terms of financial resources and industry at present, he occupied the central government and could collect taxes in a legitimate manner, while the administrative office of the two Huai regions in Jiangsu was illegitimate and might have to hand over some of this year's tax revenue to the central government.

  "Don't worry, Yuan Shikai can train his model troops, we will train our Northwestern Production Troops, and to the outside world, we will claim they are militia. We can also train hundreds of millions of production troops, once there is a need, we can convert these production troops into regular army, at least in terms of military strength, we won't be inferior to the Beiyang Army. Furthermore, our regular army can maintain fifteen divisions under the pretext of this Russo-Japanese War, and all are organized according to the first-class division, maintaining a strength of three hundred thousand. First, we must train these three hundred thousand regular troops into absolute elite soldiers, then we will fully armorize these fifteen divisions, at that time, with just these fifteen divisions, we can sweep away the Beiyang Army." Jiang Yutian said calmly.

  "But even if we can win militarily, the money used by Yuan Shikai to train his troops was borrowed from us after all. In the end, we will only suffer losses."

  "Haha! Brother Baili, who do you think can fully inherit the Northern Warlord's faction after Yuan Shikai's death? No one! But we can. Once Yuan Shikai dies, we can find a way to absorb the Northern Army." Jiang Yu had already made plans, and now China is under a presidential system, meaning anyone can become president after Yuan Shikai's death.

  Of course, Jiang Yu cannot become this president because he controls the Huadong Group, this goal is too big and cannot be brought to the forefront.

  Due to the expansion of Huadong Group's interests, sometimes politicians have to take the blame, and Jiang Yu would not let himself be the scapegoat.

  It's also possible to control the central government without being the president, just make the president a puppet. And it's easy to incorporate the Beiyang Army, just create a title that controls the national military power, such as Minister of War or Minister of National Defense, or directly become the "Grand Marshal of the Republic of China", and then use this title to control the Beiyang Army, whoever doesn't accept incorporation will be dealt with.

  "Consolidate!" Jiang Fangzhen was taken aback for a moment, and then Jiang Yu smiled and said: "Our loan to Yuan Shikai has conditions. Through the loan, we can control local tax revenue, even salt tax income. If they can't repay the money later, it doesn't matter. Hand over these rights to Huadong Group, or even the right to issue more banknotes. We'll make a fortune."

  It is clear that after the Sino-Russian War, the Beiyang clique led by Yuan Shikai and the Huaiyang clique led by Jiang Zemin are about to launch a Chinese version of the arms race.

  At the beginning of this arms race, Jiang Yu had already calculated a very distant future. While Yuan Shikai obviously did not calculate how long he could live, becoming the most fatal loophole in Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Group.

  ——————

  I'm too tired today, I fell asleep for an hour after going home and was woken up by the alarm clock, so I quickly got up to code.

  The first update is a bit late, so please bear with it for now! Lu Yu has gone to eat and take a bath, and since we're pulling an all-nighter to write, there will be two updates today! It's just as well that there's nothing much to do at the shop tomorrow.

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