Insufficient balance

  After entering November, the atmosphere between the north and south had become increasingly tense. The provinces in the south responded to the revolution one after another, either by province or by region, and the Qing court's rule in the south had completely collapsed. Even many high-ranking officials of the Qing court simply changed the signboard of the government office and joined the Republican cause. Even the north was not peaceful, Wu Lu-chien, commander of the 6th Division of the Beiyang Army, found a group of senior military officers who supported the revolution and launched the Luanzhou soldiers' remonstrance. In an emergency situation, the Qing court was forced to agree to most of the conditions.

  Unfortunately, Wu Lu-cheng and his fellow revolutionaries, although holding high-ranking military positions, did not realize that the majority of Beiyang officers were nurtured by the Beiyang system itself and their loyalty to Yuan Shikai was beyond their imagination. Wu Lu-cheng and a few other generals were powerless to control the overall situation.

  The Beiyang Six Governors were, however, the lifeblood of Yuan Shikai, and would not tolerate Wu's rebellion. As a result, immediately after pacifying Wu by appointing him governor of Shanxi, Yuan sent out telegrams to Wu's subordinate officers ordering them to kill Wu. The outcome was obvious: these Beiyang officers carried out Yuan's orders without hesitation, sending several bullets into Wu's body on the morning of July 7th. The rest of the officers who had participated in the military coup were either killed or dismissed from their posts!

  Yuan Shikai once again proved his strong control over the Beiyang Army with facts! Chen Jingyun, upon learning of this news, also admired Old Yuan extremely, such tactics, such momentum, only a hero can achieve.

  When Yuan Shikai firmly controlled North China with an iron fist, he was powerless against the situation in South China. Guangxi, Guizhou, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Hunan, Hubei, Shanxi and other southern provinces were successively liberated.

  The outside world is bustling, but Chen Jingyun didn't have the mood to pay attention. He still focused all his attention on Fujian internally, on the one hand sorting out civil administration and finance, and on the other hand constantly paying attention to military actions in the directions of Jianning, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou.

  On November 9, Chen Jingyun had just finished breakfast when Feng Qin walked into the Governor's Mansion with a joyful expression on his face. Before he even arrived, he shouted: "Governor, Yuan Fang has sent a telegram, last night the Third Brigade launched a surprise attack on Quanzhou, and it has been captured. Cao Chunfa's troops have mostly surrendered, and a small part has escaped to Zhangzhou!"

  Chen Jingyun also smiled when he heard the good news. Since the uprising, the military actions of the National Army have been relatively smooth. After a fierce battle with the 37th Division outside the city, there were hardly any more hard battles. Most of the Qing troops either fled at the first blow or surrendered voluntarily. At this rate, it is expected that the whole province of Fujian will be recovered.

  Good fortune continued to favor Chen Jingyun, and the next day, Fan Qingcheng, commander of the garrison in Zhangzhou, and Liu Weifeng, commander of Tingzhou, declared their allegiance to the military government. Chen ordered Xu Lishan, commander of the 4th Regiment, to send a representative to accept the surrender of Tingzhou, and instructed Yuan Fang to dispatch troops to take over the various counties of Zhangzhou Prefecture. Thus, except for Jianning Prefecture and other northern areas still under Xu Jingqing's control, all others were now under the jurisdiction of the military government.

  At the same time, seeing that the republic had become a fait accompli in the southern provinces, Li Yuanhong, who was forced to be the governor-general at gunpoint, issued a telegram inviting representatives of various provincial assemblies to convene in Hubei and prepare for the establishment of a provisional government. Huang Xing sent a letter to Yuan Shikai suggesting that he "come out and build achievements like Napoleon and Washington". He also promised that people from all provinces in the south and north would "obey his orders with folded hands".

  After receiving the telegram, Zheng Zuoying and Lin Wenyin and other military government officials sat together to discuss the gains and losses of this matter.

  "Li Yuanhong's move is nothing but for the sake of formality. As long as the conference is held in Hubei, his Hubei military government will become orthodox!" Zheng Zuoyin said.

  "Are we going or not?" Hong Zitai said: "According to reason, Hubei is the place where the revolution started, and it's reasonable to hold a meeting in Hubei!"

  Lin Wenying said: "It's not possible, now is the time to set up a temporary government, but if we hold meetings in the three towns of Wuhan, then it's very likely that the future capital will be built in Wuhan, which is not a good thing!"

  "I think it's better to wait and see what they say!" An Hualin's opinion was the most conservative.

  Chen Jingyun agreed with An Hualin's opinion, after all, although the southern provinces have already become a republic, the struggle for power and profit among various factions has just begun, and the struggle between revolutionaries and constitutionalists has just begun.

  After deciding to temporarily put off the meeting in Hubei, Zheng Zuoyan brought up again that letter from Huang Xing to Yuan Shikai.

  "Huang Xing and his men are making an outrageous demand!"

  Lin Wenyin was also very dissatisfied with this: "Right now, the revolutionary cause is like a raging fire, how can we seek peace? As I said, we should resolutely fight and fight all the way to Beijing!"

  "If it's possible to overthrow the Qing government without fighting, wouldn't that be even better? Now the whole country is in chaos, with fires burning everywhere and people displaced. Wouldn't it be better to stop the bloodshed a day earlier and put our energy into construction a day sooner?" Lin Changming looked down on Lin Wenyin, this revolutionary who only knew how to shout slogans of violence.

  Chen Jingyun said, "They have no choice but to seek peace! Although the Hubei side has been saying they are winning big every day, anyone with eyes can see that the Beiyang Army has already pressed the Hubei people's army to the point where they can't breathe. The 9th Regiment's attack on Nanjing was repelled a few days ago, and after repeated losses on both sides, it's hard for them not to think of seeking peace!"

  Chen Jingyun said this, and everyone also nodded slightly. The battles in Hubei and Jiangsu were indeed unfavorable to the Revolutionary Party.

  Besides, I think Yuan Shikai doesn't want to fight us either. Otherwise, Feng Guozhang would have conquered Hubei long ago and wouldn't need Huang Xing to come and ask for peace!

  "He's holding back?" Zheng Zu Yin asked: "Then what does he want to do?"

  Chen Jingyun took a sip of tea and said: "The position of Grand President!"

  Yuan Mansion in Beijing.

  Yuan Shikai held Huang Xing's letter for a long time, then called Xu Shichang and Yang Duanwu, showing them the letter while asking: "What do you think about this matter?"

  Xu Shichang, who had been friends with Yuan Shikai for decades, naturally understood his old friend's mind. If previously he was hesitant to take action just to get out of the mountain, then in recent days the Beiyang Army remained inactive on the Hubei front because Yuan Shikai heard a piece of news: The southerners said that as long as he agreed to the republic, they would support him, Yuan, as the president.

  "Huang Xing is a man who carries weight in the hearts of those party members, and his words are just as influential as those of Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen. If he dares to speak out like this, it can't be fake!" Xu Shichang pondered and said: "But what if those party members are deliberately using peace talks to stall for time because the front line is currently under pressure?"

  Yang Du also nodded and said: "If the front line is not tight, they will definitely not say anything about seeking peace, and it's possible that they have all organized a coalition army to march north!"

  Yuan Shikai said: "It seems that it is a delaying tactic from the south!"

  Just then, an officer walked in at the door with a telegram in his hand: "Your Excellency, Chen Jingyun's latest telegram from the south!"

  "Oh! Chen Jingyun's telegram?" Yuan Shikai naturally knew that Chen Jingyun was the second person to lead an uprising after the Wuchang Uprising, but recently, there had been no news from Fujian except for a telegram announcing the restoration of power after the initial one, and if one wasn't careful, it seemed as though people would forget that Fujian was the second province to be restored.

  "What did he say?" Yuan Shikai was somewhat curious about Chen Jingyun. On the one hand, it was because Chen Jingyun didn't send out telegrams every few days like other governors, and he wasn't always shouting slogans. From the outside, Chen Jingyun seemed very low-key. On the other hand, through the Fuzhou Embassy District, he had also learned about some recent situations in Fuzhou, knowing that Chen Jingyun was actively training his troops and even implementing tax reforms. What's more surprising was that his three brigades were divided into three routes to conquer various parts of Fujian, and they had already taken over half of the province. It's worth noting that although many southern provinces have nominally become republics, most of them only controlled a provincial capital or important cities, while vast areas remained in a state of vacuum, with multiple military governments emerging in some provinces, none of which listened to each other. For example, Wuhan had three separate military governments: Wuchang, Hankou, and Jiangxi had nine military governments in different locations, including Nanchang. None of them could control the entire province like Fujian did in such a short period.

  He quietly sent an email?

  After receiving the telegram, Yuan Shikai showed a clear smile: "This Chen Jingyun, what he said sounds good!"

  Yang Du took the telegram and quickly scanned through the useless parts, finally focusing on the last line: "Cloud wishes to support Yuan Gong as the Grand President!"

  When he saw this sentence at last, he was still a little incredulous and repeatedly read it from the beginning several times, still somewhat skeptical: "This Chen Jingyun, did he really originally support Mr. as president?"

  Xu Shichang also felt that Chen Jingyun's actions were somewhat inexplicable after reading it: "Didn't the revolutionaries in the south all say they wanted to support Sun Wen as this great president, why did Chen Jingyun jump out and support the adult?"

  Yuan Shikai said: "It's not that easy, didn't you see the one in front of me? He wants to abolish the emperor and this is forcing me to be Cao Cao!"

  Huang Xing's letter, if it only vaguely mentioned supporting Yuan Shikai as the President in the future, then Chen Jinyun made his stance clear that he would support Yuan Shikai as long as Yuan supported the Republic.

  Of course, there were also people who opposed and supported Huang Xing and Chen Jiongming's successive advice to Yuan Shikai to abolish the emperor and become the Grand President. The opposition faction believed that the revolutionary cause was at its peak, and the entire southern region should be united to launch a northern expedition, pulling Puyi down from his throne. Those who held this view were mostly young radicals and revolutionaries. However, most of the older people and constitutionalists believed that if republicanism could be achieved peacefully, then negotiations, or even letting Yuan Shikai become the Grand President, were also feasible.

  Besides, if Yuan Shikai is not allowed to become the Grand President, how can so many provinces in the North and the Beiyang agree to negotiate? At this time, Yuan Shikai was no longer just one person, but represented the entire Beiyang system. The Beiyang system, apart from its massive Beiyang army, also included numerous military and political figures, industrialists and businessmen, almost encompassing all of North China's political and economic power.

  So, if the Southern Army cannot go north to thoroughly defeat the Northern Expeditionary Army, then in the negotiations between the two sides, the South will not be able to take the initiative.

  For a time, the discussion about whether to negotiate and whether to let Yuan Shikai become the president swept across China, and with this discussion, Chen Jingyun's name once again appeared on the headlines of various newspapers after the publication of the Guangfu Telegram!