Insufficient balance

  Mid-November is a period of time that can be said to be the most obvious strategic situation for the Southern Revolutionary Party, although the front line in Hubei is still severe and Wuhan Sanzhong is about to fall, but the situation in Nanjing has improved due to the turmoil in Shandong.

  With the formation of the Southern Allied Army, Jiangsu and Zhejiang uprising troops began to have a unified command center, no longer in disarray like the previous few days. The commander-in-chief of the Allied Army, Xu Shaozhen, was originally the ninth town governor, a high-ranking professional military officer, whose commanding level was not like Huang Xing's half-baked one. After the formal formation of the Southern Allied Army, he issued various combat orders to the various departments of the Allied Army, concentrating towards Nanjing and starting to formulate a battle plan to capture Nanjing.

  Even gave orders to Ma Chengfu, the commander of the First Division of the National Revolutionary Army who had just arrived in Wenzhou!

  According to the agreement reached by Chen Jingyun and several other southern governors to form a joint army, the First Division of the National Army was incorporated into the joint army. However, since the First Division was still too far away from Nanjing, it would take about half a month for the First Division to arrive in Jiangsu, Nanjing to participate in the war, so there was no need to worry about the First Division for the time being.

  Ma Cheng received Xu Shaozhen's order to advance, and first sent a telegram to Chen Jingyun, requesting instructions. Chen Jingyun looked at the map for half a day, and his heart was also hesitant. From the bottom of his heart, he did not want to send troops to Nanjing to fight against the Northern Warlords, which would only consume his own strength without any other benefits. However, from another perspective, if they could not take down Nanjing, the peace talks between the north and south might become a mere illusion.

  Nanjing's political significance far exceeds its actual significance.

  So he still gave Ma Cheng the order to continue northward, but he specially instructed Ma Cheng to be cautious and slow down!

  Chen Jingyun had made up his mind that if the Battle of Nanjing went smoothly, he would not get involved in the mess. The reason was simple: the future government of Nanjing would be chaotic and Chen Jingyun, who was far away in Fuzhou, would not gain any practical benefits from it. If he went there, he might even lose his troops. However, if the Southern Allied Army encountered strong resistance and could not take Nanjing quickly, then Chen Jingyun could not stay out of it either. After all, he still had to consider the overall situation in the South, and without a foundation for peace talks between the North and the South, there would be no future development for him. If the failure to take Nanjing led to the failure of the peace talks, and the Northern Army's hundreds of thousands of troops marched south, Chen Jingyun would have nowhere to cry.

  However, in order to ensure that the first trip was not swallowed up and reorganized by others, he still gave Ma Cheng a clear order, requiring him to report military information every day and return immediately if something special happened.

  "Governor, since Ma Zhiyuan is already in Wenzhou, don't you think it's also like Chaozhou, and incorporate Wenzhou as well!" An Hualin has been rectifying the tax system in Fujian for some time and has become somewhat addicted to it.

  Chen Jingyun shook his head: "Wenzhou and Chaozhou are different!"

  Although both Chaozhou and Wenzhou had troops stationed there, Chaozhou, due to Yuan's influence, killed most of the original military and political leaders and re-established a new military government branch. In other words, Chaozhou was under the control of the Nationalist Army, so although nominally still following Guangzhou, it was actually under Chen Jingyun's jurisdiction. However, Wenzhou was different. Due to Zhejiang's early recovery, Wenzhou also promptly declared its recovery and established a military government branch. After Ma Cheng arrived in Wenzhou, he did not have the opportunity to replace the military government personnel like Yuan did, so for now, Fujian only has troops stationed in Wenzhou but does not have jurisdiction over government affairs. To truly bring Wenzhou into his own sphere of influence, it will take time.

  An Hualin felt a little disappointed after hearing this. To be honest, he didn't quite understand politics and military affairs. He used to say that being an official, doing business, and managing finances were his strong suits, but when it came to politics and military affairs, he was completely clueless. He thought that since the First Brigade had already arrived in Wenzhou, why wasn't Wenzhou still under the jurisdiction of Fujian?

  He doesn't understand!

  It doesn't matter anyway, Chen Jingyun didn't want him to understand, as long as An Hualin managed the financial matters well enough.

  "Now the situation in Zhejiang and Jiangsu is unstable, we can't be too high-profile, some things can't be rushed! Chen Jingyun casually explained a few more sentences and asked: "Is the financial side okay now?"

  An Hualin heard Chen Jingyun ask about finance, and immediately showed a serious expression: "Report to the Governor, the current military government's financial operation is going well. The tax reform in various places is underway, and it is expected to complete the basic reform within a month, and the whole province is expected to be reformed within three months!"

  "Good! This matter is complicated, you have to worry more!" Chen Jingyun knew that the tax reform was not easy, and there had been many violent resistance incidents so far. If it weren't for the strong suppression by military force, it would be impossible to implement.

  An Hualin said: "It's not that there's nothing to do on my side, it's all about relying on the garrison troops in various places to get things done. Otherwise, the local officials and tax collectors below would not honestly hand over their taxation rights!"

  "Don't worry, those petty people won't make it!" Chen Jingyun said with a hint of cold smile. It's clear that the military government's tax reform has hurt the interests of many people, especially local officials and tax collectors who rely on embezzlement from taxation. Now, the Ministry of Finance has centralized all tax collection rights, even ordering local governments not to collect taxes on their own, and allocating funds for local governments uniformly. Isn't this cutting off the livelihoods of most people?

  This reform, which can be said to be even more intense, would not have been implemented in peacetime, but these are not peaceful times. Chen Jingyun is not a timid civil official afraid of local uprisings, but a warlord with tens of thousands of troops at his command. If local officials behave and accept the military government's arrangements without question, there will be no problem. But if they dare to stir up trouble, Chen Jingyun won't bother wasting time investigating thoroughly; he'll directly dispatch his army to arrest the original officials and subject them to martial law!

  This one-size-fits-all management approach is quite rough, and there have been many cases of wrongful accusations, but in the current turbulent situation, any lack of tolerance towards others is a form of self-cruelty. Through this violent means of governance, Chen Jingyun was able to control all of Fujian Province within a short period of time, while other provinces in the south were still largely fragmented, with local military governments setting up their own fiefdoms and intercepting tax revenues. Even Zheng Zuyin, who had always advocated for parliamentary politics, did not oppose Chen Jingyun's violent methods, and even secretly approved of them. This is because, fundamentally speaking, the ultimate goal of tax reform was to bring all tax revenues under the control of the provincial military government, thereby preventing local governments from getting their hands on it. In other words, this was an important means of centralizing power, and as the head of civil affairs for the military government, Zheng Zuyin welcomed any measures that strengthened the authority of the military government.

  In this case, An Hualin's tax reform was able to be implemented smoothly.

  "Although the reform went smoothly, the financial situation is still very difficult. The next batch of military supplies will arrive in Fuzhou in half a month, and after paying for them, the Ministry of Finance's treasury will be left with almost no money!" An Hualin still has no solution to the current financial difficulties.

  Chen Jingyun frowned and said: "What I mentioned to you the other day, about using Guan Yu and salt government loans, how is it going? Is there any progress?"

  "I have visited the envoys of several countries for this matter, but the situation is not very clear. The US and French sides have explicitly stated that they lack confidence in our provincial government's repayment guarantee. The British side has talked to me with Consul O'Donoghue Jones, although he did not say it clearly, but I can still hear that loans are possible, but they require supervision of the loan purpose, requiring us to guarantee that it cannot be used for military purposes, only for rehabilitation and reconstruction. As for Germany, I have not yet contacted their real power holders, but I estimate that the situation is also not very optimistic!"

  Chen Jingyun's mood was also bad after hearing this, the US and France were not interested in talking about it. The British could lend money but restricted the use of the funds, damn it! At this critical juncture, he took out Guan Yu and salt administration to borrow money for military expansion, not for post-war infrastructure construction.

  In fact, it's already quite good that the British can have such a reaction, because for the major powers at present, a weak but unified China is more conducive to their interests in making profits in China. Based on this condition, supporting the Qing dynasty is in line with their interests in China. Therefore, the major powers led by Britain have begun to intervene in China's war through diplomacy and have proposed providing necessary economic and military aid to the Qing government.

  Apart from this reason, there are also great personal factors of Yuan Shikai. As the successor of Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai not only has a huge reputation in the Beiyang government but is also considered a strong and powerful Chinese leader by Western powers, who see him as the only person capable of maintaining stability in China. Both Britain and Germany have a good impression of Yuan Shikai. When Yuan Shikai was officially appointed to form a cabinet by the Qing court, the German ambassador even personally congratulated him. However, the recent Shandong independence event threatened German interests in Qingdao and the Jiaoji Railway, leading to a significant decrease in Germany's goodwill towards revolutionaries. Not only did they capture and kill many revolutionaries, but also prohibited them from approaching within 100 miles of the Jiaoji Railway.

  When Li Hongzhang and Yangwu Yixing transported small batches of old military equipment to Chen Jingyun, the German government-led military aid had already taken a step ahead of the British. Large quantities of advanced military equipment from Austria and Germany had been sent northward, and considering the emptiness of the Qing court's treasury, they began to contact the Four-Power Banking Consortium to prepare for large-scale economic assistance to the Qing court.

  It can be said that so far, the Western powers have declared neutrality on the surface in China's internal war, but in fact they have already leaned towards the Qing court. However, Japan is an exception!

  Even the most ignorant person knows that the headquarters of the Tongmenghui is in Japan, and the expenses and arms and ammunition for the uprising are also mostly from Japan. It can be said that Japan has provoked the Chinese Revolution with its own hands. From another perspective, Japan is a meritorious minister of the Chinese Revolution, but this statement is unacceptable to many people.

  Japan supports the Chinese revolution, but not for China's republic, it is to make the situation in China chaotic, and a fragmented China is most beneficial to Japan.

  The original history has proven that Japan's support for the Tongmenghui to launch a revolution can be said to be its wisest decision since the Russo-Japanese War! After the Xinhai Revolution, China was fragmented and warlords fought each other for decades. In these decades, not only did industry not develop, but it was even worse than during the late Qing period. It didn't take long before Japan completely annexed the three northeastern provinces and then launched a full-scale invasion of China.

  It was for this reason that the Japanese Consul in Fuzhou formally requested a meeting with Chen Jingyun.

  At their first meeting, the Japanese consul said: "My country is willing to provide a loan to the general!"

  On rainy days, there are still many book reviews in my hands, so you can post some book reviews and I'll make them popular, which will also allow everyone to earn more points! Don't let the rest rot in your hands!