Early in the morning of the same day, Zhangzhou urgently sent a telegram to Guangzhou, officially announcing its ownership of the leadership of the Guangdong military government and was willing to accept Wu Shaoting's direct order. Wu Shaoting had expected this result and was not very happy. Xu Chongzhi's joining can only be said to be the beginning of the challenge of Beiyang. No one knows what the result of this challenge will be.

In the early morning, Wu Shaoting issued a telegram, announcing Xu Chongzhi's surrender. In the afternoon of the same day, the General Staff Headquarters issued the first order to Xu Chongzhi, revoking the old number of the Zhangzhou garrison and setting up a new number of the "Zhangzhou Division". Xu Chongzhi still retained the position of Zhangzhou garrison and was also responsible for the commander of the Zhangzhou Division. In the additional content of the instructions, the General Staff Headquarters also drafted the plan of the Zhangzhou Division and decided to complete the Zhangzhou Division with three conventional army regiments, equipped the Division's direct guard battalion and artillery battalion, and in addition, a third teaching regiment will be added as soon as possible.

The three regular line corps sequences followed the organization of the Guangdong Army, namely the 16th Regiment, the 17th Regiment and the 18th Regiment. All commanders above the regiment headquarters were appointed by Xu Chongzhi, and the Guangzhou Military Government would only arrange a deputy chief of staff, a general political commissar and the expected leader of the Third Teaching Regiment at the Zhangzhou Division Headquarters.

It is only a matter of time before the addition of the Third Teaching Regiment. Considering the current military quality of the Zhangzhou Division, more and more advanced practical training must be relied on to improve the overall quality of the entire army.

The power supply soon spread throughout southern China, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian Provinces first shocked it. Although Xu Chongzhi played a role in the south and his strength was not deep, Wu Shaoting's significance was self-evident, marking the beginning of a new round of war.

It just so happened that Li Houji was about to launch an official attack late that night, but this telegram suddenly disrupted his layout. He knew very well that Wu Shaoting's purpose of issuing the telegram was to threaten himself. Once the Fujian army dared to move Zhangzhou, it would be a part of the Guangdong circle of forces, and the Guangdong army would definitely send troops to intervene.

His previous plan was to launch a blitzkrieg to attack Zhangzhou before Guangdong intervened, and then fight first.

Now it seems that this plan obviously needs to be revised. A long time ago, the 39th Division of the Army has already been gathered in Meizhou and Chaozhou. From Meizhou and Chaozhou crossed the borders of the two provinces and arrived directly to Zhangzhou, it only took one and a half years to march urgently. The Fujian Army has only mobilized two brigades and eighth regiments, and each regiment has a much smaller organization than the Guangdong Army. If you really want to start, you will definitely suffer a loss.

The reason why Li Houji dared to attack Zhangzhou was naturally expected that Guangdong would intervene, so he prepared follow-up troops in Fuzhou for support. But he didn't expect Guangdong to intervene so quickly. Of course, Li Houji's real confidence was not in the army. Last year's Guangdong War had verified the toughness of the Guangdong army. Even if he prepared 30,000 troops, he might not be the opponent of the Guangdong army. His confidence lies in the Fujian Navy, which is the only military force that is stronger than Guangdong.

After the Guangdong War and the Beiyang government took the opportunity to reclaim eleven main ships, and the strength of the Guangdong Navy was greatly reduced.

The former Minister of the Guangdong Navy Gao Guangzheng was also transferred to the office. For the commander-in-chief of Fujian Navy Du Xigui, there was no more worry about being unable to let go, and he would never be polite when it was time to take action.

However, the navy is still in the preparation stage, and the reinforcements prepared in Fuzhou will still take some time. Li Houji had to give up his offensive operation tonight and ordered the troops from Longyan, Tong'an and Xiamen to stand by.

Taking advantage of Li Houji's suspension of operation, Wu Shaoting transported a large number of exposed materials from Guangdong to Zhangzhou. It took only three days to summon 100 artillery and 300 soldiers from the Guangzhou Reserve Command to form the temporary artillery battalion of the Zhangzhou Division. The battalion commander was promoted from Cai Tingkai of the First Teaching Regiment. The temporary artillery battalion only obeyed Xu Chongzhi's command during the war, coordinated with Zhangzhou's defense, and assisted Xu Chongzhi in cultivating artillery talents.

The General Staff Headquarters allocated another military expenditure, established a reserve headquarters and a recruit battalion in Zhangzhou, and began to recruit and train new soldiers in Zhangzhou. Wu Shaoting specially activated the old people of the 23 towns who had been buried for a long time. Yan Qihan, a subordinate of Long Jiguang, served as the commander-in-chief of the Zhangzhou Reserve Headquarters, and assigned all staff members to Zhangzhou to start work.

Soon the Ministry of Civil Affairs also formulated the policy of Zhangzhou and sent a civil servant team to Zhangzhou to take over the government affairs of some garrisons. The first thing that happened after the civil servant team took office was to promote the entire Zhangzhou area. From now on, all the laws, taxation, people's livelihood and other policies of Zhangzhou will be implemented in accordance with the established policies of the Guangdong Military Government and abolished all old customs and habits.

This move immediately won the welcome of the people of Zhangzhou, but some small landlords and the boss felt at a loss.

Wu Shaoting gave Xu Chongzhi a death order and must strictly implement new policies.

Xu Chongzhi knew that he was nominally a commander of the Guangdong military government, but in fact he was just a division commander of the Guangdong military government. Sooner or later, the government affairs of Zhangzhou would be completely handed over to the Guangdong military government for handling. He was a little worried that the implementation of the new policy would cause sudden changes in the bourgeoisie and the landlord class. After all, the customs and customs of Zhangzhou were very different from those of Guangdong, and there was no transition before.

Wu Shaoting was not unaware of this, but he was eager to unify and popularize Guangdong Province's policies in Zhangzhou. His strategic intention was to gather the hearts of the people of Zhangzhou as soon as possible, and encourage the joint efforts of the military and civilians to better accept the Guangdong military's aid to Fujian, and on the other hand, increase the combat effectiveness of the Fujian army to fight against the Fujian army.

For him, the petty bourgeoisie local local small landlords with complaints were weak and not at all troubled. If these people had to go against the new policy, or even had an affair with the Fujian army in order to retaliate, he could take the opportunity to eradicate these people and re-establish a group of landlord merchants in Zhangzhou.

Xu Chongzhi had no choice but to do it according to the Guangdong side's wishes.

On August 16th, the weather in the south became hotter and hotter, and the situation in Guangdong and Fujian became increasingly tense. Both sides were busy dispatching troops and making all preparations before the war began, like a full-stringed bow, and the war was about to begin.

In the conference room of the Guangzhou Governor's Office's General Staff Headquarters, Wu Shaoting held a staff meeting.

Two days ago, the Intelligence Team of the Secret Service successfully collected the latest military information of the Fujian Army and first mastered most of Li Houji's military action plans.

In Wu Shaoting's view, if it was just a head-on battle on the land, the Guangdong army would never be afraid of the Fujian army. No matter what scale Li Houji wanted to expand the war, he would have the confidence to accompany him to the end. As expected, Guangdong could also invest two divisions of troops on the Fujian battlefield.

However, there are always many troubles in coastal provinces. The intelligence team learned that the Fujian Navy was being mobilized, and the mobilization had lasted for a month. It can be seen that Li Houji had planned to use the navy to participate in the war. During the Guangdong War last year, there was a precedent for the Fujian Navy to participate in the battle. At that time, Xu Chongzhi was almost destroyed by the bombardment of naval artillery. Even if the Guangdong army came to the Guangdong army to assist Zhangzhou, he had to choose inland combat due to the threat of the Fujian Navy.

Last year, the Fujian Navy showed mercy, but now it may not be as lucky as this.

Since the signing of the Guangdong Armistice Agreement, the Guangdong Navy has delivered the latest eleven main battleships. Currently, there are only a dozen old-style warships in the naval base, of which only eight can be sent to the battlefield. In the past year, Wu Shaoting has devoted all his energy to the construction and development of the army. The Navy has almost maintained the status quo. From a strategic perspective, the Guangdong Navy is only responsible for the tasks of deterrence and Neijiang combat.

Once the Fujian Navy joins this war, the pressure on Guangdong will be very heavy. Even if Wu Shaoting dares to fight, he will not have the confidence to send Guangdong's existing navy to fight to the death with Fujian.

This is the main reason for the convening of this staff meeting, aiming to discuss strategies to deal with the Fujian Navy.

At the beginning of the meeting, He Fuguang gave an overview to all the staff officers present and distributed detailed information of the two fleets of the Fujian Navy. The Fujian Navy is now divided into the Fuzhou Fleet and the Xiamen Fleet. There are nine gunboats with a total of 2,000 tonnages, and other small gunboats and torpedo boats are also of scale. Although the Fujian Navy was no longer energetic compared to before the Sino-French War, it still has quite strong combat effectiveness in internal near-shore combat. Especially this battle is still on the local Fujian area.

After a while, He Fuguang turned to Ren Guangyu, the Minister of the Navy at the conference table, and first asked: "Minister Ren, you are an expert in this field, so you might as well talk about your personal opinion first."

Ren Guangyu received an order to attend this staff meeting and naturally made some preparations. He Fuguang had almost no more information on the Fujian Navy sent by him. He still had a lot of experience in understanding the Fujian Navy. After adjusting his face, he spoke rigorously: "In terms of combat capabilities alone, although our current ships do not have to be strong in the Fujian Navy, they are not much weaker. However, this battle was on the local area of ​​Fujian and close to the Xiamen Naval Base. Our army is much inferior in terms of logistics supply, maintenance, personnel replacement, etc."

He Fuguang asked again: "If you really start, how likely is the victory?"

Ren Guangyu shook his head helplessly and said with a sigh: "Naval combat requires high standards for the right time and place. You cannot make a conclusion just because of the gap in supporting conditions. It is now the summer monsoon outbreak period, and the wind direction is unpredictable. Often, typhoons often appear on the southeast coast at this time. If you use it skillfully, it is not impossible to win a surprise attack."

Although Ren Guangyu's words sounded full of hope, from his expression to his tone, everyone knew that even he was not sure. The battlefield was unpredictable, and adapting to changes was indeed the most important thing. However, the staff meeting focused on actual data analysis and deduced the real combat situation as much as possible. If nothing was confirmed, how could it be deduced?

He Fuguang saw Ren Guangyu's reservations, and he took a breath slowly and said seriously: "Minister Ren, fighting is not a joke. The right time and place can be used by me or by others. We cannot formulate combat plans because of these uncertain factors. Just give us a word, how difficult is this battle for the Guangdong Navy."

Ren Guangyu straightened his chest and said solemnly: "Ship Ting has given him the order, and he will definitely die. However, if Ship Ting is willing to listen to the words of the humble official, the Guangdong Navy can do very little in this battle, and his chances of winning are really not great."

He Fuguang felt a little annoyed when he heard this. On the one hand, it was because Ren Guangyu had been striking for most of the time before, and on the other hand, he was deeply worried about the Battle of Zhangzhou. If the Guangdong Navy could not suppress the Fujian Navy, the Guangdong Army's operations on the land would inevitably be very passive, which would affect the overall situation.

"Even if it is to restrain it, can't it be possible to reduce the threat from the Fujian Navy to our army?" he asked unwillingly.

"Mr. He, in terms of qualifications, our Guangdong Navy is not as good as the Fujian Navy. The Fujian Navy is funded by the Central Navy, supported by foreign consultants, and backed by two major bases of Fujian Naval Academy and Fujian Naval Manufacturing Factory. If we really fight, these warships in Guangdong will be very passive, and even if they restrain the enemy, they will pay a huge price. However, the humble official still said the same thing before, but Fan Ting Shuai ordered the Navy to execute the order to the death." Ren Guangyu said with all his voice, with a strong expression on his face, and his aura of pursing death was vividly displayed on the paper.

He Fuguang pursed his lips and didn't know what to say for a moment. Although he was the Chief of Staff, he was not familiar with the navy after all. Now Ren Guangyu has expressed the disadvantages of the Guangdong Navy participating in this battle. If he insisted on mobilizing the Guangdong Navy to participate in the war, it would be very expensive. He was unsure of his mind and his eyes fell on the chief Wu Shaoting.

Wu Shaoting did not speak from beginning to end. While listening to the conversation between He Fuguang and Ren Guangyu, he casually looked at the information of the Fujian Navy. The problems in front of him were not easy. After a moment of silence, he spoke slowly:

"There were always victorious troops in ancient times. The reason why they won every battle without losing is that they never fought a battle that they were unsure. Since Minister Ren had already predicted that it would be difficult for us to defeat the Fujian Navy, then we should not take this risk."

"Shishou Ting, but in this way, Zhangzhou's defense is afraid..." He Fuguang said worriedly.

"We cannot fight head-on, we must be smart. Why do we need to use our weakness to meet the enemy's advantage? Li Houji dares to send troops rashly to attack Zhangzhou from the land, because he is afraid of the strength of our Guangdong Army. We are strong in the army, so why not make good use of it?" Wu Shaoting said calmly.
Chapter completed!