Hankou was originally peaceful in April. Even though there was a confrontation between the Henan army and the border, it was delayed for four months without any fighting. It was inevitable that many people would feel paralyzed and misunderstood.
I thought that this war would never break out. But just as the social order was returning to normal, the people had begun to live a normal life and adapted to the large-scale soldiers coming and going in the streets and alleys of the three towns in Wuhan. Regarding Henan,
Another big news came from the house, which abruptly pulled them from their fantasy into the cruel reality.
On the avenue along the river, under the longing shadow of the warships, many newsboys in rags waved freshly released newspapers, shouting loudly along the way: "Excuse me, the Central Guards have decided to go to war."
"As the army moves south, is Hankou in danger?"
"Extra number, front page headline, Beiyang is about to fight!"
Whether people in the past were concerned about the current situation, concerned about personal comfort, or wanted to have some conversation topics before and after tea, they could not help but stop the newsboy and throw a coin over. After reading the news on the front page of the newspaper,
Each and every one of them had serious expressions on their faces, as if the prophets had already encountered a catastrophe that would destroy all life.
As early as the day when the relevant information was received, the Beiyang Military Reform Commission also seemed busy. They originally thought that they could delay the time for so long, and they successively created turmoil within the Central Guards, and they already had an absolute advantage. Just now
As Cao Kun said time and time again, the most critical thing in winning this war is not frontal combat, but time.
As time has passed, it seems that it has been enough for the whole country to form a deep-rooted anti-imperialist trend. This is obvious. The movements of students, workers, and businessmen across the country have become more and more frequent. I have to say that these people in the Chinese Revolutionary Party know best.
The right time will be the most pervasive.
But the current fact of the enemy cannot be ignored. The Beiyang Military Reform Committee suddenly changed from the previous state of tea parties, mahjongs, and insider activities. All of them started to do things seriously. Not only because Cao Kun was watching more closely.
, and even more considering the series of nepotism effects brought about by the imminent war.
Cao Kun still felt a little guilty. After all, many things were beyond his expectation. For example, he had pinned his hopes on Yuan Su to defect to the Beiyang Military Reform Commission, so that big things would be determined. Another example was when
After creating internal chaos in the Guards, he could plunge the Guards into a civil war and at least cause some mutinies. However, the result was that Yuan Su solved all the troubles and recovered in less than a month.
Order within and without the Guards.
All this seems to confirm that not everything can be controlled and expected by him, or that it is impossible for him to control the development of the entire situation.
Although he asked himself, it also contained a lot of his personal selfishness, which led to the development of things becoming more and more distorted.
With these worries and worries hidden deep in his heart, Cao Kun now has to wait more seriously for the upcoming war, even though he clearly has advantages. But whether these advantages can have actual effects?
Obviously it's still an unknown quantity.
On April 22nd, Cao Kun once again convened a military meeting. Even though he was a rough man with little education or advanced knowledge, he had plenty of experience in operating wars. He expected that the current focus would be on Xiangyang
, I am afraid that the three-pronged troops in Hankou and Xiaogan will be difficult to stop the offensive of the Central Guards, or they will not be able to achieve the expected effect. He knows the organization of the Central Army very well, and he also understands the weapons, equipment and daily training. After all, he
His old subordinate Wu Peifu once served in the Central Army.
Perhaps in terms of military strength, there are more than 100,000 people in the Central Guards, and there are more than 90,000 people in Hubei. In terms of numbers, they can be considered evenly matched. However, in terms of weapons and equipment and the quality of the soldiers, there is a huge gap between the two sides.
So Cao Kun issued a resolution at this military meeting, requiring the recruitment agency under the Military Reform Commission to immediately start recruiting new soldiers. The so-called recruitment of new soldiers was not based on the post-reform recruitment plan. The so-called reform recruitment plan was nothing more than a reformed recruitment plan.
Illusion. Now that a war is imminent, there must not be so much time to recruit and train soldiers. We can only adopt the old method of the past, which is to recruit strong people from various places, equip them with weapons, and then send them to the front line to form formations.
Anyway, what is needed most right now is not how to fight this war, but to find ways to delay this war.
With the conscription order issued by the Beiyang Military Reform Commission, an extremely cruel storm is coming for the people of Hubei, Changsha, and Sichuan provinces. Recruitment teams one after another march into villages and towns, recruiting all men suitable for combat
They were all forcibly conscripted. It was originally the farming season, but this conscription forced a large number of farmers to give up farming, and even the elderly, women and children went to work in the fields instead.
Also following this large-scale recruitment of soldiers, many rural landlords took the opportunity to annex land, middle peasants with a few fields and rich peasants who owned part of the land, using various means, names, and even colluding with the army and officials to annex the land.
All the land in their hands was abducted.
Subsequently, in order to avoid military service, there was also a lot of corruption in the local area. First, local officials trumpeted that once they were recruited to the front line, they would definitely be used as cannon fodder. In all likelihood, they would not be able to come back alive. So much so.
As a result, the people are increasingly panicking. Not only have they lost their land and property, which is their livelihood, but they also have to have the men in the family buried with them. It is impossible to survive these days. As the people are enveloped in waves of fear and complaints, many officials have
Putting on the posture of "asking for help for the people", it means that they can deal with the superiors and prevent some strong men who have registered their names from staying under other excuses.
Of course, since you are going to deal with the higher-ups, you will inevitably need financial management.
For those wealthy families, who not only have money but also connections, it is not difficult to smooth things over. Some wealthy families with some conscience can even help their tenants and long-term and short-term workers to smooth things over.
On the other hand, those middle- and lower-class families soon fell into the position of selling everything they could, scraping together enough "move money" to buy a life for the men in the family. Even after paying these "money money"
, may not really be able to see results, it also depends on whether the money is given to the right person. In the village, some trivial little bureaucrats in the town came to use this matter to extort money, but they did not actually do anything at all, or
From the beginning to the end, I was incapable of doing this. So I cheated people out of money and ran away, but I still arrested people during the recruitment process.
Even if you find someone with the power to do this, you still need a certain amount of luck.
As the saying goes, people are always greedy. In the beginning, they might help others do some things after receiving money, but as more and more people come to their door to do things, these officials also find this matter more and more troublesome. Since more and more people come to do things for them,
The more trouble there is, but there is still an endless stream of people coming to the door, it must be in line with the "development of market supply and demand", so they will raise the price.
And official corruption is becoming more and more serious, causing more and more unfair phenomena.
In the beginning, he even collected money from a family to help solve the family's recruitment problem. Later, he colluded with the recruitment unit to go to the family again to recruit men. It was only more than ten days before and after. And he did this.
The purpose is nothing more than to do everything possible and spare no effort to drain the pockets of poor people.
It can be said that this conscription directly led to the deterioration of class contradictions at the social level to a considerable extent. Even in normal times, the people are still oppressed by the ruling class. Putting aside the conscription, other things such as exorbitant levies and miscellaneous taxes are still
It's like a knife blade on the necks of ordinary people with flat heads. For many ordinary people, they can only swallow their anger.
However, the current situation is different. After all, it is catching up with the great changes within the Beiyang government and the head-on conflict between the Southern Protectorate Military Government and the Beiyang government. In such a general environment, the people's wisdom is obviously in the stage of awakening.
, the Chinese Revolutionary Party also spared no effort to promote anti-Beiyang rhetoric, which soon ignited the resentment and anger that the people had hidden for a long time.
At the same time, due to the tacit understanding formed between the Hankou Beiyang Military Reform Commission and the National Defense Army, the Chinese Revolutionary Party was able to more easily and quickly penetrate into Hubei Province, carry out more revolutionary ideological propaganda and mobilize the people to join the revolution.
The common people who had been oppressed by conscription and bureaucratic corruption to the point of despair suddenly broke out. Action branches of the Chinese Revolutionary Party had been set up in Xiaogan, Yichang, and Shiyan counties alone.
For the Chinese Revolutionary Party, they don’t care whether Cao Kun in Hankou is in the same camp as them at the moment. Even though it is clear that they can use the internal conflicts in Beiyang to watch the fire from the other side, the purpose of all revolutions is originally
Aiming to overthrow the Beiyang government. As long as the forces have anything to do with Beiyang, they are the enemies of the revolution.
The Central Guards have not fired the first shot in Suixian County, but the situation in Hubei Province is already boiling over.
Even Hankou did not expect that in just ten days, the public mood would be so irritable and uneasy.
Many high-level officials are very puzzled. Even if forced conscription has happened in the past, and some corruption has also been common, why has there not been such a big trouble before, but why is it happening at this juncture? Even though many things are caused by these high-level officials.
They knew it well and knew that trouble would have a great impact on the overall situation, but these people only sighed and expressed doubts, and no one went down to the grassroots to deal with these situations.