Beiyang 1917

The beginning of May 1917 was a month that caused the Allies to suffer. Following the shameful failure of France's totally irrelevant Nivelles Offensive in April, the French Army General, which thought it had launched an attack on nine German divisions with 4 French divisions, The commander, Robert Nivelle, a 44-year-old artilleryman, kicked the iron plate of the German army on the Western Front.

The Germans took advantage of the tsar’s resignation on the Eastern Front and the internal chaos in Russia to increase the number of nine French divisions on the Western Front to as many as 9. The French offensive was launched on April 46, a week There was an uproar in the cafe in Paris before, and the commander-in-chief of the French army who brazenly ignored intelligence and confidentiality brought the French army into a tragic situation.

After the blindly confident French army suffered almost 20 casualties without any progress, the shameful Nivelles Offensive came to an abrupt end. Of course, the French General Command claimed that the casualties were only about 8, while their opponents She shyly admitted that the German casualties were 16!It seems that the French army has won the battle, but for the French soldiers who knew the defeat of the battle, they could not continue to bear it.

So when China's acting president Feng Guozhang led the [-]th and [-]th divisions into Beijing to take up his post, the French army on the western front at the junction of Germany and France was in a state of turmoil, and the soldiers no longer obeyed orders. There were only two French divisions in the French position on the front line in a normal state of holding their positions, and the German army on the opposite side knew nothing about the riots of the French army.

Even the rioting soldiers of the French army who were captured by the German army did not say a word to the enemy. What they resisted was the random command of the commander-in-chief at the top of the French army, not treason!Hateful and respectable Frenchmen!

Also at the beginning of May, the Russian Provisional Government, which was also in the camp of the Allied Powers, also ushered in a serious riot. The Foreign Minister Miliukov of the Provisional Government sent a note to the governments of the Allied Powers, claiming that Russia would abide by the various treaties signed by the Tsarist Government and The world war has come to a "victorious end".

This caused the Russian bonds in the U.S. market to rebound by 20% like chicken blood, and the market value of the Russian bonds held by Wang Geng’s Manhattan Industrial Bank with a market value of nearly 4000 million US dollars increased by 800 million US dollars!

From May 5rd to 3th, under the call of the Bolsheviks, Petrograd workers and soldiers held demonstrations to protest the imperialist policies of the Provisional Government.The Provisional Government was forced to dismiss Miliukov and Guchkov.

With the British army struggling to maintain the Western Front, the French government replaced Nivelle as the commander-in-chief of the army with Pétain. After taking office, Pétain visited more than 90 French military divisions. The first plan he formulated was to ensure that the troops That divine vacation power!Although the French army did not recover their fighting power so quickly, the riots finally subsided slowly.

In the United States, conscription is being carried out at a rate of 1 people per day, but the logistical support and supplies cannot keep up at all for a while. The recruits in the recruit battalions of the US military have not touched a gun for a month after enlisting. Practice basic training. In fact, Pershing's first US advance detachment did not land in France until June 1917, 6, and the main force of the US military appeared on the European battlefield in 27.

Wang Geng’s army base camp in Nanyuan is still adding 1000 new recruits every day. Fortunately, he has been preparing since the beginning of April, and the Nanyuan barracks has enough space for his engineer battalion to build with the old buildings. In the new barracks, the recruits participating in the model army did not live in tents.

Therefore, when the first batch of U.S. reinforcements arrived at Tianjin Port at the end of May and were transported directly to Fengtai Station by trains, nearly [-] recruits in the Nanyuan Barracks of the participating army had long been screaming. The tempering of the water conservancy projects on both sides of the Yongding River, the combination of meat and vegetables for three meals a day, and the military song "Three Three-Discipline and Nine Points of Attention" that must be sung every day, of course, the ubiquitous coercion of the Gendarmerie, the military discipline of the participating troops And morale remains at a fairly strong stage.

The branch line connecting Fengtai Station to Nanyuan has been repaired long ago, and the ammunition train directly arrived at the Nanyuan warehouse area to unload. flag of the day.

It has to be said that the armbands of the model army with red background, white circle and black characters designed by Wang Geng are quite sharp and eye-catching. The number of troops lined up under the inspection platform has also increased from one teaching regiment to one division and three mixed brigades. 3 people, the 16th mixed brigade originally had nearly 5 people and has seamlessly infiltrated and expanded to the middle of the six brigades of the two divisions. Of course, the 1 recruits who enlisted in May are still waiting to supplement the establishment of the 2st, 3nd and [-]rd brigades Sweating like rain on the water conservancy projects on both sides of the Yongding River.

Don't think that the Yongding River is just a small ditch. The Yongding River is [-] kilometers long and originates in Shanxi. It is the largest of the five major tributaries of the Haihe River. It has always been known for its complex water conditions and floods all day long.As long as Wang Geng is willing, the recruits of the model army can dig river mud for several years without worrying about having nothing to do!

If you want to say that the fastest rising star in the history of the Republic of China is none other than Wang Geng at this moment, this guy set foot on the territory of the motherland as a graduate of West Point at the end of March. In just two months, he has not only been the national policy advisor to the Prime Minister , Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Military and Economic Affairs (Economics was added in early May), successively served as a major general counselor of the Ministry of Army, concurrently commander of the 5th mixed brigade, supervisor of preparations for participating in the war, supervisor of participating in the war, and commander of the first division of the participating army.

In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this guy's title is Supervision of Negotiations with the United States, and Supervision of Negotiations with the Five Countries.Foreign Minister Xia Yiting is his buddy, and Deputy Finance Minister Lu Ding is his brother.

In May, Bank of China and Bank of Communications, under the leadership of him, the new supervisor of the Ministry of Finance, successively completed the share expansion and renewal of the list, and underwrote 3.8 million newly issued by the Ministry of Finance. The two banks underwrote the government bonds mortgaged for the six-year five-percent war of the Republic of China. Instead of silver dollars, they issued new banknotes, Zhongyuan.

Bank of China and Bank of Communications provide credit guarantee for the paper currency Zhongyuan issued by the two banks in the form of unlimited trading of US dollars and foreign exchange. Convert to USD.Of course, a large amount of exchange still needs to be reserved, but it is guaranteed to be exchanged.

The original silver taels and silver dollars will gradually withdraw from the circulation market within five years. Zhongyuan uses US dollars as its issuance reserve and adopts a fixed exchange rate system against the US dollar, 1 Zhongyuan = 0.5 US dollars.

The old Beijing banknotes that are waiting to be sorted out on the market will be out of circulation as soon as the new Zhongyuan is issued, but they can be exchanged for the new Zhongyuan at a ratio of 1:1, which gives the holders of the old Beijing banknotes almost 40% of the income, because The market price of old Beijing banknotes was between 6% and 7% off.

In order to speed up the recovery of the old Beijing banknotes, the Bank of China and the Bank of Communications have stipulated that within 30 days, the old Beijing banknotes can be exchanged for new Zhongyuan at all outlets of the two banks at a ratio of 1:1. After 30 days, it can only be exchanged at a ratio of 1:0.9, and after 60 days, the exchange will stop!

The power of the market is huge. Although the market value of the banknotes in the hands of the holders of the old Beijing banknotes has increased by half overnight, for those ordinary people who hold the banknotes at face value without hype, the old Beijing banknotes can only be restored. When it came to the face value, if they did not sell the old Beijing banknotes at a low price because they believed in the government, then the exchange rules of the government and the two banks at this moment allowed the old banknotes they held to restore their original face value.

The exchange rules of the old Beijing banknotes made the issuance of the new Zhongyuan unimpeded. Of course, as the first batch of exchangers of the new Zhongyuan, many people directly conducted two transactions at the same counter, exchanging the old Beijing banknotes for the new Zhongyuan. Yuan, and then exchange the new Chinese Yuan for U.S. dollars and take it home in your pocket.

However, the U.S. dollar is not used for actual commodity circulation except for exchange in China. Therefore, after holding U.S. dollars in their pockets for more than half a month, ordinary people who need money re-exchange the U.S. dollars in their pockets into Zhongyuan. The circulation of this new currency is supported by sufficient credit, and the degree and speed of acceptance by the people are much greater than the government's imagination.