Back to the Republic of China as a commander

Chapter 151 Aftermath ([-])

Lu Rongting surrendered, and the news quickly spread throughout the entire land of China like lightning.

Lu Rongting made this decision that would embarrass his military career when he was unable to advance or retreat, and lost his offensive and defensive positions.However, before the official surrender, the veteran who has been in the army for more than 40 years proposed to meet his enemy Wang Zhenyu.

Wang Zhenyu readily agreed to this request. In fact, Wang Zhenyu was also very happy to see Lu Rongting, a famous warlord in the Republic of China in history.

The meeting place is in Baipeng Town, which is very close to the actual control line of both parties. Putting the meeting place here not only reflects Wang Zhenyu's attitude, but also gives Lu Rongting enough face.

As the loser, Lu Rongting, Mo Rongxin and others arrived at the meeting place half an hour earlier than the original plan.The guard company of Xu Yuanquan of the First Division of the Xiangxi Army was responsible for the security of the meeting place. They carefully checked every participant.According to Wang Zhenyu's instructions, these Guangxi soldiers can enter the arena with pistols, but not bullets. This is the greatest respect for the losers.In fact, these Guangxi soldiers were very grateful for this move. Many years later, Lu Rongting recorded a very human detail in his personal memoirs: this is respect for an old soldier.

On this day, Wang Zhenyu arrived at the venue wearing a blue lieutenant general's uniform issued by the central government of the Republic of China and riding a white horse. He was accompanied by Xu Yuanquan, commander of the first division, Wan Yaohuang, chief of staff, Li Zongren, commander of the third division, and Wang Zhenbang, the fifth younger brother of the secretary who was inseparable from him.

When the young Wang Zhenyu strode into the venue for the first time, all the generals of the old Gui army, including Old Marshal Lu, were deeply shocked by his youth.Especially for Lu Rongting, the general of the defeated army, the actual age of the victor in front of him with a bit of grandeur is almost the same as his own son. Seeing him is like seeing himself back then. The glory days of military service, I am really old.

"Marshal Wang is indeed young and promising. Lu was not wronged for his defeat. After seeing your younger generation, I realized that we old guys should have retired a long time ago. This is really the wave behind the Yangtze River pushing the wave ahead. It is impossible to refuse to accept the old. "Looking at Wang Zhenyu, Lu Rongting couldn't help expressing emotion.

Wang Zhenyu said with a smile on his face, grabbed Lu Rongting's hand and said, "Shuai Lu, your past is well known to us younger generations. Since the end of the Qing Dynasty, you and everyone here have been active in fighting against the French colonists and defending the frontier. The front line. Made great contributions to our country and our nation. Although we have conflicts and frictions today because of different political views, the historical achievements of you and everyone here cannot be erased. Today It is a great honor for the younger generation to meet an old hero like you."

After a while of pleasantries, everyone took their seats.

Since it was a surrender, Lu Rongting naturally wanted to speak first: "This time in the battle of Liuzhou, a certain person from Lu acted recklessly, and the generals and soldiers under his command did nothing but follow orders. In the flames of war, casualties are inevitable. Now our army has made up its mind. All the faults will be borne by the sinner Lu, I hope that Marshal Wang and the generals of your ministry will not take their anger out on the officers and soldiers below."

After hearing this, Wang Zhenyu laughed and said, "Old Marshal Lu loves his subordinates very much. In fact, in this matter, if you don't fight, you don't know each other. You are just implementing Beijing's wishes, and we are just hoping for the peaceful development of the country. In the final analysis, The direction is the same, but the roads are different. As for the officers and soldiers of your ministry, the soldiers carry guns and eat food, but they are just obeying orders. The past is not to be blamed. I just hope that everyone can continue to cooperate sincerely in the future to jointly build Guangxi and benefit the people. people."

. . . . . .

In the end, the two sides reached an agreement that more than 2 remaining Guangxi troops handed over their weapons to the Xiangxi Army, and then waited for the Xiangxi Army to make further arrangements.

As for Lu Rongting, who served as a lifetime honorary member of the Guangxi Provincial Council, he retired today according to his personal wishes.The remaining officials, after handing over the army, cooperated with the Xiangxi Army to complete the takeover of the existing territory, and then returned to serve as members of the Provincial Assembly.This is already the bottom line that Wang Zhenyu can accept. He has violated the traditional rules of political struggle by not killing all these bandit-born commanders.

At the last moment of farewell, Lu Rongting still held Wang Zhenyu's hand with concern and asked, "I'm already a person who has gone to the official position, so I rashly call Wang Dashuai your nephew. How do you plan to arrange it? If it is abolished, Lu is afraid that the [-] mountains will be full of bandits in the future. Our land in Guangxi is barren and the products are insufficient. We are not afraid of my nephew's jokes. When Lu was abolished, He also went into the mountains to commit bandits. Therefore, my nephew still has to hand over this matter to Lu."

Wang Zhenyu really felt Lu Rongting's sincerity at this moment, and he replied very humbly: "According to your age and seniority in the army, your good nephew is my blessing, Wang Zhenyu, and I will respect you as Uncle Lu in the future." Please rest assured, Uncle Lu, about the army. I have no plan to abolish these people. They will be incorporated into a new army, which will be responsible for the transportation construction of Guangxi in the future. Let me explain to you here, I plan to build a railway from Xiangxi Come to Liuzhou, come to the guests, if possible in the future, connect Nanning, the purpose is to develop industry in Guangxi, Uncle Lu, relying on agriculture to make a living, no matter how hard you work, you can’t get rich.”

After hearing this, Lu Rongting praised him again and again, and Wang Zhenyu continued: "Our Xiangxi Army will not be a regional army no matter from that point of view. You have also seen it, including Li Delin, the commander of the third division beside me. Brother, he is from Guilin, Guangxi. Therefore, building Guangxi, developing Guangxi, and benefiting the people of Bagui is what we must do, but I hope that more young talents from Guangxi can come out and work hard for this goal with us. Especially Lu Uncle, your child, I hope to take the lead and work hard for tomorrow, for the country, and for the nation with me, Wang Zhenyu. Look at this, can you help my nephew."

Lu Rongting has never seen such a big-hearted person as Wang Zhenyu, and those who come here are all with interrelated interests, and it is not bad if they don't make trouble in the current situation.According to his own plan, since he has lost power, the whole family will stay in Wuming honestly, and don't do things that make the victor unhappy, so as not to cause trouble to the upper body and be liquidated in the future.But the sincerity contained in Wang Zhenyu's words just now moved him, and Lu Rongting was a lot older, but Wang Zhenyu was moved to tears and said: "Okay, okay, I, Lu Rongting, will let my family and relatives go home when I go back. Let the children come out and let them work for you, nephew, and the future of the Lu family will depend entirely on you, nephew..."

The news about Lu Rongting quickly spread, even the culprit who launched the crusade was gently let go by Wang Zhenyu, so the other people were naturally not a problem.Under the dominance of this atmosphere, the surrender work of the entire Gui army became very smooth.

A few days later, Song Xianfu, the captain of the Xiangxi Railway Corps, also rushed to Liuzhou with a large number of officers from the Railway Corps.According to Wang Zhenyu's intention, the headquarters of the Hunan-Guizhou Railway Construction Corps will be located in Liuzhou City. Song Xianfu will serve as the commander of the Corps.Railway construction projects will also be launched one after another. There are three current plans:

The first is to build railways from Luyang to Fenghuang, Luyang to Yuanzhou, and Syria;

The second is to build a railway from Tongdao to Liuzhou and Laibin;

The third is to build a railway from Nanning to guests.

As for the funding gap, Wang Zhenyu has already planned to solve it in three ways:

The first is to rush back to Anjiang as soon as possible and instruct the three major banks to issue currency in their own jurisdiction, so that they can better control the economic development in their jurisdiction and solve some government financial difficulties;

The second is to borrow money from the Belgians and Luxembourgers, and use the railway as collateral to obtain huge loans.

The third and most difficult point is to carry out political and economic reforms in Guangxi and find a way to get money from the land of Bagui.

According to Wang Zhenyu's own analysis, he raised a full [-] million yuan in Hongjiang. If Bagui had no money, it should be possible to raise [-] million yuan within a province.

But how should we operate this new plate in Guangxi?In this place where the people and society are more complicated than those in western Hunan, what kind of system should I use?Should we continue to follow the model of Xiangxi County governed by people, or simply establish a military dictatorship here?But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get away for a while, and An Jiang had a lot of things waiting for him to implement.

Wang Zhenyu suddenly remembered that he really had many problems to solve, and the most fatal thing was that he had not successfully established a self-operating management system in the past year. Relying on your own decision-making, this problem is very serious and must be resolved as soon as possible.After dinner, he asked Wang Zhenbang to bring a blank sheet of paper, then took out a Parker gold pen and began to write down the problems he needed to solve as soon as possible:

The first thing is to get reconciliation with Beijing as soon as possible. The second revolution is over. If I, who is standing in the revolutionary ranks, can’t clean up quickly, the revolutionary party will come to my door one after another. I have to be isolated to the end; secondly, although I can arm an army of [-] at once, it is not enough to defeat the powerful Beiyang forces. Easy to feed.

The second thing is how to change the political reform in Guangxi and how to go about it.This is a key issue. I initially sent troops to Guangxi to plan only the iron from Luzhai in Liuzhou and the coal from Laibin. In the end, after a toss, I am sorry, and I accidentally took down all Bagui.Except for Shen Hongying and the jumping clowns who are still stubbornly resisting, basically he has completely controlled Guangxi, so in this case, the original plan cannot keep up with the situation.

The third thing is that the army needs to expand and the bank needs to issue money. These intricate problems must be resolved as soon as possible.According to Wang Zhenyu's thinking, every time a young man is recruited from Guangxi to join the army, the social stability of Guangxi will increase by one point.Therefore, this must be done as soon as possible. The 804 base should be established in Liuzhou, the 805 base should be established in Nanning, and the 806 base should be established in Wuzhou.The existing military authorities also need to be upgraded and reformed, and they can't take care of all the messy things on their own heads.

Just after writing these three things, Wang Chenhao, who was newly promoted to Major Adjutant, knocked on the door and came in: "Report Commander, Li Zongren, Commander of the Third Division, and Chief of Staff Bai Chongxi, brought the two Mr. Huang you named to meet."

"Oh, please hurry up." Wang Zhenyu suddenly felt that his mind was opened, because the key to governing Guangxi came.