Chapter 18 17. The Revolutionary Party launched the "Second Revolution"

On April 8, 1912, the first Congress in Chinese history opened in Beijing.The night before, the streets near the House of Representatives had already been decorated with lights and festoons, shining brightly and festively.On the second day, the elected members of the Senate and the House of Representatives all wore brand-new dresses and walked into the chamber of the House of Representatives one after another with great joy.Perhaps because of the "Song Case", Yuan Shikai did not attend that day, but sent Liang Shiyi, the Secretary-General of the Presidential Palace, the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, and the heads of various ministries to congratulate him.

By eleven o'clock in the morning, all parties had arrived. Gu Ao, the preparatory member of the National Assembly, announced the opening ceremony. First, a 108-gun salute was fired, and then the representatives of all parties spoke.Later, Liang Shiyi, Secretary-General of the Presidential Office, also read Yuan Shikai's congratulatory message: "The first National Congress of the Republic of China was formally established. This is the greatest glory in the history of more than 4,000 years, and the happiness of 4 trillion people and billions of years. Shikai also A member of the nation should be as grateful as all gentlemen." After finishing speaking, Liang Shiyi raised his hands and shouted slogans: "Long live the Republic of China! Long live the National Congress of the Republic of China!" Liang Shiyi raised his hand, and the members of the audience also responded one after another, and the slogan was deafening , the atmosphere of the venue reached a climax.

After the opening of the Congress, the first thing to do was to elect the speaker and deputy speaker. At that time, the Senate and the House of Representatives were divided into two factions and launched a fierce competition. This was the KMT faction, and the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Gael Party were the other faction. .These congressmen held many preparatory meetings, and it took more than half a month to make a fuss before they settled down on the detailed rules of procedure and the rules for the election of the chairman and deputy speaker.In the ensuing Senate election, KMT senators Zhang Ji and Wang Zhengting were elected as the chairman and vice-speaker respectively; while in the House of Representatives election, Democrat Tang Hualong was elected speaker and Republican member Chen Guoxiang was elected vice-speaker. The two sides basically tied.

When the "Song case" was at a standstill and members of Congress were busy with elections, Yuan Shikai was not idle either.He is planning a major event at the moment, that is, the issue of "big aftermath borrowing" that the previous two cabinets failed to do well.Based on years of political experience, Yuan Shikai had already expected a showdown with the revolutionaries, so he needed to raise enough funds to fight.After all, no matter what the circumstances, money is absolutely impossible. On the evening of April 26, Premier Zhao Bingjun, Minister of Finance Zhou Xuexi, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lu Zhengxiang held final negotiations with representatives of the five banking groups of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan at the HSBC Building in Beijing.Negotiations were very difficult, and the representatives of the two sides talked until the early morning of the 27th before finally agreeing on various specific terms.

In the loan contract, the group of banks of the five countries promised to lend 25 million pounds to the government of the Republic of China, with an annual interest rate of 5%, and a term of 47 years; the bonds were sold at a 10% discount, and the 6% commission was deducted, which was equivalent to only 21 million pounds; In terms of advances, loans from banks of various countries, and the payment of expenses for the demobilization of troops in various provinces, the actual amount received is less than 10 million pounds, but the repayment of principal and interest when due will cost 67.89 million pounds (seems harsher than boxer indemnity).

When the news that the aftermath loan had been signed was announced, it immediately caused an uproar in the country.First of all, there are doubts from the Congress. Senate President Zhang Ji and Vice-President Wang Zhengting, who are members of the Kuomintang, telegraphed the whole country, saying that the large loan for aftermath was signed without the approval of the Congress.Afterwards, Huang Xing, Bai Wenwei, Li Liejun, Hu Hanmin and others also sent telegrams one after another, reprimanding Yuan Shikai for borrowing money illegally and despising the legislature. Now that the money had been borrowed, Yuan Shikai simply tore off his face. Instead of ignoring the protests of the Kuomintang members, he aggressively reprimanded Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and other Kuomintang members.When things got to this point, the two sides had to meet each other in battle. On June 9, Yuan Shikai acted preemptively and ordered Li Liejun to be dismissed from the post of Jiangxi governor, and Li Yuanhong was appointed concurrently as Jiangxi governor; on June 14, Guangdong governor Hu Hanmin was dismissed; on June 30, Anhui governor Bai Wenwei was also dismissed.As a result, the three governors of the Kuomintang were all dismissed by Yuan Shikai in the name of "incompetent" and "unpopular". Of course, the root cause was "disobedience to the central government".

After Li Liejun was dismissed by Yuan Shikai, he did not raise troops to fight against Yuan immediately, but first sent a telegram to the field, and left Nanchang for Shanghai on June 15.After arriving in Shanghai, Li Liejun met with Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Chen Qimei and others. After repeated discussions, they believed that Yuan Shikai would be difficult to be influenced, and the only way now is to raise troops to resist, and perhaps there is still a chance of survival. On July 7th, after returning to Jiangxi from Shanghai, Li Liejun secretly summoned the old troops, and occupied the Hukou Fort on July 12th.The next day, Li Liejun established Jiangxi to challenge Yuan Jun and issued a document to challenge Yuan, announcing Jiangxi's independence.Subsequently, Bai Wenwei, Hu Hanmin, and Chen Jiongming also declared independence in Anhui and Guangdong respectively.

Long before Li Liejun declared independence, the Beiyang Army had begun to infiltrate the southern provinces. In the autumn of 1912, a small number of Beiyang troops entered Hubei one after another at the invitation of Li Yuanhong, governor of Hubei; after April 1913, Li Yuanhong asked Yuan Shikai to send another infantry regiment of Li Chun to Wuhan on the grounds that the situation in Hubei was unstable.After mid-May, the confrontation between the North and the South became increasingly obvious, and the Beiyang Army also began to move south in large numbers.By the end of May, there were more than 20,000 Beiyang troops stationed in Hubei.

The military plan of the Beiyang Army was divided into two routes along the Jing-Han line and the Jin-Pu line. One line used Hubei as a base to attack Jiangxi and Hunan;After Li Liejun declared independence at Hukou, the First Army of the Beiyang Army, under the leadership of Li Chun and Wang Zhanyuan, went south along the Beijing-Hanzhou Railway and soon arrived in Jiujiang, Jiangxi; at the same time, Feng Guozhang, Lei Zhenchun, Zhang Xun and other departments also Advance troops along Jinpu Road, approaching Nanjing. Under the leadership of brigade commander Ma Jizeng, the forward 11th mixed brigade of Li Chun's department quickly entered Jiujiang, strangling the strategic point of entering Jiangxi.Not to be outdone by Li Liejun's vanguard Lin Hu, who was fighting against Yuan Jun, he then detained the train from De'an to Jiujiang, and moved the outpost forward to prepare for the battle.

However, there was also a serious problem in Li Liejun's challenge to the Yuan army, which was the internal division of the army. Although Jiangxi had two army divisions and one mixed brigade at that time, with a total of 10 regiments, the first division commander Ouyang Wu and the second division The division commander Liu Shijun was indecisive, and secretly exchanged information with Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong, making it difficult to distinguish friend from foe.At that time, only Lin Hu's First Division's First Brigade (two regiments), Li Mingyang's Tenth Regiment, Zhou Bijie's Ninth Regiment, Zhuo Renji's Machine Gun Brigade, and Fang Shengtao's new brigade (later famous Chen Mingshu and Jiang Guangnai served as battalion and company commanders), with less than 5 regiments.

At dawn on July 12, Lin Hu's Ministry took the initiative to attack, advancing all the way to Shahe Town, and attacking the Beiyang Army at Shilipu all the way.After several days of fierce fighting, Yuan's army won the first battle, occupied Shahe Town, and forced the Beiyang army to retreat temporarily.However, while Lin Hu's division was fighting fiercely, Fang Shengtao's division failed to attack Jiujiang and retreated, which seriously affected the development of the battle situation. After Li Chun was frustrated in the Battle of Shahe, he then adjusted his deployment and mobilized the superior forces of 3 regiments to counterattack Lin Hu's troops. retreat.A few days later, the Second Division of the Beiyang Army headed to Jiujiang under the leadership of the division commander Wang Zhanyuan. Duan Zhigui's 8th Battalion of Arch Guards arrived in Jiujiang, and the fleet led by Vice-Minister Tang Xiangming also arrived at the front line. The strength of the Beiyang Army increased greatly. After the deployment of the Beiyang Army was completed, Yuan Shikai appointed Duan Zhigui as the commander of the First Army and Jiangxi Xuanfu envoy to command the frontline operations.Subsequently, Duan Zhigui was stationed in Jiujiang, with Li Chun as the commander of the left army and Wang Zhanyuan as the commander of the right army, and together with the naval fleet, they attacked Hukou.The Beiyang Army was divided into two groups, one led by Zhang Jingyao, commander of the 22nd Regiment of the Sixth Division, and the other led by Bao Guiqing, the brigade commander of the Second Division. With the cooperation of Tang Xiangming's four warships, they launched a fierce attack on the Hukou Fort . After Lin Hu's attack failed, Fang Shengtao led about 5,000 people from the right-wing army to resist tenaciously. The battle was very fierce. Zhou Bijie, the head of the Ninth Regiment, was unfortunately killed in the charge.On the way to retreat, Gong Xingsheng, the battalion commander of the Ninth Regiment, saw that victory was hopeless, and led two battalions, artillery teams, and machine gun teams to surrender to the Beiyang Army. As a result, the right-wing army was greatly reduced in strength and basically lost its offensive ability. On July 25, the Beiyang Army captured Hukou, and Li Liejun led the rest of Yuan's army to retreat to Wucheng.After the fall of the Hukou Fortress, Jiangxi was wide open and there was no danger to defend, while the Beiyang Army took advantage of the victory to pursue, captured De'an, Jianchang, and Wucheng, and then attacked Nanchang together.Due to the huge disparity in strength, Nanchang declared its fall on August 18. In desperation, Li Liejun had no choice but to lead his subordinate He Ziqi and others to travel down the Jiangxi River in two fast ships. After arriving at Pingxiang via Zhangshu Town, he joined the Hunan Army's Jiangxi aid troops led by Tang Mang, and then disbanded the remaining troops with Lin Hu in Yuanzhou. Finally, at the invitation of Tan Yankai, the governor of Hunan Province, he led a few cronies and entourages to Changsha by train.When Li Liejun arrived in Changsha, Tan Yankai had already canceled Hunan's independence, but he didn't want to fight against the Revolutionary Party, so under his arrangement, Li Liejun, Lin Hu and others secretly went into exile in Japan.So far, the war in Jiangxi has subsided. While the Beiyang Army and Li Liejun were fighting fiercely with Yuan Jun, Feng Guozhang, Zhang Xun, Lei Zhenchun and other troops of the Second Army had also entered Jiangsu and were preparing to attack Nanjing.At this time, Huang Xing organized the headquarters of the Yuan army, and immediately ordered the third division of Lengyu stationed in Xuzhou to launch an attack on the neighboring Beiyang garrison. He also ordered the eighth division cavalry regiment, machine gun company, artillery battalion, and engineer battalion to form a mixed detachment. , went to the front line of Xuzhou to support the third division, and the first brigade of the first division also followed up; The rest of the troops are temporarily stationed in Nanjing. After being attacked by Leng Yu's troops, the Beiyang Army, under the command of Jin Yunpeng, commander of the Fifth Division, stood by and waited for reinforcements, repelling Yuan Jun's attacks many times.After Zhang Xun learned that war had broken out in Xuzhou, he sent 3 battalions of braided soldiers to support him without waiting for Yuan Shikai's order, and Tian Zhongyu's patrol battalion also moved from Yanzhou to the front line, and immediately joined the battle.After being pinched from left to right by the Beiyang Army, the Leng Yu was invincible and had to retreat to Liuquan, 20 kilometers north of Xuzhou, to wait for help. At this time, the mixed detachment of the 8th Division and the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division also rushed to reinforce, and the North and South armies fought fiercely again.At this time, Huang Xing also tried to use Zhang Xun's loyalty to the Qing Dynasty to alienate Zhang Xun and turned against him. He called Zhang Xun and said: "Yuan Shikai was originally a traitor in the Qing Dynasty, and he was extremely treacherous. Yuan Shikai used the name of the militia to bully the orphans and widows, and took the opportunity to steal power. Yuan Shikai was not only a great thief in the Republic of China, but also a thief in the Qing Dynasty. Everyone in the world can attack him. I hope Zhang Gong will understand the righteousness and rebuild the country." After Zhang Xun received the telegram, he tore it up before he finished reading it, and cursed: "Bah! I only knew about the Qing Dynasty before, but now I know about President Yuan. Why are you begging Huang Xing, Commander of the Yuan Army? Is it all you can seduce?" Zhang Xun had been beaten to the ground by the Jiangsu-Zhejiang coalition forces before, and he was looking for an opportunity to vent his anger.After scolding, Zhang Xun ordered his subordinates to launch a fierce attack on the Yuan army. As soon as Leng Yu's troops retreated to Xuzhou, Zhang Zongchang, the head of the cavalry regiment who was born as a bandit, suddenly rebelled after his troops were dispersed. Withdrew from Xuzhou. Under the pressure of the Beiyang Army, the fighting spirit of the senior generals in Yuan's army was very depressed, and Huang Xing, who was in Nanjing, was also helpless, and the entire headquarters was full of sadness and failure.At this time, Cheng Dequan, who fled to Shanghai, also came to make trouble. He issued a telegram canceling Jiangsu's independence and secretly ordered Huang Xing to be arrested.Under such circumstances, Huang Xing also felt that there was nothing he could do, so he left Nanjing by boat at night and walked away. After Huang Xing left Nanjing quietly, other senior generals Hong Chengdian and Leng Yu also left immediately.At this time, Cai Yin, the acting civil affairs chief of Jiangsu, Chen Zhiji, the commander of the Eighth Division, and Zhou Yingshi, the acting commander of the First Division, simply announced the cancellation of independence.At this time, the revolutionary diehards He Haiming, Zhang Yaoqing, Han Hui and others set up an iron-blooded surveillance group. After they learned that Huang Xing had left Nanjing, they hurried from Shanghai Starry Night, but when they arrived in Nanjing, it was too late. Waiting for people to go to the building has long been empty.Like the Wuchang Uprising, in the absence of senior generals, it was revolutionary soldiers who took the initiative to stand up.Under the instigation of He Haiming and others, the soldiers of the First Division drove away the division commander Chen Zhiji (although he was a member of the alliance, he was Feng Guozhang's son-in-law), and joined forces with the Eighth Division to occupy the Dudu Mansion and declared independence again. At this time, Zhang Xun's forward had arrived outside the city of Nanjing, and at this time, the Yuan army led by He Haiming in the city could not even choose a division commander.Despite this, the soldiers' fighting consciousness is still very high. They stand guard on the streets every day, and when the enemy attacks, they go forward without orders; even before the battle, they attack without command. .It is worth mentioning that the interim leader, He Haiming, was also a man with a strong revolutionary spirit. He was very ruthless and cut off all dissident officers among the generals, much like Robespierre's style during the French Revolution. If the "Second Revolution" was the follow-up to the Revolution of 1911, the defense of Nanjing was undoubtedly the most intense.After Feng Guozhang and other Beiyang troops gathered in Nanjing, there was a huge difference in power between the two sides, but even under such circumstances, the defense of Nanjing still persisted for 20 days, which is inseparable from the arduous revolutionary spirit of He Haiming and his revolutionary soldiers. It's open.During these 20 days, the Nanjing garrison and the Beiyang army fought fiercely in Yuhuatai, Zijin Mountain, Tianbao City, Mufu Mountain and other places, and the Yuan army did not obviously lose the wind. At the end of August, various Beiyang armies attacking Nanjing arrived one after another, among which Feng Guozhang, Lei Zhenchun and Zhang Xun's troops were the main ones, and the rebels of Zhang Zongchang and Xu Baoshan also joined the siege battle.Among these siege troops, Zhang Xun's braided army was the most fierce, while Feng Guozhang seemed to have a sense of watching the fire from the other side, and only participated in the final general attack under the cover of the navy at the end. On the morning of September 1, the Beiyang Army launched a general attack on Nanjing City.Zhang Xun's braided soldiers dug tunnels in the Chaoyangmen area, and used explosives to blow down the city wall by more than two feet (the Hunan army also used this trick when they captured Tianjing, mainly because the city wall built by Zhu Yuanzhang was too thick). After that, the braided soldiers Immediately swarmed in.At this time, the Taiping Gate, Tongji Gate, and Shence Gate were also breached one after another. He Haiming and others led the soldiers to engage in brutal street battles with the Beiyang Army at the Bell Tower, Neiqiao, Pigeon Bridge, Huapailou, etc. After fighting all day and night, they still did not give in. , and fought the final decisive battle with the Beiyang Army at Yuhuatai in the morning of the next day, and finally collapsed when there were exhausted casualties. He Haiming and others fled in small boats under the Wuding Bridge. After the city of Nanjing was broken, the braided soldiers under Zhang Xun raped and looted wantonly, and washed the city for three days.Regarding this, Zhang Xun didn't care about it, which seemed to be a matter of course.Under the ravages of the braided soldiers, the city of Nanjing fell into extreme chaos.Those braided soldiers had no scruples when they robbed, and they robbed almost all soldiers. Wherever the rioters went, they went from house to house, from the ceiling to the gutter, digging the ground three feet, and they didn't spare a single bit.In addition, women in the city were also victimized by these people, and there were not a few women who committed suicide by throwing themselves into the Qinhuai River.Three days later, to use the words of the people at the time to describe it, in the city of Nanjing, "the people of all classes have no clothes, and there is no food for a meal at home." Speaking of Zhang Xun, he is indeed an unreasonable figure in modern Chinese history.He participated in the Sino-French War when he was young, and made great contributions to the great victory in Zhennanguan, and was promoted by leapfrogging, and finally he was promoted to the rank of general after his meritorious service.In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, he fought with the admiral Song Qing and returned in a big defeat. Later, he joined Yuan Shikai's sect to regain military power, but he was not the first group of Yuan Shikai's most trusted friends (compared with Feng Guozhang, Duan Qirui and others) ).After the Boxer Rebellion, when Empress Dowager Cixi returned to Xi'an, Yuan Shikai sent him to guard along the way. Now he caught the opportunity to show his loyalty and undertook the task of guarding in Beijing for a period of time.During this period, Zhang Xun won the trust of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Empress Dowager Cixi also favored him greatly, which made Zhang Xun extremely excited and grateful.In the last year of the late Qing Dynasty, Zhang Xun was released to the post of Jiangnan Admiral. His gratitude to the Qing Dynasty really came from the heart, and he was loyal. During the Revolution of 1911, Zhang Xun led his braided soldiers in a bloody battle with the revolutionary army in Nanjing, and finally withdrew from the city of Nanjing in embarrassment (so this time he acted bravely, so it turned out that he wanted to avenge an arrow).After the Qing emperor abdicated, Zhang Xun's braided soldiers retreated to Yanzhou, but in the new atmosphere of the Republic of China, Zhang Xun refused to cut their braids, and all his troops wore long braids. Therefore, "braided soldiers" and "braided soldiers" The name "handsome" spread like wildfire. Zhang Xun is very fond of the braids on the back of his head. As early as the Revolution of 1911, he sent military police to Nanjing. Anyone who cut their braids was referred to as a revolutionary party. The heads he chopped off were at least hundreds of thousands. .Not only that, Zhang Xun also hung the heads without braids high in the Daxing Palace and the Huapailou area, creating bloody terror.With his virtue, how could he take the initiative to cut off his braids? That's like a treasure of love. Yuan Shikai originally wanted to arrange Feng Guozhang to be the governor of Jiangsu, but this Zhang Xun was too prominent in the Battle of Nanjing (the looting after the war was also prominent).In order to show that rewards and punishments are fair, Yuan Shikai had no choice but to give Zhang Xun the position of governor of Jiangsu.Feng Guozhang didn't say anything about this, and then he led his team across the river.After all, he is the veteran of the Beiyang Department, and he has plenty of opportunities. After Zhang Xun became the governor of Jiangsu, it will be hard for these ordinary people in Nanjing.The huge city of Nanjing is like going back to the Qing Dynasty. The whole city is full of smog, and there is no trace of the Republic of China.Under the guidance of Zhang Xun, the trend of wearing braids (mostly fake braids) rose again in Nanjing, because Zhang Xun only reused those with braids, and those who wore suits and cut their hair short, he not only looked at them Angry, I might lose my head! Zhang Xun didn’t have the opportunity to be a viceroy when he was in the Qing Dynasty. This time, we can’t waste the opportunity. You know, this position is equivalent to the governor of Liangjiang back then. It was the omission of people like Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang. If it was changed before, Lao Zhang would not even dare to dream about it! For this reason, Zhang Xun ordered people to paint all the pillars and pillars of Jiangsu Dudu's Mansion in vermilion. The drummers and gunners from the Liangjiang Governor's era were also found, and they played three times a day and fired three times a day as usual.In front of Zhang Xun, don't use the word "former Qing", because he believes that at least within the scope of his rule, it should still be "the world of the Qing Dynasty".Therefore, officials big and small in the city of Nanjing must kneel and worship when they see the "marshal" and call themselves "humble posts".This is especially true in the barracks. The flag of the Republic of China is never allowed to be hoisted, but the red and white centipede flag must be hoisted.The five-color flag of the Republic of China is also not allowed to be hung on the mast in front of the governor's mansion in Jiangsu. What is hung is a red flag with the word "Zhang" in a big bucket. Although Zhang Xun was ruthless in front of the Chinese, he lost his temper in front of the Japanese.It turned out that when the braided soldiers were messing around in Nanjing, they once killed and wounded three Japanese. This was so terrible that it almost triggered an international incident.The Japanese envoy to China immediately lodged the most serious protest to Yuan Shikai's Beijing government, and the Japanese soldiers also petitioned the government to send troops to retaliate.Not only Yuan Shikai was terrified, but Zhang Xun was also terrified.In the end, Zhang Xun had no choice but to apologize in person at the Japanese Consulate in Nanjing without any temper. Because of this, Zhang Xun didn't even sit on his ass in the position of "Governor of Two Rivers", and was finally sent by Yuan Shikai to be a patrol envoy on the Yangtze River. Now he is so handsome that he is half dead.Due to international pressure, Zhang Xun finally gave up the position of governor of Jiangsu to Feng Guozhang after asking Yuan Shikai for a start-up fee of 500,000 yuan. Judging from the effect of the "Second Revolution", the war launched by the Kuomintang radicals not only did not give him points, but gave Yuan Shikai a good opportunity to establish his authority.In fact, although Yuan Shikai was the great president, as Tang Degang, a historian in the United States, said, "At that time, all the provinces in the country were basically controlled by the local chiefs of the Turkish army, and all kinds of local taxes that should be paid to the central government were all collected. Withholding them under the pretext, the central government of the Yuan family has nothing to do with them. They can neither write nor use force. It gave Yuan Shikai a chance to unify. The "Second Revolution" was the first Civil War after the founding of the Republic of China, and it was also the continuation of the unfinished war in the Revolution of 1911. Unfortunately, it was only the ebb or the end of the revolution.The final result of the war was that the military and political group represented by Yuan Shikai won a complete victory, and the Kuomintang's forces in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Anhui were all eliminated one by one. After the "San Francisco" was eliminated, the bigwigs in other provinces also became silent, but Yuan Shikai was the only one who had his fate. After the "Second Revolution", the Beiyang Army continued to enter the southern provinces. Except for the four provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan, all other provinces have become the control area of ​​the Beiyang Army and its affiliated armies. Even the above four provinces, There are also Yan Xishan in Shanxi and Zhang Zuolin in Northeast China. Under the power of President Yuan Da, how dare they have different ambitions.