Beijing Dongjiaomin Lane, the British Embassy in China, and the British Minister Juerdian, who has been calling for trouble in this country for many years, is drinking a slutty wine on the sofa in his study. He has sent Whitehall to Whitehall by telegram in Shandong, but twelve hours have passed, and Whitehall has not given any reply. Juerdian now understands that the British Empire is only left with a skeleton, and he is powerless about the ongoing regional hegemony in the Far East. And he, the historical mission of the Qing Empire and the Supreme Emperor of the Republic of China, is about to end. This is a normal thing. Since the British Empire does not need a tough diplomat to help them obtain benefits, then we naturally have to consider changing to a more gentle person to safeguard the vested interests.

Despite this, Juerdian tried hard to cheer up, put down his wine glass, and began to write his own performance report, which was the basic duty that every responsible British Empire diplomat should perform.

"I don't hate the Chinese, but I have to be vigilant enough about this nation. Such a country that lacks integrity, has no morality, is attached to the outside world, and is extremely cruel to the inside. At one point, I hope to control this country by controlling the upper class of this country. The princes of the Qing Dynasty and the powerful people in the Beiyang seemed to do a good job, but I finally failed because I ignored the greatest characteristic of this nation, which is that behind their amazing patience, it has a spirit of self-improvement that is not inferior to the Westerners. If you give them a little chance, they will take root and sprout like bamboo shoots after the rain and strive to grow. Now it seems that letting them participate in the European war obviously gave them a huge opportunity. One of their regional regimes finally expanded to such a terrifying level. Japan, the watchdog of our British Empire, could not curb its growth and growth. I have to admit that Japan, who is the guard dog of the British Empire, cannot curb its growth. As the head of China affairs in the Empire, I stayed in Beijing for too long. I always thought that as the capital of this country, this city could already represent the entire China. But now I realized that this city could not represent the entire China at all. They are more like giant blood-sucking insects on this country, odor all over their bodies and feel good about themselves. I ignored the southern part of China and the wisdom of the Chinese, so we missed the opportunity to curb the further growth and development of this country. This is my personal responsibility and I am willing to take full responsibility for it. However, as a proud imperial diplomat, I had to give Whitehall a necessary reminder to the Whitehall before I left office. We must support Japan and not let the Chinese step out of this place. Otherwise, they will be the new United States of Asia. The Empire of the Sun will become history while the rise of such an ancient country. Remember, remember."

Jurden's performance report eventually appeared on the British Prime Minister's desk, but was ridiculed because fools could see that Japan, which has a strong navy and a tough way of doing things, was the biggest threat to the British Empire in the Far East. Moreover, because Japan controlled the maritime power in the Far East, no matter how powerful China is, it can only become a mainland country before Japan, just like Germany in Europe.

On December 19, due to Tokyo's delay in conclusions and solutions, the siege of Jinan has entered the seventh day. Yuheng Yisheng hid in the temporary underground command center and kept sending telegrams to Tokyo for help. Apart from this, he didn't know what to do.

On the first day of the siege, the Chinese army bombarded the entire historical city of Jinan. The Japanese army who were beaten naturally fought back immediately. Two artillery corps rolled up their sleeves and fired and fought back. As a result, they attracted the Chinese Air Force. Yang Xianyi was undoubtedly the most popular person in this war. The first wave of air strikes had achieved great results. If the Japanese army had not reacted and transferred the artillery positions in time, they would not have lost only thirty heavy artillery pieces. And more likely, the three infantry divisions would have become completely rifle divisions from now on.

So now facing the Chinese army's artillery attack, the Japanese army could only look for cover to hide and dared not fight back.

This is nothing. The Chinese army did not seem to have made plans to attack. They showed their industrial production capacity there every day, and kept throwing shells with cannons, as if the shells were worthless. Just throw them away. After all, the Japanese army could kill was limited. The real problem lies in logistics. Since the Japanese army was trapped in Jinan, the entire logistics supply was cut off. Zhang Zizhong's First Division did not participate in the siege, but met with Sun Meiyao, and then swept the Japanese army's logistics supply troops. This made Yu Heng Yizheng suffer. His Japanese ration, which claimed that 60,000, actually only 50,000, immediately changed from two rice balls a day to one rice ball in two days. What's even more terrible is that because the Japanese army lacked supply of vegetables and fruits, the soldiers began to suffer from constipation, and finally had to use their fingers to tie each other to solve the excretion problem.

Seeing that the situation was not good, nearly 10,000 Japanese troops immediately retreated to Qingdao. The three armies also retreated together with more than 50,000 puppet troops of three armies. As a result, these people had an encounter with Zhu Peide's troops. After more than three hours of fighting, the commander of the Zhilu coalition of the three armies fled first, causing the Japanese army to collapse on the entire line. Only less than 6,000 Japanese troops finally entered Qingdao. Zhu Peide's troops did not dare to pursue too much, because they would be bombarded by the Japanese navy if they pursued them again. Thinking about the heavy artillery with a caliber of more than 210 mm, they were extremely shocked to get a shot. Zhu Peide hurriedly withdrew his troops and waited for Xue Yue to come up.

So from this moment on the Shandong battlefield, one was divided into two. One was in Jinan. The Chinese army of seven divisions trapped the three Japanese divisions in the city and attacked Bai Chongxi to settle the score. He was always cold and could not bear the losses. Therefore, his plan was best for the Japanese to starve to death. In Qingdao, the three divisions of Zhang Zizhong, Xue Yue and Zhu Peide who met were confronted with more than 8,000 defenders. They dare not attack them. After all, the black muzzles of Japanese warships were not vegetarians. The battle situation suddenly entered a very delicate moment. No one could do anything to anyone for the time being. It was a bit like a dead end. Now it depends on who will break the situation.

December 22nd, breaking the deadlock.

On this day, after a fierce quarrel, Prime Minister Yuan Jing finally agreed to transfer the two divisions in Jiuzhou to Shandong to rescue the siege, but half an hour after signing, two bad news came.

One is that the Japanese Navy Shandong fleet was attacked by the Chinese Navy submarine fleet. One battleship, three cruisers, and four destroyers were sunk and injured, causing heavy losses.

The second is that on the sea surface of Taiwan, eleven merchant ships and an escorted destroyer were attacked by the China-Baojun fleet composed of four cruisers. The destroyers and all merchant ships were sunk. The Chinese Navy did not need to be captured at all. The news reached Tokyo, and Japan was in an uproar. You should know that Japan's lifeline was the ocean. Now the very weak Chinese Navy did not dare to fight the Japanese Navy at all. Instead, they did not abide by the rules and played pirate tactics and broke the transaction, which made the Japanese nervous.

So the Navy first gave up its position of cooperation with the army. Dongxiang gave a suggestion to attack Shanghai's forced landing in the South China China government, and Yuan Jing opposed this because this was something that the British and French powers could not allow. More importantly, the chaebols asked the Navy to escort their merchant ships. The total tonnage of the eleven merchant ships that were sunk had reached an astonishing 45,000 tons. Such losses were directly bankrupt. Now the Prime Minister and the Minister are about to start a new round of headaches.

It was not until this time that all parties truly realized that the aggressive Japan was not prepared for war at all. They came to Shandong, China and wanted to make soft persimmons, but in the end they suffered a loss and became the biggest joke among the great powers.

Just when the Japanese were still quarrels, the actual controller of the central government in Beijing had already lost confidence in the Japanese. He secretly summoned a few hard-core confidants to hold a secret meeting for a night, proclaiming to the outside world that he was ready to go south to fight against the rebellion, but in fact he planned to return to his hometown in the Northeast.

"Father, why do we have to go back to Fengtian? I still want to celebrate the New Year in Beijing to attend the temple fair. Fengtian is not as fun as there are people here." Zhang Xueliang, who just turned 15, asked childishly.

Zhang Zuolin, who was wearing a sable coat to keep warm, looked at his son with a little heartache, stroked his head and said, "Xiao Liuzi, Dad is incompetent, and I can't let you live in this Beijing for a long time. Let's go back to our hometown. When one day we have practiced our internal skills, we will come back."

Zhang Xueliang nodded sensibly and said nothing. Zhang Zuolin looked back at Ju Rentang. He didn't know if he could come back here in this life. Then he took his son into the car and headed straight to Fengtai Railway Station.

The Feng army's retreat plan was very hidden, because Zhang Zuolin also hoped that the Japanese in Jinan would last a few more days, so the Feng army actually withdrew materials in the first stage. Since most Japanese consultants went to Tianjin to investigate the war situation in Shandong during this period, although they were very active, they did not leak news. Zhang Zuolin and his subordinates fully utilized the characteristics of bandits. Anything that could be taken away would be left with the absolute troops for the young army. If it were not for the Qing royal family's refusal to move the house, Zhang Zuolin even planned to move the Forbidden City to Fengtian.

Zhang Zongchang was later appointed as the governor of Zhili and the North China Survey. Since the presidential position was suspended for many days after Xu Shichang's death, Zhang Zongchang's position could not be formally appointed, so he could only be an agent. Zhang Zuolin trustedly handed over all the expanded troops after entering the pass to Zhang Zongchang. For a time, Zhang Zongchang's troops reached an astonishing 600,000 troops, while the 150,000 direct troops of the Fengtian Army took the railway back to the northeast. When he interrogated the Kwantung Army, he said that it was normal to adjust defense. This time, the confidentiality was very good.

But no one can hide it from it. Major General Wu Junmei, the Beijing General Station of the National Security Bureau of the National Government, was staring at the entire Beijing.
Chapter completed!