Straight Anhui fought against each other, and the Anhui clan lost
Beginning in the summer of 1917, with the intensification of the struggle between the direct and Anhui families, the head of the direct line and acting president Feng Guozhang and the anhui head, the prime minister of the cabinet, and the chief of the army, Duan Qirui, were already in the same situation. On November 19, Feng Guozhang, with the strong military support of his direct family around Beijing, ordered Duan Qirui to be removed from his posts.
In this storm, Duan's number one think tank, Xu Shuzheng, was also dismissed from the post of army vice minister. In retaliation, Xu Shuzheng actively contacted his classmate at the Japanese non-commissioned officer school, Yang Yuting, who was then the chief of staff of the Fengjun Army, hoping to join hands with Fengjun to help the Anhui clan regain control of the Beijing government. However, Zhang Zuolin, the leader of the Feng clan, always adhered to the principles of "no rabbits, no eagles" and "no profits and no early rises", and was reluctant to send troops into the customs.
Go out of the customs and go north, and induce the fengshi
In January 1918, Xu Shuzheng discovered that Feng Guozhang had purchased a large number of weapons and equipment from Japan with a loan of 40 million yuan to prepare for distribution to the direct troops, of which there were more than 27,000 rifles alone, which could equip 4 divisions. The arrival of this batch of equipment made Xu Shuzheng overjoyed, and decided to use it as a "rabbit" to attract the eagle of "Feng Jun" from Zhang Zuolin's hands.
Xu Shuzheng quickly rushed by train to Fengtian City (Shenyang City) to negotiate with Zhang Zuolin on the condition of supporting him as vice president and dividing up the ordnance, and the two sides immediately agreed, and agreed that after the ordnance was intercepted, three-quarters would be returned to Zhang Zuolin and one-quarter would be given to Xu Shuzheng. At the same time, Feng Jun wanted to enter the Tianjin and Langfang areas with the main force, forcing Feng Guozhang to return to Duan Qirui's cabinet premiership.
Xu Zhang divided the stolen goods, three or seven points of account
On February 1, Xu Shuzheng returned to Tianjin and arranged the Anhui forces to welcome the Feng army into the customs and expel the direct forces. Zhang Zuolin sent two brigades of Fengjun to quickly move south and secretly move closer to the port of Qinhuangdao. After a few days, the arms purchased by Feng Guozhang arrived in Qinhuangdao one after another. On February 25, Fengjun generals Yang Yuting, Zhang Jinghui, and others received all the arms from the freighter, armed with Xu Shuzheng's forged War Department bill of lading.
Subsequently, Xu Shuzheng equipped 4 mixed brigades with allotted ordnance and occupied a large area of territory in northern China. Fengshi was also equipped with 7 mixed brigades, which greatly increased in strength and gradually became the most powerful armed group in the north. At the same time, the five main brigades of the Feng Army forcibly entered the Pingjin area and set up a headquarters in the Tianjin Military Grain City, with Zhang Zuolin as his own commander and Xu Shuzheng as deputy commander, acting as commander.
Faced with the strong military pressure of the Anhui-Feng alliance, Feng Guozhang was forced to agree to Duan Qirui's reorganization of the cabinet on the one hand to temporarily avoid his attack; on the other hand, he quickly integrated the provincial forces headed by him and formed a direct clique headed by Feng Guozhang. Zhi, Feng, and Anhui confronted each other, forming a situation of dividing the world into three parts in the north.