After Yuan Shikai became the president, in order to achieve dictatorship, he suppressed warlords everywhere. However, although he has worked hard, he has not succeeded much. Today, let's talk about the story of how he and Li Liejun, the governor of Jiangxi, finally lost.
(Li Liejun)
Li Liejun is a native of Wuning, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, who has been practicing martial arts since childhood, and because of his excellent physical fitness, he was selected to study at the Jiangxi Wubei Academy. Later, due to his excellent grades, he was sent to Japan for further study.
While studying in Japan, Li Liejun joined the League and began his revolutionary journey.
After returning to China, because of his good ability in military command and management, Li Liejun became a general who was competed by various warlords. In the end, after much deliberation, he believed that Jiangxi already had a revolutionary foundation, so he accepted the post of Governor of Jiangxi.
At that time, Yuan Shikai happened to sit on the throne of the great president. In order to weaken the local warlords, he convened a "high-level military conference between the north and the south" and forcibly demanded that the local warlords lay off a large number of employees in the name of "local troops disturbing local order".
In order to deal with Yuan Shikai, Li Liejun only eliminated the army with weak combat effectiveness.
During this disarmament, a brigade commander named Yu Hesong was deprived of his military power by Li Liejun because of his poor military discipline. This made Yu Hesong very dissatisfied and quietly turned to Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai saw that he could take advantage of the opportunity, gave Yu Hesong a sum of funds for the activities, and promised that as long as Li Liejun was overthrown, the position of governor of Jiangxi would be his.
After Yu Hesong returned to Jiangxi, he joined forces with his former subordinates to mutiny, set fires everywhere, disturbed public order, and for a time the city of Nanchang became a chaotic mess.
Fortunately, Li Liejun responded in time and arrested Yu Hesong.
(Yuan Shikai)
After interrogation, Li Liejun knew that the mastermind behind the mutiny was Yuan Shikai. Li Liejun did not want to have a dispute with Yuan Shikai, so he took the initiative to assume the responsibility of the mutiny.
However, Yuan Shikai thought that Li Liejun was jealous of himself, and he proposed the separation of military and government, just when the director of the Jiangxi Civil Affairs Bureau was vacant. Therefore, Yuan Shikai appointed Wang Ruimin as the director of the Civil Affairs Bureau.
This Wang Ruimin once had a teacher-student friendship with Li Liejun, so Li Liejun did not suspect him. But before Wang Ruimin took office, he began to take over all the civil power, which made Li Liejun very dissatisfied.
In order to prevent Wang Ruimin from going to power, Li Liejun secretly instructed the army and the police to strike en masse and march in the streets, threatening: "Wang Ruimin will not leave, we will not go to work." ”
Under the pressure of huge public opinion, Wang Ruimin left Nanchang in a daze.
Yuan Shikai was furious and ordered Li Liejun to approve Wang Ruimin's return. However, Li Liejun ignored Yuan Shikai's orders, and it was not until the provincial and national council elections were completed that the local personnel had been elected and had no positions. In this way, Yuan Shikai can only end hastily.
Unwilling Yuan Shikai, in order to weaken Li Liejun's power, planned to transfer troops to Jiangxi. After Li Liejun learned about it, he ordered more than 7,000 guns and 3 million rounds of ammunition from Japan to negotiate with Yuan Shikai to the end.
Yuan Shikai ordered the jiujiang town guard Ge Ke'an to detain the ordnance, and at the same time asked Duan Qirui to lead his troops to Jiangxi, preparing to punish Li Liejun on the grounds of private purchase of ordnance.
On January 15, 1913, Li Liejun's ordered ordnance arrived in Jiujiang. Gokian obeyed Yuan Shikai's orders and withheld the ordnance.
(Li Yuanhong)
After Li Liejun learned that the ordnance had been seized, he presented materials to the War Department on January 17 to prove the legitimacy of the ordnance and requested that the seized ordnance be released after being examined as soon as possible.
At this time, Yuan Shikai's navy had arrived in Jiujiang, and Li Liejun continued to add troops to the Jiujiang area in the name of winter defense.
Seeing the civil war on the verge of breaking out.
At this time, Vice President Li Yuanhong sent a special envoy to mediate between them, and said to Yuan Shikai: "Even if Governor Li has any ambitions, what will the ammunition in this area be of any help?" However, Yuan Shikai asked Li Yuanhong to send a message to Li Liejun: "Clean body and retire, recommend yourself." ”
But Li Liejun refused to compromise and said that if he wanted to fight, he would fight.
Li Yuanhong also proposed that the two sides withdraw their troops, issue ordnance, welcome back Wang Ruimin, and punish those who are in trouble.
This proposal was naturally rejected by Li Liejun. Moreover, because he intercepted Yuan Shikai's secret telegram of "settling Jiangxi by force and welcoming back Wang Ruimin", he created public opinion and exposed Yuan Shikai's conspiracy.
The situation became more and more noisy, and Yuan Shikai, under the pressure of public opinion, had to agree to the distribution of ordnance and agreed to the local election of the director of the civil affairs bureau.
In the end, Li Liejun confronted Yuan Shikai and won a complete victory.