While Wang Zhenyu was busy comforting Liu Guxiang and others in Liuzhou City and further communicating with local gentry,

  On September 25, in Nanning, Guangxi, the military governor's office (all those who supported Yuan Shikai were uniformly renamed as military governors. Due to the complex situation in Guangxi, the titles of "Du" and "Military Governor" were confusingly used, but they all referred to Lu Rongting) Despite not receiving clear instructions from the Beijing government, Lu Rongting still convened a military conference targeting the northern Guangxi region.

  Due to Lu Rongting's flag of defending Guangxi and expelling the Xiang Army, this meeting was unprecedentedly warm.

  Attendees included: Lu Rongting's first division commander Chen Bingkun, second division commander Tan Haoming, mixed brigade commander Huang Baitiao, and the main heads of the local armed forces, including the first army commander Wei Rongchang, the second army commander Lin Juntin, the third army commander Long Qiguang, the fourth army commander Song Anshuo, and the sixth army commander Chen Chaopeng, as well as Wuzhou Prefect Mo Rongxin.

  Lu Rongting, as the governor of Guangxi or the initiator of this meeting, naturally spoke first: "As you all know, the original commander of the Fifth Army, Liu Guoxiang, colluded with Sun Wen's party to make trouble in Guangxi. Fortunately, he was defeated by his subordinate, Shen Hongying, and the rebellion was resolved without bloodshed. Originally, this was a good thing. Unexpectedly, Liu Guoxiang was so stubborn that he secretly colluded with the Hunan rebels Wang Zhenyu and others, inviting outsiders to enter Guangxi to annex us. Tell me, have we really become a place where those Hunan men can come and go as they please? Is our Guangxi really a place without men?"

  The crowd immediately shouted: "Of course not! Let the governor-general severely beat those Hunan men to make them know the power of our Guangxi army!" In short, there were all sorts of shouts, and some illiterate people even shouted out words like "Kill all the descendants of Zeng Guofan to avenge Hong Tianwang". Fortunately, this was not the Qing dynasty, otherwise, it would have been a capital offense.

  It was Song Anzhong, the commander of the Fourth Army, who was mature and steady. He raised his own question: "How many troops does the governor have in Guangxi?"

  Lu Rongting indeed sent scouts to investigate, but by the time they finished scouting, the first division of Xiangxi's defense had not yet arrived in Liuzhou and the second brigade was stationed on the outskirts without entering the city. Therefore, the number of Hunan troops reported was only 5,000 people.

  Song Ansheng heard that there were less than 5,000 people, and everyone's heart was suddenly at ease. Not only him, but almost everyone present had extreme confidence in the fighting power of the Guangxi Army. Since the Battle of Zhennan Pass during the Sino-French War, the Guangxi Army had been almost invincible. In their eyes, there were no more enemies under heaven. Calculating carefully, the total number of people from these families was nearly 20,000, among whom Lu Rongting's subordinates were the old foundation of the Guangxi New Army. With so many people, it was not a big deal to win.

  Song Ansheng thought of another question: "Does the Governor-General know what kind of plan President Yuan has for our troops in northern Guangxi?"

  Lu Rongting was sitting in the first seat, his thick eyebrows raised and a serious expression on his face, exuding an air of menace: "Old Song, don't worry too much. This time, when Yuan Shikai suppressed the rebels, our Guangxi army made great efforts. If we hadn't helped him control the Hunan and Guangdong armies, his Beiyang army wouldn't have been able to take down Nanchang so easily. Since we've made contributions and achieved results, it's only fair that we get some small rewards. So, I've thought about it, and we don't need to wait for Beijing's orders anymore. Let's take advantage of the fact that the Hunan reinforcements haven't arrived yet, and use our military strength to drive them out in one breath. Guangxi belongs to us Guangxi people; get out, you Hunanese!"

  The crowd cheered again "Hunan people get out"

  Lu Rongting's arrogance is justified, not to mention the 10,000 elite soldiers under his command. Just the Hanyang Arsenal alone has produced more than 60 mountain guns and over 30,000 rounds of ammunition. With such strength, taking down a small place like Liuzhou would be no big deal for Lu Rongting, who is seasoned in war.

  Moreover, with the enhancement of his own strength and status, Lu Rongting's ambition has also grown. In this era where having an army is equivalent to being a king, Lu Rongting's thoughts have become more active. Now, he is desperately searching for ways to expand his military power in Guangxi, exhausting all means to do so. He even has a more explicit expansion plan than Wang Zhenyu. The first step is to unify the various forces in Guangxi by taking advantage of the Liu Zhou incident and achieving military and political unity in Guangxi.

  The second step is to lead the elite of Guangxi into Guangdong and make oneself the master of the two Guang provinces.

  The third step is to take Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian, letting the great flag of the Lu family be planted all over the south of the Yangtze River.

  The fourth step is

  In the end, it's about contending for the position of the great President, why can't I, Lu Rongting, sit in the seat that Yuan Datou occupies?

  So this time, the joint forces attacked Liuzhou Lu Rongting with great ambition and confidence. Although they were still in a meeting, many of the troops participating in the expedition had already set off towards Laibin. The so-called meeting was just to boost morale and unify their thinking.

  But Lu Rongting did not notice that within fifteen meters of himself, a young officer's face suddenly flashed with a strange smile. With great enthusiasm, he continued to promote his attack plan: "Chen Bingkun, you immediately return to Guilin and join the First Division under Mo Laoguo (Mo Rongxin) to attack Liuzhou from the side and rear. Tan Haoming will lead the Second Division to join Huang Baitiao's mixed brigade and Song Lao's troops to attack from the front. The remaining four armies will attack from both sides. I require that all units arrive at their attacking positions within ten days and launch an offensive. The specific plan will be sent to each of you by my deputy officer. This battle requires everyone to use their hearts and fight with the prestige of our Guilin army."

  Don't be surprised that in today's China, the military is the most unprofessional. When the big boss yells a few sentences, the little brothers below can only run for their lives.

  Moreover, everyone is not very interested in the battle plan because now all the superiors are more confident than Lu Duxing or Lu Dudu, and they care more about their own gains from sending troops.

  Chen Chaozhen, with a sorrowful face, said: "It's my good fortune to serve under the General, but I'm sure you're aware of our difficulties down here. The soldiers under me are lazy and won't work unless they see some benefit. If I push them too hard, they'll riot and rebel against me. It's a difficult situation for me."

  Everyone followed suit, one by one, sternly denouncing the lazy soldiers under their command in front of Lu Rongting, and also expressing that after this battle is over, they will borrow troops from the Lu Army to go back and slaughter all these lazy soldiers.

  Lu Rongting sneered at their performance, "I'm afraid you're talking about yourselves, you bunch of cowardly soldiers."

  Fortunately, he had prepared himself earlier. Lu Rongting waved his hand and his son led a group of guards carrying trays covered with red cloth to the scene. Everyone immediately stopped performing and remained silent, their eyes fixed on the trays.

  Lu Rongting smiled: "There are eight trays here, each with 30,000 taels of silver. Everyone knows that we are a poor province and can't afford too many chips, so I can only guarantee two things: First, take down Liuzhou and reward 100,000 taels of silver; Second, after taking down Liuzhou, I will lead you to attack Guangzhou. You know Guangzhou, right? If we take it down, the silver money is yours, as much as you want."

  In the midst of everyone's applause, the military officer who had just revealed a hint of an eerie smile seemed to have another glimmer of light flash across his eyes.

  This officer is called He Yunzu, a Hunan native who was a deputy officer in Lu Rongting's deputy officer department and had been following Lu Rongting for over a year. Due to his calmness and skillfulness, he was very trusted by Lu Rongting.

  However, He Yunzu's name is authentic, but his identity is very complicated. More than a year ago, he was still a partner of a tea house in Hongjiang, only to be discovered by Gong Peng, the director of the Liuzhou Military Intelligence Agency, and became a special agent, after which he became unstoppable.

  Because of the original plan, Wang Zhenyu only wanted to go to the northern part of Guangxi and mainly to Laibin and Liuzhou's coal and iron mines. Therefore, Gong Peng's work focus at that time was on Liuzhou and Nanning. There was only one thing, which was to let He Yunzu spend 3,000 yuan to buy off the deputy officer in charge of Lu Rongting's mansion and sneak into the Lu Mansion.

  At that time, Gong Peng was just a chess piece and due to dialects and other reasons, the things he did in Liuzhou were only collecting some military intelligence. In the end, Gong Peng was transferred to Changde Station for undercover work.

  Eight months later, when Gong Peng took office as the head of Guangxi Station and arrived in Nanning, he discovered that his secretly planted pawn had already entered a very central and critical position. Surrounding this point, Gong Peng established an intelligence transmission channel, and from then on, the Gui Army no longer had any secrets to speak of.

  This time is no exception, all plans made by Lu Rongting and others who lack confidentiality awareness were delivered to Gong Peng intact.

  Gong Peng suddenly felt that everything was very uninteresting because in this situation where both sides knew each other's moves, the only thing General's army could do besides winning was still winning.

  After a simple analysis and verification of the authenticity of the intelligence according to the working regulations of the Intelligence Bureau, this intelligence was completely transmitted through a telegraph operator planted by the Military Intelligence Bureau in the Nanning City Telegraph Office without any omissions.

  Wang Zhenyu recently became annoyed. Three days after entering Liuzhou, he originally planned to continue promoting the Xiangxi suite in Liuzhou, but suddenly found something was wrong.

  The situation in Guangxi is really different from Xiangxi. The business here is not as developed as in Xiangxi. As long as you establish a relationship with the merchant class, many things can be easily handled. Almost all places in Guangxi are controlled by the landlord class. It doesn't matter who governs, as long as it's not the people. In terms of civil administration, they don't have enough talent in their hands, so they can only tightly grasp the gun and the purse strings. The problem is that these landlords not only have militia but also have close relationships with the bandits of the 100,000 Great Mountain and the 60,000 Great Mountain. To mention one thing, Shen Hongying, who escaped into the mountains, recently led a group to attack a small transportation team of the First Division, resulting in the sacrifice of eleven brave soldiers and eighteen wounded.

  If we still implement county people governing counties here, then a bunch of small warlords will really emerge.

  On September 26th, the weather was still good. Wang Zhenyu took his fifth brother and guards like Wang Hu to climb the Goose Mountain outside Liuzhou City.

  The deputy officer who followed the army to the military affairs office almost simultaneously obtained the intelligence from the Liuzhou branch of the Military Intelligence Office, and as soon as he saw the content, he chased after Wang Zhenyu, who had already reached the top of the mountain.

  After listening to the deputy officer's report, Wang Zhenyu stood with his hands behind him at the top of Liu Zhou Goose Mountain, 1408 meters above sea level, quietly looking down at the clear Liu River: "It seems that our Landlord Du also feels that the vast Guangxi cannot accommodate two big marshals. Don't blame me for being unkind then."