Duan Qirui, Commander of the Henan War Zone, felt that his subordinates had been very respectful lately. Perhaps the brawl incident had released the pre-war hostility of the Beiyang officers, or perhaps it was because Yuan Shikai had personally ordered the officers involved in the brawl to be arrested and publicly flogged. After such a rectification, no one dared to be prickly anymore. However, Duan Qirui would never be satisfied with just this little change. If he were such a shallow person, he would have died dozens of times in the Beiyang clique already.

In the Henan Military Region Headquarters in Handan, Duan Qirui looked at the map leisurely. Beside him, several officers stood straight. It had been more than two hours since the briefing began, and the officers had been standing straight the whole time. Now, their legs were sore and their muscles were stiff. coupled with the heat, these people were covered in sweat. However, they focused their attention on Duan Qirui and the two corps commanders beside him, Zhang Shaozeng and Wu Peifu. Especially on Commander-in-Chief Duan Qirui's extremely gloomy face. Since May, Duan Qirui had punished more than a dozen officers, which was enough to establish his authority.

After looking at the map for a while, Duan Qirui finally turned his head back. He wasn't pretending to be angry to try to establish personal prestige. With Duan Qirui's seniority, status, and ability in Beiyang, he didn't need to do anything deliberately. What made Duan Qirui angry was that it was already June 9th, and the Beiyang Army still hadn't figured out the People's Party's military deployment. Just like the war in Anhui a few years ago, the People's Party's reconnaissance troops strangled the Beiyang Army's reconnaissance troops fiercely. Half a month had passed, and the Beiyang Army's scouts, including cavalry and infantry, had lost more than 500 men whose bodies could be found, and more than 2,000 were missing, presumed dead. Facing such a group of useless subordinates, Duan Qirui was already being extremely polite by just making them stand for two hours.

If he were fighting against others, Duan Qirui might dare to send light troops straight in to attack the enemy's important strongholds. But the opponent was the People's Party, and Duan Qirui himself had once been completely wiped out a few years ago because he advanced lightly without regard for intelligence. And last year, the Japanese also proved with the lives of a division what would happen if one advanced desperately in the People's Party's territory. Duan Qirui found it very puzzling how the People's Party could manage their territory like an iron bucket, impenetrable to needles and water.

Duan Qirui was considering if there were any good methods when he saw one of the reconnaissance officers in front of him stumble because he couldn't stand steadily. Although that person quickly stood properly again, because he was holding his breath and concentrating, the officer's face turned a bit purple. His legs had already started to go numb, and his whole body swayed slightly like a stiff wooden pole. Compared to this officer, the others weren't much better.

Seeing that the purpose of the punishment had almost been achieved, Duan Qirui said coldly, "You all sit down first."

The officers felt as if they had been granted a great pardon. While thanking him repeatedly, they hurriedly pulled over stools and sat down. However, having stood for too long, as soon as they sat on the stools, they immediately felt needle-like pain in their legs. No matter what, these people didn't dare to cry out. They all kept their faces taut, trying hard to swallow all the sounds into their stomachs.

"You have dealt with the People's Party so much, yet you still haven't figured out exactly how many scouts the People's Party has?" Duan Qirui wanted to figure this out the most right now. In terms of reconnaissance, the People's Party adopted a tit-for-tat approach. Once the Beiyang Army's spies entered the neutral zone tacitly agreed upon by both armies, the People's Party would send troops to strangle the Beiyang spies. But the People's Party happened to be very restrained. As long as the Beiyang Army ran back to the Beiyang Army's controlled area, the People's Party never pursued them deeply. The Beiyang Army set up ambushes many times, but the ambushers didn't even catch a single captive from the People's Party.

The officers looked at each other in dismay. This kind of thing was not something to be spoken of recklessly. There was a lesson from the past not long ago. Someone reported to Duan Qirui that they had confirmed a troop stationing point of the People's Party without investigating clearly. As a result, after a large group of Beiyang troops raided that place, they didn't even find a bird's feather. Duan Qirui directly executed that guy for the crime of falsely reporting military intelligence. That guy's head was still hanging at the gate of the military camp. When it concerned their own lives, no one dared to take the risk personally.

However, it wouldn't do to just tough it out and not speak. Just now, everyone spoke vaguely in a circle, which annoyed Duan Qirui, leading to the matter of everyone standing for more than two hours. The one who stumbled and almost fell just now spoke first because he was afraid in his heart, "Commander, the People's Party's reconnaissance mainly relies on airplanes. They patrol regularly every day, and there are at least dozens of mobile and fixed sentry posts. My subordinates suffered the most losses. Carefully inferring, there are at least two or three thousand People's Party scouts opposite the area I am responsible for."

"Two or three thousand?" Duan Qirui felt that this was simply nonsense. He asked coldly, "Have you confirmed that the People's Party has indeed sent out so many troops?"

Seeing that Duan Qirui was already getting angry, that officer couldn't help but shiver. He hurriedly explained, "Commander, every time it's the summer harvest, the People's Party sends troops to harvest with the common people. It's about to be the summer harvest here in Henan, I'm afraid they are participating in the harvest just like in previous years..."

There were definitely quite a few people echoing Duan Qirui. Someone had already started to speak, "This is impossible. It's about to be a war, yet they still send troops to harvest. If the People's Party troops went to harvest, then who is fighting us?"

"The People's Party doesn't have three heads and six arms. Even if they have airplanes in the sky, they still need this many people to fight. I also tried advancing on multiple routes, but the result was that every route encountered the enemy. If there weren't two or three thousand people, it would be absolutely impossible to have this effect."

Duan Qirui watched his subordinates argue, and he was also calculating in his heart. The officer who spoke just now was responsible for a reconnaissance width of about 20 li. If the People's Party put two or three thousand scouts on such a front, the entire area where the People's Party bordered Beiyang was more than six hundred li. Then the People's Party would need to deploy nearly a hundred thousand people in this vast area. Using so many troops as scouts, it would be more cost-effective to just launch an attack directly.

Thinking of this, Duan Qirui really wanted to make that guy who was spouting nonsense continue to stand as punishment. However, he just thought about it. Blindly punishing subordinates would only make them alienated. Moreover, there were indeed abnormalities in what the People's Party displayed. Such a strict blockade level really required tens of thousands of troops to achieve.

"Have no spies come back to report recently?" Duan Qirui changed the subject.

"Didn't see anyone coming over from the People's Party's side," the officers expressed one after another.

Duan Qirui fell silent again. Even if war broke out, even if there was a strong blockade, it was impossible to completely block passage in such a vast area. If the common people really had urgent matters to go north, this area of Hebei couldn't stop them at all. Yet in the recent month, surprisingly no one had come to Handan. This was inevitably too strange.

"Intensify reconnaissance." Duan Qirui finally gave a basically meaningless order.

Those officers responsible for reconnaissance left the meeting room as if granted a great pardon. Only then did Duan Qirui ask Zhang Shaozeng and Wu Peifu, who had not spoken from the beginning, "What do you think?"

"Commander, I think the People's Party doing this is a preparation for an attack," Zhang Shaozeng replied. "Given the People's Party's style of doing things, they are not quite willing to deceive the enemy. If it weren't for an attack, they wouldn't need to make such a big fuss at all."

Regarding someone saying just now that the People's Party sent so many people to cover the harvest, Zhang Shaozeng didn't believe it at all. In fact, if it weren't for the irrefutable evidence, Zhang Shaozeng wouldn't believe the matter of People's Party troops helping the masses harvest grain either.

Duan Qirui was noncommittal about this. He asked Wu Peifu, "What do you think?"

"Commander, I caught two Japanese spies in the army yesterday," Wu Peifu replied.

Duan Qirui completely didn't expect Wu Peifu to actually bring up such an issue. Everyone knew that Wu Peifu had just finished fighting with the Japanese less than half a year ago, and his attitude towards the Japanese was extremely hostile.

"What is this about?" Since Wu Peifu said this matter so openly, Duan Qirui didn't want to treat it lightly either.

"The Japanese are very concerned about our battle this time, but I don't know what exactly they want to do by being so diligent," Wu Peifu himself also felt very uncomprehending.

"How were those two spies dealt with?" Duan Qirui asked.

"Still beating them. These two people aren't honest, have to beat them a while longer." Wu Peifu tried to speak lightly, but the pleasure in his tone was too obvious.

Duan Qirui knew that this torture wouldn't end simply, but these weren't major issues. He had already made a decision in his heart at this time, "There is no need to worry about what the Japanese are thinking. They definitely want to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. As long as we can eliminate the People's Party, they will choose to support us. I think what Commander Zhang said makes sense. The People's Party doing this is presumably preparing to attack. You guys hurry up and make preparations."

At this time in Tokyo, several Japanese were discussing China's recent movements. Someone asked, "Why doesn't Beiyang, as the attacking side, launch an attack?"

This question was very interesting and also quite vicious, but the participant said viciously, "Perhaps they feel that making preparations to start fighting with troops is already an attack, right?"

If there weren't a few people with malicious intent from the bottom of their hearts, the latter sentence should have triggered a burst of laughter.

"Originally, I thought the Chinese could implement a campaign with millions of participants. Later, I thought Beiyang had the ability to implement a campaign on the scale of 200,000 people. Looking at Duan Qirui's performance, I finally know I was wrong," the guy in the lead finally said with a smile.

"But our intelligence personnel have never been able to obtain Beiyang's military plan."

"Whether Beiyang has this military plan is still an uncertain matter."

"Does the People's Party have a comprehensive military plan? Several of our people were recently discovered by Beiyang. However, all the people we sent to the People's Party's side were caught."