Military Attache Jiang Baili walked hurriedly to the door of Yuan Shikai's office, holding the latest telegram. He stopped to compose himself before knocking. Soon, a guard opened the door, and a scent of incense mixed with a faint smell of urine wafted out from the open room.

Lacking modern medical knowledge, Jiang Baili naturally did not know that this odor was one of the symptoms of late-stage uremia. However, Jiang Baili's rationality led him to believe that no one in the room, including Yuan Shikai, would have wet their pants. Thus, Jiang Baili's military discipline quickly allowed him to ignore the smell. Straightening his military cap, Jiang Baili strode into the President's office.

"President, the foreign military observation group in Handan has been bombed by People's Party aircraft and suffered heavy casualties!" Jiang Baili handed the latest intelligence to Yuan Shikai while giving a brief summary.

Yuan Shikai's oily, fat cheeks trembled slightly. He did not immediately open the telegram but first asked Jiang Baili, "Do the British know about this news?"

"They shouldn't know yet," Jiang Baili replied after a moment of hesitation. "The People's Party has already surrounded Handan. It's impossible for the British to get the news so quickly."

After speaking, Jiang Baili secretly observed Yuan Shikai's expression. For his part, Jiang Baili was actually quite pleased. The People's Party was now offending the British to the death, yet the British had remained quiet. Now that the foreign military observation group had suffered heavy casualties, the British would surely have to make a statement, right?

However, Jiang Baili was disappointed. After reading the telegram, Yuan Shikai showed no joy; instead, he frowned. After thinking for a moment, Yuan Shikai ordered, "Baili, go tell the Ministry of Army that this news is absolutely not to be released."

"President..." Jiang Baili couldn't help but speak up.

Yuan Shikai sneered. "Baili, you might think that since the British have lost people, they definitely won't let the matter rest with the People's Party. That's true, the British always use the death of their people as an excuse to blackmail China. But that's because the British are confident they can defeat China. If the British were confident they could defeat the People's Party, they would have made their move long ago. Since the British still haven't moved, they won't make a move even if some people from the military observation group have died."

Jiang Baili was a smart man. Although he had been temporarily blinded by the immediate changes, hearing Yuan Shikai explain the cause and effect, he quickly understood. Sometimes, understanding too clearly is not necessarily a good thing. After confirming that the British could not be relied upon, Jiang Baili's mood plummeted. More accurately, Jiang Baili's mood returned to the normal level of the past two days. He responded dejectedly, "Yes," and walked out.

"Baili," Yuan Shikai called out to Jiang Baili from behind.

"Does the President have any other orders?" Jiang Baili turned back and answered.

Yuan Shikai hesitated for a moment before saying, "Baili, do you think Wu Peifu can hold out?"

Jiang Baili remained silent; he really couldn't answer. Whether Wu Peifu could hold out was no longer just a battlefield issue. For the first time, Jiang Baili truly realized what a terrifying thing "total war" at the national level was. Although troop conscription and training were arduous, the Beiyang Army at least had numbers, and with foreign support, they had managed to survive that difficult process. Now, throwing these hundreds of thousands of men out there, with the scope of the war limited only to Hebei and Shandong, Beiyang was already unable to cope.

First came the refugees. Thanks to the Beiyang government's spare-no-effort demonization of the People's Party recently, a large number of wealthy people in the localities learned that the war had started and the People's Party was coming. They dragged their families and fled toward the cities. These people all hoped to be as far away from the flames of war as possible, so their destinations were set on large cities like Beijing, Tianjin, and Jinan. Since the news of the outbreak of war spread in mid-May, hundreds of thousands of people had trickled into these major cities. When these wealthy people arrived in a new place, they naturally needed food, shelter, and daily necessities. The prices in these few large cities were already very high; how could they withstand a sudden surge of hundreds of thousands of people? Prices, especially grain prices, immediately skyrocketed.

The Beiyang Army didn't have many train cars to begin with. After the railways were taken over by the military, they were insufficient even for transporting equipment and troops, so where would they find the spare capacity to transport grain? Consequently, grain prices rose three times a day. Beiyang had recently forcibly required merchants to sell grain at fair prices, which barely managed to suppress the situation.

Jiang Baili didn't understand economics. He had once naively believed that if the government stepped in, grain prices could be stabilized. However, reality gave Jiang Baili a harsh lesson. Two days ago, his family told him that there was no more grain at home. Jiang Baili knew that grain prices had been rising absurdly lately, but fortunately, the salary of an attendant officer was not low. Jiang Baili asked casually, "Didn't I just give you a hundred silver dollars?"

"The grain price hasn't changed now, but there is no grain in the grain shops," Jiang Baili's family explained anxiously.

Jiang Baili didn't understand what was going on at first. His family explained the situation carefully. Ever since Beiyang ordered grain merchants not to sell grain at high prices, the government had been arresting people everywhere, which finally intimidated the grain merchants. However, following the "stabilization of grain prices," all the grain shops had no grain.

This news surprised Jiang Baili greatly. He asked, "The grain shops near our home are out of grain?"

"It's not just near our home. I ran through half of Beijing. All the grain shops said they have no grain," Jiang Baili's family replied.

"What?" Jiang Baili finally realized something big had happened. After asking his family for details, Jiang Baili still didn't quite dare to believe it. Beijing was the capital; how could it reach the point where grain shops had no grain to sell? How big of a matter was this? But he was just a military attache; grain matters were not his to interfere with. If Jiang Baili were to make a suggestion to Yuan Shikai, it would be overstepping his authority, and who knows how the people in charge of civil administration would stab Jiang Baili in the back.

No matter how troublesome the official circles were, stomachs would simply get hungry. With no grain at home, Jiang Baili had no choice but to arrange for his family to eat at the Beiyang Army cafeteria. Having been the President's military attache for so long, this was the first time Jiang Baili had used his status. Unexpectedly, the reception staff didn't make things difficult at all and easily arranged things for Jiang Baili's family. Jiang Baili couldn't help but ask the reason, and the answer he got was that ever since grain prices skyrocketed, quite a few Presidential Palace staff had arranged for their families to eat at the Presidential Palace cafeteria. The total number of people mooching meals was as high as several hundred. Now that Jiang Baili was arranging for his family to come over, the people in charge of the cafeteria at the Presidential Palace had long established a rule. The person in charge even explained, "Lord Wang Shizhen has already privately arranged it. All attendants can bring their families to eat. Everyone is working wholeheartedly for the country; we can't let them go without food, right?"

Hearing that Wang Shizhen had personally arranged this matter, Jiang Baili's heart went cold. If Wang Shizhen had intervened, the situation had naturally reached an extremely serious level. And since Wang Shizhen had intervened, it was even more impossible for Yuan Shikai not to know.

It was from this moment that Jiang Baili's mood hit rock bottom. The war had just begun, and the food situation had already reached the point of exhaustion. How could they fight going forward? That was why Jiang Baili had been happy about the heavy casualties of the foreign military observation group. In normal times, with Jiang Baili's level of sophistication, this bit of news would hardly have affected him.

Yuan Shikai naturally wasn't very clear about Jiang Baili's thoughts. Seeing Jiang Baili silent, Yuan Shikai pressed with a question, "Baili, do you have something you can't say?"