Chapter 17 On the Eve of the Storm

At this time, it was late at night, and the oncoming wind seemed to be colder. The piercing cold wind blew on his face and made Zhao Dongyun's wine more than half gone. Looking back, he saw that Wang Yingkai had already got into the carriage and left first.

"Your Excellency, the car is coming!" The guards beside him whispered to Zhao Dongyun.

After being helped by the guards to get into the Dongyang car, Zhao Dongyun staggered back to his residence in the Dongyang car. There were no bright street lights along the way. Occasionally, there was a trace of kerosene lamp light revealed in the room by the roadside. Fortunately, the moon in the night sky still emitted a little light. Although the light was dark, it was always The road ahead will not be dark.

It's just the dark moonlight and the dark light emitted by the glass lampshade kerosene lamps on the Dongyang car, which makes the whole street look more gloomy and horrible!

The driver's feet were very good. It didn't take long for him to pull Zhao Dongyun back to the door of the small building where he lived. When he got out of the car, he was about to enter the door, but the corners of his eyes fell on the leading Dongyang driver. Although the light was still dim at this time, he still clearly saw that the driver was wearing a piece of broken cotton with many patches. The jacket is a pair of old cloth shoes on the feet. The cloth shoes are torn, and half of the feet are exposed. I don't know if it's because of the sky or they are so dirty: the feet are black.

The driver is nodding his head and bowing to Butler Xu, saying thanking him for taking care of the business and so on. If he still wants to use the car in the future, as long as he tells them, he can be on call.

Zhao Dongyun took a deep breath and shook his head to make his drunken head more sober. At this time, the guard had helped him into the door. After entering the door was the dazzling candlelight in the hall. Dozens of candles inserted in several chandeliers were emitting soft white light, making the hall as bright as day.

At this time, the house outside the house seems to be two worlds!

In the next few days, Zhao Dongyun began to be busy again. He kept running to prepare for the establishment of a machine gun camp. First of all, it was a matter of personnel. Although his men had a machine gun team, there was still too many people to fill a machine gun camp.

If Zhao Dongyun could also transfer personnel from other units of the Wuwei Right Army when he trained the machine gun team before, then it can't be done now, because the new machine gun battalion he supervised does not belong to the Wuwei Right Army or the Beiyang Standing Army, that is to say, there is no superior unit to supplement him.

At present, this new machine gun battalion is directly under the jurisdiction of Yuan Shikai, supervised by Zhao Dongyun, and has no direct contact with the Right Army of Wuwei or the Beiyang Standing Army. Therefore, if you want to supplement the soldiers, Zhao Dongyun can only find a way to recruit them.

Therefore, Zhao Dongyun can only send Lin Yongquan and Zhao Dongping people to various areas of Zhili to recruit good family sons as new recruits. The problem of new recruits is easier to solve and the process is relatively smooth.

Because the treatment of soldiers of the Beiyang New Army is very superior to the lower class. Not only do they have household expenses, but even ordinary soldiers at the bottom have four or two yuan a month. In this city, the labor force only earns two or three taels of silver a month, and farmers can't even save a few taels of silver a year. The salary of four or two yuan per month is definitely a high income for the children of farmers at the bottom.

Of course, the most important thing is to go to the new army to have food and clothes.

For China and Japan in this era, the treatment of soldiers is much better than that of ordinary people. At least on this point, ordinary landlords are not as good as ordinary soldiers.

Of course, the conditions given are superior, and the requirements for recruits have also been raised accordingly. The requirements must be native indigenous people. Applicants need Zhuang's chief's first local protection and recommendations. The age is limited to 20 and 25 years old, and the height should be more than 4 feet and 8 inches, and the strength must be more than 100 catties, and the walking speed is More than 10 kilometers per hour, in addition to the high requirements for physical fitness, no vagrants should not be brave, those who smoke or have smoked opium, those with a record, those who are restless, those who are short-sighted, and those with incomplete facial features, that is to say, they are not too ugly.

It's not a big problem to recruit soldiers. The key to the problem is that Zhao Dongyun can't find too many qualified grassroots officers in a short period of time. Only Lin Yongquan, the leader of the original machine gun team, and several sentries are slightly useful. As a last resort, he can only personally select some literate or flexible shed chiefs. , Zhengmu and other lower-level officers conducted emergency training and tried to set up the shelf of the machine gun battalion in the shortest time.

"Now the staff is not full, but we have to hurry up with the purchase of machine guns. When Lin Yongquan and his recruits come back, I will see the machine guns!" Zhao Dongyun said this to Zhao Dongping.

After staying in the army for a period of time, Zhao Dongping looked much stronger. Wearing a new military uniform, he was not as weak as when he first came from his hometown.

Zhao Dongping said, "Don't worry, although the quantity is relatively large this time, I have contacted several foreign arms dealers, and now I have finalized twelve contracts, and the other eight words are also being discussed now. I guess they can be confirmed in the next two days!"

Zhao Dongyun nodded and said, "Well, that's good! But when will the machine gun arrive?

Zhao Dongping said: "This time, due to the large number, I found several people separately to raise it. At the beginning, three were still the Russian arms dealer last time. According to him, this machine gun was taken directly from the Russian army in Liaodong, and it is estimated that it will be shipped in three or four days. The remaining batches are Russians and Germans, but it will take a little longer. It is estimated that they will not be able to get it in a month!"

Zhao Dongping asked to buy machine guns according to Zhao Dongyun's instructions, which is not an official way. Due to the arms embargo in the Xinchou Treaty, Zhao Dongyun is still unable to obtain a large number of machine guns through official channels. He can only buy them from arms dealers through smuggling.

Among the machine guns purchased by Zhao Dongping, Maxim machine guns are mainly from the Russian forces in the Far East and the German forces in the Far East. Most of them are their active machine guns, mainly MG99, but some machine guns purchased from the Russians are equipped with Russian-specific machine gun shields.

Zhao Dongyun said, "You have to keep up with the next thing. Keep an eye on it yourself and don't let your men mess around!"

Zhao Dongyun doesn't want to buy a machine gun to cause any scandal. If he fails to buy a gun because his subordinates are too corrupt, the consequences will kill him!

Zhao Dongping nodded: "I know!"

With that, Zhao Dongping looked at Zhao Dongyun's face and then said, "Third, my father sent a telegram yesterday, saying that he also wanted to set up a yarn factory. Let me ask what you mean!"

"Oh, your father also wants to run a yarn factory?" Zhao Dongyun pondered for a moment and said, "Does he have a specific way and ideas?"

"Father said that all the regulations are imitated by Fuyuan Yarn Factory!" Zhao Dongping replied like this.

Although Zhao Dongyun's family is not a rich and noble family, it is also a poor family. Originally, the family mainly ran a farm and sold foreign cloth.

Since Zhao Dongyun came to this era in the past year, although his focus has been on his military and political career, he has also slightly intervened in the family industry. Of course, this family industry does not refer to the whole Zhao family, but to the second house where Zhao Dongyun is located. As for the long house, three rooms and four rooms are all attached to the Zhao family. Famous, but in fact, they have been separated for a long time.

Due to the death of Zhao's father in his early years, Zhao Dongyun became the head of the second-house, so he began to take action on Tianzhuang and foreign cloth firms one after another, and then gathered money to buy a small spinning factory and renamed it Fuyuan Yarn Factory, and purchased equipment in a short period of time to expand production, allowing this small spinning factory to expand rapidly. In less than a year, it has become the main industry of second houses, and it is quite profitable.

In this case, it is understandable that Sanfang and others also want to follow up the spinning factory, but they have not done this kind of thing, and they are afraid that they will lose money after rushing to enter, so they came to ask Zhao Dongyun what he meant.

It's a question, but in fact, I just want Zhao Dongyun to help them!

Zhao Dongyun felt that Sanfang could also see the situation clearly and give up the income of one mu and three cent of land to invest in industry and commerce. Since Yuan Shikai took charge of Beiyang last year, with the support of Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong and others, the Qing court has officially launched reforms. The reform not only includes not only the preparation of the new army, but also actively promoted private work. A series of new policy reforms such as business, the establishment of new schools and railways.

Under such a trend, the national capital in China, especially in the eastern coastal areas, has expanded rapidly, and investment in textile industry, chemical industry, steel and coal. The Zhao family is only one of them.

Zhao Dongyun thought for a moment and said, "If your father really wants to do it, let him prepare for funds first. In addition, he will send someone to Fuyuan to learn management. I will say hello to Fuyuan!"

Zhao Dongping said happily when he heard the words, "Thank you, third brother. I'll send a report to my father later and ask him to send someone north!"

The Fuyuan yarn factory under Zhao Dongyun's name is not in his hometown in Xuzhou, but in Tianjin. If you want to learn management in the third house, you will naturally have to send people to the north.

In the afternoon, Zhao Dongyun went to Baoding City again to see Yuan Shikai. Although the ostensibly reason was to report the progress of the new machine gun camp to Yuan Shikai, in fact, Zhao Dongyun came to refresh his sense of existence.

Now he has finally let Yuan Shikai remember and reuse himself. While Yuan Shikai's favorability of him is still there, Zhao Dongyun naturally has to seize the opportunity to deepen Yuan Shikai's impression of him, so if he has nothing to do, he will go around the governor's office to see Yuan Shikai. Even if he can't see Yuan Shikai, he will go to other people. Beiyang bosses, such as Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen and so on.

After going to the governor's mansion to refresh his sense of existence, Zhao Dongyun returned to the barracks and continued to immerse himself in the great cause of training machine gun teams. As time went by, his new machine gun battalion gradually took shape. Lin Yongquan and others recruited more than 400 soldiers from all over Zhili. After adding the original more than 100 people, it was formed into a new machine gun camp.

In terms of ordnance, 20 Maxim heavy machine guns have also been purchased through smuggling. In addition to the original four Maxim machines, 24 new Maxim machine guns have been raised, in addition to four old Maxim machine guns for training.

Just having soldiers and machine guns does not mean that this machine gun battalion will become an army. It still takes time to train. The training of soldiers is okay. Basically, it doesn't take too much effort, but the training of grassroots officers is much more troublesome.

The machine gun force this year is actually similar to the artillery force. It is as troublesome as training officers. In addition to letting a few experienced officers such as Lin Yongquan teach everyone, even Zhao Dongyun explained machine gun tactics in class.

From the perspective of later generations, the machine gun tactics explained by Zhao Dongyun and Lin Yongquan are simple and unbearable, and even full of mistakes in some places. However, in this era when machine guns have just emerged, in this era when there are no formal machine gun tactics, Zhao Dongyun instilled a small number of machine gun battles in the officers. The technique is enough to make them proud of other peers around the world.

As the saying goes, there are no fish and shrimp in the river, and fighting is like running away. I don't ask you to do the best, as long as you do better than others!

With the passage of time, Zhao Dongyun's machine gun camp has been trained for nearly two months. He has become the elite in the army, but he can also swing the machine gun to the position and then pull the trigger and shoot suddenly.

During this period, Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai and others came to see it several times. On the surface, they greatly appreciated Zhao Dongyun's machine gun camp, but no one knew what they were thinking in their hearts.

However, this calm life will not last long. In early March, Zhao Dongyun suddenly received a military order and ordered him to lead the second battalion and the new machine gun battalion under his jurisdiction on the same day and go to Zhili Shunde Prefecture to listen to the call.