Chapter 21 Military Defeat

On April 18, the Nanhe County Lianzhuang Association and Boxers relied on various methods to persuade thousands of people to march west to meet more than 1,000 troops marching from Nanhe County and Shunde Prefecture.

At noon the next day, the rebels in Nanhe County shouted that knives and guns were invulable, waved hoes and sickles to launch an attack on the training army entering the Heqiao area. Because the rebels initially ambushed with their familiarity with the terrain, and the training army that went to suppress it lightly attacked the enemy. In addition, more importantly, these training troops were only futile troops. However, most of the army are opium addicts. The soldiers are either old and weak or young. After being ambushed by the rebels, this training army did not hold on for five minutes and dispersed with a swarm of bees.

These training troops are so fast that they can't catch up with the ground escape charms, divine charms and regimental brothers. They can only sigh to the sky: It's not that our magic power is not deep, but that the demon soldiers run too fast!

In this battle, more than 1,000 training troops under the two general soldiers of Daming Town and Zhengding Town and Nan were defeated by thousands of people. In the end, if it hadn't been for the response of more than 20 county troops equipped with foreign guns led by Zhu Jiabao in Nanhe County, it was estimated that more than 1,000 training troops could have been destroyed.

Facts have proved that the official army of the Qing Dynasty - the training army could not even defeat the unarmed mob, and the combat effectiveness of more than 1,000 people training the army was not as good as that of more than 20 county teams equipped with foreign guns in Nanhe County.

This kind of thing is as funny as it is.

Although the news of the defeat of the Qing army in Nanhe County was deliberately concealed by front-line generals such as the general of Daming Town and Zhengding Town, it was still poked out by Zhu Jiabao, the magistrate of Nanhe County, and Ru Song, the magistrate of Shunde Prefecture. That night, Ru Song, the magistrate of Shunde Prefecture, and Zhu Jiabao, the magistrate of Nanhe County, jointly gave it to Zhizhi Yuan Shikai, the governor of Li, generated electricity. In the telegram, they did not give any face to those soldiers, saying, "In the battle of Shi Zhaoqiao, the two towns of Daming and Zhengding were like the water of the embankment, and it collapsed in a few days."

In the end, Zhu Jiabao also showed off himself a little: "Fortunately, my 20 foreign gun team in Nanhe County fought stubbornly in the face of danger and blocked the enemy 100 steps away from the front of the battle to solve the dangerous situation of Nanhe!"

The news spread to the Zhili Governor's Office, which made Yuan Shikai very angry!

"How big did both of them eat? They can even defeat the whole army. Look, more than 1,000 trained troops beat 3,000 exiles, not to mention being defeated by others, and many people were killed and injured, and only more than 500 people escaped." Yuan Shikai's face was a little dark, and the telegram in his hand was slapped on the table.

When Wang Shizhen saw that Yuan Shikai stopped scolding, he said, "We had expected the low combat effectiveness of the old army, but we didn't expect that they would not even be able to beat the exiles. This is really..."

Wang Shizhen doesn't know what to say. Those military exercises are really speechless!

He was speechless about the military training, and quickly changed the topic: "Now the Shunde civil war can no longer be dealt with by the local government and the military training. In the end, we have to rely on our new army!"

To Wang Shizhen's words, Yuan Shikai also nodded and said, "Those old troops are really useless. Just let them guard the prefectures and counties. Should we clean up those chaotic troops or our new army come? Now our people are all there? When can I get to Guangzong?"

Wang Shizhen did not answer immediately, but looked at the map on the table and then said, "Brother Zhiquan is now coordinating the overall situation in Zhengding County. He personally led the Wuwei Right Cavalry to sit in Zhengding County. In addition, he has sent Zhao Dongyun to the south of the giant deer.

In the east, the two battalions of the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army have also begun to march westward. Feng Guozhang is also leading the first battalion of the self-strengthening army to go to Texas. When these troops arrive in Shunde, they will encircle and suppress the rebels in Guangzong and Julu areas in order to destroy the rebel lairs in one fell swoop!"

Yuan Shikai frowned slightly after hearing this: "What about Henan in the south? Why didn't you send someone north?"

Wang Shizhen said, "There is no powerful new army in Henan, and those trained troops are unbearable, so just let them guard the local government and county. If they go north rashly, it will not only not help, but also hinder the progress of our army!"

Yuan Shikai nodded after listening to this: "That's good. Don't let these military practitioners come this time, so as not to get in the way!"

In the conversation between Wang Shizhen and Yuan Shikai, their contempt for the training army is ** naked, and they don't even want the training army to help, because if the training army comes, it's not called help, which is troublesome!

Yuan Shikai looked at the telegram in his hand at this time and said half a day later, "Since the army is unbearable, it is meaningless to keep it. It seems that we have to speed up the new speed of cutting!"

The training of the new army under the chairmanship of Yuan Shikai is directly related to the elimination of the old army, because only by abolishing the old army can he free up more military expenditure to train the new army. The matter of abolishing the old army may be extremely difficult for the governor of the south, but it is not a big question for Yuan Shikai. Question.

His position as governor of Zhili was killed. From Chaoxian to Shandong to Zhili, he relied on his military strength to kill all the way to the position of governor of Zhili. In this way, he is not a kind-hearted person, and he will not have any cowardly personality!

"Naturally, the training of the new army has to be accelerated, but it costs a lot, and the ordnance is not easy to solve!" Wang Shizhen said, "Now a Mabiao in the left town and right town of the standing army has been compiled. If it is expanded again, the personnel are not a big problem. Enough new recruits can be recruited in Zhili, Henan, Shandong and other places, but the ordnance is not easy to solve!"

Yuan Shikai frowned after listening to this: "Didn't we order a batch of six or five-step guns and seven-five fast guns from Japan before? Let's think of a way to see if we can order another batch from them. If not, we can find the Germans. There is always a way!"

Wang Shizhen could only sigh in her heart that the difficulty of Beiyang's expansion lies not in soldiers, but in military spending and ordnance. First of all, the cost problem. Due to the implementation of the high-paying system, a town alone has a salary of nearly 100,000 taels of personnel. In addition, it also carries out high-intensity training and live ammunition training all year round. This part also costs a lot. On average, the annual maintenance cost of a town is about 1.3 million to 1.5 million taels, more specifically It depends on the intensity of training.

In addition to the high maintenance costs, the cost of ordnance needed to build a new town is also a huge number. The combined with rifles and artillery also requires high procurement costs, such as the example of the Beijing Flag Standing Army trained by Yuan Shikai for the Qing court. At the beginning of the town, all weapons were purchased from Japan, including 10,000 taels. Thousands of 30-year rifles, more than 2,000 30-year riding guns, 48 seven-year-old five-land guns, sixteen seven-year-five mountain guns, seven million smokeless 6.5mm bullets, and more than 25,000 shells of various types. These weapons and ammunition add up to about 1.2 million taels of silver.

This price is actually relatively cheap. Since Yuan Shikai launched a new army last year, Japan has set the price of ordnance relatively low in order to compete with the Germans for arms orders. In addition, Japan is relatively close, and it is more convenient to buy ammunition in the future, so Yuan Shikai is He bought a large number of weapons and ammunition, which were not only used to equip his own direct standing army Zuozhen, but also used to equip the Beijing flag standing army trained by the Qing court.

However, this batch of arms purchases has not ended, and the situation in Northeast China has begun to continue to be tense. Japan has also seen risks, so it is stockpiling weapons and ammunition to prevent accidents. The Japanese military production capacity of this era is also very limited. The two batches of ordnance ordered by Yuan Shikai Time can't take the goods, and they have to wait until at least next year for full delivery. Now, coupled with their own expansion of armaments, they don't have enough arms production to receive Yuan Shikai's orders for a while.

So in the face of Yuan Shikai's request to continue to buy arms, Japan was drooling and wanted to eat it, but his mouth was too small to swallow.

"It is estimated that it will be difficult to buy it again. In addition to the obstruction of the embargo, I'm afraid the price will be more expensive!" Wang Shizhen said, "Their seven or nine-step guns are not bad, but the price of artillery and machine guns is too high!"

Yuan Shikai listened and said, "What about the manufacturing bureaus in the south? Can they buy us a batch?"

"This is even more difficult. The output of those manufacturing bureaus in the south is not enough in the south. There are many to sell to us, and the quality of self-produced seven or nine-step guns and five-step guns is also slightly inferior!" Wang Shizhen couldn't help sighing when she said this: "In this current situation, it's not easy to buy ordnance. If only we could produce it ourselves!"

Hearing Wang Shizhen's words, Yuan Shikai suddenly remembered Zhao Dongyun's proposal to establish an arsenal at a meeting a few months ago. He thought about how much money he could spend to run the arsenal. After pondering for a long time, he said to Wang Shizhen, "According to you, how much does it cost to run an arsenal?"

Wang Shizhen listened and pondered for a while before saying, "If you want to build your own rifles, artillery, smokeless bullets and shells, and the output is comparable to that of Hanyang Factory, you have to invest at least two million taels of silver!"

In fact, Wang Shizhen said that since its inception, the investment in equipment purchase and plant construction has been about 2.5 million taels. If Beiyang wants to run a military enterprise that is not as large as Hanyang Arsenal, it can't be built without an initial investment of more than two million taels.

Hearing Wang Shizhen's words, Yuan Shikai sighed in his heart and withdrew his words that we would also build an arsenal.

Since he had no money, Yuan Shikai simply stopped thinking about this matter, but turned back to the Guangzong People's Rebellion: "Now on Guangzong's side, Zhao Dongyun's troops should be the closest to the rebels, and I don't know how his situation is?"

Wang Shizhen said: "In the telegram sent by Zhiquan in the morning, Dongyun's troops will not be divided into three ways, pressing on Julu, Guangzong and other places with the momentum of Mount Tai. In the previous days, he also defeated more than ten shares of mob, killed more than 100 mobrioters and arrested hundreds of people. If it continues to develop according to this situation, it won't be long before Dong Yun's troops can go straight into the gangster's nest!"

Yuan Shikai nodded and said, "Well, it's okay. Send him a report so that he can do it!"