Chapter 49 The Battle of the Third Association

The expansion of the Beiyang New Army under Yuan Shikai should start from the administration of Shandong on the eve of Gengzi. At that time, Yuan Shikai was appointed as the governor of Shandong by the Qing court. On the one hand, he expanded and enriched the strength of the Wuwei Right Army, and on the other hand, he also made one by reorganization of the old Shandong army. The vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army.

After Li Hongzhang signed the Xinchou Treaty, that is 1901, Yuan Shikai served as the governor of Zhili and served as the minister of Beiyang. At that time, Yuan Shikai's Beiyang New Army set off a second wave of expansion. First, it annexed and integrated more than 3,000 people of the self-improvement army under Zhang Zhidong in Nanyang, and then practiced Beiyang standing army with great fanfare. In less than a year, Beiyang Standing Army Zuo Town has begun to take shape.

At this time, Yuan Shikai was not satisfied with the success of Zuozhen's training, but quickly raised the new banner of cutting and training, preparing to rectify the old army, and diverting elite and misappropriating old military funds to train the right town of the standing army.

This is also the reason for the preparation of the Third Association of the Beiyang Standing Army.

In the process of the above Beiyang military expansion, in less than three years, Yuan Shikai's direct new army expanded from less than 10,000 to nearly 40,000. In such a large-scale expansion, the source of soldiers is the best solution, and a large number of good families are waiting to enter the new army to lead high military service.

Although the problem of military expenditure is also difficult, Yuan Shikai's method of making money is not much weaker than Li Hongzhang. He can barely maintain the expansion of the Beiyang New Army, but it is difficult to solve the large number of qualified officers needed in the expansion of the army.

Because Yuan Shikai's direct line is basically from the Wuwei Right Army, and the original number of officers of the Wuwei Right Army is also limited, which can't meet the needs of large-scale expansion of officers at all.

The grass-roots officers are better. In the past few years, the Tianjin Wubei School and the Wuwei Right Army Camp School, which is still running, have provided a large number of qualified grass-roots officers for Beiyang or the system. Now Yuan Shikai has successively opened a series of Beiyang Camp General Counseling School, Staff School, Surveying and Mapping School, etc. The military academy aims to train grass-roots officers, so although there is a slight shortage of grass-roots officers, the overall problem is not big.

But middle and senior officers are difficult to solve.

This is a completely different matter of serving as officers, battalions, regiments, and even brigades and division officers at the company, platoon level. The former Beiyang system can train a large number of officers in a short time, but the latter is much more difficult.

It takes time to train a general who can command an association or even a town. Whether it is to practice after graduating from Tianjin Wubei School or being selected to study abroad after graduating from Tianjin Wubei School, these methods take time.

This is a headache for the Beiyang system, which has few qualified talents and continues to have senior military talents in the expansion of the army.

For this reason, Yuan Shikai can only promote the direct line quickly, regardless of whether it is qualified or not. Therefore, many low-level officers who served as a team leader and even sentry officers in the era of the right military guard have been quickly promoted to the position of a battalion management belt or even a standard belt in just one or two years, such as It is said that Wang Zhanyuan, Bao Guiqing, Lu Yongxiang and others were at most a team leader and even sentry officers a few years ago, but now they are all in the command.

These people, who were originally only low-level officers, were quickly promoted, so as one of the few Zhao Dongyun with education, talents and qualifications in the Beiyang system, his promotion speed is faster.

In less than a year, he completed the transformation from unification to leadership and became one of the few co-unifications of the Beiyang system.

Although his Third Association is only an empty shelf now, in any case, Zhao Dongyun's position has surpassed a group of many officers of the second echelon of Beiyang, such as Wang Zhanyuan, Cao Kun and Lu Yongxiang, and became the first leader of the First Association, thus continuing to maintain his role as the leader of the second echelon of Beiyang. Color.

After becoming the leader of the Third Association, the first thing Zhao Dongyun had to do was to find a way to gather a large number of officers as his subordinates. First, he transferred several old subordinates who had friends with him to the Third Association, and then Duan Qirui also stuffed several people over, thus forming the early team of the Third Association.

However, these ten people alone are far from enough!

In addition to the leader Zhao Dongyun, the Third Association now urgently needs hundreds of officers, including two staff officers of the association headquarters, two infantry standard commanders, two infantry standard commanders, two infantry standard staff officers, six infantry battalion commanders, six infantry battalion commanders, 24 infantry team officers, and 24 infantry teams. Seventy-two platoon leaders.

So many officers Zhao Dongyun can't pull them all by himself, and many important positions can't be decided by himself. Yuan Shikai and other Beiyang bosses have to play games and divide them one by one.

In fact, even Zhao Dongyun's position as the leader of the Third Association is also the result of the game between Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai. It is absolutely not that Zhao Dongyun can become the leader of the Third Association. In the process of promoting Zhao Dongyun to take office, Duan Qirui has made great efforts.

Of course, Zhao Dongyun is valued by Yuan Shikai and has a certain advantage, but this advantage needs to be promoted by Duan Qirui.

When the Beiyang Standing Army established Zuo Town last year, the large and small officers in the whole Beiyang system opened their eyes to compete for one of the positions. The establishment of the Beiyang Standing Army Right Town also caused the competition of the whole Beiyang system.

Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, Wang Shizhen and others naturally compete for the position of right-wing chief in the future, but before competing for this final position, the large and small occupations of the Third Association also have to be contested. The position of third assistant leader is naturally a decisive position.

And Duan Qirui's own end, coupled with Zhao Dongyun's own advantages, moved Yuan Shikai and appointed him as the leader of the Third Association.

After the faction led by Duan Qirui won a key victory in the early stage, Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun naturally took the opportunity to transfer a large number of people belonging to their own factions, but Wang Yingkai and others did not watch the Third Association fall into the hands of Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun.

Therefore, whether it is Wang Shizhen, Feng Guozhang or Wang Yingkai, they all want to send their direct confidants to the Third Association to hold important positions, among which two standard systems and six battalion management belts are the focus of multi-party competition.

When Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others fought in secret, Zhao Dongyun was in the position of leader of the Third Association, and under his buttocks was the Third Association of the Eye of Storm, which inevitably fell into the battle for the positions of the Third Association.

"This third association said that it will be reorganize from several old armies, but now only a resolute pro-army has been decided, and the reorganization will also be delayed for a while, so I'm afraid that the army training can't be carried out in a short time now. Today's top priority is those command and management positions." Duan Qirui frowned.

He did not expect that his plan to establish the Third Association first, and then plan to plan the right town of the Standing Army would be hit by Wang Yingkai, Wang Shizhen, Feng Guozhang and others. Fortunately, he took the lead at the beginning and pushed Zhao Dongyun to the position of leader of the Third Association before they learned the news, otherwise he would have to wait. Up to now, I'm afraid we will continue to compete with them.

Zhao Dongyun also frowned after hearing this. Originally, he thought that after serving as the leader of the Third Association, the Third Association could be controlled by him. At that time, he had trained the strength of the whole Association to have a foundation in the whole Beiyang system.

But he did not expect that the establishment of the Third Association would involve the power struggle of the whole Beiyang system. Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others came in one after another, and secretly did not know how many times they fought for those general and management positions.

In the face of the siege of many people, even Duan Qirui felt a little unresistful. After connecting and launching two leading candidates at a meeting hosted by Yuan Shikai and was jointly attacked by Feng Guozhang, Wang Yingkai and others, Duan Qirui was also a little anxious.

You should know that it is not easy for him to find a few suitable candidates for leadership in his faction, and he was rejected by two of which made it difficult for him to find suitable candidates for leadership.

Of course, he did not make Wang Yingkai and Feng Guozhang happy. Relying on the status of old qualifications, he also belittled the several candidates they proposed in front of Yuan Shikai.

As a result, Zhao Dongyun has been the leader of the Third Association for more than a week, but the two leaders and six management candidates under the Third Association have not been determined.

Zhao Dongyun thought for a moment and said, "What do you think of Xu Bangjie? It's also qualified for him to be a standard!"

Duan Qirui said, "This person's qualifications are enough, but he has not been very conspicuous. I'm afraid it's difficult to attract the attention of Lord Xian!"

But after saying this, he said, "Well, there is no better candidate anyway. Push him to try first. If not, we will find another way!"

Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun have been thinking hard for a long time, but they have not found a suitable leader! You should know that there are few people who are qualified to be the leader in the Beiyang system, and fewer of these people who are qualified to be the leader belong to the Duan Qirui faction. Duan Qirui finally found two, but they were rejected one by one in the previous meeting. Now Duan Qirui can't find more candidates for the leader. .

It's not enough to find a Xu Bangjie.

At this time, Duan Qirui gritted his teeth and said, "Don't think about it. If the introduction of a person who is not qualified enough is rejected, it's better to let you take the position as one, occupy the position first, and then operate later!

At tomorrow's meeting, I will push Xu Bangjie as the fifth standard, and then suggest that you also serve as the sixth standard.

When Zhao Dongyun heard the words, he couldn't help smiling bitterly. What's the matter? As a leader, he had to be scolded and bullied and occupied the pit randomly. It is estimated that if he really did this, a group of middle-level officers below would have to have a problem with himself.

However, in order not to let the two general positions of the Third Association fall into the hands of Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others, Zhao Dongyun also knew that this was not one of the ways. Moreover, this method is difficult for Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others to refute.

Because Duan Qirui can completely say that now the Third Association has been drafted, and important positions have been pending for a long time. It is the right thing to let Zhao Dongyun, the leader of the Third Association, be the leader of the Third Association, to set up the shelf of the army and train the army.