Chapter 72 Cavalry Machine Gun Team

The transformation of the Third Mixed Association may be just a name change for Yuan Shikai. The Third Mixed Association did not add a soldier, but the changes brought to Zhao Dongyun, Chen Guangyuan, Meng Enyuan and others are huge and obvious.

At least Chen Guangyuan is no longer as arrogant and dissatisfied as before in the face of Zhao Dongyun. It seems that Chen Guangyuan, who is playing with Zhao Dongyun everywhere, has disappeared, and there is only Chen Guangyuan who works hard.

Seeing that Chen Guangyuan accepted the consolidation of the old army without any hesitation, Zhao Dongyun felt a little uncomfortable. This made him feel strange that his subordinates who did not deal with him became subordinates who obeyed their orders.

Not only Chen Guangyuan's attitude has changed, but even Meng Enyuan has also changed his previous attitude. After Zhao Dongyun asked Meng Enyuan's cavalry to increase patrols and investigation in eastern Jinzhou, Meng Enyuan did not bargain with him or shirk anything as before, but directly agreed.

This made Zhao Dongyun quite puzzled. You should know that expanding the scope of investigation is a hard job for the third standard of the riding team. In order to let Meng Enyuan agree not to affect the investigation outside Jinzhou, Zhao Dongyun is ready to compensate for the third standard and six heavy machine guns of the riding team.

But Meng Enyuan didn't even ask, and he agreed without saying a word, which made Zhao Dongyun not say what he had prepared!

However, since the four machine guns are ready to be the third standard for the cavalry, this is certainly a compensation that Zhao Dongyun has scheduled to give to Meng Enyuan, but this is also a necessary allocation to increase the combat effectiveness of the cavalry. It can't be said that Meng En won't give them if he doesn't want to.

"The daily patrol range should be maintained at more than 40 kilometers. I don't want anyone to sneak down!" Since Meng Enyuan agreed without any objection, Zhao Dongyun would naturally not be polite to him and directly asked to increase the scope of daily patrols.

Meng Enyuan said, "Daily vigilance patrols do not need too much troop density. On the one hand, it can also represent daily training subjects, which is not a big problem!"

Although Zhao Dongyun is not used to Meng Enyuan's state of responding to his request, he still had to send out the well-equipped machine guns. He immediately said, "This time, Baoding sent six machine guns to our Third Mixed Association, so I plan to set up a machine gun team in the third standard of the horse team to transport horses and fight with the cavalry. !"

When Meng Enyuan heard this, he immediately appeared with great joy: "Is there really a machine gun team? That would be great!"

Meng En began to ask for machine guns at the beginning of the year, saying that he would set up a cavalry machine gun team. Although Zhao Dongyun supported his idea, he had never been able to get a machine gun.

The price of heavy machine guns these days is not cheap, and all of them rely on imports. From 1901 to 1903, China was also restricted by an arms embargo. Although this restriction is only superficial, it still creates many troubles for the Beiyang Army to purchase imported weapons, and these troubles finally It is reflected from the price.

Last year, Zhao Dongyun bought a large number of machine guns when he controlled the new machine gun battalion. After the various machine gun camps in the new machine gun battalion were scattered and assigned to the various armies, the Beiyang New Army did not stop the development of machine guns, but continued. From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Beiyang successively purchased two batches of German-made Mark Qin machine guns. The model is still MG01, which is used to supplement four machine gun battalions and multiple independent machine gun teams.

In this process, because foreign cavalry troops also began to equip machine guns, the Beiyang New Army, which has always focused on keeping up with the world trend, naturally did not want to lag behind. It tried to include machine guns in the cavalry troops, and specifically found Zhao Dongyun for this division Yuan Shikai.

Although Zhao Dongyun is no longer in charge of the machine gun force, as an officer who started his work on machine guns, he is the first person to be a machine gun in Beiyang, just like Duan Qirui's first artillery in the Beiyang New Army. This matter related to machine guns basically can't be around him.

After referring to the cavalry troops of Germany, France, Russia, Japan and other countries, especially the establishment of machine guns in the cavalry brigade, Zhao Dongyun suggested to Yuan Shikai that each North Sea standing army cavalry should be equipped with a machine gun team.

Here we have to talk about the cavalry establishment of the Beiyang Standing Army today. The current Beiyang Standing Establishment is different from the establishment of the New Army in the late Qing Dynasty during the Thirty-six Towns period, which is well known to later generations.

For example, in terms of artillery, an artillery battalion of the Beiyang Standing Army was 16 artillery pieces, but an artillery battalion during the New Army in the late Qing Dynasty was 18 artillery pieces.

The same is true for cavalry. In later years, the cavalry in the new army at the end of the Qing Dynasty was only more than 1,100 in three battalions, while a cavalry standard in the current standing army period is more than 1,300 people in four battalions.

In fact, the cavalry standard in the Beiyang New Army is too large. A cavalry regiment of the Western powers is generally about 500 or 600, but the number of cavalry in the Beiyang New Army is as high as more than 1,000, basically twice as that of the Western cavalry regiment.

There are two main factors here. One is influenced by traditional military concepts. Even Beiyang officers who have received modern military education still believe that cavalry is an indispensable and important military force.

The second is related to the geographical environment of the Beiyang Army. The Beiyang New Army is mainly deployed in northern China, with Shandong, Zhili, Northeast and other areas as the main defense areas. The area has a vast North China Plain and Northeast Plain, which is more suitable for cavalry combat.

Added by many factors, coupled with the fact that the Beiyang Army is not short of horses, it is much easier to form cavalry than to form artillery, so the cavalry in the Beiyang Standing Army is relatively large. Not to mention other things, Zhao Dongyun's third mixed association has the third standard of a cavalry of more than 1,300 people. You should know his The Third Mixed Association is only more than 7,000 people in total.

Six machine guns are standard for a cavalry of more than 1,000 people, which is actually far from enough, but now Zhao Dongyun only has such a machine gun, and there is nothing he can do if it is not enough.

Meng Enyuan said, "If there is a machine gun team, you can attack and retreat in the future!"

Zhao Dongyun said, "Brother Meng, you are an old cavalry. Naturally, you know how to fight. I don't know much about this cavalry, but I still know something about this machine gun. Although the heavy machine gun can accompany the cavalry, its maximum power is still used for defense. I hope You can remember!"

"In addition, there is no one under you who knows machine guns. In this way, I will send you a few people from the machine gun camp to practice, but it's okay to let them play machine guns, but I guess it's impossible to ride horses. At that time, your cavalry will have to come by themselves!" Zhao Dongyun continued.

The machine gun team of the cavalry is naturally different from ordinary machine gun troops. First of all, although they all use machine guns as weapons, one is cavalry and the other is infantry, which is essentially not a glance. Infantry machine guns are mostly used to build fixed fortifications and serve as important nodes of the defense line. However, the machine guns of cavalry have to accompany the cavalry to carry out mobile operations, so the machine guns have to be carried by horses, and machine gunners, ammunition players and so on also have to ride forward. In case of battle, most of them are also the enemy's cavalry troops.

So neither can take the same training method!

Meng Enyuan said, "Don't worry, I'll choose some smart people to form a machine gun team later. As long as the people in the machine gun camp teach them how to operate machine guns, we will do the rest by ourselves!"

Zhao Dongyun nodded and said, "Thank you for your hard work!"

After saying this, Meng Enyuan also knew that he should go out. Immediately, he went out after a military salute. As soon as Meng Enyuan went out with joy, someone came in again.

The person who came is not someone else, but Lin Yongquan!

After he came in, he handed it up with a pile of documents in his hand: "This is the compilation of these preliminarily proposed institutions of the headquarters. Please have a look!"

Zhao Dongyun took over and looked at it carefully. Since Yuan Shikai changed the name of the Third Mixed Association on 27 last month, it also means that the Third Mixed Association is a force with independent combat capabilities. In addition, the Third Mixed Association is in Jinzhou, Liaodong, it is impossible to get all the machines of the Beiyang Standing Military Department. The support belongs to the kind that everything depends on itself. Therefore, the various establishments and institutions of the original Third Association of the Step Team are definitely not applicable to the Third Mixed Association.

And there was no precedent of the mixed association or mixed standard in the Beiyang new army. All Yuan Shikai and others could not make a decision for a while. Finally, considering that there were some informal institutions in the Third Association, Zhao Dongyun was asked to submit a detailed organization of the Third Mixed Association.

Before, there were various informal institutions, such as the New Barracks, Ordnance Section, Law Enforcement Section, etc., but most of these institutions are not officially recognized. They are private institutions within the Third Association, and their positions are also held by officers at all levels.

Now that the third association has become the third mixed association, the best way is naturally to integrate and adapt it from many existing informal institutions.

Lin Yongquan explained: "The new barracks are not in line with our Beiyang system. I'm afraid many people will say if we continue to keep them, so we can change to the education department, which is responsible for the recruitment of new recruits, preliminary training, and supervision of active-duty soldiers training in various troops.

The original Ordnance Section and Law Enforcement Section can be retained. In addition, new military discipline departments and military supplies departments have been set up in accordance with your requirements. In order to avoid suspicion with the general offices above, the general office of each section has been changed to section chiefs.

Zhao Dongyun looked at the plan in his hand and seemed to be similar to what he expected. This time, he set up many institutions for the Third Mixed Association. Zhao Dongyun planned to solve it from training, logistics, military supplies and other aspects. You should know that these departments actually existed in the past, but they all belong to In informal institutions, employees are all part-time, and many people are reluctant to work overtime without getting paid.

So this time Zhao Dongyun intends to have more staffing and then enrich the administrative command organization of the Third Mixed Association. At least there are 7,000 or 8,000 people outside alone. He can't always rely on personnel such as the original infantry association to manage the camp.

There are few built-in institutions in the Beiyang Standing Military era, because these institutions are all managed by the Beiyang Standing Military Department. Now the Third Mixed Military Association is outside, so far away from Baoding, it is naturally impossible to go to the military headquarters of the Beiyang Standing Army, so it is necessary to establish its own I have all kinds of operating agencies.

"Well, it's well done. Now it's complete!" Zhao Dongyun said, "Now the people of our third mixed association are fine, and I can't trust others, so you continue to be the section chief of this education department!"

Lin Yongquan is not surprised by this decision, because the predecessor of this education department is the new barracks, and Lin Yongquan is the general office of the new barracks.

Lin Yongquan's positioning in the Third Mixed Association is not as simple as a staff officer. He is actually responsible for the recruitment, training and all other related matters of the Third Mixed Association.

Otherwise, he would not be regarded as Zhao Dongyun's left-hand man. He will be the second person of the Third Association. As for most of the other section chiefs, he will remain unchanged. For example, Zhao Dongping will continue to serve as the chief of the Ordnance Section. Perhaps on the surface, this change is only to turn the original private institution into an officially recognized formal institution, but its significance is very significant.

Because this means that the Third Association has become self-contained, it is self-determined from the recruitment of new recruits to training and even to the procurement of ordnance procurement. There is no need to deal with the Beiyang Standing Army as before.