Chapter 110 Fengtian Standing Army

In order to curb Russia's global expansion, Britain has forced China to maintain a tough diplomatic attitude towards Russia from beginning to end. It must not accept any request made by Russia about the three northeastern provinces. Otherwise, if Russia does not fight China, the British and Japanese coalition will have to land in Tianjin.

In addition, it also forced China to remain neutral with a tough attitude. This is because they consider that once China joins the war, it will lead to the expansion of the war and trigger Russia's large-scale south. At that time, if the Russians invade China from Mongolia, the northwest and other places, Britain, Japan and the United States and other countries agree that China cannot Resisting the Russian offensive will lead to Russia's annexation of a large part of China's northern territories and expand the war.

Almost from beginning to end, in the situation in Northeast China, neither China nor Japan actually has any choice. Japan was pushed to the battlefield by Britain, while China was forced by Britain to take out the Northeast as a prize for war winners.

So on that day, Russia was in a life-and-death war. When the people of Northeast China fled the war zone with their families to escape the war, the gentlemen in London drank afternoon tea while smoking cigars and occasionally discussed the war in the Far East in the newspaper.

Today in 1904, there are not many people who can see these things through. Even Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong and others, at most only see the edge of the essence of some things, which is still far from the core. As for those who shout to march to the northeast every day, most of them are even the 'global strategy'. People who have never heard of a noun.

It is a luxury to let the citizens of a semi-colonial country consider what a global strategy is!

However, it's nothing that they can't understand the nature of the matter. Most people still know that other countries are engaged in wars in their own lands, and it is a humiliating thing that they are forced to declare neutrality!

So after 1904, under the promotion of the military training offices, Chinese provinces began to develop a trend of training the new army. Although most of them did not pay much attention to it, many simply replaced the old army directly with the signboard of the new army. After all, not all the governors of every province wanted Yuan Shikai to have a natural reaction. Bone, thinking about expanding arms and preparing for rebellion and other things every day, many governors are thinking of embezzling tens of millions of taels of silver and are unwilling to train a new army in a town.

In terms of the finance of provinces in the late Qing Dynasty, it may be difficult to train more new armies, but to be honest, there is no big problem in Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to practice three or five towns, but now, only Hubei, under the rule of Zhang Zhidong, has trained a large-scale new army in the southern provinces. The new army in other places can be straight The kind that is ignored.

However, in Northeast China, especially in Fengtian, it is different. Zengqi was stimulated by the relatively successful training of Jinzhou patrol battalion last year and Fengtian patrol battalion at the beginning of the year. Moreover, the success of these two patrol camps has also saved a lot of Zengqi's political prestige. Many ministers of the court are not accusing Zengqi Geng Zinian. It's the matter of losing Fengtian, but occasionally I will praise him for his success in military training.

In this situation, coupled with the real tension in the northeast, Japan and Russia are fighting on the side. On the one hand, Zengqi is negotiating with the two sides to detect war refugees, and at the same time, it is also trying to further reorganize the old army of Fengtian and train the new army to strengthen its own control over the prefectures and counties to ensure the smooth implementation of armed neutrality.

"Now Fengtian says that they want to train the standing army every day. In my opinion, if nothing happens, they should be able to train the standing army, but they can't train the standing army. Naturally, they can't do without us, but I don't know how many opportunities our third town can get from it. ?" Chen Guangyuan and Meng Enyuan talked in a low voice and went to the south courtyard of Li's Manor, that is, the third town headquarters.

Meng Enyuan said, "According to Fengtian's intention, it is necessary to reorganize the Fengtian patrol camp with the Jinzhou patrol camp, and then go to a standing army. However, this is too difficult. The Jinzhou patrol camp on our side is better, but the Fengtian patrol camp on the other side of Zengqi is not a good thing. It's dirt inside. Bandits are mixed, and most of them are old armies. After this formation, they have not been reorganized. In this bone, it is still the old army and bandits. It would be strange if they could be trained into a new army!"

Chen Guangyuan also said: "Speaking of this patrol camp, the Jinzhou patrol camp on our side is better. Although the two cavalry camps are a little loose, we have also transferred a lot of people to ** training in the past six months, which can be regarded as suppressing the previous bandit spirit, and Lv Chengtong is also a personal character, which is very encouraging morale. One set!"

Lv Chengtong in Chen Guangyuan's mouth is Lv Shuanggun. This Lv Chengtong is his official name, and Lv Shuanggun is the nickname of Green Forest!

"Well, it's not easy for us to train thousands of people from the Jinzhou patrol battalion. If we hand it over to train Fengtian's standing army so easily, won't our efforts in the past six months be in vain!"

Meng Enyuan said, "I dare not say anyone else, but our master can never stand this kind of thing!"

What he said is not wrong. At this moment, Zhao Dongyun is writing to Yuan Shikai. The content of the letter is to refute Zeng Qi's so-called Fengtian Standing Army Plan, saying that the two parts of Jinzhou Patrol Battalion and Fengtian Patrol Battalion are different. Fengtian Patrol Battalion is a mixture of officials and bandits, and their combat strength is no different from the old army, while Jinzhou Patrol Battalion is a professional headquarters. After half a year of new training, even if the combat power is not as good as that of the third town, it is barely able to stand. It will take time for the two to be integrated to get a standing army, but I, Jinzhou, have lost more than 2,000 combat power.

In the Jinzhou patrol battalion, there are two battalions of the foot team, the first battalion of the artillery team and the two teams of the cavalry team, with a total strength of more than 2,000 people. In addition to the two cavalry teams who are recruited bandits, the other two battalions and the sergeants of the artillery battalion are trained by good families recruited from Shandong, Zhili and other places, and the equipment is also well-made 8 Type 8 rifle.

Although the overall training is not as good as that of the third town, the staffing, equipment and even training are solid Beiyang New Army, just missing the reputation of the Beiyang Standing Army.

This army is actually equivalent to the extra unit of the Beiyang Standing Army, which is very similar to the self-improvement army and the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army in the Beiyang system.

So Zengqi wants to combine the Jinzhou Patrol Battalion and Fengtian Patrol Battalion into Fengtian Standing Army. Unless Zengqi is willing to hand over this future Fengtian Standing Army to Zhao Dongyun's supervision, otherwise, he doesn't want to take the Jinzhou Patrol Battalion Battalion. Not to mention that Zhao Dongyun doesn't agree, Yuan Shikai doesn't agree.

Chen Guangyuan and Meng Enyuan also know this, so they don't worry too much about their words!

Even after meeting Zhao Dongyun, Chen Guangyuan even said, "Now there are only two steps in the Jinzhou patrol camp. In my opinion, it is still a little less. Do you think there is another step camp?"

Zhao Dongyun frowned slightly after hearing this: "It's naturally good if it can be done, but in recent months, we have spent a lot of money on equipping mortars and heavy machine guns. Baoding and the court have not given us the money to equip mortars. Everything has to be raised by ourselves. Now it's not easy to spend money to expand the Jinzhou patrol camp!"

Chen Guangyuan said, "What about Fengtian? Can you take some from there?"

Without Zhao Dongyun's words, Meng Enyuan said, "Now that Zengqi wants to practice Fengtian's standing army, and he will still give us money there. He doesn't even want to give these defense assistance fees today!"

Chen Guangyuan looked at Zhao Dongyun and said tentatively, "Your Excellency, why don't we take Zhang Zuolin and Feng Delin again?"

Zhao Dongyun was speechless when he heard this. Several of his men were addicted to suppressing bandits. As soon as Du Lisan was destroyed, he also blackmailed Feng Delin for 100,000 taels of silver in less than a month. He wanted to use his old tricks to make money from the bandits, and he didn't think that the money did not fall from the sky, especially Zhang Zuolin and Feng. Delin's bandit armed forces, which rely on operating base areas to obtain income, are not easy for them to make money. The 100,000 taels of silver sent by Feng Delin in front of him is estimated to have emptied out his family over the years. Zhang Zuolin's side is better, and it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of taels of silver left.

Now, even if they are destroyed in the past, it is estimated that they will not be able to turn over 30,000 to 50,000 taels of silver!

Besides, at least they have been comforted. They have the name of the Fengtian patrol camp on their heads. At least they are officials and soldiers. If they fight directly as before, I guess they don't know what will happen!

Zhao Dongyun is not without money. In fact, he gained a lot from suppressing bandits in the early stage. In addition, because of the expansion of the third town, he got hundreds of thousands of silver from Baoding and the court household department, but the expansion of the third town was too expensive, especially in order to improve the combat effectiveness of the army, Zhao Dongyun let the army intensively Live ammunition training, those bullets and shells that are trained are expensive.

And Yuan Shikai and the court will not give you this part of the money. They only give the fixed military expenses, which is only enough for daily needs, but if you want to strengthen the army's food, you have to make extra money if you want to strengthen the army's live ammunition training.

In particular, the third town is equipped with a large number of mortars in private. Although this mortar is a cheap gun, it can't withstand hundreds of equipment. Recently, Zhao Dongyun has spent most of the money he got from suppressing bandits on mortars.

Even if there are still 230,000 taels of silver in the small vault of the third town, it is not the money that can be spent indiscriminately, but the last family background of the third town. It has to be kept for prevention. If there is no 23,000 taels of silver in the small vault, in case Yuan Shikai and the court do not give him Yuan Shikai or delay for several months, he Zhao Dongyun's third town will not cause any trouble because of the lack of pay.

And you can also take out the starting fee to maintain the battle when necessary!

In short, these 300,000 taels of silver are the family that the third town must hold, and it is impossible to spend the life-saving money at the critical moment.

If you want to expand your army, you have to find extra money!