Chapter 73 Jinzhou Li Family

Jinzhou Xiaoling Henan daughter's hometown, this land, which was originally only a suburb, has been crowded in the past two months. Large areas of people in gray military uniforms have come and go back and forth, as if it is more lively than the city of Jinzhou.

The reason why so many Beiyang new army soldiers can appear here is that Zhao Dongyun set up the headquarters of the Third Mixed Association here, and it is also the headquarters of the main force of the Third Mixed Association.

Everyone knows that Jinzhou's strategic location is very important. To some extent, it is a must-have place, but historically, Jinzhou has never been guarded. Why? Because it is easy to be completely surrounded by the enemy if you defend Jinzhou. Once surrounded, the four words that are easy to defend and difficult to attack will become difficult to fly. Throughout the successive battles between the Qing army and the Ming army in history and the civil wars between the two parties in later generations, the troops defending Jinzhou have come to an end and are basically completely annihilated.

Although Zhao Dongyun is not familiar with these examples of war cases, and he is not a super general who can casually decide victory or defeat in this era. However, although he is not a famous general, he still inherits a lot of military knowledge from his original body. At the same time, he has not relaxed in the past two years and studied a lot of contemporary military. Theoretical books, in addition to a large number of military books in German and English series, and even in order to study Napoleon's war theory, he also learned French by himself.

When others only saw Zhao Dongyun becoming the leader of the General Association in his 20s, few people could see Zhao Dongyun reading almost every day. Zhao Dongyun even translated several German military works while studying the modern German staff system. Zhao Dongyun's rapid rise in the Beiyang system does not rely on the memories from later generations, but more on his own ability.

After Zhao Dongyun came to this world, he accepted the memories of his original body. These memories are deeply in Zhao Dongyun's mind. Coupled with some of Zhao Dongyun's later ideas and a large number of military theories studied in the past two years, to be honest, China in this era can surpass Zhao Dongyun in military theory alone. I really can't find a few.

What should Zhao Dongyun say now? He is a master of talking about soldiers on paper. Speaking of theory, there is not much specific experience. To be honest, Zhao Dongyun himself does not know whether he has the talent as a famous general. Anyway, Zhao Dongyun can't see that he has the talent to become a famous general.

For such a person, you can't expect him to lead a 7,000 troops to break through 100,000 Russian soldiers, but you can trust that he has made reasonable arrangements in some theoretical tactics.

For example, in Jinzhou's defense, although Zhao Dongyun is not a famous general, he can also see at a glance that Jinzhou's damn place will make it difficult to fly, so from the beginning, his focus of Jinzhou's defense is not defense, but retreat!

When he first arrived in Jinzhou, he sent more than 2,000 troops to station in Songshan. Why, just to protect the retreat!

In addition to arranging heavy troops in Songshan to cover the right wing to guarantee the retreat, Zhao Dongyun also sent cavalry to the east of the Xiaoling River for patrol and reconnaissance to prevent possible sneak attacks.

As for the defense of Jinzhou City itself, to be honest, Zhao Dongyun did not care much about it. He even gave up the idea of arranging heavy troops at the strategic point of large and small Bauhinia Mountain. At the same time, he also gave up the practice of defending the city outside Jinzhou City, but reduced his troops to the west bank of the Xiaoling River, that is, the area of his daughter's hometown. Only a small number of troops have been deployed in Jinzhou City.

The reason for doing this is actually simple, because if the troops are assigned to Jinzhou City in the east of Zijing Mountain and Xiaoling River, it will be easy to defend, but if the Russian army comes to encircle and cross, Zhao Dongyun will probably have to commit suicide in Jinzhou City.

Anyway, the 7,000 troops can't be defended. They simply give up the outer positions, not even Jinzhou City. They directly use the Xiaoling River to defend, fight a beach defense battle, deploy artillery to the high ground in the southern suburbs of Jinzhou, and deploy infantry and machine guns along the west bank of the Xiaoling River. If the Russian army wants to cross head-on If the river breaks through, Zhao Dongyun is confident to kill thousands of him.

If the Russian army is more cautious than he thought and does not hesitate to delay ten days and a half a month to make a detour, then Zhao Dongyun will admit his bad luck and retreat to Ningyuan Prefecture without saying a word.

At that time, if the Russian army has few troops, then Zhao Dongyun will shout for a battle with the country and nation and the Russian army. If 50,000 or 60,000 Russian troops come over, Zhao Dongyun will guard for a few days and then go straight to the mountain customs.

Zhao Dongyun estimated that when he ran to Shanhaiguan, ten days and a half months had passed. No matter how slow the mobilization speed of the Beiyang New Army was, it was estimated that reinforcements would also come at that time.

If the court was still fighting and the reinforcements were late at that time, don't blame him for turning around and running away again and throwing Shanhaiguan to the Russians.

In a word, in Liaodong, he didn't come to fight with the Russians, so if he can fight, he won't fight. Even if the war really breaks out, he will do it according to his ability. If he can fight, he will give him a vote. If he can't beat the direct strategic turn, he will not consider things such as the loss of the country.

This may sound very cowardly, but the reality is so cruel. If he is given ten towns of new troops, Zhao Dongyun will wave the army directly to Fengtian without saying a word. The key is whether he has it?

He didn't!

He has only one third mixed association, with only 7,000 soldiers, no more than 16 cannons and 30 machine guns!

So from the first day he came to Jinzhou, he never thought of defending Jinzhou, so there would be a third mixed association

The camp is stationed on the west bank of the Xiaoling River and gives up the defense of important urban areas such as Zijing Mountain and the east bank of the Xiaoling River.

Because the base camp of the Third Mixed Association is stationed in Daughter's Township, it has led to a lot of popularity in this suburb of Jinzhou. Thousands of soldiers stayed here, making it become a huge military camp around. At the same time, it has also attracted many farmers to sell vegetables, fruits and other things.

Although the main food eaten by so many people in the Third Mixed Association was transferred from the customs by the Beiyang Standing Military Department, chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep were purchased from the local area. Coupled with the spontaneous purchase of soldiers, a small market was formed near the barracks.

When the Beiyang army arrived in Jinzhou City, people were afraid that this army was as ill-disciplined as those old troops, but after looking at it for a few days, the villagers found that these fake foreign devils did not commit any crime, not to mention burning, looting and looting. Even if they bought military grain, fruits and vegetables were given silver according to the market price. After a long time The people nearby were relieved.

"My lord, it's almost time!" Near evening, Li San knocked on the door and came in and whispered to Zhao Dongyun, who was immersed in writing documents, "It's time to go to Li's house for a banquet!"

Zhao Dongyun didn't look up and said directly, "Well, get ready. I'll change my clothes and go there!"

The banquet for Zhao Dongyun is the Li family in Jinzhou. Although Zhao Dongyun, a merchant in the district, usually has no time to pay attention to him from the official level, Zhao Dongyun now lives in the manor, so it is naturally not easy to refuse to go to the banquet.

The headquarters of the Third Mixed Association was also originally located in the temporary barracks, but the tent was really uncomfortable to live in. At that time, it happened to be invited by Li in Jinzhou, so Zhao Dongyun simply moved the headquarters to Li's manor.

Of course, the early Beiyang Army was still very disciplined. The purchase of military food was given silver according to the market price. Naturally, the rented rich merchant's yard was also paid. Anyway, the Third Mixed Association did not lack that little money.

However, after saying that, the Li family also didn't care about the rent. They invited Zhao Dongyun to live in their manor for another purpose.

It is said that the Li family in Jinzhou was already a local scholar at the time of the Ming Dynasty. After the Qing court opened up the northeast, the Li family recruited a large number of exiles to settle fields in various places in Liaodong, which made the Li family's assets rise significantly. At one time, they had tens of thousands of mu of land in Northeast China. Unlike many traditional landlords, the Li family was not only satisfied. In the traditional industry, he began to get involved in the foreign industry more than ten years ago, set up warehouse shops to buy soybean oil, sell foreign goods, etc., and also invested in a silk sliver factory in Shanghai, and made a lot of profits.

This Li family is actually quite similar to the Zhao family where Zhao Dongyun belongs. They are all traditional gentry landlord families, and they also belong to families that have broadened their horizons and entered the real industry. To some extent, they have transformed from traditional landlord families to chaebol families.

Last year, through the introduction of Hong Xuwei of Dingsheng Silver, the Li family invested tens of thousands of taels of silver in Fuyuan Machinery Factory and became one of the shareholders of Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

And Zhao Dongyun, who is not only a senior officer in Beiyang, but also the leader of the third mixed association, is also a major shareholder of Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

After having such a relationship, they will take the initiative to invite Zhao Dongyun to live in their own house, not because Zhao Dongyun is a senior management in Beiyang, but because he is a major shareholder of Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

"Lord Zhao, you are much younger than I imagined!" Li Jian, the head of the Li family, is a tall and thin middle-aged man, estimated to be in his 40s, wearing a traditional horse coat.

Next to him was his eldest son Li Ziquan, who was about 256 years old. Unlike his father, he was a little fat. He was put together with his not too tall body and turned up like a wooden barrel.

However, although this person is not good-looking, his words are very decent. As soon as his father Li Jianjian's words fell, he connected and said, "Isn't it? When Lord Zhao first came in, I thought I had misread the wrong person. I couldn't find a few three-grade men like Lord Zhao in the country! "

But what they don't know is that they think it's complimenting Zhao Dongyun, but it's uncomfortable in Zhao Dongyun's ears. Why? Because Zhao Dongyun doesn't like to hear people say that he is young andmot, he prefers to hear others say that he is mature and stable.

Zhao Dongyun's young age is an important obstacle for him to continue to climb up. This younger generation has also caused him to be able to be the younger generation in front of Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others, and his specific position has also caused many criticisms because of his young age.

Fortunately, he got married last year. If he hasn't been married yet, there will be more criticism.

Zhao Dongyun usually wears mature and steady clothes, has an eight-character beard, and speaks slowly to hide his youth.

So Li Jian and his son said that he was young and successful, which made Zhao Dongyun uncomfortable, but Zhao Dongyun did not change his impression of Li Jian and his son. After all, in the secular concept, it is good to be young and doable, but few people like him are worried about being too young.

So Zhao Dongyun laughed twice and did not directly respond to the topic of his age. Instead, he directly changed the topic: "Thank you for Mr. Li's benevolence this time, otherwise Zhao will have to continue to drink!"

As a senior officer in Beiyang and holding a 7,000 army, Zhao Dongyun was not interested in the art of talking with the Li family and his son. He was unhappy with the topic of age, so he directly changed the topic.