Chapter 101 Poppy
After October, the weather in Jinzhou is getting colder and colder. After nightfall, it is no longer enough to wear a long-sleeved single dress like in late autumn. Most of the people who come to the dinner party put on coats.
Although tonight's dinner was organized by the Li family, to be honest, the Li family is only a secondary role in this dinner. There is no doubt that the protagonist tonight is Zhao Dongyun.
Li Jian stood at the door and constantly welcomed many military and political officials in the cold wind. His face was about to smile, but he had no idea of retreating to warm himself.
He knows very well that if he hadn't congratulated Zhao Dongyun on his inauguration as the third town control, it would have been impossible for him to have so many military and political dignitaries to come to this dinner tonight.
Not only the local military and political officials of Jinzhou Prefecture, but also the nearby Xinmin Government, and even sent representatives to send gifts.
Being able to hold such a dinner with military and political dignitaries will greatly improve the social status of the Li family in order to squeeze into the powerful class.
So even if Li Erjian was not in good health and couldn't stand the cold wind, he still insisted on welcoming guests in person at the door. Seeing that the sky was almost the same, Li Erjian asked the two sons around him, "Are all the guests here?"
His second son turned over the guest list and said, "Except for Zhang Guandai of the new Minfu, everyone else has arrived!"
Li Yijian heard that there was only one Zhang Zuolin missing, and immediately nodded and said, "You continue to wait here and bring Zhang Guan in later!" As for himself, naturally, he will not just wait for Zhang Zuolin to stay at the door. A large group of guests who have arrived in it need to be entertained by him. Any one is better than Zhang Zuolin's bandit leader.
After Li Yijian entered the hall, the hall had been divided into several tables to sit down.
Although China has been affected by many Western atmospheres in recent years, and half of the guests invited to today are officers in the third town known as fake foreign devils, Li Yijian deliberately made the banquet more Western. However, many traditional things have penetrated into their bones, not to say that they change, so although this banquet is prepared for foreign wine, buffets and so on, those adults will personally pick up plates to bring food for themselves. They all sit around several tables and talk loudly according to their respective identities. Get up
Li Ziquan, who entertained the guests in the hall, naturally did not dare to shout that the food had been prepared for you. Instead, he ordered the housekeeper a few words. In no time, people had already given good wine to the tables.
At this time, Zhao Dongyun's escort officer Li San appeared at the door of the hall, and then breathed up and said, "Your Majesty!"
Following the situation, the people who were standing before quickly walked to the door, and when they sat, they quickly got up and followed up. When they went to the door, they were thousands or several positions behind according to different official positions. After just counting, more than 30 people in the hall had been divided according to different official ranks, and Standing on both sides of Wenwu, standing on the left is a group of civil servants led by the governor of Jinzhou, and on the right is a group of military officers led by Chen Guangyuan.
If it had been decades ago, it was definitely impossible for a group of civil officials such as Jinzhou magistrates to claim to be subordinates to welcome Zhao Dongyun, a town.
But now the situation is chaotic, and the political status of the generals has begun to increase rapidly. This can be seen from Yuan Shikai's appointment as the governor of Zhili and Beiyang Minister. Not only he, but also many feudal ministers from generals in recent decades. In addition, although Zhao Dongyun is not from the imperial examination, his official is a 'alcounate', which belongs to the civilian system, which is a kind of general led by civilian officials, which leads to a higher political status than ordinary generals.
To put it simply, if you are promoted to a pure general like Chen Guangyuan, you can follow the way of deputy general, general, deputy capital, and serve as a town or a provincial admiral. However, Zhao Dongyun's promotion path is a little different. If his promotion is smooth, then it is possible to be promoted to a servant, such as adding the rank of a servant of the Ministry of War and being transferred to the Training Office or the Ministry of War. Of course, the biggest possibility is to be transferred to a certain province as an admiral.
In addition, there is another chance that is relatively small, but the most powerful way to be promoted is to take the path of Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai, Liu Mingchuan and others, and directly serve as governor of a province and then be promoted to one of the nine governors to become feudal officials.
Although this possibility is small, it still exists. However, for Chen Guangyuan and Meng Enyuan, this possibility is infinitely close to zero.
In any case, although Zhao Dongyun's political status as a town-controlled system is not as good as a provincial admiral or a provincial governor, considering that he is one of the four towns of the Beiyang New Army, his political status can be generally understood in this way: second only to Yuan Shikai!
Even Zhao Dongyun, who is still the leader in the era of the Third Mixed Association, his political status is not low. As the highest military leader sent by the Beiyang system to the three provinces, Zhao Dongyun's political status is actually comparable to that of the three generals in Shengjing, Jilin and Heilongjiang in the three eastern provinces. General Shengjing, Zengqi dares not take him Shangguan claimed that whether he asked Zhao Dongyun to edit the Jinzhou patrol camp or Zhao Dongyun to help him train the old army of Fengtian, he used the tone of request, but he did not have the courage to ask Zhao Dongyun to do anything.
The end of the world will always be the most favorable era for generals.
If it had not been for such a political position, there would not have been so many cultural relics officials to congratulate him on his promotion.
After Zhao Dongyun walked into the hall, he glanced at it with a smile, and then began to greet the people present: "Don't be polite. The visitor is a guest. I'm also a guest today. Don't be restrained!"
Zhao Dongyun said so, but he had already sat down rudely under the guidance of Li Jian, and then waved his hand with a boss, signaling everyone to sit down. At this time, everyone dared to sit down one after another.
And he didn't know that in the distance of the hall, Li Wan was leaning against the doorpost and secretly looking at the situation in the hall. When he saw Zhao Dongyun's old-fashioned appearance and even lofty in front of her father Li Jianjian, he couldn't help muttering, "What's the look? Isn't it just promotion?"
However, what I wear today is a little different. I don't wear the gray dress as before. Although the style of the dress is the same as the previous dress, the color of the dress is sky blue.
Zhao Dongyun felt that the gray military uniform of the Beiyang Standing Army was too simple, especially after the suppression of bandits last month, he found that the existing military uniforms were easy to be found by the enemy for the benefit of concealment. Therefore, before the battle against bandits in Jinzhou was not over, he had reported to Yuan Shikai for change. The military uniform system and cited many examples of foreign armies. For example, Britain already felt that the brightly colored military uniform did not match the battle when fighting in South Africa.
It is not difficult to design a new military uniform, so Yuan Shikai approved it without much obstruction. The change of the new military uniform has not changed much, mainly to dark blue in winter and earthy yellow in summer, and then subdivided the officer's dress and regular uniform.
At the same time, this new military uniform based on the improvement of the Beiyang Standing Army will be applied to the whole country next year. Now Zhao Dongyun and other small officers of the Beiyang New Army have just put them on in advance.
After putting on the new military uniform, the group of officers present look more like modern officers than the previous gray uniforms. Of course, it's just like that no matter what they wear, as soon as they see the braid behind their heads, it is enough to dump anyone's appetite.
Most of the aesthetic things are similar. Zhao Dongyun felt that the braids behind his head were ugly, and other officers naturally felt that the braids and new military uniforms were seriously unsuitable. In the past two years, the officers in the Beiyang New Army had a 'bald head wind'
In 1901, there were not many shaved officers, at least few around Zhao Dongyun, but now at the end of 1903, one-third of the middle and senior officers in the third town present had shaved their heads...
With the rise of the new policy in the late Qing Dynasty, the call for the new army to cut braids is also getting louder and bigger. Although the court has not officially ordered permission, it has already turned a blind eye. After all, so many international students who return to China every year have kicked off their hair. How can you let the court care?
Besides, in fact, the court did not want to care about shaving. It was almost all Han ministers who stopped them from cutting their hair. One shouted that 'the etiquette of their ancestors should not be abolished'. More than 200 years ago, if their ancestors had called it that, they would have cut off their heads long ago. Now they all stood up against their ancestors and made them surrendered. Qing's 'water is too cold' will definitely jump out of the traitor's grave angrily: you can't even be a traitor!
The world is changing too fast. I don't know when traitors will no longer be traitors, and I don't know when other people's ancestors have become their own ancestors. In this blonde Marx can become the father of China, and Stalin's head can become a world hanging on the wall of the Chinese hall. You can't accuse others of having braids, you can't accuse others of shaving their heads, and you can't accuse others of being traitors or heroes.
The world is changing so fast that Zhao Dongyun has long adapted to it, so he is not too surprised by many bals who are not monks and a group of men with long braids today.
On the contrary, he enjoys the feeling of being praised by everyone today. I have to say that he enjoys the title of 'adult of control', which he enjoys the feeling of having a huge power.
Just being a town control, just stepping into the small circle of Beiyang bosses and becoming a member of Beiyang bosses can already enjoy such power. What if you continue to take another step, what if you become the second person in Beiyang like Duan Qirui? If you become the first person in Beiyang like Yuan Shikai, how will you feel at that time?
The power is like a blooming poppy, with a fascinating color and a deadly fragrance, which makes Zhao Dongyun intoxicated!