Chapter 118 Jiro Sato 2

In this war, especially in the early stage of this war, Zhao Dongyun's attitude was quite clear, that is, to break the original historical trajectory, including selling nearly 100 heavy machine guns to the Russians and providing the Russians with shells, bullets and other combat materials.

There is only one purpose, that is, to make the Russian army not fail too quickly in the early battle, and not to let Japan conquer Lushun or Fengtian in a short time. Even if Japan wins, at least Japan will have to pay a heavier price than history.

Do you need a reason?

No need!

Not to mention a series of arms transactions with Russia, Zhao Dongyun has gained a lot. Among the many combat materials sold to the Russians, in terms of the largest ordnance, although the manufacturer Fuyuan Machine Factory is not much, Zhao Dongyun, as a second dealer in the middle, has made a lot of profits.

Some people may have doubts. Zhao Dongyun is not a businessman. Why does he come to make money? More money is just a series of numbers, what is more important than the interests of the country and the nation?

You should know that he still has a new army of more than 15,000 people to support. Although most of the other funds come from the court and Baoding, if you want the troops to conduct more actual combat training, equip more new weapons, and expand more troops, you have to rely on Zhao Dongyun to think more. The way.

To expand the army, it is not enough to say a few words to train the army. It takes time and money to accumulate. The time is not only good, but the source of money is relatively lacking. Now Zhao Dongyun's money to raise the army mainly depends on the funds from his superiors. To put it bluntly, the imperial court and Beiyang support his third town together.

As for relying on private money to support the army, to be honest, Zhao Dongyun can't afford to raise it. Do you know how much military expenses Zhao Dongyun's 15,000 people spend every year?

At least three million taels of silver, and this number is only the most basic maintenance expenses such as personnel salary, eating, drinking and sleeping. If you want to do training, do exercises, and occasionally change the defense march, at least 4 million taels of silver.

If it's a war, it's often more than a million. For example, if the artillery below him prepares 30 minutes for the infantry attack, it will consume about 2,000 to 3,000 shells. According to the price of 30 taels of silver per 75 mm shell, it will cost about 60,000 to 100,000 taels of silver.

That is to say, at least 670,000 taels of silver must be thrown out before an ordinary attack!

These days, the new army is a veritable gold-swallowing monster. Otherwise, the Qing court would not have thrown tens of millions of silver every year and could only practice a six town in Beiyang.

Maybe other predecessors pointed out that countless guns and artillery fell from the sky, and they were also the kind with infinite magazines and non-wearing attributes, but Zhao Dongyun's third town and Jinzhou patrol battalion needed countless money to support them. The artillery troops were not even willing to fight live ammunition during training, and most of the time they were empty-handed. Training is to hit training bullets every once in a while. As for live-fire training, you usually don't hit much at all, only more during live-fire exercises.

However, even so, the training intensity of the third town is stronger than that of other Beiyang troops, and what does the strengthening of training intensity represent? It means that Zhao Dongyun needs to spend tens of thousands of military expenses every month.

If there is no other additional income, Zhao Dongyun can't raise it. As for his family industries, such as Fuyuan Yarn Factory and Fuyuan Machinery Factory, Fuyuan Weaving Factory and Fuyuan Yang Grey Factory, they must be rich, but Zhao Dongyun can't. Directly misappropriated to support the army, not to mention that Fuyuan yarn factory and many of its subordinate enterprises are the industry of a large family of the Zhao family, not Zhao Dongyun's private.

If Zhao Dongyun misappropriated the money to support the army, it is estimated that it will not take long to write the words "I want to rebel" directly on his forehead.

You are fools as Yuan Shikai and Cixi. They are all corrupt and make money. It doesn't matter if you don't embezzle and make money. You still use the family's assets to support the army. If you are not going to rebel, who will believe it?

So you search from the place, no matter whether you want to suppress bandits or use other ways to get money. The money you get belongs to the small treasury of the third town. Then there must be no problem with Yuan Shikai that you use to expand the army. On the contrary, you will think that you are capable of doing things, but if you directly take hundreds of thousands of taels of silver from Fuyuan Yarn Factory to raise the army, they will It will be regarded as a thief directly.

On the one hand, it can't be taken. On the other hand, the Fuyuan yarn factory is also rapidly expanding, and the desire for funds is even more. Fuyuan yarn factory borrows money every day and then uses it to expand production and invest in new industries. In recent years, the total assets of Fuyuan yarn factory have increased several times, and the debt has also increased several times. If Fuyuan is included For the debt of the machine factory, Fuyuan Group, the head office of Fuyuan Yarn Factory, has owed more than 2 million taels of silver.

So Zhao Dongyun can't get it even if he wants to take money to support the army.

In this case, the income from local raids, such as the suppression of bandits in three days, and various protection fees secretly collected by Jinzhou patrol battalions in the prefectures near Jinzhou and military trade with Russia have become an important source of Zhao Dongyun's additional military expenditure.

However, Japan himself destroyed the Russian army in the Liaohe area some time ago, but he did not kill a few Russian troops, which greatly affected the trade income between Zhao Dongyun and Russia, which made him quite unhappy.

In the afternoon, Zhao Dongyun met Sato Jiro again. This Sato Jiro was not wearing his military uniform, but dressed as a Western gentleman, wearing a high-top round hat and holding a civilized stick. He could not see that he was a spy at all.

In fact, Sato Jiro is not a too formal spy. He secretly came to Liaoning, mainly in a semi-public position, mainly to attract the local forces in Liaoxi to join the Japanese side. He himself will not play 007's kind of thing of alone going deep into the enemy array to assassinate enemy generals.

From this perspective, he is more like a diplomat!

Sato Jiro's Chinese is quite good. The first sentence is fluent and official with a Beijing-Tianjin accent: "I have heard that in addition to the three heroes of Beiyang, there are also the heroes of Beiyang in your country. Today, it really lives up to its reputation. General Zhao, you are much younger than I thought!"

The so-called Beiyang Sanjie in Sato Jiro's mouth refers to Duan Qirui, Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang, while the hero of Beiyang is Zhao Dongyun. This name comes from the sub character 'The Hero of the Three Armies' given to him by Yuan Shikai before Zhao Dongyun came to Jinzhou last year. This word is not actually Zhao Dongyun, but Zhao Dongyun's subordinate. The Third Mixed Association means that it hopes that the Third Mixed Association will become a heroic force in the three armies of the North Sea, but the Third Mixed Association and the current third town also have a special military flag, written with the words "hero of the three armies", which is an honorary title of the third town.

This had nothing to do with Zhao Dongyun personally, but later after it came out, people put this on Zhao Dongyun and regarded it as Yuan Shikai's affirmation and praise for him, but these words can only be regarded as rumors. Although Zhao Dongyun knows it Some people call themselves that in the outside world, but to be honest, they rarely hear people say that to themselves in person.

Sato Jiro opened his mouth. Although Zhao Dongyun was dissatisfied with him in his heart, as a qualified military and political high-level, it was a necessary skill to hide his true thoughts, so he talked to Sato Jiro with a smile at this time, and occasionally showed a good impression of Japan.

"Your sergeant can fight for the dignity of the yellow people regardless of Asian interests, which is greatly admirable!" As a qualified military and political dignitary and trying to develop as a politician, full of lies and shame are also essential skills.

In this world, who has the ugliest face?

There is no doubt that it is a politician!

They can often depict the perfect illusory world to help ** people. They, like the devil, describe hell as heaven, and then lure people to smile and fantasize about themselves going to heaven without finding that they are walking into hell step by step.

Zhao Dongyun is trying to become a qualified politician. Today, his conversation with Jiro Sato is for a rehearsal for future speeches to the public.

They are all lies. There is not much difference between what you say to Japan and what you say to the Chinese people!

After the two made a humble statement, Sato Jiro did not wait too long to go straight to the point: "This time I will lead the team to Jilin, Heilongjiang, Mongolia and other places, and return to the general to give logistical support!"

The reason why Sato Jiro can say it directly is that Japan himself has reached a deal with Yuan Shikai that Zhao Dongyun did not know before. You should know that most of the spy team led by Sato Jiro this time are North Western active officers!

For this reason, Yuan Shikai has sent a telegram to Zhao Dongyun in advance, asking Zhao Dongyun to cooperate with the operation of the spy team and provide logistical support.

Zhao Dongyun said, "Of course there is no problem with this. The relevant firearms and horses have been prepared. According to our previous agreement, ordnance is the standard weapons of your army!"

Sato Jiro nodded and showed a satisfied look. This is to spy on the military situation and sabotage. Although most of the spies are Chinese, in order to reduce the suspicion of the Russians, it is better to pretend to be Japan himself. If this ordnance is a Japanese ordnance, it can also reduce suspicion.

And Zhao Dongyun doesn't have much feeling about this. Although his third town is not equipped with a large number of Japanese rifles, he has captured a lot of Japanese 30-year rifles in several times in the suppression of bandits, adding up to nearly 200. As for the bullets, it is even more not a problem. Fuyuan Machinery Factory has Japanese 6 The production line of .5mm rifle bullets, so it is not a big problem to provide Japanese ordnance to Japan's spy troops.

In line with the attitude of doing business and obeying the overall situation of Beiyang, Zhao Dongyun did not make it too difficult for Sato Jiro, but readily took out all the things, and Sato Jiro naturally did not take things for nothing. He soon took out a 3,000-pound HSBC check, which was regarded as the purchase of this batch of horses and guns. Cost.

Zhao Dongyun also took it with a smile, but then Sato Jiro took out a larger HSBC check. Zhao Dongyun could clearly see that the upper denomination was as high as 30,000 pounds.

30,000 pounds, converted into silver, is more than 200,000 taels of silver. What does Jiro Sato want to do with this huge check?