Chapter 130 The Difficulty of Military Expenses

The failure to pay by the court's household department and Baoding can be said to be beyond Zhao Dongyun's expectation. According to his previous plan, as long as he trained this mixed association, then it is naturally impossible for the court or Yuan Shikai to let go when he sees such an army. The possibility is that this gives tens of thousands, that gives tens of thousands, and finally gathers up the military expenses needed after the expansion of Jinzhou patrol battalion.

But he didn't expect that the money is not so easy to get these days. Even if Yuan Shikai is willing, Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai, Wang Shizhen and Wu Changchun all objected, saying that the expansion of Beiyang's direct coefficient town is not enough, and there is still money to expand it, which can only be regarded as the brocade of the Beiyang branch. State patrol camp.

Not to mention the court, the following provinces need to train new troops to get money from the court, which is no less difficult than climbing to the sky.

Fengtian's Zengqi wanted to get Fengtian's standing army, and he was not willing to move the money out to develop the Jinzhou patrol camp.

In this way, it broke many of Zhao Dongyun's follow-up plans!

"My lord, now let us raise our own funds, which is not easy to do!" Meng Enyuan, who has been appointed by Zhao Dongyun as the leader of the first mixed association of Jinzhou patrol battalion, is also full of bitterness at this time.

Although he had known in advance that his position as the so-called 'First Mixed Association of Jinzhou Patrol Battalion' was embarrassing, he did not expect that the imperial court, Beiyang and Fengtian were unwilling to take out tens of thousands of silver to support the expansion needs. When he said this, he also regretted it. If he had known it, he would have refused to be this bastard. It is led by Cheng Xie.

Zhao Dongyun also frowned: "This matter is indeed a little tricky!"

After he said that, he took a look at the other men present. The expansion of the Jinzhou patrol camp was related to the expansion of the third town system, and naturally related to other high-level officials in the third town. Since learning that the request for funding was rejected, Zhao Dongyun summoned his men to a meeting to try to discuss a solution. Ways to expand the funding of the state patrol battalion.

Zhao Dongyun looked at all the men present, and then his eyes fell on Zhao Dongping, who was in charge of the small treasury in the third town: "Mr. Zhao, how much money do we have now? How about the income and expenditure?"

If you want to solve the problem, you must first know how much money you have and how much money you need!

After hearing this, Zhao Dongping stood up. At this time, he looked much stronger than a few years ago. He could no longer see that he was just a young man in his early 20s. On the contrary, he looked 27 or 28 years old. He said, "The finances of our third town have always been relatively tight.

Now we receive 180,000 taels of silver maintenance funds from the Imperial Household Department and Zhili Baoding every month. In addition, Fengtian will also give us 40,000 taels of defense assistance every month, which adds up to a total of 220,000 taels of silver.

This number is enough to support the third town of the standard and the Jinzhou patrol camp before the expansion, but later we were equipped with mortars and increased the equipment cost of heavy machine guns. This part of the funds has not been paid, so we can only take it ourselves, not counting the needs of purchasing ordnance in the early stage, and it needs to be increased every month. Add the maintenance cost of about 10,000 taels of silver.

After the Jinzhou patrol battalion was expanded into a mixed association, the cost of purchasing ordnance is also not calculated, and the maintenance cost of about 40,000 taels of silver is required per month.

In addition, the training intensity of our army is generally higher than that of other friendly forces, thus increasing the consumption of guns and the training and live ammunition consumption of bullets and shells. At the same time, the sergeant' food and military uniforms also need to be supplemented. In this regard, according to one town and one association, we have to spend an additional about 20,000 taels every month.

After saying this, Zhao Dongping paused to let everyone digest his words, and then said the summary: "According to today's income and expenditure, our official income is 220,000 per month, and the fixed expenditure is 290,000 taels. If other fragmentary expenses are included, it will reach a fixed expenditure of 300,000 taels of silver. According to the above, our monthly vacancy will reach 80,000 taels of silver per month.

300,000 taels of silver, which is the monthly maintenance funds of more than 13,000 people in Zhao Dongyun's third town and more than 5,000 people in Jinzhou patrol battalion, with a total of more than 18,000 troops!

After everyone slightly digested it, Zhao Dongping continued: "We usually need to raise the funds for the purchase of ordnance and expansion, and the self-financing funds fluctuate greatly. There are three aspects with relatively stable sources: the 'co-defense fees' paid to my third town by Jinzhou and the counties in Liaoxi are about 5,000 taels per month. At present, the shipping fees and tolls charged by the Jinzhou patrol battalion at the checkpoints set up in Jinzhou, Liaozhong and Panshan are currently about 4,000 taels per month. In addition, our army began to provide paid protection services for major business travelers in western Liaoning last year, allowing the merchant teams to follow our military's logistics transportation teams. In this regard, the monthly income is more than eight Thousands, as little as 4,000."

Two of the above three aspects are the common additional income of local garrison, which is generally the defense assistance fee paid by the local government and the road purchase fee charged by setting up checkpoints without permission. As for the third bodyguard service, this is based on the special environment where there are many bandits in Northeast China and it is dangerous for business travelers to transport goods. Since the third town was stationed in Liaoxi, many business travelers like to follow the logistics and transportation team of the third town to avoid the attack of bandits. Later, Zhao Dongping, who was responsible for making money, saw the business opportunity, simply Provide bodyguard services at a clearly marked price. In addition to giving a certain amount of money to follow the logistics and transportation force, as long as you can afford it, you can even arrange a special unit to protect your caravan.

Even in order to expand the development of the bodyguard business, Zhao Dongyun also specially left some small bandits in Liaoxi. Although those small bandits are not in the way, they are a great threat to past business trips.

"The three add up, and you can get about 15,000 taels of silver every month. Counting these, the shortage of our army is about 65,000 taels!"

After saying this, Zhao Dongping closed his mouth!

In fact, Zhao Dongping still has a lot of hidden and private income that has not been said, such as the income from suppressing bandits and the income from arms trade with Japan and Russia. The reason why it is not said that these incomes are not fixed incomes. This month but may be gone next month. In addition, most of the above hidden income is also used to purchase ordnance and serve as a small treasury as an emergency backup. It is impossible to take it out as the daily expenses of troops!

And those hidden income, such as the income of arms trade with Japan and Russia, is no longer a secret in the high level of the third town, but it still cannot be disclosed.

If those hidden income are included, in fact, Zhao Dongyun's funds are still very rich. The early harvest of suppressing bandits adds up to at least 400,000 taels of silver, and Russian military trade and Japanese military trade can bring at least 300,000 taels of silver to Zhao Dongyun every month.

However, it costs more to make more money. The suppression of bandits in the early stage also needs to be spent, and the cost is 100,000 silver, so the net profit is actually only about 300,000, and this thing is a one-time income, which will be gone in the future.

And trade with Russia and Japan is also costly. For example, 100,000 taels of silver were robbed last month. For example, Zhao Dongyun repeatedly attacked bandits in the Liaohe area to clean up the smuggling channels of trade. At the same time, the soldiers and officers involved in the transportation of ordnance also scored part of the money, which can't let people The family risked their lives to smuggle ordnance without making dozens of taels of silver.

After these costs are excluded, the ordnance trade between Japan and Russia is actually only about 200,000 yuan per month in the hands of Zhao Dongyun.

According to convention, these 200,000 yuan is too much to fill the gap in the third town, but this money is not the regular income of the third town, but additional income, which cannot be included in the regular expenses.

Because Zhao Dongyun also had to use this part of the money to purchase ordnance and expand the army, Zhao Dongyun spent at least 600,000 taels of silver in the early stage to equip mortars, heavy machine guns and expand the Jinzhou patrol battalion. It can be said that he basically invested in the armor trade and the suppression of bandits.

The remaining hundreds of thousands are stored in the small treasury of the third town in accordance with the old rules for emergencies, and must not be used until the critical moment of life and death.

So from this perspective, Zhao Dongyun is rich but not enough money to spend!

"According to me, there is nothing I can do with the Ministry of Household and Baoding, but can you get a batch from Fengtian?" Chen Guangyuan said: "Didn't he say that he wants us to help him practice the Fengtian patrol camp every day? As long as he promises to pay, we might as well help him practice!"

This is simply selling the labor force! Zengqi was crazy to practice the Fengtian Standing Army. He had long begged Zhao Dongyun to send people to help him train the new army, but he lacked interest in things that were beneficial to others, whether it was Zhao Dongyun or other officers in the third town, and he ignored him at all.

And these days, if you want to train the new army, if you don't have the help of professionals, you can rely on Zengqi and his men to train a qualified new army for ten years.

However, Wang Zhanyuan objected: "Brother Xiufeng's words have passed. If he gives us tens of thousands of silver, we will help him practice a Fengtian standing army, then other provinces will not have to follow suit. In this way, it won't take a few years to become a new army all over the world. What's the use of me waiting for foreigners?"

Wang Zhanyuan is considering the overall interests of Beiyang. What is Beiyang's biggest strength now? It's this Beiyang New Army! And it hasn't been a year or two to train the new army in each province. Why can't it be figured out? Even if it's done, it's still a half-baked level? In addition to funds and provincial governors, it is also related to the support of Beiyang.

The Beiyang system, the Nanyang led by Zhang Zhidong, and Liangguang led by Cen Chunxuan and other southern identities are swornbei. Only when they are sick will they help them train troops!

So many years after Beiyang became an army in history, the new army in the southern provinces is still half-baked. In addition to funds and other factors, the main reason is that Beiyang is unwilling to send people to help them train.

Looking at the road of the expansion of the army in the North Sea, in fact, soldiers and ordnance are secondary. The pillars of the expansion have always been those professional officers and technical soldiers trained for many years. As long as these backbones are used to build a shelf, they can be formed into a new army in half a year, but without these backbones, It won't work out in five or six years.

For the above reasons, Yuan Shikai and Zhao Dongyun have always refused to send people to the Fengtian Patrol Battalion to help them train troops!

Chen Guangyuan retorted, "Brother Zichun, what are you afraid of? Don't you know the result of the court asking Lord Du Xian to help train the standing army of the Beijing flag? Do you think the current standing army of the Beijing flag is from the imperial court or my Beiyang?