Chapter 238 Modern Military Construction

Looking at Wang Yingkai, what did he have before October last year? There is only one town in his hand. Simply speaking of military power, Zhao Dongyun could defeat him with one hand, but since Wang Yingkai stepped into the capital before Zhao Dongyun and then destroyed the founder of the Republic, and coupled with his original prestige of the first echelon of Beiyang, it made him become The nominal boss of the contemporary Beiyang made him attract many staff talents in the Yuan Shikai era, and even united Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen, Zhang Huaizhi and Wang Ruxian to create a coalition to fight with Zhao Dongyun.

At the beginning, Zhao Dongyun was extremely passive and was even forced to fight against other warlords in Beiyang alone and seize Beijing by force. However, it coincided with the establishment of the Southern Federation, which eased the contradiction between the warlords in Beiyang.

But at that time, Wang Yingkai's status was already difficult to shake. Whether Zhao Dongyuncheng did not admit it or not, others thought that Wang Yingkai was already the contemporary boss of Beiyang and the heir of Yuan Shikai.

Judging from the above-mentioned development trajectory of Wang Yingkai and Zhao Dongyun, it is obvious that in addition to holding a strong military force, the prestige of warlords is actually very important, and it can even be said that it is not less important than the army.

Obviously, it was not Zhao Dongyun who could lead China to unify and rise in 1907, but one of Zhang Zhidong and Wang Yingkai. Well, maybe he could count Duanfang, but he was definitely not Zhao Dongyun.

In this case, it is no wonder that those international students choose to be sincere to others.

After receiving Li Xiang, Yang Deming did not stop in Hong Kong for too much. Instead, he took a passenger ship north the next day and went straight to Lushun, the second public and free port in contemporary China except Shanghai.

After they arrived in Lushun, they changed trains to Shenyang. On April 24, Zhao Dongyun personally received these military talents who had returned to China and had not even returned home.

"You have worked hard all the way. On behalf of the more than 100,000 soldiers from the three eastern provinces, I welcome you to Shenyang. I believe that as long as you work together, the country will prosper and the rise of the nation is just around the corner!"

At the reception banquet, Zhao Dongyun did not hide his attention to these talents, especially the two descendants, Li Xiang and Yi Liangxu.

The reason why Zhao Dongyun pays attention to them is very simple. They are the only modern military talents in contemporary China, and they are also high-end military talents. There are more military schools and international students in China, such as Beiyang Military Academy, former Fengtian Wubei School, and today's Army Officer School of the three eastern provinces. There are also many well-known Japanese Lushi students and international students from several military schools in Germany, but the above military schools are all military schools with the goal of training grassroots officers, and all platoon and company-level officers are trained.

As for the officers trained by these low-level military schools, some of them will grow into famous generals, strategists and so on. The probability is too small and unreliable. Zhao Dongyun can't expect to use big waves to pick out generals and commanders from tens of thousands of basic officers, or take time to settle down, saying Dozens of basic officers are not allowed to emerge in the future, but Zhao Dongyun can wait for decades.

An army needs high-end talents at the strategic level. Relying on time to precipitate is unrealistic for the current Zhao Dongyun. As for the existing talent pool, especially in the group of senior generals, the honest quality is really not good.

Although Chen Guangyuan, Meng Enyuan and Cao Kun are all famous warlords and generals in later generations, to be honest, their modern military quality is quite average. It is not a big problem for them to lead a division to fight, but you let them undertake the construction of the whole army and shoulder the strategic command of the whole army, and The most important thing is to specialize in and develop various new tactics, which is really difficult for them.

Before, Zhao Dongyun took charge of these jobs. Others really couldn't do this. Later, after Yang Deming returned to China, Fang Biyong was also diligent and eager to learn, so he shared part of Zhao Dongyun's work in this regard.

There is no existing talent pool, and it is not feasible to rely on time to settle down, so the only feasible way is to directly obtain talents who have experienced the training of senior military academies, such as graduates from high-end colleges such as the Japanese and Mainland University and the Berlin Military Academy in Germany. Zhao Dongyun didn't expect a few of them to be famous generals, but what they learned in the past few years in school was not comparable to those Lu Shisheng.

What did Lu Shisheng learn? The platoon tactic teaches you how to line up and how to charge and attack the enemy's machine gun fortress. And what did Lu Dasheng learn? National defense economy, strategic command, and cutting-edge military theory are not at the same level, and there is no comparison between them.

No matter whether senior or low-level officers are pulled out in the north and south of contemporary China, Zhao Dongyun promised that except for Yang Deming and Li Xiang under him, no one will say what the national defense economy is. Except for those who have taken their own training classes over the years, more than 90% of domestic officers have resilient defense principles. There is no reason why. At least 50% of the officers don't even know how to arrange machine guns for cross-defense, and few people have heard of the infiltration tactics developed to deal with trench tactics just after the Russo-Japanese War.

The contemporary Chinese army is composed of a group of illiterate and a group of low-level officers who only know company platoon tactics!

Well, the Chinese army also includes the Feng army under Zhao Dongyun. Although the Feng army has more cannons and machine guns than other warlords in China, there is no essential difference between them. It is still 108,000 miles away from the modern army in Zhao Dongyun's mind. To improve this situation, we rely on the so-called historical generals. Such things are unreliable, and it is even more unreliable to rely on beliefs, parties and so on. Only with real modern high-end military talents can it be done.

How many people in contemporary China have received high-end military education and know these things? Well, it's rude to say that there are only four people present today, together with Zhao Dongyun himself.

Zhao Dongyun himself is actually a bucket of water, with an empty memory of the original body, but his understanding of the military is not as good as that of many professional officers. He only has the memory of the original body and future generations, and when he studied at the Berlin Military Academy, he did not have the opportunity to serve in the German Army Staff, but to Field army internship.

However, the following four groups of international students arranged by Yuan Shikai can also be implemented in the German Staff in addition to internships in the field forces.

With these experiences, Zhao Dongyun is looking forward to them even more!

Zhao Dongyun did not expect Yang Deming, Li Xiang and Yi Liangxu to become any famous generals. It is estimated that it is impossible. Even he is not prepared to let them lead troops to the battlefield in a short time. What he expects is that after enriching their work in the headquarters, they will use a lot of knowledge they have learned in Germany to help Zhao. Dongyun has built a modern army.

The next day, Zhao Dongyun announced the award of Li Xiang and Yi Liangxu as Lieutenant Colonels of the Army, Li Xiang as the director of the Strategic Department of the Staff Department and the instructor of the Army Officer School of the three eastern provinces. Yi Liangxu was appointed as the director of the ammunition supply department of the Military Supply Department and also served as the instructor of the army academy of the three provinces.

Zhao Dongyun has considered their appointment in detail. Among them, Li Xiang focuses on national defense economy and national strategy, so it is most suitable to arrange him to be the director of the strategy department, while Yi Liangxu focuses on logistics and is also slightly involved in artillery, so Zhao Dongyun first asked him to serve in the quartermaster department to prepare Let him help come up with a modern logistics supply system. Don't stop the embarrassing situation of last year's battle of Tongzhou, the front line was waiting for mortar shells, but it was *, but the artillery battalion wanted to send grenades but grenades!

As for serving in the military academy of the three eastern provinces, this is a common phenomenon in the Soviet Department. Due to the serious shortage of teachers in the army officer schools in the eastern three provinces and the increasing enrollment scale, most of the lecturers are active middle and senior officers in the army, mainly returning international students, and even Zhao Dongyun himself He also holds the position of principal and will give lectures to the training class every month, so others can't stay away from it.

He did not fall behind several other students who returned to Germany. They were also asked for warmth at the reception banquet, and the subsequent appointment was also relatively generous. Two people were assigned by him to serve as second-class staff officers in the combat department, while the other one who studied cavalry was arranged to serve in the cavalry department and uniformly awarded the rank of major.

In fact, Zhao Dongyun's arrangement for these students studying in Germany is still low-key. He went back to China with Li Xiang and went to Wuhan to defect to Zhang Zhidong. Before he arrived in Wuhan, Zhang Zhidong appointed him to the Military Order Department of the Federal Imperial Army with the rank of colonel. Two months after he went to Wuhan, he was transferred to the army. Lingshi's general office, the rank of major general, this promotion is faster than riding a rocket.

After several talents were added, many of the staff officers in the staff finally launched the so-called modern army building plan and wrote and promoted the second version of the infantry exercise, requiring the whole army to train in accordance with the improved infantry exercise.

This infantry exercise is an improvement of the first version in 1903. It mainly refers to the latest version of the infantry exercise of the contemporary Japanese and German armies. The Japanese infantry exercise changed greatly after the Russo-Japanese War. At the end of last year, a new infantry exercise was launched. According to Li Xiang's description In other cases, the German army has also improved the existing infantry tactics by absorbing some examples during the Russo-Japanese War.

Zhao Dongyun, who has always kept up with the trend of the times, will naturally not slow down. After seeing that the Japanese and the Germans changed the infantry exercises, he also ordered the staff to re-improve the existing infantry exercises, and finally combined with the situation of the Fengtian Army and the Japanese army and The German army's improvement has produced this second version and is ready to promote the whole army.

In this infantry exercise, in addition to continuing to emphasize the defensive role of heavy machine guns and trenches as in the previous version, it also adds many tactical applications of mortars and light machine guns, and also emphasizes the concept of circuitous attack.

If you don't consider other things and just look at this infantry exercise, you will find that many tactics used in this infantry exercise made by Zhao Dongyun with a large group of staff officers have actually been widely adopted by various countries in the 1920s and 1930s.

If the first version of the infantry exercise is inclined to defense, then the second version of the infantry exercise is now more inclined to attack. Well, this attack is not a frontal attack, but a circuitous attack, which is actually reflected in the Battle of Tongzhou last year.

Gu Lanyu, who led the 6th Brigade at the beginning, led the troops to boldly adopt circuitous attack tactics under the circumstances of their defense tactics, and used mortars and light machine guns to attack the enemy's flanks, and finally caused the collapse of the enemy's entire Tongzhou defense line, thus causing the Feng army to conquer Tongzhou in one fell swoop.

Today, what Zhao Dongyun and they need to do is to continue to strengthen this concept and adjust the construction of the army according to this tactical concept. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of insufficient firepower during the roundabout attack, Zhao Dongyun once again increased the number of light machine guns and 60mm mortars.