Chapter 172 The Eyes of the Empress Dowager

Lai Chuanwu graduated from the German Army University and was one of the first military cadets sent by the Qing Dynasty. It was not Li Hongzhang or the emperor who selected Lai Chuanwu, but the Empress Dowager Buddha.

So far, the selection of students from the Qing Dynasty to foreign countries is limited to the military. It has been five years since the first batch of students went abroad, but the total number of students studying abroad is no more than 20.

This is an extremely difficult step taken by the Qing Dynasty. Because, in the minds of the Chinese people, the ancient Chinese civilization to study abroad is a despicable business of humiliating the country and humiliating their ancestors. Students who go abroad are shameless people who recognize thieves as their fathers. Guo Chongtao is regarded as a traitor just as a British envoy, and those students studying Western studies are even worse than traitors.

Therefore, when Prince Gong proposed to send students to study in the West, there was an uproar between the government and the opposition, and there was a lot of scolding from the important ministers of the imperial court to the local gentry students. Some even wrote a letter with blood and even put it to death. The imperial court is under great pressure.

Finally, under great pressure, the Empress Dowager Cixi made a decision to choose to study abroad. This is a small step for modern China to move towards the world. However, looking at 5,000 years of history, this is a big step taken by China! It marked China, which bears the burden of 5,000 years of civilization, and finally put down its body and humbly learned from the barbarian country in her eyes.

It was precisely the Empress Dowager Cixi who contributed to these 5,000 years of drastic changes!

History is always embarrassing!

Of course, in order to reduce the pressure of public opinion in China, the Qing court had to make some concessions to its subjects and greatly reduce the scale of studying abroad. Prince Gong's ambitious plan for more than 100 people to study abroad every year has been reduced to four or five per year, not in the name of studying abroad.

Lai Chuanwu is the first batch of international students, which was selected by the Empress Dowager herself.

Before that, he was a palace bodyguard with six grades of fame and worked in the Summer Palace.

Lai Chuanwu was unwilling to stay abroad. His reputation is too bad. In the minds of the people, students studying abroad forget their ancestors, and they are not even as good as pigs and dogs.

The Empress Dowager promoted him directly from the sixth-grade bodyguard to the fourth grade and gave him the title of alternate governor. The Empress Dowager personally told him that sending him to Germany was not to learn from foreign devils, but to be an undercover agent to spy on the reality of foreigners. This is an extremely difficult task. Ordinary people are unable to do it. Only those who are loyal and capable to the Qing Dynasty can get this important task.

That is to say, in the eyes of the Empress Dowager, Lai Chuanwu is a bold and loyal person with super ability.

This moved Lai Chuanwu, and now he agreed, vowing to serve the country loyally and be a good undercover agent for the Qing Dynasty! Even if you lose your reputation, you won't hesitate.

The old Buddha can be said to have a wise eye. Lai Chuanwu is very qualified and extraordinary. After arriving in Germany, he was immediately impressed by the superb modern military science of the German Army and learned it like hunger. In the three years of the German Army University, Lai Chuanwu was excellent in academic performance, even surpassing the Western students in the same period, and graduated with excellent results.

Ade, who is now teaching in Tianjin Wubei School, is his classmate, and his grades are far worse than him. And Ed is the military teacher of Zhou Charter, and Lai Chuanwu certainly looks down on Zhou Charter.

After Lai Chuanwu Xuecheng returned to China, he was sent to Tianjin as a soldier in the training army. Lai Chuanwu has no complaints about this.

Because he, a "little soldier", was personally arranged by the Empress Dowager!

Since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the army of the Qing Dynasty has undergone several reforms. The Eight Banners Green Camp is called the National Regular Army. In fact, it has long existed in name. The later rise of the Xianghuai Army has gradually become the main force of the Qing Dynasty army. However, in name, the Xianghuai Army is not a national army, and can only be regarded as a local armed force at most. It even has the nature of private armed. That is to say, the Qing Dynasty actually did not have a national army.

In order to change this situation, the Qing Dynasty, on the one hand, abolished the Xianghuai army to curb this private armed force, and on the other hand, ordered local governments to supervise and prepare for training. The so-called military training is the new army reorganized by the court. The army training is equipped with modern firearms and adopts Western military training methods as much as possible. The imperial court regards military training as the hope of the future Qing Dynasty. Of course, the imperial court should firmly control this army. The best way is to let the sons of Manqing control the military training.

However, it is ironic that the children of the Eight Banners, who are highly loyal in the eyes of the imperial court, are getting worse and worse in practice. They seem to be able to do nothing but walk birds and drink tea. What's worse, military training can't always come out of thin air, and there must be a foundation. Throughout the active army of the Qing Dynasty, only the Xianghuai Army still has a little army, and only the Xianghuai Army has military talents to form a new army. In desperation, the court had to withdraw people from the Xianghuai army to form a training army.

In this way, the army is inextricably linked with the Hunan and Huai armies. Most of the training officers are the direct lineage of Han ministers such as Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang. As a result, the army training rose all over the country, and the court realized that it was a stone and hit its own foot again!

There was no choice but to find a way for the court to put eyeliner in the army and monitor those Han officers, which was also the only way.

Lai Chuanwu is an eyeliner, but he is much higher than other eyeliners. He was personally arranged by the Empress Dowager and has the future of a four-level alternate magistrate! He can talk to the Empress Dowager Buddha directly. Speaking of which, he is a member of the imperial court.

Lai Chuanwu has a special identity, high grade and real ability, so there is a sense of loneliness and pride in his bones. He was extremely loyal to the Qing court, especially the Empress Dowager Cixi, and could not tolerate others pointing fingers at the court, let alone those who broke the rules of the court.

Lai Chuanwu looked down on Zhou Charter in his heart! This Zhou Charter is a deserter in Tianjin Wubei School. Even if he is not a deserter, he has honestly completed all his studies in the school, which is far worse than Lai Chuanwu's qualifications - Lai Chuanwu is a top student of the German Army University! His classmate Ed is the teacher of Zhou Charter.

However, God went too much to let Zhou Charter save his life!

Lai Chuanwu reluctantly owed Zhou Charter a life!

And it was the Zhou Charter that privately adapted the Zhangzi camp and expanded it into an army without the permission of the imperial court, which seriously undermined the rules of the Qing Dynasty.

Lai Chuanwu is extremely angry!

However, Zhangzi Camp is the world of Zhou Charter. The officers and soldiers respect Zhou Charter as gods, and even the Hawu, who called himself a "Qing clan", bowed down to Zhou Charter. Although Lai Chuanwu is a four-grade alternate magistrate, he can openly identify as a sentry chief, and this sentry chief was promoted by Zhou Charter.

Lai Chuanwu was unable to stop Zhou Charter and left Zhang Jun in anger, but he did not go far, but quietly followed Zhangzi Camp and closely monitored the movement of Zhangzi Camp. According to the general law of the Qing army, if a unit loses the control of the imperial court, it will soon become a bandit. If it is small, it will fight for the bandits, and if it is strong, it will dare to challenge the court.

However, Zhou Charter's Zhangzi Camp did not fall into the grass, but went all the way to Pyongyang. It seemed that it was to join the main force of the Qing army in Pyongyang and fight against the Japanese.

This surprised Lai Chuanwu. The Qing army in North Korea had no fighting spirit, and the Qing army in Pyongyang did not want to fight. If it hadn't been for the strict order from above, those Qing officers and soldiers would have dispersed long ago. Zhou Charter's Zhangzi Camp lost contact with the main force of the Qing army and could not get the above order. It could have run back to the west bank of the Yalu River and get out of the war, but they did not do so, but rushed to the battlefield without hesitation!