1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 165 Appointment issued, set off north to meet the eldest brother, Yuan Shikai invited
After the imperial meeting on the new policy in the Yiluan Hall ended, the functional departments of the Qing government began to operate at high speed.

Orders were issued in the form of imperial decrees to all provinces, prefectures and counties across the country.

Officials at all levels were required to carry out the orders.

At the same time, telegrams were sent to foreign envoys in the name of the Qing central government to demonstrate the achievements of the Qing Dynasty's reforms.

The new policy ministers will discuss major issues such as the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Education, and the abolition of the imperial examination system, and finally announce it to the whole country.

Of course, such a big thing will not be accomplished overnight, and it will take at least half a year to polish.

However, many things can be started or prepared in advance.

On April 1903, 4, Li Qiwei received a notice from the Ministry of Personnel.

He was asked to go to Beijing to meet the emperor before May 5, and then register with the Ministry of Personnel to be appointed as Deputy Minister of Education.

There were several situations in which officials were appointed in the Qing Dynasty, but no matter what the method was, only the emperor and the Ministry of Personnel had the power to appoint officials.

The Ministry of Personnel had no say in the appointment of senior officials, such as grand secretaries, ministers of various ministries, vice ministers, governors-general, provincial governors, and provincial governors.

This power is unique to the emperor and is officially called "special appointment". It means that the emperor can directly appoint senior officials without going through any procedures, and of course he can also appoint lower-level officials.

Guangxu appointed Li Qiwei as Deputy Minister of Education, using power granted by special decree.

There is another situation where the Ministry of Personnel compiles a list of officials and then the emperor makes the final decision. This form is called "listing."

If the emperor disagrees with the Ministry of Personnel's decision, the people on the list cannot take office.

Therefore, the power of the Ministry of Personnel in the Qing Dynasty was very limited, and it could basically only appoint middle and lower-level officials.

However, there are a large number of middle and lower-level officials with complex compositions. If the Ministry of Personnel wants to arrange them in appropriate positions, it must treat them differently according to their different circumstances.

There are six specific situations, called "six classes".

The first type is Chuban, which refers to the class of officials who first enter the officialdom. No matter how they enter the officialdom, they must enter Chuban and wait for their first appointment.

There are several ways to obtain an official position, including imperial examinations, imperial favors, donations, special decrees, etc.

Of course, if one is not born through the imperial examination, he will need to undergo many examinations, his ranking will be at the bottom, and the official position he is assigned will also be of lower rank.

The second type is a make-up official, which means that the official already held an official position, but temporarily left the post for some reason, and now has returned and needs to be reappointed.

The third type is transfer, which means that the official's rank remains unchanged, but he is transferred to another position in the same government office, which is generally a promotion.

The fourth type is changing classes. Compared with transferring classes, changing classes has a wider scope and is not limited to the current yamen.

The fifth type is promotion, which is easy to understand, that is, promotion, which is the dream of all officials.

The sixth type is shift transfer, which refers to certain special positions. If the original incumbent leaves, a specific official will be needed to transfer.

This type of situation generally involves highly professional positions, such as water transport, river channels, and the Imperial Observatory.

Although Li Qiwei was an official specially appointed by Emperor Guangxu, he still needed to register with the Ministry of Personnel and go through the procedures.

In his case, he took up the position by taking time off from work, but the position had already been determined in advance.

The reason why Li Qiwei wanted to understand the official appointment system of the Qing Dynasty was to get official positions for He Yujie and others in the future.

In this way, our Huangpu University of Technology can reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Although the Qing Dynasty officials only had a shelf life of eight years at most, it would be a shame to not use them.

So, Li Qiwei took Li San, who had already returned, and set out on the journey north. He decided to meet Guangxu.

He wanted to see what was so special about the emperors of the feudal era.

As for my own safety, there is no need to worry about it for now.

None of the forces defined him as a dangerous person, just a technical official.

Since he had plenty of time, Li Qiwei decided to go find his elder brother Li Bokai first after arriving in the capital.

On May 5, Li Qiwei and Li San got off the boat in Tanggu, and then the master and servant rushed to the capital, preparing to go to the location of the new army first.

The so-called New Army of the Qing Dynasty also underwent a series of changes.

In 1894, after the Qing Dynasty was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War of -, in order to maintain its rule, it began to imitate Western methods to reorganize the old army and train a new army.

In the same year, the Qing Dynasty appointed Hu Lun (pronounced Yu) Fen (pronounced Fen) as the Censor of Guangxi, to train a new army in Machang, Tianjin, called the "Dingwu Army", with a total of 4750 people.

In October 1895, the Dingwu Army’s garrison was moved from Machang to Xiaozhan, and military training in Xiaozhan began.

In December of the same year, Yuan Shikai took over the training of the Dingwu Army, re-established various new military systems, and hired German officers to serve as instructors.

He reorganized and expanded the Dingwu Army, bringing its number to 7000, and renamed it the "New Army."

During the same period, the Qing Dynasty also formed new armies in other places.

Among them were Nie Shicheng's "Wuyi Army" and Dong Fuxiang's "Gansu Army". These two armies, together with Yuan Shikai's newly established army, were collectively known as the Three Beiyang Armies.

In order to strengthen the defense of the capital, Cixi decided to establish a new army to guard the capital.

In December 1898, the Qing Dynasty appointed Ronglu, the Grand Councilor, as the commander-in-chief, and reorganized the Beiyang Army and part of the old army to form the "Wuwei Army."

This is also the origin of the Beiyang warlords in later generations.

The Wuwei Army was divided into five armies: front, back, left, right and center. Among them, Yuan Shikai's new army was organized into the "Wuwei Right Army", but its internal organization remained basically unchanged.

While the capital was training its new army, each province also began to organize and train its own new army.

For example, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, founded the Self-Strengthening Army, and Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang, also founded the New Army.

In 1899, Yuan Shikai's Wuwei Right Army was ordered to be transferred from Xiaozhan, Tianjin to Shandong for defense.

This enabled him to avoid the subsequent invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance and retain his strength, which became his greatest political asset in the future.

Moreover, in Shandong Province, he expanded the Wuwei Right Army in the name of suppressing bandits, bringing its number to nearly 20,000, making it the strongest army in the Qing Dynasty at that time.

In 1901, Yuan Shikai succeeded Li Hongzhang and, at the age of 42, served as acting Governor-General of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang, which was a miracle in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty.

His Wuwei Right Army also left Shandong with him and went to the capital, stationed in Nanyuan of the capital, becoming the army to protect the court.

In 1902, the conflict between Japan and Russia intensified. In order to strengthen the northeastern border defense, the Qing Dynasty ordered Yuan Shikai to expand the new army in order to expand the garrison area.

Therefore, Yuan Shikai sent Wang Shizhen to recruit 6,000 able-bodied men and brought them to Baoding for training, calling them the "Newly Trained Army."

In real history, in 1904, the Qing Dynasty established the General Military Training Office (Yixin had already proposed it) to be responsible for training the new army.

The Qing court appointed Yixin as the head of the military training department, while Yuan Shikai was the actual manager.

The military system was formally defined, and the army was divided into three levels: regular army, reserve army, and reserve army, with their treatment decreasing in sequence.

Then, at the suggestion of Yuan Shikai, the Qing Dynasty planned to use the Beiyang New Army as the central army and the new army of each province as the local army, and to train 36 new army regiments across the country.

Each town had a quota of 12512 officers and soldiers (equivalent to a division in later times), consisting of infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineering, and logistics. The management levels were divided from top to bottom:

Town (commander), assistant (assistant commander), flag (flag commander), battalion (commander-in-chief), team (team officer), platoon (platoon leader), tent (tent leader).

In 1905, Yuan Shikai's Wuwei Right Army was reorganized into the "Fourth Regiment of the Beiyang Regular Army", which was also the core of his later Beiyang Six Regiments.

Among the six regiments, except for the first regiment which was commanded by the Manchu Tie Liang, the commanders of the other five regiments were all Yuan Shikai's confidants.

From then on, Yuan Shikai had a solid foundation for dominating the world.

Dingwu Army, New Army, Wuwei Right Army, and Beiyang Regular Army.

The history of the New Army is the history that accompanies the rise of Yuan Shikai.

Li Qiwei's elder brother, Li Bokai, had already followed Yuan Shikai when they were training troops in Xiaozhan.

Now he is stationed with the army in Nanyuan, the capital.

As the commander of a battalion, Li Bokai spent almost all his time in the barracks and could not travel freely.

Moreover, he is strict with himself and sets an example.

So, even though Li Qiwei returned from abroad and the two brothers hadn't seen each other for six years, he did not ask for leave, but performed his duties conscientiously.

However, when Li Qiwei took the initiative to find him, the situation was different.

The garrison of the Wuwei Right Army.

"Third brother!"

"Big brother!"

Li Bokai looked at Li Qiwei with surprise. He was still wondering why the guard had just informed him that someone was looking for him.

I didn't expect that it was my third brother who came.

He had always regretted not being able to welcome Li Qiwei, and now that they met, he would definitely drink and talk all night long.

And it was also the first time that Li Qiwei really saw the eldest brother. It was indeed the new army, which was completely different from the Eight Banners Army of the Qing Dynasty.

Li Bokai was wearing a handsome military uniform with neat short hair, looking heroic and imposing.

"Brother, you are so majestic now."

"One captain probably has to supervise hundreds of people."

Li Bokai was tall, with a face that had become tough and weathered due to his military career. He laughed so hard that Li Qiwei's ears hurt.

"Third brother, if it comes to essays, I'm not as good as you, but when it comes to martial arts, I'm still a little bit more confident, haha."

"I now have about 600 men under my command, all of them are my good brothers."

Li Bokai's generous character makes him very prestigious among the grassroots, and everyone is willing to listen to what this captain Li says.

After hearing what Li Bokai said, Li Qiwei also admired his elder brother very much.

Nowadays, it is easy to be a boss, but it is not easy to gain the trust and obedience of subordinates.

Although Li Bokai had not received orthodox military education, he had figured out his own way of leading troops.

At the same time, Li Qiwei had strange thoughts in his mind.

Perhaps the hundreds of people under Big Brother will be able to play a key role in the future.

Sooner or later he will go out on his own and build a city of science overseas, forming his own independent entity.

Of course, a certain military foundation is needed in the early stages, and perhaps you can consider persuading the big brother.

When troubled times come, everything is empty and only the soldiers in your hands are real.

When a scholar encounters a soldier, he cannot explain why.

Before Li Qiwei develops absolute military power, it is still necessary for him to have a certain self-protection ability.

Although later on, he will cooperate with the country and seek asylum.

But when you are just starting your business, you can't rely on anyone except your blood relatives.

Even if they are not relatives, they must be fellow townsmen or close friends.

Yuan Shikai also relied on this method when he formed a new army team in Xiaozhan.

Xu Shichang, who managed the General Staff Office, was his friend from his youth;

Liu Yongqing, the general manager of the Food and Pay Bureau, was his cousin;
The commander of the Second Infantry Battalion was Wu Changchun, an old subordinate of his in Korea, who later served as the commander of the Fifth Beiyang Regiment;
Wu Fengling, the officer of the rear corps of the first battalion of the cavalry, was the son of a servant of the Yuan family and later served as the commander of the fourth Beiyang regiment.
Later, more top students who graduated from the Military Academy joined and became the backbone of the new army, which made the new army completely new and truly professional.

But now, Li Qiwei would definitely not discuss this matter with Li Bokai.

Just as he was about to speak, Li Bokai said first: "Third brother, I will treat you tonight at the Eighth Building. We two brothers will not leave until we are drunk."

"But now, you have to come with me to meet someone."

Li Qiwei was puzzled and asked, "Who is it?"

Uncle Li said with a smile: "Our commander-in-chief invites you."

"Just now when I came out, I was summoned by the Marshal, who asked me to keep you to see him."

"Third brother, you are so influential that the Marshal personally invited you."

Li Bokai also admired his third brother very much.

In his heart, Marshal Yuan was the Governor-General of Zhili and the helmsman of the New Army. Even if his third brother was a British knight, there was still a considerable gap in their status.

If the Marshal has a good impression of the third brother, then wouldn't he be able to benefit from it as well? Captain Li began to dream.

Li Qiwei was just stunned and didn't feel any excitement. Yuan Shikai actually wanted to see him.

I am a scientist and you are the leader of a new army. No matter how you look at it, we have nothing in common. I don't know what the other party is up to.

My current status and honor are probably not enough for Yuan Shikai.

Li Qiwei didn't know what attracted him to him.

However, he was prepared to meet Yuan Shikai.

When we come to this era, we have to meet those legendary figures in history.

So he followed Li Bokai towards where Yuan Shikai was.

(End of this chapter)