The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 119 He Wants to Be Cao Cao

The Beiyang Telegraph School was also founded by Li Hongzhang at a very early time.

This school was established more than ten years ago. Initially, all the teachers were Danes, but a few years ago, the teaching work was completely taken over by Chinese people. Over the years, the "Telegraph School" has trained two to three thousand telegraph talents for the country. Now all the people who send and receive telegraphs across the country have been trained in this school.

Telecommunications technology was absolutely high-tech at that time. Although these people only knew simple telecommunications knowledge, the sending and receiving of telegrams, and simple cryptographic knowledge, at that time, they were already considered high-tech talents even in the West. How could Teng Yuzhao let go of such people? These people were not only of great use now, but would also become important aids to Teng Yuzhao in realizing his grand ideals in the future.

However, Li Yulin and Wei Jinghai had no idea what Teng Yuzhao was thinking. So they were dumbfounded when they heard that Master Qian would give him a commission of 100 taels for every person he contacted.

Li Yulin asked tentatively, "Xingfu, we only need military talents who know how to fight. Are the people in the Telegraph School of the University of Science and Technology of China of no use to us?"

Teng Yuzao seemed to be in a very excited mood and shook his head and said, "Qionglin, you are wrong. These people are talents of our country, how can they be useless! Let me give you an example, take the students of the Telegraph School. If we have these people, do you think if we connect a copper wire to the telegraph line and connect it to a telegraph machine, will we be able to know the content of the telegrams sent by the coalition forces? In that case, even the orders and arrangements of the highest commander of the coalition forces, we may know them clearly. Do you think it will be useful?"

"Also, we should take a long-term view of things. We can't just look at the present, we need to look at the long-term."

"The mountains are never too high, the seas are never too deep. Only by attracting talents can our vanguard army continue to prosper and develop."

Li Yulin and Wei Jinghai were still pondering the meaning of Teng Yuzhao's words "We should take a long-term view of things", but unexpectedly, Teng Yuzhao then threw out a famous line from Cao Cao's "Short Song", which made their hearts tremble suddenly, and they almost thought of the same sentence in their hearts.

"Could it be that he wants to be Cao Cao?"

Li Yulin and Wei Jinghai had such an idea because Cao Cao's poem "Short Song" followed the sentence "The mountains are never too high, the sea is never too deep." and then "Duke Zhou spits out food to feed his guests, and the world is at peace."

Although Teng Yuzhao is now a second-rank official, he is a military official after all, which is inferior to the third or fourth-rank civil officials, let alone the prime minister of the dynasty. But now he actually has the ambition to be the capital, how can this not surprise the two of them.

After Teng Yuzhao said the last sentence, he seemed to be smoking casually, but he had been observing the expressions of the two men out of the corner of his eye. Li Yulin was only slightly startled, and then he immediately returned to normal. After Wei Jinghai was startled, there was even a hint of joy on his face.

Teng Yuzao sighed in his heart, "I don't want to be Cao Cao. What I want to do is... Don't misunderstand my meaning."

"My Lord, I also have something to report."

Wei Jinghai quickly recovered and said, "According to the report from the scouts I sent out, yesterday evening, Ma Yukun and Cao Futian and their men launched a series of fierce attacks on the Laolongtou Railway Station, forcing the Russian troops in the train station to raise a white flag for negotiations. They saw through the Russian army's trick of stalling for time and waiting for their reinforcements, and continued to attack fiercely. They once occupied the train station, but it was soon recaptured by the Russian army with reinforcements."

"Before this morning, the Laolongtou Railway Station had changed hands several times. The fighting there was very fierce..." At five o'clock in the morning, Teng Yuzhao, who was lying on a camp bed in his clothes, was awakened from his sleep by the loud wakeup call and opened his sleepy eyes with difficulty.

Teng Yuzhao has never felt so tired since he became a researcher at the Military Academy in his previous life.

When he just woke up, for a moment, Teng Yuzhao wanted to open his eyes and find out that what he was doing now was just an illusion and a dream. At the same time, the thought flashed through his mind: how wonderful it would be if he could go back to his past life!
After returning from the warehouse, Teng Yuzhao went to bed in a hurry without delay. He had not had a good sleep in the past few nights and could only sleep for one or two hours every night. The newly established vanguard army had a lot of things to do and he had to worry about everything. He was really too tired.

Although there would be no drill this morning as the troops were eager to reorganize, and the reorganization matters would be handled by Li Yulin, Wei Jinghai, Li Xianze and others, and there was no need for him to show up, but when he heard the faint sound of Liu Shijiu cursing loudly and angrily outside, urging everyone in the Qian Group to get up quickly, Teng Yuzhao still gritted his teeth and got up.

Although Teng Yuzao did not look at the watch, he could calculate based on the flag-raising and lowering times in the capital in late June in his previous life, and the fact that the latitude difference between Tianjin and the capital was less than 1°, and the longitude difference was about 1°, that the sunrise time in Tianjin would be about 4 minutes earlier than that in the capital, which means that the sun would rise before : in the morning. At this time, the golden morning light shone into the room through the window glass, and the room had become very bright.

In the late Qing Dynasty, although glass windows were far from popular in large coastal cities such as Tianjin and Shanghai, they had already been common in some wealthy and prestigious families. The small courtyard where Teng Yuzhao lives now is located in the military camp in the Xigu warehouse area.

This was the original residence of the commander of the military training camp. It was located just behind the large parade ground, in the main house in a small courtyard with a wall. The main house was fully equipped with glass windows.

Teng Yuzhao walked to the eight-immortals table on the ground, reached out to take the cup on the table, and couldn't help but smile bitterly as he touched the cold cup.

In his previous life, he had the habit of drinking hot tea in the morning, but now he can only make do with it for now.

Teng Yuzhao drank the boiled water in the cup with one gulp. After the cool boiled water went down his throat, he felt much better.

There was a gentle knock on the door. Teng Yuzhao knew that it was the sound of him getting up that alarmed the guard on duty outside, so he shouted outside.

"come in."

Following Teng Yuzao's voice, Wu Peifu, who had already changed into the epaulettes of a major, walked in from the outer room with two guards carrying basins and toiletries.

In the Wuwei Army system, all soldiers below the rank of platoon leader had to wear leg wraps. Even though Wu Peifu had just arrived yesterday, Teng Yuzao had assigned him the rank of captain, which he had created in the vanguard army, and his military uniform was also issued.

But Wu Peifu was still not used to wearing leather boots for the first time, so he did not change into leather boots yesterday. But today, not only did he change into the rank of major, he also wore leather boots on his feet, looking very majestic.

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(End of this chapter)