The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 17: Shifting the blame
"But I have a request," Major Luke shouted.

"We will surrender, but I need you to promise to guarantee the safety of my life and the lives of my soldiers, and to promise not to hand us over to the Boxers."

Teng Yuzao replied, "Major Luke, I can assure you and your soldiers with my personality that I will not only ensure your safety, but I will also not hand you over to the Boxers. In addition, I will abide by the International Red Cross Convention to treat your wounded. As long as you surrender immediately, all wounded soldiers will receive timely treatment. After our treatment, I will also send the seriously injured back to the concession. In the concession, you should have better medical treatment methods, and I believe this will be very helpful in saving their lives!"

Teng Yuzao was unwilling to leave behind the seriously wounded soldiers of the coalition forces. He did not have so many precious medicines and personnel to treat and care for them. To put it bluntly, Teng Yuzao would not waste his limited resources on these invaders.

Moreover, although he hated these invaders very much, he absolutely could not kill prisoners, at least not openly.

At this moment, soldiers from Liu Yuzhi's outpost had climbed up from the houses on both sides of the street, as well as some people in black uniforms. Teng Yuzhao recognized that these people were students of the Beiyang Military Academy. As soon as they climbed onto the roofs, they pointed the black muzzles of their guns at the Allied Forces below.

Moreover, Liu Yuzhi's soldiers began to appear behind the street.

As the commanders of both sides were discussing the terms of surrender, the dozen or so Allied soldiers who were blocking them from behind did not dare to shoot. However, Liu Yuzhi ignored this and directed the students of the Military Academy and his subordinates to take advantage of the fact that the Allied forces did not dare to shoot and pressed forward step by step. Soon, they forced the dozen or so Allied soldiers who were sniping from behind into the street. Liu Yuzhi quickly commanded the soldiers and students to set up positions on street corners and even rooftops and completely surrounded the more than one hundred Allied soldiers.

Teng Yuzhao secretly praised Liu Yuzhi for his decisiveness in seizing the opportunity.

The Allied soldiers who were blocked in the street were now completely under the all-round rifle fire of the vanguard army. Major Luke no longer had any bargaining chips. If he did not surrender, he would be immediately sprayed with bullets from all directions, and there was only one way out, which was death.

Fortunately, the other commander had agreed to his conditions. Major Luke prayed silently in his heart, hoping that the other party would not go back on his word!

As Major Luke's order was issued, the remaining more than one hundred coalition soldiers who were not dead placed their rifles, pistols, officers' sabers, and bullet boxes on the street, and then walked out of their hiding places tremblingly and raised their hands.

Seeing that Major Luke had indeed restrained his troops and surrendered, Teng Yuzhao jumped down from the roof, and ordered Li Yulin and his left sentry soldiers to rush into the street immediately, began to confiscate the weapons of the coalition forces, and escorted the surrendered coalition forces to the open space at the city gate, except for the people on the roofs on both sides of the street and the people on the city walls who continued to remain on guard.

Immediately, he ordered two medical officers to quickly treat the wounded, and strictly ordered the medical officers to treat not only the wounded of the vanguard army, but also the wounded Allied soldiers immediately.

Although the two medical officers were extremely reluctant, they dared not disobey Teng Yuzhao's orders. With the help of the soldiers sent by Li Yulin, they began to treat the wounded soldiers of the vanguard army and at the same time began to bandage and treat the wounded Allied soldiers.

These two medical officers were not traditional Chinese medicine doctors in China, but graduates of the Beiyang Naval Medical School. Not only were they not traditional Chinese medicine doctors, but the battalion Chinese medicine officers of several units in the Wuwei Army were also graduates of the Beiyang Naval Medical School.

The Beiyang Naval Medical School was founded six years ago by Li Hongzhang, the former Beiyang Minister and Governor-General of Zhili. This was another great contribution made by Li Hongzhang to the Qing court to try its best to keep up with the world. Now the Beiyang General Hospital is in Tianjin, and the Beiyang Naval Medical School is the affiliated school of this hospital.

The two medical officers in Teng Yuzhao's camp were just students who had just graduated. Although they had mastered the Western medical knowledge of the era, since Western medicine was not recognized by the domestic people, they could only come to the army. After all, Western medicine was still incomparable to Chinese medicine in the treatment of surgical trauma.

However, due to their lack of experience and the lack of conditions for surgery in the camp, the seriously injured soldiers of the vanguard army who need surgery now need to be sent to Tianjin City, where the Beiyang Drug Storage and Medical General Hospital is capable of performing general surgical treatment.

However, the situation was different for the seriously injured coalition soldiers. They were simply bandaged and placed aside.

Major Luke, with a bandage on his head, was brought in front of Teng Yuzao by Li Yulin and two soldiers who were still eyeing him eagerly.

However, Major Luke was in a rather disheveled state at this time. The white bandage on his head was still oozing blood, and his hat had a hole in it from Teng Yuzhao's bullet. However, he still wore it on his head because the dignity of the British Army needed to be maintained.

Major Luke was a tall and thin British man in his thirties. When he saw Teng Yuzhao, Luke held his saber in both hands and bent over to hand it to Teng Yuzhao.

"Dear President, I now formally surrender to you, Your Excellency."

Major Luke emphasized the word "surrender", as if he was intentionally reminding Teng Yuzhao not to forget his promise.

In the West, what Major Luke did was very normal. After surrendering, the commander of the highest rank personally handed over the sword that symbolized their command power. This was a necessary ceremony.

Although Teng Yuzao was not impressed by the somewhat hypocritical gentleman etiquette of the West, he still solemnly took the saber handed over by Luke and handed it to Liu Bingyi behind him.

"Major Luke, you have fulfilled your duties as a commander. Because of you, many lives have been saved. I believe that your God will bless you. In particular, your order will be sincerely appreciated by these soldiers and their families."

Major Luke made the sign of the cross on his chest, prayed a few words in a low voice, and then gave Teng Yuzao a British military salute.

Major Luke said with a dejected look, "You are right. These soldiers and their families will be grateful for my order. However, the only one who will not be grateful to me and may even hate me is my family. They will think that I have brought shame to the family. Moreover, this order will leave a dark mark on my military career."

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(End of this chapter)