The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 191 The Reason for Keeping Them

Today's breakfast was very rich. All the soldiers had two meat dishes, a plate of greasy stir-fried pork with green peppers and a plate of scrambled eggs with potato chips.

Moreover, the portions were large and the ingredients were plentiful. There were not just a few slices of meat in the meat dishes, but each weighed three or four taels. This made the soldiers shout and jump with excitement.

Because, since the Russian army occupied Xigu in the north, the vanguard army's source of meat has been greatly restricted.

Although there are no Allied forces in the west for the time being, Cossacks and Japanese cavalry often appear in the west. It is not a big problem for a small group of troops or personnel to go out, but if the number of people is slightly larger, and if they carry a large number of livestock and poultry, it will be impossible for such a large target to not be discovered by the Allied forces.

Now, if you go to the west to purchase these meats, including vegetables, you can only take the boats on the canal and rush back to Tianjin at night.

However, as the Russian army's activities near Xigu gradually expand, I am afraid that transportation on the canal will soon no longer be safe.

Fortunately, when the people of Tianjin were evacuated, the chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep that the people raised themselves, which were inconvenient to take away, and even the meat and other food ingredients from butcher shops and restaurants, as well as many canned foods, were all purchased by the vanguard army as supply reserves for the troops.

In order to facilitate storage, a large amount of braised meat was prepared, so that these young and strong men would have meat to eat at every meal, although most of the time, each person only had a few slices of braised meat per meal.

Therefore, in the past half month, the food of the vanguard army has been much worse than before. It is rare to have such a large amount of meat in a meal, so how can these young soldiers not be excited.

In the wing of the Trade Office, all the senior officers of the Vanguard Army who remained in Tianjin City gathered together uninvited and sat around a large round table.

After Teng Yuzhao came back from the city, he was awakened by Liu Shijiu's loud voice after just taking a nap. Although Teng Yuzhao, who was sitting in the first seat at the moment, was still a little sleepy, when he saw these vigorous generals under his command, his spirits involuntarily perked up.

When Teng Yuzhao thought of having these energetic generals following him, he felt heroic in his heart. As long as these people were still following him, he would dare to risk the world's condemnation and do anything treasonous.

Those who came to Teng Yuzao's place to have breakfast today included not only Wei Jinghai and Wu Peifu, two people close to Teng Yuzao, but also Liu Yuzhi, Li Xianze, Liu Shijiu, Hu Dianjia, Pan Jinshan, Liu Changfa, Lin Lianhui, director of the Vanguard Army Field Hospital, and Lin Liansheng, director of the Vanguard Army Telecommunications Department. They even arranged for someone to call Cao Futian to have breakfast together, which surprised and excited Cao Futian.

This time, Teng Yuzhao volunteered to lead the vanguard army to stay in Tianjin City and treat the wounded in time, and asked Yu Lu to assign the Beiyang Medical and Pharmaceutical General Hospital and the Medical School to the vanguard army for management.

Ever since Li Hongzhang left Beiyang, the funding for the Beiyang Medical Hospital and Medical School has become a major problem, and they often have to go to the Governor's Office to ask for funds.

Yu Lu was naturally happy to get rid of such a burden, so he agreed without hesitation, and immediately issued an official document to Teng Yuzhao, handing over both places to the management of the vanguard army.

Historically, when Yu Lu left Tianjin City, the Beiyang Medical and Pharmaceutical Storage General Hospital was left in Tianjin. The doctors of the hospital, from the director Lin Lianhui to ordinary doctors and nurses, all actively helped treat the soldiers defending the city. They did not leave after Tianjin City was broken.

From this we can see that Yu Lu was disdainful of these people from the bottom of his heart and took them very lightly.

Lin Lianhui was the director of the Beiyang Medical and Pharmaceutical Hospital, and also a regular official of the imperial court with a sixth-rank title. Not only was he the director, but with the strong recommendation and encouragement of Li Hongzhang, all the doctors had the rank of ninth-rank officials.

If Lin Lianhui had not seen the Vanguard Army's victory after victory, which greatly boosted the morale of the citizens, he would not have been willing to come to such a small yamen as the Vanguard Army.

Especially with Yu Lu's official document, Lin Lianhui would naturally not disobey.

In particular, Li Yulin had already contacted the doctors in the hospital privately, and most of them had already agreed to follow the Vanguard Army, so Teng Yuzhao took over the hospital and turned it into the Vanguard Army Field Hospital without encountering any resistance.

Lin Lianhui and Lin Liansheng, both from Guangdong, were not only among the fourth batch of Chinese students studying in the United States, but they were also brothers. Since Teng Yuzao had brought Lin Lianhui to his side, he also brought his younger brother Lin Liansheng, who was now working at the Beiyang Telegraph Bureau, over and appointed him as the director of the telecommunications department of the Vanguard Army.

Lin Liansheng, the Director of Telecommunications, currently also serves as an instructor, helping the Vanguard Army train telegraph students. The main training contents are sending and receiving messages, and the Morse code that is commonly used today.

Teng Yuzao really wanted to start early and accumulate wireless telegraph personnel for future wireless telegraph communications. With Lin Liansheng around, the problem of training personnel was solved.

His elder brother Lin Lianhui was an excellent doctor. It was no exaggeration to say that he was the most famous Western medicine surgeon in the country at that time. He was not only the director of the hospital, but also the general manager and first medical officer of the school. After Li Hongzhang was assassinated by Japanese ronin Koyama Toyotaro in Shimonoseki, Japan, it was Lin Lianhui who followed Li Hongzhang to Japan and provided emergency treatment to Li Hongzhang as soon as possible.

This time, Teng Yuzao even brought more than ten doctors and teachers, including Irving, a British doctor who stayed in the hospital and medical school, and Lin Lutang, a Chinese doctor with higher medical skills, to Xianghe along with Li Yaoting. They were to treat the seriously wounded soldiers of the vanguard army while teaching and cultivating Western medicine talents.

Teng Yuzao naturally respected the brothers Lin Lianhui and Lin Liansheng very much, and he had to keep them by his side. Because not only were they the talents that Teng Yuzao urgently needed, but he also valued their status as Chinese students studying in the United States. With them, Teng Yuzao could recruit more Chinese students studying in the United States to come to him. These people were definitely high-level talents in China, and they were extremely scarce.

Yuan Shikai had already won over talented people who had studied in the United States, such as Tang Shaoyi, so Teng Yuzao would naturally not lag behind. Even Tang Shaoyi, Teng Yuzao was not going to let him go.

The reason for inviting Cao Futian was that Cao Futian had already approached Liu Shijiu several times, hoping that Liu Shijiu could talk to Teng Yuzhao. He also wanted to follow the example of Liu Shijiu and Wang Decheng and join the vanguard army.

Just because the war was tense, Teng Yuzao was eager to train his troops to prepare for street fighting. He did not want to dilute his troops any further, fearing that it would affect the combat effectiveness of the troops, so he just asked Cao Futian to wait a little longer. However, the performance of the Third Regiment tonight made Teng Yuzao change his mind.

Their breakfast was as sumptuous as usual. Although Teng Yuzhao never ate greasy food for breakfast in his previous life, and he even disliked such breakfast, for some reason, perhaps because he had consumed too much energy every day since traveling through time, he felt like he was not full without meat for every meal, even for breakfast.

Although it is said to be rich, in fact, their table only has more braised meat than the soldiers of the vanguard army, such as pork elbows, pork heads, and braised pork liver. Of course, green onions are indispensable. Liu Shijiu, a Shandong native, cannot do without green onions in every meal.

Not only breakfast, in fact, in his previous life, Teng Yuzhao never drank in the morning. But today he made an exception and followed the advice of his generals to celebrate the "lucky" victory in the early morning. He allowed everyone to drink a bowl of wine, and Teng Yuzhao also drank half a bowl.

The alcohol and beverages were also purchased from merchants. After a victory, the soldiers had to be happy, so it was normal to prepare some alcohol.

The atmosphere of breakfast was very lively, and the topic naturally revolved around the battle in South City early this morning.

After hearing Wei Jinghai and Hu Dianjia's proven wise decision about Teng Yuzao based solely on some suspicious actions of the coalition forces, everyone couldn't help but express their sincere gratitude.

In particular, after listening to Wu Peifu's narration of what he and Teng Yuzao had seen while watching the battle in the front, everyone including Liu Shijiu admired Teng Yuzao's god-like decision-making, and the temperature in their eyes when they looked at Teng Yuzao rose several degrees.

This is what Teng Yuzao hopes to see most, especially since the Lin brothers and Cao Futian are present. Teng Yuzao hopes to achieve this level even more, which will encourage them to return to his heart as soon as possible.

"Xingfu, you don't allow us to fight those foreign devils in the city, but we can't keep them forever, there has to be a time, when do you think we should fight them?"

In the early morning battle, the assault brigade did not get the chance to participate in the battle, which made Liu Shijiu anxious and scratching his head for a long time. At this moment, he finally could not bear it anymore and looked at Teng Yuzhao eagerly.

The question Liu Shijiu asked was exactly what Hu Dianjia was eager to know.

Teng Yuzhao did not agree to Hu Dianjia's request to immediately eliminate the Japanese and British allied forces that had advanced into the ruins of the South City.

Teng Yuzao nodded and said, "I didn't explain it clearly on the phone this morning. Now I can tell you that the reason why we don't immediately destroy the remaining coalition forces is that after that section of the city wall collapses, the coalition forces can clearly see the specific location of our positions in the streets and alleys of the city by simply raising observation balloons from outside. If we destroy this coalition force, they will immediately bombard our troops there. This is just one reason."

Teng Yuzao picked up a few slices of braised pork liver and gave them to the Lin brothers. He then looked at Hu Dianjia and continued, "Xuanqing, did you notice that the section of the city wall in the southeast corner is already tilted? As long as a few more shells fall, that section of the city wall will collapse. If we don't temporarily leave this coalition force, the coalition artillery outside the city will continue to bombard the city wall, which will make the breakthrough point bigger and make it more difficult for us to defend."

"As long as this remnant of the coalition forces is here, the coalition forces outside the city will not dare to fire recklessly. The remnant of the coalition forces is less than a hundred meters away from the city wall. If they fire, they may accidentally bomb this group of foreign devils."

As Teng Yuzhao spoke, he looked towards Liu Changfa.

Liu Changfa smiled and said, "Sir, don't look at me. You are very proficient in artillery. In our Beiyang Military Academy, you are more than qualified to be a part-time artillery instructor."

Even so, Liu Changfa still looked at Liu Shijiu and Hu Dianjia and said, "Your Excellency is right. Even after calculation, artillery fire may cause large errors due to various reasons. Errors of dozens of meters are common, and even hundreds of meters are possible."

"Generally speaking, a distance of at least 200 meters is considered safe."

Teng Yuzao nodded and said, "So, why not keep them for now? Once that section of the city wall collapses, it won't be too late for us to deal with them later."

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(End of this chapter)