The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 234: The Court’s Little Tricks
"In short, it all comes down to one sentence. We all, including me, must remember it!"

"If we don't destroy our vanguard army, the foreign devils will never be able to invade our land, kill our people, and plunder our wealth with peace of mind!"

"They must be racking their brains all the time, thinking of how to kill our vanguard army! As long as this war is not over, the foreign devils will not give up either."

A hundred miles away to the west of the capital, Teng Yuzhao was standing on the steps in front of the main hall of the Gu'an County Government, lecturing in a loud and impassioned tone to the fifty or sixty senior generals of the vanguard army who were sitting upright in the courtyard below.

This is a meeting that Teng Yuzhao is convening with officers above the rank of captain from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Mixed Brigade of the Vanguard Army, the Artillery Brigade, the Assault Brigade, the Independent Brigade, the Cavalry Battalion, and other units.

This was also the first time that Teng Yuzhao convened a meeting with so many Vanguard Army officers. This meeting was equivalent to a rectification meeting within the Vanguard Army.

In accordance with Cixi's request, the organizational names of the various units of the vanguard army have been changed back to the organizational names of the Beiyang period in history, which Teng Yuzhao somewhat disliked.

As for the reason why Teng Yuzhao changed the regiment into an association, in addition to the fact that Cixi was not very fond of him, it was also because Xu Tong, the minister of the Grand Council, firmly opposed it this time.

Xu Tong believed that the Qing army could not completely imitate the military organization of foreign countries. It must have the appearance of the Qing army, including the name.

Cixi did not comment on Xu Tong's opposition, but asked Zai Yi to communicate with Teng Yuzhao to resolve the issue.

Zai Yi originally did not care about the name of the vanguard army. No matter what it was called, as long as it could win the war, even if it was called a cat or a dog, Zai Yi would gladly accept it.

However, even Zai Yi, the chief minister of the Grand Council, had no way to deal with this stubborn Xu Tong who was eager to argue to the end. He had to carefully report the whole matter to Wu Peifu and ask Wu Peifu to write a letter to tell Teng Yuzhao that the overall situation should be given priority in this matter. As long as the name was changed, everything else would be easy to handle. He would support Teng Yuzhao in everything at the Grand Council.

Ten days ago, after receiving Wu Peifu's letter, Teng Yuzao readily agreed to Zai Yi's request. In order to avoid confusion in the army, Teng Yuzao decided that the organizational name of the vanguard army would remain unchanged below the battalion, except that the regiment would be changed to a battalion.

Then, Teng Yuzao took the opportunity to turn the first, second and third regiments into associations.

Today, except for those officers who had followed Li Yulin and moved away, almost all the officers above the rank of captain of the vanguard army were sitting in the small square in front of the main hall of the county government.

These people will be the backbone and core of the vanguard army in the future. They are the core strength and hope of the vanguard army.

Teng Yuzhao believed that he now had to start paying close attention to the ideological trends of these generals.

Because the vanguard army has passed the difficult period of its initial establishment and is about to enter a new stage of great development, it is necessary to firmly grasp the thoughts of these middle and senior officers, guide and even ultimately influence their thinking and beliefs. Many things should not only be done now, but also must be put on his agenda.

As for the name of the independent battalion, it is not wrong. It has indeed been organized into a battalion now.

The performance of the independent detachment in Tianjin City was remarkable. With the addition of Cao Futian, who was equivalent to the deputy leader of tens of thousands of Boxers in Tianjin City, Teng Yuzhao felt that it was not justifiable to forcibly suppress this unit to a lower level. Over time, it would easily cause unnecessary criticism.

Therefore, after breaking through to Anping, when Teng Yuzhao saw Li Yulin who had arrived in Anping with a large number of new soldiers, he once again reorganized the vanguard army.

Although it is called a reorganization, in fact it is mainly about adding new soldiers to each unit, then changing the name of the organization, and promoting and supplementing some officers.

During this period, Li Yulin and Sun Shijun spared no effort to provide simple but arduous training to the new recruits in the camp office. In order to train these people into barely qualified combat soldiers as quickly as possible, according to Teng Yuzhao's requirements, the training of new recruits in the camp office was extremely close to actual combat needs. For example, although hand-to-hand combat was carried out with wooden spears, many people were sent to the field hospital every time they trained.

Shooting training also uses live ammunition as much as possible. Of course, captured French Lebel and Japanese Golden Hook rifles and related ammunition are used during training.

Moreover, the daily training volume of these recruits far exceeds the normal range, and they are even designed to form an army as quickly as possible. While strengthening actual combat training, they also consciously reduce the training volume of some training content.

Even so, these recruits can only barely meet the basic requirements of being relatively proficient in shooting, bayonet fighting, and marching.

There is no way, the time is too short, the recruits can only go back to their units to continue their follow-up training.

The three newly formed brigades of the vanguard army were composed of four infantry battalions, one artillery battalion, and a cavalry battalion of more than 500 people, plus five outposts for guards, spies, reconnaissance, communications, and baggage, with a total of more than 9,700 people.

The official designations given to them by the Military Affairs Council were the First, Second, and Third Mixed Brigade of Beiyang Zhili, but Teng Yuzao's mixed brigade was inferior in both numbers and firepower. Although the imperial court abolished the title of the Vanguard Army, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Teng Yuzao thought it was an effort to eliminate his imprint on this unit, but Teng Yuzao didn't care. These subtle tricks were nothing to him for the time being.

After all, Teng Yuzhao is now the general manager of the Beiyang Zhili Military Affairs. As long as he is in this position, not only will this army be under his absolute jurisdiction, he will also have the final say, and all the troops in Zhili will be nominally under his control.

The assault battalion and the independent battalion each have four super-large squadrons of more than 800 people, plus an artillery squadron, and four outposts for guard, reconnaissance, communications, and logistics. Compared with the three main regiments, they have one less special agent outpost. The two battalions have a strength of nearly 5,000 people.

Compared with the three mixed brigades, the artillery squadrons in the two battalion-level units were only equipped with three 57mm Gruson rapid-fire guns and four 37mm rapid-fire guns. According to the plan, the artillery battalions in the three mixed brigades should each have two posts with sixteen 75mm Krupp mountain guns and one post equipped with eight 57mm Gruson rapid-fire guns.

In Teng Yuzhao's opinion, the 37mm rapid-fire cannon was only equivalent to the machine guns of later generations, or even large-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns, and was quite useless.

But these things cannot be discarded, so this time they will all be handed over to these two battalions as disposable weapons. Once the shells are used up, they will be discarded.

However, only eighteen Gruson mountain cannons were found in the Xigu warehouse, so for the time being, they had to equip the first, second, and third regiments with five each. The number was a bit small, but they could only wait until artillery was available in the future to replenish them.

Teng Yuzao had to spend a lot of time and effort on the official rank and organization of Liu Shijiu, Cao Futian and others.

Teng Yuzao originally planned to organize them into a brigade, and promote their military rank to major general, the same as Li Yulin, Liu Yuzhi, Li Xianze, and Hu Dianjia.

However, Zai Yi went back on his word on this issue.

The Grand Council finally only agreed to promote them to the rank of Biaotong, which is the level of a regiment, and their military rank was only agreed to be colonel.

After reading the letter Wu Peifu wrote back, in which he told Teng Yuzhao Zai Yi's cryptic words, Teng Yuzhao finally understood the court's intentions.

In addition, Liu Bingyi's Guard Battalion, which followed Li Yulin's Camp Office, was also reorganized into the Vanguard Army Guard Battalion.

The artillery regiment was also changed to an artillery brigade. This time the move was quite large. Not only was it organized into three artillery battalions, but the artillery was also adjusted.

Except for the remaining sixteen 75mm mountain guns in Teng Yuzhao's hands, which were organized into a second battalion, the 75mm field guns of the original first battalion were handed over to Li Yulin for storage. Like the third battalion, all of them were replaced with 60mm field guns, with sixteen guns in each battalion.

Although the 60mm field gun was more powerful and had a greater range than the 75mm field gun, Teng Yuzhao was helpless because the 75mm Krupp field gun was a bit heavy. Even after being disassembled, its gun carriage and barrel were not something that a horse could carry. Even foreign horses, which were much stronger, were not strong enough to carry it, so it could only be pulled by horses.

If it is in a plain area, it is okay, but if it is in a hilly area or even a mountainous area, it will seriously slow down the marching speed of the troops.

Moreover, these artillery pieces found in the Xigu warehouse cannot be discarded. Among the captured Allied ammunition, there are many shells of various calibers. It would be a pity to dismantle all of them and remove the gunpowder.

Therefore, Teng Yuzhao had no choice but to reluctantly give up and temporarily put away these heavy field guns and replace them with 60mm caliber ones. After these field guns were disassembled, the horses could barely carry them, but two horses were required to take turns to carry them.

The cavalry regiment did not take this opportunity to form a cavalry association. In addition to the fact that the cavalry of the vanguard army did not yet have the ability to engage in large-scale cavalry battles with the cavalry of the great powers, Teng Yuzao also wanted to restrict the development of the cavalry regiment and suppress Xue Qian's official rank.

Teng Yuzhao is not short of war horses now. He has more than 2,000 Don horses in his hands.

When the vanguard army had no shortage of war horses, the best reason to justify suppressing Xue Qian's official rank was that the mixed brigade formed a cavalry battalion.

As for Xue Qian, Teng Yuzao is prepared to give him another chance just like he did to Sun Shijun. The key lies in whether Xue Qian can endure the loneliness and stand the test.

If Teng Yuzhao's requirements were not met, he could simply establish the Second Cavalry Battalion, the Third Cavalry Battalion, or even the Fourth Cavalry Battalion based on the three mixed cavalry battalions.

The reorganized vanguard army now has nearly 60,000 people, but most of them are new recruits who have never been on the battlefield. Although there are a large number of people, their combat effectiveness is much worse than before. In Teng Yuzhao's opinion, it would be good if they can reach half of the previous combat effectiveness of the vanguard army.

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(End of this chapter)