The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 293 Everyone has his own ambitions
"My dear leaders, I welcome you all to join the Vanguard Army, but let's be frank. The Vanguard Army has very strict discipline, but if you violate it, not only will you be punished, you will be shot, for one thing;"

"Secondly, although you can temporarily become an officer by joining the Vanguard Army, you must learn the tactics and methods of modern hot weapon combat as soon as possible. Only by mastering these can you have a place in the Vanguard Army. Otherwise, you can only be a soldier in the end. You must think clearly about this."

"Think it over carefully. As long as my brothers and I can focus on fighting the foreign devils, it's fine." Someone shouted.

"Okay, now that you have decided, those who want to join the Vanguard Army should stand next to Wang Decheng, those who want to go to Guandong should stand on the right side of the street, and those who want to find their own way should stand on the left side of the street."

Following Teng Yuzao's shout, three groups of people immediately formed.

The largest number of people gathered around Wang Decheng, followed by those who gathered on the right side of the street to go outside the Great Wall. There were only three leaders following Liu Zhigang and Zhou Zhan.

When Teng Yuzhao saw this result, he was not only satisfied but also relieved. Only a few people were unwilling to join the vanguard army. Even if they made trouble, it would not be too difficult to deal with them.

Teng Yuzao added, "For those who join the Vanguard Army, Liu Shijiu and Wang Decheng will be in charge of registering and finding a resettlement location as soon as possible, and the decision on how to resettle them will be made later."

"Those who are going to Kanto must also register their numbers immediately, and then we will issue you guns and ammunition."

"Finally, I want to emphasize one point."

Teng Yuzao's tone became stern. "Those who are going to Guandong or seeking their own way out must leave the city tonight. In order to avoid misunderstandings, you must inform us in advance and we will arrange for you to leave the city."

"In a word, if you want to leave, leave as soon as possible. Otherwise, I am afraid that I will receive an imperial decree soon. If you haven't left the city by then, it will be difficult for me, Teng."

The process of incorporating the Boxers went generally smoothly.

Nearly 40,000 people have joined the vanguard army, temporarily led by Wang Decheng and Zhu Kaishan, but these people are not handed over to these two people as the situation is somewhat special now.

Teng Yuzhao is not clear about the casualties of the troops yet, but he still needs to replenish several troops.

In addition, Teng Yuzhao does not have that many military talents at his disposal now. If he expands the establishment of the vanguard army, he will already be unable to cope with it. At least there is an extreme shortage of grassroots officers.

Although he had recruited a large number of students from the Military Academy and the Field Academy, and even all officers above the rank of platoon leader were initially from these two places, and each position was equipped with one or two, or at most three, deputies, the army was expanding so rapidly that it is no longer possible to meet such standards.

The platoon level, which is very important in the army, has long been in deficit as a grassroots officer. Now many platoon-level officers in the army are soldiers from the battalion that Teng Yuzhao initially led. Many squad leaders of that battalion have become deputy sentries.

If he wanted to expand the organization further, such as setting up a few more brigades, even if he put these tens of thousands of people into one brigade, he would not have so many officers available.

The camp school that is now attached to Li Yulin's camp office has shortened the academic system in accordance with Teng Yuzhao's requirements, opened special training classes, and accelerated the training of students, but it still takes time after all, and distant water cannot quench immediate thirst.

Therefore, Teng Yuzao had no choice but to organize them first and make arrangements after understanding the casualties of each unit.

Although there were only a few Boxer leaders who were heading to Guandong, Teng Yuzhao was shocked when he counted the number of people. There were nearly five thousand people following them.

And there were actually over 10,000 people who were leaving with Liu Zhigang and Zhou Zhan.

These were not all Liu Zhigang and Zhou Zhan's people. There were also five small groups of Boxers affiliated with them. In addition, there were those who were unwilling to join the vanguard army or go to Guandong. People who had separated from these two groups of Boxers also joined them.

According to statistics, the total number of Boxers was 55,000 to 56,000, which is somewhat different from the record of 80,000 in previous life documents.

However, Teng Yuzao did not think that the recorded data was wrong. He believed that this was probably because the court no longer allowed the existence of the Boxers, which were not official groups, last month, and that some Boxers withdrew from the capital or disbanded.

The battlefields of the Outer City and Qihua Gate had been cleaned up. The weapons and ammunition on the battlefield and all the supplies and property needed by the vanguard army had also been collected and sorted out. The bodies of the Japanese and British and American allied forces were also moved to the outside of Qihua Gate and Guangqu Gate by the newly incorporated Boxers and the Boxers going to Guandong, waiting for the allied forces to take them away.

Because the vanguard army and the Gansu army cooperated in fighting at Dongbianmen and Qihuamen, the Gansu army witnessed the bravery of the vanguard army. The leader of the Gansu army who stayed in Beijing, the nominal general Ma Fulu, specially came to the Ministry of Revenue to pay a visit to Teng Yuzhao, which was regarded as an acknowledgement of Teng Yuzhao and expressed his willingness to accept Teng Yuzhao's command in person.

After negotiation, the Gansu Army agreed to give up the defense of the East City and only be responsible for the defense of the Forbidden City and the northern city of the inner city.

The cooperation of the Gansu Army made Teng Yuzhao feel much more at ease. Since it was inconvenient to keep Ma Fulu for dinner, Teng Yuzhao specially asked Wei Jinghai to bring two thousand taels of silver to Ma Fulu, which made Ma Fulu express his gratitude and go back to hand over the defense.

Teng Yuzhao still admired Ma Fulu very much. In history, Ma Fulu was the general of the Qing army who eventually died in the battle at Zhengyang Gate, so Teng Yuzhao treated him with great courtesy.

After winning several great victories in one day, it was natural to reward the officers and soldiers.

But the vanguard troops arrived in a hurry today and did not have much food.

Although there was no shortage of food in the city at this time, there were several large granaries that were unattended. It was natural for them to be taken over by the vanguard army, but everything else was gone.

Although there were still more than 100,000 people left in the inner city, most of the merchants had left the city to avoid the war. The market in the city was very depressed, with only a few small businesses still operating. It was impossible to buy large quantities of vegetables and meat.

Fortunately, Wu Peifu stayed in the capital, and as for the pigs and sheep that had not been delivered to Gu'an in time, Wei Jinghai sent people to Xicheng to buy some vegetables to prepare dinner.

The dinner was both sumptuous and simple. It was sumptuous because everyone in the vanguard army had a portion of braised pork, and each person had a full bowl of it.

To put it simply, there is only this one meat dish, and the only vegetable is cabbage soup, and each person is given a piece of salted radish.

The staple food is white rice and white flour buns.

In addition to the vanguard troops, according to Teng Yuzhao's instructions, the food for the Boxers who were going to Guandong would be the same as that of the vanguard troops.

The Boxers were besieging foreigners in the capital, and although the court provided them with food and wages, the meals were very ordinary. They had meat a few times a month, but the amounts were very small. This time, each of them had a big bowl of meat, which made the Boxers who had just joined the vanguard army eat with great joy.

Even those who were going to Guandong praised Teng Yuzao as a good official who was righteous.

As for Liu Zhigang, Zhou Zhan and their group, Teng Yuzao could not take care of them.

Teng Yuzhao did not have any good feelings towards these people. They said they were going to fight the foreign devils, but they could fight the foreign devils as much as they wanted in the vanguard army, or go to Guandong, but they no longer had the intention to do so.

Teng Yuzhao even thought that these people had infiltrated the Boxer Rebellion for ulterior motives, and he was too lazy to pay attention to such people.

These Boxers all had their own kitchens. Since they couldn't buy much, their meals were much simpler, just steamed buns and pickles.

The Boxers led by Zhou Zhan and Liu Zhigang were both official groups. The imperial court supplied them with food and wages. Although the quantity was not large, they were not short of food.

Probably as they were about to leave the capital, they also went out to purchase things, but as they could not buy anything, they had arguments with the shop owners of several shops that were still open, and even beat people up. Fortunately, a patrol team of the vanguard army passed by and stopped it in time.

The person who beat people would naturally be arrested and punished, which attracted a large group of Boxers to come and try to rob people, which caused a serious confrontation. Finally Liu Zhigang arrived and compensated the shop owner with a few taels of silver, and then they gave up.

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(End of this chapter)