The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 33 Army Reorganization
Afterwards, Teng Yuzhao appointed a student from the artillery department and three infantry departments as staff officers. Due to staff shortage, the vanguard army's staff office temporarily consisted of only five people including Wei Jinghai.

Everyone was waiting for Teng Yuzao to announce the appointment of battalion commanders. Unexpectedly, Teng Yuzao did not immediately appoint the battalion commanders to be established. Instead, he announced that all the chief officers would be transferred to regular soldiers and that the position of chief officers would no longer be appointed.

Since the current military force is limited and a major war is imminent, the existing combat force cannot be weakened. Therefore, the appointment of the battalion commander will have to wait until the new recruits are trained.

Moreover, not only did the number of new positions not continue to increase, but they were reduced instead.

Teng Yuzhao announced that the front outpost and the left outpost would be merged to form the First Regiment of the Vanguard Army, and the right outpost and the rear outpost would be merged to form the Second Regiment of the Vanguard Army. Since both regiments had only two outposts, there would be no commander for the time being, and there would be no sentry chief. Instead, Liu Yuzhi and Li Xianze were directly appointed as the commanders of the two regiments.

One platoon must be set aside from the six platoons of the two regiments to serve as a fire support platoon. Temporarily, each regiment is equipped with eight heavy machine guns. Although the vanguard army now has only two heavy machine guns, there are thirty-four Maxim heavy machine guns among the weapons and ammunition given to him by little Christian.

Although a 40-man firepower platoon equipped with eight Maxim heavy machine guns was obviously a bit over-equipped, this was also a helpless move by Teng Yuzhao. He had too few people now. The two regiments combined did not have as many troops as a battalion in the West, so for the time being he could only make up for the lack of troops with firepower.

Although it would be inconvenient for a platoon of forty people to be equipped with eight Maxim heavy machine guns, this was the only way for the time being.

Moreover, Teng Yuzhao had enough automatic weapons such as heavy machine guns. In addition to the weapons and ammunition given to him by little Christian, there must also be Maxims in the Xigu warehouse.

Those governors and governors-general of other provinces who purchased weapons could not fail to purchase powerful weapons such as the Maxim heavy machine gun, so Teng Yuzhao asked Li Yulin to take over the Xigu warehouse overnight and quickly count the weapons, ammunition and various supplies inside.

In order to ensure that the camp office could evacuate in time, in addition to leaving sixteen war horses to be handed over to Teng Yuzhao's guard squad and the newly established staff office, two war horses were assigned to each of the first and second regiments to convey orders. All of them and the horses were temporarily returned to the cavalry battalion of the camp office and taken away. The extra horses could be temporarily used as pack horses.

A guard battalion was established, with only two platoons of soldiers as its personnel for the time being, led by Liu Bingyi, who was responsible for the camp office and other related security work.

An artillery regiment and a cavalry battalion were established, with Liu Changfa as the commander of the artillery regiment. The regiment was equipped with sixteen 75mm Krupp artillery pieces dragged from the warehouse of the Beiyang Military Academy. Personnel could be selected from all over the army, but Teng Yuzhao demanded that the army must be formed immediately.

Fortunately, the Beiyang Military Academy attached great importance to artillery training, and there were many artillery students among the students who stayed behind. It was no problem to equip each gun with all the key artillery operators, and some auxiliary operators could be trained while they were being formed into the army.

The cavalry battalion currently has only two rows, and the commander is Xue Zhiqian, who is also a student left behind at the Military Academy.

Teng Yuzhao's task for the cavalry battalion was to temporarily come under the control of the camp office, intensify training, and at the same time cooperate with the camp office in recruiting and training new soldiers.

Although the commanders and assistant commanders of the twenty-five battalions had not been appointed, there was one sign that made these people full of expectations. That was that each of the two regiments of Liu Yuzhi and Li Xianze had two assistant commanders and six platoon leaders.

The two assistants were promoted from the two merged sentries, and the remaining four platoon leaders were appointed as the chief platoon leaders. The positions vacated by them were all taken over by the students who stayed behind in the Beiyang Military Academy, and six deputy platoon leaders were promoted and appointed from the shed leaders. It was obvious that Teng Yuzao's appointment was to prepare for the future expansion of the troops.

The entire army has abolished the smallest organizational unit, the tent, and renamed it as a squad. The squad leader also has a deputy.

Since there were a considerable number of German rifles in the Military Academy, which could fully meet the needs of the existing troops, the two regiments, the artillery regiment's guard troops, and Liu Bingyi's guard battalion all used G98, and all platoon leaders and above were equipped with binoculars.

Since there were more than 500 Mauser pistols among the weapons from the Lihe Company given to him by Christian the Younger, Teng Yuzao issued one to every officer above the platoon leader in the army, including his guard squad.

All the excess weapons, ammunition and supplies, including the captured weapons and ammunition, as well as the weapons, ammunition, guns and supplies obtained from the warehouse of the Beiyang Military Academy, and those given to him by little Christian, had to be taken away by Li Yulin for sorting and classification.

There were eighty-two students who stayed behind in the Beiyang Military Academy, including the seriously injured who were sent to the city for treatment and the lightly injured who were allowed to move freely in the camp. All of them had been assigned jobs.

Except for Wei Jinghai and Xue Zhiqian, there are some exceptions in the two technically-intensive military branches, the Artillery Regiment and the Cavalry Battalion. The rest of the people are temporarily paid according to the treatment of platoon leaders, including those who followed Sun Shijun to the camp office to serve as recruit training instructors, and students who were temporarily assigned to the Artillery Regiment and Cavalry Regiment as gunners and squad leaders.

However, none of these students had any complaints, because they all knew that the vanguard army would be expanded soon, and it would not be uncommon for many of them to become sentry leaders at that time, so each of them worked hard and prepared to perform well so that they could stand out when the army expanded.

Then, Teng Yuzhao requested that all personnel take their positions immediately and start organizing the troops right away. Whoever finishes first will eat first.

At the same time, Teng Yuzhao announced that after dinner, Liu Yuzhi's 1st Regiment would immediately rush to the row of woods left behind by the Military Academy, and start digging trenches and building Maxim heavy machine gun positions after dark. Li Xianze's 2nd Regiment would stay in the existing camp to build trenches and help Liu Changfa's artillery battalion build artillery positions. He would have artillery support tomorrow.

"Ring, ring." Just when everyone was in a hurry to leave, the magnetic telephone placed on the head of Teng Yuzhao's camp bed rang.

Before Teng Yuzhao could answer the phone, Wei Jinghai ran over and picked up the phone.

These magnetic telephones are the military telephones currently used by the Western powers in their armies. There are no switches and the call is made by shaking the handle. Teng Yuzhao naturally would not leave such a good thing unused. The telephones have already been connected to the troops stationed at the Beiyang Military Academy.

Since there is no communication platoon in the army yet, although the tasks such as laying lines are not complicated, they still pose great problems for the children of farmers who have not received Western education at this time. Therefore, although Teng Yuzhao has enough telephones now, his vanguard army does not have the conditions for widespread use.

At least, it is not available for the time being. The root cause of all this is still the word "person".

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(End of this chapter)