The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 446 People are always selfish

Wu Peifu smiled awkwardly and said, "To be honest, teacher, during the armed cross-country training these days, we were suppressed by Master Uncle's Fourth Regiment every day, and the officers and soldiers below were holding their breath."

Wu Peifu's words made Teng Yuzhao smile.

This is exactly what he wanted to achieve, and now it seems that his method is working quite well.

In order to quickly improve the technical and tactical military qualities of the troops, Teng Yuzhao thought of many ways and took great pains.

The first thing is to ensure that the troops have adequate nutrition, especially for new recruits. Without adequate nutrition, the recruits will not be able to complete the high-intensity training plan personally formulated by Teng Yuzhao.

In order to ensure the nutritional supply of the troops, Teng Yuzhao instructed Wei Jinghai to inform the logistics section of the General Staff Office that during the training period, the monthly food allowance of each town would be tripled to purchase various types of meat and chicken and duck eggs.

But having money alone is not enough, you also need to have things to buy.

Although the newly established towns had sufficient food funds, and even except for the 4th, 5th and artillery towns, as well as the Guards Association and the Vanguard Army Headquarters' direct agencies that remained in one place, all other troops were stationed in different places, it was still difficult to buy enough meat, poultry and eggs locally.

Although the basin area of ​​Luzhou Prefecture is not small and can even be barely called prosperous, it is still far from enough to supply meat and eggs to the growing army of more than 200,000 people.

You have to know that supplying meat to an army of more than 200,000 people, and a huge amount of meat and eggs, is really a huge amount.

The most important thing is that this is not a short-term demand, but a daily demand. The vanguard army has been in Luzhou Prefecture for more than three months. The strong demand over such a long period of time has already bought up all the meat, poultry and eggs in Luzhou Prefecture.

Today in the Luzhou Prefecture area, especially in Changzhi, Pingshun, Jincheng, Lingchuan, Gaoping, Xiangyuan, Licheng, Shexian, Liaoxian and other places where the vanguard army is stationed, the prices of poultry, eggs and meat have skyrocketed, and there is still no demand, which has even caused some public resentment.

Of course, ordinary people don’t have the luxury of eating meat often, which makes Teng Yuzhao feel a little relieved.

In other words, the huge demands of the vanguard army now cannot be met by Luzhou Prefecture alone.

In order to solve the supply of meat and eggs for the troops, and even to lower the prices of meat and eggs to a certain extent, Teng Yuzao had to turn his attention to the surrounding areas.

Fortunately, with the presence of Zhou Fu and Yang Shixiang, not only the political affairs of Zhili but also those counties and prefectures that had not been invaded by the coalition forces of foreign powers had been quickly transferred to a wartime state under Zhou Fu's organization and planning.

These states and counties have not only begun to actively deploy matters related to responding to the coalition forces of foreign powers, but have also made great efforts to raise food, fodder, soldiers, and other military supplies needed for the vanguard army, and have begun to transport them to Luzhou in an orderly manner.

It can be said that the anti-Japanese war work in the entire province of Zhili did not really get going until this time.

Now, Teng Yuzhao no longer needs to worry about these matters involving civil affairs. Wei Jinghai and Yang Shixiang are enough to handle them.

Yang Shixiang, the Chief Counsellor, is now full of energy. Although he is very busy every day, he always has a happy smile on his face. All local affairs are completely contacted and arranged by him, the Chief Counsellor.

Yang Shixiang's abilities were indeed remarkable. With his operations and contacts, not only the prefectures and counties close to Luzhou, but also the local government in Shanxi have been continuously transporting large quantities of meat and eggs to Luzhou.

Even some counties and cities in Henan Province close to Shanxi Province are now supplying these much-needed military supplies to the vanguard troops.

Of course, if you want the local governments in Shanxi and Henan to work hard for the vanguard army, it is far from enough to rely solely on the orders of the Grand Council. In the process, Yang Shixiang will inevitably have to rely on coordination with his peers and acquaintances to ensure that the urgently needed meat and eggs can be delivered in time.

Even when he occasionally encountered officials who valued money more than their lives, Yang Shixiang had to abide by the official rules and give them some silver. This was inevitable.

It is not enough to simply ensure the supply of meat and eggs for the vanguard troops that are undergoing high-intensity training. Teng Yuzhao also requires all troops to take further incentive measures to effectively improve the training efficiency of the troops. In addition to formulating strict training standards, he even assigned the General Staff Office to send people to each unit for on-site assessments on a regular basis.

For troops that meet the standards for phased training, the supply of meat, poultry and eggs will be increased by 10%.

As a result, the training enthusiasm of various troops suddenly increased. Under the strict supervision and material temptation of these competitive generals of various troops, the training effect was very obvious.

The scattered troops were better off. The generals of Liu Shijiu's 4th Regiment, Wu Peifu's 5th Regiment, Liu Changfa's Artillery Regiment, and Liu Bingyi's Guards Association, who were stationed in Changzhi and Tunliu with the Vanguard Army Headquarters, immediately racked their brains to figure out how to make their troops' training results surpass those of other troops.

Liu Shijiu, who was very quick-witted, had a lot of tricks. In the training camp, the Fourth Regiment not only had rewards and punishments, but also temptations. He used all means possible. Not only did he perform well in every assessment, but he also had to beat Wu Peifu's Fifth Regiment and Liu Bingyi's Guards in the daily armed cross-country race. This made Wu Peifu, who was very proud, feel ashamed and kept thinking about surpassing the Fourth Regiment. Teng Yuzao was naturally aware of Wu Peifu's thoughts. Teng Yuzao ran along the mountain road at an even pace, panting slightly.

"Zi Yu, I heard that you in the Fifth Town required all officers above the rank of sentry to take out one month's salary as food expenses for the troops. Is this true?"

Teng Yuzhao's words made Wu Peifu blush. He quickly ran to catch up with Teng Yuzhao, and while running side by side with Teng Yuzhao, he spoke hurriedly.

"Teacher, this is true. The brothers are unwilling to be suppressed by the Fourth Town of Master Uncle."

Teng Yuzao did not look at Wu Peifu, but talked while running.

"It's not your subordinates who are unwilling to accept this. The one who is truly unwilling to accept this should be you, the commander of the Fifth Town! Aren't you worried that your officers may have resistance in their hearts?"

Wu Peifu was greatly embarrassed when his thoughts were exposed by Teng Yuzhao. Originally his breathing was quite even when he was running, but now due to his embarrassment, his breathing became disordered and he began to breathe heavily. He was anxious to make an explanation.

"Teacher, most of the officers of the Fifth Regiment are senior officers who graduated from our Beiyang Military Academy."

Although Wu Peifu spoke hesitantly, Teng Yuzhao had already understood what Wu Peifu meant.

During the period when Teng Yuzhao went to Shanxi, Wu Peifu, Li Jinyu, Li Zixiong and other initiators of the "Fenjin Society" and other twenty or so core members took advantage of the opportunity of the entire army rushing to Luzhou for regularization, and worked day and night to connect with officers at all levels.

Although this matter had to be carried out in secret, at least for the time being, they dared not do it in a high-profile manner, but through their intensive communication and coordination, they had achieved remarkable results.

The officers who graduated from the Beiyang Military Academy and the camp schools in the army had already recognized Teng Yuzhao in their hearts. Once someone came forward to preside over the event, these people flocked to join the "Fenjin Society".

According to Li Yaoting's report, in the vanguard army now, not only Wei Jinghai, Liu Shijiu, Liu Yuzhi, Li Xianze, Liu Bingyi, Liu Changfa and others have joined the "Fenjin Society" and become directors of the "Fenjin Society" board of directors, but even the five people with the most resolute attitudes, Liu Shijiu, Liu Yuzhi, Li Xianze, Liu Changfa, and Wu Peifu, have been elected to the board of directors.

These officers who joined the "Endeavor Society" would naturally be given priority in being recommended by these generals. With Wei Jinghai's covert cooperation in the General Staff Office, Teng Yuzhao also went with the flow. Taking advantage of this expansion opportunity, most of these officers were promoted.

Of course, military merit is still important in the army. Teng Yuzhao would not ignore the military merits of his subordinates and promote his cronies. Under the same circumstances, these people all got the actual position of leading troops.

Almost all the officers of the Imperial Guards joined the Endeavor Society.

What Wu Peifu wanted to say was that these officers would not complain about taking out some of their military pay to cover the troops' food expenses.

Teng Yuzhao said as he ran at a steady pace and shook his head slightly.

"Zi Yu, there is one thing you have to understand. Most people not only need to support their families, they also want to have more money and live a better life in the future."

"You must have heard of this saying: people travel thousands of miles to become officials just for money. People are always selfish."

Teng Yuzhao originally wanted to tell Wu Peifu that even those officers who joined the Endeavor Society would have such thoughts, but their thoughts would be of varying degrees of severity compared to others.

But on second thought, he could only pretend that he was unaware of the existence of the Endeavor Society and swallowed back the next words.

Teng Yuzao spoke again without waiting for Wu Peifu to speak.

"You probably haven't had time to spend these people's money yet. You have to pay it back. If it's not enough, take my military pay as well."

"Tomorrow is the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, and we will celebrate the Little New Year. I will convene a military meeting at noon today. First, we need to arrange for the troops to stop training and prepare for the New Year, and second, we need to arrange the next combat mission."

"After more than three months, the foreign devils have almost built up their military strength. We are about to fight a big battle again."

(End of this chapter)