The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 451: Make up for the lack of firepower
Faced with the crowd expressing their attitudes, Teng Yuzao also stood up excitedly.

Teng Yuzao stood up, and the two civil servants Zhou Fu and Shen Jiaben also felt uncomfortable sitting in their seats, so they stood up as well.

Teng Yuzao slammed his fist on the table and spoke loudly.

"Okay! Since you are willing to follow me, Teng Yuzao, to kill the enemy and defend against the invaders, I can also tell you clearly that although there is a huge gap in the strength of the enemy and us now, as long as I, Teng Yuzao, am here and you all fight hard against the enemy, and we are united, the vanguard army will surely win this battle!

Teng Yuzhao's powerful words suddenly excited the angry crowd. Wu Peifu, who was the fastest to accept new things, was the first to applaud enthusiastically.

Thanks to Teng Yuzao, the vanguard army commanders had long been accustomed to applause, a body language of recognition and praise, but they were still not very used to it.

At this time, led by Wu Peifu, everyone immediately gave warm and excited applause to Teng Yuzhao's words.

Liu Shijiu not only had a loud voice, but also had even stronger hands. The sound of his palms clapping together was still very loud and abrupt even amid the applause of more than thirty people.

Teng Yuzao waved his hand to signal everyone to stop clapping, and continued.

"Sun Tzu said, 'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle.' If we want to defeat the coalition forces of the great powers, we must first understand our own situation. Now, Chief of Staff Wei will introduce the reorganization and training of the various units of the Vanguard Army over the past four months. Then General Manager Li and President Lin will report on the ammunition, food, and medicine reserves. Finally, you will report on the combat readiness of the troops."

After everyone was seated, Wei Jinghai picked up his leather notebook and began to report and summarize the reorganization and training of the vanguard army over the past four months.

According to Wei Jinghai, in the past four months, the vanguard army has recruited new soldiers from all over the country.

Among them, the first to fifth regiments are fully equipped and staffed, with more than 42,000 soldiers in each.

Pan Jinshan's Sixth Regiment, Li Jinyu's Eighth Regiment, and Cao Futian's Independent Column each had only more than 8,000 people, while Liu Bingyi's Guards Association had less than 3,000 people.

All troops uniformly adopt the three-three system, and the town is divided into three coordination and corresponding directly affiliated troops.

The cavalry team had more than 3,600 men; Liu Changfa's artillery team had more than 12,000 men.

The remaining two thousand people were organized into a guard battalion, with Xu Ting as the temporary commander. However, his guard battalion was now scattered and was mainly responsible for the guard tasks of the headquarters, camp office, and field hospital.

There was also a baggage camp with a large number of pack horses, numbering more than 2,000 people.

Since it was impossible to unify the weapons system for the entire army, the weapons and equipment of the vanguard army appeared to be somewhat messy.

Now, the rifles of Liu Yuzhi's First Town, Li Xianze's Second Town, and Liu Shijiu's Fourth Town are all Russian Mosin-Nagant;

The rifles of Hu Dianjia's Third Regiment were Mannlicher rifles and a small number of Lee-Enfield rifles;

The rifles of Wu Peifu's Fifth Regiment were all Lee-Enfield rifles;
The rifles of Pan Jinshan's Sixth Regiment, Li Jinyu's Eighth Regiment, the Imperial Guards and Cavalry Regiment, the Guards Battalion, and a few guard units of the Artillery Town were all Japanese-style gold hook rifles.

Due to the substantial expansion of the army, it is no longer possible to maintain a sufficient number of heavy machine guns in each unit, and the needs of the five main towns can only be met first. Even so, the number of heavy machine guns in these five towns has shrunk a lot. It is no longer possible to have a heavy machine gun platoon in each post. Now these five towns can only have one heavy machine gun platoon with three heavy machine guns in each battalion.

As a result, the three town-level troops, the Sixth Regiment, the Eighth Regiment and the Cao Futian Independent Column, had only 36 heavy machine guns, while the Guards Concord and the Guards Battalion had no heavy machine guns at all, which led to a serious shortage of firepower in the vanguard army's various units.

During this period, except for Japan, the armies of the great powers generally had four-regiment organizations, so that a regiment basically had more than 4,000 people. This was because in the period when there were no heavy machine guns, they could only rely on rifle volleys to ensure sufficient firepower density, which required a sufficient number of people.

The three-army system became feasible after the emergence of light machine guns in later generations, but it became outdated during this period. If there were not enough heavy machine guns, it would be even more problematic.

Teng Yuzhao was naturally very clear about this problem, but he was also helpless. Even though the court promised not to collect taxes from Zhili within ten years, the military expenses of the vanguard army, now also known as the Beiyang Army, would be entirely borne by Zhili itself, but they still could not have the final say on the organization of this army.

If Teng Yuzhao wanted to expand his army again in the future, he would have to obtain approval from the imperial court, otherwise he would be suspected of rebellion, unless Teng Yuzhao immediately broke with the imperial court.

This is another reason why Teng Yuzhao forced the expansion regardless of existing conditions.

Fortunately, although the heavy machine gun’s firepower was insufficient, Teng Yuzhao still had a way to make up for it.

Teng Yuzhao’s solution was to strengthen the artillery of each unit.

Although in order to realize the idea of ​​a large artillery force, in the absence of large-caliber artillery, the vanguard army's mountain and field artillery had all been concentrated under the unified command of the artillery town, and each unit no longer had a single artillery piece larger than 75 mm, and only a small number of artillery pieces with a caliber of less than 57 mm, Teng Yuzhao still had his own way.

With Zhang Zhidong's secret support, Teng Yuzao not only obtained a large number of artillery shells and explosives from the Hanyang Gun Factory, but also purchased hundreds of oil drums and many seamless steel pipes from foreign companies in Shanghai, Hong Kong and even Hankou through the Hanyang Gun Factory and Ning Xingpu's "Aurora Trading Company".

The foreigners knew very well that not only the Hanyang Gun Factory, but even if the Machinery Bureaus in Shanghai and Nanjing were included, the country would not be able to quickly produce cannons in a short period of time.

Therefore, foreign merchants not only did not stop the sale of seamless steel pipes that could be used to make cannons at high prices, but were also very happy to see it and even actively promoted it.

What these foreigners could not imagine was that although the country could not produce many cannons in a short period of time, they had a way to produce a large number of mortars with simple craftsmanship in a short period of time. As for the unscrupulous cannons with almost no technological requirements, that was even less of a problem.

Now, each battalion of the 1st to 5th towns, in addition to the heavy machine gun platoon, also has a fire support post, including an overstretched mortar platoon equipped with six 60mm mortars and two platoons with nine unscrupulous guns each.

In terms of military personnel, the first to fifth regiments are all fully equipped and staffed, with more than 42,000 soldiers in each regiment.

Pan Jinshan's Sixth Regiment, Li Jinyu's Eighth Regiment, and Cao Futian's Independent Column each had only more than 8,000 people, while Liu Bingyi's Guards Association had less than 3,000 people.

All troops uniformly adopt the three-three system, and the town is divided into three coordinated and corresponding directly affiliated troops.

The cavalry team had more than 3,600 men; Liu Changfa's artillery team had more than 12,000 men.

The remaining two thousand people were organized into a guard battalion, with Xu Ting as the temporary commander. However, his guard battalion was now scattered and was mainly responsible for the guard tasks of the headquarters, camp office, and field hospital.

There was also a baggage camp with a large number of pack horses, numbering more than 2,000 people.
(End of this chapter)