The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 452: The Reorganization in a Tight Situation

Since it was impossible to unify the weapons system for the entire army, the weapons and equipment of the vanguard army were quite messy.

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

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

Thanks to the low combat effectiveness of the British Indian troops, a large number of intact trophies were captured in several battles with the British army. This time, Wu Peifu's Fifth Regiment and the Guards Association all adopted Lee-Enfield rifles;
The rifles of Pan Jinshan's Sixth Regiment, Li Jinyu's Eighth Regiment, the Cavalry Brigade, the Guard Battalion, and a few guard units of the Artillery Town were all Japanese-style gold hook rifles.

Due to the substantial expansion of the troops, it is no longer possible to maintain a sufficient number of heavy machine guns in each unit, and we can only give priority to meeting the needs of the five main towns.

Even so, the number of heavy machine guns in these five towns has been reduced 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, which is basically the same as the configuration of eight heavy machine guns per regiment in Western powers.

Because the demands for heavy machine guns from the five main towns had to be met first, the total number of heavy machine guns from the three town-level troops, the Sixth Town, the Eighth Town and Cao Futian's Independent Column, was only thirty-six.

Even the Guards Concorde and Guard Standards were not equipped with heavy machine guns at all.

Due to the lack of heavy machine guns, the firepower configuration of the vanguard army's various units was seriously insufficient.

During this period, except for Japan, the armies of the great powers generally adopted the four-organization system, so that the number of people in a regiment basically reached more than 4,000 people. This was because in the period when there were no heavy machine guns, if they only relied on rifle volleys to ensure sufficient firepower density, then they must have a sufficient number of people.

The three-person formation was feasible after the emergence of light machine guns in later generations, but it seemed outdated during this period. If there were not enough heavy machine guns, the three-person formation with a smaller number of people 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 the organization of this army was still not something that Zhili could decide on its own.

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.

In a word, except for the five main towns, the other units are all occupying the "pit" in advance.

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 cannon larger than 75 mm, and only a small number of artillery with a caliber of less than 57 mm, Teng Yuzhao still had his own way.

With Zhang Zhidong's secret support, Teng Yuzhao not only obtained a large amount of artillery shells and explosives from the Hanyang Gun Factory, but also purchased thousands of barrels of kerosene and many seamless steel pipes from American, German and British companies in Shanghai, Hong Kong and even Hankou through the Hanyang Gun Factory and Ning Xingpu's Aurora Trading Company.

During this period, domestic kerosene was mainly produced by Russian and American companies. As for guns and weapon steel, it was mainly produced by Germans, followed by British. Although Americans were also involved, their share was very small.

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, not only were there no obstructions to foreign merchants from selling seamless steel pipes that could be used to make cannons at high prices, the great powers were very happy to see it, and some even took the initiative to visit them to sell their products.

What these foreigners could not imagine was that although the country could not produce many cannons in a short period of time, Teng Yuzhao had a way to produce a large number of mortars with simple craftsmanship in a short period of time.

As for the unscrupulous cannons that have almost no technological requirements, it is even easier to deal with them. Those iron barrels filled with kerosene, after a little processing, can become a deadly weapon that terrifies the coalition forces.

Now, each battalion from the 1st to the 5th town has a fire support post, which includes an overstretched mortar platoon equipped with six 60mm mortars and two platoons with nine unscrupulous guns each.

Each post had a mortar post with nine 75mm caliber guns. The first-level unit had a battalion with eighteen 87mm caliber mortar guns.

At the town level, there is a mortar mark with two 105-caliber mortar battalions, each with eighteen mortars.

Because mortars with a caliber above 120mm are too heavy, only 36 120mm mortars and 24 150mm heavy howitzers have been built so far, all of which have been left in Liu Changfa's artillery town, forming two heavy mortar battalions.

With these unscrupulous cannons and extremely flexible mortars for mobile firing, especially in mountain warfare, Teng Yuzhao believed that his vanguard army would not suffer from a lack of firepower due to insufficient heavy machine guns. On the contrary, he would have a clear advantage in artillery fire.

The artillery town did not have a problem with insufficient artillery pieces, so the expansion went relatively smoothly.

This is not because Teng Yuzhao has enough cannons, but that Teng Yuzhao only needs to deploy troops according to the number of cannons he has.

This time, Teng Yuzhao took out all the heavy field artillery that had been idle in the past and stuffed them all into the artillery town. The artillery town now has six 87mm field artillery battalions and seven 75mm mountain artillery battalions, one 105mm heavy artillery battalion, one 120mm and one 150mm heavy mortar battalions, a total of fourteen artillery battalions and two heavy mortar battalions.

Afterwards, Wei Jinghai introduced the training situation of each unit after the reorganization.

The situation of this expansion is very special. The special thing is that time is tight. It is already a very difficult task to make a force whose majority of soldiers are recruits combat-effective in a short period of time. What's more, it is even more difficult to make the force have combat effectiveness that is not weaker than or equal to the coalition forces.

In fact, it is impossible to accomplish.

Because some things must respect the objective laws of nature, which cannot be diverted or changed by human will.

In order to ensure that the expanded troops could be deployed immediately in combat with the coalition forces in a few months and achieve victory, Teng Yuzao racked his brains in formulating an assault training plan for the vanguard army.

First of all, we must ensure the food for the officers and soldiers of the army. Adequate nutrition is the guarantee for high-intensity training.

Through the coordinated efforts of Zhou Fu, Yang Shixiang, Wei Jinghai and others, all officers and soldiers had meat for every meal during the training, and occasionally eggs. There was no limit on the amount of rice and steamed buns.

In order to meet the needs, not only were all the poultry and livestock in Luzhou Prefecture plundered, but even the price of meat in Southern Zhili, northern Henan and the entire Shanxi Province soared.

Although Teng Yuzao's intensive training plan covers all aspects, such as formations, shooting, bayonet fighting and daily skills and tactics, which are indispensable, it also has prominent key points.

For example, given that the first and most important battles would take place in mountainous areas, Teng Yuzao focused on the training content of mountain warfare.

As for the formation training which the generals did not pay much attention to, Teng Yuzhao did the opposite and gave sufficient time to the formation training which could effectively strengthen the officers and soldiers' obedience to orders and strict discipline.

In addition, the daily training time has also been greatly extended. The troops' training time lasts from morning until 8 o'clock at night. Except for eating, they train all the time and have almost no rest time.

In order to ensure training time, the literacy classes that Teng Yuzhao attached great importance to were temporarily cancelled.

The only training course was the officer training class taught by Teng Yuzhao himself.

In view of the rapid expansion of the vanguard army, officers were promoted too quickly, and their command level was out of line with their positions. In order to help these officers quickly improve their combat command level, Teng Yuzhao had to teach in person.

Not only all senior officers but also all officers above the rank of captain must attend this training course.

It is precisely because of the adoption of various effective measures that the training effect is very significant. After the joint assessment by the General Staff Office, the teaching team headed by Sun Shijun and Zhang Xiyuan, and the instructors of the camp school, all troops have basically met the training requirements.
(End of this chapter)