The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 455 There is water

In order to make Teng Yuzhao and his vanguard troops fight the enemy, Cixi invested a lot of money.

Especially when it was given to Teng Yuzhao, the Grand Secretary, it was even more precious.

You should know that the title of Grand Secretary is not easily granted. It is extremely precious for both civil and military officials. Even if you are a high-ranking official, it is still true. Some officials have been in officialdom for their entire lives and still cannot get the title of Grand Secretary.

Even the famous Zuo Zongtang only became the Grand Secretary of the Dongke Academy, and the world-famous Governor of Huguang Zhang Zhidong was not even the last-ranked Assistant Grand Secretary.

The Grand Secretaries in the Qing Dynasty were collectively called Palace Grand Secretaries, and were divided into seven grades. No matter which grade of Grand Secretary, their rank was the first grade.

The Grand Secretaries of the Palaces and Cabinets are the Grand Secretaries of Baohe Hall, Wenhua Hall, Wuying Hall, Wenyuan Pavilion, Dongge Hall, Tiren Pavilion, and Associate Grand Secretaries.

In each dynasty, there was usually only one Grand Secretary of each class at the same time, and at most three people serving in the court would get it. The first-class Grand Secretary of Baohedian was even rarer, and it was vacant for most of the Qing Dynasty.

For example, during this period, the position of Grand Secretary of Baohe Hall is vacant.

Li Hongzhang, the most honored person during the Guangxu period, is now only the only Grand Secretary of the second rank in Wenhua Palace. The third rank in Wuying Palace is vacant at this time, and the fourth rank in Wenyuan Pavilion is Ronglu. The current Grand Secretary of Dongge is Aisin-Gioro Kungang, who was born with a red belt.

As for the sixth-rank Grand Secretary of Ti-ren Pavilion, in addition to the newly appointed Teng Yuzhao, there are also Wang Wenshao, who once served as Minister of Beiyang and Governor-General of Zhili, and Sun Jiading, who was the top scholar in the Xianfeng period, the tutor of Emperor Guangxu, served as the Minister of Works, Rites, Personnel, and Revenue, and the Minister of Education, and has now returned home to retire.

The last rank of associate grand secretary, including Gangyi who just died of illness, had only appointed three people. The remaining two were the Minister of Rites Xu Yu and the Minister of Revenue Chongli.

Zai Yi's letter was even more straightforward.

In another letter, Zai Yi repeatedly reminded Teng Yuzhao that it would be best if the vanguard army could stop the foreign coalition forces in Taihang Mountains. If things went wrong, Zai Yi told Teng Yuzhao not to fight them head-on, but to lead his troops back to Shaanxi to negotiate with the foreigners. Otherwise, if something unexpected happened, the empire would collapse.

In a word, Zai Yi's meaning was very clear, that is, the Vanguard Army and Teng Yuzao must be preserved, and they must not lose all their capital in one battle. Without Teng Yuzao and the Vanguard Army, not only would Zai Yi be unable to survive, but even the imperial court would be in danger of being destroyed.

In the letter, Zai Yi also told Teng Yuzhao that he had asked Cixi to ask Guangxu to issue an edict to Song Qing who was stationed at Niangzi Pass, and to give a strict order to Song Qing and a group of generals, requiring all of them to guard Niangzi Pass carefully and not to retreat a single step, and Niangzi Pass must not be lost.

If Niangzi Pass is lost, all the generals above the rank of Qianzong who are guarding Niangzi Pass will be executed, their families will be exiled to XJ, and their descendants will never be employed again.

The most valuable content in Zai Yi's letter is this sentence, but Teng Yuzhao is not worried about the 20,000-strong coalition force attacking the dangerous Niangzi Pass.

Historically, the coalition forces have never taken Niangzi Pass. Now with this decree, Song Qing and others dare not retreat in the face of the enemy.

After introducing the situation, Wei Jinghai walked back to his seat, only glanced at Teng Yuzao, and then sat back in his seat with his eyes straight and serious. Teng Yuzao and Wei Jinghai had studied these military situations many times, and not only did they have a strategy to deal with them, they had even formed a complete battle plan.

However, up to now, only Teng Yuzhao, Wei Jinghai, Chief of Staff Zuo Mingyang, and a dozen staff officers in the Operations Section of the General Staff knew about this combat plan, and it was kept strictly confidential to the outside world.

According to Li Yaoting's report, the Security Department has recently captured two spies sent by the coalition forces. If the battle plan is communicated to the various troops too early, some clues will inevitably be exposed. Once the coalition forces learn of it, the consequences will be disastrous.

Although Teng Yuzao knew that it would be his turn to speak after Wei Jinghai introduced the military situation, Teng Yuzao did not rush to speak. Instead, he picked up the teacup in front of him and took a sip of tea. When Liu Shijiu was about to speak, he coughed lightly and spoke with a relaxed smile.

"Five hundred and seventy thousand armed to the teeth coalition forces besieged Shanxi from four directions, and five hundred and fifty thousand of them were heading straight for Luzhou Prefecture. The foreign devils used five hundred and fifty thousand troops to deal with our two hundred and fifty thousand. The foreign devils think highly of our vanguard army!"

Teng Yuzao changed the subject and said, "However, all of you present here should not be scared by the foreign devils. His 550,000 troops, including the so-called 700,000 troops, are probably not genuine. There may be some water in them, and the water may even be a lot."

Teng Yuzao's words made everyone a little puzzled, and Zhou Fu couldn't help but ask first.

"General Fu, wasn't this information reported back by our spies?"

Teng Yuzao nodded and said, "Mr. Zhou is right. This information was indeed reported by our spies. However, our spies could not contact the key figures of the foreign devils. The information they obtained was mainly obtained from the mouths of the people. Some of the information was inflated by us."

"I'm sure Lord Zhou will not forget that during the Battle of Red Cliff, Cao's army, which had only over 200,000 soldiers, falsely claimed to have 800,000 soldiers!"

Seeing Zhou Fu's look of surprise and doubt, Teng Yuzao said hurriedly, "Although the foreign devils' military strength is not so exaggerated, in order to intimidate the court and make us fearful, they must have some false numbers of their military strength."

"For example, the Japanese army had a different number of troops in a division. Some divisions would have more than 30,000 men after being reinforced. For example, the Japanese Fifth Division that first arrived in Zhili had more than 32,000 men."

"Most divisions will not receive such a big reinforcement, especially the newly expanded divisions, which are unlikely to have a lot of troops. It's good enough that they can complain. If we calculate based on the number of people in a normal Japanese division, the strength of the five Japanese divisions is only about 120,000. Even if we count the extra artillery regiment, it will not exceed 125,000."

"The number of troops of other powers is roughly the same. The strength of a division of a great power is generally 18,000, but this number is not fixed. For example, the American army has the largest number of divisions, which can reach 28,000. Although the British are not that exaggerated, they also have more than 18,000. The German army has more than 17,000 divisions, and the French have the smallest number of divisions, with only more than 15,000."

"When we were counting, we used 18,000 men, so the number we calculated was slightly higher. In my estimation, the actual strength of the foreign devils should be around 600,000, and no more than 650,000. The number of troops they used to attack us would definitely not reach 550,000, and at most 450,000, which is less than twice our strength, only 60% more than ours."

"So, don't be scared by the number of 700,000."

"When Chief of Staff Wei introduced the situation just now, he said that the 150,000 Japanese troops in Cizhou were calculated in this way. Their actual strength will not exceed 130,000 at most. In fact, because they have to leave troops to garrison in Cizhou and even have transport troops to follow, the actual number of Japanese soldiers participating in the attack can reach 100,000 at most."

(End of this chapter)