The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 56 A Sigh

Li Yulin sighed, his face darkening, "Xingfu, there are so many weapons and ammunition there, not to mention the armed forces and huge financial resources in the hands of the governors of the southern provinces. If they have money and people to support Zhili, then a few tens of thousands of foreign devils will not matter!"

Seeing Li Yulin's emotion, Teng Yuzao's eyes gleamed with a gleam of light, and he had already made a plan in his mind. He smiled bitterly and said, "This is not their fault. Among the officials in various provinces, the top officials are better off. Many of their subordinates have complaints about the court. The first one is the Reform Movement of 1898... Alas!"

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore. You should talk about the Xigu warehouse."

Teng Yuzao took the initiative to mention the Reform Movement of 1898 today just to test Li Yulin's reaction. Seeing that Li Yulin did not look surprised but worried, Teng Yuzao already knew Li Yulin's attitude towards the current court, so he stopped talking at the right time.

Although in the memory inherited by Teng Yuzhao, Li Yulin has always been grateful to Teng Yuzhao for recommending and supporting him, and is a good brother and good friend with whom he can talk about anything, Teng Yuzhao cannot help but be on guard, especially regarding the attitude of the court. He must be more cautious about such major issues. If Li Yulin is someone he can trust, he will let Li Yulin stay in this position. Otherwise, he will not be at ease to hand over an extremely important key position in the vanguard army to him.

Today he was only making a preliminary test on Li Yulin, and he would do a lot of such tests in his vanguard troops, including Liu Yuzhi, Li Xianze, Wei Jinghai, Sun Shijun, Liu Changfa, Xue Zhiqian, Liu Bingyi and a number of officers who would be promoted in the future.

Of course, there is a difference here. The test on Liu Yuzhi and Li Xianze, who are absolutely loyal to him personally, may be the last test on them. As for the others, Teng Yuzao will gradually test them from shallow to deep until he is sure and satisfied. On this point, Teng Yuzao will definitely follow it and prosper, and those who go against it will perish, without any hesitation.

The Book of the Later Han Dynasty said it well, "Those who achieve great things do not pay attention to trivial matters." Teng Yuzhao would definitely keep this sentence in mind.

Teng Yuzhao asked him to report on the Xigu warehouse, which immediately cleared the gloom in Li Yulin's heart and he became interested again.

"Xingfu, after I arrived at the Xigu warehouse last night, I immediately handed over the warehouse to the Tianjin Training Army Battalion guarding there. Sun Ziming and Xue Youan personally took the students of the Beiyang Military Academy with me to check the weapons, ammunition and other supplies in the warehouse one by one according to the account list, and found no problems."

Li Yulin said with some regret, "If all those things were given to our vanguard army, we would be able to expand to 40,000 or 50,000 people."

"When I saw the mountains of military supplies in the warehouse, I was so happy that I didn't know what to say. I immediately ordered all the warehouses to be sealed. I will do as you wish after I report to you."

Seeing Li Yulin's excited expression, Teng Yuzao couldn't help but become curious and hurriedly urged Li Yulin, "Qionglin, don't keep me in suspense. Tell me what's inside. You've whetted my appetite."

Li Yulin smiled and sneered at Teng Yuzao, "I'm just afraid that your appetite is not that big and you can't eat so many good things."

As Li Yulin spoke, he poured himself a glass of water, drank it in one gulp, and then took out a list from his arms and continued, "Specifically, there are 75 cannons, all of which are from Krupp and Gruson in Germany. Among them, there are 75 Krupp 60mm field guns, 57 37mm mountain guns, and mm field guns; there are Gruson mm infantry guns and mm guns."

"The rifles were all German-made Mauser rifles, including 98 G1871s, 1883 M rifles, Mauser pistols, M revolvers, Maxim heavy machine guns, cavalry sabers, Zeiss telescopes, Swedish compasses, artillery shells of various types, and nearly million rounds of ammunition." "In addition, there were more than military kettles and iron lunch boxes."

Li Yulin took a breath and said, "I also found three large granaries in Xigu, with more than 300,000 kilograms of flour and more than 200,000 kilograms of rice."

After Li Yulin finished speaking, he handed the list in his hand to Teng Yuzao, "According to the records in the account book, only a small part of the things here belong to the Beiyang government. The vast majority of them were ordered from abroad by Li Zhongtang on behalf of the governors of Anhui, Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, as well as Sichuan and Gansu and Qinghai provinces."

Teng Yuzhao was already beaming with joy as he looked at the list in his hand.

He knew that in the past, domestic weapons were mainly purchased from Britain, and even the imitation weapons manufactured by several domestic machinery bureaus were British-style. Even those craftsmen were familiar with the British concept of several-pound cannons.

However, since the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Li Hongzhang, who was deeply stimulated, firmly promoted German weapons in Beiyang and completely rejected British weapons. Therefore, all the weapons purchased by Beiyang for its own use, and even the weapons commissioned by governors of other provinces, were purchased from Germany.

Now Teng Yuzhao finally understood how the Allied Forces commander felt when he occupied the Xigu warehouse and saw the mountains of weapons and ammunition in the warehouse.

Teng Yuzhao sighed secretly in his heart. He really didn't understand, in the original history, why Yu Lu would let these weapons and ammunition lie idle in the warehouse instead of taking them out to equip the troops? Even if there were not so many trained people who could use them, it would be better to transport them away first or simply blow them up!

However, after thinking about it carefully, Teng Yuzhao also figured out some of Yu Lu's thoughts.

One reason is that the official army in Tianjin is mainly composed of the Wuwei Army, and they have no shortage of these foreign guns. It will be of no use if they are handed over to the trained army who have never been trained in using Western weapons. Moreover, once he takes out so many weapons and ammunition, he will probably have to distribute them to the Boxers who come to help. These Boxers are all official groups recognized by the court. Otherwise, if the Boxers report to the court, Yu Lu will be in big trouble.

However, Yu Lu was absolutely unwilling to see so many weapons and ammunition being handed over to the Boxers. A month ago, he was still commanding the army to crack down on the Boxers, whom he regarded as a bandit threat. Even the churches and believers in Tianjin had been under the protection of the government army. The British even told Yu Lu that if the Boxers threatened his safety, they would allow Yu Lu to hide on a British warship outside Dagukou.

Although the court officials headed by Prince Duan Zai Yi and Grand Councilor Gang Yi were encouraging the Empress Dowager Cixi to accept the Boxers and let them attack foreigners, Yu Lu was forced by the situation to acknowledge the existence of the Boxers, but he would never agree to hand over so many weapons and ammunition to the Boxers.

Yu Lu's mentality is probably exactly the same as the statement of the then Grand Councilor Gang Yi, "It is better to give it to friendly countries than to domestic slaves."

Teng Yuzhao couldn't help but sigh secretly again in his heart!
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(End of this chapter)