The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 563 Incentives and Temptations
Teng Yuzao continued: "If you work hard, you can get an allowance."

"For example, Juancheng is currently in charge of the construction of the Lu-Han Railway, as well as the route selection and surveying of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou and Jinpu Railways. Not only is the work very arduous, but sometimes he has to climb mountains and wade through water in the wild, which requires subsidies. Juancheng's monthly income averages 1,000 yuan, and the highest has reached 1,800 yuan."

Teng Yuzao's words once again drew a round of surprised gasps.

"In short, as long as you work hard to do more practical things in promoting Westernization in Zhili, and put into practice the moral, scientific and academic knowledge you have learned from your childhood to youth, you will be richly rewarded. Ten years later, you will not only get the status and respect you deserve, but your family will also live a rich and satisfying life."

For these young children studying in the United States, they went abroad to study at a young age and lived in the homes of ordinary American citizens. The worldviews they were influenced by were different, and the differences might even be huge.

After returning to China, almost everyone was resentful about being asked to return home early. It was not easy for most of them to settle down and live their lives after returning home. Some could even say that it was very bumpy. For these people, Teng Yuzhao did not think that just preaching some big principles would be enough to impress them and make them work hard and make a difference in Zhili. A generous income was a must.

Although the study hours of some of them may not meet the requirements of Zhili's promotion of Westernization, they always have vision. If they participate in the promotion of Westernization, they will be much more efficient and far-sighted than those officials.

Moreover, the generous income can also have the effect of buying a horse with a lot of gold, which can motivate and encourage people to respect knowledge and strive to learn the "strange and lewd skills" of foreigners, thereby playing a role in promoting the establishment of new studies, which is the most important part of promoting Westernization.

Having said that, Teng Yuzao suddenly turned his target to the officials present.

Teng Yuzhao swept his eyes across the faces of those holding titles present and said with a smile.

"As for the officials in Zhili and Shandong provinces, I will double the salary and maintenance silver issued by the court, but the premise is that no one is allowed to be corrupt and accept bribes. Otherwise, I will punish them severely."

Although Teng Yuzao's tone was gentle and even a bit joking, everyone knew that he was definitely not joking. He was still adhering to his usual style. He would make his rules and requirements clear in advance and would never punish without instruction. Once someone violated the rules he had explained in advance, he would definitely punish them severely.

Teng Yuzao's words made Xu Shiguang feel tense. He glanced at Teng Yuzao secretly, and felt relieved when he saw that Teng Yuzao was not looking at him.

He has been warned by his brother that if he does anything illegal again, Teng Yuzao will show no mercy.

Teng Yuzao added, "As I just said, the main purpose of today's joint meeting is to let everyone present have a clear idea of ​​what achievements Zhili has made in promoting Westernization over the past six months, and to have a clear idea of ​​the development of Zhili."

"It's not just about the results, but also about what we have done and what difficulties we still face. You all need to know these so that you are all familiar with the general direction of Zhili's development. So next, the people in charge of various aspects will introduce them to you."

Teng Yuzao smiled and said, "The Westernization of Zhili not only involves catching up with the Western powers in terms of economy, livelihood, education and technology, but also in military affairs. We must see that although we have defeated the coalition forces of the great powers, we are still far behind them in many aspects."

Seeing that many people nodded at his words, Teng Yuzhao smiled and spoke again.

"However, we should not be discouraged. This is like a race. The Western powers, including the Japanese who also started to catch up, are already far ahead of us."

"But as long as we work hard, there will be hope. As long as we work hard, we will catch up with them one day. If we stand still and just sigh in despair, we will always fall behind."

"Let's start with the military, starting with the Chief of Staff."

Not only because Zhou Fu was there, but also because Teng Yuzhao attached great importance to these former Chinese students who had studied in the United States and whom he had spent a lot of effort to recruit, he personally presided over this joint meeting.

After Teng Yuzhao finished speaking, he picked up the teacup and took a sip of the fragrant tea. His dry throat felt a little better.

When called by Teng Yuzao, Wei Jinghai put down the notebook in which he was recording Teng Yuzao's speech, and said to the civil servants and the many former Chinese students who had studied in the United States with a smile.

"I know that everyone is very interested in the development of the Vanguard Army. From now on, I will give you a brief introduction to the development of the Vanguard Army. More details will be given by Director Li of the Military Industry and Logistics Department, Deputy Chief of Staff Sun, Director Liu, and the generals who specifically command the troops."

Wei Jinghai has been very humble since he was appointed Chief of the General Staff by Teng Yuzhao. This was mainly because Li Yulin took the initiative to propose that he no longer serve as the general manager of the camp office and chief of staff, and resigned from his position as the de facto second-in-command of the vanguard army. This forced Wei Jinghai to show enough respect to Li Yulin.

Wei Jinghai could sense that if Li Yulin did not voluntarily resign from the position of Chief of Staff, Teng Yuzao would never remove him from his position.

As soon as Wei Jinghai finished speaking, Teng Yuzao had to speak.

"Let me correct the Chief of Staff's statement about the Zhili Army. Now all the new armies in the country have unified their numbers. Although we haven't given our armies an official name like the great powers, such as the National Defense Army, we can't call them the Vanguard Army anymore."

"For the sake of convenience, I suggest that we should follow the civilian name and call it the New Beiyang Army, to distinguish it from the pre-war Beiyang troops."

Then Teng Yuzao nodded to Wei Jinghai again, "Ningbo, go on."

Wei Jinghai nodded and said, "The General Staff will then formally distribute the Marshal's suggestions to all troops. Now let's start with me."

"Our new Beiyang Army is now undergoing intensive and rigorous training in various places. We are not only correcting the problems of insufficient basic training and relatively poor individual combat skills caused by the hasty formation of the army, but we are also focusing on training in mountain warfare and offensive operations."

"Among them, mountain warfare and siege warfare, the great powers have not yet had relevant textbooks. These two textbooks were personally written by the Marshal. If we fight against the great powers again, I can tell you that our new Beiyang Army will win a great victory again."

"But within the next two or three years, we can only teach and train in the New Beiyang Army. We cannot take it out for the time being, such as handing it over to the Baoding Military Academy."

Wei Jinghai then added, "We are not keeping this secret from our friendly forces at home, it's just because the Marshal believes that in two years, we will fight against other powers next, such as in the Northeast."

Wei Jinghai immediately stopped talking and said to Li Yulin beside him, "Next, please allow Director Li to introduce to everyone the military industry development of our former New Beiyang Army."

Wei Jinghai felt that he had said something out of turn and quickly stopped talking.

In fact, not only is the vanguard army training according to the two textbooks compiled by Teng Yuzao, but the vanguard army is also quietly expanding its forces. At present, the three towns of Liu Shijiu, Cao Futian, and Liu Yuzhi, which are located west of Shanhaiguan in Chengde, and Wu Peifu, Li Jinyu, and the cavalry town in Zhangjiakou and Duolun are actively expanding their forces. According to Teng Yuzao's requirements, the troops of Wu Peifu, Li Jinyu, Liu Shijiu, and Liu Yuzhi will be expanded to 120,000 people in each town by the end of next year.

The two towns of Wu Peifu and Li Jinyu were also converted into cavalry infantry, forming a fast-moving heavy military group.

Except for one pure cavalry unit, all other units in the cavalry town were converted into mounted infantry.

Cao Futian's troops not only expanded their strength significantly, they also secretly selected tens of thousands of officers and soldiers from Shandong and Taihang Mountains to form a separate force, turning to full-scale mountain infantry training.

Although this unit is completely independent and even its base is separated from Cao Futian's unit, it still uses the number of Cao Futian's unit.

At present, the training of this force revolves around combat in mountains and forests.

Even Wang Decheng, who had been nominally transferred to Cao Futian's Seventh Town as an assistant, had led a small number of elite troops, all changed into civilian clothes, quietly left the border, and infiltrated the dense forests of Changbai Mountain to become bandits.

As follow-up troops arrived, Wang Decheng had to move towards Vladivostok, Mudanjiang, and the Lesser Khingan Mountains further north, completely appearing as a horse bandit and a bandit.

The order Wang Decheng received was to first integrate the local bandits and gain a foothold in the Changbai Mountain and Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains, and then, after receiving orders, launch harassment and attack activities in the rear of Tsarist Russia.

All of the above was not public knowledge even among the senior generals of the vanguard army.

Teng Yuzhao even claimed that Wang Decheng had resigned from his military post and left the Vanguard Army.

At present, except for him, Teng Yuzhao, Zuo Mingyang, Liu Shijiu, Liu Yuzhi, Wu Peifu, Li Jinyu and Li Xianze, the rest of the people are still unaware, let alone the court.

These, of course, must be kept confidential.

Teng Yuzao had said many times that the Russians would not withdraw from the Northeast on time, but the people present were not surprised, so it did not attract much attention.

After voluntarily resigning from the post of chief of staff, Li Yulin seemed to have finally let go of the burden in his heart and became much more cheerful. Now he devotes himself to the several arsenals under his Ordnance Logistics Bureau every day, and is often busy running around.

Li Yulin smiled and took over Wei Jinghai's words and said, "Now let me talk about the situation of the Ordnance Logistics Department of our vanguard, the New Beiyang Army."

As Li Yulin spoke, he looked at the so-called microphone in front of him, pondering its structure and principle in his mind.

Li Yulin has been dealing with technical personnel and technicians from the Ordnance Department for a long time, and is no longer a layman in mechanical technology.

But he still couldn't figure out how this snare drum-like thing amplified his voice.

He didn't need to speak loudly, but his voice could be heard throughout the huge conference room, and even the people at the back could hear him clearly.

".We now have three arsenals. Not only has the Beiyang Tianjin Machinery Bureau been restored, but the Dagu Shipyard has also been restored. The Baoding Arsenal, which was jointly built with the German Krupp Company, has also been put into operation a month ago."

This arsenal was the first officially established joint venture in Zhili.

Moreover, the reason why this arsenal was able to reach an agreement with the German side in a short period of time had a lot to do with Teng Yuzao, and it could even be said to have a decisive relationship with him.

The public information is that Teng Yuzao proposed improvement suggestions for the German Mauser rifle and even gave the key improvement patents to Krupp free of charge, which made Krupp very willing to sign a joint venture agreement with Zhili.

In the end, Krupp agreed to build Asia's largest comprehensive arsenal in Zhili through a joint venture, which would not only produce rifles, pistols, heavy machine guns and corresponding ammunition, but also artillery of various calibers. It would also build a new joint venture steel company in Zhili to produce all the steel needed to manufacture guns and artillery.

Secretly, Germany will also provide Zhili with a full set of German submarine technology, including a set of large shipyard equipment that Teng Yuzhao will purchase from Germany.

In fact, Li Yulin knows the relevant inside information best.

This was what Teng Yuzhao promised the other party, that within ten years, he would underwrite the sales of five million new rifles to the joint venture, and the corresponding ammunition would also be purchased entirely from the enterprise.

At the same time, Teng Yuzao also took out a British battleship design sketch that he had obtained from somewhere, claiming that this was the latest type of battleship that the British were secretly developing and named the Sir Nelson class.

In addition, Teng Yuzao also released a design drawing of the latest torpedo.

The performance of this new type of torpedo is not only far superior to the white-headed torpedo commonly used by the major powers, but also superior to the black-headed torpedo developed and improved by the Germans based on the white-headed torpedo.

Teng Yuzao's new torpedo not only has a range of less than one thousand meters that of white-headed or black-headed torpedoes, but its speed even exceeds the current world's speed of only eleven kilometers per hour, reaching an astonishing sixty-five kilometers per hour.

Moreover, this is a torpedo that is different from the white-headed torpedo and the black-headed torpedo that are powered by compressed air. It is a completely new type of thermal-powered torpedo, which Teng Yuzao calls a steam-gas torpedo.

Teng Yuzhao told the Germans that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was also secretly developing this type of thermal-powered torpedo, but they had not yet produced a finished product.

It was precisely because of the extremely tempting things that Teng Yuzao offered to Germany, which was trying hard to break the British maritime hegemony, that Germany finally agreed to jointly build arsenals, shipyards and steel mills that were among the most advanced in the world with Zhili.

The Germans also put forward a condition that any advanced military technology related to the vanguard army must be guaranteed to the Germans to have the first right to purchase
(End of this chapter)