The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 571 Give them some color
Lin Liansheng is very good at technology, but his writing skills are really poor.

This is understandable, after all, he was sent to study in the United States since he was young.

Teng Yuzhao, his brother Lin Lianhui, and two Chinese students studying in the United States who were involved in the incident understood what Lin Liansheng reported, followed by Wei Jinghai, Li Yulin, Zuo Mingyang, Tang Shaoyi, and Zhou Xuexi.

The others were all confused.

Even those who were born as Chinese students studying in the United States had never heard of this new foreign thing called the wireless telegraph.

Most of these people seemed to feel that there was something new and different about what Lin Liansheng said, but they did not hear Lin Liansheng say that there was any fundamental difference between this telegram and the telegrams used now. It seemed that he was just saying that the new telegraph had a longer sending and receiving distance.

After Lin Liansheng's report, Teng Yuzao saw the expressions of the people present and couldn't help but laugh.

Teng Yuzao said excitedly, "Director Lin reported it to you. I guess you didn't hear the key points."

The Lin brothers present are now directors, but everyone understood that the Director Lin that Teng Yuzao was referring to was Lin Liansheng.

"The telegraph that Director Lin is talking about is not the one we use now. The signals of the telegraph we use now need to be transmitted through copper wires to a certain place."

"In other words, where the telegraph line is connected, where our telegram can be sent?"

Zhou Fu, who was standing by, became more and more confused as he listened, and finally couldn't help asking Teng Yuzao.

"Xingfu, could it be that the telegram that Director Lin is talking about can be received without a telegraph line?"

Now in Zhili and Shandong, including all the people, there are only three people who dare to address Teng Yuzao by his given name in person. The first one is Zhou Fu, and the other is Ning Xingpu. Li Yulin only does so in private. In public, he still has to address Teng Yuzao as "General".

Teng Yuzao smiled and said to Zhou Fu, "Mr. Zhou, you are right. You may not have noticed that the name of this new telegraph contains the word "wireless".

Teng Yuzao's words not only shocked Zhou Fu, but also most of the people in the meeting hall.

Xu Shiguang asked in astonishment, "Marshal, so if I have a telegraph machine in Dengzhou, if anything happens, I can ask Lord Zhou in Jinan Prefecture for instructions and a decision?"

Xu Shiguang originally wanted to report it to Tianjin, but when he thought about the fact that Zhou Fu didn't like him very much, if he mentioned Tianjin at this time, it would make Zhou Fu dislike him even more. After all, Zhou Fu was his immediate superior.

Teng Yuzao smiled and nodded, saying, "Master Xu is right, it is indeed true."

Teng Yuzao turned to the crowd again and said, "This new thing called wireless telegraph not only saves the cost of building telegraph lines and greatly facilitates the communication needs of the people, but also has great significance in the military."

"teacher."

Wu Peifu interrupted impatiently and asked, "If I bring one back to Zhangjiakou, can I report the situation to the teacher?"

"Yes, not only you are in Zhangjiakou, even if you take this thing to Kulun, I can get your news in time."

"Even if you are on the march, as long as we set up a high enough antenna, we can still send and receive telegrams to each other."

"besides."

Teng Yuzhao ignored Wu Peifu who was overjoyed, and the generals who were stunned and astonished, and spoke to Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing.

"You should know this best on the sea. Sometimes, even if you know your ship is nearby, it is still very difficult to find the other side in the vast ocean."

"Especially once the fleet is at sea, it is harder than climbing to the sky for people on land to understand what is happening at sea."

"But if we have this new type of telegraph, if you, Ding Ming, lead the fleet out to sea, you don't have to send a speedboat back to report. You can sit on your flagship and contact Tong Hou in the Navy Department. You can even send telegrams directly to our new army headquarters or my Governor's Office."

"Also, if our consulates abroad were equipped with this new type of telegraph, we could send reports back to China at any time."

After Teng Yuzao finished speaking, it immediately aroused heated discussion among the crowd, especially the generals.

After everyone discussed for a while, Teng Yuzao smiled and spoke again.

"Don't be too happy yet. The requirements for antennas for this kind of radio are still quite high. It is also quite large and inconvenient to carry. Currently, it is only suitable for installation in fixed locations, such as on land and on warships."

"But Director Lin will resolve this issue soon, am I right?"

The last sentence was said by Teng Yuzao to Lin Liansheng.

Lin Liansheng nodded with a smile on his face and said, "Yes, we can already make the large radio transceiver that the Marshal mentioned. According to the Marshal's instructions, we have made significant progress in the strength of the transmitted signal and the miniaturization of the antenna. In about a year at most, a portable radio can be trial-produced."

Not only was the magnetic detector trial-produced according to the ideas provided by Teng Yuzao, but the new telegraph also received many instructions from Teng Yuzao. Now Lin Liansheng believed that the new telegraph they designed according to Teng Yuzao's instructions was already the most advanced in the world.

It’s just that Teng Yuzhao requested confidentiality, so it has neither been made public nor has there been any applicant or patent.

Even under Teng Yuzao's guidance, they have already prototyped a device that Teng Yuzao calls an electron tube. A small glass bulb can greatly increase the strength of the receiving and transmitting signals, but it is still a little unstable.

Now, Lin Liansheng is working with the electrical company research institute under the Zhendan Industrial Development Corporation headed by Zhou Xuexi to improve the electron tubes. Once successful, they will be handed over to them for production.

According to Teng Yuzhao's requirements, the corresponding patent fees will eventually be extracted from the products sold and handed over to the Ordnance Department, and the money will be allocated for unified purposes by the Ordnance Department.

Lin Liansheng's Communications Department was under the dual jurisdiction of the General Staff and the Ordnance Department.

After the Lin brothers, the senior generals reported their situations.

Liu Yuzhi's first town was stationed in Shandong. Not to mention that Shandong was now under the jurisdiction of Teng Yuzhao, not to mention that Zhou Fu was the governor of Shandong. Whether it was the training of new troops or the disbanding of old troops, everything was carried out in an orderly manner.

In accordance with Teng Yuzhao's requirements, all old troops in Zhili and Shandong provinces should, in principle, be resettled. Not only should each prefecture and county set up a patrol bureau, each prefecture should also have a patrol team, and each province should have a patrol general bureau and patrol general team.

Those who are older and weaker will be assigned to be patrol police.

A few who are strong and have no bad habits are sent to the teaching corps headed by Sun Shijun for military training, and after passing the training, they are incorporated into various troops.

There were even many people who requested to work in the newly opened factories. However, due to the large number of old soldiers being dismissed, the number of patrolmen and patrol teams was a bit too large.

However, more people would come in handy, as there are still 60,000 to 70,000 Japanese and Russian prisoners who need to be looked after.

Now these prisoners have been scattered throughout Zhili, and are responsible for building factories, railways, roads, the new city of Tianjin, and even constructing canals and dredging rivers.

According to Teng Yuzhao's idea, all roads in counties and towns in Zhili should be renovated, and the main roads leading to the capital should first be paved with asphalt.

Yunnan and Sichuan both have natural asphalt. The asphalt mining areas in these two provinces have been purchased by Ning Xingpu. The asphalt used in road construction in Zhili now comes from Ning Xingpu's trading company.

All of these require huge manpower, and the prisoners are just right for this job, and the patrol team also has their place.

The patrol corps of various prefectures and counties in Shandong and the provincial capital of Jinan have some special tasks. They need to cooperate with Liu Yuzhi's First Town to suppress bandits throughout Shandong. Teng Yuzhao is ready to completely eliminate the bandit problem in Shandong.

Thanks to the above measures, the dismantling of the old army in Zhili and Shandong provinces went very smoothly.

Liu Shijiu's Fourth and Cao Futian's Seventh Regiments stationed in Chengde, Luanzhou, Qinhuangdao and other places, Wu Peifu's Fifth and Li Jinyu's Eighth Regiment stationed in Zhangjiakou, Duolun and other places, and Liu Bingyi's Ninth Regiment stationed in the vicinity of Tianjin, because they were all stationed in Zhili, so there was no problem either.

Hu Dianjia's Third Regiment was stationed in Anhui. Governor Wang Zhichun knew that he had already offended Cixi. Not only had he already prepared himself to be dismissed from office, he was also unwilling to cause trouble again.

Therefore, he was very cooperative with the Third Regiment. Although the disbanding of the old army in Anhui was not as smooth as in Zhili and Shandong, there was a deterrent effect from the Third Regiment, so there were no problems.

Li Xiangze's second regiment was stationed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Although Liu Kunyi, the governor-general of Liangjiang, was the leading figure in signing the Southeast Mutual Protection Agreement, Liu Kunyi was still an advocate of reform and the training of a new army. This was what he and Zhang Zhidong had been advocating after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Therefore, he was extremely supportive of Li Xiangze.

Although he did not need the help of the Second Town to suppress the rebellion, Liu Kunyi had done a good job in disbanding the old army in Liangjiang and training new troops, but he still had no aversion to the Second Town and allocated tens of thousands of taels of silver every month to supplement the food supply of the Second Town.

There was no objection to Li Xianze recruiting soldiers locally.

In short, the Second Town lived a very comfortable life in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Teng Yuzhao instructed each town to recruit some local people into the army so that they could adapt to the local customs and habits as quickly as possible and be more easily recognized by the locals.

The only thing we encountered when we arrived at the sixth town of Panjinshan in Guangdong was great obstacles.

The current Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi is Tao Mo, who has just taken office.

Tao Mo was not conservative. Not only did he advocate reform, he also went much further than other provincial governors and especially recognized the Japanese reform model.

Soon after taking office, he sent Wu Zhihui to lead students to study in Japan. His son even regarded himself as a member of the New Party and had frequent contacts with New Party members overseas.

The biggest problem the Sixth Regiment encountered in Guangdong and Guangxi came from Governor Tao Mo.

For some unknown reason, Tao Mo firmly opposed the Sixth Regiment's stationing in Guangdong, and advocated that Guangdong and Guangxi should train their own new army without the intervention of outsiders. He even wrote to Cixi repeatedly, slandering Teng Yuzhao and the vanguard army, and reminding Cixi to be careful of Teng Yuzhao's self-reliance in the army.

In order to prevent the Sixth Regiment from assisting in the disbanding of the old army, he also allowed the local Green Camp and Lianyong to refuse to be disbanded and cause trouble.

Even at the instigation of some people with ulterior motives, local gangs continued to create trouble for the Sixth Town, threatening and intimidating local merchants and prohibiting them from selling rice, grains, vegetables and other supplies to the Sixth Town.

The ones making the most noise were the local merchant groups, who even set up checkpoints outside the Sixth Town headquarters to intercept merchants going to the Sixth Town headquarters to sell their goods.

Pan Jinshan had already reported these situations to Teng Yuzhao, who also reported them to the Grand Council and Cixi several times in succession, saying that the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, Tao Mo, had condoned and allowed local gangs, the Green Camp, and the trained soldiers to hinder the disbanding of the old army and the training of the new army.

However, Teng Yuzhao's memorial only resulted in a telegram from the Grand Council reprimanding Tao Mo, while Cixi seemed to be indifferent.

This time Pan Jinshan recounted it again, and he said it in front of so many people at the joint military and political meeting, saying that it was Teng Yuzhao who secretly instructed him to do so.

In Teng Yuzao's opinion, Cixi kept silent, obviously hoping that Tao Mo would make a big fuss about this matter. Her only purpose was to cause dissatisfaction among the Vanguard Army in Guangdong and Guangxi. If it could be expanded to other provinces, it would be even better. In this way, the reputation of Teng Yuzao and the Vanguard Army would inevitably be damaged.

Teng Yuzao sighed and said, "Rui Guang, it seems that not only Guangdong and Guangxi do not welcome your Sixth Town, but the British also do not welcome you to stay in Guangdong. You may not know that the merchant group was established with the support of the British in Hong Kong."

"In that case, you should retreat to Fujian and focus on defending against the Japanese who are occupying Taiwan Island."

"But you can't just leave quietly like this. If that merchant group provokes you again, you should teach them a lesson and then leave Guangdong immediately."

Zhou Fu was shocked by Teng Yuzhao's words and wanted to persuade him.

But Liu Shijiu's angry voice had already sounded.

"Rui Guang, you are getting more timid the higher your position. If it were me, I would have killed all the people from the merchant group! And I would have let them shit on our necks!"

Seeing that Liu Shijiu was about to continue speaking angrily, Teng Yuzao hurriedly spoke.

"Lian Mansion, please also introduce the government affairs."

Yang Shixiang nodded and said, "Okay!"

Then Yang Shixiang said, "Let me first talk about the recent reforms issued by the court."

"Recently, there have been rumors in Beijing that the court is preparing to send ministers abroad to study Western politics. Some people also say that the court is preparing to implement a constitutional monarchy. However, when I asked the Military Affairs Office, they couldn't tell me whether this was the case."

This matter was agreed upon by Yang Shixiang and Teng Yuzhao, and even the rumors in the capital were spread by Li Yaoting.

Teng Yuzao did this at the suggestion of brothers Yang Shixiang and Yang Shiqi.

The purpose was simple, which was to stimulate public opinion and then force Cixi to do it.

If we follow the historical trajectory, it would take another four years for Cixi to send people abroad for investigation, and several more years for the final decision to implement constitutionalism. Teng Yuzhao also felt that this time was a bit too long.

Yang Shixiang continued, "Although no one in the Grand Council knows whether this rumor is true or not, it is rumored that the court is going to formulate the "Chamber of Commerce Charter", "Merchant General Rules", "Company Law", and amend the "Great Qing Law". These things should be true, and some ministers have confirmed it privately."

(End of this chapter)