Chapter 59 The Generation Difference of the Army
[Second update, please recommend votes, please collect]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After the establishment of the newly established Army Yamen in Zhili, Wang Chenhao immediately began to form the new army in Zhili.
Wang Chenhao was well aware of the bad habits and disadvantages of the old army, so he first started from the military side. When recruiting new recruits, he changed the way of the old army and required the soldiers he recruited to be farmers around 20 years old, strong and simple. He was not allowed to use the elderly, weak, sick and disabled, smoking opium, spoiled and others.
Wang Chenhao believed that: First, when serving in the army, you must have a strong body and be able to endure hardships. Second, you must be honest and obedient and easy to manage. Li Hongzhang's evaluation of Wang Chenhao's request for military service was: it is consistent with the idea of Zeng Wenzheng's "leading the mountain farmers with scholars" back then. As for soldiers, it is simple and easy to manage.
The Qing Empire had a huge population. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, land annexation was serious and foreigners wanted to occupy land, which made the Chinese people less and less land-free people flocked to the cities to seek life.
Tianjin, as the center of Beiyang Group, is the second largest city in China after Shanghai. A large number of ordinary people flocked to Tianjin, making the recruitment work very smooth, and soon recruited 25,000 new recruits who passed the physical examination.
According to Wang Chenhao's outline requirements, qualified recruits will be paid 2 taels of silver per month, and an elimination system will be implemented. After three months, the remaining generals will receive 4 taels of silver per month.
For simple farmers, it is very happy that the army has 2 taels of silver a month for food, housing and clothing. They can send them back to their families to make a living. Officially becoming the new army in Zhili has 4 taels of silver a month. This life has hope. The great attraction of entering a well-off family has stimulated these new recruits, and they are ready to compete with their hearts.
However, there is no free lunch in the world. What they don’t know is that under the excellent treatment, they will face almost cruel training.
※※※※※※※※※※※※※
At the same time, the prelude to the training of a new type of army was kicked off across the country. However, for most provinces, they were just a supporter. With the competition for the North and South and South participating in the autumn competition, other provinces knew that they had no hope of winning and did not train their troops carefully.
In the minds of most officials, they just took the opportunity to intercept the salary and fill their personal pockets with the sign of compiling the new army.
Among the Nanyang factions, Zhang Zhidong is the first. At this moment, Zhang Zhidong is working in Jiangning (Nanjing) of the Governor General of Liangjiang. Liu Kunyi, the former Governor of Liangjiang, was infected with a disease during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. He was recuperating at the moment, so Zhang Zhidong was in charge of the affairs of Liangjiang.
At present, Zhang Zhidong holds two provinces in Huguang, two rivers and three provinces, which is much more powerful than Li Hongzhang. Of course, the five provinces are also quite rich in financial resources, so Zhang Zhidong starts building a self-reliant army in Jiangning.
Like Beiyang, Zhang Zhidong also referred to the German Army. But the difference is that Wang Chenhao chose newcomers, while Zhang Zhidong reorganized the thirteen battalions of green camp soldiers from the Liangjiang area to form a 13,000-person self-reliance army, and then hired German instructors for training.
As a result, the Southern Self-Strengthening Army has made rapid progress. Before Wang Chenhao's training has started formal training, Zhang Zhidong has already started formal training in a hurry.
For a time, domestic and foreign newspapers paid attention to the training of the two new armies of the Qing Empire, North and South China. It was only eight or nine months before Qiu Cao. Wang Chenhao's soldiers were all new soldiers who had never fought, while Zhang Zhidong directly carried out intensive training based on the Liangjiang Green Camp. In comparison, domestic and foreign people were optimistic about Nanyang, and some newspapers immediately expressed their opinions that Wang Chenhao might have fallen apart this time.
Li Hongzhang was also a little confused and asked Wang Chenhao many times. His meaning was that he would not start training in the Qing army and Yi army in Beiyang, so that his combat power would definitely be greater than that in Nanyang.
But Wang Chenhao just smiled faintly, saying that he had a way and had the confidence to win, so that Li Hongzhang would not worry.
How could Li Hongzhang not worry? But Wang Chenhao had a firm position, and Li Hongzhang had no choice but to choose to believe him and hoped that he would not fall apart this time.
Wang Chenhao knew that the new army would have a new look. The Ziqiang Army continued to use the old green camp soldiers. No matter how they trained, they would change the soup and not the medicine, which would not play a big role.
In Wang Chenhao's eyes, the empire's Green Camp soldiers were considered the first generation army, Li Hongzhang's Huai Army was considered the second generation army, and Zhang Zhidong's self-reliant army was trained on the first generation, which could barely be considered the second and a half generations!
At present, the main armies of the great powers are at the third or third or a half level. Wang Chenhao has a new concept of cross-agency. Therefore, the new army he wants to train is positioned at the fourth generation level, and may be higher in the future, the fifth and sixth generations, so he is not worried about the challenge of strengthening the army at all.
The gap between the new army and the old army is a qualitative gap, which is also the real reason why tens of thousands of Japanese troops can sweep hundreds of thousands of Qing troops. With the generation difference, it is difficult for quantity to overcome quality.
※※※※※※※※※※※※※
The German, French and Russian Group of Germany, joined forces in the Far East and attacked Britain on the issue of the concession area and did not stop.
Britain and Russia are the most important pair of contradictions in the Far East. At this time, the British-Japanese alliance has 18 months left. Britain has not completely given up on Japan and provides certain financial assistance.
Russia's Asian strategy was intercepted by Japan at sea. Now Japan actually occupies the Korean Peninsula, forming a blockade against Russia, hindering the expansion of the Russian Far East fleet southward.
The Korean Peninsula, which blocks the Russian Navy's southward movement and hinders the Russian Army's encirclement of the northeast of the Qing Empire, is a huge threat during wartime.
At this time, the Qing Empire's army was vulnerable and Russia was not worried. However, the Japanese army was relatively powerful and naturally became a potential enemy of the Russian army.
As a result, North Korea became an obstacle to the Russian navy and army's southward movement and also became the focus of Japan-Russia conflict.
During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, the Japanese joint fleet failed to sink into the sand at Incheon Port, so the Russian Navy naturally gained the sea control of the Sea of Japan. But the Russian Navy was not satisfied.
On February 15, 1895, just as the Russian ambassador to China was mediating with the Qing government's Zongli Yamen, the Russian ambassador to Japan, joined forces with the German and French ambassadors to Japan to negotiate with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, demanding the lease of Japanese coastal ports and preparing to build a naval base around Japan to build a maritime stronghold.
The Japanese government had ended all unequal treaties the day before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 last year. At this time, Japan would never allow any unequal treaties to fall on the Japanese, so it rejected the German, French and Russian group of countries.
The same stern rejection was rejected, but Japan is currently unable to compare with the Qing Empire. The main force of the Japanese Navy was destroyed, leaving only some old warships in the West Sea Fleet to be available, but it can only maintain a few key areas along the coast of Japan.
The German, French and Russian group of countries are preparing to get back the benefits they did not get in the Qing Empire in Japan, threatening and intimidating Japan, intending to force Japan to submit.
At this time, Japan's domestic economy was in turmoil and the Japanese lived a difficult life. Faced with the threat from Germany, France and Russia, the Japanese Kuroda Kiyoshi cabinet did not dare to give in to the public for fear of arousing civil unrest, so it strongly opposed it and guided the domestic contradictions to turn to the German, French and Russian group.
Russia was not ready to fight against Japan, and Germany and France did not have much interest in Japan, so they did not work very hard. After all, Britain and Japan were still in alliance, and Russia did not dare to force it too much, so it temporarily gave up the requirement to ask for a port concession area on Japan's mainland.
On February 20, the German, French and Russian group of countries settled for the second best, and notified the North Korean Queen Min regime, demanding that the port concession be opened around North Korea.
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Qing government gave up its status as the sovereign state of Korea and recognized that North Korea belonged to Japan. However, due to international public pressure, Japan only confiscated the weapons of the North Korean army, retained the North Korean Queen Min regime and police forces, and promoted the outside world that North Korea was an independent country.
In this way, Japanese Foreign Minister Muro Otsuhiro once again refused the request of Germany, France and Russia to open a naval base in North Korea, but the reason was far-fetched, just respecting North Korea's sovereignty.
But the German, French and Russian group are now hooligans in the Far East. They will not care about these, and other great powers will not condemn them for an inconspicuous North Korea.
The Min North Korean group could no longer count on the Qing Empire. After the interference of Germany, France and Russia in return, the Min North Korean group believed that fighting against Japan would require support from Germany, France and Russia. Therefore, on the 21st, he replied to the consuls of the three countries in North Korea and allowed the three countries to open port concessions along the coast of North Korea. Because the Kingdom of Korea had no army or navy at this time, there was no restrictions on the German, French and Russian group.
The Japanese military representatives in North Korea immediately protested with Queen Min, but there was no result. Therefore, the Japanese government held a grudge against Queen Min’s group and already had the idea of killing them.
On the 23rd, after research and consultation, the German, French and Russian Group of Germany, France and Russia selected their respective concessions around the Korean Peninsula. Russia needed a strategic channel to go south to China and the Pacific, so Russia chose to control the Korean Strait and leased the area around Busan as a naval base for the Russian Far East Fleet, and regarded South Gyeongsang and North Gyeongsang as the sphere of influence of Russia.
France leased Ganghwa Bay and regarded the South Road of Huanghai as France's sphere of influence, and established a French naval base on Ganghwa Island. Germany and France had conflicts and did not intend to get too close, so it stayed away from France's sphere of influence, concessioned Jeju Island, and regarded North Korea's Jeolla South Road as Germany's sphere of influence.
Germany, France and Russia established concessions and spheres of influence in North Korea. The originally small Korean Peninsula was divided up by half of its territory by the three countries. It was so angry that the Japanese government vomited blood, but there was no way.
On the 27th, the three governments of Germany, France and Russia issued a note to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requiring the Japanese army to withdraw from the sphere of influence of the three countries. The Japanese government chose to temporarily avoid giving in the right way, as a hero did not suffer any loss.
Germany, France and Russia divided the sphere of influence in North Korea, which made the British government very annoyed. Especially Russia obtained the Busan port in the Korean Strait, which made the Russian Far East fleet break through the blockade of the British-Japanese alliance and went south to China and the Pacific through the Korean Strait, seriously threatening the interests of the British Far East.
Chapter completed!