"At the same time, we must complete the reorganization of the old army (of the uprising and surrender) as quickly as possible. At present, the Qing army that rebelled and surrendered together exceeded 300,000 (Note 1), of which less than half were easy to reform and had transformation value, and there were about 60,000 or 70,000 people who had a certain combat effectiveness and only needed to strengthen the political work and backbone troops to be sent to the battlefield immediately, and more than half of them were in Fengtian", Li Hui said this, and praised Yuan Datou a few words, without him, there would definitely not be such a good situation. And Yuan Shikai was able to become the first Manchu army general to be retained by the rebel army to lead more than one battalion, and it was precisely because of this great achievement.

When the news of the fall of the Manchu court first reached Mukden, most of the Qing generals thought it was just a rumor and did not take it seriously, but Yuan Shikai was the only exception, because his basic plate came from Gao Shanji's troops at the beginning, and Gao Shanji's troops had two biochemical instructors among them

From those two biochemical instructors, Yuan Shikai saw the selfless character and excellent military quality, and the forces behind it must be very terrifying to be able to train such officers, and they are by no means comparable to the corrupt and incompetent Qing court. Therefore, when the "rumor" was confirmed by the two and admitted that it was related to the organization to which he belonged, Yuan Shikai quickly believed it, and after learning that Li Dongyang, who was rumored to be a god, was actually the leader of this organization, he was even more relieved and sighed, "Sure enough, only such a leader can have subordinates like you!" ”

Yuan Shikai doesn't know how to pretend to be a grandson, but he has always been a very proud person in his bones, even the powerful Li Hongzhang is not in his eyes, because Yuan Shikai has always believed that if he has an opportunity like Li Hongzhang, he will definitely do better.

But Yuan Datou is not a person without admiration, the late Gao Shanji is one, Yuan Shikai asks himself that his talent is not inferior to him, but he does not have such heroism and personality charm, which he deeply envies but can't learn.

There is also Li Hui, although he has not met so far, but Li Hui is young, from the beginning of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau without a long life, it is only two years, he can gain Li Hongzhang's trust, and let the Beiyang Naval Division, which was originally just an empty shelf, was reborn, directly affected the course of the Sino-Japanese War, and even let China once see the hope of victory, even if it is now in a series of defeats on land, it has always maintained a glimmer of life, this kind of ability to turn decay into magic, Yuan Shikai asked himself no matter what.

Therefore, after learning that Li Hui was the leader of the uprising, Yuan Shikai was not only surprised, but even had the idea of "I knew it was him", perhaps in his opinion, the overthrow of the Manchu Qing in less than a month was only possible by a figure like Li Hui, who often performed miracles.

The rebel army that overthrew the Manchu Qing in less than a month is as strong as you can imagine, and they also subdued the navy and completely controlled the sea supremacy on the Yellow and Bohai Seas. For the Fengtian Qing army, this is simply a draw from the bottom of the kettle.

In this case, if you still want to resist stubbornly, you can only hug the thighs of the great powers, but now that the sea route is cut off and Lao Maozi is far away, is it difficult to go to Japan?

However, the reason why the Qing army in Fengtian has been able to hold out until now under the disadvantage of successive defeats is largely because most of the newly replenished soldiers came from the local area of Fengtian, which suffered greatly from the Japanese invasion, and all of them hated the Japanese army, so they fought bravely and supported the backbone of the Qing army.

And Yuan Shikai knew that the logistics supply problem of the third division of the Japanese army was greater, almost all supported by capture, during this period with a large number of local peasants enlisted, the morale of the Qing army recovered a lot, and it was rare to collapse without a fight as at the beginning, although it was still more defeated and won less, but the supplies that the Japanese army could capture from the Qing army were far from being compared with the beginning. Now that the supply of the Qing army has been cut off, this road has been completely cut off, and the third division of the Japanese army will have a hard time in the future.

Therefore, even if we only consider the reality, the revolt and allegiance to the new dynasty is the only way out for the Mukden Qing army, and if they wait for someone to call before surrendering, I am afraid that at most they will be able to save their lives.

Yuan Shikai knew this very well, but he could not guarantee that the commanders of the other Qing armies could also understand that if he could not make a decision immediately, the people's hearts would fluctuate after the news spread, and the consequences would be unimaginable.

If the rebel army comes first, it will be better, if the Japanese army comes first, if you don't surrender, you will die, and after surrendering, you will be liquidated by the rebel army, or die!

In addition to the need for self-preservation, Yuan Shikai also has a little selfishness, the stronger the rebel army itself, the less attention will be paid to the general, if he simply leads the troops to revolt, it is estimated that he can also keep his family wealth and return to his hometown to be a local tyrant, if he wants to be reused, he must make greater contributions.

Although the number of troops and horses has expanded to tens of thousands, becoming the third largest general in the Qing army in Fengtian, if the combat effectiveness of the troops is also taken into account, the strength will even exceed that of Song Qing and Yiketanga, who have more troops. But even so, Yuan Shikai didn't have the confidence to take the initiative to attack the Japanese army with only his own soldiers and horses, so if he wanted to make meritorious contributions, he could only attack his own people.

At the Hongmen banquet, Yuan Shikai had a compassionate expression on his face, and his words to the dozens of colleagues who were captured were murderous, "It's not that I, Yuan, am not righteous, it's really forced by the situation, as long as you cooperate, at least you can save your life, if you are stubborn, Yuan is not afraid of blood on his hands"

Several loyal ministers of the Manchu Qing Dynasty immediately scolded Yuan Shikai, but before they could scold the second sentence, they were shot to death by Yuan Shikai's own soldiers in the military tent, and the rest were all silent

Note 1: Before the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing army claimed to have 690,000 regular troops, but the falsely reported vacancies accounted for a large part, and even if the army was expanded later, the actual total strength was less than 600,000. Most of them voted for Li Hui, whether voluntarily or forced, and the total strength of those rebels combined was less than 100,000. (To be continued.) )