In July 1888, the first anniversary of the establishment of the Tianjin Army Military Academy had just ended, and the celebration was very simple or gloomy.

The first anniversary of the establishment of the military academy has become a one-man show for Li Yi, without the official recognition of the imperial court, the comprehensive construction of the new army has also completely stalled, and the students of the school are also unstable and feel confused about their future.

Over the past year, the reform has dragged on and dragged out a series of twists and turns, and not only has there been no progress, but even the consensus on reform reached by Li Yi with deterrence has been diluted.

Li Yi's strategy of peaceful evolution can be said to have basically failed, and the fantasy that reform can be completed without means of war and without letting the people suffer the pain of war trauma has almost become an ignorant and ridiculous joke, and even he is now facing great danger.

With the completion of the new Eight Banners Army, the attitude of the imperial court has also changed significantly. Li Yi understands that he hasn't even seen a prince with real power for a year, which already shows the attitude of the imperial court, they are sending a message to the outside world that Li Yi is a small role that is not taken seriously.

Both the Eighth Banner Army and the Beiyang Naval Division already had a strong strength, but the new army had not strengthened a bit. This is a secret agreement between the imperial court and Li Hongzhang, who betrayed Li Yi at a critical moment. Although Li Hongzhang said to himself all day long that this was a steady act, everyone could see that his firm support for Li Yi had changed, and if Li Yi had not controlled the issuance of new coins, it was estimated that he would have been put on the hat of treason. Please enter the URL: Нёǐуапge.сОМ in lowercase letters to watch the latest and fastest chapters

At present, the New Eighth Banner Army has all been reequipped, and all of them are equipped with advanced weapons produced by the Guangdong Arsenal, and the amount of heavy machine guns and mortars is also very high; at the same time, the New Eighth Banner Army is still a highly mobile combat unit, all officers and men are equipped with war horses, and the instructors are all British.

Now the Qing army has eight banners, each with 8,000 people, and 64,000 people. There are 10,000 people in each banner of the Eight Banners of Mongolia, and there are 80,000 people. Each banner of the Han Eight Banners had 12,000 people, and there were 96,000 people, and the total number of banner soldiers reached 240,000.

In addition, there is an elite Royal Forest Army composed of 20,000 Manchurians, and a logistics army of 40,000 people who have learned from the new army. Although the structure is not very reasonable, it is also an elite army in today's world.

The new Eighth Banner Army is under the command of Minister of War Rong Lu, and just yesterday Rong Lu issued an order for the Eighth Banner Army to be stationed in Beijing, Tianjin, and the three provinces outside the Guanwai. This order was obviously to squeeze Li Yi out of Zhili, and Tianjin had Li Yi's Fifth Division of the New Army stationed, as well as a guard army trained by Li Yi himself, with only 6,000 people.

Originally, this guard army was ordered by Li Hongzhang to train a modern army infantry division on the basis of the Huai Army after Li Yi took up the post of training envoy of the new army, but because Li Hongzhang and Cixi reached a secret agreement later, the few Huai troops left in this new army were all transferred by Li Hongzhang to the Beiyang Naval Division. Li Yi happened to recruit 6,000 young people with extremely strong physical fitness from the two provinces of Shandong and Zhili to form a guard army.

Last year, there were a lot of problems in the new army, the intelligence agencies, and the entire top level of the free army, and Li Yi did not make positive changes in the past year. Are they loyal to themselves? There are people who are swinging ideas.

Li Yi's original intention in establishing this guard army was, on the one hand, to train a group of people with strong professional security strength to protect the safety of the army and senior government officials, and on the other hand, it was also a supervisory and warning role.

Now it seems that this step is extremely correct, in the past year, there have been countless examples of unauthorized actions by officers at all levels below, the most serious is Duan Haitao's special combat team, there are too many problems, which is also the main reason why Li Yi did not let them officially become an army.

Now the situation of the Qing State is very delicate, and the most powerful military strength on the surface is the new Eight Banner Army of the Qing court, with a total strength of 300,000. Only five divisions of the New Army under Li Yi's command were fully staffed regular troops, Duan Haitao's special operations unit, ten newly trained divisions, and one cavalry division had not been formally established.

Although the Qing court's New Eight Banners and the Imperial Forest Army only had 300,000 people, they ordered equipment for 500,000 people, so Li Yi's ten new army divisions only had training weapons, and they were not equipped with weapons. All this is because of Li Yi's mistake, he mistakenly trusted Li Hongzhang, for the sake of reform, in order to make the people rich and the country strong as soon as possible, Li Yi was willing to make concessions, but in exchange for putting himself in a dangerous situation.

"Report to the principal, Commander Ding of the Beiyang Fleet is coming to you!"

Commander of the Beiyang Fleet, Ding Ruchang! Li Yi sneered in his heart, this villain still became the commander of the Beiyang Fleet after all.

Li Yi didn't expect that he didn't change his fate, but the title was changed from Admiral of the Beiyang Naval Division to Commander of the Beiyang Fleet.

Last year, Li Hongzhang and Cixi reached a secret agreement that Li Hongzhang fully supported the construction of the new Eight Banners of the Qing court, Cixi ceded the navy to Li Hongzhang to control, and put all the ships of the whole country under the name of the Beiyang Naval Division, and even the Mawei Shipyard became an enterprise of the Beiyang Fleet.

In this way, although all countries in the world have launched an arms race, and the Beiyang Fleet has no possibility of importing ships from outside, the current Beiyang Fleet is much stronger than the historical Beiyang Naval Division because it has collected ships from all over the country and has sufficient funds.

Ding Ruchang is now a person who is easily complacent, a person who holds grudges, and a person who forgets the pain after his scars. He didn't wait for the herald to come out, he directly pushed open the door of Li Yi's principal's room and walked in.

Looking at Li Yi, who was sitting in the office chair in surprise, he laughed triumphantly and said, "Principal Li is so majestic!" Let me wait outside the door for a long time! ”

Seeing Ding Ruchang's villainous face, Li Yi felt uncomfortable, in fact, Ding Ruchang did not sin himself, on the contrary, he was kicked a few times by himself in Li Hongzhang's mansion. The main reason why he hates him so much may be because of his inability to defeat the Beiyang Naval Division in another time and space.

"The guards pulled him out! I have not yet agreed to come in, and I will never be allowed to come in without permission! Li Yi glared at the guard at the door and said sharply: "Next time, we must not allow any more dereliction of duty!" ”

The two guards received Li Yi's warning, and felt annoyed for a while, no matter how good Ding Ruchang was, it had nothing to do with him, regardless of Ding Ruchang's objection, they pulled him up and dragged him out of the door.

At this time, Li Yi said to the herald: "Let him in!" ”

Ding Ruchang's face was flushed with shame, and when he entered the office, he pointed to Li Yi's nose and said, "You are so bold."

Li Yi saw that Ding Ruchang's fingers were about to touch his nose, so he interrupted him with a sneer and said, "Commander Ding, you have no memory when you become a commander, do you remember the consequences when you pointed at my nose?" ”

Ding Ruchang was shocked, this bastard would not dare to kick himself, seeing Li Yi standing up, he still pointed his finger and stepped back: "Li Yi, don't be arrogant, I came today to tell you, Lord Zhongtang said, you better leave Tianjin, you dare to kick me!" ”