Yang Chao did not know what would happen in later generations, but in this era, he felt that he could create some trouble for the British encirclement strategy. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

In August of the second year of Hongguang (1903), when Russia occupied Mukden again, the whole world was in an uproar, and the major media reported one after another, all believing that a war in the Far East was inevitable, and the vast majority of public opinion was on the opposite side of the Russians, the Russians had actually been isolated from the world, except for their allies the French, no country supported them, and the Germans were duplicitous, just fooling them to turn their attention to the East and reduce their own pressure.

Public opinion in China was even more violent, and the newspapers in the Shanghai Concession scolded the Russians one after another, and at the same time demanded that the imperial court declare war on Russia.

The moderate faction led by Zhang Zhidong suppressed the court and beat the Russians? Crazy!

Yang Chao also wrote an excerpt, which caused a lot of controversy.

Yang Chao wrote to the emperor, requesting immediate preparations for war, and in the case that the Russians refused to give up the northeast, at least they should be prepared first, and they should recruit new soldiers and expand the new army!

Yang Chao's performance has won the support of many people, although Yuan Shikai is not the main battle faction, but he is the most supportive, and he has bribed many officials to speak for Yang Chao, because once the imperial court expands the army, Yuan Shikai will benefit the most, because he can take the opportunity to expand the Beiyang Army.

In fact, the economic situation of the imperial court in the past two years is still good, after Zaifeng came to power, various taxes have increased a lot, last year's fiscal revenue was 100 million taels, Zaifeng's ability to loot is as strong as in history, and Zaifeng also has a loan of 30 million pounds from the British.

With these 30 million loans, in addition to wanting to control China's customs, the British actually also hope that China will reorganize its army, but the speed of Zaifeng is too slow, and the most important thing is that he may not want to see the power of the Han people to supervise too much, and the Manchus cannot find such figures as Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong.

Before the debate was over, Yang Chao had another excerpt.

It was suggested that the imperial court should train 200,000 new troops, and this time Yang Chao said that Shandong's ordnance industry could provide the weapons and equipment needed by the 200,000 army within a year, which caused a greater degree of amazement for a while.

Even foreigners were involved, and the Germans and Americans went crazy.

The Germans actively supported Yang Chao, while the Americans wanted to keep at least 100,000 shares of the equipment of the 200,000-strong army.

The Germans naturally hoped that the Qingdao Arsenal would be able to eat this big cake in one bite, and the weapons and equipment of 200,000 people, the rifles alone were worth 8 million US dollars, plus its cannons, machine guns, etc., 10 million was just the most conservative estimate.

However, the Qingdao Arsenal does not have such a large output, and they can only provide equipment for 100,000 people at most.

Regarding the mood of Americans eager to share the cake, Yang Chao only told them to work quickly, otherwise the daylily will be cold.

Stimulated by huge interests, the Americans burst out with extremely strong combat effectiveness and finally came up with American speed.

At the end of August, they sent in 300 engineers in one go, and when they arrived in China in October, they immediately accelerated the pace of construction, whether it was the steel plant in Yantai or the arsenal in Laiwu, the progress suddenly increased rapidly.

It took only two months for all the machinery and equipment to be commissioned, and at the same time, a batch of steel from the United States arrived in Yantai and was sent to Laiwu through the newly built railway, and the machine factory immediately started at full speed.

"Americans, you can't even whip with a whip, but if you hang with dollars, they can endure hardships better than donkeys!"

Seeing the continuous production of brand-new rifles, extremely strong and cannons, Yang Chao couldn't help but sigh.

No wonder the Americans are so urgent, because after fierce debates, the imperial court really decided to expand the army, and not to 200,000, but to form a new army of 400,000 at one time.

After the parliament went through the formalities, Zaifeng issued an edict and promulgated the "Outline of the New Army", taking the Beiyang Army as a model, drawing the whole country into 36 towns, each with 12,000 people.

This means that China will have to form a new army of more than 400,000 people, and the weapons and equipment of 400,000 people, even if it is only a rifle per person, will be at least an order of more than 10 million US dollars.

Not to mention the money-hungry Americans, the British, the French, the Germans, and even the Japanese, who were preparing for war, were all fighting fiercely with the Qing court, Germany, France, and Japan all hoped that the Qing government would hire their military advisers, and the British hoped that the Qing government would build a navy again.

Only the Russians sent a question, hoping that the Qing court would explain the purpose of the military expansion, and Yixuan, who took over the foreign minister from Yuan Shikai, replied directly that this was an internal affair and had nothing to do with other countries.

"These hungry wolves don't know that they have been fooled."

After carefully reading the Tang newspaper and instructions sent by the imperial court, Yang Chao couldn't help but sigh.

Outsiders can't see it, but he knows very well that this new army can't be run.

It's not that Zaifeng is obstructing, but that he's too petty.

Zaifeng has 30 million pounds in his hand, but now he has spent a lot of money, allowing dozens of powerful children and ministers to go out for inspections, but they are all luxury cruise ships, and they are divided into two delegations, and all countries in the world have gone around.

This is nothing, it is only a small amount of money, but this attitude of spending money is destined to not save that money.

After Zaifeng became the emperor, I don't know if it was to appease the nobles of the Eight Banners, or I couldn't stand the crying of these people, the first time I borrowed the money was not for development, but for reward, he had just ascended the throne, Zaitao and Zaizhen These people were sealed Beizi and Baylor, and rewarded them for building mansions; For those royal palaces that were lost in the Eight-Nation Alliance, large rewards were also issued to rebuild.

Ten million pounds were tossed up like this. Another 10 million was spent on the first year of government spending. There are only 10 million pounds left, Zaifeng began to save money, the left is reluctant to use it, the right is reluctant to use it, so far, that is, he has bought 20,000 rifles, and he is not even willing to buy machine guns and cannons.

Therefore, he is definitely unwilling to pay for the new army this time, and Zaifeng's edict is very clear that each province will run it on its own, and the source of funds will be through the abolition of the green battalions in each province, and the Eight Banners cannot be moved for the time being.

Let the provinces run it themselves, this can't be done, it is said that there is no money, that is, there is money, ninety percent of the governors are afraid that they will not use this money for the army, just like in history, except for the Beiyang New Army, the new army in the south is perfunctory, and few really have combat effectiveness.

Therefore, the purpose of the foreigners will definitely be frustrated, not to mention the weapons and equipment sold to the Qing court, even the output of the Qingdao Arsenal and the Laiwu Arsenal may not be able to be completely sold.

However, Yang Chao suddenly found that he could form an army.

The new army of the 36 towns in the country, a province with a large population like Shandong, was allocated two places, and the intention required Yang Chao and Zhou Fu to each form a new army in Shandong.

But there is no money, so Yang Chao does not plan to build an army immediately.

Yuan Shikai, who can be built but not built with Yang Chao, and is the most active in forming a new army, did not leave a single establishment behind, because Zaifeng said that there are already four towns in Zhili, and it should not be too many.

From this point of view, Zaifeng's move to let all provinces across the country set up new armies, I am afraid that the biggest purpose is to balance Yuan Shikai.

This is not surprising, Yang Chao is even more strange that Zaifeng and Yuan Shikai have been able to endure it until now without making a move.

It is not surprising that Yuan Shikai did not make the first move, because in the original history, when Yuan Shikai forced the Qing Emperor to abdicate, he also took care of this and that, not only wanted the Qing Emperor to abdicate, but also did not want to lose the reputation of a disloyal minister, and played a lot of tricks.

But Zaifeng can still hold back, which is really impressive, but where is Zhang Zhidong, it probably won't let these two fight.

Yang Chao did not form a new army, but Zhou Fu acted, he began to dismantle the green battalion, and at the same time transferred a group of officers from Yuan Shikai, and sent people to discuss arms matters with Yang Chao, hoping that the Laiwu Arsenal could allocate 20,000 rifles to the new army.

Yang Chao said that he would just give money, which also made Zhou Fu unhappy, he thought that Yang Chao was running a government-run factory like Hanyang Iron Works, Yang Chao specially explained to him, this is a joint stock factory, and there are shares of foreigners, Yang Chao said that at the end of the year, his share of dividends can be returned to Zhou Fu, but the profits of foreigners and the cost of the factory cannot be guaranteed.

Although Zhou Fu was unhappy, he even felt that he was subject to foreigners, and told Yang Chao not to be held hostage by foreigners, and then he had to allocate a sum of money to Yang Chao.

"Place an order, place an order for a foreigner. In two years I want 400,000 rifles, 4,000 machine guns, 2,000 cannons. Production was at full capacity, and artillery shells and bullets were also produced at full capacity, and I underwrote all the bullets within two years. Don't blame Lao Tzu for cheating them. ”

Just returned from Jinan, Yang Chao was angry.

The foreigners deceived people too much, and Zhou Fu told him that because of the Germans, several coal mines near the railway he had built, especially the iron ore and coal mines in Laiwu, could not be mined.

The Germans put pressure on the Qing court, saying that the right to mine within 30 miles on both sides of the Jiaoji Railway belonged to them, and that the mines mined by the Chinese before the treaty could only be mined by the soil method, not by machines.

Outside the radius of thirty miles, if there are German mines within fifteen miles, the Chinese are not allowed to open mines, and an iron mine favored by Laiwu Yang Chao is less than ten miles away from a German coal mine, but more than thirty miles earlier than the Jiaoji Railway.

The Russo-Japanese War was approaching, and Yang Chao knew very well that this was a large-scale war, and the Japanese issued more than 80 million pounds in bonds in London and borrowed more money from China.

Originally, Yang Chao planned to let Qingdao Arsenal and Laiwu Arsenal earn this business, and then share dividends from it, and at the same time stimulate the two enterprises to become regular and continue to expand their operations, but the attitude of the Germans made Yang Chao very dissatisfied, so he decided to pit the Germans.

In the original history, the Germans were the biggest winners of the Russo-Japanese War, relying on Germany to maintain the world's largest military production capacity, they made a lot of money, selling weapons and equipment to two countries respectively, and the little money borrowed by the two countries was basically earned by them.

However, this time Yang Chao plans to get a piece of the pie, and it is a big piece of the pie.