The patrol troops at the east gate gathered to make trouble was quickly extinguished, and more than 300 stragglers were surrounded and disarmed by the officers and men of the 65th standard of the new army, and all of them were escorted to the camp in the eastern suburbs to wait for processing.

The Sichuan Patrol Force is not a regular armed force within the establishment, it is purely a surname of the local security forces, its predecessor is the green battalion that has long been abolished, and the guards of the four gates of Chengdu are of this type, and the people in various places also call it the city defense army, and the establishment, food, and equipment are all raised by the local political axes themselves.

Now Sichuan is in turmoil, untrained and backwardly equipped patrol troops in various places in the face of the people's shotguns and machetes, they are not dismissed or co-opted by the "Baolu Comrade Army" established in various places, or they take off their military uniforms and go home to farm, homeless veterans (ruffians) have fled to Chengdu, these grandmothers do not love their uncles do not love the stragglers who see who is tired of them, the former governor Wang Wenwen had to temporarily place them in the city defense barracks inside the east gate, these people did not be honest for a few days, on the grounds of lack of pay and guns, they continued to make trouble.

Xiao Yimin didn't have the slightest good impression of the patrol army, who was always an opium smoker and would only bully and extort the people, so he kept ignoring it and left it to fend for himself.

The new officers and men who had received the new type of education and training had no good impression of the patrol troops, so if they caught the troublemakers, they would be punched and kicked, and they would be thrown into the camp and locked up without starvation, and no one cared.

Zhao Erfeng will not pay attention to the hundreds of stragglers who have fled back from all over the country, because Xiao Yimin's chief of staff of the new army Cheng Qian has returned home after losing his father, and Zhao Erfeng, who is desperate to rectify the new army, is still sighing for the delay in coming back, and what he thinks about the most at present is how to seize the army and stabilize the situation in the province.

However, there are one or two people who care about this group of stragglers, the first is Lai Canglin, a member of the League who has just quietly returned to Chengdu from Yueben, and the second is Yin Changheng, the new chief of staff of the New Army who Zhu Qinglan has tried his best to protect.

Lai Canglin said after the incident that at a secret meeting of the Chengdu branch of the League, he put forward the idea of winning over the patrol troops, and after several fierce debates, the seven or eight responsible persons of the Chengdu branch still could not form a unified opinion, because the image left by this group of patrol troops on the common people was too bad.

Lai Canglin argued on the basis that "the revolutionary cause should unite all forces that can be united, especially the armed forces", and moved out of the deeds of Mr. Zhongshan, Mr. Keqiang, and others who also did not hesitate to join the Hongmen and the Qinggang for the sake of the revolution, and successfully persuaded the people, and finally obtained the consent of the Chengdu branch of the League, and decided that the matter must be concealed from Zhu Qinglan, the commander of the New Army, who had an ambiguous attitude and an unfirm stance, and other leading members of the Sichuan Provincial League, and went all out to win over Yin Changheng, chief of staff of the New Army, who had shown himself active and talented in the several months of the road protection movement.

Yin Changheng, who had just been promoted to chief of staff of the 17th Town, was at a time when there was a shortage of major generals, and since the outbreak of the Baolu Movement, as a member of the Military Committee of the Sichuan Alliance, he kept in close contact with the fanatics in the New Army, and constantly visited the core leading members of the railway company and the Baolu Comrades Association.

Yin Changheng keenly saw the opportunity that could be exploited from the incident that occurred in the East Gate Patrol Army, so Lai Canglin found him to discuss secretly, and made a lot of promises in the name of the Chengdu Branch, Yin Changheng immediately agreed to it, saying that he could use his capacity as the chief of staff of the New Army, in the name of "rectifying military discipline and strengthening education", to gather and train the patrol troops that were constantly gathering, and asked the Chengdu Branch to provide guns, ammunition, and funds to support the patrol troops who had a deep hatred for the Manchus. In order to prepare for the uprising, it is said to be a new force.

It is difficult for Lai Canglin to make a few homemade bombs now, where can he get guns and ammunition? Hearing this, he cried out loudly and was in pain.

Yin Changheng stretched out his hand and asked if he was rich? Lai Canglin hurriedly said that there was nothing else, but the activity funds were abundant. Yin Changheng laughed and said Isn't this okay? As long as you have the money, I can get you as many guns and ammunition as you want.

Lai Canglin was very excited, and hurriedly returned to the secret branch on Taisheng Street to report after saying "you wait". A group of scholar leaders of the Chengdu branch were worried about being defenseless, and they were overjoyed to hear Lai Canglin's report, and quickly took out the 100,000 yuan "road protection fund" secretly given by the Sichuan-Han Railway Company, and sent someone to give it to Yin Changheng together with Lai Canglin.

One night in mid-September, 500 brand-new Hanyang-made rifles and 50,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, 300 "Leopard" imitation Colt pistols, 500 "Leopard" M1911 revolvers and bullets were all placed in front of a group of scholar leaders of the Chengdu branch.

The Allies and local armed forces, which are extremely short of weapons and ammunition, have tried their best to contact European and American foreign companies that smuggle weapons to China through various channels, but they have been told that it will take 40 days at the earliest to meet the demands, and that all the guns and ammunition in the stocks of the foreign companies, whether made in Britain, Germany, or Belgium, have been sold out before the end of August, and the situation of the buyers is kept strictly secret by the foreign companies, and no one can know about it.

The provincial federations and local forces were speculating about who the buyer was, and that he had such huge funds and power, and in the end almost all turned their suspicious eyes on the Anhui warlords, who were the only ones who were close to the water, who had such a generous and vigilant surname.

The managers of foreign banks in various countries were mixed with joy, and they were pleasantly surprised to see from the constant feedback that a civil war was about to break out in the Yangtze River valley, and the huge profits of the war were beckoning to them.

Regrettably, in the past two months, Johnson, manager of the southwest branch of Jardine Matheson Matheson in the United Kingdom, has reminded him several times that war is coming, and the managers of the major foreign banks are still skeptical and cautious to verify it, but when the huge wealth comes, Johnson, who is fast with his hands and feet, has already emptied their small arms warehouses, and the managers of various countries who have no spot have lost a good opportunity to make a fortune, and they are all remorseful, jealous and admired the British, and they all call their respective headquarters to explain the situation, and ask for weapons and ammunition to be sent as quickly as possible to meet the needs of China's large-scale war.

Johnson made a fortune again, and in only 35 days, more than half of the 46,000 rifles and huge quantities of ammunition from Europe and the United States were sold, and three-fifths of them were bought by the major gangs in Hunan and Hubei provinces along the Yangtze River at a high price of 1.5 times higher than the normal price, and one-fifth was secretly bought by the Shaanxi consortium in the Yichang River section, leaving only 8,000 imitation Mauser rifles and 500 boxes of rifle cartridges from the Belgian FN company that Xiao Yimin particularly needed and quietly transported back to Chengdu.

Johnson now counts the money until his hands cramp, and his friend Xiao Yimin also sent it, and he obtained 8,000 high-quality rifles and 500 boxes of ammunition from the FN company from this three-month arms speculation without spending a penny.

The stability of the situation in Chengdu, the compromise in all aspects, so that the young Xiao Yimin unconsciously bred paralysis, although every day he will go to the governor's palace, but most of his energy is focused on the production and sales of weapons, in the case of suspending the production of difficult and time-consuming Mauser barge guns, the production of M1911 revolvers, imitation Colt M1903 pistols a total of 750 pieces of three shifts a day, is still in short supply, of which the price of revolvers has risen from 30 oceans to 45 oceans, None of them can meet the huge demand of the market.

On the morning of 10 October, a telegram arrived in Chengdu, and the translator of the telegraph company rushed to the street with the telegram in his hand like crazy, exerting all his strength, looking up to the sky and shouting: "The Wuchang New Army has revolted—"

In the blink of an eye, the news spread throughout the streets and alleys of Chengdu, and hundreds of students and citizens ran into the streets under the organization of the League, chanting slogans in support of the revolutionary (riot) movement of the Wuchang New Army.

By noon, the procession had reached more than 30,000 people, and the endless flow of people surrounded the streets around the imperial city, and finally poured into the Governor's Yuan Street, where the governor's palace was located, and the slogans had evolved into "return my railway" and "Down with the Manchu regime."

The new army and the patrol army in the eastern suburbs of the camp, the east school field, and the south school field began to be restless; The 600 Manchu and Mongolian officers and soldiers and 1,500 sturdy militiamen stationed in the West Church were fully equipped and were nervously waiting for the war horses under the command of Fengshan, the general of Chengdu.

The Zhenzi battalion of the border army in the north school field set up a barbed wire fence at the intersection around the camp, the two guard towers and the city wall stretched out a heavy machine gun black hole muzzle, a thousand elites under the command of the assistant leader Zong Yi finished draping, and waited for the battle, one hundred and fifty cavalry with a rifle on their backs, a saber in their hands, standing solemnly next to the war horse, and Xiao Yimin, the leader of the staff, climbed to the top of the guard tower in the southeast corner, and raised a telescope with a group of soldiers to closely monitor all directions of the city.

South School Field, the temporary headquarters of the 17th Town of the New Army.

Zhu Qinglan, Jiang Dengxuan, Xu Xiaogang, Yin Changheng and other more than 20 generals gathered together, nervously discussed, from time to time there were sentries running in to report the development of the situation inside and outside the city, when they heard that the Chengdu general personally led 500 cavalry slowly to the governor's palace, Zhenzi battalion staff leader Xiao Yimin led 500 elites to suddenly take over the defense of the north city gate, all the generals almost jumped up.

Xie Jiong roared loudly: "What does Xiao Yimin want to do? ”

Zhu Qinglan glared at Xie Jiong and motioned for everyone to sit down: "I opposed the participation of the New Army in the (parade) demonstration before, and now it seems to be very correct, let's not talk about the threat posed by the cavalry of Fengshan and Xiao Yimin's infantry, but only talk about the two battalions of border troops stationed inside and outside the Governor's Palace, as well as the 1,500 policemen who strictly implement the order to maintain order, it is not something we can easily move, you also know how many brothers in our New Army are in the Alliance, if the emotion in the (parade) is difficult to control, If you are not careful, you may be suppressed decisively, I believe you know the temper of Lord Zhao Erfeng very well, he is definitely a master who eats soft and does not eat hard. ”

Jiang Dengxuan quickly echoed: "Lord Commander is right, after all, we are not Wuhan with empty troops, if it weren't for Lord Zhao Erfeng who petitioned the imperial court in accordance with the will of the people some time ago, he would not have been the governor of Sichuan for a few days, and he would not have been deprived of his post by the imperial court in just a few days, and the Duan Fang stationed in Wuhan would not have been urgently appointed as the governor of Sichuan, and he would not have led the army to Sichuan

"Therefore, I insist that the current situation is chaotic and unclear, and it is better to respond to everything with the same, not to mention that there are so many students and people on the street, and it will affect the whole body!"

The generals and colonels immediately calmed down, and Chief of Staff Yin Changheng looked left and right, disdainful in his heart, but with a smile on his face, he stood up with a haha:

"I completely agree with the opinions of the commander-in-chief and General Jiang's office, and I suggest that we immediately go to the major battalions to stabilize the mood of the officers and soldiers and control the development of the situation No matter what, we must not be chaotic in Chengdu, at least not until we see the results of the Wuhan riot."

"I'm for it!"

"Agreed!"

Zhu Qinglan was relieved when he saw this, stood up and said: "It's so decided, you guys go to the battalions to take care of the officers and soldiers, Xu Guan and I will go to the Zhenzi Battalion for a walk, I want to ask Brother Xiao what he thinks about the action!" ”

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