Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Hospital Nurse Wears White Silk

As the de facto overlord of the whole of Northern China, the Northwest Towns, which established the Shogunate in Taiyuan and controlled the imperial court remotely, would of course choose the stronghold in the capital as the highest position. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info a large piece of land in Wangfujing is owned by the Northwest Town Shoufu, and then established its own office on this piece of land.

It is said that it is an office, and the northwest side also built it as a military base. Permanent points of fire, heavy machine guns, watchtowers, artillery, just as much as that. Although under the protests of Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen, the Northwest finally withdrew the 155 howitzer company, but still retained the establishment of a four-gun 75mm rapid-fire artillery battery.

This firepower, combined with permanent defenses, would have allowed the personnel working here to hold out for a few days. A little change in the situation, they can rely on these things to hold out until the rescue army arrives.

From this point of view alone, the northwest side does not trust the central government in Beijing very much, and is ready to turn its face at any time. Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen knew this, but they were helpless about it. Who let them defeat the battle? A loser must have the consciousness of a loser.

However, Wang Shizhen really accepted his fate, and he didn't think about competing with the Northwest Town Guard Mansion in military and political terms. If only now

Duan Qirui was still a little unconvinced, thinking that if she didn't play in person, it didn't mean that he had lost the battle. Even if the war is defeated, it is the old man who is fooling around and ruining the good situation.

At first, he was opposed to the war, thinking that instead of attacking Handan, it would be better to hoard troops and fight out in a wave and drive the Russians away. In the current situation, the army he can control is much smaller, counting all the troops that can be pulled out, including some police forces in Beijing and Tianjin, the total is only 10,000 pairs, less than 20,000.

Heavy weapons, including all cannons of caliber above 100 mm, were confiscated. The miniature army in Duan Qirui's hands now, although it is barely organized into an infantry division, is actually better called a rifle division.

Relying on these remnants of the defeated army, Duan Qirui didn't think of provoking the Northwest Town Guard. But he doesn't think so, but others don't.

For example, his confidant Xu Shuzheng has been jumping up and down, often conspiring with ministers, ambassadors, military attachés and intelligence officers of various countries, wanting to establish an encirclement network against the Northwest Town Guard.

Many foreign friends were very interested in this, such as the Russians, the British, the Japanese, the French, and the Germans, who sometimes expressed their support for this encirclement network openly or implicitly, and the Americans did not say no. This is not because the Americans are old friends of the Chinese, but because the United States is still in a very embarrassing situation and does not have much strength to project troops.

If the Americans are willing, it is not impossible to cobble together 10,000 men to carry out the expedition, and no more will be able to produce them. But what good is it to send troops to China? The previous year's coalition of great powers had proved with their defeat that the days when a few cannons could force the ancient eastern kingdom to sign unequal treaties were over.

So the Americans have shown little interest in it, but they are also happy that China is in the midst of war, and they have expressed limited support for it. As long as they don't want to send troops and contribute a little money, they can still do it.

And among these people, the one who was most interested in this plan was a Japanese named Nobujun Aoki.

It seems strange that Ito Hirobumi, Oyama Iwa and others had already determined at the Imperial Council in Japan that Japan's biggest enemy now was Russia. If the Russians had crossed the Yalu River and had taken the entire Korean Peninsula into their pockets, they would have put a dagger into the belly of Japan.

With regard to Japan, many far-sighted people in Japan were already clamoring for war against Russia and driving the Russians out of the three northeastern provinces. Unlike history, there are still many Japanese in this world who believe that it will be more certain to unite with the Chinese and declare war on Russia together.

But at the same time, some Japanese pointed out that a unified and powerful China would be a monster even more terrible than the Russians. For Japan, it would be better to let the Russians get caught up in a war with the Chinese, so that they could reap the benefits of the fishermen.

It was in this situation that Aoki Nobujun was working in China, and he received orders that the best thing to do was to draw Russia into a war with China. If the Russians had the upper hand, he would provide some military and economic assistance to the Chinese government on behalf of the Japanese government.

If this best-case scenario is not achieved, then the relations between Russia and China should be deteriorated as much as possible, and then the Japanese government will see whether to join forces with the Chinese to drive the Russians out of the three northeastern provinces.

Aoki Nobujun agreed with the order from Tokyo, and now North China already has the power to protect itself. Even if their navy is almost zero, even the current Japan is not willing to go deep into the heart of China to fight the Chinese.

Aoki Nobu's resume is also very relevant to China. He was originally a native of Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, and the eldest son of Aoki Shinzo, a priest of the Sadohara domain. Since childhood, I have loved to read "Three Kingdoms", and my later interest in China also stemmed from this book. In 1875, he was admitted to the Army Infant School, and in May 1877, he was admitted to the old third phase of the Army Non-commissioned Officer School. In December 1879 (Meiji 12), he was awarded the rank of second lieutenant in artillery and graduated in December of the following year.

In April 1881 (Meiji 14), he was appointed to the General Staff Headquarters as an instructor of the 2nd Mountain Artillery Brigade, and in 1884, he was appointed to the General Staff Headquarters, and was enthusiastic about studying Chinese issues. At that time, his contemporaries, Shiba Goro and Ozawa Koro, were all figures who devoted their lives to the study of East Asia, and they were sent to Guangzhou, China, from January 1884 to December 1887. "So far, the first 'China expert' was born in the military department." He originally learned the official dialect of Beijing, but after arriving in Guangdong, he was unable to carry out his work, so he worked hard to learn fluent Cantonese and successfully completed the intelligence collection work. In 1887, he and his classmate Shibagoro were commissioned to draw a map of the area around Beijing, and the map of Beijing of the Japanese General Staff at that time was very sketchy. In March 1888 (Meiji 21), he served as a land instructor in the Guards Artillery Wing, was promoted to lieutenant, deputy of the 2nd Bureau of the General Staff Headquarters, studied in Belgium, and was transferred back during the Sino-Japanese War in August 1894 to serve as a staff officer of the 1st Gunyama Prefecture Aritomo.

In August 1895, he was appointed as a staff member of the 2nd Bureau (Intelligence Department) of the General Staff Headquarters, and from October 1897 to March 1900, he was the military attache of the First Qing Legation. In the eight years since, he has spent almost all of his time in Beijing, except for one time when he returned to China as a wing commander. He set up a secret service in Beijing, and in the name of the "Aoki Mansion", he made extensive contacts with Chinese officials and gentry. His most proud move is to gain the trust of Yuan Shikai, who is responsible for the investigation of history. When Yuan was appointed governor of Shandong, he invited Aoki to Jinan to assist in the training of the new army, and Yuan Shikai often told his colleagues; Aoki is "the only reliable Japanese". In 1900, Aoki went to Jinan, but on the way coincided with the Boxer Rebellion and was forced to stay in Tianjin. Aoki gathered the expatriates in the Japanese concession in Tianjin to form a "volunteer team" to resist the attack of the Boxers, and soon the Eight-Nation Coalition invaded, and Aoki actively cooperated with the coalition forces to fight; After the capture of Tianjin, after the occupation of Tianjin, a military control agency was set up - the temporary management of local affairs inside and outside the city of Jinjun was the general yamen, and later renamed the Tianjin Provisional Government, Aoki participated in it from beginning to end, served as a military and political commissar, and wantonly hunted down and killed the Boxers.

However, the good times did not last long, Yuan Shikai went to the wilderness, went abroad to investigate, and successively went to Germany, France, cause and effect and other European countries, Aoki Xuanchun could not stay in China anymore, so he could only return to Japan.

When Xu Shuzheng began to form an anti-northwest encirclement network, Kodama Gentaro sent Aoki Nobujun back to China to form the "Aoki Agency" in charge of intelligence work. (To be continued.) )