In the second month of February of the new calendar of the Xinhai year, the military department finally issued a telegram order:

Due to the fierce fighting in the Kang-Tibet area and the huge cost of soldiers and materials, the Sichuan Frontier Army was specially allowed to set up an additional "Zhenzi Battalion", which was stationed in Chengdu, and was responsible for the storage and transportation of military supplies and materials for each battalion of the border army, and had the right and responsibility for recruitment and training.

The Sichuan Standing Army was divided into two parts, the New Army and the Border Guards.

After the border guards stationed in various parts of Sichuan, the Zhenbian Battalion, the Jingbian Battalion, the Tai'an Battalion, the Dazi Battalion, and the Shouzi Battalion, one more Zhenzi battalion stationed in Chengdu was added, and the two battalions of the original Chengdu General's Mansion continued to be retained and directly under the jurisdiction of the Beiyang Military Department.

Chengdu North School Yard is now a barren, only the broken temple located in the southwest corner of the big reservoir has been renovated, the first Zhenzi battalion management band, the deputy army commander Xiao Yimin is sitting in the main hall at this time, this broken temple is the winter night a few years ago, where he and his brother Ma Gang lived.

The statue of the Bodhisattva on the north side of the main hall has disappeared, the original furnishings in the main hall of about 100 square meters have been cleared, the whole wall has become a huge topographic map of Chuankang, the camping places of the border army are clearly marked on the map, and the paths of the rivers and mountains that crisscross (vertically) are clear, but there are no mileage and elevation figures.

The original square incense table has been removed and replaced with heavy copywriting made of solid wood, two rows of high-backed chairs and coffee tables are neatly placed on both sides of the hall, the walls are painted white and dazzling, and a huge Swiss mechanical clock is hung on the left wall.

Zheng Changze, the new staff officer of the Zhenzi Battalion and the regular military academy, stood next to the copywriter and reported to Xiao Yimin:

"The extension of Jianghan Road to the west city wall is mostly completed, and it is estimated that the asphalt pavement will be paved after 15 days, and the construction of the guard tower at the southeast corner of Daying next to Hanjiang Road has begun.

Xiao Yimin waved his hand:

"There is no hurry, there is no hurry, not only can the wall not be repaired, but the barracks are not in a hurry to be repaired for the time being, only the four reinforced concrete forts at the four corners of the camp need to be repaired, and the area in the middle is full of thorns and broken ruins is not in a hurry, only the embankment of the three ponds on the east side can be repaired, so that it can be integrated with the arsenal under construction."

Zheng Changze smiled knowingly: "Lord Chen Guangyuan, the director of the Chengdu Police Bureau, sent someone to send an invitation card to invite the adults to the banquet in three days. ”

"You will be exempted from going to the banquet, and it is also Lord Zhao's intention to allocate more than 50 acres of land outside the camp to them, so you don't need to thank me." Xiao Yimin really didn't have time to go to the banquet, the Zhenzi Camp was in the initial stage, and many matters needed to be decided by him.

Wearing the uniform of the regular military academy, Zheng Yi strode in: "My lord, the commander of the new army, General Zhu, Chief of Staff and Chief of Staff Yin, have arrived. ”

Xiao Yimin was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly stood up and went out to greet him, and saw Zhu Qinglan, Cheng Qian, and Yin Changheng under the guidance of the guards, with difficulty, bypassing a few bushes of thorns and rocks, turning around the half-collapsed wall and walking carefully, he couldn't help grinning, and strode up to meet him:

"General Zhu, two brothers, what kind of wind blew you here? If you have something to do, you can send someone over and call it, and the little brother will definitely be on call. ”

Zhu Qinglan laughed and scolded Xiao Yimin for his duplicity, and there seemed to be no guilt between his words, and he was closer than before.

It is no wonder that after the transfer of Governor Zhao Erxun, Xiao Yimin also left the oily and watery garrison and was transferred to the command of Zhao Erfeng, the commander of the border army. In this way, Xiao Yimin has no interest in the various departments of the New Army, and the generals and colonies of the New Army are naturally in a good mood, and Xiao Yimin, who has bravely retreated in the face of the rapids, is also much more cordial, and even Xiao Yimin has been promoted to two levels in a row to serve as the newly established "Zhenzi Battalion" pipe band, everyone thinks that it is right, and many people also say that with Xiao Yimin's ability and knowledge, even if he is promoted to three levels, it is not too much.

Yin Changheng finished greeting with a smile on his face, jumped on the small dirt bag on the side in a few steps, looked at the desolate school yard from afar, and shook his head again and again: "Brother Yiming, aren't there a lot of good barracks and camps left in the West Church?" The two battalions of the General's Mansion only have more than 600 officers and soldiers, so they don't need that much at all, how can they send you to this abandoned place? ”

Xiao Yimin saw that Zhu Qinglan and Cheng Qian were both interested in going up to watch, so he had to follow, pointing to the extension of Jianghan Road under construction in the south of the school field and explaining:

"Wait for the road in front of me to be repaired, it will not be so ugly, a few years ago the north school field was still very good, although it is located in the northwest corner of Chengdu with inconvenient transportation, but it is better to be clean, the site is wide enough, slowly repair it, one day it can be repaired."

"It's a nice place, it's a pity! Brother Yiming is also hard enough, it is estimated that General Fengshan is unwilling to let your Zhenzi Battalion be stationed in the West Sect, so he designated this place for the Zhenzi Battalion, right? "Zhu Qinglan's news is still very well-informed.

Cheng Qian has a different opinion: "I think this place is very good, if the funds are sufficient, it will not be inferior to the East Campus and the new camp in the eastern suburbs after it is built." ”

Xiao Yimin smiled bitterly and said: "The key is that there is no fund!" Otherwise, where can it be the turn of the little brother? ”

Everyone nodded in understanding, Yin Changheng pointed to the large warehouse on the south side of Hanjiang Road, and asked, "Isn't Chengdu Mansion going to rebuild Changping?" Why didn't you see any movement? ”

"It's also a fart, 300,000 taels of special appropriations, and half of it was privately divided by the government and the two county government grandsons, and they said that they should concentrate financial resources and manpower, go all out to repair both sides of the royal river as soon as possible, and create a garden-like living area for the people of Chengdu. If the Lord of the Formation of Taiwan was still there, he would have to skin them, but now it's okay, with Lord Wang as the governor, those grandsons will begin to be unscrupulously greedy for ink. ”

Zhu Qinglan opened his mouth to scratch it, and it was estimated that he did not get any benefits from the new governor Wang Wenwen.

When Xiao Yimin heard this, he couldn't help but be happy: "Brother Zhu, before your lord left, didn't you just allocate 350,000 special funds to the new army to buy artillery and guns?" Why do you still have so many jailful words? ”

Zhu Qinglan retracted his gaze: "Today's brothers are here for this, go!" Go to your big temple and drink a sip of water, sit down and talk slowly. ”

Everyone walked to the temple together, Yin Changheng saw that there was no plaque outside the gate, and he asked:

"Brother Yiming, why don't you even hang a plaque? Even if the flagpole is hung with your three big characters of 'Zhenzi Flag', it is good, at least let people know that your camp is here! ”

"Don't, if you really hang the 'Zhenzi Flag', maybe Xiao will become a joke of the whole army and the whole city overnight, people who know the reason won't say anything, and those who don't know think that the little brother likes a lonely grave and a ghost haunt."

Xiao Yimin's self-deprecating answer made Zhu Qinglan laugh a few times.

Think about it, how majestic was Xiao Yimin before? In and out of all horse teams, business travel in the majestic governor's palace yamen, often accompanied by the governor around, the scenery of eating and drinking spicy is incomparable, in charge of the new army, all the equipment and materials of the border army, anyone who sees it has to squeeze out a smile on his face to play haha, now it is not good, although it is said that the official is promoted to two levels, but it has fallen into the abandoned school field that everyone dislikes, with the bitter haha border army, and most of the shortages have no shadow, before and after compared with the difference between heaven and earth, it is no different from the bright rise and dark fall, where is there still the cheek to say everywhere?

Zhu Qinglan and others did not know at all that before Zhao Erxun left, he had already put 2.3 million yuan into the account of the Huaxi Group of the Dehua Bank, and signed an entrustment contract with the Huaxi Group in the name of the Sichuan Governor's Office, of which 300,000 yuan was a special fund reserved for Xiao Yimin to build the Zhenzi Battalion, and Zhao Erfeng, minister of Jingbian, also directly purchased 5,000 spears and 16 Krupp M1910 75 guns from Germany directly through the Huaxi Group. The most well-equipped elite troops.

The reason why Xiao Yimin kept it strictly secret was entirely based on the need to hide people's eyes.

More importantly, Xiao Yimin clearly knows that the whole of China will soon change, and before the change, Xiao Yimin will never let anyone see through his hidden strength and ambitions in private.

They sat down with each other, and the guards served tea, and Zhu Qinglan said what he meant:

"In the past two years, our new army has scrapped 21 artillery pieces, and it was only when the barracks were divided a while ago that they were found out from the warehouse, among which there were 75 guns that were withdrawn in the 30th year of the Meiji era, the 75 field guns of the Krupp 1896 type, and the three-pounder guns produced by France in 1902. Let's take a look and see if your Huaxi company can help with the repair? If it can't be repaired, just buy it as scrap, so that you can free up some money to do something else. ”

Xiao Yimin shook his head unequivocally: "Repair is definitely not possible, the engineers of Huaxi Company are engaged in small arms, repair cannons, Krupp Company will not send people to help, they are bent on selling their new cannons, they are not willing to help our army repair old cannons, it is not a problem to sell to Huaxi Company's steel mills, anyway, they buy pig iron and scrap steel everywhere, and the price is negotiable, I will let the fourth child visit you when I go back." ”

Zhu Qinglan smiled with satisfaction, feeling that Xiao Yimin was still the righteous and kind little brother he used to be. Cheng Qian glanced at Xiao Yimin ambiguously, and then looked at Yin Changheng, who also looked satisfied.

Yin Changheng took a sip of tea and said unhurriedly:

"Brother Yiming, I have something to trouble you, can you sell a few hundred shell guns to our new army on credit first? 500 'Leopards' 20 rings, and matching equipment bullets or something, is it done? ”

Xiao Yimin thought for a while: "It's okay, my brother has spoken personally, why can't I?" I think it can be deducted with those scrap guns, and besides, don't the various units of the new army still have more than 2,000 bad guns that have been replaced? If a few brothers are willing, they can also sell it to Huaxi Company together, so that you don't have to rust in a warehouse full of cobwebs. ”

Cheng Qian smiled, lowered his head to drink tea, Zhu Qinglan and Yin Changheng glanced at each other, and when they saw Yin Changheng nodding slightly, they happily agreed, and immediately said that they would send all the waste guns and bad guns to the steel mill early tomorrow morning.

An important business was thus negotiated, and Xiao Yimin did not ask why you got hundreds of thousands of special funds not to buy Krupp's new artillery, but to buy a whole generation behind the original artillery? Zhu Qinglan didn't ask what you were doing if you wanted to buy more than 2,000 of our 30-style rifles? Do you still want to repair it and quietly sell it to the northwest?

Xiao Yimin insisted on sending the three of them to the side of the road, and just when the three of them were about to get on the horse, the sharp-eyed Cheng Qian pointed to the construction site full of weeds 100 meters to the west and asked, "Yiming, what is that repairing?" ”

Xiao Yimin replied truthfully: "Build a guard tower." ”

Yin Changheng asked in surprise: "Alert Tower?" How do you use hundreds of people to fix it? ”

Xiao Yimin did not hide it: "It was a new-style guard tower, designed by Lieutenant Colonel Sharple, military attache of the German Consulate General, and he said that now Germany is developing this style, and our engineering team also wants to increase some experience in construction by building a German-style guard tower, so I agreed." ”

Cheng Qian asked again: "Yiming, can you tell me about the general shape and architectural parameters." ”

"Why should you not be a brother of your own family?"

Xiao Yimin thought to himself that you still know if you have cultivated, so it is better to be happy and appear sincere:

"Twenty-four meters in height, eighty-eight meters in circumference, for the four-storey hexagonal reinforced concrete building, the four floors include a basement storeroom, the whole building outward, four walls are one hundred and twenty centimeters thick, the inner two walls are eighty centimeters thick, each floor is provided with a number of large and small observation ports and shooting holes, the top is an open sentry post, roughly that's all, if a few brothers want more detailed data, wait to see after the construction is done."

Zhu Qinglan and Yin Changheng didn't react much, they felt that it was a waste to build such a thick watchtower, but Cheng Qian was extremely shocked in his heart, he didn't know why Xiao Yimin wanted to build such a strong defensive tower, but he knew that after repairing, no artillery of the new army would be able to bombard this tower, and this tower was very cleverly located, located in the southeast corner of the entire camp, and after completion, it would become a fortification to shelter the entire battalion, if the firepower was intensive, I am afraid that one or two thousand people would not be able to shake this battalion.

Cheng Qian thought about it, but he didn't say it after he went back, although he and Xiao Yimin were not confidants, they had a good relationship of mutual respect, and Xiao Yimin was an important person that the alliance had been working hard for, Cheng Qian would never add any trouble to Xiao Yimin at this time, let alone affect the good relationship between them because of a watchtower that no one paid attention to.

As soon as people grow, who can guarantee that there will be no place to help each other in the future?

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