Song Xiaofei deliberately chose the Beiyang Army Officer Academy seven or eight miles away from the Beiyang Naval Academy, that is, on the east bank of the lower reaches of the Haihe River in Tianjin, to open up more than 1,000 acres of land, build a square earth city, and build passages and parapets on the earthen city wall.

At the corners of the north and south cities on one side of the Linhai River, two forts were built, and the underground of the platform was hollowed out as a basement for storing ammunition. Then dig a trench outside the wall to divert water to form a moat, and plant willow trees by the river, open a camp gate in the west and north of the city near the sea river, set up a suspension bridge, and build 500 old tiled houses in the center of the city for soldiers to live in, closed management.

In the east of the Haihe River, an ammunition arsenal and a stable were built, and the south side was the instructor's residence, and a large pond was also opened in the southeast corner to divert the water of the Haihe River to flow in, and a military bridge was erected, and there was a small island in the center of the pool, and 100 peach trees were planted, and it was named Peach Blossom Island for the students to rest. There is a wide grassland in the west of the military academy site, it is a large training ground and shooting range in peacetime, and facilities such as lecture hall, kitchen, bathhouse, rifle temporary storage room and repair room have been built one after another, construction is carried out overnight, less than three months, an army officer school has risen from the ground, it has begun to take shape, Song Xiaofei asked Li Hongzhang to personally inscribe the name of the school of "Beiyang Army Officer Academy", which is used on the archway door of bluestone.

Song Xiaofei knew very well that the most important thing in the military academy was ideological work, and in order to make officers loyal and obey the command, it was necessary to have a unified core idea; he combined the general situation of internal and external troubles at that time, and positioned the core idea of the army military academy as "protecting the family and defending the country". He asked Xu Shichang to write a couplet, inscribed at the school gate: "Please go elsewhere for promotion and wealth, don't enter this door if you are greedy for life and fear of death." This is already a big step forward from the feudal loyalty to the monarch and patriotism.

Song Xiaofei originally planned to enroll 2,000 students in each phase of the Army Officer Academy, but unfortunately the admission situation was not satisfactory, so he had to raise the salary of the cadets to eight taels of silver, and the enrollment scale was reduced to 1,000 people per session, and more recruits were required.

All the students of the officer academy are organized into five brigades, each brigade has 200 people, a total of infantry, horse, artillery, engineering, and baggage five subjects, each subject has 200 people, in terms of curriculum setting, military courses: basic tactics, applied tactics, tactics on the map, strategy, Sun Tzu's art of war, pipe war, trench science, ballistics, military system, field service, infantry classics, etc., most of which are taught by German foreign instructors; The cultural courses include Chinese language, arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, geography, Gezhi, etc., and Song Xiaofei also invited Zhang Shusheng, Liu Mingchuan, the general of the Huai Army, and Yan Fu, the teacher of the Beiyang Naval Academy, to teach the students. Sometimes, in order to have a good relationship with the court officials, they are also invited to give lectures, such as Liu Kunyi.

Song Xiaofei also wanted a "school song", Xu Shichang is really an out-and-out talent, not only working in calligraphy and painting, but also writing limerick poems quite well, and immediately combined with the teaching characteristics of the military academy, he wrote a limerick poem:

The imperial court wants to protect the overall situation of the peace, and the generals will follow the order to practice new skills.

The first is determined to repay the king's kindness, and the second is to rely on the officials to teach.

The third march should not disturb the people, and our salaries and silver are all people's fat.

Fourth, conduct and reputation should be hobbies, and fifth, the army must not quarrel.

Fang Jin's Chinese civil and martial arts school is no more rude than a stupid man in the market.

Among the battalions, the gun team is the most important, and the aim of the card is neither low nor high.

When the artillery team is discharged, it is necessary to look at the cannon table, and the medicine must be marked according to the degree.

The division of labor of light artillery does not worry about narrow roads, and heavy artillery vehicles do not feel tired.

The team must keep their horses well and check the farriers so as not to hurt them in the slightest.

Detectives on the verge of the enemy first occupy the enemy's danger, and our army fights fiercely and quickly outflanks from the side.

The first team of the project must be dexterous, and build bridges when the land barrier meets the water.

Everything in the baggage team is calculated, and there is no need to be anxious about the lack of food, clothing, and ammunition.

Song Xiaofei looked at it, it was very rhyming, catchy, and not fake, very good! Therefore, the tune of the Prussian military song "Kaiser Wilhelm's Military Training Song" was chosen to compose the music for this limerick poem, and it was compiled into the "school song" of the Beiyang Army Officer Academy, so that the first thing every officer who entered the school was to memorize and sing this song well, which became a well-known song for Beiyang officers.

In terms of weapons and equipment, Song Xiaofei asked Li Fengbao to purchase mountain guns and semi-land guns in Germany, while the infantry cavalry bought rifles and Mauser guns, and even the Makqin heavy machine gun designed by the American engineer Makqin in 1883 did not hesitate to buy one with Rong Hong. Song Xiaofei also bought the officers a time watch, binoculars, raincoats and rain hats, and drums and horns. All of them adopt new methods of military training.

Song Xiaofei also revised some of the details of the training according to what he had learned in modern military academies, such as changing "driving and walking briskly" to "starting and running", "looking forward" to "looking forward", and shouting "loading the gun" directly before loading the gun, and everything was based on the principle of simplicity and practicality.

Song Xiaofei poured great effort into the first batch of students, and took special care of Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, and Wang Shizhen, such as Duan Qirui's younger brothers and sisters in Hefei's hometown, Song Xiaofei sent someone to take them to Tianjin, and also gave them a house. Feng Guozhang's family was short of money, and Song Xiaofei made a move with one hundred taels of silver, sending charcoal in the snow. Wang Shizhen lived with his widowed mother, his mother was old and had eye diseases, Song Xiaofei sent someone to find her the best Langzhong, and asked Margery to introduce Western medicine to cure her cataracts, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, and Wang Shizhen swore allegiance to Song Xiaofei.

For other colleges, Song Xiaofei also has good intentions, every time he pays a salary, he personally goes to the hands of every student, shushes them, asks them for warmth, sees what difficulties they have at home, and can help solve them as much as possible, after a long time, Song Xiaofei can almost call the name of every student, these students see that this general is very different from the chief who squeezed their oil and water before, and they are also dead set on Song Xiaofei.

With Xu Shichang, Feng Guozhang, Duan Qirui, and Wang Shizhen as the backbone, Song Xiaofei has always instilled a collective idea in the officers and cadets and cultivated their sense of honor: "We are all brothers in life and death in the first phase of Beiyang, born as Beiyang people, and dead as Beiyang ghosts."

Most of the first batch of trainees came from humble backgrounds and trained hard, and soon they had some successes, and they were also good at using guns. Song Xiaofei felt that the time was ripe, so he invited Li Hongzhang to inspect the Army Officer Academy. When Li Hongzhang arrived at the school gate, he saw the couplet of "Please go elsewhere for promotion and wealth, and don't enter this door if you are greedy for life and afraid of death", he couldn't help but pat Song Xiaofei on the shoulder, praising "the future life is terrifying", and then looking at the students' meeting, he remembered the scene when he practiced the Huai Army, and couldn't help but praise Song Xiaofei "In the future, the green will be better than the blue".

Song Xiaofei knew that Li Hongzhang came out of the countryside of Hefei, Anhui Province, and now became the number one Hanchen of the Qing Empire, he himself was a legend, and he was an idol that everyone wanted to emulate among the officers and cadets, so he took the opportunity to ask Li Hongzhang to make an important speech, Li Hongzhang hesitated for a while, and felt that he really had a lot to say, so he agreed.

At that time, a light rain fell in the sky of the training ground, and more than 1,000 students stood upright and listened to Li Hongzhang's impassioned speech in the rain. My emperor is like the degree of the sky, and he has made a contract to trade, and he is in a cage, and he is 90,000 miles away from the east and west of the earth, and he is gathered in China, which has changed a lot in more than 3,000 years. I am in the midst of great changes that have not been seen in thousands of years, and I secretly think that if the world is poor, it will change, and if it changes, it will work. Chinese scholars are immersed in the accumulation of chapters and sentences, so that they use what they have not learned, and what they have learned is not used. Therefore, if China wants to strengthen itself, it is better to learn foreign weapons; If you want to learn foreign weapons, it is better to find the tools of the tools, learn its methods and do not have to use its people, if you want to find the tools of the tools and the people who make the tools, then you may set up a special subject to take the scholars, China but there are two kinds of flowering cannons and ships, and the Westerners can collect their hands! The benefits of artillery depend on you! ”

The spark that Song Xiaofei planted in China made him more known as the "principal" in the Huai Army, and those who entered the Army Academy became his students. Li Hongzhang also asked for a meritorious award for Song Xiaofei, and the Empress Dowager Cixi named Song Xiaofei as the chief soldier of the second grade and rewarded him with a yellow jacket.