[Today's second update]

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At the end of February, all 500 officers recruited by Wang Chenhao arrived, thus perfecting the command structure of the newly built army.

In the last few days of this month, Wang Chenhao, together with Yang Shixiang, Zhang Peilun, Hannagen, Wang Shizhen, Duan Qirui, Jiang Guidi, Feng Guozhang, and other major aides, foreign teachers, and generals of the New Army, formulated a training program for the first division of the new army.

The new army, the new atmosphere, and the training methods must be on par with the armies of the world powers. In line with the concept of learning from the German Army and surpassing the German Army, the training code of the first division of the new army under Zhili first stipulated the establishment of the first division.

The First Division of the Zhili New Army, referred to as the Zhili New Army, is called the Beiyang New Army or the Beiyang New Army internally. The Beiyang New Army took the divisions in the German standing army as the training units, and stipulated that the divisions were standing army units, and they were expanded into armies in wartime.

Its establishment is as follows: each division has 2 infantry brigades, each brigade has 2 infantry regiments, each regiment has 3 infantry battalions, each battalion has 3 infantry companies, each company has 3 platoons, each platoon has 3 squads, and each squad has 15 people;

The division has one cavalry regiment and one artillery regiment under its jurisdiction, which are stationed at the division headquarters in peacetime, and the division headquarters retains a battalion directly under it in wartime, and the other two battalions are delegated to brigade-level combat units, and the brigade-level can also be delegated to regiment-level combat units according to actual combat conditions.

In addition, the division also directly subordinate one engineer battalion, one communications battalion, one baggage battalion, and one police adjustment reconnaissance battalion.

The division has 12,500 people, including 700 officers and clerks, 10,450 front-line combatants, and 1,350 second-line medical and logistics personnel.

According to the "Military Training Manual," Wang Chenhao adopted Germany's military structure, tactics, technology, and military training in his thinking on military training. Joint training is conducted by instructors from domestic armed forces schools and foreign instructors. In the course of training, in light of China's actual conditions, the "Essentials for Military Training," the "Battalion System," and the "Salary Medals" were formulated. Yang Shixiang and Wang Shizhen also made improvements in accordance with Wang Chenhao's compilation of the two training outlines, "A Brief Record of the New Army's Soldiers" and "A Detailed and Clear Explanation of the New Army's Laws," and drew them in the form of pictures and texts, so that the illiterate soldiers could see the pictures at a glance and conduct training with reference to the pictures, thus saving the instructors a lot of trouble.

In terms of military strategy, Hannagen gave Wang Chenhao more than a dozen textbooks at the Berlin Military Academy in Germany, as well as some German army textbooks given to Wang Chenhao by Yin Chang and Duan Qirui for reference, Wang Chenhao did not understand German, and more than 20 translators were seconded from the Yanjing Tongwen Museum, and under the correction of Zhang Peilun and Wang Shizhen, they successively translated military theory books such as "The Law of War", "Strategy", "New Law of Land Warfare", "German [***] Political Essentials", "Tactical Lecture Notes of the German Army University", etc. He also used some lecture notes of the Beiyang Armed Forces Academy as a reference, setting off an upsurge of studying and studying Western military theories throughout the army.

Wang Chenhao took the lead, and the officers would spare one to two hours every morning to study these theoretical courses, and because of the rush of time, Wang Chenhao simply asked everyone to memorize all the contents of the book, and then slowly test them during the training of recruits.

There is a saying that if you are familiar with 300 Tang poems, you will not be able to chant poems, and the officers may not understand them when they memorize them, but as long as they have the opportunity, they will always get twice the result with half the effort with half the effort with this foundation, and maybe they will understand it at once through practice in the future.

Wang Chenhao still used Western military management methods to organize and train the new army, but also added the PLA management methods of his time, and Wang Chenhao synthesized them to formulate a series of rules and regulations.

In addition to requiring officers and men to pay attention to each other and not to be lazy, Wang Chenhao also integrated the four major disciplines and eight points of attention of the PLA, making the rules and regulations of the Beiyang New Army quite exemplary.

After reading it, Hannagen and other German instructors said that under the strict requirements of the rules and regulations formulated by Wang Chenhao, once the training is completed and the military regulations are memorized, the Beiyang New Army will become the most civilized division in the world.

But what Wang Chenhao wants most is a mighty army, plus the four major disciplines and eight points of attention, and the most important thing is that he appreciates the party's absolute leadership over the army. In this turbulent autumn, Wang Chenhao firmly believed that power came out of the barrel of a gun, and the order of absolute obedience to orders was to lay the foundation for Wang Chenhao's absolute control of the army, and to train the new officers and soldiers to subconsciously obey Wang Chenhao.

Wang Chenhao's rules and regulations were a fatal shock to the Manchu army, completely subversive of the surname, as soon as the order came out, those recruits didn't feel anything, most of them supported the attitude; The student officers of the Beiyang Military Academy are also more adaptable and acceptable. Only some former Huai army generals who were accustomed to the old military regulations were obviously somewhat resistant.

There are always people who make small reports, and it soon reaches Li Hongzhang's ears. However, after Li Hongzhang saw it, he felt that Wang Chenhao was controlling military power, and he supported it, just like when Li Hongzhang wanted to control military power, Zeng Guofan also supported Li Hongzhang.

Li Hongzhang had no opinion, and listened to some views of Hannagen and other foreigners, and the foreigners also had no opinions, so he directly reprimanded some old generals of the Huai Army who made small reports. He strongly supported Wang Chenhao's new rules, which made some old generals of the Huai Army who were originally not used to Wang Chenhao taking charge of the army at a young age become honest.

Yang Shixiang, Zhang Peilun, and Wang Shizhen then revised and supplemented them, and gradually formulated and perfected these rules and regulations in subsequent training, such as the "Regulations on the Battlefield", "Rules for Going Out", "Shooting Method", "General Supervision", "Marching Regulations", etc., after a series of military regulations were promulgated, there have been changes in the simple and crude management methods of the old army of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and even the rules and regulations of the German army are also very different.

In terms of training methods, Wang Chenhao demanded that the first be officers and then soldiers, and teach according to ranks. However, this link can be omitted in the case of officials. Because 98% of the officers selected by Wang Chenhao are graduates of the Beiyang Military Academy and fourth-year graduating students, they are completely studying the four-year curriculum of the German [***] school, and they have received German-style education, so he can save the link of "selecting and sending the camp academy for training".

For new recruits, Wang Chenhao adopts a step-by-step approach. Recruits first undergo 3 months of basic training, mainly single-foot, queue and physical fitness, then practice with guns, and finally train the essentials of actual combat movements.

At the same time, the recruits receive joint training from German instructors and Beiyang instructors, with German instructors as principal and Beiyang instructors as deputies. Wang Chenhao summed up Yuan Shikai's experience in the training of the New Army in history, and Yuan Shikai was vague on this issue back then, but the German instructor said one thing, and the officers of the New Army below did another. The hard work of the German instructors was not rewarded, and in the end they did not work hard to teach them, so that Yuan Shikai's new army did not meet the standards of the German army, and the new army was only compared to the old army of the Qing Dynasty, and it was still at the bottom in the world.

Wang Chenhao learned this lesson because when he was training and studying, Wang Chenhao clearly stipulated that the German instructors had real power, the Beiyang instructors assisted, and the new officers and men must strictly abide by it, otherwise they will be eliminated.

At this time, the elimination system had already been expanded, from the original adaptation to the recruit class, but now it has been expanded to include officers at all levels, and those who do not obey the unqualified will be covered up and leave, so that the officers will not dare to be careless, and they will always maintain a sense of competition, which has greatly increased the quality and effectiveness of training.