[Second update, ask for recommendation votes, ask for collection]

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After the establishment of the new army yamen of Zhili, Wang Chenhao immediately began the work of organizing the new army of Zhili.

Wang Chenhao was well aware of the bad habits and drawbacks of the old army, so he first started from the aspect of troop sources. When recruiting new soldiers, he changed the way of the old army, requiring the soldiers to be peasants about 20 years old, strong and simple. The old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, opium smokers, pampered and others are not allowed.

Wang Chenhao believes: First, to be a soldier, you must have a strong body and be able to endure hardships. Second, honest farmers are obedient and easy to manage. Regarding Wang Chenhao's requirements in the military source, Li Hongzhang's evaluation is: It is in the same vein as Zeng Wenzhenggong's idea of "leading the mountain farmers with scholars".

The Qing Empire had a huge population, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the serious land annexation and the wanton occupation of land by foreigners made the Chinese people have less and less land to live on, and a large number of landless people poured into the cities to seek a living.

Tianjin, as the center of the Beiyang Group, is the second largest city in China after Shanghai. A large number of ordinary people poured into Tianjin, so that the recruitment work went very smoothly, and soon 25,000 new recruits who passed the physical examination were recruited.

According to the requirements of Wang Chenhao's outline, the qualified recruits will be paid 2 taels of silver per month, and the elimination system will be implemented, and the remaining ordinary people will receive 4 taels of silver per month after three months.

For the simple peasants, the army is in charge of eating, living, and wearing, and it is already very happy to have 2 taels of silver every month, and they can send it back to their families to make a living, and officially become a new army in Zhili with 4 taels of silver per month, and this life has hope, and the attraction of entering a well-off family has greatly stimulated these recruits, and they are ready to use their strength to compete.

However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. What they don't know is that, with good treatment, they will face the almost brutal training.

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At the same time, all parts of the country kicked off the prelude to the formation and training of new-style armies. For most provinces, however, they are just a show. There are Nanyang and Nanyang participating in the autumn competition, and the other provinces know that they have no hope of winning, and they do not bother to train their troops.

In the minds of most officials, they just took the opportunity to withhold money to fill their pockets under the banner of organizing and training a new army.

Among the Nanyang factions, Zhang Zhidong is the first. At this moment, Zhang Zhidong is working in Jiangning (Nanjing), the Governor's Mansion of Liangjiang, and Liu Kunyi, the former governor of Liangjiang, is recuperating at home because he contracted an illness during the First Sino-Japanese War.

At present, Zhang Zhidong holds the two provinces of Huguang and the three provinces of Liangjiang, which is much more majestic than Li Hongzhang, and of course the financial resources of the five provinces are also quite abundant, so Zhang Zhidong started to build a self-improvement army in Jiangning.

Like Beiyang, Zhang Zhidong also refers to the German Army. But the difference is that Wang Chenhao chose newcomers, while Zhang Zhidong reorganized the thirteen battalions of green battalions on the border of the two rivers to form a self-improvement army of 13,000 people, and then hired German instructors for training.

In this way, the progress of the self-strengthening army in the south is very fast. Wang Chenhao's side has not officially started training, and Zhang Zhidong's side has already started formal training.

For a time, newspapers at home and abroad paid attention to the training of the two new armies of the Qing Empire in the North and South Oceans, and it was only a month before the autumn season, Wang Chenhao's soldiers were all recruits who had never fought a war, but Zhang Zhidong was directly on the basis of the Liangjiang Green Battalion for intensive training. In contrast, domestic and foreign countries are optimistic about Nanyang, and some newspapers immediately stated that Wang Chenhao may be going to make a mistake this time.

Li Hongzhang was also a little bottomless, and asked Wang Chenhao many times, what he meant was that he would not train in the Qing Army and the Yi Army in Beiyang, so that his combat strength would definitely surpass that of Nanyang.

But Wang Chenhao just smiled faintly, saying that he had the means and confidence to win, and asked Li Hongzhang not to worry.

How could Li Hongzhang not be worried? But Wang Chenhao has a firm position, and Li Hongzhang has no choice but to believe him, hoping that he will not be hesitated this time.

Wang Chenhao knew that the new army had to have a new atmosphere, and the self-improvement army would continue to use the old green battalion soldiers, and no matter how much training it was, it would not be able to change the soup without changing the medicine, and it would not be able to play a big role.

In Wang Chenhao's eyes, please ask the empire's green battalion soldiers to be regarded as the first generation of the army, Li Hongzhang's Huai army is counted as the second generation of the army, and Zhang Zhidong's self-improvement army is trained on the basis of the first generation, which is barely counted as the second generation and a half!

At present, the armies of the major powers are above the level of the third generation or three and a half generations, and Wang Chenhao has a new concept that spans the era, so the new army he wants to train is positioned at the level of the fourth generation at the beginning, and it may be a higher fifth or sixth generation in the future, so he is not worried about the challenge of self-strengthening the army at all.

The gap between the new army and the old army is a qualitative gap, which is also the real reason why tens of thousands of Japanese troops can sweep away hundreds of thousands of Qing troops. With the generation gap, it is difficult for quantity to beat quality.

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The German, French, and Russian bloc held together in the Far East and did not stop after striking Britain on the issue of concessions.

Britain and Russia are the most important contradiction in the Far East, and at this time, there are still 18 months left in the British alliance, and Britain has not completely abandoned the capital and given a certain amount of financial assistance.

Russia's Asian strategy was intercepted by the Japanese at sea, and now it has de facto occupied the Korean Peninsula, forming a blockade circle against Russia and hindering the southward expansion of the Russian Far East Fleet.

The Korean Peninsula, which blocked the southward movement of the Russian Navy and hindered the Russian Army's encirclement of the northeastern Qing Empire, was a great threat in wartime.

At this time, the Qing Imperial Army was vulnerable, and the Russian side was not worried. However, the Japanese Army is relatively strong, and it is natural that it has become a potential enemy of the Russian Army.

As a result, the DPRK has become an obstacle to the southward movement of the Russian navy and army, and has also become the focal point of contradictions between Russia and Russia.

In the First Sino-Japanese War, the Combined Fleet was destroyed and sunk in the port of Incheon, so the Russian Navy naturally gained the right to control the sea. But the Russian Navy was not satisfied.

On February 15, 1895, when the Russian minister in China was mediating with the Qing Dynasty Prime Minister Yamen, the Russian minister in China, together with the German and French ministers in China, lodged representations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting the lease of the coastal port of the province and preparing to build a naval base around the city to build a naval base and build a naval base around the city.

He had already ended all unequal treaties the day before the First Sino-Japanese War last year, and at this time, he would absolutely not allow any more unequal treaties to fall on his head, so he rejected the German, French, and Russian bloc in rhetoric.

It is also a stern refusal, but it is said that the current situation is not as good as the Qing Empire, and the main force of the Navy is destroyed, and only some old warships of the West Sea Fleet are available, but it can only maintain a few key places along the coast.

The German, French, and Russian blocs were ready to take back the benefits that they had not received in the Qing Empire, and threatened and intimidated them, intending to force them to comply.

At this time, the domestic economy was turbulent, his life was hard, and in the face of the threat of Germany, France, and Russia, the cabinet of Kiyotaka Kuroda did not dare to back down for fear of provoking a popular uprising, so it strongly opposed it and led the domestic contradictions to the German, French, and Russian bloc.

Russia was not ready to fight against Japan, and Germany and France had little interest in Japan and therefore did not work very hard. Britain said that after all, it was still an alliance, and Russia did not dare to push too hard, so it temporarily gave up its claim to the port concession area on its own territory.

On 20 February, the German, French, and Russian bloc retreated to the second best thing and sent a note to the Min Concubine regime in North Korea, demanding the opening of port concessions around North Korea.

After the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing Dynasty gave up its status as the suzerainty of Korea and recognized the return of Korea to its original state. However, due to the pressure of international public opinion, Ben only confiscated the weapons of the DPRK army, retained the Min Concubine regime and police force in the DPRK, and publicized the DPRK as a reading country.

As a result, Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu once again rejected the request of Germany, France, and Russia to open a naval base in Korea, but the reason was very far-fetched, and he only respected the sovereignty of the DPRK.

But the German, French, and Russian bloc are the hooligans of the Far East at the moment, and they will not care about this, and the other powers will not condemn them for an inconspicuous Korea.

After the intervention of Germany, France, and Russia to return Liao, the Min Concubine clique believed that the confrontation needed the support of Germany, France, and Russia, so on the 21st, it replied to the consuls of the three countries in Korea, allowing the three countries to open up port concession areas along the coast of Korea. Because the Korean kingdom had no army or navy at this time, there were no restrictions on the German, French, and Russian bloc.

The representative of the army stationed in North Korea immediately appealed to Concubine Min, but there was no result, so he had a grudge against Concubine Min's group and already had the idea of killing them.

On 23 July, after studying and holding consultations, the German, French, and Russian blocs have selected their respective concession areas around the Korean Peninsula. Russia needed a strategic passage south to China and the Pacific Ocean, so Russia chose to control the Korean Strait and lease the area around Pusan as a naval base for the Russian Far East Fleet, and regarded South and North Gyeongsang as Russian spheres of influence.

France leased Ganghwa Bay, regarded the South Yellow Sea Province as a French sphere of influence, and established a French naval base on Ganghwa Island. Germany and France had a conflict and did not intend to get too close, so they stayed away from the French sphere of influence, and leased Jeju Island, considering Jeollanam-do Province of Korea as a German sphere of influence.

Germany, France, and Russia set up concessions and spheres of influence in Korea, and half of the territory of the already small Korean Peninsula was suddenly divided up by the three countries.

On the 27th, the political axes of Germany, France, and Russia sent a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, demanding that the troops be withdrawn from the sphere of influence of the three countries. It is said that this political axe is in line with the attitude of a hero who does not suffer immediate losses, and chooses to temporarily avoid it.

Germany, France, and Russia divided their spheres of influence in Korea, much to the annoyance of the British political axe. In particular, Russia obtained the port of Pusan in the Korean Strait, so that the Russian Far East Fleet broke through the blockade of the British alliance and went south to China and the Pacific Ocean through the Korean Strait, seriously threatening British Far East interests.

Coincidentally, Germany leased Jeju Island, which was close to the mouth of the Yangtze River in Shanghai, and at this time the Anglo-German contradiction was also growing, second only to the Anglo-Russian contradiction. Britain was committed to encircling the German navy in Europe, and as a result, Germany leased Jeju Island and gained a foothold on the coast of the Far East, which also dealt a huge blow to Britain.