In order to let Zhao Dongyun, the third mixed association, enter Jinzhou, the Qing court spent more than 60 taels of silver before and after, this is not a war, if you want the third mixed association to fight, you have to take hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to come over!

Zhang Zuolin wants to use money to drive the Third Mixed Association to help him beat Du Lisan, this matter is not unnegotiable, as long as one of the two is satisfied: this Zhang Zuolin woke up one night and became the governor of Zhili and gave an order directly to Zhao Dongyun, or he simply gave the Third Mixed Association hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, as long as these two items were satisfied, it was easy to say.

But is it possible?

Needless to say, the former one, if he Zhang Zuolin had so much money, he would have armed his horse infantry guerrillas into hedgehogs a long time ago, and it would not cost so much money to equip a battalion of new rifles and machine guns, and even build another company of artillery. If he had this money and this kind of army, he would have killed Du Lisan himself, and he would have come to Zhao Dongyun to beg him.

Zhang Zuolin listened to Zhao Dongping's naked contempt and scolding, his face changed sharply at first, as if a monster was about to transform, he wanted to break out in an all-round way, but in the end, he was an old bandit who had been crisscrossing the three eastern provinces for many years, and if he didn't have a little cultivation kung fu, he could get to the point where he was today, and immediately gritted his teeth and endured it, and squeezed out a smile on his face: "Section Chief Zhao, don't worry, I, Zhang Zuolin, don't dare to drive your ministry even if I have the courage to do it!" ”

After setting the tone first, he didn't let Zhao Dongping be too arrogant, and then he continued: "You listen to me!" If we beat that Du Lisan, it will be very profitable! ”

Zhao Dongping's pace also slowed down slightly: "Oh? ”

Hearing Zhao Dongping's tone slow down slightly, Zhang Zuolin said with a little relief: "As you know, Du Lisan has plagued Liaodong and Liaoxi for many years, and countless rich merchants and landlords have been plundered by him. You say how much money and grass will we be able to seize if we take his lair? To say the least, it will cost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver! ”

After Zhao Dongping heard the words of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, he couldn't help but stop, he didn't know whether Zhang Zuolin's words were true or false, but he also knew that those bandits had a lot of money in their nests, but he didn't expect that there would be hundreds of thousands of taels.

Don't think that the bandits' den is full of gold, silver and jewelry, after all, being a bandit is the same as being a soldier, it is a profession to support a family, although the risk is a little bigger, but in essence it is still a profession, earning money to support the family, so to pull up a team of bandits, the expenses are not small, and you have to pay the little minions under your command every month, otherwise who will bird you!

Then they had to go to great lengths to buy ordnance, arm their bandits, and have to conduct live-fire training on weekdays, and those little bandits were unfortunately killed or injured in the process of robbery, and they had to be given pensions and settling-in allowances, healing, and so on.

In short, it's not much different from raising an army!

Therefore, even if a group of bandits has a good income, the majority of them will still be subdivided by many bandits, and only some of them will be stored by the upper bosses, but most of them are also used to buy weapons and the like.

However, after a long time, it slowly accumulated, and the amount was large, especially for bandits like Du Lisan, who had a stable base area, it was impossible not to keep silver money for backup, but Zhao Dongping did not expect that there would be hundreds of thousands of taels.

Zhang Zuolin left the words of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and left, Zhao Dongping didn't give him any answer, just listened and left, but when he saw Zhao Dongyun the next day, he talked about Zhang Zuolin.

"Third brother, I have already put my words out, that Zhang Zuolin wants to join forces with us to kill Du Lisan, saying that after killing Du Lisan, we will take the money, and he wants someone to ask for land!"

Zhao Dongping said: "That person is not honest, at the beginning, he said that he wanted to take revenge by robbing several truckloads of tobacco and soil, but then I forced him to be anxious to say this!" ”

Hearing this, Zhao Dongyun pondered, Zhang Zuolin actually hit Du Lisan's attention at such a tense juncture in the Northeast? Doesn't he know that the Northeast is now a powder keg, and it won't take long for it to be ignited and exploded?

When Zhao Dongyun first came to Jinzhou, he also had the idea of exterminating the bandits in the Northeast, but after thinking about it, he still gave up, why? Because there are too many bandits in the Northeast, this Zhang Zuolin, Feng Delin, and Du Lisan are just famous and powerful, but there are hundreds of small and medium-sized bandits of all kinds in the Northeast, and the Northeast in the late Qing Dynasty is basically a bandit nest, and there are dozens of bandits of all sizes in any county.

In order to solve the problem of bandits in the Northeast, it is first necessary to let the Northeast have a stable, unified, and powerful ruler, but now that the Northeast is joined by Japan, Russia, China, and even Britain, the United States, France, and Germany, it is strange that the situation is not chaotic, and it is impossible to exterminate the bandits in the Northeast without a stable situation.

So Zhao Dongyun didn't have that mind, he just cleaned up the small bandits near Jinzhou, and then ignored them, those bandits also knew that Jinzhou had a third mixed association, and after careful inquiry, they knew that the leading Zhao Dongyun suppressed the Guangzong civil rebellion last year and killed thousands of people, so naturally few people dared to get along with Zhao Dongyun.

And the small group of bandits near Jinzhou, especially in the Liaoxi Corridor west of Jinzhou, quickly moved, so Zhao Dongyun didn't care about it for now.

As for the three giant bandits in the Liaohe area, even if Zhao Dongyun wants to exterminate them, it is not easy to do it, because the Russian army is on the side, if they know that the Third Mixed Association will send troops to the Liaohe area, they will not be mad, one is not good at estimating China and Russia, no, Russia and Beiyang will go to war.

It's just that Zhang Zuolin's mention is still very tempting, he used his life last night to guarantee that after serving Du Lisan, he could get at least more than 200,000 taels of money and goods, and said that the new guns captured could also be given to Zhao Dongyun's side, and they only needed those captured or surrendered bandits and the territory of Tai'an and Liaozhong.

200,000 taels of silver, and if you make up some more, you can barely build an artillery battalion if you save it.

As the saying goes, people die for money, birds die for food, and the opponent is a bandit who has not been beaten, Zhao Dongyun naturally inevitably gave birth to greed.

The only thing to worry about now is the reaction of the Russians, although the Russians don't like Du Lisan either, but they don't like Zhao Dongyun leading the army to appear in the Liaohe area.

The fact is also that whether it is Du Lisan or Feng Delin, even if they blow into the sky, they are just bandits, and they belong to people who look in the way but have nothing to do with the overall situation, but Zhao Dongyun, his every move is focused on by the Russians, and there have been a lot of spies in Jinzhou City in the past two months, some of the Russians, and some of them are also paying close attention to the every move of the Third Mixed Association.

If Zhao Dongyun led the Third Mixed Association into the Liao River area, or even crossed the Liao River, it would be an act that could trigger a war between the two countries.

We'll have to think of something else about this!

"You talk to Zhang Zuolin again, he wants Du Lisan's men and territory, you can't just rely on one mouth, let him send tens of thousands of taels of silver first, you have to let them make up for the opening fee and ammunition!" Zhao Dongyun's words already show that he has the intention to grab money, but how to do it has to be planned in detail.

At this time, Zhao Dongping said again: "Third brother, there are thousands of people on Du Lisan's side, and they are all bandits, there are many cavalry, we haven't dealt with these people before, do you think you should practice first?" ”

"Let's pick the west of Jinzhou first, and a few bandits in the north to practice, so that the brothers can increase their experience, and by the way, see if they can collect some goods!"

Since Zhang Zuolin said that there were at least hundreds of thousands of gold and silver treasures in Du Lisan's lair, Zhao Dongping was moved, and he was not only moved by Du Lisan's family wealth, he thought more about the Northeast bandits, even if there are not hundreds of thousands of other small and medium-sized bandits, but tens of thousands should always be there.

Zhao Dongyun nodded: "Well, I will arrange this matter freely, you go out first, today another batch of ordnance from the Fuyuan Machine Factory has been transported, you go and keep an eye on it!" ”

Saying that, he seemed to remember something: "By the way, I remember that there should be a batch of mortars this time, you go to see them and let them prepare for test firing, I will go to see it in a few days!" ”

The development of the mortar of the Fuyuan machine factory began last year, and there were samples at the beginning of the year, although the performance is not as good as those classic mortars of later generations, but the victory is cheap and simple to produce, the barrel used in the mortar is a seamless steel pipe directly imported from the United States, and then it does its own processing to integrate the artillery and gun mount, so a mortar is so built.

There are also mortar sights, which have to be ordered in Germany, and the price is not cheap.

In order to reduce the cost of the shells, the steel shell was not used like the new artillery, but the cast iron shell was used, and the explosive charge was not imported TNT or picric acid explosive, but black powder, the only thing worth mentioning is that the propellant used smokeless gunpowder that could be produced in China, and finally did not use the old black gunpowder.

The mortars that Fuyuan Machine Qì Factory is making now, not to mention the performance and quality, the only commendable thing is that the price is low.

However, Zhao Dongyun is still full of confidence in mortars, and as soon as the Fuyuan Machine Factory was finalized in June, he asked the armory to place an order, not much, only a few, mainly for testing and training.

To really form a large-scale mortar force, it is estimated that it will have to wait until after next year, by which time the Russo-Japanese War has also broken out, and mortars will play a key role in the hands of Zhao Dongyun, who lacks artillery power, after all, armed neutrality is not easy to play.

However, what Zhao Dongyun didn't expect was that the weapons he expected to be machine guns, grenades, and mortars were used against the Russians and the Japanese themselves, but it was not them who first learned the power of these new weapons, but those bandits in the northeast!