Yuan Shikai's face was not full of surprise or excitement like everyone else, he still had a kind look on his face, but he did not hide his appreciation for Zhao Dongyun in his words: "It seems that you have worked hard to study in Germany, and you have not wasted the cultivation of Wenzhong Gong back then!" ”

As Yuan Shikai, being able to say this already represents his great appreciation for Zhao Dongyun, but this is not enough, he paused and said: "You go back and write a detailed charter for running a machine gun team, I want to read it!" ”

Zhao Dongyun had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and immediately stepped forward and said, "The ministry is ordered!" ”

When the sound of these heavy machine guns stopped, it also meant that this live-fire exercise came to an end, although this live-fire exercise did not last long, but it left a deep impression on everyone!

Zhao Dongyun used heavy machine guns to stubbornly defend the No. 4 and No. 5 small heights, firmly holding the front passage for the Southern Army to attack Pingshanzhuang, forcing the Southern Army to plan how to break through the machine gun position held by Zhao Dongyun during the five-day exercise, and finally at the end of the exercise, the exercise court ruled that the Northern Army had successfully defended and at the same time ruled that the Southern Army was attacking the No. 4 and No. 5 heights, the casualties are as high as more than 2,000 people!

Even before the exercise ended, Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang, Wang Shizhen, and others wrote to Yuan Shikai one after another, requesting the official opening of a machine gun team.

And Zhao Dongyun, who set off a machine gun storm, also ushered in a big opportunity!

As soon as the exercise ended, he was officially appointed as the commander of the second battalion, and the word 'temporary signature' that made Zhao Dongyun extremely embarrassing was finally removed, but Zhao Dongyun knew very well that removing the word temporary signature and officially appointing himself as the commander of the second battalion of the right wing was something that had been determined at the beginning of the exercise, and it can be said that as long as he Zhao Dongyun did not make a mistake in the previous exercise and showed a normal level, then the word 'temporary' would be removed.

However, Zhao Dongyun's performance in this exercise is far more than normal, his machine gun team can be said to make Yuan Shikai and others shine, and what amazes Yuan Shikai and others is not only the power of machine guns, but also the specific tactics of applying machine guns.

Everyone knows how powerful the machine gun is, but what should be used for this machine gun? What tactics should be used? And there are only a handful of soldiers in China who know this, and even in the world, few people know what tactics to use to maximize the use of machine gun fire.

For example, in the previous exercise, Zhao Dongyun used diagonal crossfire, the application tactic of this heavy machine gun only appeared during World War I, because the soldiers at that time found that the machine gun was not effective in strafing the front, but if it was fired to the side, the enemy had to fall a large area, so the flank crossfire tactics were slowly developed. But now it's only 1901, and everyone's understanding of machine guns is still in the initial state, and generally only knows that machine guns have a very fast rate of fire, and as for the rest, we don't know much, otherwise the number of heavy machine guns of the great powers before World War I in history would not be so small.

Zhao Dongyun's opportunity lies in this: he knows this!

As the so-called achiever does what others don't do, others don't understand, and he Zhao Dongyun understands, this is his advantage, and it is a unique advantage!

After the Baoding winter exercise came to an end, Yuan Shikai finally officially played to the Qing court and asked for the formation and training of the Beiyang Standing Army!

In fact, before Yuan Shi officially played, the Beiyang people had already begun the preparatory work for the establishment of the standing army, Wang Shizhen, Wang Yingkai and other Beiyang heavyweight generals had already begun to go to various places to recruit new soldiers as early as a few months ago, and at the same time, the scheduled officers at all levels were basically in place, so it can be said that the overall frame of the Beiyang standing army has been erected, and it is almost under an official name.

On the one hand, they needed Yuan Shikai's army to control and defend Gyeonggi, but on the other hand, they were also uneasy about Yuan Shikai's control of so many troops, so the Manchu magnates in the imperial court approved Yuan Shikai to establish the Beiyang Standing Army, and also asked Yuan Shikai to help train a standing army of the Beijing Banner.

At the same time, the Qing court also officially issued an order to the provinces, requiring the provinces to follow the example of Beiyang and Nanyang to eliminate the old brave and prepare for training, of course, as for whether it can be practiced, only God knows.

Preparing for the establishment of the Beiyang Standing Army is a big thing, almost the entire Beiyang has been running for it, Zhao Dongyun, as a middle-level officer under the Beiyang system, naturally cannot promote the development of the general trend that affects these things, but some related small things - such as heavy machine guns, Zhao Dongyun has already exerted his due influence, and changed history slightly.

Naoli Governor's Palace.

Zhao Dongyun sat up straight, turned his head slightly to look at Yuan Shikai who was in the first place, and made a respectful listen.

"According to investigations, England, France, Prussia, Tsarist Russia and other European powers have all set up machine gun teams, not only that, but even the Oriental Japanese have already opened machine gun teams, so we naturally can't lag behind!" Speaking of this, Yuan Shikai looked around, and immediately glanced past Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang and others, but in the end, his eyes fell on Zhao Dongyun, who was sitting at the bottom: "The machine gun team is going to do it, but what to do is a problem, Dongyun, you can talk about it!" ”

Zhao Dongyun knows that his main task today has come, he can sit with Wang Yingkai, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang and others today and have a meeting with Yuan Shikai, this is not to say that he is qualified to sit with the above people, but today's meeting is for the machine gun, and the Beiyang Army is now going to fire machine guns, so Zhao Dongyun can't be avoided, so he can sit with all the bigwigs today, after all, although he is not qualified to talk about other topics, But what to do with the machine gun team, he still has plenty of say.

So he came here today, mainly to explain to the bigwigs the detailed regulations of the machine gun team.

Zhao Dongyun immediately stood up, and after looking around at everyone present, he spoke: "According to the investigation of the Ministry of Duties, the machine guns of the British Army are set up in the infantry battalion, two per battalion, and the same is true of the Prussian Army, twenty-four machine guns in one town, based on this, the number of machine guns in our army should be quite a lot!"

However, now that there are very few sergeants in our army who know machine gun tactics, and it is extremely difficult to train personnel, it will take at least a month to train a skilled machine gunner, even if it is a daily live-fire drill; And to train a machine gun commander, even if it is selected from the existing grass-roots military assistants, it will take at least three months or more; If you want to train a machine gun commander who can command a machine gun team, it is no less difficult than training an artillery team leader! ”

Sure enough, Yuan Shikai and the others frowned slightly after hearing Zhao Dongyun's words, if the training of a machine gunner only takes one month and they can accept it, then Zhao Dongyun said that the difficulty of training a leader of a machine gun team is the same as that of cultivating the leader of the artillery team, then it is very difficult for the Beiyang system.

"Due to the difficulty in training the personnel of the machine gun team, the machine gun team can be concentrated in one place for training in the early stage, and then distributed to various armies after the initial formation, so that the time for the machine gun team to form combat strength can also be greatly accelerated!"

This point is not that Zhao Dongyun said nonsense, but he didn't want to set off a trend of running a machine gun team by himself, and the various armies would be organized and trained separately, and in that case, there would be nothing to do with him Zhao Dongyun.

If it is said that the machine gun unit is concentrated, then Zhao Dongyun will have the hope of being in charge of this machine gun unit.

At this time, Duan Qirui interjected: "Dongyun is right, if the machine gun team can set up a battalion under the artillery battalion to imitate the artillery team, then it can effectively and greatly speed up the formation of the machine gun team." ”

Duan Qirui's words not only affirmed Zhao Dongyun's centralized training, but also added his own private goods, that is, he proposed that the machine gun team should belong to the artillery. And he said this, naturally, not nonsense, but had his own reasons.

Duan Qirui's position in the Beiyang system is very special, basically equivalent to the commander-in-chief of the artillery of the Beiyang New Army, whether it is the Wuwei Right Army or the vanguard or the standing army, as long as it is related to artillery, he is basically under his control, picking up the ranking of the real power bosses in the Beiyang system today, he Duan Qirui is currently the first.

Later generations all know the three heroes of Beiyang, but few people know that in the early days of the Beiyang New Army, Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai were Yuan Shikai's henchmen, Feng Guozhang was not until after the Boxer Rebellion, that is, on the eve of the Gengzi Incident, he was gradually accepted by Yuan Shikai and officially stepped into the ranks of the Beiyang high-level, as for Wang Shizhen, it was even later, and it was not until the two years after the Gengzi Incident that he gradually entered the core high-level of Beiyang.

Today in 1902, in fact, it was another big man in Beiyang who could compete with Duan Qirui for power, he was Wang Yingkai.

Although Wang Yingkai was not famous in later generations, he was an important general in the early days of the Beiyang New Army, and he was not inferior to Duan Qirui in terms of power status!

Before he died of illness in 1908, one of the two major factions in Beiyang was Duan Qirui, and the other was Wang Yingkai, which can be seen from the historical autumn exercise of 1905 when he and Duan Qirui served as the commander of the Southern Army and the Northern Army respectively. Feng Guozhang was so strong in the future after the Xinhai period, because he took over the power under Wang Yingkai in the future, and the direct generals in the future, such as Wang Zhanyuan, Sun Chuanfang and others, turned out to be Wang Yingkai's subordinates.

Now that the Beiyang Standing Army has been newly built, middle-level officers like Zhao Dongyun want to seek a real military position, but Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai are fighting for the dominant power of the Beiyang Standing Army, and in such a process, Duan Qirui has to continue to increase his weight in Yuan Shikai's mind.

And put the machine gun team under the artillery, and when the machine gun team is formed in the future, he will be able to get extra points in Yuan Shikai's heart!

Wang Yingkai, who was a little obese, glanced at Duan Qirui, then coughed low and said: "Zhiquan is right, the machine gun team is now grass-based, it should be trained first, and then assigned to each department in the future, but the machine gun team will be assigned to each infantry battalion in the future, and it can't be that the commanders of those infantry battalions don't know what a machine gun is!" ”