There are only 7,000 people, not to mention that this force is still the Third Association of the Beiyang New Army, which has only been established for half a year, and even if it is an elite unit of the German and French powers that has been in the army for many years, it does not dare to say that it can resist 50,000 Russian troops for more than three months.

Although the factor of weapons in modern warfare is already very important, the number of people is equally important, and even if the combat effectiveness of the Third Association is strong, it is impossible for Zhao Dongyun to recover seven or eight times the disadvantage of troops when he is alive.

Relatively speaking, the weapons and equipment of the Beiyang New Army are not too disadvantaged, although the Beiyang New Army still has a situation where the light weapons are not uniform, but at present, it is basically based on the Japanese 30-year-old style, the anti-German 88 type rifle, and based on the current production of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory is still rising rapidly, it is foreseeable that the Beiyang New Army will be dominated by Type 88 rifles in the future.

Whether it is the Thirty Year or Type 88 rifles, compared to the Monasin rifles commonly equipped in the Russian army, they are not as good as there, but they are not as good as there, they are basically the same level of things.

In terms of artillery, if you do not consider the siege heavy artillery, then the gap between the field artillery of the two sides is actually not large, and the Beiyang New Army is dominated by 57-mm artillery and 75-mm artillery. And the Beiyang Army is determined to fight to the death with the Russian army, and it can also put together hundreds of small and medium-caliber artillery.

However, if there is only one third association, there are only sixteen doors when it is full, and it is basically impossible to play!

The only thing that has the advantage is the machine guns of the Beiyang New Army!

Due to the interference of Zhao Dongyun, the Beiyang New Army in this era was equipped with heavy machine guns earlier than in history, and from the very beginning, Yuan Shikai and others recognized the power of heavy machine guns and attached great importance to them.

From 1901 to the present, the Beiyang New Army has imported more than 100 Makqin water-cooled heavy machine guns through several foreign firms, which are equipped with four machine gun battalions and a few machine gun teams, which are assigned to each army. Today's Beiyang New Army has several major descendant troops, whether it is the Wuwei Right Army or the Wuwei Right Army vanguard, or the self-improvement army or the standing army, or even Yuan Shikai's direct superintendent is equipped with heavy machine gun troops.

If Zhao Dongyun transferred three machine-gun battalions to him, plus one machine-gun battalion of the Third Association, then all the four machine-gun battalions of the Beiyang Army were transferred together, with a total of 100 heavy machine guns.

But even so, it is impossible to stop the 50,000 Russian army for three months, and the Russian army is not stupid, it was stunned by your machine gun at the beginning, and it will not always be stupid to continue to launch a death charge with a dense formation!

No matter how stupid the Russian commander is, he will know how to use artillery to suppress and attack the machine gun positions of the Beiyang New Army, take a step back and say that Zhao Dongyun dug the fortifications on the front line as well as the Western Front of Europe in World War I, so that the Russians' artillery could not play a role.

But the Russians know that they won't go around if they can't rush through, leaving a few thousand people to contain you, and the main force will bypass the defense line of your Third Association, and then they will even be able to make a big encirclement.

In the face of absolute disadvantage in troops, there is no generational difference between weapons and tactics, so don't think about blocking ten with one. If people can't beat it, don't they know that they can't go around it, if they can't go around 10 kilometers, they can go around 20 kilometers, and you can defend a position of several kilometers with 1,700 people?

When people come around to outflank you or even attack from behind, you will also fall into the encirclement and be cut off from the supply line, let alone how long and how long you will resist the enemy, just wait for death!

Duan Qirui and the others present are all veteran generals, although they have not experienced the kind of trench warfare of World War I, and their understanding of the role of machine guns is also a little unclear, but as a modern officer, they can still deduce a similar situation in their minds, maybe the details are different, but their speculation is not far from ten.

Therefore, they all believe that although the machine gun will have a certain effect, it will not be able to recover the absolute disadvantage of troops.

However, although he already believed in his heart that Zhao Dongyun was bragging, he did not directly refuse to give Zhao Dongyun face, and directly refuted it.

Because everyone knew that it was impossible for Zhao Dongyun to give him the three machine gun battalions he wanted, it was a false proposition to discuss whether the Third Association with four machine gun battalions could block 50,000 Russian troops.

Moreover, everyone knows that what Zhao Dongyun said is a beautiful scene, if you have to take it seriously, it will not appear that you are very smart, but it will offend Zhao Dongyun.

However, after this cowhide was blown, it also gave confidence to everyone present, thinking that even if they couldn't beat the Russians, they could still delay the delay if necessary.

Moreover, there are less than 30,000 new troops in Beiyang now, but who can guarantee that Beiyang will not be able to establish more troops in half a year or a year, anyway, the war will not break out now.

Yuan Shikai looked at Zhao Dongyun with a smile, and said after a while: "Okay, it's good to have confidence!" ”

Zhao Dongyun looked at Yuan Shikai's face, and knew that he was still satisfied with his appearance, why did he give such an exaggerated guarantee with confidence just now?

On the one hand, it is because he knows that the possibility of war with Russia is too small, and because there is still a day ahead, so in the next year or two, these people are all blindly worried, and they can just sit and watch the drama with peace of mind.

And this kind of impossible thing is taken out and talked about, and it is impossible for anyone to trouble him afterwards, saying that he bragged and didn't make a draft, because it didn't happen, how do you know that I can't stop 50,000 Russian troops, otherwise you call 50,000 Russian troops to fight me?

Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if Zhao Dongyun is unlucky and really encounters tens of thousands of Russians to attack him, then with the trenches built in advance plus barbed wire, heavy machine guns and grenades, it is very likely that the Russians will inflict heavy losses on the Russian army before the Russians know that the machine guns are powerful.

Once the Russian army is severely damaged, before the Russian army finds a way to fight against machine guns + barbed wire, then the offensive will be postponed to avoid a large number of unnecessary casualties, so that Zhao Dongyun can barely support it for ten days and a half with the strength of the Third Association.

If you can resist for half a month, you can barely give Yuan Shikai a deal, as for the three months I said at the beginning, are you still embarrassed to take it seriously.

As for the reinforcements in half a month, if the reinforcements behind him do not come, Zhao Dongyun will still resist a fart, he is not here to learn from Dong Cunrui in this era, and he will definitely turn around and run away with his descendants when the time comes, as for Beijing, the Russians will occupy it if they like to occupy it.

Anyway, the fall of the capital is not a thing or twice, just like that, if you can't resist, you can enjoy it, maybe the Russians will burst out of Cixi and Guangxu as soon as they have a good heart, and then Zhao Dongyun should hesitate to support Yuan Shikai as president or support Zhang Zhidong as president?

Speaking of which, Zhao Dongyun's cowhide is not risky to blow!

On the other hand, when your boss asks you if you can accomplish something, and you can't say no to it, the only thing you can do is show your faith and loyalty.

Many times leaders don't know what to do, but what people want is not the consequences, but your attitude.

Mixing officialdom is similar to mixing the workplace, and attitude determines a qiē!

"Now that the situation in the northeast is tense, the princes of the imperial court are also worried, so let's send a new army to the northeast." Yuan Shikai continued: "They also know that our new army has a small number of troops, so if we can send a new army eastward, then they will allocate a military budget for us to expand our strength for backup!" ”

"Those people will only let go of their money bags when they are dying!" Wang Yingkai did not hide his disappointment and disgust with the imperial court.

"In this way, this matter in the Northeast can be regarded as a good thing and a bad thing, if the imperial court can come up with another three or five million taels of silver, we will be able to practice a few more towns!"

Yuan Shikai said: "We still have to talk to them about how much, but if we can talk about it, there should be no problem with a right town." ”

Speaking of this, Yuan Shikai looked at Zhao Dongyun again: "Dongyun, put your Third Association in order in the past two days, and then prepare to go to Liaodong!" ”

For Yuan Shikai's words, Zhao Dongyun was already prepared in his heart just now, after all, Yuan Shikai would not ask his Third Association for no reason how long it would be able to block the Russian army.

"This time I went to Liaodong, in addition to your original Third Association, bring all the troops you are in charge of to step up the training!" Yuan Shikai continued: "As for the artillery required by the artillery battalion has not yet arrived, I will first transfer a battalion of artillery from Zuozhen for you to use first, but you can only give you artillery, and you have to practice it yourself!" ”

"When the third batch of artillery arrives, I'll make up for your left town!" This is for Wang Yingkai.

Zhao Dongyun also said: "Yes!" ”

The artillery battalion he supervised was the first battalion of the right standard of the artillery team, because the right town was not established, and the right standard of the artillery team was also an empty number for the time being, so this first battalion was under the jurisdiction of Zhao Dongyun first.

Since it had just been established, the sixteen guns scheduled for this artillery battalion had not yet returned to Japan, and in addition, a considerable number of gunners had actually been transferred from the Wuwei Right Army and Zuozhen to retrain.

To put it bluntly, now the first battalion of the right standard of the artillery team under Zhao Dongyun only has people and no artillery, and if he wants to go to Liaodong now, it is naturally impossible to still have an empty shelf like this, so Yuan Shikai transferred sixteen cannons to him from Zuozhen first.

There is also a reason why the artillery is only transferred from the left town of the Beiyang Standing Army instead of directly transferring the entire artillery battalion, first of all, the left standard of the artillery team of the left town of the Beiyang Standing Army is of great significance, just like the entire left town of the Beiyang Standing Army, they have actually become the seed troops of the Beiyang army expansion.

Just as Yuan Shikai regarded the Wuwei Right Army as the cradle of army expansion in 1901, now Yuan Shikai also regards the left town of the Beiyang Standing Army as the cradle of army expansion. For example, when Zhao Dongyun's Third Association formed the army last year, a large number of grassroots officers came from the Wuwei Right Army, and most of the other were from the left town of the Beiyang Standing Army.

At the beginning of this year, when the right standard of the horse team was established, and when the first battalion of the right standard of the artillery team and other units were established not long ago, a large number of backbone officers were drawn from the left town of the Beiyang Standing Army, otherwise how could they become an army so quickly!

In fact, this is also the reason why the Beiyang Standing Army Zuozhen has been trained for more than two years, and has not been able to achieve full strength, because people are constantly being transferred.

It can be seen from this how important Zuozhen of the Beiyang Standing Army was in 1903, which was the cradle of officers and technical soldiers in the entire Beiyang.

To be honest, it is much more important than Zhao Dongyun's Third Association, so it is okay to transfer a battalion of artillery from Zuozhen to Zhao Dongyun's Third Association, but the entire artillery battalion cannot be given to Zhao Dongyun, because there are several artillery battalions in Zuozhen, and this is less than 16 artillery guns at most, at most there are fewer artillery during training, which will not have much impact on the training of gunners.

When Yuan Shikai decided to send Zhao Dongyun's third battalion to Liaodong, Zhao Dongyun also began to rectify the troops of the Third Association to prepare for going to Liaodong, but what he didn't expect was that he thought he would be able to lead the troops to Liaodong soon, but he delayed again and again!