In fact, in addition to saving money, there is another very important reason for using the Wehrmacht and the Praetorian Guard, and the expeditionary force of the mercenary nature of the company is to achieve the suddenness of the battle.

Japan was founded earlier than China, and has always paid attention to collecting news from neighboring countries, especially China, especially the southwestern Zhufan, and has paid a lot of attention to China's rise.

As a result, Japan sent many spies to the coastal areas of China, some of which were sent by the shogunate, some by local feudal lords, and more of them were spontaneous part-time spies, and these part-time spies were usually Japanese overseas merchants.

It can be said that although I dare not say that every Japanese merchant who comes to China is a secret agent, at least seventy or eighty percent of Japanese businessmen will spontaneously collect information in China, and once they return to Japan, they will report these information to the lord where their business is located.

From this point of view, the patriotism of Japanese businessmen is very strong, which is much stronger than that of Chinese businessmen, so it is not too much to look at all Japanese businessmen as spies. As for those professional spies who are deliberately dispatched, not to mention.

In this regard, the CIA has long had a lot of evidence, but because Japan is now also a very important trading place for China, and in order not to startle the snakes, it did not take more action against those Japanese who were nominally businessmen but were actually secret agents, but only monitored them.

It is precisely for this reason that Zhou Shengjun did not mobilize the Wehrmacht and the Praetorian Guard, because the mobilization of these troops was too obvious to conceal those pervasive Japanese spies.

On the contrary, because the expeditionary volunteers do not belong to the national defense force or the Praetorian Guard, they are only corporate private mercenaries, and they have plans to be transferred to Taiwan for training early on, and this is not a secret, plus the number is too small. There were only six thousand people, and the armament was not the best, so if the expeditionary force was going to board a ship and go to sea, it would not attract much attention.

That's right, according to Zhou Shengjun's plan, although the expeditionary force has a great advantage, the Satsuma Domain's armament is not bad, not only has a large number of shore defense heavy artillery, but also has a lot of steam warships, and a small number of modern army.

Therefore. From a commercial point of view, in order to reduce losses and obtain maximum results, they had to carry out sneak attack operations, that is, launch surprise attacks on the Satsuma domain before the Japanese were ready to defend themselves, so as to reduce their own losses.

There are many advantages to launching a surprise attack, in addition to achieving tactical suddenness, and attacking before the Satsuma clan can mobilize its military. In addition to reducing the enemy's resistance and reducing the difficulty of one's own attack, it can also add points to the next step of negotiations and speed up the progress of Sino-Japanese negotiations.

To know. The Yoshidaya incident actually didn't happen for long, and according to the speed of communication in this era and the reaction time to deal with the incident, it is usually calculated in months.

The Chinese Empire, on the other hand, was generally equipped with radio communication systems in various places, so the speed of information transmission was much faster. Correspondingly, the administrative efficiency is much faster.

But no matter how fast, this kind of thing happened. According to the usual practice, they must first send envoys to Japan to protest and blackmail Japan, no, to demand compensation, and then the two sides will come and go, and if they really can't get along, then go to war.

That's right, even if China wants to go to war, it has to go through this process, this is the international practice, and if you don't come like this, just come up and start the film, it will be uncivilized and will be squeezed out by other powers.

In particular, the British and Americans have a lot of troops stationed in Japan, and they are also watching this matter, and if the Chinese troops do not greet them and do not negotiate and attack Japan, it will cause panic among the British, and it is very likely to have a bad impact on China.

Now that China is in the honeymoon period with Britain, they are discussing beating the United States together and splitting the United States, so at this time, we must not let Japan spoil a big thing.

However, if the normal process of diplomatic blackmail is followed before sending troops, because the British, French, and Americans will inevitably intervene, there is a chance that this battle will not be fought, and it is likely that the gains will not be too high, and more importantly, this will give the Satsuma clan a lot of time to prepare, and they can have enough time for general mobilization.

Once the Satsuma Domain is mobilized, with the ruthlessness of the Japanese, the expeditionary force is likely to have a lot of losses if it wants to attack it, or in other words, it is likely that the Satsuma Domain will need to be destroyed, which is very cool, but it is not in the interests of China.

After all, for the time being, China has no plans to fully occupy Japan, and the main reason is that the center of gravity is not here.

The main purpose of the current conquest of Japan is to make money and open up a new situation in Japan, so that China can first obtain a concession in Japan, so that it can use this concession as a bridgehead in the future and slowly encroach on Japan.

In other words, the ultimate goal of this crusade against Japan is not only to make Japan succumb and apologize and lose money, but also to establish a concession in Kagoshima to become a bridgehead for continuing to attack Kyushu Island in the future.

In other words, Japan will fight sooner or later, but not now, and according to Li Yongji's instructions, the meal must be eaten bite by bite, especially against a semi-civilized country like Japan, which has a large population and has begun to awaken.

In fact, Li Yongji and Zhang Xinda have discussed dealing with Japan many times, and they both believe that in terms of the current situation in Japan, since there is no Meiji Restoration, only a small number of upper classes have been civilized, and Japan's extensive nationalism has not yet awakened, so there is still a chance to be in the bag.

However, it is very difficult for only a small number of Japanese people with lofty ideals to deal with it, so if we want to deal with Japan, we must concentrate our efforts, plan well, and then find a bridgehead first, and slowly encroach on it, and we cannot swallow it in one bite in a way that is pressed by large soldiers.

Therefore, Zhang Xinda's original plan was to wait for the United States to be defeated, first encroach on Kyushu, make Japan a vassal country, and then go to open a film with the Russians, during which the Japanese would contribute money and consume Japan's vital strength, and when the Russians were solved, they would slowly clean up Japan.

In short, this time, it was clear that in the name of private mercenaries, Satsuma would be defeated before the negotiations, and what was needed was a quick word, so the expeditionary force was chosen.

The members of the expeditionary force are, after all, veterans. In addition, the supplies are sufficient, and the run-in training in the first phase is about the same, and they are already familiar with each other, so the integration was quickly completed and they became familiar with the new weapons.

It should be pointed out here that in order to cooperate with the landing operation, not only 56 machine guns were issued to the expeditionary force, increasing the density of fire at the company level, but also adding several new equipment.

The reason why we say new equipment is because these things are not considered complete sets of weapons. It's some improved version of the prop.

First of all, of course, the first place is barbed wire. Barbed wire is already standard in the Praetorian Guard, but not in the Wehrmacht.

Barbed wire is generally a sharp weapon that accompanies automatic weapons, although it is not very lethal in itself, but it is quickly deployed, which can effectively organize the rapid advance of the enemy's infantry and cavalry, so as to provide a large number of opportunities for their own machine gun fire to kill and injure the enemy.

However, although the barbed wire fence has been configured for a long time. But the Praetorian Guard has never had much chance to use it in actual combat, after all, in the domestic war, whether it is a crusade against the Manchus or a conquest of Korea. Most of the battles were fought with the wind, and the enemy's will to fight was not resolute, and there were very few decisive charges, and many times a single artillery shot was solved.

But the Japanese are different. It is difficult to imagine the ruthlessness of the Japanese, and it is impossible to overestimate it, even in the current era when the whole people are not civilized.

Therefore. According to Li Yongji's idea, once they attack Japan, the Japanese are likely to put up stubborn resistance, and may even organize death squads to carry out a surprise attack.

For example, what if your own psychological quality is not up to par and it collapses?

Here, Li Yongji is not worried about the Chen Yucheng regiment composed of the old Taiping Army, nor the Peng Yulin regiment composed of the old Qing Army, he is worried about the Li Hezhang regiment of the Qingpu Military Academy, which is a proper student army that has not experienced much actual combat and has nothing to do with theory and training.

In other words, among the three regiments of the expeditionary force, although Li Hezhang's first regiment was the most arrogant and the most eye-catching, it was actually what Li Yongji was most worried about.

Because none of these young people have actually been on the battlefield, they all signed up with a bookish spirit, or a young impulse.

Compared with the other two regiments killed in the sea of corpses and blood, their knowledge level may be higher, and their ideals are fuller, but their murderous spirit and experience are inevitably much less.

Barbed wire is different with trenches, which can effectively stop the enemy's charge, so that people have a chance to have a buffer in time and psychology, especially for the officers and men of the first regiment, the psychological buffer is particularly important.

Fighting a war is like this, newcomers who have never been on the battlefield may be afraid at first, but if they relax and find that the other party is nothing more than this, and then kill the red eye, then it is considered a beginner, and if they encounter a bad battle in the future, they will no longer be afraid.

Moreover, the first regiment has no experience, but the second regiment and the third regiment are both veterans, and they have long been downsizing about life and death, but there must be advantages and disadvantages, although the second and third regiments are experienced, their knowledge level is low, and their mastery of new weapons, especially weapons such as artillery, is very poor, and they will generally play direct fire.

On the contrary, although the first regiment has little combat experience, they are from military academies and have profound theoretical knowledge and practical drill knowledge.

Because of this, when training in peacetime, although for the sake of fairness or training of non-commissioned officers, the artillery is evenly distributed to each regiment, that is to say, each regiment has an artillery company.

But in fact, when the time comes, the artillery will be used intensively, and when the time comes, an independent artillery battalion will be formed under the direct command of the brigade headquarters, and the artillery of this independent artillery battalion will be drawn from each regiment, and the gunners will all use the personnel of the first regiment.

In other words, once the war starts, the first regiment is the brigade headquarters' personal guard regiment, which seems to be valued, but in fact it is love.

That is to say, the first regiment is only firing artillery in the rear, carrying out a vigilance, and by the way, acting as a reserve force, and the main force of the real offensive operation will be handed over to the second regiment and the third regiment.

In addition to barbed wire, the second item for the expeditionary force is special artillery shells.

The so-called special artillery shells are not poisons that have been used in the Liaoyang operation. Gas. bombs, but arson * fire bombs, also called napalm * bombs.

Napalm is not complicated to manufacture, and raw materials are not difficult to make in modern society, especially for making napalm shells. That's pretty easy.

The reason why I think of gasoline bombs is because most Japanese houses and fortresses are made of wood, and if the other side resists stubbornly, they don't mind setting fire to the castle in order to reduce their own losses. And if you want to set fire to an area the size of a city, what better and more convenient is there than napalm?

In fact, at first, Li Yongji thought about a flamethrower, but that thing was very difficult to get, and the control was complicated and dangerous, but it was napalm. It is relatively simple, so very early on, this weapon has begun to be secretly trial-produced at the Ma'anshan Arsenal.

However, although there are perfect materials and sufficient raw materials, after all, they have not been exposed to it before, so it takes time to develop this thing after all, so after the relatively perfect napalm bomb is finally produced and inspected, Li Yongji asked them to speed up the production of this pre-loading type. Napalm shells with time-delay fuses.

Lee Yong-gil's purpose at that time was to produce a batch of samples and then send them to North Korea for North Koreans to taste. After all, North Korea also has mostly wooden houses.

The problem is that although developed, and the simplest time-delay fuse, thundermercury detonation. But after all, it will take time to produce this thing, and when they finally produce a base number of shells (100 rounds), they suddenly hear the news of the surrender of North Korea. Therefore, this weapon is not useful.

Although it was not used in the conquest of Korea, it continued to be produced, and to this day, 2,000 shells have been made, almost using up the raw materials that Yi Yong-gil had originally obtained from modern society.

After hearing about the attack on Japan, Li Yongji remembered this thing and specially instructed the Ma'anshan Arsenal to hand over this special type 2 arson bomb to the expeditionary force, so that the expeditionary force could personally test the actual combat effectiveness of this weapon.

The reason why it is called an arson bomb, of course, is to confuse the public, and it is also more vivid, if you directly say napalm . Bullet, then maybe someone will think of something from the name, and that's not good news.

Type 56 machine guns, tactical barbed wire, and arson bombs, these are the three kinds of weapons of mass destruction provided by Li Yongji to the expeditionary force, which are basically directly transferred from the Janissary sequence, in addition to increasing the advantages of the expeditionary force, the main hope is to use the Japanese battlefield to first test what kind of power these three weapons have after cooperating with each other, therefore, while providing these three weapons, in fact, the Praetorian Guard also sent an observation group to observe these three weapons, especially the use of the latter two weapons.

Of course, there are a lot of other new weapons in the Praetorian Guard, such as bazookas, rocket launchers, etc., but those things are not necessary, not to mention the difficulty of operation, and they are not cost-effective.

To tell the truth, these three new equipment, the machine gun is fine, it is not difficult to get started, it can be said that it can be taught, but the barbed wire and arson bombs are not something that ordinary people can play, so the latter two weapons are mainly handed over to the first regiment to be responsible.

The first regiment has been exposed to barbed wire at military schools and knows how to set it up quickly, so if necessary, make a cameo appearance as an engineer to provide quick cover for the troops, and that is not a big deal.

As for the arson shell, although it has not been used before, this thing is the same as ordinary shells, except that you need to first pull the fuse of the cannonball with a pull rope like a grenade, and then put it into the muzzle to fire.

That is, due to the problem of the fuse, there is a strict procedure for the loading of such shells, which must be fast and accurate, otherwise one will not be able to blow up, and that is not a joke.

Fortunately, they had also used a lot of this kind of front-loading artillery in military schools before, and they had learned to use blasting shells with the same fuse, so it was not difficult to hit them when the blasting shells were hit.

Finally, it took a night to get acquainted with the new weapons, and at dawn the next day, all the officers and men of the expedition, who had been prepared for a long time, arrived at the Wusong Military Port, and then boarded the transport ships of the Navy's First Fleet in turn and sailed for the Kaohsiung Port of Taiwan.

Why is it Kaohsiung Port, this is naturally also to bully the enemy, after all, Wusong Port has many people, and ships outside the port are dense, especially the route between Yokohama and Shanghai Port in Japan, which has always been busy and tight, so if you go directly from Wusong Port to Japan, it is difficult not to be discovered.

On the contrary, it is different to go to Kaohsiung Port first, because this is their plan, and even if they meet people on the way, there will be no doubts. At present, Kaohsiung Port is a new military port, inaccessible, especially after being opened up as a naval base, there are basically no merchant ships coming, and once they come, they will be expelled, so the troops come to Kaohsiung Port first, which can play a strong concealment.

According to the plan, after the troops arrive in Kaohsiung, they will first do some adaptation training, especially to adapt to the new weapons and tactics. However, the time was only three days, and after three days, they would use the night as a cover to go north directly from the port of Takao, go straight to Kagoshima Castle in the Satsuma Domain, and launch a surprise attack on Kagoshima.

Just as Shi Dakai was staying in the harbor, watching his soldiers start to board the ship in an orderly manner, two people suddenly walked by.

One of them he knew was the adjutant of Mo Haihu, the fleet commander of the Navy's First Fleet. It seems that the surname is Tang, and the specific name is forgotten.

As for the middle-aged man next to him with short hair, wearing an iron-gray Chinese uniform, and a standard civil servant's dress. Shi Dakai didn't know him, but he seemed to be a big adult.

Soon, the two people walked up to Shi Dakai, and then the adjutant Tang, who was wearing a white officer's uniform, first subconsciously wanted to give Shi Dakai a military salute. However, he quickly reacted that Shi Dakai was not a regular army now, and he could not use military salutes. So when the hand was raised halfway, it turned into a fist salute: "Hello Lord Shi." ”

"Hello Lord Tang." Shi Dakai also returned the salute with his fists.

The adjutant Tang nodded, and then he didn't talk nonsense, and directly stretched out his palm and pointed at the middle-aged man next to him: "Lord Shi, let me introduce you, this is the Central Executive Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Central Commissioner-Director Li Hongzhang Li, who is here to go to Japan with you this time." ”

"Central Executive Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Central Commissioner?" Shi Dakai glanced at Li Hongzhang and immediately frowned.

However, Shi Dakai frowned, he was not frightened by the name Li Hongzhang, this was really not, he was frightened by the name of the previous commissioner of the Central Executive Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

That's right, this is Li Hongzhang, who is known as the Bismarck of the East, in another time and space, and is also Li Hezhang's elder brother.

In another time and space, Li Hongzhang is also famous, but in this time and space, due to the sudden rise of Li Yongji, Li Hongzhang does not have many opportunities to make a big difference, on the contrary, he has always been unambitious, so except for Zeng Guofan of the Hunan Army, who values his talent more, he is actually inconspicuous, his reputation is not obvious, and he is not even as famous as Peng Yulin.

However, celebrities are celebrities, and the reason why Li Hongzhang is famous in another time and space is that in addition to being lucky and seizing a good opportunity, it is also inseparable from his own success and hard work.

Li Hongzhang's most powerful point is that he is meticulous in his work, tactful, very good in details, and quite good in dealing with people, he is a person with quite good emotional intelligence, and he is born to be an official.

Therefore, when Li Yongji swept the country, Li Hongzhang decisively abandoned the original owner Zeng Guofan and joined the big family of the State Council.

Li Hongzhang and Li Hezhang went to the different roads, he first went directly to take the civil service examination, and then passed the written examination with excellent results and became a civil servant.

Then, he chose to continue the exam, passed one after another, and obtained the status of an internal affairs officer in the Internal Affairs Office and became an internal affairs officer.

Under normal circumstances, it is naturally impossible to become an internal clerk so easily, and it is really Li Hongzhang's luck that he encountered a good opportunity.

Originally, after Li Hongzhang was admitted to the civil service, he originally entered the State Council because of his good grades and became a lower-level counselor of the State Council.

However, Li Hongzhang soon discovered that in fact, the summer counselors of the State Council do not have much power, and most of them do some errands and paperwork work, and it is even more difficult to quickly climb up through the channel of guò.

It just so happened that at that time, the Internal Affairs Office greatly expanded its recruitment, so Li Hongzhang went to apply for the internal affairs examination again, passed the test again, and became an internal affairs officer.

Although he has become an internal affairs officer and is considered a person from the Internal Affairs Office, his place of work has not changed, and he is still the State Council, the reason is that he is favored by Shen Shiming.

In addition to being the premier of the State Council, Shen Shiming himself also holds the post of vice chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is a department with considerable power and real power.

Why do you say it, it can be seen from the official position that the chairman is Li Yongji himself, and there are two vice chairmen, one is Shen Shiming, and the other is Queen Yin Susu.

So, how big is this department?

It can be said that the people sent by the Central Executive Committee, this is similar to the central commissioner, inspection team, or ancient ministers of the Red Dynasty in another time and space, in short, large and small, including politics, military diplomacy, etc., can ask about anything, and in case of emergency, even have the right to make decisions on the spot, and can directly detain officials at any level.

In other words, the Central Executive Committee is the core department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it is also the real organ of power in the internal court.

The commissioners of the Central Executive Committee are responsible for picketing, while the CIA is similar to Jinyiwei and is responsible for the work of spies.

So to put it bluntly, Li Hongzhang is now the minister of the Qincha, although he is only a director, but because he is a special commissioner of the central government, he still has a lot of power.

According to the rules, when a special commissioner of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China goes on a business trip, he must send more than two CIA agents to protect him, and under special circumstances, this expatriate also has the right to mobilize local garrisons to provide protection, which is quite powerful anyway.

However, this time, Li Hongzhang did not let those CIA bodyguards come over in order to keep a low profile, but in fact, he was staring at it nearby, and Shi Dakai could also feel that at least four people had been closely observing him.

In fact, the power of the Central Executive Committee was not so great, and it used to be only an agency that managed the internal affairs of various localities.

However, when Li Yongji appointed Shen Shiming as prime minister, Shen Shiming proposed to increase the prime minister's staff and then inspect the localities as the prime minister's special commissioner to deal with some places that the central government could not take care of for the time being, especially corruption and malfeasance.

Li Yongji thought that this method was good, but he didn't want to open another department, so he directly used the Central Executive Committee, and then added the establishment of a central commissioner.

All in all, the name of the central commissioner is the minister of the Qincha, although he has no specific power, but he can go directly to the heavens, and now that Shi Dakai suddenly met such a person, it is impossible not to mutter in his heart.

After all, it is rumored that the main purpose of this central commissioner is to investigate the corruption and dereliction of duty of officials. (To be continued......)