On 18 April, the Nanhe County Lianzhuang Association and the Boxers relied on various methods to trick thousands of people into marching west to meet the more than 1,000 training troops marching from Nanhe County and Shunde Prefecture.

At noon the next day, the rebels in Nanhe County shouted invulnerability, brandished hoes and sickles and launched an attack on the training army that entered the Heqiao area, because the rebels used their familiarity with the terrain to ambush at the beginning, and the training army that went to attack and suppress the enemy rashly advanced, in addition, more importantly, these training troops are just empty troops, most of the troops are opium addicts, and the soldiers are either old and weak or young.

These training troops are so fast that the senior brothers of the Boxer Regiment who have attached the ground escape talisman and the divine talisman can't catch up with them, so they can only sigh to the sky: It's not that our mana is not deep, but the demon soldiers are running too fast!

In this battle, more than 1,000 training troops under the two general soldiers of Daming Town and Zhengding Town, as well as Nan was defeated by thousands of displaced people, and in the end, if it were not for the pressure of more than 20 county teams equipped with foreign guns led by Zhu Jiabao of Nanhe County, it is estimated that the more than 1,000 training troops would be wiped out.

Facts have proved that the Qing Dynasty's official army, the training army, could not even defeat the unarmed mob, and the combat effectiveness of the more than 1,000-strong training army was even inferior to the more than 20 county troops in Nanhe County equipped with foreign guns.

This kind of thing is as funny as it is.

Although the news of the Qing army's defeat in Nanhe County was deliberately concealed by the front-line generals such as the general soldiers of Daiming Town and the General Army of Zhengding Town, they were still poked out by Zhu Jiabao, the prefect of Nanhe County, and Rusong, the prefect of Shunde Prefecture. ”

In the end, Zhu Jiabao also showed off himself a little: "Fortunately, my Nanhe County Twenty Foreign Gun Team resisted stubbornly in the face of danger, blocked the enemy from a hundred steps in front of the battle, and solved the crisis of my Nanhe!" ”

This news reached the Governor's Mansion of Zhili, which made Yuan Shikai very angry!

"How big is the two of them, they can still wipe out the whole army after beating a homeless people, you see, more than 1,000 people trained to fight 3,000 homeless people, not to mention being defeated by others, there were many dead and wounded, and only more than 500 people escaped." Yuan Shikai's face turned a little dark, and he slapped the telegram in his hand on the table.

Wang Shizhen, who was on the side, saw that Yuan Shikai no longer scolded, so he said: "We had expected the low combat strength of the old army, but we didn't expect them to be able to defeat even the homeless, this is really ......."

Wang Shizhen doesn't know what to say anymore, those military exercises are really speechless!

He was speechless about the training army, and quickly changed the topic: "Now the Shunde civil rebellion is no longer something that the local government and the training army can deal with, and in the end we have to rely on our new army!" ”

To Wang Shizhen's words, Yuan Shikai also nodded and said: "Those old armies are indeed unusable, just let them guard the prefecture and county, clean up those chaotic armies or our new army, now our men and horses are there?" When will I be able to get to Gwangjong? ”

Wang Shizhen didn't answer immediately, but looked at the map on the table before saying: "Brother Zhiquan is now in Zhengding County to coordinate the overall situation, and he personally led the first battalion of the Wuwei Right Army Cavalry to sit in Zhengding County. In addition, he had already sent Zhao Dongyun's troops south to Julu.

In the east, the two battalions of the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army have also begun to advance westward, and Feng Guozhang is also leading a battalion of the Ziqiang Army to Dezhou, and when these troops arrive in Shunde, they will encircle and suppress the rebels in the Guangzong and Julu areas, in order to destroy the rebels' nests in one fell swoop! ”

Yuan Shikai frowned slightly after hearing this: "What about Henan in the south?" Why didn't you send someone north? ”

Wang Shizhen said: "There is no effective new army in Henan, and those training troops are unusable, so let them guard the local prefectures and counties, and if they rush to the north, not only will they not help, but they will also hinder the advance of our army!" ”

Yuan Shikai nodded after hearing this: "That's fine, don't let these training troops come this time about the Shunde people's change, so as not to get in the way!" ”

In the dialogue between Wang Shizhen and Yuan Shikai, the contempt for Lian Jun is naked, and he doesn't even want Lian Jun to help, because if Lian Jun comes, it is not called help, it is called trouble!

Yuan Shikai looked at the telegram in his hand again at this time, and said after a long time: "Since the training army is unusable, it is not interesting to keep it, it seems that we have to speed up the speed of cutting and training new ones!" ”

The training of the new army under the auspices of Yuan Shikai is directly related to the reduction of the old army, because only by eliminating the old army can he free up more military funds to train the new army, and the matter of cutting out the old army may be extremely difficult for the southern governor, but it is not a big problem for Yuan Shikai.

His position as the governor of Zhili was killed, from North Korea to Shandong and then to Zhili, he relied on the military strength under his hands to kill all the way to the position of the governor of Zhili, so he is not a soft-hearted person, and he will not have any cowardly character who looks forward and backwards!

"Naturally, the training of the new army has to be accelerated, but the cost is not small, and the ordnance is not easy to solve!" Wang Shizhen said: "Now the standing army left town and a horse mark in the right town are all organized, and then expand the personnel problem is not big, in Zhili, Henan, Shandong and other places can recruit enough recruits, but the ordnance is not easy to solve!" ”

Yuan Shikai frowned when he heard this: "Didn't we order a batch of 65 rifles and 7-5 fast guns from the Japanese before, and then think of a way to see if we can order another batch from them, if not, find the Germans, there is a way after all!" ”

Wang Shizhen could only sigh secretly in his heart when he heard this, the difficulty of expanding the army in Beiyang did not lie in the soldiers, but in the military expenses and ordnance. First of all, there is the issue of costs; because the new army implements a high salary system, the salaries of its personnel in a town alone reach nearly 100,000 taels, and in addition to high-intensity training and live-ammunition training all year round, this part of the cost is also extremely large; on average, the annual maintenance cost of a town is about 130 to 1.5 million taels, and the specific amount varies according to the intensity of training.

In addition to the high maintenance costs, the cost of ordnance required to build a new town is also a huge amount, and rifles and artillery also need high procurement costs, such as the Beijing Banner Standing Army trained by Yuan Shikai for the Qing court, for example, all the weapons in the town were purchased from the Japanese at the beginning of the town, including 12,000 30-year-old rifles, more than 2,000 30-year-old mounted guns, 48 7-5 land guns, and 16 7-5 mountain artillery. There were 7 million rounds of smokeless 6.5 mm ammunition and more than 25,000 shells of various kinds, and the total of these weapons and ammunition was about 1.2 million taels of silver.

This price is actually relatively cheap, since Yuan Shikai came to the new army last year, in order to compete with the Germans for arms orders, the price of ordnance was set relatively low, and the distance between Japan and Japan was closer, and it was more convenient to buy ammunition in the future, so Yuan Shikai bought a large number of weapons and ammunition from Japan, in addition to equipping his own lineage standing army Zuozhen, but also to equip the Beijing Banner Standing Army that helped the Qing court to train.

However, this batch of arms purchases has not yet ended, the situation in the northeast has begun to continue to be tense, and the Japanese side has also seen the risk so they are stockpiling weapons and ammunition to prevent accidents, and the production capacity of the Japanese military industry in this era is also very limited, and the two batches of ordnance ordered by Yuan Shikai before this time can not be taken out of stock for a while, and they will have to wait until at least next year to fully deliver the goods, and now they are going to expand their armaments and war, and there is not enough arms production to receive Yuan Shikai's order for a while.

Therefore, in the face of Yuan Shikai's request to continue to buy arms, Ri' originally wanted to eat it with drool, but his mouth was too small to swallow.

"It is estimated that it will be difficult to buy it again on the Japanese side, and in addition to the obstacles of the embargo, the Germans are afraid that the price will be more expensive!" Wang Shizhen said: "Their 79 rifles are not bad, but the price of artillery and machine guns is too high!" ”

Yuan Shikai listened: "What about the several manufacturing bureaus in the south, can they buy a batch for us?" ”

"This is even more difficult, the output of those manufacturing bureaus in the south is not enough in the south, how many are sold to us there, and the quality of the self-produced 79 rifles and 5-7 guns is also slightly inferior!" When Wang Shizhen said this, he couldn't help but sigh: "In this current situation, it is not easy to buy ordnance, if only we could produce it ourselves!" ”

Hearing Wang Shizhen's words, Yuan Shikai suddenly remembered that Zhao Dongyun had mentioned the establishment of an arsenal at a meeting a few months ago, and thought about how much money he could come up with to run an arsenal, and after pondering for a long time, he said to Wang Shizhen: "According to you, how much does it cost us to build an arsenal?" ”

Wang Shizhen pondered for a while before saying: "If you want to make your own rifles, artillery, smokeless bullets and shells, and the output is comparable to that of the Hanyang factory, you must invest at least two million taels of silver!" ”

Wang Shizhen actually said that from the opening of the Hanyang factory to the present, the investment in equipment purchase and plant construction is about 2.5 million taels. If Beiyang wants to build a military industrial enterprise with a scale that is not inferior to the Hanyang Arsenal, it will not be able to build it at all without an initial investment of more than 2 million taels.

Hearing Wang Shizhen say this, Yuan Shikai sighed secretly in his heart, and retracted his words that we would also build an arsenal.

Since he had no money, Yuan Shikai simply stopped thinking about it, but turned back to Guangzong's people: "Now on Guangzong's side, it should be Zhao Dongyun's troops closest to the rebels, and I don't know what his situation is?" ”

Wang Shizhen said: "The telegram sent by Zhiquan in the morning said that Dongyun's troops will not have been divided into three routes, pressing on Julu, Guangzong and other places with the momentum of Mount Tai, and in the previous days, they also defeated more than ten mobs, killed more than 100 mobs, and arrested hundreds of people. ”

Yuan Shikai nodded and said, "Well, it's okay, send him a report and let him do it!" ”