After entering October, the weather in Jinzhou is getting colder and colder, and after nightfall, it is no longer enough to wear a long-sleeved single coat as in late autumn, and most of the people who come to the dinner party are wearing coats.

Although tonight's dinner was organized by the Li family, to be honest, the Li family is only a secondary role in this dinner, and tonight's protagonist is undoubtedly Zhao Dongyun.

Li Yijian stood at the door and constantly welcomed many military and political dignitaries in the cold wind, his face was about to stiffen with a smile, but he didn't have the slightest idea of retreating to warm his body.

He knew very well that if it weren't for the fact that he was congratulating Zhao Dongyun on his appointment as the commander of the Third Town, then it would be absolutely impossible for so many military and political dignitaries to come to his dinner tonight.

Not only the local military and political officials of Jinzhou Mansion, but even the nearby Xinmin Mansion also came, and even Zengti sent representatives to give gifts.

Being able to hold such a dinner party with a large number of military and political dignitaries will greatly improve the social status of the Li family and squeeze it into the elite class.

So even if Li Erjian was not in good health and couldn't stand the cold wind, he still insisted on personally greeting guests at the door. ”

His second son flipped through the guest list, and then said, "Except for Zhang Guanband from Xinmin Mansion, everyone else has already arrived!" ”

When Li Yijian heard that only Zhang Zuolin was missing, he immediately nodded and said, "You continue to wait here, and you will bring Zhang Guan in!" As for himself, naturally he wouldn't just wait for a Zhang Zuolin to stay at the door, a large group of guests who had already arrived needed him to entertain him, and any one of them was stronger than Zhang Zuolin's bandit leader.

After Li Yijian entered the hall, the hall had already been divided into several tables and sat down.

Although China has been influenced by many Western-style customs in the past few years, and half of the guests at today's banquet are officers of the Third Town, who are known as fake foreign devils, Li Yijian deliberately made the banquet more Western-style. However, many traditional things have been deeply rooted in the bones, and it does not mean that change will change, so although this banquet is prepared with foreign wine, buffets, etc., those adults will personally pick up the plate to get food for themselves, and they are all unceremoniously sitting around several tables according to their respective identities and talking loudly

Li Ziquan, who was entertaining guests in the hall, naturally didn't dare to shout loudly that the food had been prepared for you, and you could take it yourself if you wanted to eat, but gave a few instructions to the housekeeper, and it didn't take long for people to give each table good wine.

At this time, Zhao Dongyun's escort officer Li San appeared at the door of the hall, and then puffed up his breath and said: "Lord Commander has arrived!" ”

Homeopathy, the original standing people hurriedly walked to the door, and when they were sitting, they hurriedly got up and followed closely, when they went to the door, the individual according to the difference in official rank and status is also thousands or a few positions behind, just after a few breaths, more than 30 people in the hall have been divided into front and back according to the different official ranks, and the civil and military sides stand separately, standing on the left is a group of civil officials headed by the prefect of Jinzhou, and on the right is a group of military attaches headed by Chen Guangyuan.

If it was a few decades ago, due to the nobility and military cheapness, it would have been absolutely impossible for Zhao Dongyun, a group of civil officials such as the prefect of Jinzhou, to claim to be subordinate officials.

But now the situation is chaotic, and the political status of military generals has begun to improve rapidly, which can be seen from Yuan Shikai's appointment as the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, not only him, but also many feudal ministers who were born as military generals in recent decades. Moreover, although Zhao Dongyun was not born in the imperial examination, his own official is a 'candidate Dao', which belongs to the civil official system, and he can be regarded as a kind of general led by civil officials, so his political status is higher than that of ordinary military generals.

To put it simply, to be promoted to a pure military general like Chen Guangyuan, then it can be along the path of deputy general, general soldier, deputy commander, and metropolitan commander, serving as the commander of a town or the governor of a province. However, Zhao Dongyun's promotion path is a little different, if his promotion is smooth, then the next step may be to promote the squire, such as adding the rank of squire of the military department, transferring to the military training department or the military department, of course, the biggest possibility is to be transferred to a certain province to serve as the commander.

In addition, there is a relatively small chance, but the most tempting way to be promoted, that is, to follow the path of Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai, Liu Mingchuan and others, directly become the governor of a province, and then be promoted to one of the nine governors to become a feudal official.

Although this possibility is small, there is still such a possibility, but for Chen Guangyuan and Meng Enyuan, this possibility is infinitely close to zero.

In any case, although Zhao Dongyun's political status as the commander of a town is not as good as that of a provincial governor or a provincial governor, considering that he is the commander of one of the four towns of the Beiyang New Army, then his political status can be generally understood in this way: second only to Yuan Shikai!

Even if it is Zhao Dongyun, who is still the commander in the era of the Third Mixed Association, his political status is not low, as the highest military leader sent by the Beiyang system to the three eastern provinces, Zhao Dongyun's political status is actually equivalent to the three major generals of Shengjing, Jilin, and Heilongjiang in the three eastern provinces, and Shengjing General Zengqi does not dare to pretend to be an official to him, whether it is to ask Zhao Dongyun to train the Jinzhou patrol battalion or ask Zhao Dongyun to help him train the old army of Fengtian, it is in a pleading tone, but he has no courage to ask Zhao Dongyun to do anything.

The last days are always the most favorable times for military generals.

If he hadn't had such a political status, he wouldn't have had so many cultural relics officials to congratulate him on his promotion.

After Zhao Dongyun walked into the hall, he glanced at it with a smile, and then began to greet everyone present: "You're welcome, the one who comes is a guest, and I am also a guest today, so you don't have to be restrained!" ”

Zhao Dongyun said so, but he was already unceremoniously seated at the top under the guidance of Li Erjian, and then waved his hand in a big man's style, signaling everyone to sit down, and at this time everyone dared to sit down one after another.

And he didn't know that at the far end of the hall, Li Wan was leaning against the doorpost, secretly looking at the situation in the hall, and when he saw Zhao Dongyun's old-fashioned appearance, and even put on a high-minded appearance in front of her father Li Yijian, he couldn't help muttering: "What's the spirit, isn't it just a promotion?" ”

But today I wore a little different, I didn't wear the gray dress of the past, although the dress system on the body was the same as the previous dress, but the color of the dress was azure.

Zhao Dongyun felt that the gray military uniform of the Beiyang Standing Army was too simple, especially after the suppression of bandits last month, he found that the existing military uniform was easy to be discovered by the enemy, and it was not convenient to conceal it, so when the Jinzhou anti-bandit operation was not over, he had already reported to Yuan Shikai to request a change in the military uniform system, and cited many examples of foreign armies, such as the British war in South Africa, which had already felt that the brightly colored military uniform was not suitable for combat.

It is not difficult to design a new military uniform, so Yuan Shikai did not hinder it too much to approve, and the changes to the new military uniform have not changed much, mainly changing the pure gray to dark blue in winter and earthy yellow in summer, and then subdividing the officer's dress and regular uniform.

At the same time, this new military uniform based on the improvement of the military uniform of the Beiyang Standing Army will be applied to the whole country next year, and now Zhao Dongyun and a few other officers of the Beiyang New Army are just wearing it in advance.

After the new military uniform was put on, the group of officers present looked more like modern officers than the previous gray military uniform, of course, it was just like that, no matter what they were wearing, as long as they saw the braid dragging behind their heads, it was enough to ruin anyone's appetite.

Aesthetics, most of these things are similar, Zhao Dongyun felt that the braids dragged on the back of his head were ugly, and the other officers naturally felt that the braids and the new military uniforms were not worthy

In 1901, there were not many officers with shaved heads, at least not a few around Zhao Dongyun, but at the end of 1903, one-third of the middle and senior officers in the Third Town present had shaved their heads......

With the rise of the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the call for the new army to cut braids is getting louder and louder, although the imperial court has not officially ordered it, but it is already turning a blind eye, after all, so many international students who return to China every year have kicked off their hair, how do you let the imperial court take care of it!

Besides, shaving hair, in fact, the court doesn't want to care, almost all of the people who block the braiding are Hanchen, one shouts 'the gift of the ancestors cannot be abolished', more than 200 years ago their ancestors if they called it so, they would have let the Manchus cut off their heads, and now they are all up against their ancestors, so that those who surrendered to the Manchu Qing 'water is too cold' know, they will definitely jump out of the traitor's grave angrily: you wait for the evil obstacles, even if you can't be a traitor!

The world is changing too fast, I don't know when traitors ceased to be traitors, and I don't know when other people's ancestors became their own ancestors. In this world where the blonde Marx can become the father of the nation in China, and the portrait of Stalin can become the wall of the hall of the Chinese people, you can't accuse others of having braids, you can't accuse others of shaving their heads, and you can't accuse others of being traitors or heroes.

The world is changing so fast, Zhao Dongyun has already adapted to it, so he is not too surprised by the many people in the world today who are not monks with bald heads and a group of men with long braids.

On the contrary, he enjoyed the feeling of being complimented by everyone today, and I have to say that he enjoyed the title of 'Lord of the Rulers', and he enjoyed the feeling of having a huge amount of power.

It's just that he has just stepped into the small circle of Beiyang bigwigs, and he can already enjoy such power if he continues to take a step forward, what if he becomes a person like Duan Qirui and becomes the second person in Beiyang? If you become the first person in Beiyang like Yuan Shikai, what will you feel like at that time!

The power seems to be like a blooming poppy flower, with a soul-grabbing color, exuding a deadly fragrance, which makes Zhao Dongyun intoxicated!