Lin Yongquan said: "The main reason is that since last year, we have been recruiting troops in a few places, and the new machine gun battalion will be added to the current Third Association, and we have recruited four or five thousand people in those prefectures and counties, and high-quality soldiers are already relatively scarce!" ”

"Then change places and continue to recruit!" Zhao Dongyun said.

Lin Yongquan said: "Our Zhili is so big, not only we recruit soldiers, but also the Wuwei Right Army, the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army, the Self-Strengthening Army, and the Standing Army Zuozhen are recruiting new recruits, everyone is in a fixed place on weekdays, I am afraid it is not good to cross the line rashly, and in the past few years, everyone has recruited a lot, and our Su zhì of soldiers is also high, and it is estimated that there are not many suitable candidates to go to other places!" ”

Hearing Lin Yongquan say this, Zhao Dongyun also frowned, the requirements of the Beiyang New Army for recruits are very high, especially the requirements for physical literacy are actually difficult for poor children to meet, and the recruitment of the Beiyang New Army in recent years has also been limited to Zhili Province.

Although it is not a problem to recruit hundreds of thousands of soldiers based on the population base of Zhili, the environment in Zhili has been bad over the years, and there are natural disasters and disasters that lead to the decline of soldiers, and it is not easy to pick out tens of thousands of qualified soldiers from these low-level soldiers, and if you think more, it is estimated that you will have to lower the recruitment requirements.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Beiyang New Army is a recruitment system, and there are many people in Zhili who meet the physical conditions, but if they don't take the initiative to recruit this group of people, Yuan Shikai can't forcibly recruit them into the army.

Zhao Dongyun thought for a while and said: "Let me see, now that the left town has become an army, the Wuwei Right Army can't recruit many recruits every year, I'll go to the top and talk about it, let them vacate a few counties." But even then, it is estimated that the situation is not much better. In this way, if you look for the two provinces of Shandong and Henan, there are those prefectures and counties with simple customs and many good families, and when the time comes, I will ask Lord Duxian to say that I can go to other provinces to recruit soldiers! ”

Although the standing army in the military system has always said that it will recruit the natives of the province, but the Beiyang New Army is not considered to be the army of a province directly under the province, and its defense scope is the whole of North China, so it cannot be treated the same as the standing army of other provinces.

It's just that Zhao Dongyun can't decide these things by himself, he has to go to Yuan Shikai and say that he can only go to Shandong or Henan to recruit troops after getting permission.

In addition to the physical requirements, it is also required that the recruited soldiers must have family members, report to the three generations, and be guaranteed by the local chief, the chief, and the local security guard, and it is strictly forbidden to recruit the brave and vagranted, and then the selected people will be gathered by the local government and handed over to the officers of the Beiyang New Army who come to recruit for selection, and the selected qualified soldiers will be taken to the garrisons of various units for training.

And with the large-scale continuous conscription in recent years, the qualified soldiers on the ground of Zhili have begun to become scarce, Yuan Shikai didn't think about this problem at first, but when Zhao Dongyun said that the recruits recruited in the past two months had continued to decline, he also frowned.

However, just as Zhao Dongyun imagined, Yuan Shikai did not hesitate for too long, he quickly said: "If this is the case, then do what you say, you send someone to Shandong to have a look, and select a few prefectures and counties as the recruiting places for your Third Association!" ”

Because China has a vast area, many dialects, and even different local dialects in a province, and the soldiers are basically illiterate, but they do not know the official language commonly used throughout the country, so no matter what army actually tries to put the soldiers in one place together when recruiting, to avoid the soldiers being unable to communicate in language.

In the Beiyang New Army, because the soldiers recruited are all from Zhili Province, and although the dialect of Zhili Province is also different, it is similar to the official dialect as a whole, so it did not pay much attention to this problem in the past, but if you want to recruit troops in other provinces, then you need to consider this problem in advance, so Yuan Shikai asked Zhao Dongyun to choose to fix several prefectures and counties as the recruiting places for soldiers.

After talking about this recruitment, Yuan Shikai looked at Zhao Dongyun and found that this Zhao Dongyun looked a little different from his impression, and after watching it for a long time, he found that this Zhao Dongyun actually had a mustache.

He said, no wonder Zhao Dongyun looks much more mature and stable than before, you must know that Zhao Dongyun two years ago looked like a young man who made Yuan Shikai feel very energetic, to put it bluntly, he was a hairy young man.

However, now, this Zhao Dongyun has been blackened a lot, and with that two-headed mustache, his whole person looks like he is in his thirties.

"You are a young man, learn what those people are so old to do!" Yuan Shikai said casually, after talking about business, he just casually said a few words of gossip, of course, this is not that Yuan Shikai is so idle that he wants to talk nonsense with Zhao Dongyun, but just to show his closeness to envelop Zhao Dongyun.

Well, it can be regarded as a means of dominating the subordinates!

Zhao Dongyun heard Yuan Shikai suddenly say this, and he didn't react, but soon found out that he was talking about his beard, in fact, he didn't like to grow a beard himself, and he still had this kind of ugly mustache, but many things have nothing to do with preferences.

The higher he climbed, the more he felt the trouble of his young age!

If Zhao Dongyun was allowed to choose, he would rather be ten years older than the current twenty-four, but there is really no way to change the age, so he can only change slightly from the appearance, and growing a beard is just one of them.

So after a long time, it is difficult to see his real age in him!

Now that Yuan Shikai talked about this, he immediately said embarrassedly: "I just want to make myself look older!" ”

Yuan Shikai laughed: "That's right, I'm gone, most of your subordinates are older than you, but it doesn't matter, the dignity and inferiority of the upper and lower levels cannot be changed at age, you don't have to be like this deliberately, young people, you should have the appearance of a young man!" ”

Yuan Shikai actually admires Zhao Dongyun a lot, and this appreciation is actually related to Zhao Dongyun's age, when Xin Chounian saw Zhao Dongyun for the first time, his first feeling was that he was a talented young man, and he wanted to cultivate him.

This mindset is similar to the mindset of the elders towards the juniors.

Just when Zhao Dongyun wanted to speak, Yuan Shikai said again: "Only a young man like you has such energy, and I am afraid that I will be too busy to do so many things for someone else to come to the Third Association!" ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "My lord's words are serious, although there are more things in the Third Association, but those things have rules, after the rules are set, there will naturally be people below to do it, and Dongyun himself will not be too busy!" ”

Yuan Shikai said with a smile: "I didn't expect you to say that, but it's a good point, as a superior, don't do everything yourself, just set the rules and let the people below do it!" But you don't say you're too busy, and it would be nice if I put more burden on you! ”

Zhao Dongyun didn't expect Yuan Shikai to suddenly say this, that sentence with a burden is meaningful! It may be that he is instructed to do things, or he may be assigned to another position, and no matter which one will break the existing balance, Zhao Dongyun can't predict whether it will be good or bad.

While many thoughts flashed in his mind, Zhao Dongyun said without hesitation: "My lord, please command, Dongyun can do everything!" ”

Yuan Shikai smiled: "You don't have to worry, it's a good thing for you!" ”

Zhao Dongyun's face relaxed, and he immediately accosted: "I don't know what a good thing it is?" ”

"You also know that we have been missing a right town, a few days ago I sent a letter to the imperial court asking for appropriation, but maybe, I estimate that I will be able to free up funds from other aspects, and it is estimated that the fourth association will not be able to be established this winter. But without this fourth association, the right town would not be able to do it.

It's just that even if the right town waits, it will be built by the end of the year at the latest, but before that, the shelves must be set up first, the infantry team has your third association, the horse team also has a right mark, and the machine gun also has a battalion, but the artillery team and the engineering and baggage have not yet been officially started.

I was thinking that in your Third Association, you should start first, train an artillery battalion, an engineering team, and a baggage team, and first set up all branches of the army, and then after the establishment of Youzhen, you can also expand the organization along the way, so that you can become an army as soon as possible! ”

Yuan Shikai continued: "Anyway, you are now in charge of a horse team and a machine gun team, so you have to work harder and manage this artillery battalion, engineering team and baggage team." ”

Zhao Dongyun's face couldn't help but show joy when he heard this, if this is not a good thing, what else is a good thing?

As for the hard work that Yuan Shikai said? Don't say it's not bitter, even if it's really hard, you have to do it if you're tired!

Earlier, Zhao Dongyun just thought that according to the fierce factional struggle within Beiyang, plus Yuan Shikai couldn't get too much money for a while, and the right town could not be established in a short time, then Yuan Shikai was likely to set up the right town in the third association first, and then directly set up the right town after the military funds were in hand.

After the subsequent establishment of the right town, Zhao Dongyun could not predict how much benefit he would have, but it was certain that the position of wing commander would definitely not be related to him.

However, in this process, he Zhao Dongyun has a lot of benefits!

If the Third Association were to join an artillery battalion, an engineering team, and a baggage team, it would become a de facto mixed association, and it would have jurisdiction over two infantry units, a cavalry battalion, an artillery battalion, a machine gun battalion, an engineering team, and a baggage brigade.

And in today's Beiyang New Army, how many people are there in the Wuwei Right Army? There are only more than 7,000 left, and there are only a few people in Zuozhen, the Beiyang Standing Army, which is not yet fully established, and it is only a little more than 10,000.

When Zhao Dongyun served as the commander of the Third Association last year, he didn't expect that in the end, his Third Association would turn into a mixed association with nearly 7,000 troops.

The only thing that makes Zhao Dongyun regret is that this mixed association may be broken up in a few months, and then those cavalry and artillery units will be incorporated into the direct jurisdiction of Youzhen, and his third association will also become a pure infantry association.

The thought of this kind of thing in the future made Zhao Dongyun feel very unhappy! ——

The battle on the classified monthly ticket list is becoming more and more intense, the party's country is in danger, and you don't bring reinforcements with monthly tickets at this time!