In the face of opposition from China and the international community, Russia still refused to implement the "Treaty on the Settlement of the Three Eastern Provinces" to carry out the second phase of the withdrawal, and on April 8, after the expiration of the second phase of the withdrawal period, instead of withdrawing troops, it added more than 800 troops to Liaodong and reoccupied Yingkou and other areas.

As soon as this incident came out, there was a huge earthquake in the Far East, and the Qing government in China had not said anything, and the Japanese could not wait to jump out of the country, broke out anti-Russian demonstrations, issued diplomatic warnings to Russia, and so on, and then further strengthened the pace of arms expansion and warfare.

It can be said that from this day on, Japan had already formalized its strategy of expelling Russia from northeastern China by force.

If in 1902 Japan was only making a certain posture of arms expansion in order to defend against changes in the situation in the northeast, then in the summer of 1903, Japan was already engaged in an actual arms expansion war.

Britain and the United States, on the other hand, also shouted about Russia's threat to the situation in the Far East, and began to provide diplomatic and financial support to Japan, pushing Japan to send troops to the northeast.

For a time, the situation in the Far East instantly dropped to the freezing point, and war was on the verge of breaking out!

However, this is only from the perspective of Japan, and only a handful of people in China know that war is about to break out, and most ordinary people don't even care about the Northeast there, let alone let them care about the war between Japan and Russia.

In 1903 and 1904, when the atmosphere between Japan and Russia was tense, China was still at peace, and there was not even the slightest news about the situation in the Northeast in the newspapers of the southern provinces.

The only one who cares about this and feels a sense of urgency and crisis is Beiyang!

Yuan Shikai faced the tense situation in the northeast, on the one hand, he kept a close watch, and on the other hand, he once again increased the pace of his army expansion!

He gave the Qing court a number of notes, saying that the situation in the northeast was tense, but the new army at his disposal was less than 30,000 troops, and in case the situation in the northeast changed, he did not have enough troops to protect the northeast, or even enough troops to defend Gyeonggi.

And in order to further intimidate and stimulate the princes of the imperial court, he even said that if Russia occupies the northeast and does not leave, it will be possible for Russia to move westward and occupy Shanhaiguan and even coerce the Beijing division.

At this time, very few people in China actually thought that Japan would have started a war with Russia for the sake of the Northeast, so they were not worried about the outbreak of war between Japan and Russia, but about the outbreak of war between themselves and Russia.

was intimidated many times, whether they wanted it or not, the princes in the court approved a lot of tricks for Yuan Shikai.

However, they were intimidated and also asked Yuan Shikai to send troops to the west of the Liao River to guard the Shanhaiguan Pass in case the Russian soldiers advanced eastward!

"Now the northeast side is indeed in trouble, and now that the Russians have reoccupied Yingkou and Mukden, if we don't react, I'm afraid they will be able to cross the Liao River on a large scale and enter Jinzhou west!" Duan Qirui said.

However, Wang Yingkai on the side said: "But if you want to take care of it, we only have such a small number of troops now, not to mention dividing the troops in Tokyo, even if they are all added together, they are not enough, there are soldiers there to divide!" ”

"Now that the imperial court has already promised to allocate another sum of money, this should be enough for us to build the fourth association!" Feng Guozhang said.

However, Duan Qirui retorted without hesitation: "In this situation, spending money everywhere, the original ordnance money for the first day has not fallen early, and the money pulled down is enough to purchase ordnance, and I am afraid that it will not be enough to expand the army!" ”

In 1903, Beiyang spent a lot of money on the purchase of ordnance, and Beiyang ordered three batches of ordnance from the Japanese, which were all the ordnance for the Beijing Banner Standing Army, all the ordnance of the Beiyang Standing Army Zuozhen, and the 16 artillery pieces needed for an artillery battalion of the Third Association. In addition, a number of ordnance was also purchased from the British and German foreign companies, which were mainly used to supplement the armed forces and the vanguard.

All these ordnance add up, but millions of taels of silver, and it is very difficult for Beiyang, a big family, to take out this money!

Moreover, in addition to the cost of importing ordnance, there is also the cost of purchasing ordnance in China, and other factories and bureaus are fortunately all government-run, and there is no need for Beiyang to spend money to sell, but many weapons and ammunition of the Fuyuan Machine Qì Factory are purchased by Beiyang with real money.

In April 1903, after nearly a year of construction, the Fuyuan Machinery Factory had a preliminary production capacity, and although the output was far from reaching the design level, it had also become the main arms supplier of Beiyang.

At present, it mainly supplies rifles, 79-mm round bullet bullets, a variety of old bullets, and small and medium-sized new and old artillery shells to the Beiyang New Army and the old armies of the northern provinces.

One of the main products is naturally the rifle, Fuyuan machine qì factory on the basis of the original 88 rifle, after some details of the modification of the imitation of the 88 rifle has been very different from the original factory, the most important thing is to cancel the sleeve and replace the handguard, in addition to some small changes not to mention.

This improved Type 88 rifle is still generally called the 'Type 88 rifle', but the inscription on the body of the gun has the words 'Fuyuan machine qì factory made', so it is also called 'Fuyuan rifle' or 'Fuyuan rifle'.

Fuyuanji Qì Factory supplies so many arms to Beiyang, naturally it is not sent for free, it needs Beiyang to come up with money to procure, if there is no money, Fuyuanji Qì Factory will not be able to make money out of thin air to purchase raw materials for production.

All this adds up, and the ordnance expenses of the Beiyang New Army in 1903 were not small.

Under the shortage of military spending, how can the Fourth Association be built? Then the right town was established.

Seeing that many people were arguing, Zhao Dongyun habitually closed his mouth as before, because among the people present, he was the youngest, the least qualified, and the lowest official position, and when it was not necessary, it was better for him not to argue with these bigwigs.

As a young generation of officers in Beiyang, Zhao Dongyun can be said to be the first and only person who can participate in the high-level meeting of Beiyang, which he was not qualified to come to in the past.

However, when his Third Association began to organize and train artillery battalions, engineering teams, and baggage teams, people discovered that Zhao Dongyun's Third Association had unconsciously changed from an establishment of more than 4,000 people at the beginning to an establishment of nearly 7,000 people, and in terms of strength, it was second only to Zuozhen of the Beiyang Standing Army.

Since last month, he has been called by Yuan Shikai to attend several high-level meetings of the Beiyang New Army, although Zhao Dongyun never speaks, only listens and does not speak, so as not to give people a bad impression of being young and flamboyant.

But a certain kind of Cheng dù, which also means that Zhao Dongyun has stepped half a foot into the circle of Beiyang's high-level leaders.

It's just that he didn't speak today, but others thought of him, can you not think of this, even if Zhao Dongyun's qualifications are shallow, the Third Association under his command is also one of the several main combat units in Beiyang, and it is the second largest unit in the ranking after Zuozhen.

"Dongyun, tell me, how many troops do you need to defend the west of the Liao River?" Wang Yingkai was not polite when he spoke to Zhao Dongyun, it was completely the tone of the elders speaking to the juniors.

Zhao Dongyun thought about it carefully and said: "If you want to defend the west of the Liao River, if you encounter the Russian army attacking with all your might, I am afraid that there will be at least five or more towns, but we have few troops, and it is naturally inappropriate to go out to Fengtian and Yingkou to fight with the Russian army. ”

Zhao Dongyun's words were quite conservative, he didn't say that he could defeat the Russian army or anything like that, he only said that there were three towns that could be defended under the premise of having a large number of fixed fortifications.

Whether it is three towns or a large number of fixed fortifications, these are all buildings in the air, and they are impossible to achieve in a short period of time.

Yuan Shikai looked at Zhao Dongyun at this time, and then said: "Dongyun, if you let your third association guard, how long can you keep it?" ”

Zhao Dongyun suddenly heard Yuan Shikai say this, he was stunned for a moment, he didn't think about this problem, because from a realistic point of view, if you don't consider that a war will break out between Japan and Russia, it is impossible to resist the Russian army from going south by relying only on the Manchu Qing Dynasty itself or relying on the Beiyang, let alone using only a mixed association to resist the Russian army going south.

However, Yuan Shikai is not just a general, he is a politician, he has to consider the worst-case scenario, and the worst-case scenario that Yuan Shikai considers is that Japan will not dare to start a war with Russia, and then the Russian army will go south in a big way.

In this way, his Beiyang New Army will have to take on the heavy task of blocking the southward movement of the Russian army, and at the same time it will need to mobilize, urgently expand the army, etc., so that the troops in Liaodong need to delay as much time as possible to win time for the rear.

And considering that the Beiyang New Army now has such a small number of people, and Yuan Shikai can't send everyone to the northeast, he has to leave at least 10,000 or 20,000 people to defend Tianjin and Jingshi, and he also needs to use these troops as seeds for army expansion, and use them as the cradle for rapid army expansion.

Therefore, in terms of the current strength of the Beiyang New Army, the number of troops that can be transferred to the northeast is actually very limited, at most 10,000.

In fact, in other words, either Wang Yingkai's Zuo Zhen or Zhao Dongyun's Third Association were sent to go, except for these two troops, other troops could be sent at all.

And Wang Yingkai's Zuozhen, as the core force of the Beiyang New Army, cannot be sent lightly, so the only thing Yuan Shikai can think of is Zhao Dongyun's Third Association.

Faced with Yuan Shikai's question, Zhao Dongyun said with a stern face: "If there is only one of my Third Association, depending on the strength of the Russian army going south, if there are less than 10,000 people, the post department is confident that it can hold it." If there are 30,000 enemies, our troops can defend for three months, and if there are more than 50,000 enemies, we can defend for half a month at most! ”

This sounds like Zhao Dongyun is exaggerated, if he has 50,000 Russian troops, his third association of Zhao Dongyun will only see the hell if he can hold it for half a month!

But in the face of the boss's inquiry, and knowing that this will not happen, it is natural that he can put gold on his face, and no one can confirm that he is a lie anyway!

Although most of them didn't quite believe Zhao Dongyun's words in their hearts, these people present were more or less proud, and they beat the number of Zhao Dongyun in their hearts, and then they thought they had come to the right conclusion: Zhao Dongyun's Third Association could withstand 50,000 Russian troops for ten days.

But Zhao Dongyun's next sentence scared them again!

Zhao Dongyun said that he could defend 50,000 enemy troops for half a month, then stood up, then straightened his waist and said loudly: "If you can transfer all three machine gun battalions to me, even if 50,000 enemy troops come to attack, I can defend for more than three months!" ”

Hearing this, including Yuan Shikai, they were all smiling, and everyone was thinking: Who wouldn't brag