At that time, Yuan Shikai was appointed by the Qing court as the governor of Shandong, and on the pretext of clearing the Boxer Rebellion, on the one hand, it was to expand and enrich the strength of the Wuwei Right Army, and on the other hand, it was also through the reorganization of the old Shandong Army to create a vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army.

After Li Hongzhang signed the Xinchou Treaty, that is, in 1901, Yuan Shikai served as the governor of Zhili and concurrently served as the minister of Beiyang, at that time Yuan Shikai's Beiyang New Army set off a second round of expansion, first of all, it annexed and integrated more than 3,000 people of the Ziqiang Army under Zhang Zhidong in Nanyang, and then organized and trained the Beiyang Standing Army with great fanfare.

At this time, Yuan Shikai was not satisfied with the success of the training of Zuozhen, but quickly raised the banner of cutting and training the new, preparing to rectify the old army of Zhili, and diverting the elite and embezzling the old military funds to organize and train the standing army of Youzhen.

This is also the reason for the formation and training of the Third Association of the Beiyang Standing Army.

In the process of the above-mentioned Beiyang expansion, in less than three years, Yuan Shikai's new army has expanded from less than 10,000 to nearly 40,000.

Although the problem of military spending is also difficult, Yuan Shikai's means of making money are not much weaker than Li Hongzhang's, and he can barely maintain the expansion of the Beiyang New Army under the left and right, but it is difficult to solve the large number of qualified officers needed in the expansion of the army.

Because Yuan Shikai's lineage basically came from the Wuwei Right Army, and the original number of officers in the Wuwei Right Army was also limited, it was simply unable to meet the needs of officers for large-scale expansion.

Grass-roots officers are better, the Tianjin Armed Forces Academy in the past few years, and the Wuwei Right Army Camp School, which is still in operation, have provided a large number of qualified grass-roots officers for Beiyang or a system, and now Yuan Shikai has successively opened a series of military academies for the purpose of rapidly training grass-roots officers, such as the Beiyang Camp General Ben School, the Staff School, and the Surveying and Mapping School, so although there is a slight shortage of grass-roots officers, the overall problem is not big.

But it is difficult for middle and high-level officers to solve it.

Officers of officer battalions, regiments, and even brigades and divisions at the company and platoon levels are completely different things, the former can train a large number of people in a short period of time by the Beiyang system, but the latter is much more difficult.

It takes time to train a general who can command a federation or even a town, whether it is to hone in a practical position after graduating from the Tianjin Wubei Academy, or to choose to study abroad after graduating from the Tianjin Wubei Academy, these methods all take time.

This is a very headache for the Beiyang system, where qualified personnel are scarce and high-level military personnel continue to be available in the large-scale expansion of the army.

For this reason, Yuan Shikai can only be a quick promotion of the lineage, regardless of whether it is qualified or not, and then talk about it after promotion, so there are many low-level officers who served as leaders of a team in the era of the Wuwei Right Army, and even low-level officers who were sentinels were quickly promoted to the positions of a battalion management belt or even a standard commander in just one or two years, for example, Wang Zhanyuan, Bao Guiqing, Lu Yongxiang and others were at most leaders of a team a few years ago, or even just a person who was a sentry officer, but now they are all a standard commander.

These people who were originally just low-level officers have been promoted rapidly, so Zhao Dongyun, who is one of the few people in the Beiyang system who has academic qualifications, talents, and qualifications, will be promoted faster.

In less than a year, he completed the transformation from unification to unification and became one of the few co-unifications in the Beiyang system.

Although his Third Association is now just an empty shelf, in any case, Zhao Dongyun's position has surpassed a group of Wang Zhanyuan, Cao Kun, Lu Yongxiang and many other officers of the second echelon of Beiyang, and took the lead in becoming the commander in charge of the First Association, so he continues to maintain his role as the leader of the second echelon of Beiyang.

And after becoming the commander of the Third Association, the first thing Zhao Dongyun had to do was to find a way to gather a large number of officers as his subordinates, first transferred several old subordinates who had friendships with him to the Third Association, and then Duan Qirui also stuffed a few people over, so as to form the early team of the Third Association.

However, just a dozen or so people are not enough!

In addition to Zhao Dongyun as the commander, the Third Association is also in urgent need of hundreds of officers, including two staff officers of the association headquarters, two infantry standard commanders, two infantry standard gang commanders, two infantry standard staff officers, six infantry battalion management bands, six infantry battalion gang leaders, 24 infantry team officers, 24 infantry team supervisors, and 72 platoon commanders.

Zhao Dongyun, so many officers, can't pull them all over by himself, and many important positions are also something he can't decide by himself, so Yuan Shikai and other Beiyang bigwigs have to play and then divide them one by one.

In fact, even Zhao Dongyun's position as the leader of the Third Association is also the result of the game between Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai and others, it definitely does not mean that Zhao Dongyun can become the leader of the Third Association if he wants to, Duan Qirui has made great efforts in the process of promoting Zhao Dongyun's ascension.

Of course, Zhao Dongyun is valued by Yuan Shikai and also occupies a certain advantage, but this advantage needs to be brought into play, and Duan Qirui has to promote it.

Just as when the Beiyang Standing Army established Zuozhen last year, the officers of all sizes in the Beiyang system opened their eyes wide and wanted to compete for one of the positions, the establishment of the Beiyang Standing Army's Right Town also caused a scramble for the entire Beiyang system.

Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, Wang Shizhen and others are naturally competing for the position of the right town wing chief in the future, but before competing for this final position, the third association also has to compete for the big and small occupations. Among them, the position of the third co-leader is naturally a position with decisive influence.

And Duan Qirui himself went down, and Zhao Dongyun's own advantages were not small, which moved Yuan Shikai and appointed him as the third co-leader.

After the faction led by Duan Qirui won a key victory in the early stage, Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun naturally took the opportunity to transfer a large number of people belonging to their own factions, but Wang Yingkai and others did not watch the Third Association all fall into the hands of Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun.

Therefore, whether it is Wang Shizhen, Feng Guozhang or Wang Yingkai, they all want to send their henchmen to the Third Association to serve in important positions, and two of them are the focus of competition among many parties.

When Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others were fighting openly and secretly, Zhao Dongyun was in the position of the commander of the Third Association, and under his ass was the Third Association in the eye of the storm, and he inevitably fell into the battle for the position of the Third Association.

"This third association said that it was to be reorganized from several old armies, but now only one Su Yi pro-army has been decided, and the reorganization affairs will also be delayed for a while, so I am afraid that the training of the army will not be carried out in a short period of time, and the top priority now is the positions of those commanders and managers." Duan Qirui frowned.

He didn't expect that his plan to establish the Third Association first, and then plot the right town of the Standing Army, would encounter a joint attack by Wang Yingkai, Wang Shizhen, Feng Guozhang and others, but fortunately, at the beginning, he took the initiative and pushed Zhao Dongyun to the position of the commander of the Third Association before they learned the news, otherwise if he waited until now, I am afraid that he would continue to compete with them.

Zhao Dongyun frowned when he heard this, originally he thought that after serving as the commander of the Third Association, the Third Association would be able to be controlled by him, and when the time came, he would have trained the strength of the entire Association to have a foundation in the entire Beiyang system.

But he didn't expect that the establishment of the Third Association would involve the power struggle of the entire Beiyang system, Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others were all in one go, and secretly didn't know how many times they fought for those positions of commander and pipe.

In the face of the siege of many people, even Duan Qirui felt a little unbearable, and after connecting and launching the two candidates for the leadership was sniped by Feng Guozhang, Wang Yingkai and others at the meeting presided over by Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui was also a little anxious.

You must know that it is not easy for him to find a few suitable candidates for the commander in his faction, and he was rejected at once, and it is difficult for him to find a suitable leader in his faction.

Of course, he didn't let Wang Yingkai and Feng Guozhang have a good time, relying on the status of old qualifications, he also belittled the few candidates they proposed in front of Yuan Shikai for nothing.

It has been more than a week since Zhao Dongyun took office as the commander of the Third Association, but the candidates for the two commanders and the six pipes under the Third Association have not yet been determined.

Zhao Dongyun thought for a while and said, "What do you think of Xu Bangjie?" It's enough to let him be a standard band! ”

Duan Qirui said: "This person's qualifications are enough, but he has not been very conspicuous, I'm afraid it will be difficult to attract the attention of Lord Duxian!" ”

But after saying this, he said: "Well, there is no better candidate anyway, push him to try first, if it doesn't work, we will find another way!" ”

Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun pondered for a long time, but they didn't find a suitable candidate for the leader! You must know that there are few people in the Beiyang system who are qualified to serve as the commander, and there are even fewer of these people who are qualified to serve as the commander's faction who belong to Duan Qirui's faction.

It's not enough to barely find a Xu Bangjie.

At this time, Duan Qirui gritted his teeth: "Don't think about it, if the person who is not qualified enough is vetoed, it is better to let you take on the same position, occupy the position first, and then operate later!"

At tomorrow's meeting, I will push Xu Bangjie as the fifth standard belt, and then build yì to let you concurrently serve as the sixth standard belt. ”

When Zhao Dongyun heard this, he couldn't help but smile bitterly, what kind of thing is this, he is a commander to concurrently serve as a commander, and he must not be scolded for bullying the small and occupying the pit indiscriminately, it is estimated that if he really does this, the group of middle-level officers below will have an opinion on himself.

However, in order to prevent the two positions of the Third Association from falling into the hands of Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others, Zhao Dongyun also knew that this was not the way to do it. Moreover, this method is difficult for Wang Yingkai and Feng Guozhang and others to refute.

Because Duan Qirui can completely say that now that the third co-ordination has been created, and important positions have been pending for a long time, let Zhao Dongyun, the third co-commander, concurrently serve as the first standard commander, and it is the right thing to set up the shelf of the troops first and train the troops.