Chapter 358 Formation of the Western Route Army

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Entering June, the weather in Henan suddenly became hot and dry ().

It is strange to say that at the beginning of the Xinhai year, the wind and rain were smooth throughout the country, even if the war disasters continued, news of a bumper harvest came from all over the country, especially the two lakes and Sichuan, and there was a rare harvest scene in history, but Henan last year first broke the embankment of the Yellow River and flooded, followed by a rare drought in a hundred years, not to mention the lack of harvest of grains, and also caused a locust plague. It was not easy to survive this year, but because it became the center of the confrontation between the north and the south, and the Beiyang conquest in order to raise the army, the already very serious bandits became more and more rampant.

After the Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou was cut off, the soldiers with extremely poor discipline took off their uniforms and slipped away with their weapons, and because the Wehrmacht preempted the main roads and ferries, it was very troublesome to take away the guns and weapons, and many people simply sold their weapons to local bandits and ran away with money.

So as soon as he entered the territory of Henan, Cai Ye immediately frowned, not to mention anything else, just those loess rammed earthen forts and shooting holes showed that the bandits here had reached a very serious level. Although there are currently three divisions of the National Defense Forces stationed in Henan and nearly 100,000 Beiyang troops that are being reorganized, it is now a period of transition for the National Defense Forces, and it is impossible to make any major moves before the end of the reorganization, and as for the number of National Guards that were supposed to undertake such tasks, there is a serious shortage of them, and Guangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian in the south alone have already evacuated all the guard units in the two lakes and southwest China.

It can be seen from this point that the Northern Expedition is definitely a desperate gamble, the Wehrmacht does not have the ability to sweep the north in terms of troops, if it were not for the Ni Sichong incident that led to the collapse of the Ni army, if it were not for the genius of the armored vehicle, there would definitely not be today's situation, fortunately, Yang Qiu won, taking advantage of the replacement of the old and the new in Beiyang to complete the unification.

The forcible reunification is still very fragile, the northwest is unstable, the tide of support for independence in Mongolia and Russia and Japan is intensifying, the northern provinces are full of local tyrants, the great powers seem to have nothing to do with themselves, but they have never stopped interfering, and Japan is even more holding back its strength and preparing for revenge, so the slightest mistake will be an uncontrollable end.

In addition to Li Shucheng and Jiang Zuobin and other staff officers, Yang Du was extremely cautious about the appointment of those strategists around Yuan Shikai, Yang Qiu, and while swallowing the essence of the Beiyang army, he only promised Liang Shiyi to continue to serve as the president of the Bank of Communications, Xu Shichang as the governor of Shandong Province and Yang Shiqi as the minister of post, and the rest did not make any arrangements.

So seeing that Yang Du was absent-minded, he was a little suspicious that he was here to run for office.

Yang Du had actually noticed Cai Yi's eyes earlier, and he still had a little resentment in his heart that Yang Qiu did not arrange for him to take up any official position, not to mention that if he hadn't persuaded Yuan Shikai at the last moment, the National Defense Force might not be able to safely and steadily take the opportunity to support Dongying and push it to the dangerous wall in one fell swoop, but compared with ordinary people, his biggest ability is forbearance, and he also believes that Yang Qiu definitely needs himself.

"The blue son seems to be a little absent-minded, could it be that there is something on his mind?"

Many people in the outside world said that Cai Ye was desperate to join Yang Qiu, but Yang Du didn't think so, the purge at the last moment of sitting in Yunnan was enough to show that he was ready to hand over power, otherwise Yang Qiu would not have immediately arranged for him to be the deputy chief of general staff, appointing so many Yunnan generals, and he would not rest assured that he would hand over the power of the southern line to him, and said with a smile: "What is on your mind, the country dominates the world and is peaceful, and those of us who eat by mouth should also cultivate our self-cultivation ()." ”

The slightest reluctance in the words was to make Cai Yi smile, and he didn't want to say more about Yang Qiu's handling of Beiyang officials, so he turned his head to look at the earthen fort in the distance and asked: "It is said that the people have the talent of the world, and now that the war in the Central Plains has subsided, the people will never be at peace until the bandits are eliminated, and I don't know if the people have a clever plan?" ”

"It depends on what the vice president means, since ancient times, there are only two ways to deal with bandits. One slash and two strokes, the former can prevent future troubles but consume a lot, and the place of fierce battle cannot be restored for ten years, and the latter is difficult to eradicate with a soft knife. Yang Du's eyes shimmered, as if he was thinking about what means Yang Qiu would use: "Henan is now different from the original three provinces, the Central Plains land clan stretches for thousands of years, and there are many people in the country who are related to it, and rashly making a big move will inevitably cause national unrest, and at present, our country is not without external troubles. The levy of the Liukou is different from the regular war, Henan is in the central rush, once the army cannot form a siege, it will be deep and exhausted, then the Yellow River may not be able to be controlled! ”

Others may think that his words are a bit alarmist, but Cai Ye agrees very much, the bandits must be fought, Henan must also stabilize as soon as possible, the Central Plains is restless, and if you want the Republic of China to be prosperous and strong, you must first ensure a stable Central Plains.

After the two chatted a few more words, the train slowly entered Xuchang Station, and as soon as he got off the train, Cai Ye saw Yang Qiu and Song Ziqing already waiting on the platform, and hurriedly walked over to salute: "Cai Ye has seen the commander-in-chief and the chief of staff." ”

"Brother Songpa has worked hard." After greeting Cai Songpo for a few words, Yang Qiu twisted to Yang Du again and blinked deliberately: "Brother Huizi, how many times have we met?" ”

Yang Du laughed: "Du is also thinking, every time you see the vice president, you will be promoted one step higher, why don't you just go to the United States, Europe and the United States this time and come back?" Cai Ye and the others rolled their eyes for a while, and secretly said that he was really good at sycophants, and now he is the vice president and minister of defense and the commander-in-chief of the sea and land, and if he goes out for a spin and comes back, where can he go in addition to that position?

Yang Qiu smiled slightly and disagreed, in fact, he really didn't want to sit in that seat too early, unless he could change the current national system, otherwise it would definitely be a battle between the government and the court after he went up, and even his freedom was restricted, so it was better to lay a good foundation first and then talk about it ().

Several Ford sedans soon arrived at the temporary headquarters in Xuchang, and after seeing Feng Guozhang and Chen Huan and others who had arrived in advance, there was a burst of excitement, except for Cai Jimin in Guangdong, Sa Zhenbing in Shanghai, and Xiao An in Wuchang, the General Staff was basically all in order, except for Yang Du and Cai Gongshi and a few others who were in civilian clothes, the generals who gathered together were extremely dazzling in the conference room.

"The 1st Brigade and the 3rd Brigade are already entering Mukden in batches, the 2nd Brigade has temporarily taken over the defense tasks in the Jinjing area, and the original Beiyang 20th Division has entered Mukden from Chengde, and will be reorganized there and Fengjun into the 14th Infantry Division."

Song Ziqing stood in front of the map and introduced it to everyone with a whip. As the chief of the general staff, he may not be the most conspicuous here, but he is definitely the most important, he is an important assistant to Yang Qiu in controlling the army, and he has played a role in connecting the upper and lower levels in the national defense force system with the southwest as the main body, plus Xiao Anguo, who is even more inconspicuous but controls the National Guard and recruit training, has actually become two important pillars.

"Because Germany opposes our troops stationed in Jinan, the 103rd Brigade is currently stationed in Jiyang, north of Jinan, the 101st Brigade is temporarily staying in Baoding, the 9th Division is temporarily living in Xuzhou, the 10th Division is already on its way to Rehe, and the 12th Division is currently resting in Huaiyin and is expected to go north to Changchun in October. The 3rd Division will be transferred from Guangdong to Zhejiang next month, the 5th Division will be stationed in Kunming and Nanning, the 16th Brigade will be stationed in Xikang, the 17th Brigade will be stationed in Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan, the 18th Brigade will be stationed in Sichuan, and the 7th Division will be stationed in Guangdong. ”

After some introduction, the newcomer Feng Guozhang had a general understanding of the current deployment of the divisions, and agreed with Yang Qiu's concentration of all Beiyang in Xuchang to accept the reorganization, although this cost was relatively large but the speed was faster and easier to manage, but he was not very satisfied with the establishment of only four divisions in Beiyang, and said: "Chenhua, is the 22nd division in the country too few?" Moreover, the current deployment is all concentrated in Guannai and the northeast, and there is a serious shortage of troops in Chahar, Suiyuan, Gansu, and Ningxia, so I feel that it is necessary to increase the number of infantry divisions by two. ”

At the beginning, Feng Guozhang's combination of infantry and artillery in Hubei, clearing the dead corners of shooting, and advancing layer by layer made Yang Qiu feel very powerful, so he had already thought about inviting him out of the mountain, not to mention that he was also the highest in tactical literacy among the three heroes of Beiyang, and his prestige was enough, so as long as he was stopped, he could ensure that he temporarily suppressed the group of people in Beiyang and gave himself time to digest and integrate them, so he personally visited him on the first day he came here, and insisted that he call him by his name ().

Feng Guozhang's mind is known to everyone, Yang Qiu does not want Beiyang, anyway, Beiyang is also a group of elites who once stood at the top of the country, so he specially instructed to pacify and leave all the technical arms including artillery, machine gunners, engineers, surveying and mapping, if you can remove the internal cancer and use training and learning to make them understand the duties of soldiers, re-establish the concept of command and obedience, and reshape the soul of the army, this army is still worth looking forward to, so before the Northern Expedition, he once discussed with Song Ziqing all the incorporation, The 700,000 and 30 divisions were planned, but they had to succumb before the actual financial pressure.

So he shook his head and said: "I don't want to keep more troops, but I don't count this matter, the Ministry of Finance has repeatedly asked to reduce the number of troops and reduce expenses, so the army's 22 divisions, 3 independent brigades and 21 brigades of the National Guard, plus logistics and other military personnel totaling 400,000 are the largest number that can be maintained at present." ”

Feng Guozhang moved his mouth, I originally wanted to say that the Ministry of Finance is in your hands, why not leak a little more between your fingers? The $100 million loan cost more than 70 million in one day without blinking! But these words came to his lips and pressed back, and he also knew the current situation of the country, when the United States provided loans, there was an agreement, half of which would be spent on the United States, not to mention that there was a navy to support.

As long as the system of the National Defense Force persists, it is impossible for anyone to return to the previous era of self-reliance, but he said to Feng Guozhang that there are too few garrisons in the northwest and he cares, and said: "General Huafu is right, we have deployed too little in the northwest, and there are almost no garrisons in Chahar, Suiyuan, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang. ”

"Everyone is gathered today, and I just want your opinions on the affairs of the northwest." Yang Qiu clasped his hands, leaned forward, his gaze became solemn, and he said word by word: "I am ready to form the Northwest Army." ”

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