The renovated barracks in Nanyuan welcomed batches of "guest troops", and the "miniature versions" of meritorious troops from major military regions have been stationed in the Nanyuan barracks since the Spring Festival. This is where they will train for a specific period of time and then show off at the founding ceremony.

Since the end of February in the Western calendar, about 3,400 representatives from the seven military regions have been stationed in the Nanyuan barracks, representing the 16 heroic teams of the National Defense Force, the navy, the reserve and the military academy, which will form the 22 parade phalanxes of the founding ceremony and be reviewed on Chang'an Avenue, which is being renovated.

Meng Enfan from the 1st Regiment of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the Northwest Military Region and 166 brothers of his company followed the regiment commander You Bentai all the way from Jiuquan to Beijing, and then began arduous queue training.

The parade plan has been determined, the mission has been clarified, and his company will form a square of 12 men horizontally and vertically, following behind the guard of honor and leading to the review stand.

"Damn, those boys in the military academy who don't have any hair are so good, horizontal and vertical, it's a line drawn between the marches! We're far from it! After seeing the troop training that came in advance, the regiment commander You Bentai was anxious, "Practice, practice for Lao Tzu!" ”

In terms of queue training, the unambiguous soldiers of the Seventh Company are much worse! Yu Bentai, who participated in the military parade of the Fifth Town, knew that if he wanted to reach the original level, he would not think about it without two or three months of effort, but he was afraid that there was not so much time. After seeing the level of the phalanx of the Shandong Military Academy, You Bentai admitted that the cadets of the military academy had surpassed the level of the old five towns.

"Regiment commander, that's because they have changed their new uniforms......" Company Commander Meng said in a low voice.

"Ball! Don't look for useless reasons. No, it's just no. I'll put it in my head, if you lose the face of our Fathers, Lao Tzu doesn't care what credit you have made, and I will withdraw you immediately! ”

"That's great, Captain, you have to talk and count." Meng Enfan was not only not annoyed, but also overjoyed.

"Ball, I almost fell for your kid! No, disqualify yourself from the parade and go home and continue to fight the hoe. ”

It was decided that Meng Eun Fan would be demobilized after the parade. Many of the junior officers and veterans who came to Nanyuan to participate in the military parade will be demobilized and leave the army to form the country's first agricultural reclamation force and be stationed in Heilongjiang. Meng Enfan was naturally unwilling. But the military order is like a mountain. He had to start with. Fortunately, the military status is still there, and he will be promoted to the ranks of the battalion.

"Okay, Commander, can't we practice hard?" Meng Enfan knew how powerful this was. Although he will leave this unit of the fathers of the Mengshan Army after the parade. But it has been branded with the mark of the Fathers in his bones. Never faded.

Yesterday, that is, three days after the "representative team" of the First Regiment arrived at the Nanyuan camp, General Wang Mingyuan, Minister of National Defense, presented You Bentai with a military flag embroidered with the three glittering golden characters of "Father Regiment."

What an honor! The troops that came to Nanyuan came from the three fronts of the Mengshan Army. There is a team that stubbornly guards an inch of land in Texas, a team that rushes thousands of miles to Jinzhou, and a team that knocks down the danger of Tingsi in a bloody battle, but all the honors are not as good as the three big characters of the Fathers in the eyes of Yu Bentai, the old foundation of the Mengshan Army is here, and we are the authentic descendants of the National Defense Force.

The training was arduous, and the officers and men of the Seventh Company admitted that the pain of kicking the right step was not inferior to the normal training, and half of them had worn out their feet and swollen legs, and a new pair of shoes would not be completed in half a month. Knowing that there would always be more than 20 people who would be eliminated and unable to participate in the parade, and knowing that all units were competing more vigorously, Meng Enfan led his company to train hard.

The food is top-notch, with a meal full of large meat cubes and steamed buns, and a meal of wine every week.

The new military uniform was finally issued, no longer the original yellow, but a more beautiful gray, the texture of the fabric is better, the style is more beautiful, especially the new cowhide armed belt and the golden yellow collar badge representing the military branch is especially beautiful. The collar badges of the infantry are red, the cavalry is orange, the artillery is yellow, and the sappers are dark blue, which is clear at a glance.

Meng Enfan's favorite thing is that the new military dress completely distinguishes between officers and soldiers, and the differences are everywhere, the style of military hats, military boots, and military uniforms. The officers wore large-brimmed hats with ribbons, while the soldiers wore round short-tongued hats with oval insignia, which looked very powerful. The military emblem is unified, with a copper-plated texture, and there is a high mountain in the garden circle inlaid with ears of wheat, symbolizing the birthplace of the Wehrmacht, Mengshan. The officer's uniform was a small lapel and was beautiful. And the officers wore long leather boots, and the soldiers wore khaki suede shoes.

However, this is a military dress and is only used during military parades.

The headquarters took care of this group of veterans who were about to be demobilized and organized them to take a car into the city in batches to visit the imperial palace, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, which made Meng Enfan, who joined the army in Hengyang, very excited.

However, thinking that he would leave the army soon, Meng Enfan's heart was blocked.

In Lanzhou, division commander Du Sanli hosted a banquet for the officers and men of the Seventh Company of the First Regiment who were about to go to Beijing to participate in the military parade of the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China, and explained to Meng Enfan, the famous heroic company commander of the division, why the Heilongjiang Agricultural Reclamation Corps was formed. You also see that the northwest is desolate and barren, and with such a large territory in the northwest, what is it to put one or two divisions? Twice as much is not enough! But at the moment, the northwest can't raise too many soldiers at all, and food is a big problem. Therefore, the commander was determined to follow the example of the ancients in building military cantonments and solve the problem of military rations as much as possible. I pondered that the establishment of a division-level agricultural reclamation corps in Heilongjiang is also of great significance in dealing with a possible major war. If the Russians were to intervene in the war in Outer Mongolia on a large scale, and there was a nominally agricultural reclamation team that was actually composed of veterans as the backbone, and the troops were left there, the commander would be much more relieved. So this time it is clearly required to select outstanding grassroots officers to go to the Agricultural Reclamation Corps, Xiao Meng, you are the winner of the second-class Hero Medal, and you are the secretary of the Youth Army United Branch, you say, if you don't trust you, will the division let you go? Not only you, but you will also go! The main division is the hen that lays eggs, and more troops are constantly derived, otherwise what else is the main division called? In addition, our division, as the number one main division of the whole army, if a full-scale war with the Russians breaks out. I'm sure I'm going to get you back! My words count. ”

Hearing that Regiment Commander You was also going to the Agricultural Reclamation Corps, Meng Enfan's mood calmed down a lot.

"Actually, don't think about why, just follow the commander and follow the commander's orders, I have followed the commander since Mengshan, and it is such a little experience. You are right to listen to me, you can rest assured, you are willing to stay in the army for the rest of your life. I promise you that this wish will come true! Who said that if you join the Reclamation Corps, you can't come out? You are different from the peasants recruited in Shandong, Zhili, Gansu, Shaanxi, etc. Are you still soldiers, are you still retained, what are you worried about? Don't lose the face of our division when you go to Beijing for reading this time, and remember that you are an officer who came out of the old regiment when you go to the northeast. That's what I'm going to tell you. Except for this. You have one more task to complete. That's marrying a daughter-in-law! In the army, your rank is not enough to please a wife, but when you get to the agricultural reclamation corps, the telegram from the headquarters is clear. Wait until I have the opportunity to go to Heilongjiang. I'm going to see you, see your little cub......"

Meng Enfan, who used to be Du Sanli's guard, knew that the straightforward teacher liked him. Since leaving the army is a foregone conclusion, the military parade in Beijing is his last chance to be in the army.

Russia's construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was a strategically important undertaking. Chita served as an important fulcrum, extending two railway lines to the east, the northern line being the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and turning south after Boli, with Vladivostok as its terminus. The southern route, known as the China Eastern Railway, runs southeast through China, passing through Harbin, an important fulcrum, and heading east to Vladivostok. In this way, Chita and Vladivostok form two vertices at each end of a parallelogram.

Harbin is just a little east of the base edge of this parallelogram. From Harbin to the south, the Russians built the southern line of the Eastern Eastern Railway, to Fengtian (Shenyang) to branch out three roads, the west road is the Jingfeng Railway that is about to be opened to traffic, the middle road is the branch line of the Middle East Road, through the Liaodong Peninsula to Lushun, which is managed by the Japanese (the gauge has been changed to standard gauge), and the east road enters North Korea and ends at Busan. This forms the railway network of the Tohoku region.

Russia was a country with an insatiable desire for territory, and they were supposed to dominate Manchuria, whose climate and products were coveted by the Russians compared to the inhospitable tundra of Eastern Siberia. However, the Russo-Japanese War shattered the dreams of the Russians, and Japan, the first in Asia to successfully reform its internal affairs, expelled the Russians from South Manchuria after paying hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the ownership of the South Manchurian Railway south of Siping fell into the hands of the Japanese.

The rise of the Northern Army of the Mengshan Army was an outlier, and it was clear that they took full advantage of the opportunities presented by the Russo-Japanese War. Although it failed to completely expel the Russians, the Northern Army led by Lu Shan controlled the major cities as far north as Harbin and as far south as Mukden in their own hands. With the seizure of national power by the Mengshan Army and the establishment of the Northern Military Region, a large number of troops baptized by civil war returned to the northeast to station, and Jinzhou, Fengtian, Siping, Changchun, Jilin, Harbin, and Qiqihar all had heavy troops stationed in the Northern Military Region.

According to the diplomatic agreement, the Japanese could only operate along the railway line in South Manchuria, and their power was more concentrated on the railway line from Lushun to Mukden, and they established the Kwantung Agency to manage the affairs with the railway as the core, sending a small army to defend the gains of their war. As for the Japanese garrison on the Western Front, it belonged to another system and was not at all under the command of the Kwantung Agency. It was the dividend of another war, and readers know that in 1900, after the victory of the war against the Manchu Qing Dynasty in unprecedented unity, not only did they divide up a huge indemnity of 300 million taels of silver, but also obtained the right to garrison troops from Tianjin to Jinzhou, and the Japanese who had coveted China for a long time were the most active, and set up a headquarters in Haiguang Temple in Tianjin, called the Qing Garrison Army, which was very small, but three infantry brigades and a small number of artillery. Last year, this unit confronted the main force of the Northern Army, which wanted to enter the pass and directly knock the Beijing division, at Shanhaiguan. However, in 1910, when it was confirmed that the new Chinese regime was going to use troops against Mongolia, the attitude of the Japanese changed again, and the main force of the Northern Army went out along the Gyeongbong Line and used the section of the Gyeongbong Road that had been opened to traffic.

There were still Russian troops in North Manchuria, but there were very few of them, and the main forces of the former Russian Far East Army were transferred back to the European part in large numbers to deal with the crisis that broke out in the Balkans. The crisis began in 1908 when Russia and Austria reached a secret agreement that Russia agreed to the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary and the opening of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits to Russian warships. They were supposed to convene an international conference, but the Austrians could not wait for the conference to take place and could not wait to announce the annexation of Bosnia. So the Serbs were enraged. Then Bulgaria became independent, and Crete was united with Greece. The situation in the Balkans was violently turbulent, and Russia's political and military partners, Britain and France, refused to support Russia out of anger at Russia going it alone, so that the scheduled international conference could not be held, and the Russians did not get what they wanted, but betrayed their blood partner Serbia, and there was a strong domestic reaction that the government had mishandled it. Followed by. Italy and Turkey are at loggerheads. With war on the horizon, Russia could no longer afford to ignore the Balkans, which were more important in the upper echelons of the Tsarist Empire than the Far East. So most of the forces of the Far Eastern Army were transferred back to Europe in response to a possible Balkan war.

In North Manchuria. Except for one Russian cavalry brigade, the regular army was stationed on the railway line from Harbin to Vladivostok. The main forces of the Russian army have retreated back to their homes, and they have stationed heavy troops in Vladivostok. However, the North Manchurian Railway was still under the control of the Russians. Therefore, many management agencies were set up in Harbin in the name of operating and managing the railway, and in an indirect way, Harbin, a city known as the Moscow of the East, was controlled.

Compared to Beijing, Harbin is still a very small city, due to the long-term Russian occupation, there are countless Russians gathered here, so that the city's architectural style has a distinctly Russian style.

Thirty-four-year-old Petrov has lived in Harbin for many years, speaks fluent Chinese and is married to a Chinese girl. He was a clerk in the freight yard of the railway bureau, but two years ago he was fired for theft, and his life was in jeopardy, and he became one of the countless homeless people in Harbin. Accustomed to the warm climate of Harbin, he did not want to return to his hometown of Chita, preferring to live in Harbin, relying on odd jobs and the help of Chinese friends. At the end of 1909, Petrov was introduced by a friend to work for the Chinese Harbin Oriental Trading Company, which was regarded as a stable income. The Eastern Trading Company is mainly engaged in the export of soybeans, and Manchuria soybeans have always been a popular commodity in Russia and other European countries, and are extremely popular.

Petrov deeply hated his compatriots who knocked on his own job. Steal? Who doesn't steal? The bureaucrats who were full of fat brains were the real thieves, and they were expelled from the railway office for less than 50 roubles of cloth. If it weren't for the help of my respectable Chinese friends, I couldn't imagine how I would have lived when my child was sick.

Perhaps because of marrying a Chinese wife, or perhaps because of the help of the Chinese, Petrov is grateful to China. After entering the Eastern Trading Company, Petrov worked very hard. When Sun Ruixiang, who had helped him through the most difficult days after losing his job and introduced him to the Oriental Trading Company, asked him if he would like to earn more money, he did not hesitate to say that of course he was. So, according to Sun Ruixiang's request, Petrov reported the news he had learned from his friends in the former railway bureau to Sun in exchange for Yinyang. He didn't seem to realize the true meaning of the job, Sun Ruixiang asked him to find out not only about the soybean business, but also more information about the movement of the Russian army, whether there were any arms or other military supplies arriving in Harbin? Are there any troop vehicles coming from the direction of Vladivostok or Chita? At present, it is impossible for large-scale military movements to abandon the railway lines. The above is eager to know whether Russia has the intelligence to "protect" Outer Mongolia by force, and the Harbin station of the State Security Administration shoulders a very important mission.

Petrov didn't care why Sun Ruixiang wanted these news, he just "conscientiously" followed Sun Ruixiang's request to find out the news, and then exchanged it for the silver dollar he urgently needed.

Sun Ruixiang is a spy of the Sixth Division of the State Security Administration, and the Oriental Trading Company is the industry of the State Security Administration. Four months after using Petrov, Sun Ruixiang officially recruited Petrov to his superiors.

Sun Ruixiang strongly built yì officially recruited Petrov.

"Although this person is addicted to alcohol and gambling, and often visits brothels, he does have a deep affection for China, his wife is Chinese, and now he has two children, and he has expressed his willingness to live in Harbin for the rest of his life." He was born with the ability to listen to information, and the information he gave confirmed that it was all true, and he went through the three tests that we had set, and that was the reason. Sun Ruixiang said to Li Yunxiang, the head of the Harbin station, "If he is not formally recruited and sent to training, he will not be able to undertake more important tasks." ”

Six places were clearly instructed to send more spies to Vladivostok. Of course, there are many Chinese in Vladivostok, but in that port city heavily guarded by the Russian army, it is certainly more convenient for a Russian to carry out activities than a Chinese.

Li Yunxiang groaned. The Directorate had a more secret directive, which was to vigorously carry out the work of infiltrating Russia, for which the Directorate gave a code name "White Birch Forest". Recruiting Russians is permissible, but it is not easy, and if successful, it is very significant, and they can even be sent to work in Petersburg.

"You can talk to him further, such as getting him Chinese nationality......"

"Stationmaster, nationality means nothing to him. Peter didn't care about that, he wanted money. He didn't come to us because of his faith, he was just a cheap guy. So he doesn't deserve to focus on, he's a 'coat'. But this person has a wide range of contacts, so it's no pity. ”

"Jacket" is the name given by the General Administration to a certain type of spy, something that can be thrown away if it is worn out, meaning a spy that is not worth focusing on cultivating.

"Okay, I'll think about it again. You can test him further. Let's be clear, you need intelligence, and you're willing to pay more for it, and you can improve his family's life. ”

"Understood." Sun Ruixiang nodded. (To be continued......)