In May 1893, the Governor's Mansion of Zhili, Tianjin. Today is a special day for Li Hongzhang and even for the entire Huai system, since the extermination of the Twist Army and the various armies of the Huai system were stationed in various places, this is the first time in several decades that the top leaders of the Huai army have gathered on such a large scale. Although it has been baptized by decades. The veterans of the Huai Department died and retreated, but now looking at the old and young in this room, Li Hongzhang is still full of emotion, as if he has regained the feeling of crisscrossing the territory and commanding the Huai army. In addition to the Huai garrison in Beiyang and Liu Mingchuan's Taiwan New Army, representatives of the Nanyang Chinese regimental training in Liangguang and Taiwan also participated in the meeting, which made Li Hongzhang very happy. Since the entry of Nanyang Chinese merchants into Beiyang, Shanghai, Liangguang, Taiwan and Sichuan, it has played a considerable role in promoting the local economic development, although the local people and gentry are very disgusted with these "outsiders" who do not wear braids, and even made an incident of destroying factories, but under the pressure of the local government, nothing major happened. What the subsequent development did not surprise the Chinese merchants, who were ready to continue to play and pay for Ping An at any time, was that after a brief period of pain, some wealthy merchants and gentry saw that they were powerless to stop these smoke-spewing machines from "destroying feng shui". Then you can only have an attitude of acceptance, some invite Taoist priests to practice, and some move. But then, it was found that these factories not only did not destroy feng shui, but also sold their products quite well, and learned from well-informed sources that these factories were quite profitable, much better than farming and running small trades, and the profits were about the same as those of salt merchants, so the local gentry also set off a wave of industry. Some scholars even typed out "industry saves the country." Buying a house and prospering a property". Subsequently, with the help of the Huai bureaucrats, the Chinese businessmen began to gradually organize regimental training, although it was a regimental training, but the equipment was not ambiguous. Even many Chinese battalions imported additional machine guns and mortars from Italy. As for the pistol used for personal self-defense, it is even more per person. It fully embodies the principle of doing things for a "rich" team, don't talk about anything else, first get the equipment in order!!

In addition to meeting with everyone, this meeting was to discuss the issue of how to fight the army once the war broke out between the Qing Dynasty and Japan, and the participants included Wei Rugui of the Sheng Army, Ma Yukun of the garrison Lushun, Nie Shicheng of the Wu Yi Army, and Ye Zhichao, the commander of the Zhili Army. and Zhang Wenxuan of the Beiyang New Army, as well as Taiwanese Admiral Yang Sihong and his entourage Xu Xiang from Taiwan. Finally, Peng Yi, the general person in charge of Nanyang group training. This is basically all the forces that Beiyang can mobilize. [Search for the latest updates at www]

"Shake your own family. Let's all sum it up. Li Hongzhang said with a smile.

"This old army does not say that everyone knows that the old Huai army in our Beiyang includes the Qing army, Ming army, etc. stationed in Tianjin, Lushun, Weihai, Dalian and other places, a total of 38,642 people. In addition, there are only 14,639 people in the Zhili training army and the Fengtian army in Fengtian. Among them, the Feng army is not yet something that can be mobilized in our Beiyang. This total of 53,281 people is the entire family of my Beiyang Land Division. But this family does not mean that they can be pulled out to fight, most of the troops are fortress defenders or garrisoned in various cities, and only the Sheng army and the Zhili training army can really maneuver. Among them, there are 11,384 Feng troops. There are 10,357 people in the Zhili training army. In total, there are more than 21,000 people. As the commander of Zhili, Ye Zhichao reported first.

"How many troops can be mobilized by a Japanese army?" Li Hongzhang asked with a somewhat gloomy face.

"The Japanese army has a total of 8 divisions in the country, namely the Guards Division and 7 field divisions, of which except for the 7th Division, which is the Hokkaido Reclamation Division, the other 7 divisions can participate in the war. The average number of men in a division is about 18,000, but now it has reached more than 22,000, and if a war starts, a division can reach a maximum of about 30,000 people, and the number of people in a division is conservatively estimated to be about 25,000 after removing some of the people left behind. (Historically, the number of Japanese field divisions has generally reached more than 30,000, of which the sixth division has reached 36,000 people, and 12,000 people have remained in China.) More than 23,000 people participated in the war) If the Japanese army had been able to transport smoothly, our Qing Dynasty would face an invasion of nearly 200,000 troops. Wei Rugui said worriedly. …,

"Then how many Chinese New Army are there in my Beiyang New Army and the Taiwan New Army in Province 3?" Li Hongzhang's face gradually turned from gloomy to Tie Qing. Although he has a certain understanding of the old Beiyang army and Japan, it is the first time he has obtained such a detailed number, and looking at the difference in strength between the two sides, Lao Li is quite bottomless in his heart.

"Our Beiyang New Army adopts a new style of organization, and the European regiment-level units are too small, and the division-level units are too large, so under the construction of Mr. Hannagan and Ji Shi, our Beiyang New Army adopts a brigade between regiments and divisions. At present, in addition to the fortress garrison brigade, the Beiyang New Army also has three field brigades, each of which has six combat battalions, including one forward battalion, three infantry battalions, one cavalry battalion, and one brigade artillery battalion. In addition to this, there are engineer battalions and baggage battalions. In addition to cavalry and artillery, each combat battalion had three infantry companies and one artillery battery. Each infantry company consisted of an assault platoon, a cover platoon and an artillery platoon, of which the assault platoon had 5 squads, each of which was armed with rifle pistols and individual with light machine guns. The cover platoon consisted of three squads, mainly providing fire support, with heavy machine guns and grenadiers. The artillery squad is equipped with 60mm mortars. A company has a total of 183 people, and the artillery company has 3 to 4 artillery platoons. Each platoon is equipped with either 82mm mortars or 60mm mortars, depending on the situation. Together with various reconnaissance, engineer, staff and other personnel, a battalion totaled more than 880 people. The cavalry battalions were slightly smaller in number and had a similar formation, with a total number of around 500 to 600 men. The brigade artillery battalion has a total of 3 artillery companies, a direct guard company, and a baggage company. They are the 75mm Krupp line battalion artillery battalion. 120mm mortar battalion, and 105mm field artillery battalion. Each battalion is equipped with 12 artillery pieces. As a result, each brigade will have about 8,000 combat troops. There are nearly 24,000 men in the three brigades, and the garrison brigade of the fortress is mainly a heavy artillery unit, equipped with 150mm short-barreled howitzers and 120mm long-barreled cannons. Of these, there are 36 150mm howitzers and 24 120mm long-barreled cannons. In addition, there are several machine gun battalions, equipped with rapid-fire guns such as Maxine 1-pounder guns and 3-pounder guns that are easy to disassemble, which are used to support various sub-battlefields or directly assigned to various participating units. In this way, our Beiyang New Army has a total of more than 30,000 people. The garrison of the fortress of Lord Ma and the 2nd Brigade of the New Army of the last general were naturally stationed in Lushun. The first brigade is under the command of Lord Nie Shicheng, and the third brigade is under the command of Lord Wei Rugui. As Zhang Wenxuan, who has been involved in the construction of the new army, he naturally knows everything about the 30,000 new army that has pinned the hopes of Beiyang.

"Well, that's good, what about the new army of the third province and General Peng?" Li Hongzhang asked with a slight smile.

"It is naturally impossible for Taiwan alone to raise 70,000 new and old troops like Beiyang, but it is still no problem to organize two brigades to participate in the war." Taiwanese Admiral Yang Sihong stood up and said. "The basic establishment is similar to the Beiyang New Army, but the composition is slightly different, except that one brigade is the same field brigade as the Beiyang New Army, the other brigade is mostly composed of Taiwan's local ethnic minorities and hunters mountain brigade, they may not be as good as the Beiyang New Army on the frontal battlefield, but they are proficient in harassment and sneak attacks behind enemy lines, Taiwan is mountainous, these aborigines fight in the mountains as if walking on flat ground, although Taiwan's climate is very different from the northeast, but under the arrangement of the Huai Army brothers, some officers and soldiers of the mountain brigade have been stationed in the Changbai Mountain area for training for two consecutive years. I got used to the environment a little bit. This is a list of the specific personnel and weapons of Taiwan's two brigades. After speaking, Yang Sihong got up and presented the list.

"Peng Zongbing, (Peng Yi bought the official title of a registered general soldier) How many new troops can Nanyang Chinese and Liangguang produce?" Li Hongzhang glanced at Yang Sihong's roster, and then asked.

"I, the Nanyang Chinese, and Governor Li have a total of 2 brigades plus 3 independent battalions, totaling more than 18,000 people, including one Chinese brigade, and the rest are Governor Li's Liangguang New Army. The establishment of the Liangguang New Army and the Beiyang Field Brigade is similar. Our Nanyang Chinese Brigade is slightly larger in terms of establishment. The equipment is slightly stronger, except for the ordinary infantry battalion, which can guarantee two squads and one machine gun, and the assault battalion is one machine gun per squad. The mortars and grenadiers were deployed exactly according to the composition of Mr. Xu's Storm Assault Battalion. In the artillery there was a specialized mobile artillery platoon, armed with a 1-pounder rapid-fire gun, which was used for sneak attacks and suppression. There is also a 120mm cannon platoon for long-range suppression. The overall firepower is stronger than that of the Beiyang Field Brigade, but the requirements for logistics will be relatively high. Due to the traffic situation in the Qing Kingdom, the Chinese brigade was more suitable for holding the fortress. Peng Yi said.

"Well, since everyone has already brightened up their families, let's talk about how this battle will be fought." Li Hongzhang calculated as he spoke, adding up to no less than 70,000 new troops in his hands, plus the old army, he could finally fight.

Everyone's support~~ The Sino-Japanese War is about to begin!! ……，