Yuan Shikai's new army is indeed not comparable to the green battalion soldiers that the Mengshan thieves have seen. Since the Hongyang Rebellion in the Xianfeng period, the regular army of the imperial court has collapsed, and the armed forces of the Qing court were originally divided into two categories, the Manchu (including Mongolian) banner camp and the Han people-dominated green battalion, the once invincible banner battalion has been completely corrupted two hundred years after entering the customs and establishing the government, and in the early stage of the war to pacify the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the combat effectiveness of the officers and soldiers of the banner battalion has been proved to be lower than the green battalion that the imperial court has always paid little attention to. In fact, Hong Yang's Taiping army crippled both the Green Battalion and the Banner Battalion, and the last to destroy Hong Yang was the local armed forces represented by the Xiangyong formed by the Yiyong Marquis Zeng Guofan, who had a completely different organization and training from the Banner Battalion and the Green Battalion. Later, the twists were chaotic, and the remnants of the flag camps and green camps in various places were restructured. It was not until the First Sino-Japanese War that the Japanese army had always looked down on Japan, and the people of insight in the imperial court began to form a new army that was completely different from the green battalion. They abandoned the original banner battalion's commanders, staff leaders, assistant leaders, urging leaders, vests and other establishments, and the green battalion also changed the commander, general soldier, deputy general, staff general, guerrilla, capital division, garrison, and thousand generals, and set up the original official positions of the commander, and the lower levels were all in accordance with the new establishment of the Xiangyong battalion set by Zeng Hou, with 100 people as one sentry, five posts as one battalion, three battalions as one flag, and three flags into one army. The general will lead the flag, the deputy general will lead the army, and the general will lead the army.

The new army that Yuan Shikai organized and trained at the Tianjin station was different from the above-mentioned formation. Speaking of the new army of the Qing court, the initial reason was because of the defeat of Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. The First Sino-Japanese War broke the dream of drunkenness and death of the Manchu court. The call for revising the armament and training the new army has been raised. In the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), the Qing court ordered Hu Liaodi to train the new army "Dingwu Army" in Tianjin Machang, and moved to the small station in September of the following year.

The "Dingwu Army" modeled itself on West France to create and train a new army, and hired Germans Hannagan and Skuner and Norwegian Mander as instructors to carry out comprehensive reforms in terms of organization, training, and weapons.

On April 13, 1895, just after the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, Yuan Shikai, who had performed well in the Donghak Party Rebellion in Korea and had entered the central vision, wrote to Li Hongzhang to express his views on the current situation. He not only analyzed in detail the reasons for the defeat of the Qing army, put forward the idea of using Western methods to train troops, but also stated his military education theory of "setting up a wide range of schools, selecting students, and Yanxi people as teachers, strictly supervising classes, and taking people abroad to travel and study." After that, Yuan Shikai wrote many times, stating his ideas on military reform, and organized efforts to translate foreign military codes and military works into Chinese. On the one hand, Yuan Shikai devoted himself to the study of these hard-won materials, stepped up the study of modern military knowledge, and enriched his military theories, and on the other hand, he distributed these materials to the princes and ministers to broaden their horizons and make theoretical and ideological preparations for the military reform of the imperial court. Yuan Shikai's self-contained army building ideas won the appreciation of many important members of the imperial court and won the name of "knowing soldiers".

In December 1895, under the sponsorship of the five ministers of the Military Affairs Department, Emperor Guangxu finally handed over the pilot task of rectifying the old army in Gyeonggi and training the new army to Yuan Shikai, and succeeded Hu Liao in training the new army.

The cunning Yuan Shikai knew the key point of imperial officialdom, and he knew that the support of the ministers of the imperial court was not enough, but also the support of the inner court. Through a friend named Ruan Zhongshu who worked as a tutor in Li Lianying's younger brother's house, he got in touch with Li Lianying, the first celebrity in front of Cixi. When Prince Alcohol and Prince Qing and the Minister of War and Aircraft sponsored him to train the new army, the Empress Dowager Xi, who was deep in the inner palace but still controlled the overall situation, immediately approved it. Obviously, Li Lianying played a big role.

After Yuan Shikai succeeded Hu Liao, he recruited more than 2,000 people on the basis of the original ten battalions of 5,000 people in the Dingwu Army, which was the capital of his new army.

Yuan Shikai regards this rare opportunity as another important beginning of his life's work. He had already realized the importance of military power, and he had put a lot of effort into training at the small station, and he had the strength to put himself down and work hard. Not only could he call all the officers by name, but he could even recognize the lowest level of the shed, and he was familiar with their personalities. Yuan Shikai knew very well the evil consequences of the old army's empty salary, so he resolutely put an end to this malpractice in the new army, and even personally named and paid the salary.

Yuan Shikai is worthy of being the first-class hero of the late Qing Dynasty, and he knows that he cannot rely on his strength alone, and there must be a group of comrades who are like-minded with him to jointly run this cause. He first asked his good friend Xu Shichang from childhood to be the chief of staff, although Xu did not understand military affairs, but he was shrewd and quite capable, and played a very important role in Yuan Shikai's new army. In addition to Xu Shichang, Tang Shaoyi and Ren Shenxiu were also recruited by him to become his important assistants in literary affairs.

In terms of martial arts, Yuan Shikai was recommended by others and collected by himself, and recruited Liang Dianhua, Wang Shizhen, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang and others who graduated from the Martial Arts Academy. Except for Liang Dianhua, who died due to a night exercise and fell into the water, the latter three are known as the "Three Heroes of Beiyang". Become Yuan Shikai's most effective assistant in the military. The rest, such as Cao Kun, Zhang Huaizhi, Lu Yongxiang, Duan Zhigui, Wang Zhanyuan, Li Chun, Lu Jianzhang, etc., who graduated from the Wubei Academy, have all become cadres trusted and reused by Yuan Shikai.

In order to organize and train the new army, Yuan Shikai hired more than 20 German professional soldiers as instructors for his new army. In order to improve the quality of the troops, Yuan Shikai established the Xingying Military Preparation School, which was actually his camp school, with specialties such as step-by-step, horse, and artillery.

Yuan Shikai governed the army very strictly, and the regulations, laws, and decrees of the new army were thorough and detailed. For those who are outstanding in compliance with rules and regulations, merit will be credited, rewarded with silver or promoted. For those who violate rules and disciplines, they will be beaten with military sticks, pierced with arrows in their ears to show the public, fined and deducted their salaries, and the heaviest ones will be beheaded.

Yuan Shikai compiled the "Twenty Articles of Concise Military Law", and the punishment for eighteen phenomena is beheading, referred to as eighteen beheadings. Including not obeying orders, retreating from battle, deceitful and misleading, fleeing, pretending to be sick, delaying the fighter plane, the leader of the dead soldiers in battle, abandoning firearms, leaking secret orders, burning and looting, spreading rumors to confuse the public, fighting and brawling, leaving the camp at night and wandering, mistaking fire, smoking opium, drinking and gambling, arson and disturbing the people, lax guards, exclaiming and disturbing the army, etc., all beheaded.

Although Yuan Shikai's small station new army continued to use the names of the Huai Army's barracks, battalions, teams, sentinels, sheds, etc., it had broken the framework of the old army in terms of establishment, and basically adopted the establishment of the modern German army, and the army was divided into infantry, horse, artillery, engineering, baggage and other arms, and the first army was divided into two wings, and each wing had jurisdiction over two or three battalions. Each battalion has a full strength of 1,128 officers and men.

Later, Yuan Shikai introduced the concept of Western standing army and reserve army, and initially established a reserve system, in which soldiers returned to their hometowns after leaving the army and still received lower military salaries than when they were in service, similar to reserve service. The Standing Army has also made further reforms in its establishment, with the First Army divided into two towns (divisions), one town under the jurisdiction of two associations (brigades), one standard for the horse team, one standard for the artillery team, one battalion for engineering, and one battalion for baggage, with the battalion as a team (company), the platoon under the platoon, and the platoon as a shed (squad). The town has a total of 12,512 officers and soldiers, which is slightly smaller than the number of Japanese divisions.

However, Yuan Shikai's new army entered the twentieth century with a total strength of more than 7,000 troops. The imperial court was quite positive about the effect of Yuan Shikai's military training, and his troops, together with Dong Fuxiang's Gan Army and Nie Shicheng's Wu Yi Army, were called the Beiyang Three Armies. Yuan Shikai's troops began to bear the title of Beiyang.

This time, Cao Kun took the post of Caozhou town guard and led the third battalion of the infantry team and the first battalion of the artillery team with a total of more than 3,500 people to Mengshan to suppress the bandits.

At this moment, Cao Kun was standing with Ma Jianxun and Li Fu on the walled tower of Zhangjiazhai Dongzhai Gate, and in the distance, a few torches were swaying in the wind, but several generals of the official army were drowned in the deep darkness.

"This battle was okay, but the casualties were greater." Cao Kun's Jinmen voice came far away in the silence, "I will report to Lord Yuan and ask for credit for you." Of course, this sentence was said to Li Fu, "Take your brothers back to Maoyang Town to rest, it's hard work." ”

Although Li Fu's infantry held the starting position of Zhangjiazhai, it lost 75 people, of whom 40 were killed. Most of them were lost in the melee inside the stockade. Thinking of last night's danger, Li Fu felt a chill on his spine.

Although Lord Cao praised Li Fu, the heavy casualties of the troops also aroused Cao Kun's dissatisfaction. Cao Kun, who had always been lenient to his subordinates, was unwilling to blame Li Fu at this time, after all, Li Fu defeated the thieves who had an absolute advantage in strength and held the stockade.

"Master Xie." Li Fu gave Cao Kun a military salute in the dark and left the gatehouse.

"Tomorrow your battalion will attack the mountain." Cao Kun said to the battalion officer, "The artillery must be dragged up, and we can't fight for our lives anymore, it's not worth fighting with a gang of ** bandits." Got it? But the offensive is fierce, yesterday I have already transferred back a battalion to the east road, the thieves can't hold it, and they must break through from the east road. The harder you fight, the more they will abandon the mountain and flee. ”

"Understood, sir. Please rest assured, with our three infantry teams, one charge will go up. Ma Jianxun is full of confidence.