Establishment of the Northern Military Government
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Note: This section is not for padding the word count, nor is it because I don't want to write detailed content. I believe that writing in detail would only make you readers feel tired, so I won't elaborate. Absolutely will not affect everyone just to pad the word count.
After the three-party consultation in Mengsong Gou, although soldiers continued to find Japanese military certificates on corpses while cleaning up the battlefield, due to receiving the "dead order" from above that "anyone who rashly discusses Sino-Japanese relations will be subject to military law", no officers or soldiers dared to discuss anything further. They only reported their findings to their superiors in the end. When Liang, Sun, and Liu saw this, they all took a deep breath. Four hundred people - the Japanese had sent an entire battalion of troops to participate in the action! If it weren't for Liu Mingjiu's elite troops striking first and rendering them unable to fight, Liang and Sun both knew very well that it wasn't certain which side would suffer heavy losses or even defeat. They were all very clear about this in their hearts - their troops were no match for Liu Mingjiu's troops.
After the meeting, the three men decided to report to their superiors in secret that there were Japanese troops involved in the attack, but publicly announced that they had annihilated most of Wang Xiaozhu's bandit gang. The telegram announcing the victory, which reported that 68 major and minor bandit leaders had been killed, more than 4,000 enemies had been eliminated, over 4,000 guns and 40,000 bullets had been seized, and more than 2,500 war horses had been captured, sent shockwaves throughout the entire Northeast region's military and Green Forest Way. The news also quickly reached Premier Duan Qirui and President Xu Shichang in Beijing. From then on, the Green Forest Way in the Northeast began to tremble with fear at the mention of "Little Flying Dragon". Meanwhile, the Northern Warlord government in Beijing personally issued a document, heavily rewarding the participating troops. At the same time, they awarded Third-Class Tiger Badge medals to Sun Congzhou, commander of the 18th Regiment and county magistrate of Jianchang County; Liang Cunze, commander of the 20th Regiment and county magistrate of Chaoyang County; Liu Mingjiu, deputy commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 18th Regiment and concurrently director of the Beining General Office. They also awarded a Second-Class Tiger Badge medal to Liang Cunhua, commander of the 2nd Division and garrison commander of Chaoyang. Even Jiang Guiti, who was hiding in Chengde and on the verge of old age, was awarded a First-Class Precious Light Medal.
The commendation letter from Beijing arrived in Chengde and Chaoyang, and the old generals such as Jiang Guidi and Liang Cunhua were truly delighted. After the special envoy from Beijing left, Jiang Guidi issued an order to establish the Beizheng General Inspection Office, with Liu Mingjiu as its director. At the same time, he approved the application of the 2nd Division to establish the 18th Independent Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Mixed Regiment, and promoted Liu Mingjiu to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He took up the posts of commander of the 4th Mixed Regiment and acting commander of the Independent Cavalry Regiment, receiving double pay. Liang Cunhua also added another appointment, making Liu Mingjiu the director of the 18th Division's Staff Office. With the help of Jiang Guidi's three sons and Xu Minghui, the 19-year-old Liu Mingjiu smoothly obtained the right to manage the four towns of Caochang, Lao Yemiao, Youzhangzi, and Yaowangmiao, along with a reward of 20,000 yuan. Liang Cunhua also ordered that the two towns of Wafangzi and Liujiazhu be transferred from Chaoyang County to Jianchang County, and handed over to Liu Mingjiu for management, along with a reward of 10,000 yuan. Sun Congzhou, who had also gained an opportunity to make a name for himself, followed the example of his superiors and handed over the towns of Qianyingzi and Heishankou to Liu Mingjiu for management, along with a bonus of 5,000 yuan.
In the following two months, Liu Mingjiu quickly took over the eight newly acquired towns and villages. Hasibala led the Mongolian tribes to collectively accept the amnesty and established the 18th Independent Cavalry Regiment. The beautiful Mongolian woman was appointed by Liu Mingjiu as the head of the Grassland Township Government. The well-established independent cavalry regiment, although it was a regiment, had only 660 men in one month due to Liu Mingjiu merging the original instructional squadron's cavalry company and part of the security team's cavalry into it. The newly established fourth regiment, based on the eighth and ninth companies, also quickly reached four mixed infantry battalions after reorganizing and integrating with the instructional squadron's engineers and infantry. Each infantry battalion had a mortar platoon equipped with ten mortars per battalion. A artillery regiment was formally established on the basis of the original instructional squadron's artillery company, expanding to 100 field guns, which shocked Sun Congzhou.
By mid-April, Liu Mingjiu had formally reported to his superiors on the troops after a week of reorganization. The number of soldiers that had been incorporated into the Yi Army's formal sequence had reached 1,200 people. The Teaching Regiment had 1,800 people (including the directly affiliated artillery battalion, officially known as the Teaching Regiment Artillery Branch), the 16th Town Security Battalion had 9,000 people, the Military Colonization Reserve Battalion had 2,400 people, and the Military Colonization General Team had 9,600 officers and soldiers. The Jianbei Police Sub-bureau had jurisdiction over 16 police stations, six directly affiliated companies, with a total of 600 police officers.
The military equipment was also upgraded. After borrowing funds from four pawnshops, including Jin Yuan Qian Zhuang, using the taxes collected by the 16th Town as collateral, and collecting assets from the Zhao family's local tyrants, they were able to purchase enough equipment to arm each soldier in the Cavalry Independent Battalion, Fourth Battalion, Teaching Regiment, and Security Battalion with a Mauser G98 rifle. Officers above the rank of platoon vice-officer were equipped with standard-issue Mauser pistols. Each platoon had one Madsen light machine gun, and each company had one Maxim heavy machine gun. This completely broke the system prevalent in many countries at that time, including China, where heavy machine guns were typically assigned to artillery units.
In addition to their regular equipment of 600 rifles, the police also received an additional 300 American-made M1911 pistols and 300 warhorses. The Military Colonization Reserve Battalion became a dumping ground for discarded weapons, with arms from Hanyang Arsenal, as well as Japan, Britain, Russia, and France. They were not equipped with machine guns or warhorses.
Liu Mingjiu also formally established the following regulations: each rifle in the Cavalry Independent Battalion, Fourth Battalion, and Teaching Regiment was to be kept with no less than 20 rounds of ammunition at all times; the Security Battalion was to have no less than 10 rounds. Light machine guns were to have no less than 300 rounds, heavy machine guns no less than 3,000 rounds, and officers' pistols no less than 40 rounds. Police rifles were to have no less than 10 rounds, and pistols no less than 7 rounds.
For the first time in this era of Chinese history, a system of centralized and unified management of ammunition was implemented.
At the same time Liu Mingjiu was training his troops, 1,500 mu of military land in the 16th town were also planted with 3,000 mu of poppy according to Jiang San's idea. Jiang Shuli also personally came to Linglong Tower again at the end of April and awarded Liu Mingjiu a third-class White Eagle Medal. For a time, the entire Rehe and the surrounding Fengtian area knew about this "Little Flying Dragon" in the north of Jianchang. The 18th Regiment was officially reorganized on May 1st, with a total number of 2,400 people, ranking first among all regiments. However, in reality, adding Kang Daxuan's 1,200-man training brigade, which was established following Liu Mingjiu's system, the artillery battalion directly under the jurisdiction of the Zhi Shi, and other security teams from the 19th town, Sun Congzhou was nominally a regimental commander, but his actual military power had exceeded 60,000 people. This result directly led to Japan's intelligence agencies attempting to provoke friction between the Feng Army and the Yi Army several times, but they gave up after discovering that there were already 60,000 troops in Jianchang alone, without knowing how many people were in the entire Second Division. From this time on, Liu Mingjiu also left a deep impression on Zhang Jia's father and son in Fengtian City. After the reorganization of the 18th Regiment was completed, Liu Mingjiu officially became the deputy commander of the regiment, along with Sun Congzhou, Kang Daxuan, and Zuo Zhenyuan, becoming one of the four major figures of the entire regiment.
As Liu Mingjiu's former superior, Sun Congli also promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel after the reorganization and was transferred to the regimental headquarters as deputy chief of staff and director of the planning department, replacing his subordinate Liu Mingjiu as the fifth most important person in the entire regiment. Liu Mingjiu also unified the 36 major and minor routes of the Ma Hu Zi armed forces in the areas of Chaoyang, Jianchang, Xingcheng, and Tangshan under his own flag through methods such as banditry, dispatching troops to eliminate them, and secretly recruiting them within a short period of two and a half months. Any merchant group that wanted to pass through these places would have to pay a toll, with the lighter ones leaving 20% of their goods behind and the heavier ones losing both their goods and their lives. The more than 4,000 strong bandit forces became Liu Mingjiu's most reliable guarantee for his own survival.
By May 1919, the "Qianlong Xiaozu" had developed to 120 members, lurking in various mountain heads, Beibei Dahou and the Fengjun, Tangshan and Beijing's Zhili army. At this time, Liu Mingjiu actually didn't need to read newspapers anymore, because the "Qianlong Xiaozu" was established by thirty old soldiers who set up a communication station that cooperated with him, and all messages would be delivered to his hands within three days. Liu Mingjiu held four positions: military, political, green forest, and business, and he felt overwhelmed, so after half a year of selection, he finally handed over the "Qianlong Xiaozu" to his deputy officer Ding Shaquan for management, and entrusted Huang Zuoshen as the vice director of Beibei General Inspection Office to help him handle political affairs.
Huang Zu also deeply understood that although Liu Mingjiu was unscrupulous in seizing and expanding his power, he valued the local people more. After taking over as deputy director, he quickly implemented good deeds, following Liu Mingjiu's "low tax high penalty, light corvée, encouraging reclamation, supporting commerce and rewarding skills" 16-character guideline to lead the 16 towns towards prosperity.
On the military side, Liu Mingjiu also relaxed a lot. His subordinates, Qi Quanzhong, didn't know how they got along with Hasibala secretly for three months, and after being discovered, they had a grand wedding ceremony. After that, Qi Quanzhong was appointed as the commander of the Cavalry Independent Regiment, and the two deputy commanders were Baketu and Yin Baoshan. The fourth regiment was officially taken over by Luo Xiliang as the regimental commander, with Tong Quan and Han Yijun as deputy commanders. The artillery battalion commander was appointed by Guan Yutang, with Meng Dashan and Liu Chenglie as deputy commanders. Wu Tongjin was also promoted to lieutenant colonel and took charge of the Instructional Battalion, but still held the position of General Affairs Officer of the Jianbei Public Office. The Security Regiment and Military Colonization were all taken over by his old subordinates from Lingyuntai system. In order to facilitate management and not become estranged from his subordinates, Liu Mingjiu established a "Jianbei Military Administration Joint Conference", which was held every ten days.
He himself began to focus his energy on the Liuhe Commercial Corporation. As a result of the merger between Liuhe and Maoli Shareholding Company, which was promoted by Jiang San Gongzi and others, it was officially renamed Jianxing Trade Co., Ltd. on May 2nd. Eight subsidiaries were established in Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Fengtian, Harbin, Changchun, Jinan, and Baoding. The total capital expanded rapidly to 6.6 million yuan, of which 3 million yuan was dedicated to the tobacco business. Liu Mingjiu held 30% of the shares, Jiang Shuli held 30%, Xu Minghui and Pu Zhe each held 10%, and the other four people each held 5%. The company's registered address was moved to Hong Kong, with Liu Mingjiu serving as chairman of the board of directors and Pu Zhe as general manager. After the merger, Jianxing Company became one of the eight major commercial companies in Northeast China, and its reputation also rose rapidly.
