Chapter 64 I Also Need Time

  In the summer and autumn of the third year of Xuantong, the Longnan Railway, which had been under construction for three and a half years, was completed ahead of schedule. This time, no opening ceremony was held, as all shareholders of the Longnan Railway Company were worried about the "nationalization of railways" and were shocked by the surging railway protection movement in Sichuan and other places, and did not have the heart to hold celebrations.

  Chen An hosted a banquet at Chenjiazhuang, personally entertaining six railway engineers including Zhan Tianyou and Xu Shiyuan, with Xu Shangwu attending as the general manager to express gratitude for the opening of the Longnan Railway.

  "Director Zhan, although the Longnan Railway is said to be open to traffic, in fact there is still a section from Qin state that needs to be done. Why don't you stay and help me continue with it?" Chen An made this sincere invitation after raising his cup of wine.

  Zhan Tianyou smiled wryly for a moment, "Mr. Chen, from now on the railways will all be nationalized, can you still build railways? I'd better return to Beijing, at least there are several sections of railway waiting for me to continue building."

  Xu Shiyuan immediately followed up, "Director Zhan, why don't you stay behind instead? I believe in Mr. Chen's abilities, if he says he wants to continue working on it, he will definitely see it through." Xu Shiyuan had always been deeply impressed by Chen An's boldness in the construction of the Longnan Railway and had long expressed his willingness to stay behind and assist Chen An.

  "Zhan brother, Chen is a truly good official who can save the country through real industry, compared to the corrupt and incompetent officials in the capital, he is much better. Why go back? It's better to settle down in Jiezhou." Xu Shangwu, who had suffered greatly from the struggles within the government, also spoke out to persuade him.

  After a long silence, Zhan Tianyou slowly shook his head, "Thank you for your kind intentions, but there's still the railway over there, I have to go back."

  Chen An was speechless and could only raise his cup for another toast.

  A few days later, Chen An accompanied Zhan Tianyou and several railway heroes from Chenjiazhuang to Biku Port by train, seeing them off with a somewhat melancholy mood as they rushed to Hankou by steamer. Xu Shirong stayed behind as agreed and had the other engineers bring letters to their families, preparing for his whole family to move to Chenjiazhuang.

  The construction of the northern railway line in Ji Province was not as difficult as expected, and the cost was also greatly reduced. Although the adoption of multiple simultaneous constructions seriously increased the budget, the final settlement for the thousands of miles of railways was 18 million taels. Chen An only added 1 million taels of capital stock, which is considered a great saving.

  After more than half a year of operation on the Jiangzhou to Biku line, Lannan Railway Company's finances have also been calculated. Although it didn't reach Chen Anhua's big pie with 20% profit, it still had nearly 15% profit, which made all shareholders extremely excited. The vast majority of shareholders were very rational and initially hoped for a 10% return, but the result exceeded expectations.

  Nissenberg secretly purchased five 0.5 kW spark wireless telegraph machines, which were also quietly delivered. This was the equipment that Wang Hongxun and others had strongly requested Chen An to add after returning from a half-year internship on British warships. Each unit cost nearly eight thousand taels, not including the generators and battery devices that needed to be equipped separately.

  This is just a low-power wireless telegraph station, which can only achieve signal communication within about sixty miles. However, the entire set of equipment includes a telegraph machine, generator, antenna and other components, with a total weight of approximately 300 catties. Moreover, the antenna mast is relatively large, so the entire set of equipment requires two horse-drawn carts to transport, and at least one full tent is needed to complete the operation.

  The British use it on warships and don't have to worry about overweight or overwidth issues. When Wang Hongdun arrived on the British ship, what he remembered most was the communication system between ships.

  This is a military material absolutely controlled by the imperial court, and even foreigners are not allowed to install it in the concession, they can only choose to resell it to the official telegram bureau.

  Chen An was initially unaware of such a thing, but when Wang Hongyun mentioned it after returning from arduous training, he immediately realized the military value of wireless radio stations and hastily ordered Nilsenbom to get some.

  After the experiment, Chen An still felt that this money was spent in vain. The difference between sixty miles of land warfare was not significant, and there were more convenient devices like wired telephones. With four or five phones transmitting to each other, it was much faster than wireless radios going back and forth translating.

  Of course, such a low-power wireless station would have a great effect on warships, but Chen An didn't even have any warships. The naval forces he had imagined did exist, but they were the unarmed torpedo boats that Wang Hongxu and others were secretly training with.

  It would be better if the distance could be further. Chen An didn't mind either, and directly gave all these things to Lu Si, letting him secretly install them on those two thousand-ton cargo ships.

  Just a few days after the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chen An leaned comfortably on the recliner after lunch, slowly savoring the green tea that Yue had just brewed.

  The emergency phone rang again suddenly.

  Chen An was somewhat surprised, as this phone had not rung for a very long time, because there were not many events that could reach such an urgent level.

  "Intelligence Bureau personnel stationed in Hanyang, simultaneously sending encrypted telegrams to Chenjiazhuang and Jiezhou." The other party was extremely urgent, even forgetting the greeting. Chen An was somewhat confused, directly sending it to two places, which violated the principles of the intelligence system.

  The telephone didn't give Chen An any chance to continue guessing, and immediately revealed the shocking content of the deciphered secret telegram: "Last night, the new army launched a mutiny and has occupied Wuchang."

  "What?" Chen An suddenly stood up, his mouth agape, somewhat bewildered.

  Soon, Chen An woke up, quickly hung up the phone and ran out of the backyard, shouting "Huzi, Huzi, notify everyone to attend a meeting at headquarters immediately."

  The tiger cub ran out from one side of the courtyard, somewhat surprised, "Everyone? Who are they?"

  It wasn't until then that he realized his words were a bit jumbled, so Chen An hastily stood still, composed himself, and reissued the order: "Old Master Shi, Stone, Yushan, Li Huichen, notify them to come to Chenjiazhuang tomorrow night for an emergency meeting." The farthest one was Li Huichen, who was stationed in Liangdang County and had to ride a fast horse for 200 miles to reach Cheng County where there was a train.

  In Jiezhou, Lin Yushan directly forwarded the telegram to headquarters and had already boarded the train, rushing back to Chenjiazhuang.

  The next evening, Chen An sat in the conference room, not only with Old Man Chen, Liu's steward, Mr. Lin, Duan the captain and Lin Yue'er, but also with Liu Shi, Lin Yushan, Hu Zi, Wang Hongyun and newly joined Hu Jingyi and Gao Guizhi and other high-ranking military officials, also invited were Xu Shangwu, Xu Shirong, Kovar, Lane and other company executives in Jiezhou. Everyone looked serious, quietly passing around a telegram that was very light but extremely heavy.

  The conference room door was suddenly opened and Zhao Si and Li Hu Chen finally walked in. They were the last to arrive.

  Chen An didn't say much either, "Let's discuss it among ourselves, our views on the current situation and how we should respond."

  Suddenly, someone rushed outside the door and shouted loudly, "Report to the superior officer, urgent telegram."

  The tiger cub walked away, opened the door, and snatched another urgent telegram from the hands of a slightly rushed guard.

  Everyone turned around and looked at Hu Zi.

  With a loud bang, Hu Zi slammed the conference room door shut and quickly handed Chen An the telegram, but everyone saw the shock in Hu Zi's eyes.

  Chen An immediately read out the telegram, "This afternoon, the insurgent army has already arrived in Hankou and will capture it."

  Everyone was in an uproar, the insurgent army was on the offensive, attacking and not defending.

  Xu Shangwu was somewhat excited, "As long as the revolutionary army occupies Hankou, it will get sufficient military supplies from the Hanyang Arsenal."

  Revolutionary party? Those present are somewhat ridiculous. If according to their positions, they should be called the rebel army instead.

  Old Mr. Chen narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly, and everyone immediately fell silent. "You see, how long can the revolutionary party hold on?" Although some were not optimistic, they still didn't use the term "rebellious party".

  Everyone fell silent, needing more information to make a judgment.

  Chen An gently knocked on the table, and the low sound made everyone feel even more depressed.

  "The Revolutionary Party needs time." Chen An suddenly spoke up, saying something that didn't make sense.

  Everyone was speechless and waited for Chen An to explain himself. Chen An's grasp of the overall situation was still excellent.

  "I don't believe the revolutionaries have only deployed one uprising, let's not forget, there are still Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou, which even after failure, someone dared to come out and collect the bodies. They need more time to launch more uprisings." Chen An had long believed that the Qing dynasty was already riddled with holes.

  Chen An closed his eyes and calculated for a long time before speaking again. "If the revolutionary party can hold on for more than thirty days, there will be no Xuantong 4th year."

  Everyone was extremely surprised at Chen An's judgment.

  "This time it's a new army uprising, not a bandit uprising, it's a truly combat-effective force. The only ones that can be suppressed are the Northern Six Towns. But if it exceeds thirty days, I estimate all the new armies in the south will have risen up, how can the Northern Army defeat them one by one?" Chen An said.

  Lin Yushan also furrowed his brow, "The new army is indeed very unreliable, that infantry commander Huang Yuan in Lanzhou is quite suspicious."

  Chen An suddenly said coldly, "So, absolutely cannot let Ma Anliang of the new army occupy the moral high ground."

  The door of the conference room was knocked again, and another voice said, "Report to the superior officer, urgent telegram."

  Hutou got up from his horse and opened the door, taking over the telegram. Chen An didn't wait for him to deliver it, instructing directly, "Read it out."

  "Hanyang has been occupied, and the Republic of China government has been established, with Li Yuanhong as the commander-in-chief of the Hubei army," Tiger read out loudly the latest urgent telegram.

  "I also need time." Chen An finally made a decision.

  Chen An stood up, gazing at the large Qing dynasty map of China hanging on the wall behind him, and said firmly, "I want to go to Wuchang, take a look at the military government's real strength."

  After a pause, Chen An turned around and looked at everyone, "Thirty days, with thirty days as the deadline. As long as the military government can withstand the Northern Army's attack for thirty days, Jiezhou will immediately transfer 900 reserve troops to regular troops, serving as deputy commanders of new recruits, comprehensively expanding military strength, and attacking north and west simultaneously."

  Everyone was silent, and all they could feel was their own heartbeat getting faster and faster.

  "So I also need time, six months of training for new recruits, Lanzhou did not have the first righteousness, Hexi did not have the energy to respond, and there were a large number of military rations and other materials in reserve." Chen An started squinting his eyes.

  No one uttered a word.

  Liu Lao Guanjia, Mr. Lin, Liu Shi, Zhao Si, Lin Yushan, and Lin Yu'er all looked at Old Man Chen.

  Hu Zi and others were all quietly looking at Chen An.

  "Is a vote required?" Chen An said calmly.

  The meeting room was somewhat solemn.

  "I agree." A strange and awkward sentence in a foreign language suddenly emerged, and everyone turned to look at him. It was Kowal, this almost completely Sinicized Polish Jew. Kowal shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he would take care of making the first statement.

  Mr. Chen let out a sigh and said softly, "Do it."

  Everyone nodded.

  "Then let's discuss how to act." Chen An, who had made up his mind, suddenly felt at ease.