Chapter 45: The Ji Province Military Exercise

  The professionalism of the two temporary instructors made the cadets of Beiziyuan admire them, but what everyone didn't know was that the intensity and crazy firepower of Beiziyuan's training left the temporary instructors stunned for a long time.

  Thanks to Chen An's high salary and unified logistics system, the Northern Army did not have the widespread phenomenon of embezzlement that existed in the Beiyang New Army. This was also an inevitable move, as after habitual firepower consumption, no unit could carry all the ammunition for a full battle, so all logistics were naturally separated and belonged to Lin Yue'er's financial department.

  Food and clothing were abundant, silver pay was sufficient, completely exceeding the standard of the Beiyang New Army. In addition, Chen An's high-intensity training, although somewhat chaotic, was extremely effective, making every officer and soldier in the Northern Character Camp incredibly robust, with physical strength even surpassing that of the Beiyang New Army, which mainly recruited from the north.

  What left Sun Yue and Liu Yu Fen speechless was that Chen An's decision on the intensity of training was based entirely on the new military camp regulations.

  Originally the regulations of the Beiyang New Army, but in reality they were all discounted, and no one expected that in distant Gansu, an old-fashioned army would fully implement its standards.

  The Patrol Battalion was just a temporary transitional product of the old Green Camp, and the Beiyang Six Towns were the real new army. In theory, the Patrol Battalion still wore numbered uniforms, wore Doukuan, and used mostly knives, guns, arrows, and spears, with a small amount of Hanyang-made equipment. However, the Northern Character Battalion was fully equipped with Beiyang's new military uniform, deep blue uniform with short brimmed hat, not only equipped with Li-style rifles, but also had heavy machine guns for each company.

  The regulation that at least ten rounds of ammunition must be fired every day shocked and amazed the two men, who couldn't help but envy such an absurd rule. Don't bullets cost money? Even the spent shells on the ground were collected by local villagers hired by the Northern Army for a fee, rather than having their own troops waste time and manpower searching the battlefield.

  In the last week, Chen An decided to organize a large-scale exercise. Faced with a budget of tens of thousands of taels for the exercise, as well as the cost of bullets and shells not included in the budget, Sun Yue and Liu Yufen could only sigh in dismay.

  The two temporary instructors were not only the planners of the entire exercise plan but also served as judges.

  The entire operation had a simple plan of procedure and a long time schedule, but no detailed specific regulations, everything relied on the self-organization and judgment of each battalion commander.

  Chen An sat in Chenjiazhuang directing, Zhao Si and Hu Zi's two battalions first conducted a live ammunition assault training at the Beizhai grand camp, with cannons blasting for a long time. Then came the infantry's inverted triangular formation advancing in sequence, and they could call for artillery support at any time, it was simply a rotational firepower coverage that didn't care about ammunition costs.

  After the live ammunition assault training, the left battalion led the way in front and the right battalion followed behind, fully armed and loaded with ammunition, each equipped with a Japanese Type 38 75mm field gun and six 7.62mm Maxim heavy machine guns, rapidly advancing towards Jiezhou to search for enemy forces.

  Calling in artillery support was an entirely new innovation.

  Suddenly seeing this new tactic that was not in the script, the two referees were stunned and stood still, repeatedly exclaiming "unbelievable".

  Chen Anxin was worried about the casualties of his elite troops, and he came up with a method to utilize telephone lines, setting up small telephone teams to follow the advancing troops, observing the destruction caused by artillery fire and directing subsequent precise artillery strikes.

  As for the problem of telephone signal attenuation, Chen An sought advice from Director Xu and got a very simple yet practical solution: multiple phone groups relayed messages to each other in turn.

  Arrived at the Jiezhou camp, the exercise had not yet ended. The left battalion continued north to take over the defense of the front battalion, while the right battalion deployed its forces to take over the defense of the rear battalion. The front and rear battalions then descended together, adopting a rapid advance method, and marched south all the way to Chenjiazhuang to replenish their ammunition and supplies. They then turned west and charged into the Beizhai camp. Next was another live-fire defensive exercise for the combined forces of the front and rear battalions and the large-scale middle battalion training camp.

  Watching the live ammunition shooting and long-distance maneuvering of the Beiziyuan Camp, the two Northern New Army elites could no longer sit still, with eyes filled with boundless hope. However, no matter how Chen An tried to bring up the topic, the two men always skirted around it, without explicitly agreeing to stay in the Beiziyuan Camp.

  After the exercise, each regiment will return to its original garrison. This is only a temporary mobilization exercise and has not yet reached the one-year limit, so there is no need to rotate troops. New recruits have been training for just over four months and need further practice before they can be replenished into each regiment.

  Before the exercise was over, the three-month secondment had arrived.

  Sun Yue and Liu Yu-fen eventually returned to the Beiyang New Army, but both accepted Chen An-yu's gift of a ritual ceremony, apparently quite taken with the Northern Camp, but not optimistic about its development, so they did not stay.

  Chen An had no choice, it had to be this way, using other means would have been too much, after all the Beiyang Six Towns were a powerful army, whether in terms of reputation or actual strength, they far surpassed the Northern Camp.

  As they were about to leave, Sun Yue solemnly handed a stack of manuscripts to Chen An. "Lord Chen, this is something that my brother Yu Fen and I have been racking our brains to write over the past few days. It mainly provides some suggestions for the future tactical choices and development of the Northern Character Camp. We would like to express our gratitude to Lord Chen and the Northern Character Camp for their hospitality during this period. We also learned a lot from the Northern Character Camp."

  Liu Yu-fen added, "To be frank, in terms of combat effectiveness at the regimental level, there is no other army in the country that can match the Northern Expeditionary Army. The Beiyang Six Divisions may have better tactics than you, but their firepower is far inferior, especially your so-called artillery support tactics. However, from a division-level strategic perspective, the scale is too small and lacks high-level military command talent, which is the fatal weakness of the Northern Expeditionary Army."

  Chen An listened carefully and naturally thanked him for his modesty.

  Seeing off two elite from Baoding, Chen An picked up the manuscript and slowly stood up.

  Suddenly, Chen An's eyelid twitched, this manuscript is not simple.

  There is a passage in the manuscript which was written but not spoken out.

  "In terms of military control, the Beiyang Army's defense of the homeland creed has more connotation and stronger cohesion and development prospects than the Beiyang New Army's promotion and wealth creed."

  "Not only that, but also the two armies with distinct hierarchies, the Beiyang Army is more transparent and attractive, and there will be no phenomenon of cheating or deduction. This cannot be done in the New Army. The most fundamental reason is that the Beiyang Army has strict promotion, strict military discipline, non-deductible salary, professional military education with obedience as its core, and control over the spread of any other ideology."

  Although Sun and Yue did not say anything, many meanings were revealed in the manuscript.

  After some thought, Chen An incorporated the content of the manuscript into his own lecture on Zeng Guofan's military ideology, and he might as well plagiarize it. Anyway, he had paid for the procedure, so Chen An deceived himself by explaining it to himself.

  When the winter chill began to invade, the Governor's Office issued an urgent dispatch, requiring all levels of government and garrison troops to be on high alert and to intensify their search for suspicious elements.

  Chen An sighed heavily after reading the newspaper, "The inland areas are also starting to get chaotic."

  In the winter of 1906, a large-scale uprising broke out in the border areas of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, including Liuyang, Liling, and Pingxiang, due to floods and famine. The uprising was led by the "Revolutionary Army" and involved over 30,000 people, including poor miners, farmers, and even soldiers from the local garrison who had lost their livelihoods.

  The imperial court hastily summoned more than 50,000 troops from various provinces of Huguang and Liangjiang to surround and annihilate them. After expending countless amounts of silver and ammunition, they finally managed to suppress the revolutionary army, which had only a few thousand broken guns.

  The Governor of Shaanxi and Gansu was naturally very worried that the same thing would happen to the patrol camps under his jurisdiction, so he hastily issued a circular to remind everyone to be vigilant, especially to guard against the revolutionary party's propaganda and liaison activities everywhere.

  After careful consideration, Chen decided to allocate the second batch of soldiers who had completed their basic training a month in advance to supplement each battalion, so that there would be enough troops to suppress any potential incidents.

  With a regular force of over 1,500 people, plus the guards from Chenjiazhuang and the company, they had a strength of nearly 2,000 people. Even if the entire Town South Army of the Ma family came to attack, they would not be afraid.

  In full strength, a regiment had over 300 men and officers. With the abolition of the "long husband" system, all were listed as regular soldiers. Each regiment was divided into three battalions, each battalion having ten companies. Large numbers of horses and vehicles were also purchased to carry heavy equipment and weapons, ensuring that each regiment had a 75mm field gun and six heavy machine guns. The number of men actually available for the front line was clearly less than normal, but firepower was more than doubled.

  However, this also brings another major problem. If a more powerful logistics support team is not established, the sustained combat capability of the Northern Army will be very poor.

  In fact, there is also the issue of mobility. If Lintan was not a traditional horse-raising area, it would be really hard to find a large number of horses and vehicles, and heavy weapons and supplies could not be transported at all.

  Chen An originally brought a large number of Mongolian horses from Liaodong. In fact, Gansu had its own excellent horse breed, the Nanfan horse, which was native to the river bends in the upper reaches of the Yellow River with lush grass and water.

  It is also commonly known as Hequ horse, an ancient and excellent local breed of horse in China, which was often used as a tribute in history.

  The Nanfan horse has a slightly larger body, gentle temperament, and its coat color is mainly black and bay. It has strong adaptability to high-altitude and changeable climate environments and strong resistance to common diseases. Enduring and hardworking, with medium speed, it has absolute advantages as a draft horse. It can carry 300 kg of heavy loads for 100 km per day, and a single horse-drawn carriage can pull 1,000 kg of heavy loads at a slow pace.

  Every year, Nanfanma can purchase around 100 horses, and Chen An requires Zhuangzi to raise good horses for centralized feeding. He also encourages tenant farmers to breed and raise a large number of horses, which can provide 50-60 adult strong horses, temporarily enough for the Northern Camp and the company's use. Although the mountains and forests are restricted from being opened up, it is more suitable for raising horses.

  But all this still cannot satisfy Chen An.

  The Russian train in Liaodong can travel 50-60 miles in just one hour, and as long as there are railways, locomotives, and coal, it's no problem to run continuously for a whole day. The daytime and nighttime transportation capacity is extremely large, far surpassing the power of horses. This is also the reason why Chen An was eager to build a railway in Jiezhou, so that he could dispatch reinforcements from Chenjiazhuang to Yangguan 800 miles away within one day, purely for military purposes.