Chapter 43: A Dull Aftermath

  When he returned to Jiezhou, Lin Yushan also rushed over with four sentry soldiers.

  On a low hill outside the city, Chen An, Liu Shi and Lin Yushan, who had just met, hastily gathered together to discuss the deployment of troops for the Northern Expedition.

  "Qi Shan Camp and Jie Zhou Camp, I plan to replace them all with our own trained personnel. However, now not only are there fewer soldiers, but also insufficient officers. How can this deployment be adjusted?" Chen An picked up a few stones and arranged the positions of each county in Jie Zhou on the spot.

  Liu Shi used his whip to point at Yan Guan, "This is the first line of defense against the northwest, we must have a sentry here."

  "Jiezhou is the prefectural city and still needs to maintain a certain number of troops. What about the Hepo Camp in Huizhou?" Lin Yushan added.

  Chen An waved his hand, "The Hechi camp can't be moved for the time being. We're too loud and the governor will have ideas about it. It's actually more troublesome on the west side of Xiguan. If we don't send troops over there, the Zhenan army from Hexi might infiltrate in. If we do send troops, the forces here at Jiezhou will be spread too thin."

  The main force of Jingzhou is still responsible for guarding Baimaguan, which is too small to manage. The troops near Chenjiazhuang have been largely withdrawn.

  The first and second batch of graduates have been trained for a year, the second batch is slightly younger, still need to wait until next year's formal graduation before being assigned to the troops, the first batch will be assigned to the troops now, while bringing soldiers and completing training in rotation. Considering the future expansion of the troops, Chen An needs to carefully consider it.

  Chen Anzhuo polished, is it possible to extract 24 people from the first batch of officer students and form two fully manned but not fully staffed patrol battalions to officially take over the central and northwest defense zones.

  The remaining six deputy commanders were added to the second-phase officer students as the backbone, recruiting 900 people to complete the new recruit training for half a year as soon as possible, and then allocated to supplement each patrol battalion.

  Thinking of this, Chen An couldn't help but think of another problem. Last year, the 600 soldiers who were recruited first considered loyalty and simplicity, but as a result, they were basically all illiterate. At that time, it was stipulated that only after serving as deputy captain for one year would there be an opportunity to be selected as officer candidates. Who would have thought that dozens of deputy captains who were selected would mostly be held back by the literacy test and still not enough to make up a class.

  It's really hard to have both fish and bear's paw, the more you know, the more thoughts you have, the easier you are incited to make revolution, Chen An has indeed seen those sharp-tongued scholars in Shanghai, so it's better to respect them from afar.

  Here is the translation:

  "Alright, for the first batch of officer recruits, we'll select 24 people, including six newly promoted deputy officers, to form the Jingzhou and Qishan battalions. However, there will only be half the usual number of soldiers. Shi Tou will serve as the commander of the Qishan battalion, and Yu Shan will serve as the commander of the Jingzhou battalion. The main focus in the northwest is defending the Yangguan Pass, while the central region needs to take into account Xiguan. The deployment of troops should prioritize defense in the west and be lighter in the east." This was Chen An's final decision.

  Before the cadets graduated, they were only allowed to act as agents. However, Beiziying was hastily established, and although it was an agent, it was used as a formal one. Moreover, except for promoting six deputy sentries, Chen An trained all other cadets according to the requirements of the platoon leader.

  In the organization of the patrol camp, there is actually no squad leader, but in the organization of the Beiyang New Army, there is a position called squad leader. Chen An felt that it was a waste to use the officer students he had trained with difficulty as squad leaders, so he set up the position of squad leader for the Northern Character Camp himself. Three squads are combined into one platoon, and one platoon consists of three squads plus a platoon commander directly under the command of the camp.

  After a pause, Chen An continued, "The remaining officers and three sentries are directly under my control. I will supplement the middle camp and reorganize two new camps to train and recruit 900 new soldiers, and six months later, they will be allocated to fill up each camp."

  Liu Shi said with a serious tone, "Let's not use the names of Jingzhou and Qishan anymore. Let's just use front, back, left, and right instead. In the future, we can rotate our base every year to avoid learning the local bad habits."

  Chen An carefully considered it and immediately expressed his agreement.

  "There's another issue, let's discuss it together. This summer and autumn, we plan to recruit 900 new soldiers, should we absorb some people who are literate to join the army? Among last year's 600 soldiers, not to mention ordinary soldiers, but even most of the deputy captains, their literacy level is still unqualified until now, making it difficult to select officer candidates." Chen An directly brought up this issue.

  Liu Shi had no objection. Lin Yushan, having been in the intelligence business for a long time, was somewhat sensitive to this issue. "Nowadays, those who are leading the chaos are all these bookworms. Shouldn't we be more cautious? Otherwise, let's just recruit younger students from private schools or elementary schools. It's better not to have older ones. Especially those who studied in Japan are absolutely unacceptable. They're always shouting slogans or plotting, and can't accomplish anything practical."

  Chen An smiled lightly, "It seems that the great talents we know are either studying in Japan or preparing to go. However, Yushan is right, obeying orders and following military discipline is our first principle in Beizi Camp. As for recruiting soldiers, let's follow Yushan's suggestion and add some restrictive conditions. More importantly, in Beizi Camp, we need to fully learn from Zeng Guofan's methods of governing the army."

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  Two days later, Liu Shi led the reorganized vanguard north again, still with three companies of infantry, but with only over 150 men. However, six heavy machine guns were added. A large amount of silver was also brought along to disband the old camp.

  Lin Yushan stayed in Jiezhou, with a cavalry regiment and two infantry regiments under his command, because the defense distance was too long, requiring more mobile combat forces.

  Zhao Si's horn officer was also promoted to the left camp pipe band, and Hu Zi took over as the right camp pipe band. Together with Chen An himself, who had always concurrently held the middle camp pipe band, there were two under-strength cavalry and four infantry battalions, mainly defending the southern front line and responsible for new recruit training.

  The new training camp moved to Hanan Village, the northern stronghold of the year, and Chen An took a new name, called Beizhai Dabing, specializing in new recruit training, with the task of defending the upper reaches of the Baishui River. The number of people in Chenjiazhuang is increasing day by day, and the scope of land use is expanding. The scale of the new barracks needs to be expanded, and it must be relocated to another location.

  As for the escort mission of Chenjiazhuang, Liu Shi had secretly selected and formed a team of more than 200 people, plus another 30 or 40 people from the inspection team, which was temporarily sufficient in a small range. However, now that Liu Shi is going to sit in Yanmen Pass, the escort team will be taken over by Liu Guanjia.

  Although the Intelligence Division followed Lin Yushan to move its headquarters to Jiezhou, it was also convenient for grasping all kinds of information in the state. However, Chen An decided to set up a dedicated telegraph line belonging to the Northern Character Camp to avoid the delay of information like last time, covering the counties where the Northern Character Camp troops were stationed in Jiezhou. The center of the telegraph line and personnel are under the Telegraph Center within Chenjiazhuang, personally controlled by Chen An.

  Whether it is the Intelligence Bureau, Beiziyuan or other business news, as long as it needs to be communicated by telegram, even if it is informed by telephone, it must go through the Telegram Center.

  Everything was ready, and Chen An was about to submit his report to the Governor's office. Suddenly, he realized that for such a long time, the Governor had not given any instructions.

  It wasn't just Chen An, the prefect of Jiezhou also reported to the governor's office in a timely manner at first, but strangely, no instructions ever arrived in Jiezhou, and the prefect never received any.

  Someone was dispatched to inform the prefect of Jiangzhou, while Chen An prepared to send a telegram and dispatch someone with the memorial, as everything had to be approved by the Governor-General before proceeding.

  After a long time of dawdling, the courier who had rushed to the Lanzhou Governor's Mansion returned and handed Chen An a private letter from Governor E.

  It's extremely rare to open this private letter, Chen An became even more curious, the Governor giving a small letter to a low-ranking subordinate, it's really not easy.

  After reading the letter, Chen An suddenly realized.

  The root of the whole thing was actually Governor E of Shaanxi and Gansu.

  Ma Anliang, the commander of the garrison in Hezhou, often complained to the governor about the lack of military equipment. The governor had accepted bribes but was unable to provide the equipment, feeling somewhat embarrassed. Coincidentally, he found out that Chen An was helping Prince Qing smuggle arms everywhere. The governor came up with a plan and secretly told Ma Anliang that he could bring silver to Jiezhou to find Chen An.

  Unexpectedly, Ma Tingxu, a young master, took the initiative to take on this task for the sake of going out and having fun. He brought the Ma family guards with him and walked to Jiezhou in a leisurely manner. Later, things became simpler. The quarrel between the brothels escalated, Guan Dai died unexpectedly, Chen An was furious, and in one breath, he killed more than 130 people from the Ma family guards.

  The Governor was so shocked by the news that he couldn't help but cry and laugh at the same time, his head swelling with anger. He quickly stepped in to do some serious work, even borrowing the prestige of Old Master Dong from Jinjibao to suppress Ma Anliang, who had almost led troops to attack Jiezhou. However, he suddenly forgot to report back to Chen An, and as a result, Chen An seized control of two regiments by beheading first and reporting later.

  Since Chen An later reported that he was eliminating bandits, Governor Zhang naturally couldn't say anything. Otherwise, just the pretext of two subordinate armies engaging in a firefight would be enough for the imperial court to directly remove him from his position as Shaanxi-Gansu Governor-General.

  The fault was not with Chen An, and Ma Tingxu escaped fortunately. The governor had no choice but to acknowledge the subsequent facts, but asked Chen An to hand over the 100,000 taels of silver he had seized to the governor's mansion.

  Chen An dragged it out for a while, but in the end he still handed it over. After all, this silver was stolen goods, and the Governor's office had the right to demand its return.

  He retrieved 100,000 taels of silver and immediately returned it to Ma Anliang. He also successively agreed to several demands, barely calming down the situation. However, Chen An and the Ma family had already formed a grudge, but Chen An didn't care at all. With the previous encounter with Duan's capture head, followed by the death of Qi Shan's camp commander, plus the old generation's resentment towards the Ma family, it was inevitable that a grudge would be formed.

  Afterwards, Chen An indeed received a private letter from the master of Dongjiazhai in Jincheng Fortress, tactfully advising everyone to calm down and avoid trouble. In those years, Ma Anliang had also worked under General Dong's command, with a deep affection for each other. However, the Ma family's men were incompatible with General Dong's three battalions that rose to power by opposing the Green Gang.

  Chen An later received news from the Intelligence Department, saying that Ma Anliang was furious when he heard the news and kicked over the wine table on the spot. He decided to raise troops to attack, but was intercepted by the governor's special envoy before leaving Hexi Prefecture. Ma Tingxu, who fled back to Hexi Prefecture in disarray, was even banned from leaving his house for six months by Ma Anliang.

  This matter also shocked Shaanxi and Gansu provinces at the same time, amazed by the powerful combat strength of Chen Anxin's newly built Beiziying.

  Zhen Nan Army was the elite cavalry of Gansu, known for its ability to defeat ten infantrymen with one. Although it was forced to downsize due to the dissolution of the Gansu Army, Zhen Nan Army still had a scale equivalent to that of a single battalion of the Patrol Battalion, and those who were cut off were all transferred to the Ma Family Guard Corps, which actually had a large scale of nearly 2,000 people.

  Chen An's infantry had only over a hundred men, yet they annihilated the Ma family guard team, which was no different from the elite of the Zhen Nan army. This shows that the soldiers of the Bei Ziying camp were also exceptionally elite. Although dozens of soldiers from the Bei Ziying camp died in battle, it is normal for infantry to suffer more casualties than cavalry, and Chen An's reputation as a skilled military commander quickly spread throughout Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

  This is actually the result of deliberately concealing the actual casualties. If the casualties were too small, they would definitely be met with jealousy and suppression from the Governor's office immediately, Chen An was very clear in his mind.