Super Dictator

On July 2, Wei Jichen boarded the Dingyuan flagship at Dagukou. Among his companions were women, monks, foreigners, and of course, more than 6,000 Dingliao Army officers and soldiers.

The mighty Beiyang Fleet set off from the port and headed north along the coastline. Its final destination will be Yingkou.

Under the blue sky and white clouds, Wei Jichen stood on the deck of the Dingyuan, with his hands behind his back, looking at the calm sea and listening to the sound of waves lapping on the bow of the ship, without moving for a long time.

"Donor, you are confused." The unknown old monk came gracefully, holding the rosary in his hand, looking into the distance with his eyes, and said in a loud voice.

Wei Jichen could see nothing from the old monk's face. It was as if his expression never changed and was always so calm.

That day, when Wei Jichen learned that the old monk was Monk Xiao's master, he also kept him. Monk Xiao died for him. His remains are still not found. Although Ximu City took it back, Wei Zijun died in the battle. All the soldiers were thrown together by the Japanese, and the old monk would definitely go there to chant sutras and be saved.

"After leaving the customs, I don't know when I will be able to set foot on the Central Plains again." Wei Jichen sighed, stretched out his hand, and grabbed the guardrail in front of the deck, his eyes dark and gloomy.

"When will right and wrong end? When will troubles and anxieties end? Everything has its destiny, why should the donor think too much." The unknown old monk suddenly closed his eyes and said lightly.

Wei Jichen smiled casually. The old monk was right. Now that the immediate matter has not been solved, why think about the long term?

"I thought that learning Buddhism had to be done in deep mountains and old forests, but I didn't expect that Master you would be willing to step into the world of mortals." Wei Jichen said with a smile. This old monk seemed to be a person with profound knowledge of Buddhism.

After getting along with each other for a few days, Wei Jichen was more certain that he was not a fair-weather monk who deceived the world and stole his fame.

"This is a misunderstanding by all living beings. Buddha is not surrounded by a red wall, nor is it a pure land where the soul can escape. The Buddha on earth is the one who shows compassion and love to all living beings, saves all living beings and saves them from disasters. It is Lao Na's Great wish." The unknown old monk raised his head, looked at the west, and continued: "The old monk returned to the west. He was supposed to go to the Western Paradise, but for the sake of these sentient beings, he could only stay in the world of mortals."

Wei Jichen looked at the sincere look on Monk Guixi's face, and for some reason he felt admiration in his heart. Everyone has their own goals when they live in this world. The old monk wants to save all sentient beings and fight against the common people in order to live a better life.

What about yourself? What is your purpose in coming to this world?

Perhaps, leading the Chinese nation to stand on top of the world again will make it worthwhile for me to live a new life.

Wei Jichen looked firmly into the distance. When he turned around, Monk Guixi was nowhere to be seen.

But Liu Buchan was seen slowly walking over with a few sailors.

"General Wei, I didn't expect you to come to the deck so early in the morning." Liu Buchan said with a smile as he walked, his face a little tired. He must have worked hard enough to transport troops in the past few days.

Wei Jichen secretly thanked him for his help.

"Brother Zixiang, you should call me Zijie. It's too clever for you to call me General Wei." Wei Jichen leaned against the guardrail and said with a smile.

Liu Buchan nodded, walked to the guardrail, and asked worriedly: "How is my sister-in-law? I saw her vomiting badly yesterday."

This was Su Zhiniang's first time taking a boat, and she was severely seasick.

"After struggling all night, I was able to lie down weakly this morning. I just refused to eat anything. If this continues, I don't know what to do." Wei Jichen was more anxious than Liu Buchan and replied with a frustrated face.

Liu Buchan had given Wei Jichen some seasickness medicine last night. Unexpectedly, it had not worked yet, so he had to comfort him: "Don't worry, Zijie. There is only one day left for the fleet to stay in Yingkou. Everything will be fine once we get ashore." stand up."

"I hope so!" Wei Jichen looked at the ship in front, paused, then changed the subject and asked, "Brother Zixiang, where is the Japanese fleet now?"

With all his wealth and life on the Beiyang Fleet, Wei Jichen was too worried and couldn't let go no matter what.

What if the Japanese broke the agreement and attacked me and others? Wei Jichen's concern leads to chaos.

Liu Buchan understood what he meant, smiled lightly, and immediately said: "A few days ago, the Russian Far East Fleet was about to move, and the Japanese fleet had returned to the country to defend itself. Therefore, the Governor of Zhili, Mr. Wang, agreed to your proposal to transport troops by fleet. Otherwise, , do you think it’s that easy?”

It turned out that this was the case. Only then did Wei Jichen realize that when he was doing things, some aspects were still not as thoughtful as those old and cunning people.

"Brother Zixiang, I heard that the imperial court is going to purchase some new ships?" Wei Jichen asked unhurriedly. Before boarding the ship, Wei Jichen received another message from Li Que'er sending someone from the capital. The information sent contains this information.

Red Lantern's information is usually sent to Wei Jichen once a month. If an emergency occurs, it will be sent as quickly as possible.

"There is such a thing, but the court is quarreling endlessly. Some people even say that it is because we established the navy that the disaster has occurred, so they propose to disband our navy so that everything can be safe." Liu Buchan said with a tone of voice. With a touch of ridicule and dissatisfaction.

Wei Jichen was surprised, who still has such naive ideas, or would they rather shrink their heads and be a tortoise and dare not face the reality.

"Fortunately, the governor and the current emperor are sensible people. If the Qing Dynasty were as confused as those people, I am afraid that within three or five years, they will be destroyed by the enemy."

The senior generals in the Beiyang Navy generally had studied abroad, drank foreign ink, and had extensive exposure to new Western things. Of course, they were more open-minded in their thinking, and naturally they would not have much loyalty and respect for the Qing Dynasty.

"Nowadays, ship technology is advancing rapidly. With the war between China and Japan, our Chinese navy has entered a trough, and we don't know when we will get out of it." Wei Jichen said with a sigh.

^.^，

"Let's do our best." Liu Buchan said lightly. Before the Sino-Japanese War, Liu Buchan saw Japan increasing its armaments and proposed to purchase more ironclads on an annual basis to expand the navy. Unfortunately, it was not adopted.

After the defeat, Liu Buchan was even more disheartened by the court's indifference towards the naval generals.

"By the way, I have already reported to the court and tried my best to persuade the court to exchange Gui Tailang for Brother Yuchen. The court has now agreed with me. After returning to Liaodong this time, I will release Gui Tailang." Wei Jichen has been observing Liu Buchan's behavior. His expression showed that he was disheartened, and with a roll of his eyes, he seemed to mention it accidentally.

As expected, Liu Buchan's face became overjoyed and he thanked him: "Without your help, dear brother Zijie, this matter would have been delayed for who knows how long."

"Brother Zixiang is too polite. You and I have become sworn friends for a long time. Don't be too polite in the future." Wei Jichen suddenly pointed to a small cargo ship in the middle of the fleet and said, "Brother Zixiang, look at that cargo ship. how?"

"You're talking about that old freighter! I'm just annoyed about this. The slow speed of this small freighter has delayed the speed of our fleet." Liu Buchan said angrily.

The Beiyang Fleet suffered serious losses, and it was already at its limit to transport more than 6,000 soldiers. There were still some guns, ammunition, food and wages, so they had to hire freighters from other companies.

Liu Buchan left this matter to his subordinates. He didn't expect that among the ships hired by his subordinates, there would be such a top-notch old freighter. He was annoyed in his heart and planned to go down for questioning later.

When Wei Jichen saw Liu Buchan fuming, he touched his chin in embarrassment.

"Brother Zixiang, this small freighter is mine." Wei Jichen said cautiously.

"Yours, what, you said it's yours?" Liu Buchan's brain couldn't turn around for a moment.

Fortunately, Wei Jichen next to him quickly explained: "I recently registered a Kuai Ma freight company. The company has two small ships. One is the Kuai Ma you gave me last time, and this one is the flying boat in front of me. Horse number, this, I really didn’t expect this freighter to be so slow, I wouldn’t have sent it if I had known.”

Liu Buchan was even more embarrassed than Wei Jichen. Just now he said that other people's things were worn out in front of others. After coughing a few times, Liu Buchan said sarcastically: "Zijie, I'm not talking about you. You don't know anything about maritime affairs. You don't specialize in running this shipping company." Come to pay?"

"I was also hot-headed for a while. Now that I have invested all my wealth, it is too late to stop. Brother Zixiang, can you introduce me to a maritime talent of yours? Brother Yuchen is good. After he comes back, you can Introduce him to me." Wei Jichen took the opportunity to express what he had already thought.

"Yuchen? Are you sure? You know, he was seriously injured." Liu Buchan asked curiously.

Wei Jichen waved his hand and said with a smile, "I know that. I don't value these things. What I look at is Brother Yuchen's brain and his brave and fearless spirit."

"Zijie, I didn't expect you to take such good care of us." Liu Buchan pondered for a while and said softly. He thought that Wei Jichen deliberately offered to hire Yang Yonglin because he thought that Yang Yonglin would have no future life.

Wei Jichen didn't explain much.

During the past few days at sea, Wei Jichen had been following Liu Buchan, carefully watching how he commanded the fleet. Liu Buchan saw that he was really interested in ships, so he sent a first mate to answer all the strange questions he raised.

Wei Jichen was determined to make friends, and Liu Buchan also admired General Wei who was famous throughout the Qing Dynasty and had extraordinary knowledge. It didn't take long for the two of them to turn from a nod to a life-or-death acquaintance.

On the day Wei Jichen landed at the port, Liu Buchan even left the Dingyuan to see him off. This was the first time he had set foot on land since the fleet was repaired, which shows that Liu Buchan's feelings for Wei Jichen were quite different.

At the temporary headquarters of the Dingliao Army in Haicheng, all the generals gathered together and filled the room.

There were former generals of Wei Zijun, Li Yunfei, Wang Shizhen, Zhang Meng, Zhao Hu and others.

There are experienced veterans: Xu Bangdao, Ma Jinxu, Jiang Guiti and others.

Of course, there are also those who graduated from the Armed Forces Academy and were originally instructors or mid-level generals in other armies: Feng Guozhang, Wang Yingkai, He Zonglian, Cao Kun and others.

Li Yunfei stood at the front, and everyone else sat according to their original positions. Seeing so many generals, Li Yunfei couldn't help but sigh with emotion. Once upon a time, a small army of two thousand people would grow to such a huge size. In the past, it was I don’t even dare to think about it.

But Zijie turned decay into magic. Instead of losing anything during the war, Wei Zijun's army increased in number. After the war, he went to the capital and brought out the Dingliao army.

"With the efforts of all the adults, the soldiers have finally been recruited, and the adults will arrive in Haicheng this evening. I believe that in just a few days, I am sure that the Liao army will be formed. All of you have worked hard for many days. In return." Li Yunfei didn't dare to ask for help and called everyone "sir". You must know that Xu Bangdao, Ma Jinxu and others sitting below are all senior to him.

Everyone had obviously received the news of Wei Jichen's arrival tonight, and they were not surprised by Li Yunfei's words. They all had a faint smile on their faces. You must know that once the Ding Liao army is formed, everyone will surely make great progress. One step further.

Ma Jinxu smiled and said: "General Wei brought more than 6,000 soldiers, and the number of our Liao army will reach more than 15,000. This is just the number of troops. If we add the cavalry, artillery, engineering teams, The baggage team will probably be 20,000 strong and will become the Qing Dynasty's leading new army. It seems that the imperial court has high hopes for us. "

Xu Bangdao coughed and said solemnly: "Liaodong is the place where the Fourth War was fought. Although the Japanese agreed to withdraw, they were unwilling to do so and would cause trouble sooner or later. We decided that the Liao army seemed to have a large number of people. If we compare it like this, in fact, There’s not much left.”

"Mr. Xu is right. If you don't have long-term worries, you must have immediate worries. We decided that the reason why the Liao Army was named this must be to protect the stability of our Liaodong. In this way, we must use the Japanese army as the imaginary enemy, and we must practice day and night, as soon as possible. Become an elite teacher." Wang Shizhen nodded and said.

At present, everyone's positions have not been determined yet, and they all call each other "sir."

Cao Kun was sitting at the end of the seat. He saw several people chatting and laughing. He couldn't help but feel envious. But at the same time, he was very happy. He didn't know what virtues and abilities he had. A small sentry officer would be taken care of by General Wei. This time Not only did he avoid the fate of being dismissed, he would at least get a battalion officer to serve as a pawn. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel secretly grateful to Wei Jichen.

"Report, my lords, the general is less than five miles away from Haicheng." A signal soldier came to report with a happy face.

"Everyone, get ready, it seems it's time to go out and greet the adults." Li Yunfei stood up and said with a smile.

"That's right." All the generals stood up one after another.

At this time, Wei Jichen, who was sitting in the carriage, was holding a piece of paper and thinking hard, sometimes muttering fiercely to himself.

"Ms. sir, what are you doing in Hua Hua Hua?" Su Zhiniang, who was sitting nearby, saw Wei Jichen frowning and unable to write, so she couldn't help but find something to say.

"Personnel appointments are difficult." Wei Jichen lamented. He would confirm the personnel appointments of the Dingliao Army first and then report them to the court. If there were no major problems, they would usually be approved.

Although he recruited so many talents, Wei Jichen sadly found that there were still not enough generals, and some middle and low-level generals had to be selected from the army.

The first and most important thing is the camp office.

The general manager of the Camp Affairs Office is naturally Li Yunfei. Under the Camp Affairs Office, there are important business departments such as the Law Enforcement and Camp Affairs Office and the Supervision and Operations Office. Wei Jichen naturally has to keep a tight grip on them.

In addition, Wei Jichen also envisioned setting up a staff military affairs camp office in the camp office, which is the staff office in the Western-style army. This will minimize the mistakes of the general in the war.

In addition to the Operations Office, there are also some civilian departments. The Food and Rating Bureau appointed Yan Dunyuan as the general office. Since the headquarters of Kuai Ma Freight Company will definitely be located in Lushun in the future, Yan Dunyuan temporarily hired a person in Tianjin. The manager himself came to Liaodong with Wei Jichen. He could hold many positions.

The Ordnance Bureau, which I didn’t give much thought to, must be handed over to Ruan Zhongshu.

The remaining officials in less important positions such as the Western Affairs Bureau and the Military Medical Bureau can be competent.

The Westernization Bureau is not responsible for Westernization. It actually includes infantry, artillery, and cavalry schools that can train middle and lower-level officers. Of course, it also has a foreign language school to teach German, English, and Japanese to the generals.

Civilian officials basically don't have much of a problem, now it's up to the military leaders.

First is the team.

The Dingliao army was derived from the structure of the current German square division. It was divided into three wings: left, center and right. Each wing was equipped with two branches. Each branch commanded two battalions of troops. Each battalion had about 1,200 troops. Each battalion is divided into four teams, each team has three sentries, and each sentry has six sheds.

Calculated in this way, if the team is fully established, there will be 15,000 people.

You can consider Ma Jinxu as the left wing leader, Xu Daobang as the center wing leader, and Jiang Guiti as the right wing leader.

The veterans will take action, one can support two. The team can be regarded as a traditional military unit. There should not be much problem in their hands. Anyway, the training is handled by the training office.

Then there is the artillery team. In the past, the artillery team was only in each battalion of the Huai Army. It was not an independent army. Now that it is an independent army according to the German organization, it must be handed over to both Chinese and Western military methods. in the hands of talented people.

This person is Duan Qirui, so there is nothing to worry about.

The artillery team has a branch command, led by Duan Qirui, with a total of more than 2,000 soldiers and more than 80 cannons. In the future, the old cannons will be eliminated and replaced with Krupp cannons. In this way, our own The Dingliao Army's artillery team will be the strongest among the Chinese armies.

The establishment of the cavalry is also divided into two battalions, but the number of the cavalry battalion is small. Each battalion only has about 500 soldiers, but it has more than 600 horses, so the cavalry has a total of about 1,000 people.

Wei Jichen, the leader of the cavalry, is interested in Hu Zi.

Finally, there are special operations teams and engineering teams.

The engineering team includes a bridge team, a ground team (fortification), a demolition team, a thunder and lightning team (mines), a repair team, a surveying team, and a telegraph team. The number of people in each team is uncertain, but Wei Jichen estimates that the total number is about a thousand people. , the leader is naturally Wang Shizhen. Wang Shizhen is well versed in both Chinese and Western things and can easily accept new gadgets. He is a perfect fit. In addition, Wang Shizhen can also join the staff office.

The special operations team consists of 500 people and is captained by Mengzi.

For people like Feng Guozhang, Wang Yingkai, He Zonglian, Li Chun, Chen Guangyuan, Cao Kun, etc., there should not be much problem if they serve as commanders in the army or as battalion officers.

In this way, our Dingliao army includes both young and old, some with a background in fighting, and some who have graduated from military preparation schools. It can be regarded as a gathering of Chinese and foreign troops.

With such an army, are we still afraid of poor training? Wei Jichen was filled with anticipation.