【Second update】

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On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival of the Lunar New Year is still a very cold and sunny day.

Yesterday, Guangxu decided to compile a new army order in various provinces across the country. The telegram room of the Military Affairs Office has issued a clear order to the brigade governors and governors across the country. At the same time, the Prime Minister's affairs offices also formally responded to media workers from various countries the next morning and made the matter public.

When the news came out, the Chinese people were excited. Knowledge people published articles from commentators in newspapers everywhere, praising the court's wise move. The army of the state will get out of the trough and be in line with the international community.

The Qing Empire built a new army after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which was expected by the powerful countries in various countries. The powerful people were nervous about the military reform of this old empire.

Especially after the Japanese Empire occupied North Korea, its land territory had already bordered the Qing Empire. They were worried that the Qing Empire would launch a retaliation after the new army was built, which would be a shame for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

However, it is useless to worry. After the war machines of the Japanese Empire were fired, all funds turned to stabilize Japan's domestic economy, so it became quite difficult to start the war machines. The Japanese Army Department could only hope that the Qing Empire Army could not be built, and worship Aunt Amaterasu every day to curse the Qing Empire Army to be decadent forever.

After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the balance between the great powers of the Far East was broken. It had always been a contradiction between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia, maintaining a delicate balance. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Tsar Nicholas II came to power and continued to maintain his hostility towards Britain, but eased the tension with Germany. The success of Germany, France and Russia's intervening in the group to return Liao, and the concessions of the British Empire proved that the balance of the Far East fell to Russia.

Based on the emergence of this situation, the British government felt a headache. British Prime Minister Earl Rosbury instructed the new British ambassador to China Dou Nale to lobby senior officials of the Qing Empire, hoping to stabilize the Qing Empire and avoid the Qing Empire from completely turning to the German, French and Russian groups.

At the same time, the Conservative Party, who was inspecting Australia and Marquis Stregan, chairman of the British Joint Military Commission, was ordered to go to China to prepare for informal contact with the top leaders of the Qing Empire on improving Sino-UK relations, winning some extra points for the Conservative Party to come to power in April to rule the United Kingdom.

At the same time, in order to resist the strength of the Russians in the Far East, the British Conservative Party planned to change its policy toward China, mediated the "withdrawal of flags and severance of diplomatic relations" between the Chinese and British navies in 1890, hoping to restart naval exchanges between China and Britain.

Of course, the first task of the British is to focus on the Qing Empire's army reform plan. For the Qing Empire, which had a huge army, the army reform would be huge, and the British hoped to get a share of this big cake.

The British were thinking about this big cake, and the other great powers were not stupid, and they all wanted to get a share of the pie.

As the support force of the Qing Empire, Beiyang was also targeted by the powerful powers of various countries. As soon as the imperial court's training plan was released, the special envoys and representatives of the powerful powers of various countries flocked to the Governor's Office of Zhili, Tianjin, and handed over signs to meet Li Hongzhang.

Li Hongzhang was in Beijing. When he woke up early in the morning, he received a lot of telegrams from the Tianjin Governor's Office. Li Hongzhang had to go back to work in advance and prepare all the requirements for the newly established army in Zhili in advance.

The Qing Dynasty officials did not have holidays, and only had fifteen days off each year around New Year's Eve. After the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, they all had to go back to work.

After researching yesterday afternoon, Wang Chenhao and Zhang Peilun listed a general document for the funds, personnel, equipment and venues required for the training of Zhili.

Wang Chenhao is preparing to train a new army of reorganized divisions for Zhili, tentatively named Zhili New Army, with a total force of 12,500 people and an annual expenditure of 920,000 taels of silver. For the first time, the army building requires an additional one-time expense of weapons, ammunition, horses and supplies, training equipment and venues, as well as military use in the barracks. The budget for this part of the investment is 1.38 million taels of silver, and including other expenses, the total budget is 2.4 million taels of silver.

This fee was a huge expense for an agricultural country like the Qing Empire. Li Hongzhang hesitated for a night last night and finally nodded this morning to agree.

Although the court approved the provinces to train new army, Li Hongzhang knew very well that the Ministry of Revenue controlled by Weng Tonghe had no money, and even if there was one, it would not be honestly allocated to Zhili for training. This money had to be raised by Zhili.

Of course, the richest power of the Qing Empire today belongs to the Beiyang in Zhili. Li Hongzhang gritted his teeth and issued an order to return to the Zhili Governor's Office in Tianjin to intercept the income from the territory of Zhili, grain and tariffs, and must first collect the 2.4 million taels of military expenditure.

Li Hongzhang helped Wang Chenhao solve the problem. The Beiyang Group is full of talents. The remaining issues such as the procurement of weapons will be decided by Wang Chenhao. Relevant officials of the Beiyang Group will cooperate with each other.

After breakfast, Li Hongzhang asked Wang Chenhao before leaving, "Is there anything else Chen Hao needs to add?"

Wang Chenhao replied respectfully: "That's all for the time being!"

Li Hongzhang nodded and told Wang Chenhao that he had anything to add, so he sent a telegram to the Zhili Governor's Office. Wang Chenhao nodded and said yes, and sent Li Hongzhang and Zhang Peilun into the carriage and watched them leave Beijing.

After Li Hongzhang and Zhang Peilun left, the entire Earl's Mansion belonged to Wang Chenhao as the largest.

Wang Chenhao stayed in the study and repeatedly corrected his training strategy. Based on the current actual national conditions and referring to the training methods of the European powers, Wang Chenhao integrated the advanced military concepts and training methods of his era into it, and completed two sets of rules and regulations, "Brief Records of New Army Military" and "Detailed Illustrations of Training and Operation Methods", and made detailed provisions on the new army's battalion system, bans, training rules, and operation methods, and prepared to be distributed to the army in the future for officers and soldiers to follow.

During this period, the guard captain Li Guodong was also fortunate to see Wang Chenhao's two sets of military constitutions. He was also from the Huai Army system and was approved by Li Hongzhang to study at the Beiyang Military Preparation School for a year. Although he only learned how to be a good bodyguard and only had twenty or thirty people in charge, he felt a little more anticipated after learning that Wang Chenhao would be training troops in Zhili.

It is undeniable that Li Guodong is an excellent soldier. Strictly speaking, he does not want to be a captain of the guard all his life. In the current environment where "army and military preparations" are everywhere in the Qing Dynasty, all men with blood are looking forward to joining the army to make achievements.

Li Guodong has been a purvey of the Li family since he was a child, so he naturally knew in his heart that if his new master Wang Chenhao took charge of the army, then as his slave, Li Guodong would definitely have the opportunity to join the army and show his strength in the future.

Whenever Li Guodong thought of this, his heart suddenly felt excited and he had to work harder when serving his master.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Li Youyi's convoy successfully entered Beijing and arrived at the Earl's Mansion.

After receiving the report, Wang Chenhao ran to the door as if he was flying. Li Youyi got out of the car. In the exclamation of Li Youyi, Wang Chenhao had already hugged her from behind.

Li Youyi screamed, and was really startled. She finally breathed a sigh of relief after seeing clearly that it was her husband. She said angrily: "Husband, you are so scary!"

Wang Chenhao buried his head in the back of Li Youyi's neck and sucked it for a while, saying all the love words that made Li Youyi blush.

The two of them are newlywed and have endless things to say.

What kind of style is to hug and hug on the street? The surrounding royal palace and the maids of the Li family were stunned. The four pretty maids of the royal palace who accompanied Li Youyi to hold the piano, chess, and sermons. Ruhua hurriedly stepped forward to greet the master of the family and took the opportunity to interrupt the warmth of the two of them in the street.

"Master, it's better to go in and talk about it when it's cold outside!"

Baoqin is the original maid, and she is the biggest among the four maids. Naturally, she stood up with such a thing without permission.

Wang Chenhao didn't think anything was wrong, but Li Youyi was deeply bound by feudal ethics and did not dare to stay outside anymore.

"Husband, can you go back outside?"

Looking at Li Youyi's nervous look, Wang Chenhao suddenly smirked and picked her up in the waist. Amid Li Youyi's screams, Wang Chenhao laughed and hugged her quickly and ran in, leaving only the dazed eyes of a group of servants and maids at the door.
Chapter completed!