"Make the cake bigger?" Xie Zhangtai turned to Yang Rui's statement to make Bai Laile slightly stunned, and then he laughed knowingly, he looked at Pu Lande, and then said, "Oh, this is really a novel statement." I like you guys like that. ”

Pu Lande next to him was silent, in fact, among the British, he had the most dealings with the Fuxing Society, from the time of the Su Bao case, he began to contact Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Taiyan and others, before he could be said to have been protecting these people - but also to protect the majesty of the Ministry of Industry Bureau of the Concession, but last year's Zou Rong case made him go to the opposite side of the Fuxing Society, and his measures indirectly caused the "Shanghai Bloody Case", and then he himself was forced to resign from the position of the General Office of the Ministry of Industry because of some pressure. He became a full-time correspondent for The Times in southern China. As a result, he will have some good feelings about the revival and even more resentment. He hoped that the Renaissance Society, who had been protected by him, would do something great, and that they would succeed and fail in the hope that they would cause their own unemployment.

"Mr. Xie, now that all the newspapers are accusing you of undermining China's peace, under such circumstances, will the Fuxing Society still insist on war?" Pu Lande suddenly asked a sharp question, because of the turn of the situation, the Revival Society seemed to change from a hero to a spoiler, a person who did not welcome the gentry.

"The Chinese have a saying that 'the scar is good and the pain is forgotten'. Those who opposed the Revival Society forgot how the Manchu compromise came about. If we are defeated by the Manchu government one day in the future, and we, the revolutionaries, are beheaded, then the Manchus will still be as brutal and authoritarian as before. There are only checks and balances on rights that cannot be abused. And if you want to check and balance, then you can't forget that you have a rifle behind you, and we are the rifle of the people. And now, because the tyrannical ruler has changed to a smiley face. After a few nice words, they threw away their guns. This is the sorrow of the Chinese! Xie Jintai knew what foreigners could understand, but he wasn't sure if what he said was what foreigners wanted to hear.

"Is it true that the Revival will fight the government forces?" Pu Lande's face was expressionless, but he quickly wrote down Xie Zhangtai's words, and then asked another question.

"We'll fight to the last man!" Xie Jintai said categorically: "Although our strength is very weak, the Manchu Qing must pay a huge price to destroy us, even. The whole government will collapse because of this war. ”

Pu Lande looked at Xie Jintai's serious expression and nodded unconsciously, and after taking note of his words, he marked the words "fight to the last man" and "the government collapsed because of the war". Again, he asked, "What will the revival achieve before the war stops?" Or what would the revival want to do? ”

"Guangxu must abdicate!" Xie Jintai said. Pu Lande didn't hear it very clearly, and when he asked again, Xie Jintai said again: "Guangxu must abdicate!" All rights are transferred to the Congress, and then the government is reorganized according to the will of the citizens; Meantime. We also have to pay off all the government debts. ”

Xie Zhangtai made it very clear this time. Pu Lande shook his head as he wrote a book, he thought it was impossible. However, given the nature of revolutionaries, he could understand their thoughts very well.

The daytime visit was soon over, and in the evening, when he was sorting out his notes at his residence in Hangzhou, Bai Laile came to him, "Pu Lande, are you free?" ”

Pu Lander knew the identity of Bai Laile. I also understood that he wanted to know something about Hangzhou when he first came, so he put the manuscript paper aside. Put away the pen and said, "Well, George, you come in." ”

"I want to ......" Bai Laile was actually not familiar with Pu Land, and when he was looking for something to say, Pu Lande said: "Do you want to know about Hangzhou and understand the revolutionary organization called the Renaissance Society?" Yes, I have known all of them for a long time, their current leader, Cai, and Zhang, who is in prison, and that hapless Zou ...... They are such a passionate group of revolutionaries! It's like the French a hundred years ago, very naïve......"

"Oh, then did they kill people, I'm talking about the Manchus, when I came, many people were discussing that the Manchus here had been killed and buried in the West Lake." Originally, his trip was to go to Gansu and Xinjiang to investigate the situation of the Qing army, but the events in Hangzhou caused Zhu Erdian to send him here - there is no better way to test the combat effectiveness of a unit than war. He only arrived today.

"I arrived on the third day of the uprising, and I didn't hear any news of the massacre of the Manchus, who were just locked up in a barracks and had all their illegal property confiscated. They also set up a tribunal and then tried those suspected of guilty, the most common of which was bribery. "Pu Lande came early and saw a lot of interesting things," they were tried according to the existing laws of the Qing Dynasty, and those who accepted bribes of more than 120 taels were hanged; Those who embezzle more than 1,000 taels shall be beheaded. Every time an official beheads are beheaded, the people go to watch, you know, the Qing people like to see the beheading, especially those corrupt officials are beheaded, they are all watching and applauding. What a barbaric people! ”

Hanging is an acceptable method of execution for Pu Land, but he can't accept beheading, he just feels that it is too cruel to cut off his head like that, but Bai Laile is a soldier after all, and he doesn't feel anything wrong with this, he doesn't want to know what is going on in Hangzhou, he just wants to know about the rebel army, he said: "Then how many troops do they have, and how many people are urgently recruited by them during this time?" How many of their weapons were the Remington rifles we looked at that afternoon? ”

"Most of them are Remington rifles." Pu Lande said that in fact, his news came from the staff of the Hangzhou general Ruixing, who was hiding in the Gongchenqiao concession, and he had been dismissed by the emperor because of the loss of Hangzhou. "What is certain is that there will be no more than 5,000 military rifles in active service, and there will be a shortage of ammunition, the others are Remington rifles and Henry Mahony rifles, and there are some imitation Manlisa rifles made by the Qing Dynasty, but these guns are said to be very difficult to use...... I don't know how many troops they have, but judging by the size, they should not exceed 10,000 men. Probably more than half of them were recruited in the last half a month, and the training was not sufficient, even. I doubt that their officers will not train their soldiers - they don't do platoon training......"

"Platoon training is no longer important in combat, and now for the rebels, the most important thing is to teach the soldiers to shoot." Bai Laile corrected Pu Land, the era of queuing to shoot is over, and a group of soldiers who can only line up is just a group of flowers, "And their afternoon digging training is also very important, see." They have a uniform shovel, and this shovel is made very small and easy to carry. This will increase their survivability on the battlefield, this force did participate in the Russo-Japanese War, and perhaps the Qing government army will suffer. ”

The difference in Bai Laile's evaluation of the rebel army made Pu Lande happy, and it was not exactly him who provided information to Bai Laile. Blaile is an experienced military attaché. His views are much more accurate than the average person, and that's what The Times needs.

"So, does that mean that, given the time, they can defeat a repeating rifle with a single-shot rifle?" Pu Lande asked.

"I didn't say that, the rebels had almost no artillery, and from the training at the range this afternoon, it seems that the bullets they used did not fire very well." Although far away. But Bai Laile is still very keenly aware of some small points, "The government army may suffer in some cases." But they will win in the end. As Mistershei said, to destroy this rebel army, the government army must pay a great price. ”

When Pu Lande and Bai Laile were chatting about the war, they had been transferred to the military and political department of the Hangzhou General's Mansion in Mancheng, and a pre-war meeting was being held, and the staff officer Zhou Sixuhe, who had just arrived from the northeast, stood in front of the large map and introduced: "In the direction of Jiaxing, the intelligence in the morning said that the forward of the sixth town from Beiyang has landed in Zhapu, and the commander is a Manchurian, named Yinchang, once the sixth town arrives, then plus the original Hangjiahu patrol battalion, the enemy army in this direction will exceed 20,000; The new army in Jiangsu is also very fast, most of them have passed through Suzhou, and a small part has arrived in Huzhou, and the ninth town is the ninth town that we speculated before, and the commander is Xu Shaozhen; There is also the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Ding Zhenduo, who has not been trained this time, also transferred the tenth town, and the commander who led the team was Sun Daoren. ”

Zhou Sixu said as he spoke, and the documents next to him marked the locations of the three towns, "Except for the sixth town that has not arrived at Qi, the ninth town has arrived at Pingwang Town, and the forward has not gone south but turned west to Huzhou, with the intention of preventing us from rushing north into Xuanzhou; The same is true here in Shaoxing, Ding Zhenduo's main force has retreated from Shangyu to Yuyao, and it is estimated that he is also waiting for the sixth town. According to the news from Tianjin, Liang Xi, the governor of Beiyang Zhili and minister of Beiyang, had lent Japanese merchant ships on a large scale to transport troops, and that the sixth town of Beiyang had boarded a ship yesterday and left the port and arrived in Zhapu four days later at the latest. ”

After Zhou Sixu introduced the enemy situation, he looked around, they were all old men of the Fuxing Army, not in a hurry, waiting for him to say the following, he couldn't help laughing, and then said: "The General Staff means that it is better to take the initiative to attack if you sit still and wait for death." Now the first phase of training of the earliest batch of recruits is about to end, and at the same time, there are many people in the Hangjiahu area who support us, so when the sixth town of Beiyang is not stable, the large army let go of Hangzhou and went straight to Jiaxing, and then the recruit troops passed through Jiashan and went straight to Songjiang. Shanghai is the place of the concession, the important land of finance and taxation, once it is lost, it will involve the appearance of the Chinese outside, this is the place where the Manchu Qing Dynasty must be saved. At that time, the ninth town of Pingwang and Huzhou, and the sixth town of Zhapu will have to go to the rescue in the direction of Shanghai. ”

After talking about Jiaxing and Songjiang, Zhou Sixu said again about Shaoxing, "The large army left Hangzhou, and as soon as Ding Zhenduo in Yuyao received the news, it was very likely that he would take advantage of the emptiness of Hangzhou and march west from Yuyao." As for the 10th Town, the General Staff meant to let them go to the county seat of Shaoxing and wait for the 10th Town to cross the Qiantang River before they started, first, to disturb the rear road of the Shaoxing militia that had withdrawn from the county seat, second, to block the enemy on the west bank of the Qianjiang River by the troops left behind in Hangzhou, and third, to release the repaired mines of the Military Uniform Bureau along the river during the war, so that the Qing troops who landed on the shore had no backup......

"Does the Bureau of Uniforms have mines?" At the meeting of the chief officials, Zhang Chengyue generally did not speak, but as soon as he took Hangzhou, he went to the Military Uniform Bureau and did not see mines at all.

"There are no mines in the Uniform Bureau, but there are mines in the Machinery Factory." Zhou Sixu said: "The machine qì factory was run by Liu Bingzhang, the governor of Zhejiang in the 11th year of Guangxu, and it could not be run in the 18th year of Guangxu. But in the past seven years, a lot of things have been made, in addition to rifle bullets, there are also a lot of mines, although these mines are very rusty, but the military industry says that as long as the firing fuse is replaced, it can still be used. ”

Zhou Sixu quickly introduced the entire battle plan, and when everyone was thinking about it, Colonel Lin Wenqian, who had just arrived from the northeast, said: "I want to move the ninth and sixth towns to the east when I go straight to Songjiang, but what if the ninth town or the sixth town in Huzhou is not transferred eastward but directly south, or most of it is transferred eastward, and a small part goes south, what should Hangzhou do?" ”

"Now we don't know how many soldiers of the Ninth Town are in Huzhou, if the Qing army has more than one association of troops south, then Hangzhou will not be able to hold it, and can only evacuate. If it's a small force heading south, then it depends on whether there is cooperation between it and the tenth town, and if the two sides don't have the same time, then we can deal with the enemy on one side first, and then the other side. In other words, as long as the Qing army did not have more than one association of troops moving south, Hangzhou could still hold it. Zhou Sixu hated the plan of the General Staff and understood that the main point of this layout was that the enemy army was moving south.

"What troops are left behind in Hangzhou?" Zhong Mei asked.

"The veterans left one battalion of the second regiment, and the rest, including the new army and the patrol battalion that came from Chengcheng, went to Jiaxing. As for the recruits in the back, three thousand people remained. Together with the two regiments and one battalion, there were four thousand men. Zhou Sixu took out a piece of paper, looked at the number on it and said.

Because of the large number of recruits in Hangzhou, more than 2,000 recruits were recruited in the first phase, and a total of 4,000 Qing soldiers came over from Chengcheng, so that one veteran could lead two recruits. However, if they are recruited later, there will be no veterans to bring, so they can only use the officer corps transferred from the northeast as the support of the troops. Now a battalion of the Second Regiment is staying in Hangzhou, so there are only 300 veterans, and according to the 33 system, there are 600 recruits in the first phase, and there are only 1,000 here; Coupled with the 3,000 recruits who have not completed the training in the first phase of the next two phases, a tough battle cannot be fought, but as long as they are not facing a cooperation of the new army, these 4,000 people can still be of some use. (To be continued......)