The Beiyang Army and the Hubei New Army prepared and practiced at the same time. Why did the former become Yuan’s private army while the latter launched the Wuchang First Uprising?

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court began to formulate and train the new army following the Western military system. Among them, the Hubei New Army compiled by Zhang Zhidong and the Beiyang New Army compiled by Yuan Shikai are the most powerful. However, the fate of the two armies was completely different. The Hubei New Army rebelled and started the gunshots of the Wuchang First Uprising of the Revolution of 1911; the Beiyang New Army became Yuan Shikai's personal tool for intimidating the house and coercing the revolution.

Zhang and Yuan have different training goals

Yuan Shikai was born in a family of large bureaucratic landlords who have been "honored for many years". Pursuing high-ranking officials to show their lords did not hesitate to betray the current emperor and the reformists, and dye his top son with the blood of Tan Si and his peers. At the beginning of his military training, Yuan Shikai used the Beiyang Army as a bargaining chip to grab political power. Even when he was transferred to the governor of Shandong, he used the excuse that "the army of Shandong province is not his own tribe, and the feelings are not easy and harmonious." He asked to lead some troops there.

In comparison, although Zhang Zhidong was born in an official family, he took the traditional imperial examination road. He was admitted to the scholarship at the age of 14, and the title of the 27-year-old Tanhua. He started his career as an editor and editor of the Hanlin Academy. During the Sino-French War, he acted as the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and experienced the bitterness of relying on foreigners for arms and equipment, and began to actively promote the Westernization Movement. It can be seen that Zhang Zhidong's large-scale launch of a new policy focusing on military training under the governor-general of Huguang is more due to the territorial maintenance duties of the ministers and the increasing concerns about foreign invasion.

Zhang and Yuan chose different generals

During the military training, Yuan Shikai’s approach to Zhang Zhidong seemed to be the same, except for the initial absorption of a few old In addition to the generals, the generals of the two armed forces are mostly selected from the armed forces academy students and military students returning to China. The soldiers are strictly selected according to the "recruitment format". However, Yuan Shikai's election will only be limited to the graduates of the Beiyang Academy under his control. Even if he is a foreign student, he only absorbs his own dispatch. After returning to China, it is difficult for non-Beiyang non-commissioned students to join the Beiyang Army. As a result, the generals of the Beiyang Department came from their own sect, and gradually formed a tightly closed military group in organization.

After the death of Empress Dowager Cixi and before the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, Yuan Shikai was removed from his post and returned to his hometown. The Qing court arranged for Wu Luzhen and other overseas students to enter the Beiyang Army to hold important positions such as control. The "small station old man" was greatly restricted by the "small station old man". He can't direct the wishful thinking." It can be seen that the Beiyang New Army has strict internal control and its rejection of foreign personnel. Zhang Zhidong’s Hubei New Army generals are meritocracy and have a wide range of sources. The generals are easy to come into contact with fresh ideas from outside, and their concepts are relatively open-minded.

The quality of the two armies is different

Yuan Shikai’s method of recruiting the Beiyang army is to recruit new soldiers while adapting the old army. Among the six Beiyang towns, the second, third, and sixth towns are dominated by recruits, and the first, fourth, and fifth towns are dominated by the reorganization of the old army. Among them, the first town was originally the Jingqi standing army, and the full camp was full of Eight Banners Manchus; The soldiers in the other two towns were also selected from the original Huai army. Therefore, the so-called Beiyang New Army Six Towns are actually half-new and half-old, and they are inextricably linked to the Qing court.

Zhang Zhidong also tried to reorganize the old army at the beginning, but Hubei is not a heavily defended Gyeonggi area after all. The old army is small in number and poor in quality. After "no improvement in training", that is, "the whole line is abolished." Since then, he has basically given up on reorganizing the old army, wholeheartedly recruiting new recruits, and increasing the number of recruits year by year. Most of the recruits recruited in this way are simple and strong young people, without the strong bad habits of the old army.

The daily ideological education of the two armies is different

The training content of Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong is generally loyal, filial and righteous, fame and fortune. But the focus of the two is quite different. What Yuan Shikai focused on instilling was personal loyalty and loyalty to him. He stipulated that the second article of the officers' "duties of duty" was "respect for the officials": "If you live in peace, it is better to respect your father and brother like your children; Linshiwei It should be like defending the first day of siblings.”

Zhang Zhidong Xunbing emphasizedLoyalty to the country and the court. He personally compiled and asked the soldiers to read and sing well in the "Military Songs", bluntly saying, "We have a lot of ridicule by foreigners who are weak in literature. How can we escape if we don't strengthen ourselves?" and "We must have elite soldiers to protect the country." At the same time, the song also used a lot of space to extol the "deep benevolence and kindness" of the Qing Dynasty, and asked the soldiers to "determine to repay the king's grace."

Comparing the two, the Beiyang Army has a tight internal organization and the same generals, half of the soldiers come from the old army, and democratic revolution ideas are difficult to spread; the Hubei New Army is more enlightened. Soldiers are young and easy to accept new ideas. Coupled with Zhang Zhidong's patriotic education, it is no wonder that the "king master" will be trained as a gravedigger in the Qing Dynasty.