Master Yuan, start!

After seeing Wang Xiaoqi walk away, he muttered to himself.

"What if they have a telegram? Wouldn't that mean all our efforts will be wasted?"

Although they said so, the guards also understood that it was impossible to set up a telegraph in such a mountain valley.

After taking a look at the kite in the distance, the guard no longer lingered and turned to walk forward.

In the dense jungle, birds are singing everywhere, and occasionally there are the roars of wild beasts.

The mountains and forests here are a peaceful scene.

However, just a quarter of an hour after Wang Xiaoqi's army crossed this place, a slight rustling sound suddenly came from the grass, and several soldiers with vigilant eyes slowly stood up.

If there were someone here, they would definitely exclaim in surprise that there were actually several people hiding in the shade of the trees that seemed to be full of weeds!

They were wearing straw raincoats woven from weeds and their faces were painted with yellow-green oil paint.

"Damn it! We were almost discovered!" The leader spoke in his signature Zhejiang Fenghua accent.

"Next time we go out scouting, no kites allowed in the camp!"

After cursing inwardly, the man took out a telescope from his arms, looked at the figure of the rear team of the Lingnan New Army gradually moving away, and exhaled a breath of relief.

Then he quickly took out a handful of dry soybeans from his pocket, which were the standard military rations of the National Revolutionary Army.

After chewing them with his teeth, he drank some water from the green water bottle he carried with him while walking, and put the dried soybeans into his stomach.

After simply replenishing his energy, he led a few camouflaged soldiers behind him, clambering through bushes and grass, and walked towards the muddy road where the Lingnan New Army had trodden.

This was the reconnaissance and communications squad of the National Revolutionary Army, and it was also an advance preparation made after the founding of the Republic in order to march south to conquer Huai River.

At the end of the 19th century, not only the Chinese army, but even the armies of the world had no awareness of establishing independent reconnaissance forces.

Often, cavalrymen or clever men in the army are dispatched to temporarily complete the task of scouts.

In view of the fact that he would have to face many battles with unclear enemy situations in the future, Yuan Shikai established reconnaissance regiments directly under the major military regions.

The reconnaissance regiments of the Northeast, Central Plains and other military regions are mainly composed of cavalry and focus on traditional frontal battlefield intelligence gathering.

The reconnaissance regiment of the Jiangnan Military Region was mainly composed of infantry, and was the first to use camouflage tactics in later military wars, focusing on gathering intelligence on the flank battlefield.

The communication board was divided into teams of 10 people, each equipped with a revolver, a Hanyang-made rifle produced by the Incheon Machinery Bureau, and a telescope.

Of course, the most important thing is a hand-cranked generator, a kite, and a wireless telegraph!

In areas where the National Revolutionary Army found it difficult to deploy on a large scale, especially in northern Jiangxi, which was likely to become the front line after the war, Feng Guozhang dispatched more than a dozen reconnaissance and communications squads to monitor the movements of the Huai Army.

It seemed that the National Revolutionary Army in the north gathered heavy troops to besiege Nanchang, and deliberately skipped the Poyang Lake area.

In fact, this was the road to death that Feng Guozhang left for the Huai Army!

Radio was not an extremely difficult technology at that time. After Niu Shangzhou invented radio in the University of Port Arthur, he first used it in the Sino-Japanese-Russian Whale Sea War.

Although the initial use distance was only a few dozen kilometers and there were no outstanding results, it was only used as a means of communication when the warship's flag signals were difficult to see visually.

But after that, Niu Shangzhou has been improving the wireless recruitment group: MLuLiu umbrella = private electricity.

After the naval battle, Yuan Shikai kept urging him, "Mr. Niu, when can radio be used for communications hundreds of miles away? The whole army is looking forward to it!"

In the end, Niu Shangzhou came up with such a weird plan.

That is, using a kite as a radio antenna and then powering it with a hand-cranked generator can support radio communications up to about 200 kilometers.

When Marconi set a record for radio communication over 2000 kilometers across the Atlantic, a kite antenna was also involved.

The only difference is that the radio receiving end is a kite, and the transmitting end is changed to a 52-meter-high radio tower.

Yuan Xiangcheng's requirements were not high. He did not need transoceanic communication, provincial communication was sufficient, so using two kites was no problem at all.

The hand-cranked generator was invented as early as 60, 1832 years ago. The reason why it was not well-known in later generations was because of its limited size and limited power generation capacity.

The amount of electricity generated per unit time was not even as much as a thumb-sized battery, so it was quickly eliminated after entering the 20th century.

For the Huai Army, which was completely in the dark, radio was undoubtedly a dimensionality reduction attack!

"Sergeant, look!" A young man with a Shandong accent looked at the footprints on the muddy road and immediately noticed the difference.

"what happened?"

The squad leader with a Zhejiang accent looked in the direction of the dirt road, and saw the wheel tracks and horse hoof prints on it, and became alert.

If the Huai Army in Nanchang City wanted to escape, they should go south. Even if they wanted to bypass the encirclement, they would not go north.

Moreover, even if we want to run from the north, the team will have at most a few hundred people.

The army just now was clearly a force of over 10,000 people. With nearly 10,000 of them fleeing for their lives, weren't they afraid of being chased and killed, and becoming disorganized halfway?

Unless they were not fleeing, but marching.

They wanted to go north and then go south to encircle and besiege the National Revolutionary Army in Nanchang!

Thinking of this, the Zhejiang squad leader and the Shandong soldier looked at each other, and both read the meaning in each other's eyes.

"Damn it! Hurry!" The Zhejiang squad leader ran up the mountain without looking back.

"Quick, raise the kite and send a telegram to Jiujiang City!"

The kites in the sky were flying in the wind, and the soldiers on the ground were desperately shaking the handles on the generators.

Even though the electromagnetic signal was interrupted from time to time due to weather reasons, with their unremitting efforts, 30 minutes later, the news that Lingnan New Army troops were heading north was delivered to Feng Guozhang in Jiujiang City.

...

At the same time, Yuan Xiangcheng also left Jiangning City and arrived in Wuchang again.

Looking at Zhang Zhidong, who came out of the city to greet him but had a sad face, Yuan Xiangcheng smiled and said:

"Xiang Weng, this chaotic world should end!"

Chapter 392: Hubei Changes Flag

The heat of July is scorching, summer is gone and autumn is coming.

After South China entered the war, the weather began to turn cooler.

However, the rumbling artillery fire in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River did not seem to affect the three towns of Wuhan. On the contrary, because the east, west, south and north were all in a state of war, the number of ships traveling to and from Wuchang increased significantly.

War is wealth, chaos is the ladder.

Children from lower-class farming families can climb to higher positions by fighting on the battlefield, or they can build a family business for themselves by relying on the prosperity brought about by the war.

The vendors with different accents make the streets and alleys seem much more lively, but in this turbulent situation, undercurrents have already been surging.

Just as Yuan Shikai and his entourage followed Zhang Zhidong and, under his leadership, entered the Yellow Crane Tower again, the Hankou branch of Tongqu Bank not far away also welcomed its most important day.

Tongqu Bank was a financial institution established by Zhang Zhidong to prepare for the construction of railways. It was named after the fact that Hubei is the thoroughfare connecting nine provinces.

After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 in the original time and space, the whole country knew that it was time for change.

The reforms were particularly fundamental in schools, mining, railways, and banks.

Zhang Zhidong wanted to strengthen the country by relying on railways, while Sheng Xuanhuai believed that banks were the key to commerce and needed to be established urgently.

As a result, a series of conflicts and contradictions broke out between the two over whether to build a railway or a bank first.

At that time, Zhang Zhidong had just founded the Hubei Silver Dollar Bureau. The silver dollars he minted were circulated in Huguang, Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas. He made a lot of money from the price difference and planned to use the profits to build railways.

But if Sheng Xuanhuai opened a bank, he would also have to mint silver dollars, which would undoubtedly pose a threat to the Hubei Silver Dollar Bureau.

Therefore, in the early days, Zhang Zhidong would rather borrow money to build railways first and was unwilling to recommend Sheng Xuanhuai to establish a bank.

Sheng Xuanhuai was naturally unhappy about this, so he turned around and mobilized public opinion to attract the attention of Emperor Guangxu, who wanted to reform after the disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Finally, with the support of a number of Manchu princes and nobles in the central government of the Qing court, he founded the Bank of China in Shanghai.

Unlike in history, Zhang Zhidong in this time and space independently controlled Hubei and Xinyang in southern Henan, without any constraints from the Qing court.

After he came to power, he deeply realized the importance of his own funds, so he did not build a silver dollar bureau with a single function. Instead, he chose to set up a bank first, and then issue silver dollars based on the bank, and use financial means to build railways.

Therefore, in 1892, Tongqu Bank was established in Wuchang based on several old-fashioned banknote exchanges in Hubei and after introducing some foreign assistants.

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During the past five years, Hubei's advantageous geographical location has attracted merchants from all over the country to deposit and lend money here.

Following these merchants, Tongqu Bank also opened branches in areas outside the Great Wall, Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Lingnan, etc., becoming the third largest Chinese bank in China after Northeast Border Industry Bank and Lingnan Bank.

Of course, these three banks combined are just a drop in the bucket compared to HSBC in the UK or Credit Agricole in France.

But at least, the Chinese have taken the first step towards modern finance, and this was done simultaneously in the north, south and inland areas.

...

Early this morning, a lot of people crowded in front of the entrance of Hubei Tongqu Bank. The staff behind the iron gate had already been sitting behind the high counter, waiting to open the door to welcome customers when the time came.

The shopkeeper who had just returned from the countryside was a little confused. It was just a war, and it was not uncommon for him to encounter this kind of situation before. Why did so many people suddenly come today?

Not to mention the distant past, just take the campaign of Yuan’s army to conquer Hunan two years ago, which shook the world. However, Tongqu Bank was not only not affected, but also developed rapidly for a period of time.

The reason was that the wealthy families in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas were afraid that they would be liquidated after Yuan's army moved south, so they desperately deposited money in branches of Tongqu Bank in Shanghai, Jiangning, Hangzhou and other places.

These people sold their household treasures and ran to the counter with their money bags. Their speed was simply jaw-dropping.

Although Yuan's army did not burn, kill, loot, or liquidate wealthy households on a large scale after entering Jiangnan, many people took out their money again.

But nearly half of the money that had been deposited in Tongqu Bank was left.

This time, it is just a war, and the one being fought is not Hubei. It would be fine if you didn’t deposit money, but why are you so anxious to withdraw money?

"Boss Huang, why are you visiting our shop in person today?" The shopkeeper saw that he was an acquaintance among the crowd and quickly stepped forward to ask:

"Is the fur business expanding again and they need capital turnover?"

The shopkeeper looked at Mr. Huang, the fur merchant in front of him, with an indescribable warmth in his eyes.

In previous years, the fur business was most prosperous after autumn. Hubei is not Lingnan, so it is still cold in winter.

So the shopkeeper thought that fur merchants would need to borrow funds and go to the north to purchase furs in large quantities, just like in previous years.

So, the shopkeeper ignored the many people queuing up and immediately ordered his men to open a passage for VIPs, intending to receive Mr. Huang in person.

Who would have thought that when the fur merchant Mr. Huang saw the shopkeeper coming towards him, he was not only not happy, but also asked with a sad face:

"Manager Li, does our Hankou branch of Tongqu Bank still have money?"

Hearing this, the shopkeeper who came over was stunned at first, and then he reacted and patted his chest and said:

"Boss Huang, what are you talking about? This is Hankou. The headquarters of Tongqu Bank is just across the river in Wuchang. How can they be short of money?"

"That's good." Boss Huang didn't bother to exchange pleasantries and replied decisively, "Shopkeeper Li, I want to exchange all 8321 silver dollars!"