▲ Fengzhi and various warlords situation map
In the First Zhifeng War in April 1922, the 200,000 Feng army commanded by Zhang Zuolin was completely defeated in only 6 days under the attack of the 120,000 Zhi army commanded by Wu Peifu. Zhang Zuolin fled back to Shanhaiguan from the Headquarters of the Tianjin Army,000 troops, and on the way he was shelled by his immediate navy and was almost cut off from his way back. After this fiasco, Zhang Zuolin realized that in order to survive and win in the warlord melee, he could no longer rely on the old squads from the green forest in the past, and the regularization of the troops must be realized. To this end, he launched a large-scale "whole army economic warfare" within the Feng army.
▲The students of the Martial Arts Hall in training
Unlike the direct army, which was reorganized from the new army at the end of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zuolin's troops were reorganized from the old army patrol battalion, and in the process of development, a large number of bandits and militia groups were incorporated, so his officer cadre lacked military training, poor military quality, and a long life and serious corruption. The first step for Zhang Zuolin to reorganize the Fengjun was to replace these subordinates from the green forest and patrol battalions with cadets from the military academy who were born in the class.
▲ Zhang Xueliang is also a graduate of the Wu Tang
To this end, on the one hand, he heavily recruited graduates of the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School and the Baoding Officer School to develop in the northeast, and reused outstanding talents such as Yang Yuting, Han Linchun, and Jiang Dengxuan; on the other hand, he vigorously reformed the Northeast Lecture Hall, which was reopened in 1919 when he was appointed as the inspector of the three eastern provinces, specially hired Xiao Qixuan, who graduated from the Japanese Army University, as the chief of education, and actively studied the Japanese army officer education model.
▲ Japanese consultant hired by Zhang Zuolin
It adopts a Japanese-style sub-discipline education and pays attention to daily training. The military instructors of the Tohoku Kobudo Hall all follow the model of the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School for the division of labor, and are divided into a professorial department and a training department, which are respectively responsible for the teaching of disciplines and technical training, and under the training department, there are infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and training instructors of the five disciplines. The daily training of the trainees is also carried out in full accordance with the model of the Japanese military academy, very class, there is no recreational activity, "every morning at 5 o'clock to get up, after the roll call to run, 7 o'clock after breakfast out of the exercise, go to the lecture hall; Afternoon class, out of the coach; Dinner at 6 o'clock, self-study at 7 o'clock; Roll call goes to bed at 9 o'clock.
▲Northeast Army Lecture Hall
Instructors and teaching materials are taken from the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School. The curriculum of tohoku Kobudo "adopts the teaching materials of the Japanese Non-Commissioned Officer School, and the training method is as strict as that of the Japanese non-commissioned officer." Although the instructors of the military academy also have graduates of the National Defense University such as Guo Songling, the "non-commissioned officer faction" who graduated from the Baoding Military Academy and then studied in Japan is the backbone of the instructors, and the content of the courses they teach is almost entirely based on Learning from Japan. The daily management of students is also completely Japan's "tame-like" education, if you make a mistake, or punish the upright, or raise your hands upwards, bend your legs and half bent, if you change your posture, you will increase the punishment, sometimes you have to kneel, beat the hand board, no tolerance, in the military school education of the advanced countries at that time, only the Japanese army used such a strict fascist education.
▲Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School
Hire Japanese instructors directly to teach courses or help with training. As early as the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, there were already Japanese military advisers in the northeast region, and after the First Zhifeng War, Zhang Zuolin began to directly hire Japanese officers and soldiers to serve as military advisers in the Fengjun. On July 24, 1922, Major General Yoshiya Fukuhara, then chief of staff of the Japanese Kwantung Army, informed the mainland about the hiring of Japanese military advisers by the Tohoku Army Lecture Hall at that time: 3 engineer (middle) lieutenants, including 1 railway adviser, 1 communications adviser, and 1 adviser on blasting and bridge building in the castle and camp; In terms of salary: the standard for active lieutenants is 400 yuan, the standard for reserve lieutenants is 350 yuan, active lieutenants are 350 yuan, reserve lieutenants are 300 yuan, and Guo Songling, who was regarded by Zhang Xueliang as a good teacher and friend, and Guo Songling, who graduated from the National Defense University, has a monthly salary of only 120 yuan, which shows the importance that the Northeast Gongwutang attaches to Japanese military advisers.
▲ Guo Songling, the best instructor of the Wu Tang