Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 333 Military Expansion Conference
On the third day of the new year, the army led by Han Peng finally returned.These hard-working children ran from Henan to Jinzhou within four months, fought a battle in Jinzhou and then ran back to Henan. Everyone is celebrating the New Year, and they are still running around on the road, eating and sleeping in the open, and they have suffered a lot.However, they gained a lot from going north this time. They smashed the Zhenghong flag head-on with a small number of people, and disrupted the positions of the two white flags by the Daling River with less than [-] elite soldiers, and almost killed Huang Taiji. These victories established a strong foundation for them. Confidence, a sharp breath broke through the heavy constraints, gushing out from the tired body, until now, they have really become an iron army.

A true iron army not only requires rigorous training, but also requires bloody battles, tough battles with mountains of corpses and seas of blood to temper them. There is no such thing as a coincidence.

The people of Nanyang welcomed the return of this iron army with great enthusiasm. Once they entered Nanyang territory, every time they went to a county, many people spontaneously organized to reward them with the best food they could come up with. High-level officials also tried their best to provide them with various conveniences, and they did not dare to neglect them at all.Many frontier soldiers who joined Wuyang Guard this year were quite surprised. They didn't know that an army could be so popular near their station until now!When they returned to Wuyang, almost all the people in Wuyang came to welcome them. Flowers, fine wine, cheers, and familiar smiling faces made these tired soldiers cry out of excitement.Yang Menglong was even more generous, and directly rained silver coins on his soldiers. The ordinary soldiers were counted as one, and they all received a red envelope, not much, which was equivalent to their three-month military salary. The bonuses they received were equivalent to two months of their military pay. Mr. Bai, Mr. Ba, and Mr. Qian not only received a bonus equivalent to one month's military pay, but also obtained fertile land ranging from 800 to 30 mu.Of course, the Wuyang Guard lost a lot in this battle. As many as 50 people were killed, seriously injured and sick. Yang Menglong also kept his word. The family members of each soldier received a full pension. Officers at the rank of commander and even commander are given 100 taels, while Lancers and heavy infantry get more. [-] taels of cash and [-] acres of fertile land are an amazing wealth in any era. Yang Menglong is generous, Let everyone be amazed.

It also made Nanyang officials beat drums in their hearts.My god, the lives of these soldiers are too valuable!Thinking that the Nanyang government treasury will have to pay half of the army's military expenses in the future, they were very upset...

The main force of Wuyang Guard has returned, and military expansion is on the agenda.The weakness of the Wuyang Guards' lack of strength was fully exposed this time to help the west of Liaoning. If Houjin didn't understand their strength and underestimated the enemy, Wuyang Guards might suffer a big loss.Just in time, the imperial court ordered the Wuyang Guard to open the town, and Wuyang's elite soldiers were expanded into the Heluo New Army with a strength of [-] soldiers. Yang Menglong had nothing to be polite about. To expand the army, the army must be expanded, and it is not human beings not to expand the army!
However, with the training cost of Wuyang's elite soldiers and the resources of Nanyang's prefecture, it is not so difficult to support [-] such elite soldiers. As for Luoyang, they haven't got it yet!At the meeting in the barracks restaurant, Yang Menglong expressed his plan:
"I plan to double the size of the army first, to about 6000 people." Yang Menglong said, "With our current financial resources, we can only support so many soldiers."

Qi Hu agreed: "Yes, according to the current standard, including military pay, clothing, food, and weapon consumption, it costs at least 20 taels of silver to raise a soldier a year. This is not counting the training cost of cavalry. 6000 people , is the limit."

Han Peng asked: "Then how does your lord plan to expand?"

Yang Menglong said: "I plan to expand the number of Lancers to 1000. We managed to get more than 2000 war horses. We can't wait for them to give birth. We have to use them. Our cavalry is still too small!"

When they heard that the Lancers would be expanded to 1000, Zhong Ning and Cao Jun beamed with joy, while Han Peng, Xue Siming, Wang Tiechui and others frowned.The Lancers have always been led by Zhong Ning and Cao Jun. Now that there are so many expansions, can they be unhappy?But Han Peng and the others were not happy, because the Lancers belonged to the nobles among the cavalry, and the training and equipment costs were astonishingly high. A Lancer had to accept horse control, crossbow shooting, spear assassination, saber slashing and so on. There are more than 50 types of training, the training period is long, and the consumption is high. It is a large military expenditure. The cost of raising 1000 Lancers is comparable to raising [-] ordinary infantry. Now Yang Menglong has expanded the Lancers to [-] in one go. How much military spending?However, considering the terrifying impact and powerful combat power displayed by the Lancers in the Battle of Daling River, they didn't say much. After all, if you want to defeat Jiannu and the Mongols, you have to rely on cavalry, right?

Qi Hu said: "It is good to expand the Lancers, but I am afraid that it will be difficult to recruit them!"

Yang Menglong said: "This is easy to handle. When spring comes, Zhong Ning, you will take people to Yulin again and recruit a group of elite cavalry from the Mongols and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border army. You are the one to lead the cavalry. How many cavalry can you recruit? It all depends on your ability as a soldier!"

Zhong Ning was gearing up: "My lord, don't wait until the beginning of spring, I'll be leaving in two days!"

Cao Jun said: "I'll go with you. Even if I'm a fool, I'll have to cover up people. We'll gather 1000 people!"

Yang Menglong's eyes bulged: "I can't make up the number! What I want are elite soldiers!"

These two slapped their chests fiercely: "Don't worry, I guarantee that everyone is an elite soldier!"

Yang Menglong said: "The number of cavalry scouts should also be increased, just 300 people! Well, I will go to Luoyang Wei later to see if I can find some talents from those thousands of households and join the scout team. Reload The infantry also needs to expand..."

Wang Tiechui asked eagerly: "How many people will be expanded?"

Yang Menglong said: "Let's expand to three hundred. If the source of soldiers is good enough, four hundred will not be a problem."

Han Peng and Xue Siming's eyelids twitched.The training cost of heavy infantry is not lower than that of cavalry, especially the armor, which is frighteningly expensive. It costs 300 taels of silver for one pair, and more than 400 pairs of heavy armor for 400 people. Prepare a pair of armor for backup, that is nearly a thousand pairs, which is a full 30 taels of silver!Fortunately, after Yang Menglong fully realized the cost of the Modao, he completely gave up the idea of ​​​​forming the Modao team and switched to a giant axe. Otherwise, the equipment of the heavy infantry would be more valuable, and the military expenditure would be dug out. piece!However, Wang Tiechui slapped his chest loudly, and said happily: "My lord, don't worry, we don't have many other things in our hometown in Shandong, but there are a lot of big men with strong backs and waists. It's a trivial matter to recruit three or four hundred people!"

Yang Menglong chuckled: "Don't talk so full, it's not too late to talk big after recruiting enough!" Wracking his fingers to calculate, he said in a deep voice: "Lancers will recruit 800 more people, and cavalry scouts will recruit 150 more people. The recruitment of infantry will be expanded by 300 to 200 people, and the above-mentioned arms will be expanded by 800 to 200 people. In the Battle of Daling River, we had a total of 1000 people killed in battle, and more than 3000 people were permanently disabled. Some have also lost combat effectiveness, which means that we have permanently lost more than [-] soldiers, and the infantry must expand to [-] people."

Han Peng said: "Three thousand is not enough! In my opinion, at least four thousand!"

Yang Menglong said: "Don't be too greedy. Now I'm short of money and can't afford so many soldiers."

Xue Siming said: "In fact, it is not a problem to reduce the salary and expand the enrollment by [-]..."

Yang Menglong stared, and shouted: "Cut pay? Then what kind of fighting power will the soldiers recruited from such expansion have?"

Xue Siming said: "It's just a little reduction..."

Yang Menglong said: "Not at all! I don't suffer from poverty but from inequality. I don't want to be wiped out by a group of psychologically unbalanced soldiers on the battlefield!"

Now Xue Siming has nothing to say.Yang Menglong made up his mind to take the route of elite soldiers, and he was not interested in those cannon fodder soldiers who could go to the battlefield with a bad knife and a tattered jacket, so if he wanted to become a general with tens of thousands of soldiers, there were still many ways to go. Long way to go!
Well, a few thousand people is a few thousand people. Anyway, these few thousand people are not afraid of any of the Houjin Eight Banners. They are much more majestic than tens of thousands of people...

The plan to expand the army was formulated in this way: the Wuyang Guard expanded to more than 6000 people, and the main body consisted of 800 Lancers, [-] scouts, [-] to [-] heavy infantry, and [-] ordinary infantry.Among the [-] infantry, it is estimated that the proportion of long-range soldiers will account for more than one-third, [-] archers, [-] musketeers, and the rest are pikemen and horizontal swordsmen.As for the artillery... Wuyangwei's artillery is too cheap, just take a few soldiers to teach them for half an hour, and they can fire at the enemy with [-]mm caliber "heavy artillery", so there is no specific explanation for this thing Compilation, as the case may be.Under normal circumstances, each thousand corps will carry more than four "heavy artillery". In special circumstances, such as when attacking a critical situation, the scale of the "artillery" will be doubled several times immediately, and there will be as many empty iron drums as there are " "Heavy artillery" is guaranteed to blow up the other party to the point of crying.As for the copper cannon, after seeing its bulkiness and pitifully small caliber, Yang Menglong has no interest in playing it at all. Whoever likes to play can go for it. Anyway, he doesn’t play those money-burning things, he can only shoot solid shot puts The front-loading smoothbore gun is dead, if you want to play, I will play the breech-loading rifle that can fire grenades!
However, it is not easy to make a rear-loading rifled gun. It is a big problem just to carve the rifling inside the gun barrel. In addition, there are also shell processing, fuze, propellant, thunder mercury, etc. These are all necessary, the most unfortunate What's worse is that he basically doesn't know anything about these, so his powerful artillery unit can only be wronged to equip those inconspicuous trash cans...

Han Peng asked: "So, my lord, how do we reorganize the Luoyang Guard?"

Yang Menglong said: "That's not easy. The old method is to let military households open up land and open up wasteland. We will distribute fertilizers, farm tools, seeds, cattle, etc., and we will also distribute the harvest. As for taxes, see if the court can waive them. , it will be paid by the commander of the guard."

Han Peng said: "This is of course good, but I'm afraid that the Luoyang Wei people will not cooperate!"

Yang Menglong shrugged and said: "Of course it's best for them to cooperate. If they don't cooperate, I won't force it. It's fine to do a good job in Nanyang's three-acre land. Do I have to beg them?"

From the beginning to the end, this guy lacked interest in the Luoyang that the emperor personally allocated to him, which made people speechless.

"Han Peng, you stay in Wuyang and take care of our property. If there is a little less, I will never end with you." Yang Menglong made a decision, "Xiao Ming, you go to Luoyang and see if you can make a name for yourself in Luoyang."

Xue Siming looked rather depressed.The construction of Wuyangwei has entered the fast lane, and all the facilities are ready-made. Who would like to go to a blank Luoyang and start from scratch!However, a soldier regards obedience as his bounden duty, and he bowed his hands and said, "Obey! My lord, how many people should I bring over there?"

Yang Menglong said: "Don't bring too many, five hundred people are enough!"

Xue Siming said: "Understood!"

(End of this chapter)