Wang Ge said: "Although I say so, the current situation is different from that of Dong Zhuo's period. Back then, Dong Zhuo tried his best and even if he added troops to the field, he could only manage to raise an army of 500,000."
"Now the strength of the various princes in the Han Dynasty has doubled. It is far from what it was during Dong Zhuo's time. For example, Liu Bei could recruit nearly 150,000 troops if he added more troops to the field. Now he has occupied Yangze and is about to conquer Yizhou.
In Liu Bei's current territory, it is easy to raise an army of 300,000. Yuan Shao occupies the three states, which is the richest land in the Central Plains. Not only does he recruit 200,000 troops, but he also plans to recruit another 100,000 troops, even if he only occupies Qingzhou.
Cao Cao also raised an army of 100,000, and it is said that Cao Cao also wanted to use the fields to raise his troops, and planned to raise an army of 300,000!"
Xu Wei was surprised and said: "Cao Cao can support an army of 300,000 people? I'm afraid Qingzhou doesn't even have 300,000 young men!"
Qingzhou originally had four million people, and of course there may be five or six million people including hidden households. However, in recent years, wars and natural disasters have continued. Xu Wei estimates that Qingzhou's population may only be about two million now. With this population, 30 people have been recruited.
Ten thousand troops, Cao Cao wants to incorporate all the young men in Qingzhou into the army!
When the war breaks out, do you think civil servants should be drafted? It is impossible for Cao Cao to recruit women and children to be civil servants!
And how is he going to support these 300,000 troops? Should he give them monthly salary?
Okay! Even if you don't give them, where will Cao Cao get the food and grass to feed these 300,000 people?
It’s impossible not to even give them food!
300,000 people consume 600,000 shi of food a month, and about 7.2 million shi of food in a year. At the current food price of 500 qian per shi in the Central Plains, it would cost 3.6 billion to feed these soldiers, which is already equivalent to the national tax of the Han Dynasty.
, plus the consumption of weapons and armor, it would be impossible to survive without 5 billion money. Emperor Ling was not so rich back then, so where did Cao Cao get so much money?
Even Da Gan cannot afford to raise 300,000 professional soldiers. Now the 200,000 professional soldiers have accounted for one-third of Da Gan's finances. Xu Wei wants to shrink the army! Cao Cao actually wants to raise an army of 300,000. Today, he is three feet tall.
If it can't be scraped out, could it be that Cao Cao has found some Qiu Fa Zhonglang general? But there are no princes' tombs in Qingzhou for him to dig.
Wang Ge smiled bitterly and said: "What kind of military household system did Cao Cao use? He first obtained 30 million acres of land from the powerful gentry in Qingzhou, and then distributed the land to the people in 100-acre shares without collecting taxes from these people.
But those who get the land must send one soldier to each household, and bring their own dry food and weapons. 30 million acres equals 300,000 soldiers. Although they have not been fully recruited yet, due to the drought in the Central Plains this year, many people from Yanzhou have already fled.
We have gone to Qingzhou to join Cao Cao! Judging from the current situation, Cao Cao will really be able to raise an army of 300,000 in the near future!"
When Xu Wei heard this, he knew that this was a variant of the government army system. If this policy was really implemented, it would really help Cao Cao raise an army of 300,000 men without spending any money. Zhu Yuanzhang also used this method to raise an army of one million men.
The biggest difficulty with this system is not money, but land, but Cao Cao actually dug out 30 million acres of land from the hands of wealthy nobles, and it was still top-quality land!
Wang Ge said helplessly: "In power, next time we attack the Central Plains, we may have to face a million coalition troops from the Central Plains princes! So I plan to expand another 100,000 standing troops and place them in Jizhou and Bingzhou respectively to guard against the various princes in the Central Plains!"
Xu Wei firmly objected: "If you can't do it, you can't afford it!"
The salary of Daqian soldiers is the highest in the world. The monthly salary of ordinary soldiers is thousands of dollars. A standing army of 100,000 will cost 100 million dollars a month, which is 1.2 billion a year. This plus three meals a day will cost up to The standard for a small landowner is five to six hundred yuan a month, which is hundreds of millions. The investment in weapons and equipment is even greater. Each soldier's equipment is several times higher than the monthly salary and food expenses. There is no four billion yuan. It is unstoppable. If we add another 100,000 standing troops, Daqian's military expenditure will reach half of the fiscal revenue. With such a high military expenditure, Daqian will not engage in economic construction! Should Daqian carry out circulation development? So Xu Wei refused. Very firm.
Xu Weidao: "In the past two years, we have mainly focused on gathering food and grass. If you are really worried about the combat effectiveness of the army, you should find a way to train the soldiers so that each soldier has the ability to command and lead the team. In this way, we can wait for our army When expanding, an army of 100,000 can be immediately expanded to an army of 500,000, and the combat effectiveness of the army will not drop much.
We cannot compare with the princes of the Han Dynasty. They have a vast territory and few people, so they can raise their troops with fields. The only land we can really talk about is the three states, and only Jizhou and the land are considered fertile. If it were not for the struvite in Hebei The land has long been starved to death, and we in Hebei are far richer than the Central Plains, and the output of the fields is not as good as the work. This determines that we cannot take the path of raising troops with fields, and the strategy of elite soldiers is the path we should take."
Wang Ge could only return disappointed!
Not long after, Old Man Niu and Old Man Wang also found Xu Wei!
"In power, hundreds of thousands of tons of goods are now transported through Tianjin County every day, but Tianjin County's transportation capacity is insufficient. Now a large amount of goods are piled up at Tianjin Port. We need to expand the Sanggan River and strengthen the tracks in Tianjin County!"
Then Old Man Wang began to carefully introduce the situation in Tianjin County to Xu Wei. Because Tianjin County has the Sanggan River connecting the entire Bingzhou and Youzhou, the cargo throughput is particularly high. Now Tianjin has to transport 6 million stones of dried salted fish and 1 million stones every year. Salt, 20 million stones of struvite, 10 million logs, and other miscellaneous goods. The cargo throughput of Tianjin Port in a year exceeds 40 million stones. It can be said that all other ports in the world combined have less cargo throughput. There are more than one Tianjin port.
Such a large volume of cargo transportation has caused congestion at the Tianjin port, and the rail carriages are like a long dragon, continuously transporting goods to all directions. The wooden rails in other places are replaced every year, but on the journey from Tianjin to Jixian , basically replace it once a month, and changing the object track every time will waste a lot of time, so Mr. Niu has a plan to strengthen this section of track!
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Xu Wei smiled bitterly and came to ask for money again!
Xu Wei asked: "What is your plan and how much will it cost?"
Old Man Niu pointed at the map, "From Tianjin to Jixian, I plan to cover the track here with iron sheets. This will not only double the transport capacity of the wooden track, but also extend the maintenance time of the wooden track by more than three times. This section The distance is about three hundred miles, and it is all covered with iron sheets, which costs about 500 million yuan. If the effect is good, the old man plans to replace all the wooden rails in Daqian with such iron-clad wooden rails! This cost is higher, about 15 yuan per year. About 100 million, if we continuously replace the entire wooden rails for 10 years, all the wooden rails can be replaced with iron-clad wood rails! This can reduce more than half of our maintenance personnel and increase the transportation capacity by more than twice! In the long run, using The iron-clad wood track has huge benefits for our Daqian track network, and the longer it lasts, the more money it will save!”
Xu Wei said angrily: "Why don't you just use rails? It's impossible for the carriage to break the rails, so I guess you don't even need to replace the rails!"
Old Man Niu really thought about it: "If we replace the railway tracks, the price of the journey from Tianjin to Jixian alone will increase more than ten times. It cannot be completed without three billion yuan!"
But although the cost is high, there are many benefits. Once you arrive, you don’t have to cut down trees everywhere. After all, the price of wood has more than doubled due to the development of the shipbuilding industry. Secondly, it can reduce the number of maintenance personnel significantly. After all, iron is much stronger than wood. Now, if the rails are laid, as long as they are rust-proofed, the rails will not need maintenance for decades. If the government really has such an idea, we can test a section of rails and see the effect!"
Xu Wei was frightened when he saw the thinking old man Niu. He didn't know who he was! He also wanted to lay railroad tracks on the road. Did you know that the price of a pound of iron is now ten yuan, and the track from Jixian to Tianjin is still thirty yuan? Billions of dollars, I'm afraid even tens of billions won't be able to come up with it!
This is no longer building tracks, but building spectacles. If Xu Wei still had the idea of experimenting in peacetime, but now in the war years, how can so many resources be invested in building such wonders.