Yang Sichang is undoubtedly a very capable man, and his debut was quite amazing. In his response to Emperor Chongzhen, Yang Sichang's conversation included strategies, plans, military pay, and commanders. We can also compare, relative to
When Yuan Chonghuan was summoned on the platform, the performance of the two people was really different!
The only question now is: whether Yang Sichang's strategies can solve the actual problem. What he fears most is to be like Zhao Kuo, who is just talking on paper. But no matter what, Emperor Chongzhen still felt like he had found a treasure, so he immediately let Yang Sichang go.
Let's go have a big fight.
Let’s not mention Yang Sichang who is busy preparing his own “ten-sided net”. Let’s first mention Wu Shigong in Runing!
During this period, Wu Shigong first reorganized the Runing Army.
The first is to form another cavalry corps and merge the two cavalry corps to form a cavalry town, named Pegasus Town. Li Sanhe became the commander of Pegasus Town, and the commanders of the two cavalry corps became
Liang Hui and Chu Ge will serve. However, in Wu Shigong's plan, Pegasus Town will form three cavalry regiments in the future, with a total of 10,000 cavalry mobile groups.
The Guide Army was moved westward to the headquarters and was renamed the Runing Army. The Baggage Army was reorganized into the main battle army and renamed the Rubei Army. The commander of the Rubei Army was Yu Ji, and Yuan Shizhong was the deputy commander.
The Runing Army formed another directly-affiliated heavy artillery regiment, which together with the directly-affiliated artillery regiment formed an artillery corps. The commander of the corps was still Xiong Zhengen.
In addition, the directly affiliated engineering corps was made independent. The regiment leader was Yao Liang, and the deputy regiment leader was Fu Sheng.
The above troops, plus the teaching corps and rotation training corps, formed the new Huhou Town. Huhou Town has 17,000 soldiers, and its leader is He Fei.
Qian Qi's Runing Army Corps will be renamed Runan Army Corps this time, and its future garrison will be in Runan. An independent regiment and an independent cavalry battalion were newly formed in Guide. A new Guide Army Corps was formed, and its commander
Shu Mo will serve as the commander. In order to strengthen the strength of the Guide Army, Wu Shigong also transferred two militia groups to Guide, under the command of Shu Mo.
As for the Nanyang Army Corps and Tuanlian Town, there have been few changes this time, and they are still under the command of Zhou Xun. However, Tuanlian Town has now grown to more than 13,000 people, including more than a thousand cavalry, and its strength is getting bigger and bigger.
A new Marine Corps will be formed in Xinyang. The two Marine Corps regiments will be merged into the Marine Corps. The Corps Commander is temporarily vacant, and Gonzalez will be the deputy Corps Commander and head of the new Marine Corps.
What is particularly pointed out is that, in addition to the cavalry, the Rubei Army and the Guide Army this time are composed of 30% officers and soldiers and 70% conscripts. The conscripts only receive living expenses equivalent to 10% of military pay. Their service
The term of service is not the eight years for soldiers, but only three years. However, after retirement, each person can be assigned ten acres of land or serve in Runing military institutions such as the Department of Internal Affairs and workshops.
Wu Shigong formed such an army to prepare for future violence. If the effect is satisfactory, Wu Shigong will gradually reorganize the five militia groups and Tuanlian Town into such an army.
Because the combat bureau of the Military Command was already empty, Wu Shigong transferred three more outstanding regimental commanders. The personnel changes below will not be detailed. Anyway, quite a number of officers with good performance have been promoted.
Yang Goudan's workshop department worked overtime again, but this time there were some dual-use items for both military and civilian use, which could be produced by private workshops such as Bian's Iron Works, so there was not much of a problem in equipping them on time.
The only troublesome thing is the war horses. The Runing Army's own horse farm has reached a large scale and can provide more than 800 horses every year. But Henan is not a pasture after all, so the maximum number of these horses that can be used as war horses is a hundred.
Therefore, Wu Shigong will purchase 4,000 war horses for the new Runing Army this time. But now because of the constant war in the world and the rampant Manchu and Qing Dynasty outside the pass, the price of war horses is very high, and a very ordinary one will cost more than fifty taels.
Although a huge amount of property was seized during the two great victories, the finances of the Runing Army were suddenly tight again. Moreover, this was not the only large investment made by the Runing Army, because Li Lu became the commander-in-chief of Nanyang, and Zhou Xun followed Wu Shigong's instructions.
With the order, we began to clear out the remaining bandits from Ye County to Nanyang, and began to restore part of the original Nanyang iron ore production.
Restoring the mining area and building new iron materials and iron workshops all require a large amount of money. Fortunately, due to Ye Zhong's concealment, the court did not know that peace had been restored in this area. Otherwise, Nanyang Iron Mine would be closed again.
If it returns to the inner court, Wu Shigong's investment will be in vain.
But even if he had money, he suddenly couldn't buy so many war horses. Wu Shigong could only equip the horses first, and then asked Wu Shili to contact his elder brother Wu Shixun, and slowly purchased them through his relationship with Taipu Temple.
Another thing Wu Shigong was concerned about was, of course, Liu Guoneng's troops heading to the Dabie Mountains.
Due to the connivance and secret support of the Runing Army, the strength of Liu Guoneng's army expanded rapidly, and they also entered an area with weak defense. Therefore, after arriving in the Dabie Mountains, Liu Guoneng's peasant army had expanded to more than 60,000 people.
Such a large force naturally attracted the remaining peasant armies hiding in the Dabie Mountains to come to surrender, so Liu Guoneng's army expanded to nearly 80,000 people.
But Wu Shigong is worried about one thing now. He does not want Liu Guoneng to rely on the Dabie Mountains as a base and go to nearby areas to make small troubles. Instead, he wants Liu Guoneng to drive to Nanjing and turn the areas near Nanjing into a mess.
But Liu Guoneng already has such huge strength, will he still obey Wu Shigong's command? To be honest, Wu Shigong himself has no idea. Moreover, Wu Shigong is afraid that Liu Guoneng will bite back and in turn invade Runan or invade Gui through Fengyang Mansion.
Germany.
Therefore, the main force of the Runing Army is still leaning southward to guard against Liu Guoneng's counterattack. Moreover, if Liu Guoneng disobeys his command, Wu Shigong will send troops again to completely wipe out Liu Guoneng's troops. Otherwise, the Runing Army will face the dilemma of fighting on two fronts.
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Therefore, Wu Shigong's secret recruitment of Liu Guoneng this time was a risky move. As a result, Wu Shigong himself has been a little uneasy recently. Sometimes he also thinks mockingly to himself: Isn't he a little self-inflicted?
Fortunately, so far, Liu Guoneng has not disobeyed orders. However, Wu Shigong definitely did not dare to take it lightly. He was still paying attention to the situation of Liu Guoneng's department.
It was under this circumstance that in February of the 10th year of Chongzhen, the imperial envoy came to Runing Mansion. He read out to Wu Shigong: Wu Shigong was promoted to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of Runing Army, and asked Wu Shigong to choose a day to rush to the capital to meet the emperor.