For the Sixth Army, the staff of the Privy Council planned this. After the Sixth Army went to Liaodong, it would accumulate experience while fighting. As long as it was careful, there would be no major problems. As for the new recruits who were inexperienced, the casualties would be relatively high.
The staff said that this is inevitable in the growth process of an army. If the frontline troops suffer battle losses, they can just add new recruits at the back!
And how can you grow without going through hardship?
Before the Southwest Campaign, the Fifth Army was not a pure recruit, but now, after a Southwest Campaign, the Fifth Army's combat effectiveness is no less than that of other armies. Otherwise, the Privy Council would not feel confident sending them to the Northwest.
Garrisoned.
After the Liaodong Campaign is completed, the Sixth Army will become an old force capable of fighting well. In the later period, stationing in Liaodong and expanding its territory will be reassuring.
The navy said there was no problem, and the army said there was no problem either. All Li Xuan had to do was to wait quietly for three months, and then wait for the Liaodong war to begin.
The war machine of the Tang Empire did not stop with the end of the Southwest Campaign. Instead, it continued to operate at a high speed. As a transfer order from the Privy Council was sent to various troops, many troops began to take action and rushed to their respective defense areas.
.
Among them, the First Army began to quickly return to Zhili Fourth Road along the Yangtze River, and the Sixth Army also began to take ships in batches and move north along the canal or sea.
The two armies exchanged defenses, which greatly increased the time for the Sixth Army to move north!
When the Sixth Army went north, a large amount of ordnance supplies were also loaded on ships, and then began to be transported to the north. Several major transit ports, such as Guangzhou and Shanghai, even had an entire fleet, and an entire fleet was heading towards
Send various ordnance supplies to the North.
In order to transport a large amount of supplies in a short period of time, both the Navy's armed transport ships and the private ships recruited by the Navy's Logistics Department were fully loaded with various supplies and transported northward.
In the first half of July alone, there were more than a hundred ships flying the flag of the Tang Dynasty and the flag of the navy or army, loaded with various supplies, heading for various ports in the north by sea. You must know that these ships are not
Most of the small boats are traditional Chinese sea-going ships such as Guangzhou and Fuzhou ships of two to three hundred tons. There are also a small number of new 680-type ships from the Tang Dynasty, and there are also Western-style Galen ships and the like.
.
Of these many ships, only about thirty are actually armed transport ships owned by the Navy, and most of them are civilian ships recruited by the Navy Logistics Department or the Army Logistics Department.
According to the relevant laws of the Tang Dynasty, when there is military need, the military has the right to recruit any civilian ships and sailors on board, and the owner of the ship cannot refuse the recruitment.
Of course, the military will not recruit ships in vain. During the recruitment period, the military will rent the ship owners at market prices and bear the daily maintenance of the ships and the salaries of the sailors. If the ships are damaged or sink during the recruitment process,
, sailor casualties, etc., will be repaired, compensated, and pensioned by the military.
Of course, you can also refuse military recruitment, as long as you are not afraid of your family being ruined.
In addition, the logistics supply for this Liaodong Campaign is also different from the past, because this time the logistics supply will be divided into two parts, one part will be transported through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the other part will be transported by sea.
In order to avoid the problem of chaotic management of transport ships, after consultations between the Privy Council and the Naval Command, both parties established a "Maritime Transport Committee", with the logistics departments of the army and navy jointly sending senior generals to take charge.
This committee will be dedicated to coordinating and managing maritime issues!
Because in the past, the logistics and transportation of the army and navy were in charge of their own affairs. The army had the Privy Council Logistics Department, and the Naval High Command also had the Navy Logistics Department.
Therefore, there will be a situation where the Army will recruit a large number of sea transport ships or river ships to transport the Army's power. However, sea transport requires the Navy to provide escort, and when it comes to service coordination issues, it is easier for various incidents to occur.
Kind of bullshit.
In order to avoid this kind of trouble, the logistics departments of the two militaries simply established a maritime transportation committee for coordination and management. In the future, all maritime transportation tasks will be managed by this organization.
At the same time, in order to prevent the generals of the army and navy from competing for power, the committee had a total of five members, two each from the army and navy, and then Li Xuan sent one person from the Logistics Section of the Imperial Academy, making a total of five members of the committee.
Today, although there are many transport ships floating on the sea, some of which still fly the flag of the army, in the future, these ships will gradually be handed over to the navy.
Of course, these ships are limited to civilian ships recruited, and the army's own armed transport ships are not among them.
Just like the Navy has a Marine Corps, the Army also has a fleet. This fleet temporarily belongs to the Logistics Department of the Privy Council, and its name also has a strong army style, called the First Maritime Transport Division of the Tang Army!
Yes, that's right, this fleet is not called the XX Fleet, but the Maritime Transport Division.
There are three maritime transport groups under it. Currently, the division has a total of three 680-type armed transport ships, six 460-type armed transport ships, and a total of nine large armed transport ships.
In addition, it also has an arrow-type communication ship.
All in all, it was so weird that even Li Xuan felt so sick when he saw it at first, but the army general said that the army is so big and the maritime transportation missions are so frequent, civilian ships can be requisitioned on a large scale during war, but in peacetime
, to maintain the normal operation of the army, a large number of transport ships are needed to transport various supplies all year round.
If the Army doesn't have a ship, does it have to ask the Navy for help every time? What if one day the Navy can't spare it?
The Navy was also very dissatisfied at first, but later the Army also made certain concessions, that is, the Army no longer pursued large combat vessels on the sea, except for small inland river gunboats.
In the end, out of nowhere, the Army's First Maritime Transport Division was created, and the Army was so wealthy that it ordered three 680 and six 460 transport ships in one go, and they are now in service one after another.
However, this maritime transport division, like the Marine Corps of the Navy, has always been the main point of conflict between the Army and the Navy, and it is also an important bargaining chip for both sides to make compromises.
The Army strictly limits the Navy's expansion of the size of the Marine Corps, and the Navy also strictly limits the size of the Army's maritime transport divisions. In addition, Li Xuan is on top, so both sides maintain a relatively delicate balance.
For some small-scale maritime transportation tasks and even landing operations, the Army did not bother to ask the Navy for help and took care of it itself.
Let me tell you, when the Navy launches landing operations overseas, the Marines are also available, so there is no need to look at the Army's face.
However, this force is limited to small fights. If it is a large-scale battle involving the army and navy like the Liaodong Campaign, the two sides must sit down and discuss.
When many ships headed north, bringing with them a lot of supplies, Li Xuan also met Wang Chaohong, the commander of the Second Army who had returned from Sichuan!
Wang Chaohong serves as the commander of the Second Army, and the Second Army will be stationed in the southwest for a long time. When he came back to report on his duties, Li Xuan naturally paid more attention to it!
This time, Li Xuan did not put Chao Wang in the office, but in the courtyard outside, chatting with Chao Hong while walking!
Wang Chaohong's age is naturally not too old for a military and political official. He is only in his thirties. If you put him in that orderly and stable regime, he would be a junior at most.
But in the Tang Dynasty, he was an army lieutenant general, one of the few army commanders whose reputation, qualifications and real power were at the peak.
However, such a person is nothing in front of Li Xuan. In terms of age, Li Xuan is younger than him, and the age difference between them is more than ten years.
But when Wang Chaohong was around Li Xuan, he didn't have the majesty of a leading general at all, and he didn't show any air of "I am older than you, I am an elder". Instead, he was extremely cautious around Li Xuan.
"The situation in the southwest is not yet stable. I received a message from you two days ago, saying that the banditry in the southwest is very serious. There are so many bandits of all kinds!" Naturally, Li Xuan would not say these things for no reason, even if
It was a walk in the courtyard. It seemed relaxed, but every word Li Xuan said was of great importance.
Banditry was not an unfamiliar problem to the Tang Dynasty. Although banditry was dealt with in Guangdong, Guangxi and Guizhou in the early days, it was only temporary.
In the following years, the Tang Dynasty was busy striving for world hegemony. It basically turned a blind eye to local bandits and various illegal armed forces. As long as you did not rebel or resist taxes, the military would often
Everyone was too lazy to pay attention to them.
In recent years, the war has been chaotic, and many of the defeated troops have turned into bandits. At the same time, many unscrupulous people in remote mountains and remote areas also like to serve the people when they enter, and bandits wherever they go.
This is not just about ordinary people, but also the gentry and landowners in many places. Normally, they are gentry and gentlemen in their hometown, but when they turn around, they lead the guards and villagers out to plunder.
For this kind of situation, the previous Tang Dynasty did not have much time and energy to deal with it. As long as the trouble was not too much, the local regular army would generally ignore it and just let the local reserve division or simply the patrol police handle it.
In the past few years, such a situation has also emerged. Except for a few provinces in the north where natural disasters have made people's livelihood difficult and large-scale civil unrest often occurred, other places, especially the south, have not seen large-scale civil unrest.
Messy.
However, there are no large-scale civil unrest, but there are numerous small-scale thieves of all kinds!
Li Xuan said this to Wang Chaohong today because he hoped that Wang Chaohong could take charge of the important task of wiping out many rogue thieves in the southwestern provinces after returning to Sichuan.
In the next step, the strategic mission of the garrison troops in the southwest and even southern provinces is not to engage in large-scale wars with foreign enemies, but to suppress bandits!