In the past year, the population of the Tang Dynasty has continued to skyrocket, from a few hundred people at the beginning to nearly a thousand people, to more than 2,000 people at the end of the year, and now to more than 3,000 people.
The increase in population not only increased the strength of the Tang Dynasty rapidly, but also caused constant changes in the power of civil and military officials in the court.
For example, before the annexation of Shuilong Village, the Tang Dynasty could be said to be dominated by Fang Dongquan. At that time, Fang Dongquan could even directly control and threaten Li Xuan's life.
After annexing Shuilong Village, Huang Xueren relied on the troops of the original Shuilong Village and Li Xuan's deliberate support, making Huang Xueren second only to Fang Dongquan in power within the Tang Dynasty.
For a long time after that, the structure of the Tang Dynasty was dominated by the competition between Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren. During this process, although Chen Butufu gradually rose up with his own strong strength, he still could not threaten the power of Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren.
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Later, after defeating the Ming army in Luohu Valley and capturing more than 60 Ming army prisoners, Li Xuan and Queen Mother Bai joined forces to support Bai Yunqi, allowing Bai Yunqi to use more than 60 Ming army prisoners to form a standing army rear army.
After regaining Jiguan Mountain, Black Tiger Village, and Huanggui Mountain, Cai Erhu entered the core of power of the Tang Dynasty.
Coupled with Wang Shanxu of the Guards, before the Ming army entered the mountains on a large scale, the main power of the Tang Dynasty, that is, the military power, formed a situation of two superpowers and multiple powers.
That is to say, Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren are the two people who have the greatest strength on the surface. Below these two people are Chen Tufu, Bai Yunqi, Wang Shanxu and Cai Erhu, who are weaker in strength and influence.
The above six people jointly controlled the military power of the Tang Dynasty and formed a relatively stable pattern.
However, after a month of fighting against the Ming army, the situation changed greatly as the Guards became more and more brilliant. Wang Danxu relied on the powerful combat power of the Guards to dominate the entire Tang Dynasty.
The right to speak has increased significantly.
Now it can be said that it is almost the same as Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren. Even at certain critical moments, Wang Shanxu's words are even more important.
And this is just because he is the commander-in-chief of the Guards!
Fang Dongquan and the others had previously thought about wresting the Guards from Wang Shanxu, but they did not dare to take action because they had too many scruples, because everyone knew that the Guards was not actually created by Wang Shanxu, but by Wang Shanxu.
Trained by their emperor 'Li Xuan', the candidates for the commander of the Guards and even the officers of each team were personally selected by Li Xuan.
If Fang Dongquan and the others dare to act without authorization and seize the military power of the Guards, then the outcome may be very bad.
So they put their hope in this opportunity to build a professional army. Everyone knew that the Guards would be the main force. As for the standing army, everyone including Fang Dongquan knew that the standing army was in front of the Guards.
, simply vulnerable.
After the Guards completes its professionalization, its scale will definitely expand, and it will even become the only backbone armed force of the Tang Dynasty. Under such circumstances, is it possible for His Majesty to trust Wang Shanxu to command the entire Guards alone?
Your Majesty, aren't you afraid that Wang Shanxu will have any rebellious intentions and lead the guards into the palace late at night?
It's impossible. Anyone in a superior position, no matter whether they are a bandit leader or a mountain emperor, will always need to consider the balance between their subordinates.
Fang Dongquan and the others thought so, and what they thought was not wrong. In fact, Li Xuan really planned to do so.
The Guards must complete professionalization and its scale must continue to expand, but Wang Shanxu cannot control the entire Guards as before.
When Bai Yunqi said that he was planning to build a professional army without work, everyone looked serious!
At this time, Wang Shanxu took the lead to step forward and said: "Your Majesty, if our Guards can train day and night and are not burdened by farm work, their combat strength can reach a higher level. By then, they will be invincible in the battle for Your Majesty!"
But at this time, Fang Dongquan spoke up: "The Guards are powerful, but they only have about ninety people, which is not enough to support our Tang Dynasty campaign. I think that when we expand the Guards, there should be at least three hundred."
Fifty people!”
Hearing Fang Dongquan say three hundred and fifty people, individual reactions were mixed. Wang Shanxu, the commander of the Guards, frowned. The expansion of the Guards seemed to be a good thing for him on the surface, but the expansion of the Guards also meant that
This means that he can no longer control the entire Guards as before, and this is not a good thing.
Liu Bagou on the other side of the civilian queue frowned slightly when he heard this number. He did not have as many scruples as others, but directly stepped forward and said: "I think that professional soldiers can and must practice, but
Three hundred and fifty people are too many."
"We, the Tang Dynasty, only have more than 3,700 people. If 350 of them are selected as professional soldiers, a full 10% of the population will be unable to work in agriculture. This is unbearable for us, the Tang Dynasty!"
Selecting some people for off-the-job training and turning them into fully off-the-job soldiers was a topic that had been discussed privately before they returned to the mountains. After all, they all knew that if the army wanted to be able to fight, it had to rely on
Training, if the troops want to maintain daily training for a long time, they must be a professional army that is always off-duty, rather than a semi-professional army like now.
However, the number of completely off-the-job professional armies is also very particular. You cannot say that you can train as many people as you want.
If it is a normal ancient agricultural country, in order not to affect normal agricultural production, the proportion of completely off-duty professional soldiers in the total population during peacetime is usually less than 1%, and rarely exceeds 1%.
For example, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the population was approximately 450 million, and the national professional army had approximately one million people. The professional army accounted for only a little over 0.2% of the total population.
For Western feudal countries in the Middle Ages, this ratio would be further reduced, only 0.1 or even lower in normal times. Even after mobilization in wartime, this ratio would hardly exceed one percent.
Calculated based on the current population of the Tang Dynasty, the number of professional soldiers can only be controlled at about a hundred people. If it were higher, it would affect normal agricultural production.
However, the above figures are all based on a normal country. However, was the Tang Dynasty a normal country?
Definitely not. Although they also grew their own food, most of their weapons and equipment were stolen, as well as a lot of food.
The Tang Dynasty is still essentially a group of bandits. If you talk to a group of bandits about whether a professional army is one percent or three percent, it makes no sense at all.
Because the Tang Dynasty did not live by farming at all!
This also led to the fact that if the Tang Dynasty wanted to establish a completely off-duty professional army, its proportion would definitely be much larger than that of a normal country. However, no matter how large it was, there had to be a bottom line.
And this bottom line was limited to 300 people by Li Xuan. In other words, the Tang Dynasty would usually have 300 professional soldiers who were not engaged in production and trained all day long to figure out how to fight.
If there is a large-scale war, these three hundred people will be the core and temporarily mobilized young bandits will be brought to fight. As for how many people will be temporarily mobilized, there is no specific data, because at that time, all those who are in good health will
All young and strong men have to participate in the battle, and there will generally be about six to seven hundred people.
Liu Bagou objected to 350 people, and even said that 200 people would be enough, while the military insisted on more than 300 people, and Butcher Chen even said that 400 people were needed.
But Li Xuan was confused, where do you, Butcher Chen, plan to find four hundred people?
You must know that this time when preparing to build a free professional army, Li Xuan did not intend to continue to retain people from the standing army on a large scale.
The expected full-time professional army will have soldiers from four aspects. The first is naturally the more than 90 people in the Guards. The soldiers in the Guards are originally trained to be professional soldiers.
A professional army is a given.
The second one is the more than 60 archers in the standing army. The reason why they were selected is not because of their quality, but because these are the only archers in the Tang Dynasty King's army.
Without them, they would have to find a group of half-baked archers. As for training new archers, it would take many years, and Li Xuan said he couldn't afford to wait.
By the time he has trained archers, either his Tang Dynasty has been wiped out by the Ming army, or his muskets have reached capacity and he has long since eliminated bows and arrows and equipped muskets in batches.
In his plan, archers and spearmen were both products used for transition. They were used now and then thrown away when the production of muskets increased.
The third is the officers at all levels and above in the standing army. These people were all those who had relatively good results in the previous training process. At that time, Li Xuan trained them as professional soldiers.
The fourth is the more than 20 gangsters under Tufu Chen. These gangsters are not very good in quality, but they are ruthless enough. They are not only ruthless to the enemy, but also ruthless to themselves. Those who dare to wear armor and attack the enemy's formation are also among the standing army.
There are only such people.
As a result, the expected number of professional soldiers is a little more than two hundred. As for the remaining people, Li Xuan plans to recruit from the newly captured villagers!
The reason is simple, these people are honest enough!
The best soldier is not the most brave one, nor the clever one, but the most honest one!
In this way, three hundred people should be able to gather enough. As for most of the veteran bandits, they can get away as far as they can!
After determining the approximate number of people, everyone began to discuss the organization.
This is a multi-arm mixed army that will include archers, heavy armored sword and shield soldiers, spearmen, cavalry, musketeers, and baggage troops. How to configure so many arms to maximize combat effectiveness? This is
It's not a hassle.
In addition, Fang Dongquan, Wang Shanxu and others are more concerned about how many senior general positions there will be in this newly established professional army, and who will hold these positions?