Two hundred and fortieth chapters brand new Datang Wang Shi
(Important reminder, most of this chapter is compilation content, you can skip it if you don’t like reading it.) Every military reform in the Tang Dynasty will cause large-scale personnel changes, and these personnel changes will directly affect the power of the generals.
For example, a year ago, when the Tang Dynasty only had five armies, Fang Dongquan was the dominant one. Even in the era when the standing army and the Guards existed side by side, Fang Dongquan's power still surpassed that of other generals.
But this situation changed after the rise of the musketeers in the Guards. Li Xuan merged the standing army and the Guards into a new army.
Through the recruitment of new soldiers, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was built into a professional army that was different from the previous standing army and the Guards. Li Xuan personally served as the commander-in-chief of the New Army and directly administered the subordinate units.
In later battles, although Li Xuan often asked Wang Shanxu to command two musketeers, or Fang Dongquan to command three spear corps, their duties always remained as team officers.
If Li Xuan hadn't temporarily delegated power, they would not have the power to command the entire musketeer or spear squad, let alone the entire army.
Although the apparent reasons for this series of changes are to increase combat effectiveness and facilitate command, in fact, there is another tacit reason that everyone understands, that is, their emperor Li Xuan wants to pass frequent
Organizational changes and military reforms gradually brought military power into his hands.
As of today, the only people who can command the entire New Army of the Tang Dynasty are Li Xuan, Fang Dongquan and Wang Shanxu. Their influence is limited to their respective teams, while the influence of Huang Xueren, Cai Erhu, Chen Tufu and Bai Yunqi is even lower.
As for this time's military expansion and organizational changes, Li Xuan naturally would not give up the opportunity to further divide his generals and enhance his own authority.
After several days of discussion with Zeng Ziwen, and after symbolically soliciting the opinions of Fang Dongquan, Wang Shanxu, and Chen Tufu, Li Xuan officially issued the Fourth Military Reform Plan of the Tang Dynasty.
The core of the plan is to further improve the organization of the troops, enhance the combat effectiveness of the troops, and facilitate command. For this purpose, the establishment of infantry battalions was established.
According to the plan, each battalion will have two musketeers and two pike teams. It is worth noting that the size of the musketeers and pike teams has been greatly expanded, and the number of musketeers in each musketeer team has increased from thirty-six.
It was directly increased to ninety-six people.
The number of spearmen per team also increased from thirty-six to ninety-six.
When these musketeers and spearmen were engaged in a decisive battle in the field, the two spearmen were in the middle, forming a dense spear formation with six rows of thirty-two people in each row. On both sides of the spear formation, there were
Attached to a musketeer team, these musketeers are also arranged in six rows, and the number of musketeers in a single row of each wing is sixteen.
This formed an infantry phalanx with a tight formation that could attack from a distance, engage in close combat, defend, and charge.
With the addition of officers at all levels, messengers, military musicians and other personnel, the total strength of such a battalion will reach 400 people, and they will be all combatants. The ratio of spearmen to musketeers is one to one.
It is also worth noting that this battalion-level organization is a very pure combat organization, created for frontal decisive battles, so it does not include cavalry, baggage, artillery and other arms.
In other words, this kind of infantry battalion lacks the ability to fight alone after being separated from the logistics, reconnaissance and other support from the upper level.
Zeng Ziwen once mentioned this shortcoming and suggested that each battalion be equipped with cavalry troops, baggage troops, and artillery troops that were still being planned. However, Li Xuan rejected it without hesitation. The reason was simple. If
If an infantry battalion with a strength of more than 400 people could fight independently from the large army, then Li Xuan would have to worry every day whether Fang Dongquan and the others would rebel.
However, Li Xuan also took this situation into consideration. His idea was very simple. If it was necessary to temporarily dispatch battalion-level troops to fight alone, then he would temporarily strengthen auxiliary troops such as cavalry, artillery, and baggage.
But in peacetime, these auxiliary troops are not assigned to combat battalions.
Due to the establishment of the battalion-level establishment and the expansion of the team-level scale, it directly led to changes in the detailed establishment of subordinates. Therefore, the detailed team-level establishment was re-established. Each team has six platoons, one captain, one deputy captain, one captain and one deputy captain, and guards.
One each, two messengers, one flag bearer, and one military musician
The total number of people in each team is one hundred and four.
Each platoon below the team has sixteen people, including one platoon leader and one deputy.
In the case of the musketeers, all soldiers are equipped with matchlocks. The platoon leader and deputy platoon leader are additionally issued with a saber. The orderlies, guards, and flag bearers are also equipped with sabers.
The spear team is a bit more complicated, because according to the long-term plan, all spearmen must be equipped with armor. Only in this way can the spearmen's melee combat ability be truly brought into play. However, armor is better than muskets.
It's still difficult to get, so don't expect to get these armors in a short time.
Therefore, they could only take a step back and only issue armor to the spearmen in the front row and officers above the platoon leader in each platoon.
As for more ordinary spearmen, they can only wait until later.
In addition, in addition to being equipped with spears up to four and a half meters long, these spearmen are also issued a waist knife to fight with the knife when the spear breaks or the enemy gets close.
The above-mentioned expanded infantry team, whether it is musketeers or spearmen, will become part of the core infantry battalion of the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
As for the 400-person infantry battalion, Li Xuan planned to set up three. In addition to these three battalions, Li Xuan also directly administered a cavalry team, a baggage battalion, a team of archers, and a team of sword and shield soldiers under the Privy Council.
team and the first artillery team that is still in paper planning
The reason why these auxiliary forces are directly under the jurisdiction is to limit the independent combat capabilities of the infantry battalions in order to better control these infantry battalions. As long as Li Xuan does not distribute food and ammunition to the combat battalions, they will not be able to fight at all.
The construction of three infantry battalions was the core content of the fourth military change of the Tang Dynasty.
It’s just that the plan sounds very good, but in fact it is very difficult to build three combat camps. Why?
Because Li Xuan doesn’t have that much equipment!
Spears and waist knives are the simplest ones. Not only are they easy to make, but more importantly, they captured a lot of cold weapons from the Ming army. The waist knives and spears were enough to arm thousands of people in the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
Although there is not much armor, now I can barely scrape together more than forty full-body armors and nearly a hundred cotton armors modified from the Ming army's cotton armors, and can also equip all sword and shield soldiers and some spears.
Soldiers.
A lot of bows and arrows were seized. Unfortunately, the new army of the Tang Dynasty could not find so many qualified archers, so many bows and arrows could only remain there.
Cold weapons are easy to solve, but the real trouble is not these cold weapons, but the muskets!
At present, there are about a hundred muskets in his new army of the Tang Dynasty. In addition to those equipped by the musketeers, his bodyguards are also equipped with muskets. In addition, there are some replacement muskets in the baggage team. The total number is about one hundred and two.
About ten branches.
But now an infantry battalion needs two hundred muskets. In other words, the muskets he has on hand are not enough to equip one battalion, let alone three battalions.
The last time Bai Yunqi returned to Huangzhushan, the output of muskets in Huangzhushan was maintained at about thirty pieces per month, and this was the result of hundreds of people working day and night in the weapons workshop of the Ministry of Industry.
.
After Bai Yunqi sent back dozens of craftsmen to them, it is estimated that the output of muskets will increase significantly, but any further increase is estimated to be only fifty or sixty pieces per month.
Based on this output, it would take a year to produce enough muskets for three battalions!
And this time is absolutely unbearable for Li Xuan!
Due to the limited population, geographical environment and lack of resources in Huangzhu Mountain, it is impossible to mass-produce muskets on a large scale, but this problem does not exist outside the mountains.
Zhengtai County outside the mountains has a population of nearly 100,000. There are so many young people among them, and there must be many craftsmen!
When he first decided to expand his army and control the Zhengtai countryside, Li Xuan had already sent people back to Huangzhu Mountain and asked Liu Bagou to lead some key craftsmen out of the mountain to establish multiple weapons workshops outside the mountain, striving to build hundreds of muskets in the shortest possible time.
Come.
However, although the muskets are not available yet, it does not mean that we cannot recruit and train troops. Anyway, the musketeers need to train for more than three months before they can use them, and the production of the muskets will increase after three months. Now, let's share it with a few musketeers.
A musket training.
While Li Xuan was busy making organizational changes and preparing to build a new army, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, and Wang Shanxu also set their sights on the positions of three battalion officers.
Especially after the new establishment was finalized, the First Infantry Battalion of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was officially established the next day and had most of the combat effectiveness as soon as it was established. Everyone was eyeing the position of battalion officer.
But what surprised them was that Li Xuan did not issue the appointment of battalion officers for a long time, but only appointed team officers and deputy team officers of each team.
Almost all of these newly appointed team officers were young officers who came from the Guards and received personal instruction from Li Xuan.
Three battalions were planned, with a total of twelve musketeers and spear corps. Young officers from the Guards took up a total of nine corps officers and 11 deputy corps officers.
Even the three officers of the three teams under the baggage battalion were from the Guards.
It can be said that almost all officer positions at the team level, regardless of chief and deputy positions, have been taken over by officers from the Guards.
This move was an important step for Li Xuan to professionalize and improve the quality of officers in the new army of the Tang Dynasty. He would completely kick out the old bandits and bring up the newly trained professional officers.
This was what he had planned to do when he personally taught the young Guards officers, and now that the army has expanded, he just took the opportunity to implement it.
However, Li Xuan, the battalion officer above the team officer, was slow to accept his fate and even refused to appoint a deputy battalion officer. This made a group of generals in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty quite uneasy.
Many people guessed that Li Xuan must have a deep meaning in doing this, but they didn't know what Li Xuan was thinking specifically.
Several days later, the 1st Infantry Battalion was established and officially trained for battle. Its battalion officer was still not appointed, which made everyone even more anxious. Even though they had always been quite confident, they believed that one of the three battalions must be one of them.
Wang Shanxu, who is in a position of authority, is also a little anxious now.
Why the rush?
Many of them are worried whether Li Xuan will be directly promoted from those young Guards officers. Li Xuan has already made those half-grown men serve as team officers. Who dares to say that Li Xuan will not let those half-grown men serve as battalion officers.