After getting rid of the trouble of Butcher Chen, Li Xuan became much cleaner in the following days, and thus had the mood and time to do other more important things.
Take for example the expansion of the army!
After successfully blocking the Fucheng Ming army from crossing the river, the new army of the Tang Dynasty wanted to expand its army. This was something that Li Xuan had already decided on, and many of the people below, whether they were military generals or Liu Bagou and the others in the rear,
Everyone is working hard for this.
According to Li Xuan's order, Qian Mengjiu of the Rear War Department has set up multiple recruitment points with Xikou Village as the center. Xikou Village, Liushazhuang and other places have recruitment points for the new army of the Tang Dynasty. After the scale of recruitment is expanded,
, a large number of recruits can be recruited every day.
However, the large increase in the number of recruits in a short period of time will also make the existing units of the Datang New Army insufficient.
Three infantry battalions and one mixed battalion. These four battalions are the core of the new army of the Tang Dynasty. The total strength of the above-mentioned establishment is 1,500 people. Before the war, the strength of these four battalions was almost 1,200 people.
, now it is full with the addition of 300 people.
Then there are the directly subordinate baggage battalions, garrison battalions and various teams, which do not need to recruit too many new soldiers.
For example, the baggage camp was a bit special. Its soldiers were mainly former bandits and surrendered Ming army guards. Moreover, there were already four full teams before the war, so there was no need to recruit new soldiers.
The current scale of the supply camp can fully meet the logistical needs of the new army of the Tang Dynasty. Any further expansion would be a waste of manpower and material resources.
The garrison camp was also adapted from the surrendered Ming army. Its soldiers were recruited from the surrendered Ming army. This also does not require the recruitment of new recruits. If the garrison camp expands in the future, it will also be because more Ming soldiers have been captured.
Military prisoners.
The sword and shield soldiers and archer teams, due to their special characteristics, the soldiers of these two teams are incompetent for ordinary soldiers. Now most of the soldiers of these two teams are bandits and surrendered Ming troops. If they want to expand and supplement
, and it is impossible to replenish it from the eggs of those new recruits.
The cavalry is already small. If you want to expand the cavalry, the problem of horses is far greater than the horses of personnel. The horses of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty have always been very scarce. In the past few years, including the previous Battle of Lanjiang Ferry, there were no horses.
Too many horses were captured, so the expansion of the cavalry can only be verbal!
The same is true for the artillery team, whose expansion is limited by the number of artillery pieces.
In the end, if he wanted to expand the size of the army, Li Xuan had no other good choice except expanding the infantry battalion.
After all the existing troops were fully replenished with soldiers sent from the rear, Li Xuan quickly established the 4th Infantry Battalion and the 2nd Mixed Battalion.
The organization of the fourth infantry battalion is the same as the previous three infantry battalions, with two musketeers and two pike teams.
The organization of the second mixed battalion is naturally the same as that of the first mixed battalion, consisting of a musketeer team, a spear team, and a small number of sword and shield soldiers and archers.
In this way, the main force of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty will be able to reach four infantry battalions and two mixed battalions. If we add the baggage battalion, garrison battalion and other directly affiliated teams and miscellaneous personnel, the full strength will reach 3,000.
Five hundred people.
But this is only paper strength. This plan will not be completed at least within half a year or even within a year. Why?
Because Li Xuan can't bring out so many muskets and artillery, come with the horses!
Let’s not talk about horses for now. This thing cannot be solved at all. All the horses in Zhengtai County are not enough for the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
Artillery is also a troublesome thing. It takes a long time to build the artillery, and it requires a lot of copper materials. This greatly limits the expansion of the artillery of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty. According to the Ministry of Industry in the rear, at most it can be obtained in the next month.
Two small cannons weighing 500 kilograms came out.
As for the currently equipped 800-pound Italian cannon, I'm sorry, it's a test product. It's the only one without a semicolon. And the Ministry of Industry has no plans to continue to build such a big thing, not to mention it is time-consuming and labor-intensive.
, and the weight is too great, making it difficult to use in the mountainous terrain of Zhengtai County and surrounding areas.
Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have insisted on asking the craftsmen behind to limit the weight of the artillery to less than 500 kilograms.
Therefore, Xie Ziwei does not need to expect to get a second heavy artillery piece weighing more than 800 kilograms in the near future. In the future, the Ministry of Industry will provide all artillery pieces of 500 kilograms or even lighter.
The number of artillery pieces is small, but it’s okay to wait. The worst thing is not to use them now!
But muskets are a big problem!
According to the planned preparation plan, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty needed more than a thousand muskets, and this number was still the minimum requirement. If Li Xuan wanted to convert the supply camp from a cold weapon unit to a hot weapon unit in the later period, this number would have to be higher.
Add two hundred more.
Moreover, this number does not take into account the losses caused by establishment, training, combat, etc., as well as spare muskets.
If all are included, one thousand five hundred is not even enough!
But how many muskets does the new army of the Tang Dynasty have today?
There are less than 250 pieces, but what is the output of muskets in Xikou Village and Huangzhushan? Previously, the monthly output of Huangzhushan was about fifty pieces. This is the only musket supply currently available to the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
As for Xikou Village, although with the increase of craftsmen and ordinary labor force, the Ministry of Industry has continued to increase the expected output, and even announced in the memorial that once completed, the monthly output will reach more than two hundred, and
This number is still rising.
But there is a word here, and that is called 'general'. In other words, the weapons workshop in Xikou Village is still in the construction stage. Although the craftsmen have begun to make muskets, God knows when they will be able to achieve monthly output.
Two hundred or more.
If they can deliver dozens of muskets next month, Li Xuan will be very happy!
This also caused a quite embarrassing problem. Among the several infantry battalions and mixed battalions in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, only the First Infantry Battalion and the First Mixed Battalion were equipped with the required muskets. The musketeers of the other several battalions could only use
When fighting with cold weapons such as spears or swords, the only way to train is to borrow the musket training from the 1st Infantry Battalion and the 1st Mixed Battalion.
The scarcity of muskets and artillery was the biggest problem faced by the new army of the Tang Dynasty, and it was also a problem that was difficult to solve.
But what Li Xuan is thinking about is that now that there are no guns, these soldiers have been trained and waiting for the guns!
After all, the training of soldiers also takes more than three months. When these soldiers can hold guns and fight, it will be three months later. And during these three months, the Ministry of Industry should at least be able to
Let's make three or four hundred muskets. Four hundred muskets will be enough to deal with the guns of two infantry battalions.
Then wait a few more months, or think of ways to exploit the craftsmen in the Ministry of Industry and expand production. It is not impossible to get a thousand muskets. Once you have a thousand muskets, you will be close to the full establishment
Is the required 1,500 sticks still far away?
Well, Li Xuan who thinks this way is overly optimistic. There is no hope of solving the musket problem at least this year, and there may not even be hope next year.
But we can't expand the army without guns and artillery. What Li Xuan is doing now is to first establish the organization, recruit soldiers and train them for a few months.
Moreover, no one stipulates that musketeers must fight with muskets. They can also use spears. At worst, they will be treated as musketeers who have run out of bullets, and they will directly use bayonets in battle!
Li Xuan found various reasons for himself and others to expand the army, which made the generals below happy and miserable.
Happily, the establishment of the new organization also represents the emergence of a number of senior positions out of thin air. The battalion officer of the 4th Infantry Battalion and the battalion officer of the 2nd Mixed Battalion. These two positions are serious major positions.
It is currently the top military officer position in the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
The officers of the first team below were all staring eagerly.
And Li Xuan did not show any pretense, and quickly determined the battalion officers of these two battalions. Hao Bainian, the former battalion officer of the First Mixed Battalion, was transferred to the Fourth Infantry Battalion as the battalion officer. This transfer made him the only battalion officer in the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
As one of the four infantry battalion officers, he was able to stand on an equal footing with Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, and Wang Shanxu.
The new officer of the first mixed battalion was promoted by the former musketeer official Xitong in the mixed battalion. This man has the same surname as Fang Dongquan, but has nothing to do with Fang Dongquan. Fang Dongquan himself has a nephew.
He joined the army as a deputy captain, but judging from Li Xuan's preparedness for Fang Dongquan, it was impossible for Fang Dongquan's nephew to be promoted as quickly as Hao Bainian and Fang Xi.
The battalion officer of the newly established 2nd Mixed Battalion is Li Chunjing, the deputy battalion officer of the 2nd Infantry Battalion and the commander of the 3rd Musket Team. His promotion path is almost exactly the same as that of Hao Bainian. Almost everyone
It can be expected that Li Chunjing, like Hao Bainian, will be transferred to a regular infantry battalion as a battalion officer.
The officers of the two musketeers will also be succeeded by young soldiers from the Guards.
These transferred senior officers were all Li Xuan's students, so Li Xuan's intention to train direct student generals was almost made public.
However, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren and Wang Shanxu consciously kept their mouths shut. They knew Li Xuan's precautions and suspicions about them better than outsiders. If they foolishly jumped out to oppose them at this time, they would be seeking death. They probably just jumped.
If he came out to object, he would have Li Xuan killed.
The Tang Dynasty today is no longer the Tang Dynasty it was a year ago, and Li Xuan is no longer the Li Xuan it was a year ago.
Today, the Tang Dynasty has controlled an area of hundreds of miles of Zhengtai County, with 100,000 people and 3,000 troops. Relying on a series of military victories, Emperor Li Xuan has spread his personal prestige to everyone in the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
Moreover, Li Xuan's students are still increasing continuously. The size of his training class has expanded from more than ten people in the past to more than sixty people. And these more than sixty student officers who claim to be disciples of the emperor are all new soldiers of the Tang Dynasty.
The backbone of the sixty-odd people controls all the musketry and pike team officers in all infantry battalions and mixed battalions, as well as the deputy battalion officers of each battalion. There is also an infantry battalion battalion officer and two
A battalion officer of a mixed battalion.
Relying on these student officers, Li Xuan can be said to have firmly controlled the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, and was even able to exclude Huang Xueren, Wang Shanxu, and Fang Dongquan from the First Infantry Battalion to the Third Infantry Battalion.
Today's New Army of the Tang Dynasty is Li Xuan's New Army of the Tang Dynasty. Fang Dongquan and the others are not stupid, so they naturally see this clearly.
Furthermore, they have also looked away. It is unreliable to compete with these student officers for military power. It is more reliable to compete for a higher title. Isn't it just for glory and wealth that they fight to the death for rebellion?
That's right, in order to appease the elders and also to inspire the new generals in the army, Li Xuan has already let out the news that he will be officially granted the title of Marquis in a short time.