Chapter 338: The strength of the army breaks through 10,000
Every time he expanded his army, artillery was the biggest headache for Li Xuan. On the one hand, it was because of his lack of technology and it was inherently difficult to build artillery. On the other hand, as the new army of the Tang Dynasty grew too large and the combat area expanded, tactics also changed.
Variety.
Changes in tactics naturally caused the troops' needs for artillery to also change, which led Li Xuan to put forward several different requirements for artillery.
Of course, the reason why the demand for artillery has changed several times is also because the Tang Dynasty is small in scale, has a small number and types of artillery. If the Tang Dynasty was strong and had every type of artillery, there would be no need to do this.
I was so confused that all types of artillery were available, and all the problems were solved. Unfortunately, this is unrealistic.
Li Xuan could only build a few artillery pieces with limited resources, and ensured that these artillery pieces were what the new army of the Tang Dynasty needed most.
After thinking about it, Li Xuan first asked the workshop of the Ministry of War to build a prototype of this 1,300-pound cannon for a look. Anyway, the ship is now small enough to turn around. If it is good for use, he will try to equip one first.
Like the original 800-pound Italian cannon, only one was built at that time.
As for the mass-produced artillery, Li Xuan thought about it for a long time and temporarily decided on two types. One was the light infantry support artillery, which was a 150-pound battalion cannon, and the other was an 800-pound Italian cannon.
As for the five-hundred-pound cannon, if it is too high or too low, Li Xuan has already decided to give it up and will not make any more in the future. The existing five cannons will be organized into a separate team. If they are used and scrapped, they will be taken back and refurbished to make new ones.
Cannons, these cannons are made of precious bronze, and copper materials are very precious. Even if the cannons are spent, the useless cannons have to be taken back and refurbished to make new cannons.
As for the heavy artillery of 1,300 kilograms, let the weapons workshop of the Ministry of Industry study it first and make a prototype. Anyway, this heavy artillery of more than 1,300 kilograms is not that easy to make. We will make a decision after seeing the actual combat effect.
Whether it is mass production.
An artillery battalion has four artillery teams, which means that it requires twenty-four artillery pieces. In addition, each infantry battalion requires two battalion cannons weighing 150 kilograms. This adds up to twenty pieces. These artillery pieces are enough.
The weapons workshop of the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty has been allowed to produce for a long time, and the artillery unit will not be fully staffed for at least three or four months.
In addition to the artillery battalion, the cavalry force has also been expanded accordingly. The extent of the expansion depends on how many horses the Tang Dynasty's new army can collect. Xingquan Prefecture does not have many horses to begin with. The Ming army did not have large-scale cavalry before.
Therefore, whether the Tang army captured horses or recruited horses from the people, the number would not be too high, ranging from tens of hundreds to only one or two hundred.
In other words, the size of the cavalry team of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was at most expanded from the previous dozens of cavalry to more than a hundred cavalry.
The expansion of the baggage troop is not too large. It has been expanded from the previous four teams to five teams. The reason why the expansion is not large is because the infantry battalion itself will also be organized into a baggage platoon, which reduces the burden of the baggage battalion to a certain extent.
Logistical pressure.
As for the remaining sword and shield soldiers and archers, Li Xuan does not plan to continue to expand these two units independently on a large scale. The directly subordinate sword and shield soldiers and archers will still maintain the size of a team each.
This does not mean that the new army of the Tang Dynasty will no longer expand cold weapon troops, but because Li Xuan will organize traditional cold weapon troops such as sword and shield soldiers and archers into garrison camps on a large scale.
However, considering that a large number of Ming troops were captured in the last two battles, the new army of the Tang Dynasty will definitely organize garrison camps based on these prisoners. By then, these garrison camps will also be equipped with cold weapon troops, and they will naturally be equipped with spear soldiers, swords and shields.
Soldiers and archers are the main ones.
According to the estimate of Guojiu Bai Yunqi, a senior person in the management of captives in the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, they will be able to select about a thousand qualified garrison soldiers from the existing approximately 4,000 captured Ming troops, while the remaining
All the work will be given to the workshops under the Ministry of Industry. If they cannot be arranged, they will be asked to farm.
The one thousand people selected are basically the soldiers recruited by Song Zhiwen before. These people have relatively good physical fitness and have undergone some military training, so they cannot be wasted.
These 1,000 people, plus the soldiers from the previous First Garrison Battalion, can just be organized into two expanded garrison battalions.
The establishment of the garrison battalion was expanded, but it was different from the main battalion, because they were completely cold-weapon troops, and the soldiers were mainly from prisoners, so Li Xuan did not strictly stipulate the proportion of various arms in the garrison battalion, and there was no requirement to say a certain number.
How many sword and shield soldiers are needed, as well as how many spearmen and archers are needed. Only a limit of 700 people per battalion is given. As for the mix of soldiers, use whatever soldiers are available. If there are more sword and shield soldiers, equip them with more soldiers.
Some sword and shield soldiers.
Ten infantry battalions, two garrison battalions, one artillery battalion, one baggage battalion, one cavalry team, one sword and shield team, and one archer team. If these troops are fully expanded, the total strength will reach 10,000.
More.
This does not include the civilian soldiers in the Privy Council, nor the civilian men recruited temporarily, but only refers to the combat troops that can be drawn out to fight.
And this is not the entire armed force of the Tang Dynasty, because the Tang Dynasty also had an armed force similar to armed police, such as a bandit camp. This bandit camp was not only used to maintain law and order, but could also barely bear some low-level duties at critical times.
Intense combat missions.
At present, Datang is planning to allocate a robbery camp in each county. Each camp has 500 people. Three camps will have 1,500 people.
As a result, the total military strength of the entire Tang Dynasty will reach nearly 12,000 people.
To be honest, it is impossible to maintain a professional army of 12,000 people for a long time with just one Xingquan Mansion. Not only do they have no money and no food, they can't even find soldiers.
The entire Xingquan Prefecture has a population of only over 300,000. To gather tens of thousands of troops, one would have to be selected from thirty people to serve as a soldier, which is almost impossible.
Because the New Army of the Tang Dynasty has only recruited soldiers so far, not every poor boy is willing to join the army, and not everyone who joins the New Army of the Tang Dynasty wants it.
The reason why the previous New Army of the Tang Dynasty was able to maintain such a large scale was that it completely squeezed out the entire Zhengtai County, and many Tang Army soldiers were not recruited. Some of them were originally bandits, and some were
The Ming army captured and actually recruited only about 2,000 soldiers from the people.
Nowadays, the new army of the Tang Dynasty wants to recruit more than 5,000 qualified recruits at once. It can be said to be quite difficult!
In order to solve the problem of soldiers, Li Xuan once again increased the conditions for recruiting new soldiers and increased the amount of settlement allowance. At the same time, he was also preparing to formally pay salaries to the soldiers.
Because in order to attract people who could read and write to join the army or serve as officials, Li Xuan stopped adhering to the Tang Dynasty's tradition of not paying salaries a few months ago, and instead paid salaries according to the price. However, at that time, the salaries were all
It's just a superficial thing. They don't give out money, but they give out real objects such as food and cloth as a substitute.
Because at that time, all the money was used to purchase various strategic materials.
But no matter what, since officials and officers have begun to pay various kinds of in-kind salaries as salaries, the soldiers' salaries cannot be delayed forever, even if they are less, they must be paid.
To this end, Li Xuan asked the Ministry of War to formulate a salary system for the army based on today's prices and the Tang Dynasty's own financial resources. Li Xuan's guidance was: pay as little as you can, as long as you feel like it.
Because the core of the new army of the Tang Dynasty to attract soldiers is not a few cents of money a month, but to manage and divide the fields!
It costs a lot of money to feed a soldier every month. If the food is converted into money, then the salary of the soldiers of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty is definitely higher than that of the soldiers recruited by the Ming Army.
Not to mention there are fields for free distribution!
But the tax department told Li Xuan with a grimace that even if they don't pay salaries now, the tax department will hardly be able to come up with enough food or money to maintain the army, and if the food expenses are included, in fact, this
The cost of raising one soldier for the New Army of the Tang Dynasty was enough for the Ming Army to raise three soldiers.
If money is still distributed, it has never been distributed in these days.
Li Xuan also wondered for a long time, and finally gave up the idea of paying salaries. There was no way, the food standards could not be lowered, otherwise the soldiers would not have enough physical fitness. He did not want the Ming army to get tired after running a few hundred meters.
Out of breath soldiers.
Since the food standard has been raised, the salary will naturally be gone. However, there is no salary, but the soldiers still have to be given some pocket money and expenses for their families. It doesn’t need to be more. Five cents of silver is enough for each lowest-level soldier.
No matter how much money the Tang Dynasty Tax Department provides, it will not be able to come up with so much money.
It sounds like this amount of money is very small. The Qi Jiajun is stingy enough, and they will give out ten taels of silver a year, but the New Army of the Tang Dynasty is even stingier than the Qi Jiajun.
However, the Qi Jiajun relied on high rewards to boost morale, while the New Army of the Tang Dynasty relied on high-standard meals and distribution of heaven and earth to boost morale.
Although the two methods are different, they pursue similar effects.
Recruiting new soldiers, planning new formations, and preparing new infantry battalions, although these tasks do not need to be handled by Li Xuan personally, but as the emperor of the Tang Dynasty and the supreme commander of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, he actually cannot easily do it.
After arranging these tasks one by one, Li Xuan was still not idle, because he had to consider establishing a higher-level command structure to enable the new Tang Dynasty army to fight effectively after completing its expansion.
In the future, it is absolutely impossible for him to personally command more than a dozen battalions in combat. If he wants this army to display its combat effectiveness, there must be several generals commanding each army.