Chapter three hundred and fifty first facing difficulties
When Liu Bagou finished reading the proclamation, the whole place was silent, and the soldiers looked very calm. The reason was very simple. Just like every time the proclamation was read out in the past, they could not understand it.
You can't expect a group of illiterate and semi-illiterate people to understand it, but even if they don't understand it, they still know what the slogan says. It's nothing more than how the Ming Dynasty was so bad and how great the Tang Dynasty was.
It’s all the same old routine, and they’re used to it!
After the proclamation was read out and other chaotic departure ceremonies were carried out, Li Xuan did not continue to talk nonsense, but simply gave the order to set off.
Immediately, Hao Bainian and Li Chunjing stepped forward to receive the imperial decree for the expedition, then saluted, got on their horses, and began to lead the army to officially set off.
In fact, before they set off, the vanguard of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty had already set off early this morning to clear the way for the army.
The troops that went out this time were the First Infantry Regiment and the Second Infantry Regiment. In addition, in order to strengthen the combat effectiveness of these two infantry regiments, Li Xuan also assigned additional cavalry, artillery, and baggage troops to the two infantry regiments.
At the same time, officials from the Ministry of War also accompanied the army. The main responsibility of these officials from the Ministry of War was to quickly start recruiting soldiers after arriving at Liping Palace.
In this war, there are never too few soldiers.
The troops and generals of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty did not have the power to recruit soldiers themselves. In order to replenish the troops on the spot as quickly as possible, the recruitment work of the Ministry of War would also follow the pace of the army and recruit soldiers wherever they were taken.
After these two infantry regiments, the fourth infantry regiment will also set off in half a month, while the third infantry regiment will be postponed.
As he watched thousands of troops gradually leave and finally disappear from sight, Li Xuan was already making plans to continue to expand his army.
The original expansion of the four infantry regiments was based on the Xingquan Prefecture, and now the new army of the Tang Dynasty is going out again. If everything goes well, most of Liping Prefecture, especially the eastern part of Liping Prefecture, will be captured by itself.
Down.
When the time comes, Liping Mansion will need to take on the important task of covering the First Infantry Regiment and the Second Infantry Regiment to resist the Ming Dynasty army coming from Guiyang. By then, a mere Fourth Infantry Regiment will definitely not be enough.
The Third Infantry Regiment also needs to garrison Xingquan Prefecture to deal with threats from Huguang and other areas. Therefore, the strength of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty is somewhat insufficient.
For this reason, he already had plans to use the recruits recruited from Liping Prefecture to establish the Fifth Infantry Regiment or even the Sixth Infantry Regiment.
Just having soldiers to expand the army is not enough, you must also have weapons and equipment. The biggest factor that has always restricted the expansion of the Tang Dynasty's army is not soldiers, but weapons and equipment, especially muskets and artillery.
At present, among the four infantry regiments, only the first and second infantry regiments are fully equipped with muskets. The remaining two infantry regiments are still short of muskets. According to expectations, at least one
It would take months to replenish enough muskets for the 3rd and 4th Infantry Regiments.
The artillery was even more difficult, so that the new army of the Tang Dynasty had to use some of the serviceable bowl-mouth cannon captured from the Ming army.
"Your Majesty!" Seeing that the army had gone away, but Li Xuan was still looking towards the west on horseback, Liu Bagou beside him came over and said softly: "It's time to go back!"
Li Xuan nodded slightly, then turned his horse's head and led all the civil and military officials back to the city.
As soon as he returned to the city, Li Xuan called several main officials from the Ministry of Works over and started giving instructions.
"The scale of the workshops of the Ministry of Industry is not enough, the manpower is not enough, and the output is still too small. This is far from meeting the needs of our army. Your Ministry of Industry must increase the scale of the workshops and produce more weapons and ammunition!"
As soon as the people from the Ministry of Industry arrived, Li Xuan issued his order.
The few people from the Ministry of Industry who heard this were complaining in their hearts. His Majesty only knew that the production of weapons was not enough, so he asked himself and others to blindly increase production.
But His Majesty has never considered that the operation of the workshop requires a large number of manpower. The ordinary labor force is okay, but the craftsmen are not so easy to find.
The several workshops they have established in Xingquan Prefecture have already collected all the craftsmen in the entire Xingquan Prefecture, as well as craftsmen in nearby areas. And technical talents like craftsmen cannot be cultivated in a day or two.
Yes, it takes several months to cultivate a qualified technical craftsman.
Now that His Majesty says the scale is not big enough, they can only sigh.
Someone immediately said: "Your Majesty, if you want to expand the scale of the workshop, there are not enough craftsmen!"
Li Xuan waved his hand and said: "Don't worry about this. I have already sent people to recruit craftsmen from Lianhe County, and they will be sent to Xingquan when the time comes!"
Some people immediately wanted to say that even with the addition of craftsmen from Lianhe County, they would not be able to meet the needs of the many workshops of the Ministry of Industry.
You know, the workshops of the Ministry of Industry are actually very large now. In Zhengtai County and Xingquan Prefecture, there are more than 20 workshops of different types, including wood workshops, blacksmith workshops, and musket workshops.
There are workshops for artillery, gunpowder, swords, bows, arrows, quilts, etc.
They needed to produce almost all kinds of materials needed by the new army of the Tang Dynasty. The musket workshops established in Zhengtai County and Xingquan Fucheng were the largest. The two musket workshops combined had a total number of ordinary workers and skilled craftsmen of more than 800 people.
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The total number of workers in the many workshops in the two places exceeds 4,000. However, most of these people are ordinary laborers with low wages and prisoners of the Ming army who do not receive wages. There are not many real skilled craftsmen, and the total number of workers is only
Only three to four hundred people.
Three to four hundred people are scattered in more than 20 workshops, with an average of only 10 or 20 people per workshop.
However, although they complained in their hearts, they didn't say much because Li Xuan didn't give them a chance to say anything!
Your Ministry of Industry is facing difficulties. How can it be that the Taxation Department is having difficulties? Your Ministry of Industry's trouble is at most a lack of manpower, but it doesn't mean that there are no ways to improve production efficiency. If you think about it carefully, there are still some.
But there are a lot of troubles with the tax department, and it is quite difficult to collect money and food smoothly.
No matter how difficult the work of the Ministry of Industry is, how can it be that the military has difficulties? Even if there are difficulties, we must face them head on!
Nowadays, the Tang Dynasty is surrounded by enemies on all sides and has a huge gap in military strength. In this way, the military has also formulated an active offensive strategy. It even launched an offensive when only two of the four infantry regiments were able to fight. What they faced
The difficulties are much greater than those of your Ministry of Industry.
Li Xuan is a superior, the emperor of the empire. In his opinion, the Ministry of Industry wants money to give money, raw materials to raw materials, and workers to workers. Now you are saying that the number of craftsmen is not enough to increase production? This problem can be solved
No, you still want to enjoy the glory and wealth, what a joke!
The people from the Ministry of Industry went out with a sad face, and then Li Xuan called in Qian Mengjiu from the Ministry of War and Ma Wei, who was mainly responsible for recruiting new soldiers.
Start discussing how to recruit new soldiers in Liping Mansion on a large scale!
Qian Mengjiu and Ma Wei from the Ministry of War were much more cheerful than those from the Ministry of Industry. They said that the Ministry of War was already well prepared. In addition to the officials from the Ministry of War who accompanied the army to Liping Mansion, they had also prepared seven or eight recruits.
The working group will then keep up with the army, recruiting new soldiers along the way.
As long as the new army of the Tang Dynasty continues to advance, the recruitment team of their Ministry of War will not stop either.
However, they also have concerns, that is, how to arrange the recruits recruited along the way? Should they be supplemented to the frontline troops on the spot, or should they be handed over to the recruit camp at the Training Department?
In this regard, Li Xuan said without hesitation: "The new soldiers recruited along the way will all be delivered to the training department's new barracks. Not a single soldier can be directly replenished to the combat troops. The troops required by the combat troops can only be supplied to the combat troops."
The company applies for supplement.”
The Ministry of War was originally asked to recruit new soldiers in order to prevent generals from recruiting soldiers privately and causing huge troubles. Now, even if there will be a lot of trouble, Li Xuan is determined not to open this hole. The army must not recruit soldiers privately on the spot, even if it is done through
It won't work even with the help of the Ministry of War.
There is a complete set of procedures for the recruitment and replenishment of the new army of the Tang Dynasty. The Ministry of War recruits new recruits. The Training Department is responsible for the training of the new army camps. The Operations Department is responsible for replenishing the trained recruits to each unit. After the units receive the new recruits, they directly engage in daily training or combat.
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This whole set of procedures is now running perfectly. Li Xuan does not want to change it, nor does he allow others to change it, even if it causes a certain decrease in the combat effectiveness of the troops or even inconveniences in combat.
However, in order to alleviate the shortage of soldiers in the frontline troops as much as possible, Li Xuan still made the greatest efforts. He asked the recruitment officials of the Ministry of War to follow up in time, recruit new soldiers on the spot, and then send them to the recruit camps set up by the Training Department.
, and this recruit camp is not fixed, but mobile. It is said to be a recruit camp, but in fact it is more like a recruit unit, but it does not participate in frontline combat tasks.
To this end, the Training Department will set up two mobile recruit camps at the rear of the combat troops. After Liping City is captured, a fixed recruit camp will be established in Liping City.
The recruits in the first two mobile recruit battalions are to supplement the vacancies in the First Infantry Regiment and the Second Infantry Regiment. As for the recruits in the third recruit battalion, they are to prepare for the subsequent establishment of the Fifth Infantry Regiment.
When Li Xuan finished all this, Empress Dowager Bai, Dong Yunyun and Ye finally arrived at Xingquan Fucheng. For this reason, Li Xuan also put down his busy work that lasted for more than a month and began to return to normal life.
Men's life.
For example, on the night when Dong Yunyun and the others first arrived, he had an in-depth conversation with Dong Yunyun and Zhuer in the room about their life and ideals all night long.
The next day, he ran to Ye's side again and had an in-depth exchange of life ideals.
After this in-depth exchange, Li Xuan felt that his entire spirit had been sublimated and his whole body was full of energy!
However, unlike Li Xuan who only focused on life and ideals, Empress Dowager Bai, Dong Yunyun, Ye Shi, and even the little girl Zhuer were more concerned about the issue of the heir to the empire.
When Queen Mother Bai arrived, she grabbed Doctor Wan, who had become the imperial physician of the Tang Dynasty, and asked, "How is the emperor's health lately?"