It's not that Yang Zhen has any prejudice against Tang Ruowang and has to have personal problems with Tang Ruowang, but Yang Zhen looks at it and there is really no other person around him who is more suitable to send to Dengzhou to prevent the epidemic than Tang Ruowang.

Tang Ruowang is a Jesuit from the West. He has some European experience and some relatively scientific knowledge in epidemic prevention.

From this point of view, Tang Ruowang has an advantage over any of Yang Zhen's bosses. If someone needs to be sent to guide Dengzhou's epidemic prevention, there is no other better candidate besides him.

As for why it was necessary to control the plague epidemic in Tengzhou Prefecture as soon as possible, it was because Yang Zhen wanted to continue to use Tengzhou Prefecture as a springboard to speed up the immigration process.

Judging from the current situation, the matter of immigrating to Jinhai Town can indeed be brought to an end for now.

After all, there are a total of sixty-four villages under the jurisdiction of Jinhai Town. Although it is not too many, it is not too few.

However, the immigration to Yingzhou Island must be started as soon as possible, because without enough immigrants to settle the land, it will be difficult for the big island to truly become our own land.

Of course, Yang Zhen also considered emigrating from other places. Anyway, the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty was already in chaos. If you go south past the Denglai land, you won't have to worry about attracting refugees who have lost their homes to any coast.

But in the final analysis, the main reason is that other places are not as convenient as Dengzhou Prefecture.

First, Dengzhou Prefecture is very close to Port Arthur. Whether it is isolation and quarantine, transit supplies, or household registration and settlement, various immigration matters can be better controlled by oneself.

Both of them, Yuan Shu, the magistrate of Dengzhou Prefecture, had a good relationship with him and was very supportive of him. He was very much in favor of his strategy of immigrating overseas to reclaim wasteland and farmland. It was not easy to find a place with such favorable weather, location and people.

But it was said that after Yang Zhen sent Tang Ruowang to Dengzhou Prefecture, he temporarily forgot about assisting Dengzhou Prefecture in epidemic prevention.

In the days that followed, he focused exclusively on the recruitment and expansion of troops from all walks of life in Jinhai Town, especially the advance army for the Eastern Expedition.

The musketeer battalion of the advance army for the expedition to the east was expanded from the earliest musketry team of the advance camp for the eastward expedition. From the original dozens of people, it was repeatedly supplemented and gradually grew to its current size.

Excluding the two sentries who stayed in Songshan City in western Liaoning, those who followed Yang Zhen across the sea and moved to Jinhai Town were only about 900 people.

The scale of these nine hundred people is a bit small compared to the future needs on the battlefield, and compared to the expansion speed of other people in Jinhai Town, it is also a bit slow.

The reason why the scale is small and the development is slow is not that Yang Zhen does not want to grow as quickly as possible, nor is it that Yang Zhen does not want to develop as quickly as possible.

The main factor that previously restricted the number of musketeers under Yang Zhen's command was the slow growth in the number of flintlock muskets and supporting ammunition in his army, or in other words, the production.

There are not so many flintlock muskets and the ammunition to equip them, and it is not enough to simply increase the manpower in large quantities.

After all, the salary of regular soldiers in the advance army musket battalion for the Eastern Expedition is also limited. Increasing the number of regular soldiers is equivalent to increasing the burden of food and salary.

Others may not consider all of this, but Yang Zhen, the master of the family, must consider it and make choices and controls.

Fortunately, the fundamental problem restricting the expansion of the Musket Battalion, namely the shortage of guns and ammunition, has been basically solved.

On the one hand, the modification work on the batch of Rumi guns and other matchlocks that Emperor Chongzhen had previously asked Chu Xianzhang to bring to Yang Zhen has been completed.

On the other hand, the gun factory under the supervision of Wang Sheng in the north city of Lushun has now fully adopted the practice of division of labor and coordination of various types of work and assembly line manufacturing and assembly. The production capacity and yield rate of guns are far higher than before.

Since April, the number of finished flintlock muskets leaving the factory every month has been stable at more than 300 for three consecutive months.

As for the ammunition chief in charge of Pan Wenmao, he has long adopted the assembly line preparation process of division of labor and cooperation among various types of work, and his production capacity and output have always been good.

When the defense was first moved to Lushunkou, due to the impact of raw materials, labor and space, the ammunition factory had a period of shutdown and production decline.

But today, the ammunition factory occupies half of Lushun North City, and its site size, number of workers, and ammunition output are far beyond what they used to be.

From the perspective of firearms and ammunition alone, according to the current production capacity of the firearms factory and ammunition factory, as long as Jinhai Town's food, wages and soldiers are sufficient, every month from now on, as long as Yang Zhen is willing, his musketeer battalion can add a musketeer.

post.

Of course, for Yang Zhen, it is always better to have more soldiers than to gain more.

Not to mention that there are only dozens of immigrants in Jinhai Town now. Even if dozens or hundreds of immigrants are added in the future, which means that Jinhai Town will have sufficient military resources in the future, he will not easily expand the army blindly.

Limited financial resources should not be invested in food and wages, but in weapons and equipment.

For example, more advanced guns and ammunition, such as more and more powerful warships, these things are the important directions for Jinhai Town's future investment of financial and material resources.

On July 17, the 13th year of Chongzhen, the advance army for the Eastern Expedition completed its plan to recruit troops and expand its army near Lushunkou. A total of ten new soldiers were recruited from the six camps directly under the main town government and the four camps on the east coast of the South Road.

Sent three thousand people.

Six of them, with a total of 1,800 people, were ordered by Yang Zhen to be incorporated into the musket battalion commanded by Zhang Chen. Then, in accordance with the principle of leading the new with the old, they were mixed together with the veterans of the three musket battalions.

It became the left camp, the right camp and the middle military camp of the Musket Battalion of the Eastern Expedition Army.

As for the remaining 1,200 men in the four sentries, they were divided into two by Yang Zhen and assigned to the grenadier battalion of Li Lu's Eastern Conquest Army and the artillery battalion of Yang Shen's Eastern Conquest Army.

As a result, the old Musket Battalion that followed Yang Zhen and moved to Lushunkou also changed from the original three sentry troops to the nine sentry troops. Then the three sentry posts were divided into a small battalion and reorganized into the left, right, middle and third battalions.

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At the same time, in order to distinguish the expanded Artillery Battalion of the March to the East Army from the three battalion-level organizations under its jurisdiction, Yang Zhen naturally continued to adopt the regiment camp organization and divided the newly expanded Artillery Battalion of the March to the East Army into

It was officially named the First Musket Regiment of the March to the East Advance Army, referred to as the First Musket Regiment of the March to the East Army.

Although there was no such thing as a regiment in the actual military system of the Ming Dynasty, with the previous establishment of regiments and camps, no one found it strange that the musketry battalion was now a musketeer regiment. Instead, everything seemed logical.

The imperial duties of Zhang Chen, Zhang Guogan, and Li Shouzhong have not changed much, but the number of people under their command has tripled.

Zhang Chen commanded the First Fusilier Regiment of the Eastern Expeditionary Army as deputy general, and also commanded the central barracks of the First Fusilier Regiment.

Zhang Guogan and Li Shouzhong, who originally commanded one sentry each, now each command one battalion as battalion officers, Zhang Guogan leads three posts in the left battalion, and Li Shouzhong leads three posts in the right battalion.

And their team officers and shed chiefs also followed the rising tide. The shed chiefs became team officers, and the team officers became sentry officers. Each one of them had high morale and was full of enthusiasm, leading his recruits to stand in the army under the scorching sun.

They practiced postures, formations, orders, spear formations, and formations, and it was a joy to practice.

They trained the new recruits just as Yang Zhen had trained them at the beginning, until the newly recruited reserve musketeers were trained until they cried for their parents and cried for their mothers.

Correspondingly, the Grenadier Battalion and Artillery Battalion of the Eastern Marching Army received additional personnel and were upgraded to become the First Grenadier Regiment Battalion and the First Artillery Regiment Battalion of the Eastern Marching Army, referred to as the First Grenadier Battalion and the First Artillery Regiment Battalion of the Eastern Marching Army.

The Bombardier Regiment and the 1st Artillery Regiment.

The grenadiers had the largest number during the original advance battalion for the Eastern Expedition, and there were nine sentries before they were moved to the defense.

However, when the defense was moved, the grenadiers led by three sentries from Anqing were ordered to stay in the Songshan City area in western Liaoning.

Therefore, after crossing the sea and moving to defend Jinhai Town, there were actually six sentries with more than 1,800 men under the grenadier battalion commanded by Li Lu.

This time Yang Zhen added two more sentries for him, and the grenadier battalion was upgraded to a grenadier regiment, which turned into eight sentries, also organized into three battalions on the left, center and right.

Li Lu still commanded the First Grenadier Regiment as deputy general and personally led two sentries as the central army. Then Pan Xi, a former guerrilla from the Grenadier Battalion who returned from injury, led the three sentries of the left battalion, and the remaining Grenadier Regiment was newly formed.

The right camp was led by Zhang Tianbao, who had made many meritorious deeds.

As for the newly formed First Artillery Regiment of the Eastern Army, there were six sentry troops before crossing the sea and moving the defense. When the defense was moved, Dunn was ordered to lead one sentry to stay in Songshan City. Not long ago, after the war ended, Dunn was ordered to lead another sentry to stay in Fuzhou City.

, there are only four sentries left that Yang Shen can directly command.

The four sentry troops were divided into left and right wings. The left wing was the coastal defense artillery team post and the sky artillery team sentry, and the right wing was composed of two newly formed heavy artillery artillery team posts.

In this expansion of the army, after Yang Zhen added two sentries to Yang Shen's artillery battalion, the number of troops under his direct command now totaled six sentries.

At this point, the six sentries were divided into two and mixed into the left and right battalions.

There are four posts in the left camp, with 1,200 people and 120 sky cannons, which is called the sky cannon battalion.

The right battalion has two posts, 600 people, equipped with mules and horses artillery carts, and equipped with forty captured heavy red barbarian cannons, which became the new heavy artillery battalion of the advance army for the Eastern Expedition.

Yang Shen still commanded the left and right battalions of the newly formed First Artillery Regiment as a general.

On July 18, the 13th year of Chongzhen, after Yang Zhen completed the expansion and new formation of the three regiments and battalions of the advance army for the Eastern Expedition, he handed over the task of training troops to Zhang Chen, Li Lu and Yang Shen, while he himself
Chapter completed!