"According to the original plan to expand the army, the five admirals of the center, left, right, front and rear will each have jurisdiction over two towns on the left and right according to the old system. This point remains unchanged. The establishment of each town of war soldiers has been expanded from the original two battalions to two associations and four

A battalion, totaling two thousand soldiers."

Speaking of which, when Zheng Chenggong was first in Nan'ao, the establishment of the land division was one battalion with only 500 soldiers per town. Later, when Chen Kai outwitted Chaozhou, Zheng Chenggong expanded the establishment to two battalions per town in the process of annihilating and suppressing the local bandits.

A total of one thousand soldiers.

In the days that followed, Shi Lang, Huang Ting, Hong Xishan and other Fujian troops who entered Guangdong surrendered. Zheng Chenggong adjusted the organization and awarded the three commanders respectively Zuoxiang Town, Assistance and Suppression Zuo Town and Youchong Town. Among them, those who entered Guangdong

Zuoxiang Town, composed of the Shi Jiajun, the strongest among the Fujian army, had 2,000 soldiers, twice as many as other towns.

For this reason, Chen Kai personally went to the occupied area of ​​Zhangzhou Prefecture to recruit Wanjia brothers, and Zheng Chenggong also established Rongqi Town composed of two thousand soldiers. Later, he expanded Youxian Town to include two thousand soldiers.

scale.

In the days that followed, the size of each town hardly changed much. That is to say, the scale of Rongqi Town became larger and larger, from the initial two thousand soldiers to nearly four thousand later. However, not long ago, this super-staffed

The town was also divided into two parts by Zheng Chenggong, named Rong Banner Left Town and Rong Banner Right Town. As for the expansion of the army, it was achieved by establishing new towns and battalions, and at the same time, there was also the placement of surrendered generals.

The intention is.

All in all, before this expansion, except for Rongqi Town, Left Pioneer Town and Right Pioneer Town, the other towns of this army only had two battalions and a thousand soldiers. Now, it will be nearly doubled!

"Five admirals and ten towns, Rong Banner Left Town, Rong Banner Right Town, Qinding Town, Left Pioneer Town, Right Pioneer Town..."

"Zhong Chong Town, Zuo Chong Town, You Chong Town, Qian Chong Town, Hou Chong Town, aid and suppress Zhong Chong Town, aid and suppress Zuo Town, aid and suppress Right Town, aid and suppress Qian Town, aid and suppress Hou Town..."

"Qianfeng Town, Zhongquan Town, Houjin Town, Zhengbing Town, Qibing Town, Dianbing Town, Youbing Town, Yingbing Town, Renwu Town, Yiwu Town, Liwu Town, Zhiwu Town, Xinwu Town...

"

"After doing the math, our army has thirty-eight towns in total. It currently has 42,000 soldiers. It is expected to expand to 76,000 troops. There will be a shortage of 34,000 soldiers before the expansion is completed."

This is just the establishment of each town. In addition, apart from Nan'ao Town, the local garrison forces such as the Chaozhou City Guards Association, there are also 28 star camps, each with 500 soldiers, which is 14,000 soldiers.

Soldiers.

The Artifact Town separated from Rong Banner Town is a purely firearms town. Artillery, fire blunderbuss, and even fire bricks, torches, explosive barrels, etc., all firearms are their weapons, but the number is relatively small.

In addition, there are five cavalry towns including Beizhen, Xiaoqi Town, Tieqi Town, Cheqi Town, and Husband Town, each with a staff of 500 cavalry. When it comes to the proportion of infantry and cavalry, it is already very low.

But there was nothing we could do. Fujian and Guangdong were not horse-breeding areas at this time. War horses were all captured and smuggled. The main thing was the former, and there was nothing we could do.

"For the soldiers who are lacking in each town, priority will be given to veterans from the 28-star camp and local garrison troops, and the rest will be supplemented by new recruits."

"Students obey orders."

In this way, it is indeed necessary to break up the old troops and cause the combat effectiveness of those troops to decline. However, in this way, the combat effectiveness losses caused by the expansion of each town can be greatly reduced. It is nothing more than seizing the time to run in.

Such a large-scale military expansion, recruiting more than 30,000 people into the camp for training at one go, is a feat that Zheng Chenggong has never done. Such a number is not unfamiliar to him. It has been there since the two of them started planning.

This wasn't the first time he saw the basic calculation. But every time he saw it, he couldn't help but take a deep breath, panic, and excitement.

In fact, Zheng Chenggong was already extremely wealthy among the various anti-Qing forces in the Southern Ming Dynasty - with the benefits of sea trade, his annual income was more than one million taels of silver, and in many cases it could even reach the level of two million.

This is composed of the five merchants from the mountains and seas, Wang merchants, official merchants, Yi merchants, and payers, as well as various maritime businesses that the Zheng Group has been engaged in for many years. Only from this can one island have a substantial impact on the entire southeastern coast of the Qing court.

threats.

However, even with such benefits, the actual pace of military expansion still cannot be too large. In the final analysis, this army has never been a garrison peasant soldier, nor an ordinary garrison and town soldier, nor is it like the Great Western Army, the Great Western Army, etc.

The Shun Army is a half-rebel, half-official army, but a professional army that receives military pay on a monthly basis and maintains its true colors.

In terms of cost, such an army model is higher, but from the beginning Zheng Chenggong has to train a professional army to fight against the Manchu Eight Banners Army. In terms of cost, the Zheng Group can also sustain it, it is nothing more than scale.

Expansion is just slow.

Historically, Zheng Chenggong collected millions of taels of silver from various prefectures and counties in the Qing-controlled areas through false negotiations with the Qing court. With this silver, he not only restored his strength, but also expanded to a certain extent.

This was already an excellent effect, but this time it was replaced by a more despicable and shameless trader. The guy named Chen Kai opened the floodgates, gold, silver, copper coins, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, jewelry, cloth, silk and even

All goods that can be counter-priced are being continuously transported to the areas controlled by the Ming army. In the six months from August last year to February this year alone, they harvested more than 10 million taels. And from February to now, the Qing court has

The officials of the Ming Dynasty continued to exploit the people. Not only did they send large sums of gold, silver and jewelry, they also sent a large number of soldiers to areas controlled by the Ming army.

Now, if you have money and people, all you have to do is train the new recruits into soldiers who know the rules and regulations and can use weapons to carry out tactical actions, that's all!

"Sure enough, a horse won't gain weight if it doesn't eat night grass."

Thinking of this, Zheng Chenggong couldn't help but laugh out loud. The staff and generals present probably knew why he was laughing, and they also echoed.

After laughing, Zheng Chenggong also knew that training would still take a certain amount of time. Soon, the Qing court's decree from Zhongzuo was delivered, along with a letter written by Liu Qingtai. Zheng Chenggong naturally

Take it seriously, even more than before.

"After returning to Zha from afar, I thought that there must be some comfort to the Yin Yin who was not a sycophant, so that he could not waver in his behavior. Bu sycophant traveled to Fujian at the same time, and wrote a letter with great enthusiasm. Could it be that he wanted to settle the discussion at sea early, report the orders of the sage early, and marry him early?

In the situation of loyalty and filial piety between father and son, how can the answer of one step still be so different?"

"The affairs of the world are just a matter of reason and power. The Duke is ranked above the ministers, and when my grandmother is dying..."

The Qing court did not agree to hand over Zhoushan to Zheng Chenggong, and the request to station the five prefectures along the Zhejiang coast from Zhoushan to Ningbo, Shaoxing, Taizhou, Wenzhou, and Chuzhou naturally had no reason to establish it. But since it was a bargain,

Naturally, the price had to be raised all over the place, and the money would be paid back on the ground. It was not a deal if all the conditions were rejected at once, so the Qing government said that it could consider assigning the green camp establishment of Taizhou Prefecture to Zheng Chenggong, and said that this was already a great sign of sincerity, and asked Zheng Chenggong

We can tolerate each other for the sake of the country and restore the stable life of the people on the southeast coast as soon as possible.

According to the imperial edict, the Qing government was repaying the money on the ground, but Liu Qingtai spoke sincerely of loyalty and filial piety in his letters, and used the efforts of Fujian officials to prove their sincerity to Zheng Chenggong, hoping that Zheng Chenggong could handle the matter of recruitment as soon as possible.

This is good for everyone.

"Don't be sarcastic, I have exhausted all my strength. One day, I will see you in the class couplet, and you can accuse me of innocence. When it comes to the progress, there will be Gushan and other great people. The success or failure will depend on one step.

Father, son, brother, if you are not a sycophant, even if you take the blame, how can you hold it accountable? You can only judge with one step!"

Zheng Chenggong read a decree and a letter over and over again, but no matter how he read it, he still had to write a reply and send it back. After all, perfunctory things still had to be done.

Zheng Chenggong thought about it carefully and then started writing a reply. Before long, the soldiers outside the door reported that a messenger from the King of Xining had come to deliver the letter.

The two had reached a marriage earlier, and Zheng Chenggong always called Li Dingguo an old relative in his letters, which was very cordial. At this time, Li Dingguo's messenger arrived, and Zheng Chenggong quickly put away the Qing court's decree and Liu Qingtai's letters, as well as

He was writing a reply, and then the messenger was invited in.

The content of the letter was to request Zheng Chenggong to send troops westward as soon as possible and join hands with him to regain Guangdong. Zheng Chenggong could have predicted this without even reading the letter.

In this regard, after thinking about it, Zheng Chenggong decided to reply a letter, first to respond, secondly to mention that he was preparing for war, and thirdly to explain why he could not send troops for the time being based on Zhang Mingzhen's garrison in Chongming. However,

In the end, Zheng Chenggong did not say anything. He just said that he would dispatch troops to participate in the war, but the specific time for sending troops has not yet been determined.

After seeing off Li Dingguo's messenger, Zheng Chenggong was always anxious in his chest and couldn't get rid of it. Seeing this, he quickly sent a message to Feng Chengshi.

"Mr. Feng, when will the weapons be ready?"

Feng Chengshi had already expected this when he said this, but even so, he couldn't help but break out in sweat.

The production capacity of the Ordnance Bureau was established when Chen Kai was in charge. Feng Chengshi did not dare to change too much in this regard because he did not find a better way or a trick that could surpass Chen Kai's ideas.

This kind of production capacity is indeed quite a lot, especially the average production capacity of craftsmen, which is probably second to none in the entire East Asia.

But now they are no longer facing an army of more than ten thousand, but the need for weapons for tens of thousands of troops. And weapons are not something that can be used once and for all - the losses in battle are huge, and in addition, they are not well preserved.

It will cause damage to the weapons, and the Ordnance Bureau will be responsible for repairing or replenishing them. This will undoubtedly affect a lot of production capacity, so that the number of spare weapons in the arsenal is far from being able to directly make up for the huge amount caused by this expansion.

gap.

Feng Chengshi didn't dare to wipe it. As for why Chen Kai's manufacturing bureau should be responsible for making weapons for the Guangdong army, he would never say it even if he just thought about it. The reason is not only face, but more important.

It's still a manifestation of his ability. He doesn't want to lose to Chen Kai, not at all!

"Students must try their best."

"Well, Mr. Feng still needs to hurry up. I always have a feeling that the army may be dispatched in advance before October."

………………

Feng Chengshi came here to receive a group of craftsmen who had fled. After the screening, he was about to go back, but Zheng Chenggong called him to the Xingyuan Er to give him some advice.

He knew the importance, so he set off overnight to return to Zhongzuo Institute. The materials there were relatively sufficient. He did not mention the products of Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Chaozhou, and Qiongzhou, nor did he mention what Zheng Tai had managed to collect from overseas. He only talked about

During this period, the amount obtained from the areas occupied by the Qing army was already an astronomical figure.

However, Feng Chengshi is not Magneto, and weapons are not just a pile of raw materials. Every process and every knock is indispensable. The Arms Bureau has a lot of craftsmen, and the production capacity is not

Alas, even so, Feng Chengshi was still sweating profusely in the camp in Quanzhou, because he knew very well how big the gap was this time, and it was even so big that it made it difficult for him to breathe.

"Fifteen thousand lances, twenty thousand lancets, nine thousand six hundred rattan tablets, twenty-one thousand rattan helmets, blunderbuss..."

Sitting on the boat, Feng Chengshi knew those numbers by heart, but the more he thought about them, the more out of breath he felt. He quickly got out of the cabin, and the sea breeze seemed to be getting better, but the feeling was still there.

, seems to be pouring out from deep inside, as if it is blocking the trachea.

On weekdays, under his leadership, the Ordnance Bureau never worried Zheng Chenggong about weapons and equipment. The only exception was that Chen Kai's bastion tactics consumed a huge amount of gunpowder, which exceeded the Ordnance Bureau's production capacity.

It did not cause too much bad impact. Who knew that this time, the scale of the army's expansion was so huge, even though he had known about it earlier, but the loss of weapons was not only in the land division, but also in the navy of the Ming army.

Xiao, this is all something he needs to try his best to create.

Probably because he was spoiled by Chen Kai, Zheng Chenggong lacked a clear understanding of the wear and tear of weapons, so that whether it was the land division or the navy, as long as the weapon broke, it was sent directly to the Ordnance Bureau for repair. If it could not be repaired,

Just change. In short, Zheng Chenggong only cares about the soldiers being able to use qualified weapons, nothing more.

The inventory could never be lifted, and the pressure on my shoulders became even greater. There were only a few months left. The inventory was rising, but it was rising too slowly. I rushed back to the Zhongzuo Institute of Military Affairs with an anxious mood.

In the Weapons Bureau, the Grand Superintendent Chen Qi, who was his deputy, reported the weapons production in the past two days, and his deep frown squeezed the ravine of the mountains and rivers deeper.

"Stop Xunxiu first..."

"Joining the army, Xunxiu has already stopped."

As soon as the words came out, Feng Chengshi realized that he was in a hurry. Xun Xiu had stopped a few months ago, and even the Spring Festival only lasted for one day.
Chapter completed!