Chapter 39 The First Brigade of the New Army of the Brave Guard Battalion
In October of the 15th year of Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian finally took the step of establishing a new army and formally started to form a new army of Yongwei Camp.
The Yongwei Camp, an organization that originally belonged to the emperor's personal army, was continued to be used, and the newly built army was called the First Brigade of the New Army of the Yongwei Camp.
The planned full strength of the first brigade is 3,200 men, with four-level combat units: regiment, company, platoon, and squad. A squad has a fixed number of twelve soldiers, three squads, and the direct strength of the platoon adds up to a total of forty-eight.
Platoon. Three platoons plus company-affiliated forces totaling 200 people form a company. Companies and above are regiment-level units with a troop strength of 800 people. Three regiments plus the brigade-affiliated cavalry reconnaissance assault company, artillery company, and baggage logistics
The company, as well as other miscellaneous services, together constitute the brigade-level combat unit.
In fact, this so-called brigade-level organization is similar to the regiment level in later generations, except that the name battalion has been taken up by the military name and the regiment has to be set up directly above the company.
"Yuan Bin, I summoned you from Hushan to the capital a few days ago to form the new army of the Yongwei Camp. Now the students in the general camp are barely functional, so I decided to formally form the first brigade of the new army of the Yongwei Camp.
. Your task this month is to first form two combat groups, and then spend another month to set up the entire brigade. All company and platoon-level officials of the new army will be selected from the students in the general school hall."
Liu Yuanbin is Huang Degong's deputy general. He was transferred from the Luzhou front line to the capital a month ago. Zhu Youjian's idea is to make him the brigade commander of the first brigade of the New Army, and then use the first cadet company of the general school as the skeleton to organize the brigade.
Quickly set up.
After more than a month of assault training, the first cadet company of General School Hall has basically acquired the qualities of a junior officer. This group of people has a good foundation. This more than one month of training is mainly to familiarize them with military regulations and military formations.
The rest of the training can only be done in rotation while leading the troops. Time waits for no one, and there really is no time for them to finish their training before leading the troops.
"General, I will obey your Majesty's imperial decree, and I will live up to the emperor's favor and lead a strong army for our Ming Dynasty."
"Okay, I have put all my hopes for a strong Ming army on you. I hope you won't let me down. The main battle company of the new army is mainly composed of three combat platoons, two of which are spearmen.
formation, and the other one is the grenadier and machete soldier. The grenadier is a new military type, so you have to think more about how to make good use of this soldier."
Zhu Youjian's idea is that company-level units are the basic sequence of frontline operations. The main equipment of spearmen is spears and shotguns. During combat, four people form a combat group, three spearmen form a triangle formation, and the shotgunners
The center is responsible for command and fire support. Three combat groups form a squad battle sequence, arranged in a linear array or a triangular scattered array according to the specific combat situation.
There are two main types of triangle array: inverted triangle and upright triangle. In upright triangle, one spearman is in front, the other two are at the side, and the musketeer is in the middle. In the inverted triangle, three spearmen are arranged in a linear arrangement, with the musketeer behind. Generally speaking,
Bottom, the inverted triangle is mainly used when forming a line array, and the upright triangle is used when forming a scattered array. When a company-level unit is fighting, it decides whether to form a scattered array or a line array based on the situation. If it is a scattered array, each squad will arrange it.
A small triangle is formed first, and then the small triangle is formed into a large triangle, and they are stacked layer by layer. In the line formation, two spears are lined up at the front, and then the grenadiers are responsible for throwing grenades behind them.
Grenadiers generally select soldiers who are powerful and can throw things far. When the enemy is far away, they use grenades to provide long-range firepower. When at short range, they use machetes to help the army slash the enemies rushing in front of them.
The enemy may be tearing apart the enemy's dense defensive array for the army.
Currently, there is no such condition and it is not very realistic to form a new army with all firearms. We can only use this method of combining hot and cold. However, with high-explosive grenades, it is basically enough to face the enemy, regardless of
Whether it was the rogue bandits or the Manchus, it was impossible for them to form a phalanx for an assault under the firepower of grenades.
"Your Majesty, the new army is mainly based on infantry. I am afraid that the army will not be able to keep up during the battle. Both the Donglu and the rogues have a large number of cavalry. Our infantry will suffer a lot when fighting against people." Liu Yuanbin had been following Huang Degong as a cavalry before.
, he always felt uneasy when he was asked to command the infantry. In his opinion, although the Ming Dynasty is poor now, it is not so poor that it cannot afford to form a cavalry of two or three thousand people. This is the emperor's own army.
Making them all infantry is a bit too much of a point loss.
"Brigadier Liu, you also know the current situation. The imperial court is simply unable to form a large-scale cavalry, so the idea of building an army must be based on infantry. My goal is not to just build this one brigade of recruits, but to build several more in the future.
Brigade recruits, so the First Brigade of the New Army must shoulder the heavy responsibility of paving the way for future army building. If the infantry is used well, the effect may not be worse than the cavalry. How to increase the marching speed of the infantry is a problem you must solve."
Increase the infantry's marching speed? Liu Yuanbin felt that this thing was really awkward. How could he run with two legs and outrun a horse with four hooves?
In terms of pure marching speed, infantry cannot compete with cavalry. The marching speed is not purely about who can run faster. The mobility of the army is composed of multiple factors. The speed of gathering, the speed of setting up camp, and the speed of transferring positions.
, the speed of breaking into formation, and even the speed of cooking and eating can affect the marching speed. As long as they are properly trained, the efficiency of infantry on the battlefield is not much worse than that of cavalry.
"Looking at your expression, it seems that you have no confidence in improving the marching speed of the army. Let me tell you, as long as you improve the efficiency of the army's housekeeping, and then train more ten-mile armed cross-country running during training, the marching speed can be greatly improved.
Young Master. It's okay for our soldiers to walk, but it's not possible for the whole army to run in unison. This thing needs to be practiced every day, and the results will be seen after a month or two. The training method I implemented in the general camp,
You have to bring them all to the New Army for execution, and don't try to fool me."
"The general will obey the order!"
After Liu Yuanbin finished talking, he returned to the newly established military camp and began to prepare for the establishment of the new army. The officers were ready-made, the battalion-level generals were the instructors of the general school, and the company and platoon-level students were outstanding students. The soldiers were composed of two parts, starting from the Beijing camp.
A part of them were selected from the city, and then a part of the refugees were recruited and mixed into the capital.
There have been a lot of refugees coming to the capital in recent years. They are all migrant workers from the north in this era. It is actually a very good choice to be able to work as soldiers in the military camp to feed themselves. The income is stable and they have enough to eat. The only drawback is
Life is in danger. But life is inherently valuable at this time. Who would cherish life so much? Let alone recruiting one or two thousand people, there is no problem at all in recruiting four to fifty thousand people.
In the past few days, as soon as the recruitment list for the new army was posted, idle men from the capital came in and crowded the entrance of the new military camp in Xiyuan. Looking at the enthusiasm, who would have thought that the Ming Dynasty would be destroyed in a year or two.