The Gao family has a large number of armed members, and after so many years, it is not only by relying on the accumulation of qualifications to promote talents. In addition to the various wars in southern Xinjiang, the suppression of mountain bandits, horse thieves, etc., in the Ming Dynasty and when they were outside the customs and outside the country, the armed family of the Gao family had a "military academy".

Of course, Gao Pragmatic has always been cautious in this kind of matter, and it is absolutely impossible for him to directly call the name of "military academy" or "lecture martial arts". The "military academy" of the armed family of the Gao family is called the "Merchant Protector Training Class".

The name, the more inconspicuous or even the more lowly the better, but in fact, this "Nursing Merchant Refresher Course" is really not only a low-level scale of "class", and more than 1,000 people from the Gao family participate in the training and further study of the Nursing Refresher Class every year.

The Protector Refresher Course is divided into two major "classes", namely the "Onshore Ranger Refresher Course" and the "Marine Ranger Refresher Course", both of which can be as the name suggests without explanation.

In addition, there is a type of special training class, which is the type of land and sea links, and the number of people is relatively small. Gao Pragmatic's original intention was to conduct training like that of the Marine Corps Military Academy. However, since there are not many landing operations at present, most of the armed men trained among them have been sent to the inland river lines for "training", and a small number of people have been sent to southern Xinjiang as reserve talents.

Gao Pragmatism, who was originally assigned to Meng Gebulu but is now reassigned to Cao Yan as a staff member, graduated from the 13th year special training class of Wanli, and his assessment results are quite excellent: first in theoretical written test, second in war game deduction, and first in comprehensive actual combat drill.

Originally, Gao Pragmatic sent him to Menggebulu instead of southern Xinjiang, considering that Menggebulu was located in Hada, and Menggebulu's own strength was relatively poor, so he specially selected the best military staff officer for him.

Who knows that as the old saying goes, thin mud can't hold up the wall. Gao Yimin's suggestions were obviously very correct, but Meng Gebulu just didn't listen to them, and the only time he listened to them, he picked a decision.

It is still possible to live if you do evil in heaven, but you cannot live if you do it yourself. When encountering such an "employer", Gao Yimin had no choice, and in the end he could only catch up with the inevitable defeat of Mengebulu.

Gao Yimin was very worried that his master would be angry because of this, and he would blame him for his ineffective staff with the defeat of Menggebulu, so he used his emergency contact power as a military staff officer sent to Gao Shishi.

But Gao Pragmatic is not an unreasonable person, he knows that a Jurchen strong chief like Meng Gebulu, especially a guy who has not received any reliable education, expects him to know how to view Gao Yimin's existence, obviously can only be extravagant.

To put it mildly, those high-ranking kingdoms in southern Xinjiang are much smarter than Mengebulu, at least they all know that the staff officers stationed by their side, whether they are political staff officers or military staff officers, are all characters they cannot offend, and their words and deeds depend on the faces of these staff officers.

To them, these people are equivalent to the envoys of the Son of Heaven, all of them are "Qincha", where do they dare to offend? Likewise did not dare to disobey. People say that they say "advice", but in fact, every sentence is an order. But Mengeblu didn't understand that.

Of course, Gao Shishi's authority in southern Xinjiang must be far greater than his authority in Liaodong, and the difference in strength is also very large, which is another reason why Meng Gebulu did not regard Gao Yimin's suggestion as an order.

All in all, Gao Pragmatic did not think that Gao Yimin needed to be responsible for Menggebulu's defeat, so he still reused this person.

It took only more than three days for the news of the six-hundred-mile rush to reach Cao Yan, and after Cao Yan read Gao Pragmatic's handwritten letter, his face was basically the same as usual, and after thinking for a while, he sent people to contact the generals of various departments, including Ma Chengxun, a general of Kaiyuan, Qi Jin, a guerrilla in Shenyang, and others, as well as other "old subordinates" such as Zhang Wanbang, Pu Yuanyi, and his own brother Cao Jian.

This kind of contact is not a military order, because the emperor's decree has not yet arrived, and the transfer of troops and horses must be approved by Li Song, the governor of Liaodong, and even the approval of various military departments is required, which is more troublesome.

However, since Gao Shishi's letter has arrived, of course Cao Yan knows that the Holy Will must be on the way, and he privately notified everyone just to make preparations in advance, so as not to delay time again.

Gao pragmatic limited the approximate number of troops he sent this time, and bluntly said that this battle was "expensive but not too expensive", and asked him to carefully count the men and horses, although it must not be exceeded, but it must not be impersonated, and the amount must be in full.

So Cao Yan thought about it, and simply called 3,000 families by himself, and clearly requisitioned Ma Chengxun's 2,000 Ma family soldiers, Qi Jin's 2,000 Qi family soldiers, Zhang Wanbang and other generals with a total of 3,000 families, and directly gathered 10,000 families.

The remaining 10,000 people were also carefully selected from various guard posts, and they were all the kind of elites who could be pulled out to fight field battles in the defense area east of the Liao River.

Cao Yan felt that such combat effectiveness was completely sufficient, because the family was not as good as ordinary soldiers, and the same number of family soldiers could not only beat three or even five times the ordinary guards, even in the face of the Mongol soldiers, they were not intimidated at all, and even in many cases, they could force the Mongols to withdraw on their own initiative in the case of one thousand or two thousand (the Mongols at this time were very unhappy to fight a tough battle with large losses).

However, Cao Yan is confident that such a family system actually has hidden worries, and Gao Pragmatic was aware of it before he stepped down as Rong Zheng's servant. This hidden worry does not mean that the current generals have begun to show any signs of disobedience to orders - this is really not in the current 15th year of Wanli.

The hidden concern is that Gao Pragmatic found that the phenomenon of recklessness has also begun to appear in the establishment of the generals' families - this is also the root cause of Gao Pragmatic's clear request for Cao Yan to carefully count the number of people this time.

During the Jiajing period, the imperial court officially recognized the establishment of the family and assumed the responsibility of paying the family's salary. Generally speaking, the family can eat double grains, for example, when the monthly salary of an ordinary soldier is two dollars and five cents, the family can "eat double food and five dollars". In the fifteenth year of Wanli in history, the monthly salary of ordinary soldiers increased to four yuan, and the monthly salary of family members rose to nine yuan. In the middle and late stages of Wanli, the monthly salary of the family increased to one or two and five cents, and the treatment was not ungenerous.

What's more, because of the relationship between the butterfly wings of Gao Pragmatic, the trade circulation in the north was greatly strengthened compared with the same period in history, which indirectly led to a slight drop in prices, and because Gao Pragmatic obtained a large amount of silver in the sea trade exchanges with Spain and the Portuguese, the deflation of the people was slightly improved.

So up to now, the food and salary of the generals of the border army has reached the level of one or two taels in advance (only referring to the imperial court's salary, not counting other benefits, subsidies issued by the generals themselves, and "dividends" of war booty, etc.).

Since the reform of the military system was still only in its infancy, and the financial aspects of the imperial court had been tight, to be honest, the general situation of the imperial court relying on the family to fight had not fundamentally improved. In this way, thousands of families were often transferred to successive large-scale battles.

For example, in this rebellion in the northwest, Li Rusong took thousands of his Liaodong family members to participate in the war, and it was precisely because of this that he dared to directly launch that attack without a stable foothold and opened the curtain of a great victory.

For example, in order to deal with the rising Manchurian forces, a large number of family members gathered in Liaodong, and in the 47th year of Wanli, Liaodong was in an emergency, and the imperial court allocated 6,500 family members from the rest of the towns to participate in the war.

In the later period, such as Salhu and other major wars, the imperial court often ordered the generals to "listen to their accustomed war generals, and bring their families or a thousand or a hundred plans". In this way, plus the families of the generals in the Liaodong region, the Ming Dynasty may have gathered tens of thousands of soldiers to fight at most.

So the question is, if the combat effectiveness of Jiading at this time is still the same as Ma Fang's Ma family cavalry, Liu Xian's period of surrendering to Yiding, and even the Liaodong Army during the heyday of Li Chengliang, then why can't the Ming Dynasty, which has so many elite soldiers, still can't beat Houjin? It doesn't make sense!

Gao pragmatic believes that from the perspective of the family, this family is no longer the other family.

In the middle and early stages of the development of the family, because it was an informal establishment, almost all of the family's salaries were borne by the generals themselves, and the generals had no room for empty salaries, let alone such a need. In this case, the selection of the family is naturally extremely strict, after all, no general is willing to pit himself on the battlefield. Therefore, the combat effectiveness of the family at this time is really strong, and the winning rate is really high.

During this period, such as the Ma family cavalry, the Ma family soldiers, the Japanese soldiers, etc., as long as their own generals felt that this battle had to be fought and let them fight, let alone one fight two, one fight three, even if the record of one hit five abounded. For example, when Liu Xian was quelling the rebellion in the interior, because his opponents were much weaker than those of the Mongols and the Japanese Invaders, it was not uncommon for him to even fight ten.

But in the middle and late periods, the imperial court officially recognized the national establishment of the family members, and all kinds of empty salaries began to appear in the family members. Although the imperial court has not conducted an investigation now, Gao Shishi listened to Liang Menglong and three squire colleagues during the "Five Hall Officials Meeting" of the Ministry of War, and found that at this time, there were nearly 200,000 people in the country.

How is this possible!

Gao Pragmatic has personally commanded the troops of Xuanda and Jiliao Towns, which have the largest troops, and how many generals these Xiongzhen generals have, he can almost say that Gao Pragmatic can be said to be clear. As far as the seven towns of the "Seven Towns Jinglu", which he once named, the families of the main generals together definitely do not exceed 100,000.

But the problem is that there are nearly 150,000 of them in the military department.

The vacancy of the family is one-third!

The embankment of thousands of miles collapsed in the anthill, reminiscent of the end of the Ming Dynasty in the original history, when the imperial court found that "the families everywhere were originally called elites, but now they are childish and have their own food", and the generals "mostly use their families to send their names to embezzle salaries".

For example, an investigation report in the 37th year of Wanli showed that "Dong Yiyuan, the chief soldier, and others risked more than 7,770 salaries by abolishing their salaries."

What is the nature of this? Nearly 10,000 families are unqualified, which shows that the quality of the family at this time has long been much worse than before.

In the Chongzhen period, Xiong Tingbi came to an even worse and pessimistic conclusion after investigation, "There are more than 80,000 troops in Liao, and less than 8,000 people can fight in the war", which shows how much water the Ming Dynasty theoretically owned tens of thousands of families.

The reason why Gao Shishi not only privately stated that the use of firearms, clothing, and food could be "open" in this war when he went out to Beiguan to rescue Ye He and fight against the Tumen, but also personally wrote to Cao Yan asking Cao Yan to carefully count the personnel and not to impersonate his name, was because of such concerns.

Now the only point that Gao pragmatic is entangled in is whether to retain the family system. If it is retained, then how can it be reformed to maintain its excellent combat effectiveness and not be supplied; And if it is abolished, how to ensure that the other armies are usable, and that the generals of the towns will not strongly oppose or even resist.

In this matter, there are both strategic security factors at the national level and various concerns about ensuring the stability of the rule. Even though Gao Pragmatic could influence the military department through factional factors, and could influence the Holy Will through his personal relationship with the emperor, he himself was in a dilemma.

Soldiers, the major affairs of the country, the place of death and life, and the way of survival, must not be overlooked.

But...... You can't mess around, if you accidentally make Wang Mang's reform, how can it be good?

Not to mention Gao Shishi's worries, but said that on the afternoon of the next day when Cao Yan sent people to inform the generals to prepare for the dispatch of troops in advance, the holy decree and the order of the military department arrived. Liaofu Li Song invited Cao Yan to join the Fuyuan for deliberations - in fact, it was not a big deal, the holy decree said, let Li Song effectively dispatch grain and grass and military resources, and "plan the overall situation of northern Liao", and Cao Yan was directly responsible for relevant operations.

There is no clear statement of "related operations" in the holy decree, but it is included in the ministerial order of the Ministry of War. Cao Yan looked at it in the Fuyuan, and sure enough, the statement of the Ministry of War was basically the same as Gao Pragmatic's requirements, and it was even just a simplified version of Gao Pragmatic's handwritten letter, which was nothing more than a few clichés.

In addition, the military department's order also mentioned something else: Zhou Yong, the governor of Jiliao, is about to come to inspect the defense of Liaodong, and this matter "has nothing to do with the general, so there is no need to delay the fighter plane."

The general is Cao Yan, and the military department means that Zhou Zhitai is coming, but you don't have to worry about it, just fight.

The problem is that Zhou Yong can't fly, and when he comes to Liaodong, Cao Yan must have already set out for the expedition, and he can't manage it if he wants to?

This sentence is obviously implied, and Gao Situ did not mention it in the letter. Cao Yan didn't understand until he went out that Zhou Zhitai might not have anything else to do here, and inspecting the defense of Liaodong was just an excuse, and his real purpose was one: to suppress Li Song.

Cao Yan took a deep breath and was a little moved.

He knew that being able to let Zhou Yong, the master of Taiwan, personally go to Liaodong was definitely not because of how much face he had in Cao, the person with this face was Gao Situ, and only Gao Situ would care about whether he Cao would be dragged back.

In this battle, even if I fight hard, I have to win for Gao Situ!

Cao Yan, who made up his mind, moved faster, personally ordered the troops, and set off with 7,000 troops the next day, including 3,000 for the full number of family members and 4,000 for the elite of the guard.

In less than two days, Cao Yan met with the Shenyang guerrilla general Qi Jin in Shenyang. Qi Jin selected and transferred 2,000 Qi family troops and 1,000 elites of the Shenyang guard, and went north to Kaiyuan with Cao Yan.

At the same time, Ma Chengxun on the Kaiyuan side was also making military preparations, he not only had to select and transfer the elite, but also to check the armaments - the base camp of this expedition was Kaiyuan, and most of the materials needed were directly allocated from Kaiyuan, and a small number needed to be transferred from Liaoyang.

The rest of the generals, such as Zhang Wanbang and Pu Yuanyi, are also on the way to Kaiyuan.

An early winter battle is about to begin.

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