Expand! Expansion is imperative!

From the outer northeast of Heilongjiang or the vast tundra belt of Siberia, to Tamna Island, Shandong, Denglai, Shanghai, Liangguang, Taiwan, Fujian, all the way to Nanzhong, Luzon, and even the more distant ten states and Fusang, this huge land formed along the coastline, although there are quite a few troops, there are also several times the number of paramilitary units of the militia such as watchmen, strong men, and patrol guards to maintain law and order, and those who have received a certain period of military training every year are even more numerous; However, there are very few troops that can be used for mobile combat!

The entire army of the Nanyue Army was composed of the Guards Brigade, eight towns and the equivalent of two towns of the Marine Division and Army Battalion, as well as more than a dozen garrison brigades.

The number of centaurs sounds like a lot.

"Tell me, are there too few available troops at the moment?"

Staring at the walls of the chamber were covered with a wall of maps, intricately filled with small colored flags representing various powers. Compared with the flags representing the peasant armies of the Ming Army, Chuang Ying, Cao Ying, and Xiying, the small red flag representing the Nanyue Army was almost submerged in the sea of flags.

In the past, Li Shouhan always took into account the size of the army and the development of economic production, fearing that the size of the army would be too large and would affect the economy and industrial and agricultural production of Nanzhong. But now it seems that the problem is quite the opposite!

"Lord, originally you were worried that there were too many soldiers and horses, and Ding Zhuang was drawn to serve in the army, and there were worries about the sick people. However, in the humble opinion of his subordinates, the expansion of the army at this time is not only not the risk of the sick people. On the contrary, there are many more benefits. ”

Huang Xigon, who was ordered to travel from Li Huabao in Guangxi to Guangzhou to report to various places in Guangxi on the suppression of bandits, road construction, taxation, and promotion of compulsory education, although it was the first time for him to participate in such a meeting, he was not timid. Facing Li Shouhan's questioning, he talked eloquently.

Li Huabao's personality is very different from that of the eldest sister Li Huamei, the eldest brother Li Huayu, and the third brother Li Huaxuan. Compared to their vigorous, wide opening and closing. Li Huabao's temperament inherited more from the gentleness and generosity of his mother Yan Meier's character.

Character determines destiny. Working methods and practices are also determined. In Guangxi, Li Huabao did not make a big move like his brothers and sisters, but adopted a work method similar to moisturizing things silently.

Guangxi, in Platoon Commander Li's memoirs, is "nowhere there are no mountains, no mountains and no holes, and no holes and no bandits". It was still the Republic of China period, and in the alternating era of the Ming and Qing dynasties, various forces such as Tusi, the government, and the vassal kings were intertwined, and the situation was even more complicated.

If Li Huamei or Li Huaxuan were in Guangxi, they would have to mobilize people to do a big job. All the obstacles that stand in their way are crushed into powder with the war machine of the Nanyue Army.

However, Li Huabao has taken another measure.

I'll build the road first! In the process of road construction, people were ordered to survey the mountains and rivers to understand the customs and customs and the distribution of power, and then start trading activities.

If there is a local official or something like that, he is strong and strong, and he defends the danger according to the danger, and plans to take the opportunity to get a handful of Li Huabao. Well, sorry. The road construction team itself is organized according to the battalion layers, not only with knives, guns and equipment, but also with a special escort team.

The ill-intentioned Tusi had nothing but a few brutal slaves, with only a few sticks and stones, and at most a few wooden bows made of animal veins, in the face of a group of vicious wolves armed to the teeth of sheep's clothing. The consequences can be imagined.

By the time Huang Xigon, as the official of the part of the sand-mixed area sent by Emperor Chongzhen to the Liangguang region, was kicked by Li Shouhan to Guangxi to serve as the Youjiang military preparation road, the scene in Guangxi was already very different.

Guangxi, which was originally rugged and difficult to navigate, has been hard work by Li Huabao for several years, although it is not like the Pearl River Delta region and the Nanzhong region, where there are thoroughfares everywhere. However, the roads and bridges between the prefectures and counties were also built openly, and there were roads between the counties, and horse-drawn carriages were galloping back and forth.

Several rivers of Liujiang and Yongjiang are like white sails and ships. Our second son Li knew very well what the water transportation of ships meant to the Nanyue army, so as soon as he arrived in Guangxi, he dredged the river, blew up all the reefs and sandbars in the river that could be blown up, and set up lighthouses on those who could set up beacons, and ordered people to expand and build warehouses in various prefectures, counties, and towns along the river according to the population and commercial exchanges.

Under the threat of the black hole cannon on the brig and the dense fire guns standing on the side of the ship, no one in any place, whether it was the state and county officials of the imperial court or the local officials of the Tusi and the Tu Prefect, dared to test the heat and hardness of the cannonballs with their own heads.

Under the temptation of both positive and negative aspects of the threat to life and the future of artillery shells and the huge benefits brought about by trade in goods, along the Liujiang and Yongjiang rivers, the prefectures, counties, and towns connected by various roads, the compulsory compulsory education system, the system of apportionment to the mu, the system of integrated errands, and the system of business tax, income tax, value-added tax, and special product tax have been gradually developed.

This surprised Huang Xigon, a person who has read the sage books for many years and learned from them!

Almost all of the same year's peers in the capital said in public opinion that Li Guogong and his son did not respect the sages, were mercenary, extorted violently, relied on the strength of soldiers and horses and acted perversely, and sooner or later they would be punished by God. However, when I arrived in Guangxi, I found that these words were a bit untrue!

Not to mention anything else, Guangxi's children's enrolment rate alone is not far behind the fact that it is not far behind Guangxi, a poor province that has historically been considered a wild place, but also with Jiangnan, a rich region that has always been a prosperous place with culture.

"Lord Huang, now under the rule of Guangxi, the enrollment rate of schoolchildren has reached sixty percent. The various night classes for adults to do not count the places where literacy is carried out! ”

"Sixty percent?" After listening to Li Huabao's rather proud introduction, Huang Xigon couldn't help but be very surprised, "Guangxi is poor, how can there be so many well-off families who can afford their children to go to school?" ”

"Who said that children from well-off families must be able to study and go to school?" Li Huabao suddenly had a little bit of a minced meat style of the young master. These words made Daoist Liu Guidan, who was instructing his subordinates in the courtyard to assassinate the fighting arts, quite disdainful, "Bah! Something that doesn't understand the affairs of the world! That reading and literacy, paper, pen and ink, books, desks, which one doesn't cost money? It's to go home and study hard all night, and it's also to order lamp oil! Do you have to wait until it snows to go to the snow to study? Or do you have to wait until summer to catch fireflies for lighting? Or chisel through the walls of other people's homes? These are all things that I have to prepare, and what about the tuition fees for Mr. Teaching? Do you think that all of them are saints? He is a saint. You have to eat cold pork, too! ”

Since Liu Guidan followed Li Huabao from Hue all the way north to Guangxi, she still looked indifferent, but she took care of Li Huabao properly, and several times the local prefect sent the dead soldiers with the intention of being unfavorable to Li Huabao, but she found them early and captured the dead soldiers.

Li Huabao even used these dead soldiers. Started a war and pacified several state capitals controlled by local officials in succession.

It is precisely because of this connection that after listening to a few words of reprimand from the eldest sister's master, Li Huabao not only did not feel angry, but had a slight cinnabar color on his face, "What the master taught me." ”

This small lesson surprised Huang Xigon even more, the children of the family have never known that the world is difficult, and it is common for the four bodies to be industrious and not to distinguish between the grains. But like Li Huabao. It is very rare to be so calm after being reprimanded.

Actually, Lord Huang should not be surprised. The reason why Guangxi's schoolchildren are enrolled in school is so high is that it is worthless. It is nothing more than the official family providing money and food to provide these dolls with free pen, ink, paper, inkstone, books, desks, and at the same time provide the dolls with a lunch. The shackles of the teaching gentlemen are also provided by the officials, but they must teach according to the textbooks provided by us, and that's it! ”

Li Huabao's words were light and light. But in Huang Xigon's ears, there were thunderstorms. To be able to come up with so much money and food to provide for children to study, it seems. The Li family's plans are ambitious!

After walking around his own jurisdiction, Huang Xigon was completely convinced. The Sanpin officials sent to Guangxi from the imperial court became Li Huabao's assistants and helped him govern Guangxi.

This time, Huang Xigong came to Guangzhou to see Li Shouhan to report to him in person. Guangxi is about to become a pilot province for the integration of officials in the interior of the Ming Dynasty and the integration of land and return to the stream, and Tianzhou will soon be the first Tuzhou to be implemented.

After getting the news, Li Shouhan was very excited, so it happened. Guangxi will then become a solid rear for his progress into the interior. What is that Tianzhou? Later the name is Bose! It is located in the upper reaches of the Youjiang River, bordering Yunnan in the west, Guizhou in the north, Nanning in the east, and the Honghe Plain, the old territory of the Southern Guangdong Army, in the south. Once this area is under control, the troops originally stationed on the Red River Plain in charge of border affairs can be transferred to other uses, and at the same time, the influence of the Nanyue Army can also radiate to the neighboring provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou.

"After Tianzhou is changed and the officials are integrated, our army can draw out at least one brigade of divisions, and the original dead soldiers have become living soldiers!"

Regarding the good news brought by Huang Xigon, Li Shouhan, who was worried about the lack of mobile troops, suddenly saw a ray of light. However, the strength of a mere brigade is definitely a drop in the bucket compared with the long front and vast territory of the Nanyue Army. If you want to solve this problem, you have to expand the army.

At present, the towns of the Nanyue Army are deployed in Ha Tinh, Hue, Chaiba, Jiulong River, Ayutthaya, Luzon, Chao Phraya River, Shandong and other places, and the naval divisions and land battalions equivalent to the soldiers and horses of the two towns are also subordinate to several fleets. There is also a battalion of horses that raise horses on the ground of Tamna Island, and the number of people is less than one brigade.

Although the armament varies according to the situation of the station, it is generally the same.

Li Shouhan adopted a kind of organization that was different from the current military and horse establishment everywhere.

With the town as the basic strategic unit, it also does not look much different from the official army in the interior.

At the same time, the town commander has an artillery team under the direct jurisdiction of one battalion, two artillery battalions, and the types of artillery vary from eight-pounder guns to twelve-pounder guns depending on the situation of the station. There are about three or four hundred war horses in the establishment, as well as veterinarians, carpenters, blacksmiths, etc., in order to make saddles, make farriers, and treat horse diseases. In addition, according to the tradition of the Nanyue Army, the town commander holds the first guard standard in his hands, as the most elite and core force, and at the same time, it is also the reserve of the whole town. Once the Guards were put into battle. It means that the battle has reached the most critical juncture.

In addition, there is a baggage team, which is responsible for the transportation of baggage, ammunition, grain and grass in the town, and has nearly 1,000 mules, horses, wheelbarrows, carts and other vehicles. Some units are covered by the water network in the area where they are stationed, and there are also transport vessels. The engineering team is responsible for the renovation of roads and bridges on the march. At the same time, the engineering team and the baggage team also bear the task of guarding the baggage, guarding the old battalion, guarding the flanks and secondary directions in wartime, and providing the troops with a supplement for the battle-damaged soldiers, in other words, the guards are strategic and campaign reserves. The engineering team and the baggage team are the tactical reserve of the whole town, and they have to provide the whole town with the shortage of soldiers.

The brigade has two regiments, and the brigade commander also has the same direct team as the town level, but the scale of the establishment is different. The commanders of each regiment were all composed of four battalions of soldiers and horses, and there was also a sentry of the artillery corps with six-pounder guns, a sentry of rockets, and a sentry of the cavalry signal corps of sixty war horses. One guard and one sentry for baggage.

Four battalions of infantry per regiment. four posts per battalion; Four teams per outpost, four top teams per team; Each armor is composed of a commander and a subordinate commander, and 12 soldiers, a total of 14 people. One standard of artillery, three battalions per standard, four posts per battalion; The first bid of the engineering team. four posts per battalion; One standard for baggage soldiers, four sentry posts per battalion. Engineering and baggage two departments, each post has five teams, each team has five teams, and each team has 20 people; The cavalry was two teams per outpost. Top 2 per team; Because the baggage team and the engineering team need a large number of soldiers, they have a large establishment, while the cavalry has a small establishment because it is not easy to train war horses, and there are only twelve soldiers per armor.

This kind of establishment was stolen by Li Shouhan from the establishment of President Yuan Da's training station and the New Army, and it can be said that every unit has the ability to assume an independent combat direction. It has been tested in many foreign expansion wars, proving his scientific and practical nature. Of course, this also depends on the size of the battlefield.

"If the lord wants to expand the army to be loyal to the king, his subordinates should do the work of dogs and horses!" Huang Xigon, like many literati-born officials, saw and remembered the things that Li Jiaming secretly did intentionally or unintentionally, but they all pretended to be confused. thinks that Li Guogong is just a little unruly in order to be diligent in the king's affairs!

What's more, compared with Zuo Liangyu, He Renlong and other arrogant soldiers, our Li Guogong can be regarded as a model for the generals of the Ming Dynasty at this time! Not only did he go into battle to kill the enemy bravely and fearlessly, but he also killed thousands of slaves and thieves at every turn, killing all the slaves and thieves in a terrified heartbeat, and he did not commit any crimes wherever he went, bought and sold them publicly, and never harassed the prefectures and counties or plundered the localities.

Moreover, which courtier with hundreds of thousands of armor and tens of thousands of miles of base can be as obedient and loyal as Li Guogong? Every year, millions of money and grain are offered to the emperor's inner treasury, and several customs customs that can collect millions of taxes and silver every year are presented to the imperial court, such a courtier, you just want to say that he is Wang Mang and Cao Mengde, but I am afraid that I can't find a reason not to open my mouth.

Moreover, according to Huang Xigon's understanding of the ground in Nanzhong of Li Guogong's Laowo, the people there, the people here refer to the mainland immigrants with Chinese household registration, or the natives who have taken the oath of naturalization, to the extent that they can speak official language, know at least a few hundred words, and can simply calculate accounts before they can take the oath of naturalization, and some are those official slaves who were captured in various wars, because of their hard work, they struggled out of the factories and mines full of bones and died, and after five years of work, they were rewarded and became the people of Nanzhong. The men in these families, from the day they became Ding Zhuang, had the obligation to receive military training, and at the same time, they could spare armor for their own use, swords, guns, firearms and other items for personal self-defense.

In their opinion, this is undoubtedly the revival of the military household system created by Emperor Taizu during his lifetime, but they do not know how terrible this system is once mobilized.

In the 17th century, the Swedish army under the command of the famous Gu Erye was based on national conscription, and one out of every ten peasants in the country went to military service, and these people formed the local troops of the provinces, and each local unit took turns to provide the army with three field regiments, each of which was divided into smaller, squadron units. A standard squadron had 216 spearmen and 288 smoothbore gunners, and the spearmen in a squadron were divided into 12 squads of 18 men each; Smoothbore gunners were also divided into 12 squads of 24 men each, with four smoothbore squads usually used to support the Swedish cavalry or to carry out tasks alone, and on the battlefield usually 3 or 4 squadrons formed into brigades, each armed with 12 3-pounder guns.

How the army of the second master of Gu was mobilized and how it was generated, Huang Xigon didn't know, and they wouldn't have any opinions on the Fanbang country thousands of miles away, they only knew that if the grandfather of the country had an idea, an order would be passed on, and with the administrative system of the Nanyue Army, it was estimated that it would be just an easy gossip to gather a million troops overnight!

What's more, Huang Xigon had a correspondence with Jiang Yihong, the political envoy of the two Guangbu, and from his descriptions, Huang still remembers those exciting scenes. (To be continued......)