(Important note, most of this chapter is compiled content, you can skip if you don't like it.) Every military reform of the Tang Dynasty will cause large-scale personnel changes, and these personnel changes will directly affect the power of the generals.

For example, a year ago, when the Tang Dynasty was only the era of the five armies, Fang Dongquan was a dominant family, even in the era when the standing army and the guards were standing together, Fang Dongquan's power was to overpower other generals.

However, this situation changed after the rise of musketeers in the Guards, and Li Xuan merged the Standing Army and the Guards Army into a new army.

Through the recruitment of new soldiers, the Datang New Army was built into a professional army that was different from the previous standing army and the Guards, and Li Xuan personally served as the commander of the new army, directly under the direct control of the subordinate teams.

In the later battles, although Li Xuan often asked Wang Danxu to command two musket teams, or Fang Dongquan to command three spear teams, their own duties have always stayed at the position of team officers.

If it weren't for Li Xuan's temporary delegation of power, they would not have the power to command the entire musket team or spear team, let alone command the entire army.

Although the apparent reason for this series of changes is to increase combat effectiveness and facilitate command, in fact, there is another tacit reason, that is, their emperor Li Xuan wants to gradually collect military power in his hands through frequent changes in the establishment and military reforms.

To this day, the only people who can command the entire Tang New Army are Li Xuan, Fang Dongquan and Wang Danxu, whose influence is limited to their respective teams, while Huang Xueren, Cai Erhu and Chen Butcher, Bai Yunqi's influence is even lower.

And this time the expansion of the army and the change of the establishment, Li Xuan naturally will not give up the opportunity to further divide his generals and enhance his authority.

After several days of discussion with Zeng Ziwen, and also symbolically solicited the opinions of Fang Dongquan, Wang Danxu, and Chen Butcher, Li Xuan officially issued the fourth military reform plan of the Tang Dynasty.

The core of the plan is to further improve the establishment of troops, enhance the combat effectiveness of the troops, and facilitate command, and set up infantry battalions for this purpose.

According to the plan, each battalion would have two musket teams and two spear teams, and it is worth noting that the size of both musket and spear teams was greatly expanded, and the number of musketeers in each musket team was increased from thirty-six to ninety-six.

The number of spearmen in each captain was also increased from thirty-six to ninety-six.

In the decisive battle of the field in which the musketeers and the spearmen were in the center, the two spearmen were in the center, and there were six rows of thirty-two men in each row, and on the two flanks of the spear array, each with a musketeer team, and these musketeers were also listed in six rows, and the number of musketeers in a single row on each wing was sixteen.

This forms a close-knit infantry phalanx that can attack from a distance and fight closely, defend and charge.

Such a battalion, with the addition of officers of all ranks, heralds, military musicians, and other personnel, would have a total strength of 400 men, and the ratio of all combatants, spearmen and musketeers would be one to one.

It is also worth noting that this battalion-level establishment is a very pure combat formation, which is born for a frontal decisive battle, so it does not include cavalry, baggage, artillery and other arms.

In other words, this kind of infantry battalion lacks the ability to fight alone after it is detached from the logistical, reconnaissance, and other support of the higher level.

Zeng Ziwen once mentioned this defect, and suggested that each battalion be equipped with cavalry troops, baggage troops and artillery units that were still being planned, but Li Xuan vetoed it without hesitation, the reason was very simple, if an infantry battalion with a strength of more than 400 people could fight independently from the large army, then Li Xuan would have to worry about Fang Dongquan every day whether they would rebel.

However, Li Xuan also took this situation into account, his idea was very simple, if it was necessary to temporarily send battalion-level troops to fight alone, then temporarily strengthen auxiliary troops such as cavalry, artillery, and baggage.

But in peacetime, these auxiliary units are not worthy of the combat battalion.

Due to the establishment of the battalion-level establishment and the expansion of the scale of the team, it directly led to the change of the detailed establishment of the subordinates, so the detailed team-level establishment was reformulated, and each team was divided into six platoons, one captain and one deputy captain, one guard, two heralds, one standard-bearer, and one military musician

The total number of members of each team is one hundred and four.

Each platoon below the team has 16 people in each platoon, including one member of the chief and deputy platoon commanders.

In the case of the musket team, the soldiers are all equipped with arquebuses, the chief and deputy platoon commanders are issued with an additional waist knife, and the heralds, guards, and standard-bearers are also equipped with swords.

The spear team is a little more complicated, because according to the long-term plan, all spearmen are to be issued armor, so that they can really play the spearmen's melee combat ability, but armor is more difficult to get than muskets, don't expect to get these armor anytime soon.

Therefore, they had no choice but to resign to the armor of the spearmen in the front row and the officers above the platoon commander in each platoon.

And more ordinary spearmen can only wait for later.

In addition, in addition to being armed with spears up to four and a half meters long, these spearmen were also issued with waist knives to fight with them in the event of a broken spear or close to the enemy.

The enlarged infantry corps, whether musketeers or spearmen, will become part of the core infantry battalion of the new Tang Army.

In addition to these three battalions, Li Xuan also directly administered the first cavalry team, the first battalion of the baggage battalion, the first team of archers, the first team of sword and shield soldiers, and the first artillery team that was still being planned on paper

The reason why these auxiliary units were directly under the jurisdiction was to limit the independent combat capability of the infantry battalions, so as to achieve a better way to control these infantry battalions, as long as Li Xuan did not distribute food and ammunition to the combat battalions, they would not be able to fight at all.

The construction of three infantry battalions is the core content of the fourth military change of the Tang Dynasty.

It's just that the plan sounds great, but in reality it is very difficult to build three combat battalions, why?

Because Li Xuan doesn't have so much equipment!

The spear and waist knife are the easiest, not only are they simple to build, but more importantly, they have captured quite a lot of cold weapons from the Ming army, and the waist knife and spear are enough for the Tang New Army to arm thousands of people.

Although there are not many armors, they can barely make up more than 40 full-body iron armors and nearly 100 cotton iron armors modified from the cotton armor of the Ming army, and they can also equip all the sword and shield soldiers and some spearmen.

There were also a lot of bows and arrows captured, but unfortunately the new army of the Tang Dynasty could not find so many qualified archers, so many bows and arrows could only remain there.

Cold weapons are easy to solve, but the real trouble is not these cold weapons, but muskets!

At present, there are about 100 muskets in his Datang New Army, in addition to those equipped by the musketeers, his guards are also equipped with muskets, and there are also some replacement muskets on the side of the baggage team, the total number is about 120 or so.

But now an infantry battalion needs two hundred muskets, in other words, he doesn't have enough muskets to equip one battalion, let alone three.

The last time Bai Yunqi returned to Huangzhu Mountain, the output of muskets on the Huangzhu Mountain side was maintained at about 30 guns per month, and this was already the result of hundreds of people working day and night in the weapons workshop of the Ministry of Industry.

After Bai Yunqi sent back dozens of craftsmen to them, it is estimated that the output of muskets will increase by a relatively large margin, but it is estimated that the level of fifty or sixty guns per month will be increased again.

At such an output, it would take a year to make enough muskets for three battalions!

And this time is absolutely unbearable for Li Xuan!

Due to the lack of population, geography and resources, it is impossible to mass-produce muskets in Huangzhushan, but this problem does not exist outside the mountains.

Zhengtai County, outside the mountains, has a population of nearly 100,000, among which there are so many young and strong, and there must be many craftsmen!

When it was decided to expand the army and control the Zhengtai countryside, Li Xuan had already sent people back to Huangzhu Mountain, asking Liu Bagou to take some of the backbone craftsmen out of the mountain, and establish a number of weapons workshops outside the mountain, striving to create hundreds of muskets in the shortest possible time.

However, although the musket is not yet available, it does not mean that it is not possible to recruit and train soldiers, anyway, the musketeers need to train for more than three months before they can be used, and after three months, the production of this musket will also come up.

When Li Xuan was busy changing the establishment and preparing for the establishment of the new army, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, and Wang Danxu also set their sights on the positions of the three battalion officers.

Especially after the new establishment was determined, it was officially established the next day, and as soon as it was established, the first infantry battalion of the Datang New Army, which had more than half of its combat effectiveness, was staring at its battalion officer position.

But what surprised them was that Li Xuan did not appoint the battalion officers for a long time, but only appointed the officers and deputy officers of each team.

And these newly appointed officers are almost all young officers from the Guards and have been personally taught by Li Xuan.

Three battalions were drawn up, with a total of 12 musket and spear teams, and the junior officers from the Guards occupied a full nine squad officers and eleven deputy officers.

Even the three teams under the baggage battalion had three officers from the Guards.

It can be said that the positions of officers at the team level, regardless of the principal and deputy, are almost all pulled out by officers from the Guards.

This move is an important step for Li Xuan to implement the professionalization of officers and the quality of officers in the Datang New Army, completely kicking down those old bandits and bringing up the newly trained professional officers.

This is what he had already intended to do when he personally taught the officers of the Young Guards, and now that the army has been expanded, it has just taken the opportunity to carry it out.

However, the battalion officer above the team officer, Li Xuan was slow to accept his fate, and even the deputy battalion officer was not appointed, and a group of generals in the Tang New Army were quite uneasy.

Many people can guess that Li Xuan must have a deep meaning in doing this, but they don't know what Li Xuan thinks.

After several days passed, the first infantry battalion had been established for many days, and it had already started formal training, and its battalion officers were still not appointed, which made everyone even more anxious, even Wang Danxu, who had always been quite confident and thought that there would be a place for himself in the three battalions, was now a little anxious.

Why the hurry?

Many of them are worried that Li Xuan will not be directly promoted from those young guards officers, Li Xuan has let those half-grown sons be team officers, who dares to say that Li Xuan will not let those half-grown sons be battalion officers?