It was almost noon, a wine feast was prepared in the backyard, and Du Zhongxiao invited the three of them to sit down. When the three of them arrived in the backyard, they first went to visit Du Xun and his wife, and then met Han Yueniang and the child, and each complained about their divorce before returning to the wine feast.

Du Zhongxiao said: "With a flick of my fingers, I returned to the Central Plains, my parents were already old, my children were older, and I suddenly felt that I had lost something." Officialdom for more than ten years, from a small county to a royal history, but always feel that a lot of things have been lost. ”

Thirteen Lang smiled: "The official said so, it's old. When we first arrived at the military academy, we often had nothing to do, and a few of us drank and talked together in our spare time. At the beginning, I always sighed that my days were idle, and when I began to lament the changes in the world, I knew that I was old. ”

Du Zhongxiao smiled: "That's right." When you're on the meandering road, you don't think about it. When I returned to the capital and lived with my family, I suddenly became sentimental. Perhaps, I'm getting old. ”

Several people laughed together and drank a glass of wine.

Seeing a large plate of boiled sea crabs on the table, Dou Shunqing said: "I heard that this crab is from Dengzhou, and it is expensive on the market." ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "Yes, now is the season to eat crabs, you can taste it." I heard that in the past, this dish was extremely expensive in the capital, and one had to be enough for a single one. Now that the railway is open, prices are falling rapidly. According to the crab buyers, there are 200 yuan on the market, and it needs to be very fat. ”

One of them took a crab, peeled it from each of them, and ate it beautifully. Yao Shouxin wiped his mouth and said: "Since the railway has been opened in the world, the delicacies of the Quartet can enter the capital, and the people of the capital are really good." Since the railway has been connected to Dengzhou, there is no shortage of seafood on the market, and the price is cheap. In winter, there are melons and fruits from the south, and the market is no longer as deserted as before. ”

Thirteen Lang and Dou Shunqing said yes together. They are now well-earned, their families are not burdened, and their lives are still very well-off.

After drinking for a while, Du Zhongxiao said: "After Captain Yang came back from Lingnan, he has been promoting the Beijing Military Academy, how are you doing now?" After I arrived in the capital, I always wanted to visit him, but I kept delaying it. ”

Dou Shunqing said: "It's much better than leading troops outside." Although there are a lot of daily affairs, he has a high official position and great power, and he has the power to hold the military academy that all the generals in the world want to enter, so it should be said that he is still passable. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "The saint is a little dissatisfied with what is being taught in the current military academy. The ministers of the DPRK and China heard that they had also learned in the past, but they did not learn anything. A few days ago, the imperial court had concentrated a large army and was preparing to attack the party, but the front line was not arranged as expected, but the Privy Council was very supportive of them. ”

Thirteen Lang said: "The people of the Privy Council are just that." Since the training began three years ago, it has been said that the Privy Council is in charge of military orders and is directly in charge of the foreign marshal's mansion. In fact, three years have passed, and apart from a few more officials, there has not been any major change at all. Their understanding of the war is really very loose. ”

Yao Shouxin said: "What Thirteen Lang said is right. To this day, there is no one in the Privy Council who understands artillery, and the artillery in the army is all configured according to the winding road. Why there are so many cannons, what is the role of various cannons, why they are assigned to such ranks, no one can say why. said that they are the commanders of the world, how can they command the forbidden army to fight like this! ”

Dou Shunqing said: "There is no way, the Privy Council and the three yamen in the capital have not changed much. - In fact, there is no way to change it greatly, the generals and officials in it are mostly generations for this reason, what do they do to change it? As long as the person does not change much, let him enter the military academy, what can he learn? I myself am a member of the family, and I know these things best. Many Jiangmen families have been handed down from the fifth generation, and the family has eaten this dinner for one or two hundred years, and they really can't accept the sudden change. ”

Thirteen Lang said: "Now that the inside and outside are clear, the world doesn't know how many ways to make money." These generals don't join the army, they can also do other things, such as working in the factory, what can't they do? At present, many of the government-run factories are recruited from the local area, and the officials are not doing well. ”

Dou Shunqing said: "Brother, what you say is easy, but it is difficult to actually do. In the previous army, there was no emphasis on words, only on bow and horse martial arts. These generals, in addition to the rich and noble, are generally small families, many of whom are illiterate and only have a body of force. It's different now, with guns and cannons, no matter how good the martial arts are, they will fall with one shot, and their ability to look after the house is not much use. To learn the methods of fighting the war now is precisely their shortcoming. Moreover, there are quite a few of them. Where did the hundreds of thousands of forbidden troops in the capital come from? Many of them have been in the army for generations. They have not known the crops for 200 years, and if they suddenly run out of military rations to eat, they will cause trouble. ”

Yao Shouxin said: "And the capital is different from other places, there are many idlers here, and the rice eaten from other places is different from people in other places." In the capital, as long as you have money and can be rich, no one asks how this wealth came about, just look at envy. If it weren't for the erosion of the army, joining the army would have always been one of the ways out for these idle people. In the past, as long as you were tall and skilled in archers and horses, you could be rich and noble, but suddenly it became necessary to enter the school and study hard, where can idle people accept it? Therefore, the forbidden army in the capital is the most difficult to change. ”

Du Zhongxiao nodded: "Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of forbidden troops in the capital, many of them have been passed down from the late Tang Dynasty, and many ideas have been deeply rooted in the people and are not so easy to change." Without a strong new army to deter them, we can only compromise and seek perfection. ”

This is the strange phenomenon I see now, I didn't know about it in Hequlu Du Zhongxiao before, but it will be clear when I arrive in the capital. The Song Dynasty was a dynasty established by force from the Five Dynasties, and the forbidden army was the guarantee of imperial power. Although there are various selection measures, the foundation of the forbidden army in the capital is still inherited from the five generations. In addition to the Jiangmen family, the middle and lower ranks of the forbidden army in the capital, including middle and lower-level officers, and a large number of non-commissioned officers, this has been the case for the family for one or two hundred years. The fathers are in the army, and the children and grandchildren are still in the army as long as they are physically qualified. Serving as a soldier is an ancestral survival skill for them. What can these people do if they don't let them become soldiers? There are too many of them, plus their families, no less than hundreds of thousands, to be taken into account.

In the end, according to the whole training of the Hequlu army as a template, after a few years, it has become what it is now. The new is not new, the old is not old, and in the end I didn't even learn what it looks like. The so-called completion of the whole training is just the replacement of swords, guns, bows and crossbows with guns.

The forbidden army is like this, one is that the upper level is not effective in learning, and the other reason is that the original bottom level is huge, and it is not easy to change.

Dou Shunqing said: "There is no way, if the forbidden army in the capital wants to be changed, there must be other places for them to live in peace." After the whole training, 100,000 people screened out 100,000 or 20,000 people, just like the battalion field and the army back then. At that time, there were about 200,000 troops, and there were battalions and field affairs, as well as many field affairs, and it took several years to do it. The forbidden army in the capital did not follow the strategy from the beginning, and in the end it could only be like this. ”

Yao Shouxin said: "The forbidden army in the capital is more difficult to change than the battalion Tianxiang army. At that time, the Yingtian Xiangjun went to Yingtian on Jingxi Road, and life was much better than before, so there was no chaos. With the help of the forbidden army in the capital, it is not easy to do it. ”

After thinking about it, Du Zhongxiao said: "Actually, it may not be impossible. If you do the same as at the beginning, the court will not collect taxes for several years, plus some subsidies, it should be okay. It's just that to do this, the new army must be on a large scale, and the minister is willing. ”

Thirteen Lang said: "There are not many idle fields on Jingxi Road, if you want to camp again, where can you go?" ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "Jinghu South North Road, there are countless idle fields. From the railway to Gangneung, it is time for large-scale development. It's just that there is no extra population on Jingxi Road for a while, and there are plum blossoms near Tanzhou, which is quite chaotic, so it is just not convenient. If a large number of forbidden troops are transferred to the south to open up, it may not be impossible to reproduce the grand occasion of Yingtian Jingxi Road. However, now that the world is troubled, there is no new army, and it is difficult to do it for a while. ”

Dou Shunqing said: "There are still too many barbarians in the mountains on the two roads of Jinghu, and they often go out of the mountains to cause chaos. It is necessary for the minister to be attentive to this, so that the rebellion can be cut off and the idle land can be developed. I used to be an official there, and the rivers and lakes were dense, and the mountain roads were difficult to walk, so it was really not easy. ”

"Yes, it's so easy to develop a place. Moreover, there are meandering roads in the north, which also need to be developed by manpower, and it is just impossible to do it for a while. The current forbidden army in the capital is not transferred out on a large scale, and like the previous training, it is impossible to complete the personnel conversion. ”

After speaking, Du Zhongxiao raised his glass and said, "Let's drink." These court matters are used to make a conversation and use them to drink. ”

After a few people drank wine, Du Zhongxiao said: "Actually, the Holy Lord and the ministers of the court also know that the forbidden army is not good after all. But although the military academy was opened, for the ministers, they just wanted to learn, and it was really difficult to learn for a while. In the past, when we established military academies, we only thought about cultivating people who could go to the battlefield to fight, mainly non-commissioned soldiers and middle- and lower-level generals. For ministers and high-ranking generals, they don't think much about what they have to learn. After returning to Beijing this time, we should think of a way to compile some teaching materials suitable for ministers and high-ranking generals. ”

Dou Shunqing smiled: "Then how to make up the law?" Those of us who have only learned the knowledge of middle- and lower-level generals. ”

Thirteen Lang said: "Yes, except for Jingluo who has always been in charge of the overall situation, how do we know that?" Just like me, I only know how to train cavalry, how to command cavalry on the battlefield, and I don't know anything else. ”

Du Zhongxiao said: "Of course, it is difficult to do it at first, but you can't stop doing it because it is difficult." Ministers and high-ranking generals cannot be made to understand that it is always difficult to reform the imperial army. Think about it, how can you expect support for things that even the Holy Beings don't know? This is not just you, if you can continue to do this, I will consult with the ministers again and do it together. In the past few years, the ministers of the DPRK and China have won one after another, but in fact, the ministers of the DPRK and China are also interested in the military, and many are willing to work this. As long as a group of people gather together and carefully analyze the war in the past few years, it will be beneficial. ”

The three of them listened and bowed their hands together: "We are sent by the scriptures, and if there is something to be told, we will just give orders." ”