After sending Wang Qinian away, Xu Xingxia devoted himself to the training of the white-clothed army. Whether the times are troubled or not, the grasp of military power is the first priority. How did the great man hit the nail on the head? Regime comes out of the barrel of a gun! No matter what kind of dangerous situation you encounter, as long as you have a strong army by your side, you can save the day.

After the battle of Zhenyuan Pass, the white-clothed army was not easy. Because, what awaits them is a three-month Spring Festival training. After every battle victory, it is a great opportunity for training, and this is the experience summed up by Marshal Luo Ronghuan. In the past, the Northeast Field Army was able to fight stronger and stronger, and it was absolutely inseparable from the training of soldiers with regular surnames. With such excellent experience, Xu Xingxia of course copied it.

The summary and commendation meeting of the battle at Zhenyuanguan was held on the tenth day of the first month. For those true warriors, Xu Xingxia has always been stingy with his rewards. Not to mention the large number of silver rewards, all kinds of honors are one after another. There are also many meritorious men who have been directly promoted to officers. It can be said that after this war, all the soldiers who performed well basically became officers above the rank of captain or captain.

In the formation sequence of the Tartar cavalry, the position of centurion is the most important, they are the most critical officers at the grassroots level, and play the role of connecting the upper and lower levels. In the establishment sequence of the White Army, the most important grass-roots officers are the captain and the gang commander. The commander of the corps is in charge of 5 soldiers, and the commander of the gang is in charge of 10 soldiers. They are the core backbone of the White Army, and all the soldiers exist with them as a support point. If their quality is not up to the mark, it will be impossible for the quality of the entire white-clothed army to pass the test.

In order to improve the quality of the commanders and the commanders of the regiment and help them grow faster, Xu Xingxia specially set up a martial arts lecture hall in the Black Mountain Battalion to teach the most basic combat theories to the low-ranking officers of the white-clothed army. The name of the lecture hall is called the Black Mountain Camp Lecture Martial Hall. At the beginning, there were less than ten teachers. In addition to Xu Xingxia himself, there are Chi Hu, Zhang Quanfu, Ming Hao, Wang Qinian and others. The content of the lecture includes war theory, actual combat experience, reconnaissance essentials, intelligence essentials, and so on.

Later, the squad leaders at all levels of the White Clothes Army, who were the commanders of all armies, were very interested in the lecture hall, so the lecture hall was expanded again, no longer simply training low-level officers, but covering the entire white army. According to Xu Xingxia's regulations, as long as they are officers of the white-clothed army, they are eligible to apply for admission to the lecture hall to study. The teaching method of the lecture hall has also evolved from the original one-sided lecture to the mutual discussion and learning between teachers and students. There are no teaching materials in the lecture hall, only basic analysis of various battle examples.

In fact, for the army at that time, basic battle column analysis was sufficient. The officers of the white-clothed army, except for Yu Lijun and a few others, everyone else does not know how to read, and the theories that are too esoteric, such as Sun Tzu's Art of War or something, they don't understand it at all, and you talk about it in vain. Only the examples of war, living examples, can they figure it out. The so-called "everything changes" is the same, and the same is true of the laws of war. If you explain a large number of examples of warfare thoroughly and clearly, they will be able to understand the basic principles themselves.

If you want to talk about the analysis of various battle examples, others are certainly not as good as Xu Xingxia. In later generations, all kinds of studies have analyzed many battle cases, and they have dug three feet into the ground. Now, Xu Xingxia has brought out all the research results of others and put them in front of officers at all levels. One of the remarkable effects of this is that the officers of the white-clothed army admired him so much. They had never seen it before, and it was not difficult for them to understand it at all, and it was not difficult for them to understand so thoroughly and meticulously that they could analyze so many battle examples.

Combined with the research and analysis of various battle cases, combined with the previous battle of Zhenyuanguan, many basic laws of war, intentionally or unintentionally, penetrated into the minds of every officer in the white-clothed army. The effect of the three-month lecture course on them is definitely at the level of brainwashing. After just three months of study, they are no longer reckless men who know nothing. Compared with other Ming army officers of the same rank, they are much better in terms of knowledge.

There is no doubt that in this battle of Zhenyuanguan, the performance of the white-clothed army was outstanding. With only a force of more than 1,000 people, he defeated the attack of tens of thousands of Tartar cavalry, forcing the remnants of the Tartars to retreat in disgrace. In the history of the Ming army in the last 200 years, there has never been such a precedent. Even Lan Yu and Fu Youde at the beginning did not have such a disparity in strength to win battles.

However, can it be said that the white army is perfect? The white-clothed army is invincible, invincible in the world? Is there no need for improvement? Of course not! In fact, in this battle, the White Army also exposed a lot of problems. Among them, the biggest problem is the serious lack of experience in dealing with emergencies.

After the baffle of the van was knocked down, the reaction of the white-clothed army was still relatively slow. Most of the fighters seemed a little flustered and didn't know what to do. They forgot even the most basic retreat movements, so that they were shot alive by the arrows of the Tartars. If their bodies had been able to lie down as far as possible, as close to the ground as possible, the arrows of the Tartars would not have hit them so easily.

At that time, the situation was indeed quite critical. If it weren't for those slave-born white-clothed soldiers, desperately holding explosive bags, going up and dying with the Tartar cavalry, it is really difficult to predict what the consequences would be. Perhaps, the Tartar cavalry will really rush in and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the white-clad soldiers. Once the hand-to-hand combat begins, the muskets of the white-clothed army cannot be fully exerted, and if they are not done well, they will be scattered.

In fact, before the battle began, Xu Xingxia was not without a plan. According to his plan, if the Tartar cavalry broke through the fender of the van, when they were about to rush up, the surrounding musketeers should shoot in the direction of the breakthrough and destroy the Tartars who tried to break in. In addition, the artillery battalion should also react quickly and give priority to taking out the Tartars at the breakthrough. However, in the actual execution of the plan, the tempo was still half a beat slower.

On the one hand, it is estimated that everyone did not expect that the impact speed of the Tatar cavalry would be so fast, and the force of the impact would be so great. In order to crash through the baffle of the van, the Tartar cavalry launched several suicidal charges in succession, which caused great psychological pressure on the white-clothed sergeants, so that their reactions were sluggish and abnormal.

On the other hand, it was also one of the big mistakes to not conduct drills in this regard before the battle, not to conduct exercises in advance, and to discover the shortcomings of this plan. This plan is actually on paper, and it is difficult to implement it. With a little rehearsal, you can find the drawbacks. At the same time, if there is a drill, the reaction of the fighters will not be so chaotic. Preparing and not being prepared, the effect is very different.

In this process, as the supreme commander of the White Army, Xu Xingxia himself also has a lot of responsibility. For emergencies, Xu Xingxia himself does not know enough. After all, he is not a professional military commander, and it is easy to ignore some details when considering problems. At that time, he simply felt that relying on long-distance muskets and powerful explosive packs could completely block the attack of the Tartar cavalry, and there was no need to worry about the Tartar cavalry really breaking in. Therefore, he didn't think much about hand-to-hand combat. There is also no very strict plan for how to plug the breach.

In fact, the attack power of the large cavalry force far exceeded Xu Xingxia's expectations. The battle at Zhenyuan Pass once again proved that it was absolutely impossible for a simple musket team to stop the charge of a large cavalry force. Luckily, he had enough trebuchets and enough explosives packs to complete the task. If there were no trebuchets, no explosives packs, it is estimated that he would have been a prisoner of the Tartar cavalry by now.

In order to make up for his mistakes, Xu Xingxia made a decisive decision to immediately rebuild Zhenyuan Pass. The purpose of this is to make the Tartar cavalry's crowd tactics no longer have room to play. As long as the Zhenyuan Pass is built, it will not be so easy for the Tartar cavalry to crash in. No matter how fierce the war horse is, it can't break through the strong city walls, right? It doesn't need to be how high the walls are, as long as they are ten meters high, it is enough for the Tartars to harm themselves.

If it is fifteen meters high, all the Tartar cavalry will be discouraged. The city wall of Zhenyuanguan designed by Xu Xingxia is five zhang high (about 16.7 meters). For the vast majority of the Tartar cavalry, this was a height that was difficult to surpass. Take your own head and hit it on the strong city wall, it is estimated that the head of the Tartar leader is not brain-dead to such a point. Unless it's a defender in a certain location, it's really too crippled to shatter in a single hit. However, with the combat effectiveness of the white-clothed army, it will definitely not degenerate to such a point.

The current Xu Xingxia is a typical example of eating a trench and growing wise. After each battle, he would seriously sum up the lessons learned. Absorb good experience and improve your own shortcomings. He constantly summed up lessons and learned and tried his best to make up for his shortcomings. He also continued to combine the various knowledge he learned in later generations with the specific reality of this era, trying to find a faster and more effective way to make the rise of the white-clothed army less detours.

Of course, it is not easy to be perfect. The experience of the afterlife is not omnipotent. In fact, most of the knowledge of later generations is not used at all in this era. For example, the computer, network, typing or something he is best at is useless in this era. All he can do now is to do his best to make himself stronger and better established himself in this world.

The focus of the white-clothed army's spring training is mainly on the basic quality of the soldiers. The speed of reaction of the troops, where did it come from? From the basic qualities of soldiers, of course. If the basic quality of the soldiers does not reach a certain level, the quality of the troops will not be able to improve all day long. Without a certain degree of overall quality, there is no way to talk about the rapid response of the troops.

How are the basic qualities of soldiers improved? Of course, it is obtained through repeated monotonous training. It is impossible for combat power to fall from the sky. Whether in ancient times or in modern times, scientific and hard training is the most fundamental way for soldiers to gain combat effectiveness. A unit that is not even trained rigorously enough will simply not be able to fight at all.

In the next three months, large-scale fighting should be gone for the time being. During these three months, the only task of the White Clothes Army was to train, train, and train again until there was a combat mission.

…… From the hands of Eryudun, he got 100,000 taels of silver, and there was a large number of slaves, what Xu Xingxia had to do was, of course, to recruit troops and buy horses and expand the scale of the white-clothed army again. Power comes out of the barrel of a gun! Without a sufficient number of troops, a fart has no effect. There are more than 30,000 war horses sent by the Helkin tribe, and there is no need for money to buy horses, just post notices and recruit a large number of soldiers.

Like those slaves who came back before, the Han slaves who were released this time were also quite active in joining the army. Their hatred of the Tartars cannot be described in any words. If you join the White Army, you will have the opportunity to kill the Tartars in person and avenge yourself, your family, and your loved ones. Who can miss such an opportunity? As a result, as soon as the recruitment notice was posted, a large number of slaves enthusiastically signed up to join the army.

In the end, the White Army received more than 8,000 registration requests. Among them, more than ninety percent were freed slaves. Xu Xingxia finally decided to select soldiers only from slaves. The rest of the applicants were excluded. After a rigorous selection, more than 3,000 slaves successfully joined the White Army.

The scale of this military expansion is much larger than the last time. In addition to the Eagle Cavalry Army, the Chariot Battalion, and the Artillery Battalion, the other nine corps under the White Army were all expanded into five squads, with 250 soldiers under their jurisdiction. If you add the officers, there are about 300 people in each army. Combined, the nine armies had nearly 3,000 men. If we add the Eagle Cavalry, Chariot Battalion, and Artillery Battalion, the total strength of the White Clothes Army exceeds 5,000 men, which is basically close to the entire strength of a guard.

At present, Xu Xingxia is only a small generation of thousands of households, and according to the regulations, he can only command an army of 1,120 people. However, he had a force of 5,000 men under his command. This is a serious passover. However, no one, including Xu Xingxia, felt that there was anything wrong. Perhaps in other parts of Ningxia Town, some people felt that it was inappropriate, but none of them pointed it out.

The current Montenegrin battalion has really become a huge military camp. All the main forces of the White Army are stationed here. Because it was completely re-planned, each unit had a wide station, leaving enough space for future expansion. At the beginning, when planning the Black Mountain Battalion, a military camp of 50,000 people was reserved for the White Army. The current white-clothed army has only about 5,000 people, which is only one-tenth of the plan.

Unlike other armies, the white-clothed army was all equipped with war horses from top to bottom. There are a small number of main combat troops, and each soldier is even equipped with two war horses, which can be used in rotation, and can also help camels carry a large amount of supplies. The total strength of the white-clothed army is only about 5,000 people, but it has more than 10,000 war horses.

Equestrian is the basic subject of training for white-clothed sergeants, and at the same time, it is also the easiest subject to train. The military households in Ningxia Town, as long as they have the conditions, know how to ride horses. Most of the Han Chinese slaves who were freed back had a good foundation in equestrianism. After they enter the White Army, at least with a little training, they can pass the horse control skills.

Even infantry on horseback, marching much faster than pure infantry. This is a huge advantage of the White Army. For example, if you walk from Zhenyuan Pass to Weizhen Fort, it will take at least one day and one night. But if you gallop, two hours at most. If the horses are fast enough, they will be able to arrive in an hour.

However, this advantage is also fatal. What is this Achilles' injury? It's communication. Between the infantry of the brigade, cavalry can also be used to communicate. The speed of the cavalry was much faster than that of the infantry, and it was still easier to catch up with the infantry. However, the cavalry of the brigade could only use cavalry to communicate with each other. Once the cavalry is on the road at full speed and then using cavalry communications, it will be greatly behind.

The consequence of such a communication method is that the order issued by Xu Xingxia cannot be too dead, so as not to restrict the adaptability of his subordinates. At the same time, those who are too brainy cannot serve as full-time commanders of various units. Otherwise, they will not know how to respond to unexpected situations. Only those officers who can take charge on their own, or who can read and make judgments, can hold the main position.

Due to the influence of this aspect, those officers who were born as rangers generally had a relatively large advantage. When they were rangers, they often acted alone. No matter what kind of unexpected situation they encounter, they must make their own judgment. Now, after entering the army, this fundamental surname has not changed. The difference is that after the judgment is made, it affects more people.

On the contrary, some officers from the army are more at a loss, because they really have too little experience in taking charge of themselves. It seems that Zhang Quanfu, Gao Meng and others used to be small flag officers and had never handled affairs alone. After the position is promoted, there is no opportunity to work alone. Compared with those officers who were born as rangers, their course of action is definitely conservative. To describe it in eight words, that is: do not seek merit, but seek no fault.

Of course, it does not mean that those officers who are born as rangers are necessarily better than those who have grown up in the army. The two different origins have their own strengths and weaknesses, and complementarity is the most important thing. The Black Mountain Camp Lecture Hall opened by Xu Xingxia is a hodgepodge of complementarity. Different officers learn here and exchange experiences with each other, which is just the right thing to make up for their own shortcomings. When their learning is over, they will basically be eclectic.

(To be continued)