Hearing Zheng Hong ask whether to recruit troops from Taiwan, or from this Zhili and Shandong, this began to make Wang Guorui think seriously. These two recruitment methods have their own advantages. If recruitment is to be carried out in Taiwan, Taiwan's perfect military industrial system and major military academies and universities can provide perfect equipment and human resources. Moreover, Taiwan's military has a large number of reservists, and these reservists are also ready to participate in the official army, and they can join the army when necessary.

In addition, the military style of the people in Taiwan is very strong, and many workers are very disciplined. Taiwan's industrial level is relatively strong, and this gives them better discipline. In fact, it is easier for a worker to develop into a qualified soldier than a peasant, because the worker is subject to constraints in the factory, and there are various disciplines and production processes in the factory, and the workers have already initially adapted to these processes, and relying on these disciplines can make them adapt to military life as soon as possible, and can save a lot of time and material costs in training.

When Qi Jiguang recruited soldiers, the first thing was to recruit miners, and he gave priority to recruiting from miners, which is also the reason. At that time, Qi Jiguang realized the idea, that is, the miners were disciplined, and the mine owners of those mines had worn out the "personality" of those workers, making them more obedient. In addition, mining in ancient times was riskier than mining in later generations, and it was easier to have accidents, so they could become miners, and that courage was definitely not small. Coupled with the perennial physical labor, this makes them very healthy and strong. In this way, it is not unreasonable for Qi Jiguang to give priority to miners to enlist in the army.

However, unlike the peasants, China has always been a small-scale peasant economy, where everyone cultivates their own land and rarely organizes production with others. In this kind of situation of cultivating their own land, everyone mostly goes their own way. Very few are connected to each other. And each of their families also has the production rhythm of each family, and each family has the production process and methods of each family, so their living habits are different. Once these people join the army, the first thing to do is not to train them in military skills, but their obedience. It's like entering the army, and you first have to train for a few months in a queue. Many people think that cohort training is no longer necessary. After Wang Guorui personally came to this era to lead the troops, he really found that queue training is very important, he wants to "adjust" a fragmented person, a person with different living habits, into a consistent whole. They must be able to perfect the run-in, otherwise they will not only be able to do their own things in the army, but will not only have the effect of one plus one being greater than one, but will be tearing each other down and scattering each other.

Therefore, Zheng Hong proposed whether to recruit troops in Zhili or Taiwan, which is also a question. If recruiting troops in Taiwan. Not only is there a wealth of military talents, but there are also a large number of workers, which can save a lot of time. If we say that recruitment is carried out from the current Zhili and Shandong, then it may take three months for the recruit training cycle, but if the recruitment is carried out from the workers in Taiwan, then I am afraid that the recruit training cycle will be one month, and at most it will not exceed one and a half months. This is not only the cost of training or the cost of time, but also a place that cannot be ignored.

"I think we should still recruit troops in Zhili and Shandong!" Wang Guorui said.

But Zheng Hong asked, "Husband." Doesn't that increase costs? ”

"Cost is one thing, but there's another aspect that you may not have calculated. That is also a matter of people's hearts. This popular will is also very important. If we recruit troops directly from Taiwan, it will certainly enable our soldiers to train as soon as possible, but it will not help us win over the hearts and minds of the people on the mainland. You may not know how the people of Shandong and Zhili view our war? They may also adopt a 'nothing to do with themselves, hang high' mentality for us to fight against foreigners this time. These people of Shandong and Zhili. Although they raised their hands to applaud us in fighting against foreigners, they did not have deep feelings for our behavior in fighting against foreigners. Because our soldiers are all Taiwanese, and most of the Taiwanese are immigrants from Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang, these people in Shandong and Zhili do not have much affection. We are coming. It's kind of like a 'guest army'. We came from other provinces and purchased a large number of daily necessities for the people here, which certainly made them a fortune. However, we soldiers don't have much affection and connection with the people here, so they actually treat us more as a 'guest army' from other provinces, and do not treat us as soldiers. ”

However, Hu Wei immediately scolded in a low voice: "Don't they know that we are not protecting them from aggression?" If it weren't for us, they would have been in a mess with Shandong a long time ago, and at that time, the foreigners invaded, and they wouldn't have to be implicated and suffer with the compensation for land and compensation? ”

Wang Guorui shook his head and said: "Don't expect the people of this era to have a high ideological realm, in our era, local xenophobic thinking is still very serious. ”

This is also the influence of China's traditional regional thinking, many people in China go to other places, and there are many organizations such as "hometown associations", they hope that these villagers can unite in other provinces to protect each other's interests, and the locals also restrict outsiders from getting too many benefits from their own places, which is the so-called local protectionism, in a more popular phrase, the so-called xenophobic thinking. And there is also a saying that people leave their hometowns and are cheap, and once they go to other places, they will be discriminated against by the locals. This is true even for the army, which can easily clash with the local army when it comes from other provinces. In particular, if there are no officials with sufficient status and prestige to come over the conflict over the supply of grain and grass, then the guest army from other provinces and the local army may have to fight over the supply of grain and grass. Especially in ancient times, there was no practice of buying grain, and everywhere they went, they directly asked the local people to provide grain and grass.

Taiwan's army directly used real money to purchase grain and grass supplies, which resolved a lot of contradictions in grain and grass supplies, so the people of Shandong and Zhili did not have many opinions. If the Taiwan army had asked the people of Shandong and Zhili to provide 200,000 troops with food and grass supplies free of charge, then who knows how the people of Zhili and Shandong would have regarded the Taiwan army at that time, and perhaps they would have regarded the Taiwan army as a plague.

The national consciousness of the common people in this era is too poor, and they cannot really have too noble ideological consciousness.

"We recruit troops locally from here, and that is in the hope that we can resolve the problem of the composition of our Taiwanese army. Our Taiwan armed forces are mainly composed of Taiwanese, Fujianese, Cantonese, and Zhejiang, and there are seriously too few people in other provinces. So we have to increase the proportion of people from other provinces in our army. If we can recruit soldiers in Zhili and Shandong, then we can make the local people start to have a real sense of identity with our army. Only by allowing them to join our army is tantamount to tying the people of Shandong and Zhili to our chariot. We have recruited 200,000 troops in Shandong and Zhili, so we are tantamount to tying up at least the relatives and friends of these soldiers, and I am afraid that the population will not be less than 2 million. ”

"And these two million people can also influence more people, so that more people can identify with our military. As for the expansion of the source component of the army, that can also effectively dispel the so-called regional thinking. Our army cannot be recruited from Taiwan or a few coastal provinces alone, otherwise how will the inland people view us at that time? What do the people of the north think of us? At that time, they had a low sense of identity with our army, because they didn't have the 'children' of their own province to serve in the army, could they identify with us? So I insisted on planning to recruit a large number of troops in Zhili and Shandong, so that the people of Shandong and Zhili could really feel that they and we were people who shared the same fate, and they would not end well if we were finished. Their friends and relatives are in our army, so that they can truly be with us. If we don't have their natives in our army, how can they identify with us too deeply? ”

Hu Wei immediately said: "Lord Wang is right, but we were negligent. We only paid attention to the level of training and the cost of training in the army, but we did not pay attention to this aspect of the problem, and it seems that Lord Wang is looking further than us. I have no opinion on this, the military must be subordinated to politics, although the cost of recruiting troops from Zhili and Shandong is higher, but our army must also cooperate with Lord Wang's plan, as soon as possible to get the hearts of the people of Shandong and Zhili into the bag. ”

Hu Wei also has no opinion, and Zheng Hong has no opinion. Because if you can't clean up the hearts of the people as soon as possible, then Wang Guorui's plan to become emperor will continue to be delayed, and Zheng Hong's position as "queen" will also be postponed. Although the queen's power is not as great as in the past, she still attaches great importance to Zheng Hong, a person born in this era. In the eyes of a woman in the feudal era, the position of the queen is far more important than her position as a general. Therefore, she will not stop the idea of making Wang Guorui emperor as soon as possible. What's more, she is already the scheduled "first" queen, so she is naturally more anxious than other women. (To be continued.) )