Valley Emperor

Powerless, this is not only the feeling of Zhang Yue and even Wang Yue, but also the feeling of many civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty who were on the front line against the pseudo-Tang bandit army.

The pseudo-Tang bandit army is ferocious, and the ordinary guards can't resist it at all. The army of the Ming Dynasty, especially the local guards, can only hide in the city, and it is difficult to protect themselves, let alone destroy the rebels. Woolen cloth.

However, in this environment, there is still a steady stream of 'good news' sent to the capital.

What good news?

Many officials of the Ming Dynasty gradually discovered that although the pseudo-Tang thief army opposite them was still strong, the number was much smaller, especially after learning from some public news that the pseudo-Tang Dynasty had eliminated a large number of garrison troops and robbery camps. , Many officials of the Ming Dynasty thought that this was the self-digging grave of the pseudo-Tang Dynasty, and suddenly eliminated the army of fake thieves that numbered nearly 100,000 people. What is this not self-digging graves?

They are unwilling to go into the details. Some of the backbone of these eliminated garrison troops and robbery battalions have been selected and reorganized into regular troops, and they have even ignored these eliminated garrison troops and robbery battalions. When they return to their places, they will Become a labor force, whether it is farming or entering the workshops and factories in major cities to work, it will bring more food and industrial products to the Tang Dynasty.

They just saw that the Tang Dynasty eliminated nearly 100,000 people at once, and the number of pseudo-Tang thieves dropped from more than 100,000 or even close to 200,000 to less than 100,000.

Therefore, many people conclude that the pseudo-Tang Dynasty must not be able to support so much military expenditure, so it was forced to be eliminated, and to eliminate so many troops at once, there will definitely be turmoil, and the decline of the army will also make the pseudo-Tang Dynasty The dynasty cares about its head and its tail.

From this, it can be judged that the pseudo-Tang Dynasty has come to an end, and the Ming Dynasty and the complete extermination of the Tang thieves are not far away.

But what about the actual situation?

The actual situation is that while the garrison brigade and the robbery battalion were eliminated, the number of regular troops of the Puppet Tang Bandit Army continued to rise, from 40,000 to 50,000 people in the past to nearly 100,000 people.

The combat effectiveness of the regular army was unmatched by the previous robbery battalions and garrison troops.

At the same time, the military expenses saved have also greatly improved the equipment level of the regular army, and the equipment such as artillery, muskets and even armor are all fully loaded.

This also greatly increased the combat effectiveness of the regular army.

And this kind of change made the Ming army bear even more pressure!

Just 20,000 to 30,000 regular troops of the pseudo-Tang thief army have already turned the whole situation in the southern part of Huguang upside down, making Zhang Yue devastated!

And now Zhang Yue doesn't even know that the Tang Dynasty is further improving the equipment level of the existing regular army!

After recovering Haojing and repelling the Fulang machine, the navy did not suffer any losses. Well, this is mainly about artillery!

This also means that the navy will not compete with the army for the predetermined share of artillery, and the army's artillery regiment plan can also be launched smoothly.

To this end, the Privy Council formally submitted to Li Xuan the Army's plan to expand the artillery unit!

This plan was under the instruction of Li Xuan. The army had been planning for a long time, and all preparations were already complete, just waiting for the artillery to be in place, so Li Xuan also officially approved this plan without hesitation.

In the last ten days of the first month, the Army officially started the expansion plan of the artillery unit. Because the units were scattered all over the place, and the units on the front lines were busy fighting, they could not be rehabilitated and expanded. Therefore, the first round of expansion was still at the rear. For each unit of the war mission, the first batch of expansion units, like the original brigade reform division, all started from the 6th Infantry Division!

The 6th Artillery Battalion under the 6th Infantry Division was expanded into the 6th Artillery Regiment. It temporarily consists of three artillery battalions, including one seven-jin artillery battalion and two five-jin artillery battalions. A total of eighteen seven-jin artillery battalions will be under its jurisdiction. , Thirty-six five-jin artillery pieces!

At the same time, thanks to the successful imitation of the nine-jin artillery led by the Zhaoqing Arsenal under the Ministry of Industry, and the process and imitation technology were delivered to the arsenals for production, the mass production of the nine-jin artillery is about to be realized, so the army It is also planned for a rainy day, preparing to establish an experimental nine-jin artillery battalion directly belonging to the Privy Council, which will have eighteen nine-jin artillery pieces under its jurisdiction!

And the above is the artillery expansion plan of the Army, not including the Guards!

Li Xuan's positioning for the Guards is a small but well-equipped and powerful unit, so the artillery strength naturally cannot be weak.

The Guards Artillery Battalion was also renamed the Guards Artillery Regiment. The composition of the artillery was roughly the same as that of the Army Infantry Division's artillery regiment. They were all three battalions and three teams. However, it is worth noting that the Guards Artillery Regiment is directly under the jurisdiction An artillery battalion with nine catties of artillery, and then there are two battalions of five catties of artillery.

In other words, the Guards directly replaced the seven-jin artillery with nine-jin artillery!

While the artillery regiment of the Guards is expanding, the expansion of the infantry unit is also continuing. It is planned to expand another infantry battalion, so that the number of infantry battalions of the Guards will be expanded from the current four battalions to five battalions.

Nearly half of the infantry battalions of the Guards were musketeers, which meant that the Tang Dynasty's musket production was enough to support the Tang Dynasty's further expansion and reorganization of the existing troops.

The Guards are expanding the musketeers, and the Army naturally has a similar plan, and their plan is even bigger!

The core plan is to increase the proportion of musketeers in the existing troops!

Specifically, the reserve battalions and spear regiments in the existing infantry divisions were reorganized into musket battalions, and the temporary regiments were reorganized into mixed regiments.

At present, although the regular armies of the Datang Army have been fully staffed, the proportion of cold weapon troops is still too large. There are five battalions in a regular infantry regiment, but only three are musket battalions, and the other two are reserve battalions . And an infantry division consists of three infantry regiments, and then only two of them are musket regiments, and one is a spear regiment.

Even in the musket battalion, there are only two musket teams!

That is to say, a regiment of musketeers has only a mere 600 people, and even the 100-strong grenadier team directly under the regiment's headquarters has only 700 grenadiers.

For this situation, the Army has long wanted to make changes!

The establishment of the reserve battalion and the spear regiment before is not to say that the Tang Dynasty needed these cold weapon troops, but it was limited by the serious shortage of musket production at that time, but it was necessary to maintain a certain number of troops, so it was made like this. of helplessness.

Now that the production of muskets has come up, and there is no need to expand new troops on a large scale, the Army is preparing to completely change the cold weapon units built during the transition period into firearm units.

In this way, the number of musketeers in the entire infantry division can be greatly increased, reaching the scale of 3,000 musketeers, plus 300 grenadiers!

Well, this does not include the muskets attached to the baggage, engineers, and artillery!

Even if the production of muskets in the Tang Dynasty has increased, it is not the turn of the baggage, engineers and artillery to carry out large-scale replacement of muskets. Therefore, the expansion plan of the army has not greatly increased the proportion of muskets in these auxiliary units.

Although the plan to reorganize six infantry divisions and increase the proportion of musketeers has been formulated, it has not yet been implemented, because the army feels that the combat effectiveness of the current infantry divisions is sufficient to cope with the current Ming army.

The expansion plan currently being implemented by the Army is to adapt the existing five tentative regiments. By raising the infantry battalions under the tentative regiments to the level of regular infantry battalions, the five tentative regiments are also All adapted to the preparation of mixed groups.

And in order to avoid the second reorganization, the preparation is in place at one time, that is, the five temporary reorganizations of the first batch of reorganization, they will no longer have the excessive organization of the reserve battalion, but will all be compiled into regular muskets The battalion, together with the baggage, artillery, cavalry and other troops, was reorganized into a mixed regiment.

Followed by the plan of infantry divisions, the overall plan of the army is to establish an army main force with six infantry divisions and eight mixed regiments

At present, although the army's reorganization of the five temporary regiments has a large demand for muskets, the current production of muskets by the Datang Ministry of Industry is also increasing, which can fully support the army's daily operations and training losses. Started the reorganization of the existing five provisional groups.

It is even possible to move some of the rifle production to the Guards side to expand an infantry battalion.

Three years after entering Xuanping, the Ministry of Industry predicts that this month, that is, the production of various types of muskets during the first month, will reach a new peak, with a total of 1,500 pieces!

This is not a small number. The number of muskets equipped by an infantry regiment is less than 800~www.wuxiaspot.com~ 1,500, which can be equipped with two infantry regiments, but if each infantry division If the adaptation work of the PLA also increases the schedule, it is still difficult for these productions to meet the adaptation of the infantry divisions in a short period of time.

Therefore, the Army's gun expansion plan is the same as the artillery expansion plan. It is slow, step by step, changing one unit by one unit, and finally completing the change of all units. It is impossible to be the same as the second half of last year. In just a few months, the work of eliminating 100,000 garrison brigades and reorganizing six infantry divisions was completed.

In Zhaoqing, Li Xuan, looking at the plans submitted by the Ministry of Industry to expand the arsenal to increase production, and the expansion and reorganization plans formulated by the Army and the Navy, couldn't help but feel gratified.

After several years of construction, Datang Wangshi has finally changed from the bandit army of the past to a regular army, and it will also be a typical modern army.

The Tang Dynasty also changed from a child's play dynasty to a dynasty that truly divided the provinces.

How easy it is to get to where we are today!

As for the one who led the Tang Dynasty to this point, even if it was a little bit worse than what Liu Bagou and the others talked about every day, it should be not far behind!