In the west wing of Wuzhou Mansion Yamen, the Australian oil lamp was on all night, and Yi Haoran stayed up all night again.
He spent the whole day today on the city tower observing the actions of the Australians below the city. The bandits' actions were neither slow nor hasty, and their advance and retreat were all very orderly. It is indeed a "giant canal" that scares the officers and soldiers. Such a strong army, even if it does not have the strength of ships and artillery, is no match for officers and soldiers fighting with swords and guns.
He vaguely felt that Xiong Wencan's vigorous collection of "weapons" was not very reliable. Even if all the Ming army in Wuzhou were equipped with Nanyang rifles, he still felt that there was little chance of winning. What's more, he only has 500 new troops now.
This incident was apparently done by Xiong Wencan to balance the conflict between Chang Qingyun and Yi Haoran. However, in Yi Haoran's opinion, Governor Xiong is quite discerning.
The old habits of the officers and soldiers have become serious, and the serious illness cannot be cured without strong medicine-not to mention his small staff, even Xiong Wencan himself dare not care. An officer like Jiang Suo, who had a background of "surrendering the invaders" and had no own troops, was hard to say whether he could survive even if he was placed in the army, let alone show off his skills. Xiong Wencan sent Yi Haoran and Jiang Suo to Guizhou to recruit servants. It was a good thing to start from scratch - Qi Jiguang also started by training the new army.
Military training costs a lot of money. Fortunately, the land in Guizhou is barren and the people are poor, so four taels of silver is enough to settle a family; but the military pay of three taels of silver per month for soldiers is not a small amount. Xiong Wencan allocated 10,000 taels of silver to Yi Haoran: 4,500 taels was three months' military pay, 2,000 taels was settlement expenses, and the rest was "office miscellaneous expenses."
These "office miscellaneous expenses" do not need to be reported and reported, which is equivalent to a budget lump sum system. The remaining part is the benefit of the person in charge. If you are a more courageous veteran, you will also have to take away a few percent of your housing allowance and military pay. So Yi Haoran received this job and immediately became a "popular person" in Xiong Wencan's shogunate. The ministers, officials and generals who were familiar or unfamiliar with him came one after another to congratulate him and send him gifts by the way. Several people asked him for "help".
Yi Haoran has been in the studio for many years, so these tunes are naturally clear. It is also inconvenient to refuse: even if it does not help the other party in the future, it can at least prevent them from doing evil. Therefore, when he and Jiang Suo set out, they did not have more than ten people, but more than a hundred people.
The recruitment location was chosen in Yongningwei, Guizhou, Xiong Wencan’s hometown. Guizhou is not under Xiong Wencan's jurisdiction, so Yi Haoran's name is just to recruit "housekeepers" to Xiong Wencan, not "recruiting soldiers." Although the court did not prohibit this kind of thing, he also knew that Xiong Wencan had many political opponents in the court, so there was no guarantee that this matter would not become an excuse for their criticism. So after recruiting all the troops in a hurry, they quickly drove back to Guangxi for training - the training camp was located in Teng County, not far from Wuzhou.
A few days after arriving in Teng County, Yi Haoran called Jiang Suo and gave him five hundred taels of silver.
"What kind of money is this?" Jiang Suo asked in surprise as he had never seen such money in his life.
"You followed me to Guizhou and then helped me train my troops here. This is what you deserve."
"Didn't military pay just come out..."
Yi Haoran recruited his own soldiers, and they were paid on time and never defaulted. However, the military pay was not three taels per month, but two taels. The reason is that the military pay of three taels of silver can only be obtained if you go into battle. On weekdays, you will get two taels of silver if you are not fighting. Just for this one item, there will be an extra five hundred taels of benefits every month. Although Jiang Suo's military salary was quite penny, he always felt very uncomfortable in his heart - among the Australians, the money is what they say it is, and there is never any shortage or deduction.
"This is miscellaneous public funds." Yi Haoran said, "It is also your benefit. Just take it."
Although Yi Haoran has the idea of "public loyalty to the country", this does not prevent him from being corrupt and self-enriching. He is already over five years old, and it is still unclear whether he will have other errands in the future. If he cannot make some money on this errand, he will not even have a place to bury his coffin! What's more, since he took this job, he has spent a lot of money on all aspects of "entertainment" and "management." If he didn't take it from the head of the big soldier, the "miscellaneous items at public expense" given to him by Xiong Wencan would not be enough at all!
"Didn't the public funds have been collected before going to Guizhou?" Jiang Suo knew what was going on and felt very disgusted. Isn't this kind of money what the political education said when you join the army, "drinking the soldiers' blood"!
"What do you know!" Looking at his face, Yi Haoran probably knew what he was thinking, and couldn't help but be secretly surprised, "Now you are also a military attache of the imperial court, not a soldier of the Kun thief. Even if you are an official, you have pomp, expenses, and entertainment. How can it be enough to rely on your few salaries? Now we are training alone and are self-contained. In the future, when you serve in the army, who should not pay attention to it, your superiors or your colleagues?" Seeing Jiang Suo about to speak, he waved his hand, " Just listen to me. This is a long-standing shortcoming in the officialdom. Let alone you and me who have little future, even Governor Xiong did not dare to make a mistake - even Governor Qi Shaobao and Yuan had no choice but to join the powerful people in the court. ―If not, not to mention making achievements, even your official position and even your life will not be saved!"
He sighed: "When you enter officialdom, you rarely have to live with others, and sometimes you even have to disgrace yourself. Don't take it to heart!"
Jiang Suo said nothing more, took the money and left.
"Jiang Suo, you haven't chosen your soldiers yet?" Yi Haoran urged him to choose a dozen soldiers a few days ago.
"I now have a personal soldier, which is enough."
"You, you are really a scholar!" Yi Haoran sighed, suddenly thinking that the other party was not a scholar, "Once you go to the battlefield, no matter you are a general commanding millions of elite soldiers, you must also have a few personal guards who can trust you with life and death. , otherwise in the critical moment, you will be alone!"
"Yes, I understand." Jiang Suo lowered his head and reported, took the silver and went down.
Yi Haoran shook his head secretly: This person who has been trained by the thief is really stubborn.
Each of these five hundred new troops was a strong mountain man selected by Yi Haoran according to the standards in the "New Book of Jixiao". All five hundred of his men were handed over to Jiang Suo for training.
However, although Jiang Suo was proficient in "Kun Cao" and was very knowledgeable when it came to the training of Kun thieves, he was just an ordinary soldier. Although his training results were excellent, he was not even a corporal. In addition to being a militia captain, he was not a corporal. No experience in leading troops. Nowadays, it is naturally beyond his ability for one person to teach 500 people. It was noisy for several days.
Yi Haoran remembered the military books he had read, so he changed his strategy and first selected the ten smartest people out of the five hundred. Jiang Suo personally taught them through words and deeds, starting with walking, lining up, and holding a gun. Then another hundred people were selected, and these ten people were used to train the one hundred people. Jiang Suo was always there to give guidance and corrections. Finally, these one hundred people will train the rest. However, within three months, the troops had been "well-organized" and "remarkable." Yi Haoran was quite proud.
Even according to Jiang Suo's eyes, the level of training in front of him cannot be said to be very high. Not to mention the Fubo Army, even the National Army cannot compare with it. At best, it is at the level of the militia. All he can teach is the most basic formation drills, which involve the most basic combat formations of marching, double rows, and hollow square formations. In fact, he doesn't know exactly how it works.
The shooting was also carried out according to the training Jiang Suo had received. Unfortunately, the rifles he bought were equipped with bayonets. The bayonets Yi Haoran asked the blacksmith to copy were not easy to use. In the end, he gave up the bayonets and trained all his strength on shooting.
The training outline is the same as that of the Fubo Army, with fifty "dry firings" and thirty live ammunition firings.
This shooting training made Yi Haoran secretly complain. Because these guns only have 100 rounds of ammunition each. Gunpowder and lead bullets are monopolized by the Australians, and the price is extremely high. Not to mention gunpowder and lead bullets, no one knows how to make the small copper piece called a "fire cap".
Although the money was not spent on himself, it was too much, and it would be difficult for Governor Xiong to explain it to him.
However, seeing the performance of the Nanyang Rifle on the training ground, Yi Haoran felt that it was worth the money.
Unfortunately, the number of Nanyang rifles purchased was not enough, only a hundred. Yi Haoran originally planned to use the Fo Langji bird blunderbuss bought from Macau to arm them. However, Jiang Suo believed that the performance of the two muskets was different and it was difficult to match each other. He suggested that Yi Haoran use the Australian method he had seen when he was a militia captain in training: equip him with a spear.
This standard spear was much easier to obtain than the Nanyang rifle. Not long after, the people sent by Yi Haoran bought back hundreds of standard spears exported from Lingao in Macau. Jiang Suo mixed spearmen and musketeers for training according to the training he had received when he participated in the militia captain training.
This joint training drawing sounds simple on paper, but in fact it is not easy. In particular, the formation expansion and transformation of the mixed force of spearmen and musketeers can only be accomplished by an elite professional army. Naturally, Jiang Suo, an ordinary soldier, and Yi Haoran, who was self-taught by reading military books, couldn't do it. One of Xiong Wencan's generals, General Song Ming, came to assist in the training.
Song Ming is a young general who participated in the Chengmai War. Since the defeat of Chengmai, he has been depressed. He has always been ambitious. When he arrived in Teng County, he hit it off with Yi Haoran and took over the training.
Jiang Suo drew the combat methods of this mixed force on paper one by one, and then Song Ming implemented the training one by one. He was very methodical in his military training, and he soon had a solid foundation for advance and retreat. However, the problem came again: Jiang Suo had only learned a little bit, and the largest joint training was only a company-level formation. He didn't know how to cooperate with the five hundred servants, so he could only rely on the cooperation of three people to try. Gradually, I also figured out the use of this formation.
It's a pity that they don't have more time. The Australians suddenly landed and Guangzhou and Zhaoqing fell one after another. This new army, which was formed recently, will serve as one of Xiong Wencan's last trump cards and fight the Australians in Wuzhou.
"It's a pity that the new army has not yet been trained, and there are only 500 people!" Yi Haoran secretly felt regretful.
