Facing Zhu Yijun's words, Gao Pingshi smiled and said: "I don't care about the background of the generals of the Imperial Guard. They can be noble or ordinary generals. I only care about one thing."
"Oh? What's the matter?" Zhu Yijun was a little surprised when Gao Pingshi said he didn't mind Xungui.
"The generals of the Imperial Guard must have war experience and outstanding performance." He paused for a moment and said: "Although the situation of nobles leading troops is becoming less and less nowadays, it is not completely absent. As long as He has combat experience and has shown the ability to meet the requirements of a general of the Imperial Guard, so I would not mind recommending such a noble person to become a general of the Imperial Guard."
Then he concluded with one final sentence: "In short, it can be summed up in four words: Those who can live there."
Zhu Yijun nodded slightly, indicating that he understood, but he did not express his position immediately, but began to think.
Gao Pragmatic knew very well what Zhu Yijun was worried about, and added: "The emperor may have two doubts. One is that the border troops or local generals may perform better, but the emperor is not familiar with them, and even some of them are not loyal. After that, he may have been promoted from an ordinary soldier, so... it is difficult to judge how loyal he is."
Zhu Yijun did not comment, but asked: "What about the second point?"
"Secondly, the emperor may be worried about the attitude of the nobles. After all, our imperial camp has been centered on the nobles for two hundred years. If the emperor suddenly replaces them, will it cause dissatisfaction among the nobles? "
Zhu Yijun smiled bitterly and said, "It seems you are sure to convince me?"
This is the default.
Gao pragmatic smiled and said: "Actually, both of these are not difficult. Let's talk about the first one first, the issue of loyalty of border troops or local generals after they come to the Imperial Guard."
"Your Majesty, the first thing we need to make clear is that the Imperial Guard should serve as the core force of our Ming Dynasty from the very beginning. This means that the Imperial Guard will enjoy the most generous treatment and the best armament. The most rigorous training and the most glorious reputation.
So what does it mean for a general to be transferred to the Praetorian Guard? It means that he has received close attention from the Ministry of War, the Cabinet, and even the Emperor himself, which in itself is a very high honor. Think about it, after an ordinary general receives such honor and satisfaction, will he try his best to repay the emperor's kindness, or will he repay kindness with ulterior motives? There is no doubt that it must be the former, or at least he will definitely want to repay the emperor's favor in the short term. "
"In the short term?" Zhu Yijun actually understood Gao Pragmatic's analysis and agreed with it, but this "short term" made him a little confused.
"In the short term, this statement is of course more cautious." Gao pragmatically said: "But for the Imperial Guard, this kind of caution is very necessary. Therefore, in addition to the above, we also need to have institutional Limitations, such as term limits.”
Zhu Yijun suddenly said: "Oh, you mean it's like taking the civil service exam every three years or taking the exam every nine years?"
"Nine years is too long!" Gao Pragmatic said seriously: "We cannot let a general stay in the position of the main general of the Imperial Guard for nine years. This is a recipe for disaster."
Zhu Yijun was startled for a moment, but immediately nodded with satisfaction, and Wen Yan asked, "What do you mean?"
"One term every three years, with a maximum of two terms." Gao Pragmatic said decisively: "This rule is specifically for the chief officer of the Guards - according to the custom of the Guard Army, this is called the commander. Of course, if you want to call him the commander, it is also okay. Generally speaking, he is called the commander. In principle, one term is the main one. If the officer's performance is outstanding and both the Ministry of War and the Cabinet consider him to be loyal and capable, he can report it to the emperor and ask the emperor to make the final decision on whether the officer should be re-elected. But no matter what, , can be re-elected once at most, that is, the total term cannot exceed six years, this is an iron rule."
"I understand what you mean." Zhu Yijun nodded, thought for a moment, and asked: "The different establishments you mentioned are not just the fact that the chief officer's term is limited, right? Let's talk about other things as well. Bar."
Gao Pragmatic nodded and said: "The overall establishment of the Imperial Guard has eight levels from top to bottom: army, town, association, standard, battalion, company, platoon, and shed. Among them, the town is the basic organizational structure - this The basic organizational structure means that if the Guards need to be dispatched, it is usually impossible to dispatch the entire army, so they will dispatch the town as a unit."
Zhu Yijun nodded and asked: "How many towns will the Imperial Guard be divided into?"
"Five." Gao pragmatically said: "Currently, I have made a rough preparation. Each town is scheduled to have a quota of 12,512 officers and soldiers, consisting of infantry, horse, artillery, engineering, baggage and other arms. Each town will have one commander, one deputy commander, and one deputy commander. chief of staff."
Zhu Yijun stretched out his hand to stop him and asked: "I understand the infantry, horse and artillery, but what about the workers and baggage? Didn't it mean that soldiers, farmers and craftsmen should be separated?"
"They are separate. However, these engineers and baggage soldiers are not simply craftsmen and farmers. These people are regarded as combat soldiers like infantry, horse, artillery and other soldiers, and they also need to master specialized skills."
"Does this have special skills?" Zhu Yijun said in astonishment: "I think that the engineer you mentioned is probably responsible for repairing weapons and armor. This is what ordinary military craftsmen do. The baggage is even more important. Needless to say, a strong man can do things like carrying food on a cart, so why should we count them as soldiers?"
Gao Pingshi smiled and said: "Your Majesty, before the military industry was privatized, more than 90% of the muskets in the army were useless. Do you still remember the reason?"
"Oh..." Zhu Yijun suddenly said: "You are going to say that you get paid for how much work you do. Let me guess, this time you are going to say that if you count them as soldiers, their treatment will be It's much more privileged, so you have to work harder, because you definitely have to put in the military product quality supervision system, who repaired which weapon, and the responsibility has to be assigned to each person, right? In this way, Come on, in order to keep this golden job, these people have to work hard, and the success rate of repairs will definitely be greatly improved, right?"
Gao Pingshi laughed loudly, cupped his hands and said, "Your Majesty has seen thousands of miles. It seems that your Majesty has figured out all of this trick."
Zhu Yijun smiled and waved his hand: "You are still familiar with the game. I only remembered it after hearing you say that." But he immediately became confused: "But this only requires engineering soldiers. What is the use of heavy baggage soldiers?" ? Isn’t it enough to be a porter? It can also save a lot of money so that you don’t have to keep it every day.”
You are really obsessed with money.
But Gao Pragmatic shook his head and said: "It won't be that simple in the future, because there are more and more artillery now, and according to the report given by Jinghua Ordnance Industry, it is already difficult for the artillery to maintain only four, one, two, three and four." model, it will inevitably be subdivided in the future. At present, it is imperative to subdivide the land and sea parts. Of course, there is no need to elaborate on the maritime part for the time being..."
"Wait a minute, why is it imperative to subdivide land and sea?" Zhu Yijun obviously does not understand this "imperative".
Gao pragmatic explained: "Because we are short of copper in the Ming Dynasty, the largest production area is Yunnan. But as far as I know, the copper mines in Yunnan are not enough just for coining. This time Myanmar may be able to provide some supplements, but it is still It is a drop in the bucket, so we must try to reduce the casting of bronze cannons and replace them with iron cannons.
It's just that there is a difference between iron cannons and bronze cannons. For use on land, with the update of technology, iron cannons are not a bad idea. But it doesn't work at sea. Because of the relationship between the climate and environment at sea (Zhu Yijun can understand the high humidity, but Gao is pragmatic because he is afraid that he cannot understand the high salt, so he only talks about the climate and environment). Iron cannons corrode too easily, and they cannot be used after they are corroded. , so guns at sea still have to use bronze. As a result, the subdivision of land and sea must be carried out as soon as possible. "
"I see, you should have considered it comprehensively. Our Ming Dynasty is indeed short of copper, and it is indeed very important to save the copper for casting cannons." Zhu Yijun nodded: "So what you are saying is that because these cannons are difficult to transport, it is necessary to Are there specialized people—the so-called heavy troops—to do this job?”
"Yes, and it's not just cannons. It also includes palm mines (grenades) and other weapons. They are all flammable and explosive. They also need professional heavy troops to transport them safely to avoid unnecessary losses—— Whether it’s the loss of personnel or the loss of the weapons themselves.”
That's true, Zhu Yijun can bear the loss of personnel, but Zhu Yijun can't bear the loss of weapons themselves, because...it's expensive! The things in Jinghua are good, and they are really expensive. At least they are much more expensive than before when there was no private military industry!
Of course, Zhu Yijun can understand this kind of expensiveness. Because according to his understanding, although Jinghua's artillery is nearly three times more expensive than before, it has basically never had a bomb blast. One cannon is more durable than the previous ten cannons. Overall, this account is still very cost-effective. What's more, Jinghua's artillery is far more powerful than previous artillery.
When he thought that these heavy troops were serving the precious Beijing artillery and firearms, Zhu Yijun felt that it was still necessary. He nodded and said: "In that case, it makes sense. How many people are there in this establishment? Ten thousand per town. Two thousand and five, what about the lower levels?"
"Your Majesty, please take a look." Gao pragmatically took out a note from his arms and handed it to Zhu Yijun.
Zhu Yijun took it and saw that it was written on the establishment of a town: two regiments in each town, 4,038 officers and soldiers in one association; two standards in each association, 1,756 officers and soldiers in each association , (Ma Biao has slightly fewer officers and soldiers, 1,117); each Biao is divided into three battalions, each battalion has four companies, each company has three rows, each row has three sheds...and so on.
The cavalry and artillery teams each have one mark, each with three battalions, each with four companies of horses and three teams of artillery; one battalion of engineers, with four companies in each battalion, with three platoons in each company; one battalion of baggage trains, with four teams in each battalion.
The infantry company, artillery company, and engineer company each have three rows with three sheds in each row; the horse company has two rows with two sheds in each row; the baggage company has two rows with three sheds in each row. There is also a military music and drum troupe.
There are two officers and auxiliary officers in each shed of each branch, four officers and eight officers. The town has 748 officers and sextons, 10,436 lieutenants, and 1,328 soldiers, for a total of 12,512 people.
Zhu Yijun didn't know much about these details. After reading it, he only had a general impression. It was obviously too much to ask him to distinguish between good and bad. However, he believed in Gao Jingshi very much. He thought that since Gao Jingshi could win the two battles of Annan and Dingbei, his understanding of battle formations was certainly the best in the world. Therefore, since Gao Jingshi organized it like this, he must have his own reasons. He only had to choose to trust That's it.
This idea is perfectly in line with what Emperor Longqing taught him back then: It doesn't matter if I don't understand, as long as the person I trust understands, just let him do it, and all I need to do is give him my full support.
But this time he really thought highly of Gao Jingshi, the young Sima, because Gao Jingshi's Imperial Guard organization almost directly copied the organization of the later Beiyang New Army from the script - except that the "team" was changed to something he was more familiar with. Apart from the "company", almost nothing was moved.
I didn't even change "shed" to "ban" because it might be confused with Ban Jun's "ban".
However, the system of the Beiyang Army can really be used now. The reason is that under his highly pragmatic intervention, the Ming Dynasty paid more and more attention to firearms and artillery, and it has been able to adapt to the organization of the new Beiyang Army.
Of course, the specific combat effectiveness is definitely far behind. At least Jinghua's current artillery is certainly far from the Krupp artillery commonly used in Beiyang, let alone machine guns such as Shui Lianzhu and Maxim. This statement is purely based on the rate of firearm usage.
After all, the preparation of this kind of thing must adapt to the level of weapons and equipment. Using the three-three system of later generations for the ancient cold weapon army is probably suicide. Fortunately, the Ming army is now more and more hot weaponized and highly pragmatic. Only then can the special organization of the Beiyang New Army be used during the transitional period.
Zhu Yijun looked at it for a long time and finally found a problem and asked: "Why are there as many as 748 officers and sextons in this town?"
Good question. In the ancient military system, how could there be such a large establishment of such interrogators? Zhu Yijun asked quite well this time.
Gao Pragmatic explained happily: "Because in addition to the higher-level military headquarters, each town also has a staff battalion office, a law enforcement battalion office, a supervisory battalion office, an inspection battalion office and other establishments. The functions of these establishments will be explained in detail in separate articles and memorials. In short, these are necessary institutions to ensure combat effectiveness."
In fact, the roles of these institutions are quite easy to understand. Zhu Yijun understood more than half of them just because the names imply, so he nodded in approval.
He looked at it and felt that there didn't seem to be a big problem, so he asked the one thing he was most concerned about: "Have you already chosen the first commander of the Guards?"
Gao pragmatically said: "There is indeed someone who I think is the most suitable candidate at the moment, but... this person's current task is also more important, so I am still a little hesitant."
Zhu Yijun became interested and asked, "Who is this person?"
Gao pragmatically said: "Qi Jiguang."
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Thanks to the book friend "Single Rider Zhao Bixin" for the reward and monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: I feel like I might fall asleep instantly tonight, so I posted this chapter in advance...
