After the meal, the others went about their business. Gao pragmatically called Liu Xin and went to her study in the secretariat.
Gao pragmatically took Liu Xin's usual seat politely and said: "If nothing unexpected happens in this Western Expedition, I plan to use Jiang Wu as the main general, and the Ma family and the Ma family will each have at least one young general to lead them. Lieutenant General...but you can definitely see that there are still some problems in this arrangement."
Liu Xin rolled her eyes at Gao Pragmatic, who was jockeying for a seat, but obediently moved another chair and sat down next to him, saying, "When you suddenly said that, I may not be able to see all the problems at a glance. However, There are some obvious problems that can be seen... For example, my brother's Liu Jiajun headquarters has very few cavalry. If he serves as the central army, the speed of the Western Expedition may not be accelerated, and this seems to be quite different from your previous plan. There is a discrepancy.”
Gao pragmatically said: "The Royal Guards and the five generals' Ding Army will become the first batch of Type A troops. Naturally, the Liu Jiajun will also be reorganized. In addition to the already elite infantry and vehicle battalions (artillery), they will continue to improve their technical weapons. In addition to the proportion, the expansion of its cavalry is one of the main focuses."
Liu Xin was slightly surprised and asked: "Are you planning to unify the Dingjun of the five major generals according to your wishes, and don't you intend to let them maintain the regional uniqueness of their permanent areas?"
Of course Gao Pragmatic knows what Liu Xin means by the "regional uniqueness of the permanent area". What this means is that for example, the Ma Jiajun was mainly cavalry, with very few infantry and not many artillery; the Li Jiajun was also considered to be mainly cavalry, but the "main" mainly refers to combat effectiveness. In terms of military strength alone, then They still have a certain size of infantry and artillery; the Majia Army's organization is relatively comprehensive, with 60% of the force being infantry, 20% being cavalry, and 10% each being artillery and engineers.
Ma Jiajun's organization is comprehensive, mainly because his family has been under Gao Jingjing's command for the longest time. The younger generation of Ma Jiajun has also been relatively promising in recent years, so Gao Jingjing has directly intervened and cared more, which makes Ma Jiajun's organization better. The comprehensiveness is relatively high.
Although the Liu Jiajun was Gao Pingzhi's main support target in the Southern Army, the South was not like the North in that it did not have such high requirements for professional cavalry.
In addition, the areas where Liu Wei fought in the past few years are really scratching his head. They are either northern Burma or Guizhou. They are all rugged and dangerous mountainous areas. Therefore, if he has too many cavalry, there will be no place for heroes to use them. Therefore, there are only about two or three thousand cavalry all year round. Dahuang is not even 10% of the total strength of the army.
The situation of the Qi Jiajun has been mentioned before. The nominally serious Qi Jiajun can only maintain around 6,000 people at most, but in fact the Qi Jiajun is scattered all over the sky. Hundreds of people were brought to various parts of the country to serve as their "accommodating servants", that is, personal soldiers.
This situation has led to a trouble. From a political perspective, Gao Pragmatic needs the Qi Family Army to become one of the "six main forces." However, from a military perspective, the current Qi Family Army only has a size of 6,000 people. It is necessary to complete the establishment of a "Type A Army". A significant military expansion is needed.
The problem now is that Gao's pragmatic idea is that except for the Imperial Guard, which is a special case, the other five Type-A armies will all be organized at the town level according to the model of the Southern Xinjiang Garrison Army (Southern Xinjiang is called a division), which means that only one The town's military strength is 12,700.
The fixed establishment of the garrison is as follows: each town has a full strength of 12,700 people, with two standard infantry regiments, three independent artillery regiments, one independent cavalry regiment, and two engineer battalions.
Of course, we are not going to discuss here the Huben Army that Gao Pragmatic just talked about. Otherwise, the Huben Army would be much stronger than the current Ming Imperial Guards, and the scale of its establishment would be extremely large, and there would be no comparison at all.
Of course, the major garrison forces in southern Xinjiang are based on the town (division) level as the basic unit, and the number of towns under the "army" level is not the same. For example, the Dingnan Guard Army currently has five towns under its jurisdiction, while the Vientiane Guard Army only has two towns under its jurisdiction. The gap in strength is still very large.
In Gaowu Shi's current organizational plan for the six main forces of the Ming Dynasty, the Imperial Guard remains unchanged for the time being and still has five towns under its jurisdiction. Its artillery and cavalry personnel are larger than those of the Dingnan Garrison. In fact, they have nearly 70,000 troops. scale. However, as the central imperial guard of the Ming Dynasty, the scale of the Imperial Guard is of course a special case and cannot be copied by the other five Type-A armies.
The remaining five Type-A armies are all "three-town armies" in the highly pragmatic organization concept, that is, each army has three towns under its jurisdiction, plus a military headquarters. One headquarters is directly under the Independent Artillery Association, and the other headquarters is directly under the baggage standard. , one headquarters is directly under the engineering battalion, and one headquarters is directly under the guard battalion.
According to the plan, the final establishment of such a Type A Army will be around 43,000 troops in total. This total number of troops has actually been thought about by Gao pragmatism seriously. The reasons include not only military factors, but also political factors.
The simplest truth is that, like all previous reforms, Gao Pragmatic believes that in order to promote a reform, his first consideration at the beginning of the reform is how to appease the old vested interests.
This sounds very un-revolutionary, but it is very realistic. Specific to the reform of the Type A Army, Gao Pragmatic must first think of one thing: the first six armies selected as the Type A Army must at least not be dissatisfied with the reform.
The Imperial Guard will not be dissatisfied, because Gao Pragmatic treats it as a special case, its super scale will not be reduced, and it may even update some old equipment that has been equipped for a long time.
Ma Gui and Liu Wei will not be dissatisfied, because after the reform of the Type A Army, the number of troops under their command will increase, their technical equipment will be further supplemented, and their strength will only become stronger.
However, Li Rusong's attitude is worthy of attention, because the Li family was originally the number one general in the world. Although they suffered some losses on the Korean battlefield, they have basically made up for it in the days after withdrawing from the war, so they The total strength of the Li Jiajun has been restored to about 40,000.
So, if the size of the Type A Army planned by Gao pragmatism is less than 40,000, the Li family and its related generals will inevitably suspect that Gao pragmatism is weakening them in disguise.
Even under the current circumstances, Gao Pingshi's reputation in the army is unmatched by anyone. Even if the Type A Army is forced to be planned with an establishment of less than 40,000 people, the Li family will only dare to slander and will never jump out to openly oppose it. . However, it is still not a good thing to have such a situation.
When it comes to reform, the biggest fear is to hit a snag at the beginning or to plant a hidden danger. The former is too demoralizing, while the latter can easily develop into a pustule. Therefore, it is best to pick the easy thing first. A good start is half the battle. As for subsequent reforms, it can be deepened and strengthened step by step.
With 43,000 people, the Li family's army would not suffer losses at this scale. On the contrary, because the imperial court would treat everyone equally, the proportion of their technical weapons could be greatly supplemented.
This article needs a little explanation. The number of servants of each general in the Ming Dynasty was uncertain, and the amount of military pay allocated to them by the court also depended on their own "mobility". If your family has strong mobility, the court will allocate more military pay, and you will have less money to subsidize it. On the other hand, it means that the court doesn’t give you much money, and you have to do all the expenses yourself, which is very frustrating.
The total amount of money that the Li family's army can get is not small, but his family has the largest army, so it still needs to invest heavily in the army. Of course, the Li family's property in Liaodong is very rich, which has been explained a long time ago.
However, in any case, due to Gao Pragmatic's strong support for several direct lineage generals under his command, there was great competitive pressure on the Li Jiajun, so the Li family had to "additional investment" and began to spend money on more technical weapons. Especially artillery.
It has to be said that artillery these days is really expensive, especially the artillery made by Jinghua, which is well known for its high price - of course the reason for the high price is that its quality is indeed excellent.
But how to put it, selling artillery is actually an extremely profitable business. According to the No. 3 cannon with the largest equipment in the Ming Dynasty army, the manufacturing cost of Jinghua was around 220 taels at the beginning. Later, due to technological progress and the expansion of production scale, it gradually dropped to around 180 taels.
However, the price of the No. 3 gun is 800 taels for retail sales and 650 taels for large-scale military purchases. In other words, even with the imperial court's large-scale arms purchases, Jinghua's profit margin is as high as over 360%.
But this is not because Jinghua deliberately treated the imperial court like a pig, but in the artillery industry, there are currently some reasons why only Jinghua can achieve such a profit margin. After the military industry was privatized, it was not just Jinghua that could produce artillery. No matter in the north or the south, many families had tried to enter this industry, but so far, almost no great progress had been made.
why?
There are two main reasons: first, only Jinghua has mastered the material production and manufacturing technology of steel artillery; second, only Jinghua can control the scrap rate of artillery production to less than 30%.
Many people in future generations may not know that the scrap rate of artillery production in the 17th and 18th centuries was quite alarming. Especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties of China's original history, the scrap rate was often as high as about 80%. At that time, if there was an artificial cannon that could be used 30% of the time, it would be a master without a doubt.
At the same time, without the intrusion of Jinghua, cannons in this era could only be made of copper. As a big country that already lacks copper but uses copper coins, the cost of making cannons with copper is obviously extremely high for China.
According to many records, in the original history, to make red cannons in the late Ming Dynasty, it took 5,000 kilograms of copper to make one. However, to make ten cannons, only two or three were usable, so the final cost was as high as two thousand kilograms. One thousand taels of silver per door - note that this is the official construction cost of the Ming Dynasty, but there is no profit in it.
So, why do Jinghua’s cannons look so expensive, but whether it’s the imperial court or maritime merchants, everyone is still willing to suffer from Jinghua’s pains? Without him, technology has a monopoly.
Except for Jinghua, products made by other companies are either of poor quality or more expensive. Under this situation, in order not to be outdone by other generals, the Li Jiajun had no choice but to continuously create profits for Jinghua, which forced the Li family to tighten their belts year by year.
Of course, the Li family also knows how to settle accounts, so it happened that during the Korean War, Li Rusong retreated after suffering a slightly serious loss. In addition to the trouble that the power of the main family and branches may be imbalanced, another point is that Li Rusong does not dare to continue losing money, because if he loses too much, he is really worried about not having money to make up for it.
But now Gao pragmatism wants to build an A-type army, and will not reduce the number of Li Jiajun. Although according to Gao pragmatism's standardized establishment idea, the Li Jiajun will only be the same as Ma Jiajun in the future, but at least it can still maintain its position. One of the main forces.
And the most important thing is that the expenses of the Type A Army are completely borne by the court. No matter how the prices of muskets, artillery, war horses and other military supplies fluctuate in the future, the Li family finally does not have to spend their own money. This is a great opportunity for the generals. Big economic loosening.
Of course, if your Li family wants to issue welfare subsidies to the army alone, Gao Pang will not take care of it for the time being, and there will be a period of policy instability.
But in the future... Eliminating the influence of private armies is a long-term task. Although it cannot be rushed, it must be done after all.
"In the future, the A-type Army will have an integrated and standardized organization. Whether it is cavalry, artillery, engineers, or heavy baggage troops, the organization of each A-type Army will be consistent." Gao Pragmatic said without hesitation: "You may Worrying that too many artillery and cavalry will become a burden to the Liu family’s army, which is based in Sichuan, is overblown.”
"Why?" Liu Xin was a little confused. Why did she worry too much? Fighting in the southwest does not require so many cavalry. As for artillery, although it is difficult to say that it is not needed, if there are too many, mobility on the battlefield will definitely be affected. Isn’t this an obvious truth?
However, Gao Pragmatic shook his head and said: "The reason why you are worried is because you subconsciously feel that once it is time to fight a big battle, the Liu Jiajun may be the only main force in the entire southwest that is reliable.
However, the fact is that I will establish a sufficient B-type army for the south - not just the southwest - and the strength of these B-type armies is at the level of the current nine-border field troops, so there is no situation where only the Liu Jiajun can fight .
For more time in the future, the Liu Jiajun's role in the south will be mainly to intimidate and serve as a central force during battles to stabilize and boost morale. "
"I see..." Liu Xin nodded and asked thoughtfully: "Then what did you want to say to me when you called me here? Oh, no, you probably have something you want me to convey to my brother, right? ?”
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"Yes, there are some things that I would not be comfortable saying to him directly, or even implying in a private letter. It would be more appropriate for you to convey them on my behalf." Gao Pragmatic nodded and admitted.
Liu Xin opened her eyes wide and said in surprise: "Is there such a thing? Tell me, I'm very curious!"
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "O Shangshu Ling" and "Kanna Weisheer" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
ps: Originally I had no plans for the Lantern Festival, but my mother-in-law asked our family to go to my brother-in-law’s place to celebrate the festival. Considering that it is not convenient to fish tomorrow on Monday, this is the only update tonight.
