In view of the vast territory, the Northern Military Region carried out reasonable planning.
The four giants decided to guard the four sides respectively, forming a situation of mutual help.
Hong Qi was based in Changchun as the commander of the military region and was responsible for central coordination.
Hui Shanhui established a separate command organization in Lak Town, north of Sakhalin Island, which is mainly responsible for support to the Heilongjiang estuary and defense issues in the entire North Sea.
As a local snake, Wei Yuanhui was stationed at Yongning Temple, mainly ensuring the safety of various settlements and agricultural reclamation areas on the land.
Because he was so important here, the military region assigned an entire division to his command.
In this way, even if the Manchu Qing gathered a large army to attack, it would still be enough to deal with it.
Miao Niansheng is a full-fledged junior who needs the opportunity to make meritorious deeds the most. So Hong Qi asked him to lead the 25th Regiment of the 11th Division that had arrived in the Northern Military Region to go south to Ezo Island and incorporate the island into Xia Kingdom's territory.
With the approval of Zuo Menggeng, Ezo Island has been officially renamed Xiayi Island. Just by hearing the name, you can tell that it is absolutely Chinese orthodoxy.
Knowing that they could return to their homeland, Zhang Chun and Hei Yunlong's mentality changed 180 degrees. Both of them were much more diligent than before, actively handling government affairs, and waiting for Zuo Maodi and Xia Yunyi to come over and take over.
Especially after learning that their family had completely established themselves in Shandong and were living a very good life, both of them were eager to go back as soon as possible.
Zhang Chun is getting a little older. Years of ups and downs in officialdom and tests of life and death have made him just want to live the rest of his life well. He decided to take care of himself after returning to Shandong and did not plan to enter politics again.
Hei Yunlong was very high-spirited.
After fighting with the Xia army for so long, he learned a lot and finally saw what a real army was.
He planned to go to a military academy after returning to Shandong.
His current military rank is lieutenant colonel. Due to the special nature of the Northern Military Region, he can be promoted to at least major general after graduating from the military academy. Not to mention commanding a division, he can definitely become a division-level general.
In the first half of his life, as a general of the Ming army, he lost every battle and felt very angry. As a general of the Xia Army in the rest of his life, he must show off his abilities no matter what.
Just as Jilin Province and the Northern Military Region are gradually getting back on track, Shandong has no time to spare.
After the war, the military needs to be reformed, and the same goes for the military industry.
After all, technology determines tactics, and industry determines victory or defeat.
Xia Jun could summarize a lot from a big battle with the Qing Dynasty coalition forces.
This meeting was very important. Not only Zuo Menggeng and the cabinet, but also relevant officials from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Equipment Department, the Logistics Department, the Army, and the Navy were all present.
At the beginning of the meeting, Zuo Xiang expressed his dissatisfaction.
"The troops on the front line are so wasteful, causing great losses. According to our statistics, the extra funds spent for this purpose are at least more than 800,000 silver. All troops must pay attention to this situation. If this continues, the national finance will be destroyed. You cannot collapse."
The Xia Army is an absolutely wealthy army.
Under the leadership of Zuo Menggeng, any good thing can come from the army first.
He was afraid that his army's combat effectiveness would be affected due to some shortcomings.
To put it bluntly, this situation is called underfire phobia.
But since we want to be a wealthy corps, there is no doubt that once a war breaks out, the consumption will be very staggering.
The troops below don't care about their finances. Anyway, they will use whatever they have on hand. They have to fight vigorously until they are satisfied.
When the results were reported to the Ministry of Finance, Zuo Xiang couldn't sit still and started to get into trouble as soon as he came up.
"What's the point of consuming more supplies? Should our soldiers use their lives to fill it? What is more precious than the lives of soldiers?"
Zuo Hua couldn't listen anymore and scolded him back on the spot.
Zuo Xiang was sprayed with saliva. Although he was very angry, he was also helpless.
"Second brother, are you still unreasonable? I didn't say that the lives of soldiers are not precious, but you can't waste them carelessly. Our people on the front line have seen with their own eyes that good chocolates are thrown away without even being eaten. You’ve only had enough to eat for a few days, and now you’re starting to waste your fortune?”
These words made Zuo Hua blush.
The situation Zuo Xiang mentioned was not something he had never seen before.
"Then...it's just that the battle situation was urgent and the soldiers had no time to deal with it."
Afraid that the two brothers would get into a real fight, Zuo Mengeng stepped forward.
His face was very serious.
"Zuo Xiang is right. Please tell everyone here when you go back. Let everyone think about it. How many good days have we had? How many people are hungry in the world now? Let me see. , we should launch an activity of remembering the bitter and remembering the sweet in the whole army, so that people can not forget their roots and always remember what kind of army we are and what we are going to do."
Because of his words, Xia Jun was obviously going to experience a storm of thoughts.
After the financial problem, there is the armament problem.
Unexpectedly, the first person to come forward was Zuo Xiang.
"Currently, just to meet the needs of the entire army for weapons and equipment, half of the entire national treasury has been emptied. Basically all the steel produced last year was used to cast weapons. The Ministry of Transport also complained to us, saying that the Qing Dynasty The construction of the Beida Bridge has been delayed because of this. Brother Six, can your Equipment Department think of a way to save some for everyone?"
The Qingbei Bridge is a bridge spanning the Daqing River and Xiaoqing River, connecting Jinan and the north. It is also the first reinforced concrete bridge in world history.
However, due to war needs, all steel was used for military purposes, which seriously affected the construction period. This made many shareholders of the Bridge Construction Group very dissatisfied and gossiped a lot behind their backs.
When it comes to the issue of military steel, Zuo Dai is quite accommodating.
"That's what I was going to say."
He asked his assistant to send the information to everyone.
"After actual testing on the battlefield, we found that the materials we used in our weapons were too good and actually unnecessary."
Zuo Mengeng didn't know why.
"Weapons are related to the outcome of the war, and even more to the lives of soldiers. Shouldn't we strive for excellence?"
Zuodao smiled bitterly.
"Your Highness does not know. After our calculations, our artillery does not need to be made of steel."
"Why?"
"Our propellant is still black powder, and the power is there. Even a wrought iron barrel can withstand it. But the manufacturing costs of wrought iron barrels and steel barrels are different. If it is replaced by guncotton explosives, The steel gun barrels we can cast now cannot withstand it. So we can definitely save some money in this regard."
Because of Zuo Mengeng's cheating device, Xia Jun's weapons were much more powerful than those of his opponents at the same time.
However, the result of this change was chaos in the weapon system.
Now the Equipment Department has long known that as a propellant, collodion explosive is actually far better than black powder and can provide a longer range.
However, the steel pipes that can be manufactured today cannot withstand the power of the collodion explosive explosion.
Therefore, only black powder can be used as propellant.
The power of black powder is limited, and the barrel does not need to be made of steel at all. Wrought iron covered with bronze is enough.
In the past, everyone thought that the better the quality of weapons, the better, completely ignoring this point.
But this time, after large-scale war practice, it was discovered that sometimes it is not necessary to make it so good.
