A banquet was held in the evening. Yi Min, the magistrate and other officials greeted Wang Xiaolie, Wang Ruohai and Wang Yan and left happily. Early the next morning, Wang Xiaolie got up early. After washing up, together with Wang Ruohai and Wang Yan, they randomly picked a restaurant to have breakfast.
After taking two fried dough sticks, an egg, and a bowl of millet porridge, Wang Xiaolie sat down at the table. He said to Yi Min who was accompanying him: "Do the soldiers training here have breakfast like this every morning? Don't come because we are here, you have done a better job."
Yi Min said: "Back in Xuanfu, it's like this every day. Sometimes the colors are changed, but they're all the same."
Wang Xiaolie nodded: "This is the best. According to the rules of our army, anyone who changes the old habits of the army to cater to someone coming here will be dismissed."
Yi Quan said: "I understand the humble position, I understand the humble position!"
After taking two bites of the fried dough sticks, Wang Xiaolie said to Wang Ruohai, "Although the food here is simple, it tastes delicious."
Wang Ruohai said: "Xuanfu didn't bring the pickles. The cook here pickled the pickles well and they are very delicious."
Wang Xiaolie said: "I'm not used to eating pickles. By the way, after dinner, bring me the menu from your daily restaurant. Whether an army can have enough food and eat well has a great impact on morale. Big. We can’t be careless about these things.”
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After breakfast, Wang Xiaolie, Wang Ruohai and Wang Yan separated and wandered around the recruit camp. It wasn't until late afternoon that I returned to my residence.
The three of them were sitting and drinking tea under the ginkgo tree in the yard.
Wang Ruohai said: "Look at this new military camp, it is well managed and Yi Quan is a talented person. Shaanxi suddenly recruited 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers. There was a problem with the new military camp, but it didn't work. With these 50,000 to 60,000 people from Shaanxi, we can expand With one army, there will be no shortage of soldiers."
Wang Xiaolie said: "Yes. There are 50,000 or 60,000 in Shaanxi, plus the 30,000 to 40,000 captured during the Battle of Xijing, it's nearly 100,000. We don't need to recruit many more recruits from Henan Prefecture and other places, and the number of soldiers is enough." If we expand our army to 2,670,000, it will be enough to fight the Jin army."
Wang Yandao: "Under Xuanfu's rule, there were only Jingxi Road and half of Hedong Road. With these territories, I could not even imagine raising an army of 267,000 people. How many people need to eat and their homes?" roll."
Wang Xiaolie said with some emotion: "In the face of a war to destroy the country, how can we recruit people as soldiers? The more brutal the war is, the less money the court has and the less it can afford to raise many soldiers. Without soldiers, they can only be defeated. The fight will be even worse. If things go on like this, when will the Central Plains be restored? Therefore, our army is mainly based on conscription, and only the officers and utility personnel need to be financed."
Wang Yan said: "During the Xining period, Wang Jinggong carried out the reform and implemented the Baojia system. This is probably what he thought. The army was all raised by the imperial court, and there really wasn't that much money."
Wang Xiaolie said: "It's not just that there is not that much money, the army is hired, and there is a problem with the position of the army. The army is to protect the family and the country, what about the hired soldiers? As long as the court has money, the army can There is no connection with the people. Once this connection is broken, it will cause great trouble."
What does the military do for the country? The regime must answer this question. Only by answering this question can we formulate corresponding systems. When the scale of the war is small and the intensity is particularly high, mercenaries are undoubtedly cost-effective. There is no need for so many people. Those who participate in the war are all veterans. The country can achieve greater results with less money. But as the scale of the war expands, no matter how wealthy the regime is, it cannot afford to support mercenaries.
At the turn of the Song Dynasty, the Jin army had no more than 150,000 troops. But after defeating several large armies of the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty had even fewer troops. In the Battle of Fuping, Zhang Jun lost 200,000 people, which actually resulted in the loss of almost all the strategic mobile forces of the Song Dynasty. After that, the Song army could only rely on the Wu Jie brothers to guard the natural barrier at Shukou, as well as the support of Han Shizhong, Zhang Jun and Liu Guangshi. The total number of these troops is less than 100,000.
At this time, Wang Xiaolie's army was about 120,000, more than half the strength of the Song Dynasty. It's just that at this time, ordinary people's view is that if the soldiers are not from the Central Plains and are not led by veteran generals, their combat effectiveness will inevitably be doubted. The biggest reason why Shaanzhou's great victory shocked the world was that Wang Xiaolie proved that his army could fight.
The Song Dynasty's army at this time cannot be viewed from the perspective of future generations. Throughout the Northern Song Dynasty, the imperial court did not recruit troops in Jiangnan, and the people in Jiangnan did not know how to fight. Until the rise of Yue Fei, Zhao Gou had more than 200,000 troops, and almost all of them came from the north. In the first twenty years of Zhao Gou's southern crossing, his military strength had no advantage over the Jin army.
Wang Xiaolie implemented a conscription system under his rule, established new military camps, and trained qualified soldiers, which was disruptive to the entire strategic pattern. When the Jin army invaded the south, they had to face Wang Xiaolie's superior strength. The combat effectiveness of the Jin Army was not enough to win in this situation.
The Song Dynasty has always used the recruitment system, which is related to the regime's positioning of the army. In the eyes of the emperor and ministers, the army was the minions of the court, the emperor's eagles and dogs, and had no responsibility for protecting the country. When facing the enemy, they will fight if they can defeat them and run away if they cannot defeat them. The army will not have any psychological burden.
It is precisely because of this positioning that the Song Army has never had an advantage when facing the Jin Army, except for the short period of Yue Fei's rise. Without an advantage, Zhao Gou was deeply afraid of the Jin army. This fear led to Zhao Gou's gold policy.
Wang Ruohai said: "This dynasty's army was inherited from the Five Dynasties, so it naturally has problems of one kind or another. From the time when the two Prime Ministers Fan and Han were in northern Shaanxi to Wang Jinggong's reform, many ministers have seen the problems in the army. It's just where the problems come from. There are different opinions. . Many people have come up with many ways to solve these problems, but none of them succeeded in the end. Only by proclaiming the conscription system and building new barracks can the situation be solved."
Wang Xiaolie said: "How do I know what problems this dynasty's army has! I only know that our dynasty's army could not fight at that time and made many jokes. If the army wants to fight, it must first set aspirations for the army. What aspirations should we set? Being a soldier is to protect the family and the country, not for any one person. Only when you have made up your mind can you implement the conscription system. Civilian recruitment is not just about touching your upper and lower lips and giving an order. It is not just the Ci Chen Pian Si Liliu, Xia Shi Just follow the imperial edict. If you want to recruit soldiers successfully, you must make changes in local affairs. How to attract people to join the army? How to let these people stay in the army with peace of mind after joining the army? What should these people do after they retire? Thousands of people Continued, we must proceed with caution. We started recruiting soldiers when we were in Xiangyang. While recruiting soldiers, the local government was still changing its policies. Until now, we dare not say that our military conscription system has been perfected. In one or two years, the earliest soldiers to be recruited will be It’s time to retire. How are these retired people arranged? It’s a test for us!”
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Wang Yan said: "In matters in the army, local cooperation is required. I have never heard of such a thing. Once the army is raised, people and food must be recruited from the local area, but the local area is unwilling to do so. In addition to surrendering, the people in the army now also How can they be willing to ask for local arrangements?"
Wang Xiaolie said with a smile: "This is something that the local government must do. How well it is done is the performance of the local officials. If the assessment is strict, the local government will naturally not dare to slack off. That's why I said that changing the recruitment system to the military conscription system is by no means a simple matter. An order is enough, but there must be corresponding measures.”
Changing the military recruitment system to a conscription system is a very troublesome matter. It requires a lot of policy coordination and the efforts of local officials. Instead of issuing an order that conscription will be required in the future, the conscription system will be established.
People of later generations find it simple because they have a lot of experience and mature institutional references. In the Song Dynasty, facing the new social situation, everything had to be done from scratch. We must be down-to-earth, make changes bit by bit, and try bit by bit in order to gain public support.
Over the past few years, Wang Xiaolie tried out ways to increase people's enthusiasm for joining the army, so that the army would not be short of soldiers. Next, we have to face the problem of retiring soldiers and how to solve their worries. Let the people join the army without worries, and then everyone can join the army enthusiastically. Rather than just facing a difficult situation, let everyone join the army with only enthusiasm.
(There is only one update today. In the next few days of this month, it will take three updates a day to make up for the missed updates. Please supervise.)
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