When the news of the series of victories of the Indian Expeditionary Force, especially the capture of Surat, the last British colonial stronghold in the Indian Peninsula, and also the last colonial stronghold of all European colonists in the Indian Peninsula, reached the mainland.
That was already the spring of the twenty-seventh year of Chengshun.
These days, it is very common for overseas news transmission to take a month or two or even longer due to the long distance.
The good news this time was that it set off from the port city of Surat in northwest India, first arrived at Colombo on the island of Ceylon, then crossed the Indian Ocean and entered the Strait of Malacca. After stopping in Singapore for supplies, it then headed north into the South China Sea and arrived at Guangzhou. Stop for supplies, then go north to Songjiang Prefecture and arrive at Wusongkou, then transfer to the steam-powered inland river communication express ship of the Post Office, and finally arrive at Jinling City.
The whole journey is more than 10,000 kilometers!
Even if it is a rocket-type communication clipper powered by the latest naval sails, it will take nearly twenty days to sail day and night without even replenishing ports at the ports along the way.
During the actual voyage, it actually takes more time because it needs to stop at some major ports along the way to receive or deliver communication documents from other places.
After all, it is impossible for the Navy to specially arrange a ship to deliver an ordinary message... Unless it is an emergency, otherwise, the Navy's communication ships need to pass through several major ports along the way to send and receive various messages. Like official documents.
However, even so, it was impossible for other types of ships to deliver the news from Surat back to the mainland within a month.
It can even be said that the speed of naval communication clippers has reached the speed limit of sailboats before modern industry.
The Navy's newest air-rigged arrow-type communication speedboat, the Dongjiang-class communication ship, its first ship, the USS Pacific, traveled across the Pacific to and from North America many times. Its maximum sailing discipline was an average speed of seventeen knots.
Note that this is the average speed, which also means that the speed of the communication speedboat is even faster on smooth sailing routes, and can even reach more than 20 knots at the fastest time.
The Navy's latest Dongjiang-class communication speedboat has almost reached the peak speed of ships in this era, whether it is a sail or a steamship.
At the same time, steam engine auxiliary power is used, which greatly saves the time of entering and exiting the port, and allows the ship to maintain a certain speed and sail for a long distance when there is no wind.
The Navy's communication speedboat, well, you also have to count the Post Office's speed mail speedboat...these two are actually the same type of racing machine and sailboat.
This kind of flying-type motor-sail clipper, to put it bluntly, represents the maximum speed of contemporary ships, regardless of whether it is a pure sail ship, a steam ship, or a motor-driven ship... because this kind of ship is born for speed. .
It's just that this kind of sailing clipper is really useless except for speed... For example, the cargo capacity, which is very important for contemporary ships, this thing has no cargo capacity at all!
After all, this thing is only used to transport documents. At most, it can transport some small official items.
The tonnage of its ships is basically given to the hull and steam engine, and the remaining tonnage is used to load coal, various daily necessities, water, etc.
Therefore, this thing basically cannot be used to transport people or goods on a large scale.
In addition, the seaworthiness of this kind of sailing speedboat is also particularly bumpy...
After all, for the sake of speed, the tonnage of this crap thing is generally not large, only a few hundred tons, and the aspect ratio is exaggerated, and the hull is very slender...
This means that when sailing on the sea, it will be very bumpy.
If an ordinary passenger takes this kind of sailing speedboat, the bile will be knocked out of you in just a few minutes.
Even some veteran sailors would not be able to endure long-term sailing on this kind of motor-driven sailing vessel.
The captains and sailors of the communication ships of the Dachu Empire Navy and the express ships of the Postal Department have all undergone special training, otherwise they would not be able to serve on such extremely bumpy fast ships that ride on the wind and waves on the sea.
In the past two years, private
Some of the new fast arrow transport ships are imitating the communication speedboats of the Postal Service and the Navy. Although they are not as extreme, they are still very fast and are mainly used for goods with high timeliness requirements!
Well, mostly tea.
Tea is a commodity that has very high requirements on timeliness. At the same time, tea is easily affected by moisture and deteriorates during humid shipping. Therefore, when transporting tea by sea, the shorter the voyage time, the better.
In the contemporary tea export trade of the Chu Empire, there is a rule that the shorter the time for tea to be transported on the sea, the higher the quality and the more expensive the tea will be when it arrives at the destination.
The faster the tea was delivered from the home port to the destination port, the higher the reward the captain and sailors received.
Therefore, every time during the tea harvest season, in several major tea export ports in the Chu Empire, you can often see a kind of flying arrow speedboat with a slender hull and full of sails racing wildly on the sea!
In order to make more money by delivering tea to the destination as quickly as possible, the captains were very rough when sailing...
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Using these communication speedboats sailing in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, the Chu Empire was able to receive news from India and even North America within a month or two, and use the same time to transmit various local instructions to India or North America. To the overseas territories of North America.
After Luo Zhixue, who was in Jinling City, received the victory report from the Indian Peninsula, he did not appear too happy or surprised. After all, this was something that was expected.
Sending out more than 50,000 troops plus hundreds of warships, and also having absolute advantages in equipment performance and quality of soldiers, if this can't defeat those European colonial companies, then damn it, if this really happens, Young Master Luo Zhixue had no choice but to kill a large number of people as punishment.
However, although they were all expected victories, the rewards for meritorious soldiers still had to be in accordance with the rules. Luo Zhixue did not need to worry about this. It would naturally be handled by the military and political institutions within the army, navy and the Guards.
The Da Chu Empire was founded for more than 20 years, and wars of various sizes were fought almost every day. There were already very complete rules on how to evaluate military merit and corresponding rewards. All you had to do was follow the rules.
As for the few rewards for senior generals that required Luo Zhixue to handle personally, Luo Zhixue was not in a hurry, because the tactics in the direction of the Indian Peninsula seemed to have great results, but in fact they were not very intense and very difficult.
In fact, this kind of battle can be won by sending any normal general there, so the senior generals responsible for leading the troops should win, without any extra military resources.
At most it can be regarded as hard work. After all, the expedition to India is indeed a hard job.
Because there are a small number of generals in command, be it the army, the navy, or the Guards, their hard work and qualifications should be recorded, and if there is a suitable opportunity in the future, they will be given priority for promotion.
As for being promoted from major general to lieutenant general and vice versa after fighting an Indian campaign, that is impossible.
The military ranks of the Da Chu Empire have not even been quoted so much!
The ranks of senior generals cannot be promoted for the time being, and they can only be promoted first in the future. However, some other rewards can still be obtained now.
For example, award some honorary titles, give some rewards to the family members, etc.
Among them, Major General Bai Zhen was awarded the Dragon-Emblem Sword-Holding Medal. This Dragon-Emblem Sword-Holding Medal evolved from the Dragon-Emblem Sword-Holding Military Flag and is mainly awarded to mid-level and senior generals in the army... At the same time This is not a military medal, but a service medal that rewards generals for being loyal to the emperor and working hard without complaint.
Basically, senior generals who lead troops to fight overseas or in remote areas in the northwest can basically get one.
At the same time, the wife of Army Major General Bai Zhen was conferred as a third-grade lady. The great destiny of the Great Chu Empire does not mean that the husband will definitely be canonized after reaching a certain level. At the same time, it does not mean that the wife's level of great destiny will definitely follow that of her husband.
The husband's official rank is gone.
Instead, the official needs to make certain achievements. After obtaining permission, the court will canonize his mother, Wife Haoming.
Haoming's rank may be one level lower or the same, but it will not exceed the rank of her husband's official.
For example, in the Great Chu Empire, when the wives of major generals, brigadier generals, and civil servants of the third rank and the third rank were conferred the title of Haoming, the upper limit was a lady of the third rank, and the standard rank was a respectful person of the fourth rank.
His wife's great destiny also requires the husband who is an official to perform meritorious deeds step by step, and then he can gradually reach the upper limit. It does not mean that as soon as the husband is promoted, his wife will immediately be able to directly seize the corresponding upper limit level of great destiny.
Even if they have not made any special achievements, even if many officials become ministers of the ministry, their wives may not be able to get a good life.
Because Haoming is different from normal promotion, it belongs to the authority of the royal family, and the queen is responsible for it. It has nothing to do with the previous dynasty.
After all, the ladies of Haoming belong to the inner wives and are under the jurisdiction of the queen... Well, during the holidays, the queen often invites some ladies of Haoming to watch theaters and have dinner.
Although there is only a small symbolic salary, it represents the social status of a female official.
Luo Zhixue often uses canonization of Haoming instead of rewards, especially when civil servants and military generals have made a little but not much merit, and it is not enough for promotion, then Luo Zhixue will give their mother or wife a level of Haoming. Come and show your favor.
For example, Bai Zhen is a person who has worked hard and has a little credit. Although this credit and hard work are not enough for him to be promoted quickly, he still needs to be rewarded for those who deserve it... at least he must have an attitude.
Therefore, canonizing Haoming is a good choice.
In addition to honors, there are also some physical rewards, such as a Jinling horse, gold, silver and jade, some of the Royal Tea House's finest dragon gold tea, some silk and satin, etc. There are many names, but except for the Jinling horse, others The things may seem expensive, but for an army major general, they are actually not too expensive.
If Bai Zhen walks around India, he can probably get tens of thousands of dollars back from the private trophies he captured on the battlefield.
This was not corruption or anything like that, but private loot that was allowed to be kept.
In order to encourage soldiers to fight with more time and independence, the military of the Dachu Empire has always allowed soldiers to retain part of their private trophies when they go to fight overseas. The military and the Postal Department jointly established military post offices on the front line. A major business was to send the soldiers' private trophies back to their homes.
Therefore, for the soldiers of the Chu army, although it was hard work, it was also relatively dangerous. If they were not careful, they would get sick and die.
But the rewards are also very generous, and you can often capture a lot of loot when fighting with the indigenous people.
When fighting the indigenous people overseas, the military has always been very humane about the distribution of spoils: weapons, equipment, food, and large amounts of gold and silver in warehouses are naturally confiscated to the national treasury, but enemy troops captured on the battlefield Personal items and small items, such as jewelry, jade, gold and silverware, etc., as long as they are not too exaggerated, soldiers are allowed to keep them as private trophies.
The military eats the big head, the soldiers eat the small head, and everyone eats and drinks together. This is the military's basic strategy when fighting overseas.
If this doesn't bring any benefits, why do you let soldiers cross the ocean to fight in overseas areas?
You must know that the overseas environment these days is not very good. Soldiers have to endure harsh conditions and even face pressure from non-combat attrition at every turn.
Even if the soldiers are forced to go with orders, the impact on the morale of the soldiers will be relatively large.
So I simply used the loot as a subsidy.
Going to sea to make money is not shabby!
You said this would lead to a breakdown in military discipline, etc. But as long as it doesn't harm one of their own people, the top military officials don't bother to take care of it. Even the civilian officials don't bother to say a word.
Under such circumstances, many soldiers who are dispatched to serve in overseas territories have often accumulated a lot of wealth by the time they return home from service.
Their trophy income can often reach several times or even dozens of times their regular salary income... After all, the salary income of ordinary soldiers in the Chu army, although it includes food, accommodation and food, does not actually bring much cash income.
Because the Chu Army adopts a system of combining compulsory soldiers and volunteers, ordinary soldiers are all compulsory soldiers... If you join the army, the military will provide food, housing and clothing. It will also provide education, professional skills training, and you can get a retirement pension after retirement. or arrange employment.
But apart from these, there is no salary... only subsidies. This subsidy is not high. In the early years, it was only a few hundred cents. Later, it gradually increased, and now it is only one yuan and two cents.
This amount of money is not high in the current Da Chu Empire. An ordinary worker in the Songjiang area has a monthly income of about three Chu Yuan to four Chu Yuan. It is lower in other places, but it is basically two or three Chu Yuan.
Although the soldiers of the Dachu Empire came to join the army, they basically did not do it for the subsidy, but more for other things, such as being able to eat freely, having educational opportunities in the army, professional skills training, stable employment after retirement, etc. .
But if I could get more money, I wouldn't do it.
To be stationed and fight in overseas territories for a year and a half, and then return home with trophies worth tens of dollars or even hundreds of dollars. This is the biggest dream of many soldiers when they go to serve in overseas territories!
This is true for ordinary soldiers, and officers are no exception. Many officers serve in overseas territories, on the one hand, to accumulate seniority and military merit, and on the other hand, to obtain trophies.
In recent years, the Chu Empire has conquered many cities and even capitals of indigenous countries in Southeast Asia. Not only has the national treasury made a large amount of revenue, but the soldiers who participated in the operation are all full of food.
Officers and even senior generals with higher status and more power can earn trophies worth thousands or even tens of thousands of Yuan from an operation to capture an indigenous city.
After Bai Zhen led his army to capture Goa, Bombay, Surat and other colonial cities on the west coast of India, he directly entrusted the Western Trading Company to send more than twenty boxes of his to the country.
There are a lot of messy gold, silver, jewelry, jades, gems, or other works of art and curios inside. The total value is probably no less than 50,000 to 60,000 yuan, and some of the works of art are even harder to estimate.
Compared with the trophies income Bai Zhen earned from fighting overseas, what Luo Zhixue rewarded him was nothing. Even the most valuable Jinling horse was only worth two to three thousand Chu Yuan.
However, the significance of Luo Zhixue's reward does not lie in how much it is worth, but in its political significance.
Two months have passed since the twenty-seventh year of Chengshun. In addition to the regular holiday rewards, Bai Zhen is the only one who has received rewards for his meritorious service.
And more importantly, as soon as this reward came out, everyone basically knew that in the past few years, as long as Bai Zhen didn't make mistakes along the way, there was a high probability that he would go further.
Therefore, this honor is very heavy, much more valuable than the treasure of 50,000 or 60,000 Chu Yuan.
