April of the second year of the Middle Dynasty

Jingzhou, Bingzhou, Qingzhou, and Youzhou Yellow Turbans surrendered one after another, and then Zhang Yan, who unified Montenegro, also suppressed all internal opposition in one fell swoop, and presented a surrender to the imperial court at the end of April, and almost at the same time, Zang Ba, who pretended to be a thief and overturned the entire Mount Tai, also came with good news that he would surrender to the imperial court in the near future.

At this point, all the rebel forces that the Han was able to get on the table were pacified, and the alien races on the border were also cleaned up. In June, the troops stationed in the border areas who had completed their tasks began to return to the central government one after another, going to Luoyang to be inspected by Emperor Liu Hong.

"Your Majesty, the restructuring of the army is very important, although it will slightly damage the country's combat strength for the time being, but in the long run, it will definitely be of great benefit to both the country and the people. What's more, now that all the traitors have been pacified, and the foreign races have been subdued, it is time to take the opportunity to reform the military system."

Holding the army restructuring strategy presented by Lin Xu in his hand, Liu Hong's brows were furrowed and he never let go, although the word disarmament did not appear throughout the text, but Liu Hong looked left and right, no matter how he looked at it, he could see Douda's "disarmament, disarmament!" ”。

For the Han Emperor, who had just overthrown the Northern Xiongnu and suppressed many foreign races, disarmament was almost the same as asking for his life, even if he could no longer see the enemy now, but without a large army in hand, he always felt insecure.

"Your Majesty, what I mean can actually be understood as hiding soldiers in the fields and soldiers in the people, pulling some soldiers who are too old and disabled to go to the tuntian, or giving them fields and some property, so that they can return to their hometowns to cultivate, so that they don't have to pay them military bells anymore, and they don't have to be responsible for their daily expenses, but they can also increase some taxes for the country."

Seeing that Liu Hong had no intention of relenting, Lin Xu had no choice but to continue to talk bitterly

"Besides, we can also train these old soldiers on a regular basis to maintain their combat effectiveness, and in the event of any special changes, as long as Your Majesty gives an order, these Tibetan soldiers can immediately be transformed into regular pawns. In this way, in fact, we have not reduced the number of troops, but have increased them significantly. ”

"Hmm~"

Liu Hong's brows relaxed slightly after hearing this, as long as the number of troops he could use did not decrease, and the combat effectiveness did not decrease, as for whether they were farming or training, it didn't matter.

"Moreover, we can also keep some of the brave soldiers in a hundred battles, healthy and elderly soldiers, reorganize them, let them patrol the city, or serve as the garrison of the city, and the imperial court will issue a stipend to support them, and under normal circumstances, they will not participate in foreign battles, but only deal with some bandits, so as to ensure the stability of our Han Dynasty to the greatest extent."

Seeing that Liu Hong's face looked a little better, Lin Xu was overjoyed, the military system of this era was simply inhumane in Lin Xu's opinion, conscription soldiers almost didn't look at age, only looked at body type, as long as they were tall enough, even if they were only twelve and a half years old, they could be included in the army! Is this still human?

No matter how tall a twelve-year-old child looks, how much strength can he have, he doesn't even have a full mind, a good young man in the flower season, the flower of the motherland, if he goes to the battlefield, what are the chances of surviving? Sometimes Lin Xu wondered if recruiting this kind of bastard of young soldiers had some other special hobbies.

After all, I don't want to be in the past when Zhang Jiao raised troops, there was war everywhere, and the people in the war zone were hungry, and they were forced to run to the army to eat a full meal. Now as long as you cultivate well, with Lin Xu's new farming tools and cultivation methods, to be honest, you won't starve to death no matter what.

"If this is the case, it is not impossible to reform the army."

Hearing that Lin Xu was not actually ready to reduce his troops, but was in better management, planning the composition of the troops, and strengthening the combat effectiveness of the army, Liu Hong expressed great satisfaction, sure enough, Lin Xu, the immortal, is still very reliable, since Lin Xu came to his side, he touched his conscience and said, there is really nothing to do that makes him unhappy, even if there is, he will immediately offer some good things to calm his emotions.

It can be said that in Liu Hong's feelings, Lin Xu, an immortal, can not only make himself comfortable like a ten-standing servant, but also be better able to solve troubles for himself, develop the country, and enrich the people than these ministers.

Seeing that Liu Hong began to approve of his restructuring, Lin Xu hurriedly hit the railway while it was hot

"The length of service of the soldier is also changed, I suggest that those over the age of eighteen can sign up for the army, ordinary soldiers who reach the age of forty must be discharged, after discharge, you can join the city defense army according to your personal situation, or return to your hometown to join the local Tuntian soldiers, participate in daily military training, well, in fact, like some county soldiers, county soldiers or something can also be selected from the elite veterans to serve, after all, the combat experience is rich, not to mention anything else, at least a bandit or something is no problem at all. Protecting the borders and the people."

Although Lin Xu didn't think that anyone would be stupid enough to do bandits when the grain production came up, this did not prevent him from using this reason to persuade Liu Hong. Like when he was attacking the Northern Xiongnu before, Lin Xu could even see sixty old men with white wings in the army still wielding ring-headed knives in the army.

Although he did not deny that this kind of old soldier had very rich combat experience, and it was not necessarily inferior to some young people to form a formation to kill the enemy, but it was impossible for an older person to compare with a young strong man in terms of mental state, physical strength, and endurance.

"Well, that's right."

Liu Hong nodded after hearing this, he is not an emperor who does not understand military affairs, it is very important to keep an army in good vitality, the old pawn can act as an officer, but not a soldier at the bottom, it makes sense to keep the soldiers at the age of eighteen to forty years old when they are the most combat-effective. Although in his opinion, it is best for every soldier of the Great Han to be able to fight for him to the death, this is not realistic and irrational.

"Not only is it the training of combat skills, but the soldiers of my Han also need to learn other skills, such as simple emergency bandaging on the battlefield, identification and use of herbs, geographical identification, simple wilderness survival ability, and so on."

"Does it need to be like this?"

Liu Hong frowned when he heard this, in his opinion, as long as a soldier can fight and fight, he is completely qualified, and other things can be done as long as he obeys the orders of the general's superiors.

"Your Majesty, look at this"

Lin Xu stretched out his hand to take the restructuring strategy, flipped through it quickly, and found a page that read: The contents of the soldier training fee table were handed to Liu Hong

"Look at you, you will know how much it costs to retrain a new soldier, and it is far more cost-effective to save a veteran's life."

Seeing Lin Xu's sworn face, Liu Hong took over the military system and looked at it seriously.

A quarter of an hour later

"Good! According to what the immortal said, the reform of the military system is also hard to carry on to the immortal. ”

"Hehe, Your Majesty Xie"

Lin Xu smiled, and his heart was greatly relieved

"Come on, let's take a look at the formulation of this branch of the army and the restructuring of standard equipment."

After some discussion with Liu Hong, the arms and corresponding equipment of the Han Dynasty were preliminarily finalized

There are three main types of troops: cavalry, infantry, and sailors

Cavalry is divided into four regular arms: heavy cavalry, light cavalry, assault cavalry, and archers

Heavy cavalry: people are equipped with full-body heavy armor, holding special big-headed guns, and war horses use Xiliang horses with strong weight-bearing capacity, wearing horse armor, suitable for charging and breaking formations.

Light cavalry: people are equipped with leather armor, hold spears, travel lightly, war horses use Kazakh horses, fast speed, high endurance, used as scouts, messengers, cruises, pursuits.

Assault cavalry: the main cavalry troops, people with light armor, can hold spears, broadswords, war horses from a wide range of sources, low cost, cost-effective.

Archer cavalry: light cavalry with mounted archery as the main means of attack, a highly skilled class, if it weren't for Lin Xu's stirrup saddle, this class Liu Hong would not have made it a regular class of the Han Dynasty, nothing else, this thing has too high requirements for riding and archery skills.

Infantry is divided into: sword soldiers, shield soldiers, spearmen, archers and other conventional arms

Knife soldiers: equipped with ring-headed knives, small round shields, light armor, and mainly close-quarters slashing.

Shield Soldier: Equipped with an iron solid thorn large wooden shield, plus a short sword and a crossbow, it is mainly used for defense and short-term bursts.

Spearmen: Equipped with spears and swords, to cooperate with the battle, and to block the cavalry when necessary

Archers: Divided into short archers and longbowmen

Short archer: Equipped with leather armor, short bow, and long sword, it mainly strengthens the rate of fire, sacrifices damage and lethality, and can burst out a large amount of arrow rain suppression in a short time, while longbowmen are the opposite.

As for other special troops, such as heavy infantry, crossbowmen, these things are temporarily impossible to form in large quantities, although the combat effectiveness is strong, but the consumption of materials is also more, the cost performance is not high, can only be formed on the one or two first, and when the production level comes up, it is not too late to form a large number of them.

Now the vast majority of the Han army's troops belong to the mixed mode, a 5,000-person sword army actually has some in it, more than 100 cavalry, hundreds of shield soldiers, hundreds of archers, hundreds of spearmen, in the end the real sword soldiers may only belong to 3,000 people, although this practice is more secure, can avoid being restrained to a certain extent.

But if you really want to talk about it, the combat effectiveness is really not as good as the purebred troops, if hundreds of archers can't form a rain of arrows, in addition to being able to harass it, there is a hairy use, hundreds of shield soldiers can't form a shield wall, that's a touch and fall, it's better not to.

Therefore, Lin Xu suggested that in the future, the formation of the corps could not be configured except for some cavalry, and the future operations would adopt a group approach, with more than three or four corps forming a group, and troops could only be sent out to fight under the condition of mutual cooperation. Under normal circumstances, a single regiment is not allowed to send troops without permission.

Although Liu Hong did not do the same on the spot with this suggestion, he was also willing to use the upcoming war in the Western Regions as a test point, and if the effect of the performance satisfied him, everything would be easy to say!