Immediately afterwards, Sun Lao also sent a telegram explaining that this does not mean that everyone thinks that the military construction of Zixia Island is not important---- on the contrary, because in the near future, this will become the overseas territory with the largest population of Han immigrants in the Australian Federation, so we believe that this will definitely be a major source of troops for the Australian Federation in the future.

Sun Lao was right, in late August, taking advantage of the opportunity of the return of the Nicole to the Red Wharf and the fact that everyone was relatively united, the Federal Senate held a special meeting, and the meeting adopted a plan for expanding the army: The plan will recruit and form an army of 10,000 to 12,000 guns within one to two years, of which Ren Ke's Zixia Island garrison plans to recruit 4 to 5,000 people, and the garrisons of the Wanshan Islands Governor's District and Xin'ancheng Governor's District will be expanded to more than 3,000 people respectively.

The plan is based on the current estimate of the Federal Senate's Changfeng Action Plan, and now the Changfeng operation is going well, and Huang Lei, with the help of four Chinese businessmen, has settled more than 10,000 refugees from the Leizhou Peninsula on Daxiaowanshan Island and several nearby desert islands, and most of these people will board the Nicole to Zixia Island.

By now that Operation Changfeng has been implemented, it has been possible to estimate the number of immigrants that could be taken in this operation – at least 80,000, and most likely more than 100,000.

Therefore, according to the estimated financial resources and population base of the Red Mansion, it is not a big problem to recruit and form 10,000 troops within two years, and it should be noted that Zixia Island accounts for about half of the 10,000 army forces, and in view of the fact that the vast majority of immigrants will go to Zixia Island, such a ratio of soldiers and civilians is still relatively reasonable and feasible.

As for Sinanseong and Wanshan Islands, the ratio of soldiers to civilians is obviously abnormal, but this is not a big deal, and it does not create a burden on the local islanders, who do not need to be supported by the islanders at all.

Moreover, the source channels of soldiers in these two places are completely different from those of Zixia Island, in Xin'an City, the main body of the soldiers of the garrison must be the "trade labor" in the naturalized battalion, while on Wanshan Island, Xiao Ai's sources of soldiers are two - various sporadic transportation of the four Chinese businessmen in Macao and the plucking interception of the migrants from Zixia Island.

Recently, Governor Huang Lei and Governor Huang have been doing this kind of interception action openly or covertly, every time the immigrants from Leizhou City arrived, Huang Lei and Xiao Ai would take the soldiers to do "quarantine registration", they left behind a lot of single men and orphans - these people are of course "voluntary", the reason why the word "voluntary" is put in quotation marks, because Huang Lei and Xiao Ai's subordinates have carried out various "mobilizations" on these single men, which are said to be all kinds of inducements and semi-coercive "persuasion".

Of course, the laissez-faire attitude of the Red Mansion towards these interceptions on Wanshan Island is also important, because the single men and orphans who remained are all over the age of admission to Zhuyuan Public School, and there are no women, so they did not attract the attention of the Red Mansion in the first three months.

As for the Zixia Island side, well, that side didn't know at all, even if it was vaguely known later, the matter was already in the boat......

Huang Lei and Xiao Ai recruited all the men who were intercepted as soldiers of the garrison and workers in the factory, although these people were too old to study in Zhuyuan Public School, but they were still very good as soldiers and operators.

Of course, paper can't contain the fire, for the interception of Wanshan Island, Li Junming Ren Ke and they quickly found clues from the telegrams sent by Macao to the Ministry of Finance, these telegrams either explicitly or implicitly asked the Ministry of Finance to increase the head fee of the garrison and the procurement budget of weapons and equipment for Wanshan Island, and Li Junming and they finally learned some information from the mouths of the latest batch of immigrants, so a telegram was sent to Macao, Huang Ai and the two of them of course could not pretend to be deaf and dumb, so they had to admit that ---- did have such a situation. However, he quickly stressed that Wanshan Island is close to the mainland, and the sea near it is not very peaceful, and we are really worried that Wanshan Island, which is becoming more and more lively, will be coveted by the government and pirates, so we "can't help it" to expand our army.

After receiving Xiao Ai's reply, Li Junming was fine, but Ren Ke Li Dewei and the others quit, so the lawsuit went to Sun Lao in the Red Mansion.

After Sun Lao consulted Lao Ba and them, the final decision was: first, Wanshan Island could not intercept underage orphans, and could not move the "cheese" delivered to the bamboo garden and sunflower school, and second, Zixia Island was the main direction of Changfeng Operation immigrants, as long as the vast majority of immigrants went to Zixia Island, as for Wanshan Island, the garrison did also have a practical need to expand the army.

Of course, the capacity of Wanshan Island is very limited, the key is that the Federal Ministry of Finance has approved the number of guards on Wanshan Island to be 3,500 people, and if this number is exceeded, the Ministry of Finance will not allocate you additional head fee silver, so it is better to ask Wanshan Island to stop in moderation.

Obviously, the Red Mansion side is not very willing to be too rigid in remote command of overseas territories thousands of miles away, Sun Lao and Lao Ba both feel that it is very important to give the greatest autonomy to the front, and we will only look at the results later, as long as we do not deviate from the main goal of Operation Changfeng.

Therefore, in his capacity as the president of the Federation, Sun Lao sent a special telegram to the two ships and three ships, saying that as long as Zixia Island is guaranteed to be the main import place for immigrants, the rest of the specific issues can be discussed and handled by those of you who are overseas.

Although this decision was violently complained by Ren Ke, saying that Xiao Ai was cutting off the soldiers who originally belonged to his side---- it is true that the men who had exceeded the year of Zhuyuan's enrollment in those years should have been the source of the Zixia Island garrison.

But Xiao Ai immediately assured Ren Ke that he would stop recruiting only 3,000 people, and we would solve the remaining 500 people through other channels to ensure that the quota would never be exceeded.

So Ren Ke had no choice but to pinch his nose and admit it.

In fact, during this period of time, Wei Hong in Leizhou City was not idle, and he had already begun to secretly engage in the "Hu Interception" operation.

Since Wei Hong and Xiao Ai "privately divided" the green battalion auxiliaries captured after the battle, they were out of control in the local area in various ways to "recruit" soldiers---- especially among immigrants, anyway, the emperor is far away, as long as the pride does not dock in Hong Kong, there is no radio communication, so for a long time no one can control their brothers, and then Xiao Ai returned to Wanshan Island with the team, leaving only Wei Hong and his Xin'an City garrison, so Wei Hong made full use of this favorable condition and began to cut off various Hu operations, In particular, Wei Hong had a very good relationship with Chen Shangchuan, and with Chen's help, Wei Hong was able to recruit soldiers in various ways of "adapting measures to local conditions and adapting to emergencies......

Today, the number of Wei Hong's garrison in Leizhou has expanded from more than 1,200 at the beginning to 2,500.

Because his garrison was eye-catching in those two battles, it was relatively easy for Wei Hong's team to recruit soldiers, even if Xiao Ai's team was local.

Of course, another reason is that the Xin'an City Garrison was established the earliest, the most formal training, the most neat clothing, and the relatively high salary, which is also an important condition for attracting people.

However, Xiao Ai did not go back empty-handed---- it can be said that he was full of harvest, only a month later, his team expanded from 600 guns to 1,000 guns, and then under the introduction of Chen Shangchuan and the Liang family, he received 500 Tanhu children, although these people have families, but all of them are young and strong, Xiao Ai after asking Huang Lei for consent, the families of these 500 soldiers are placed on Wanshan Island.

So far, with the addition of the team left behind on Wanshan Island, the number of Xiao Ai's garrison has reached more than 2,200 people, and then after cutting off the 1,000 people who were transported to Zixia Island, the actual number of Xiao Ai's team has reached more than 3,200 people.