Without waiting for everyone to speak, Min Yuanqi continued: "Judging from the military situation, more than 4,000 infantry and about 1,000 cavalry were dispatched from the city, counting more than 5,000 people. The mobilization of four troops and horses from outside the city also added up to about 5,000 people, adding up to about 11,000 people. Among them, there are more than 10,000 infantry, 5,000 elite battalions, 5,000 miscellaneous soldiers, and 1,000 cavalry. Among them, about seventy percent are spearmen and long knives, long axes, halberds, boring handles, chopping, horses, knives, knives, knives and sticks, etc., and about twenty percent are knives, maces, iron maces, iron whips, etc. Most of the archers are the elite of the city, that is, the soldiers and horses directly under Liu Zeqing. Most of the miscellaneous soldiers outside the city are generals who are vassals of Liu Zeqing, and their origins are complicated, there are foreign generals who came from Shandong Town, and most of those who have come over are with their own troops, even if they are directly subordinate to Liu Zeqing's so-called elite, most of them are like this. ”

Everyone was speechless for a while, and when they were still digesting the news, only Min Yuanjin said sincerely: "Liang Shifa is really powerful, and the money of the Military Intelligence Department has not been spent in vain." If it weren't for them, we would have to wait until the guest soldiers approached us for only a few dozen miles before we knew that the soldiers and horses were coming, and we still didn't know anything about the specific situation. ”

Min Yuanqi smiled slightly, and agreed with Min Yuanjin's words.

Min Yuanqi continued: "Who led the troops, the names of many generals, and the general experience, Liang Shifa said that he should be able to inquire about them all tomorrow." Now I know that there are uncles and nephews Liu Zerun and Liu Zhigan, so it is estimated that among the more than 1,000 cavalry that came out this time, the inner ding of the old Liu family should account for some, but not too much. Because Liang Shifa's previous intelligence made it very clear that most of Liu Zeqing's inner ding was managed by Li Huajing, and his department grew from more than 1,000 people to about 3,000 people, half on foot and half on horseback, all of them were veterans who had followed Liu Zeqing for many years, everyone wore armor and held weapons and was quite elite, and many of them could be regarded as experienced in a hundred battles. If most of the three thousand naeds come out, Li Huajing should also be with them, Li Huajing has not come out, and the number of naindings should not be much. ”

Min Yuanqi took a sip of tea and said with a smile: "It seems that Dong Ningbo Bo doesn't pay attention to us after all, his elite in the city, that is, he has more cotton armor and more fine iron forged weapons, and if you want to talk about battlefield experience and training, it may not be much stronger than the miscellaneous soldiers outside the city." ”

To be fair, whether it is Gao Jie, Liu Zeqing, Liu Liangzuo, or Huang Degong, who was originally born in Beijing and has many elite soldiers and strong generals under his command, they are all trying to improve the strength of their subordinates before and after the establishment of the town.

More soldiers, more generals, more armor and fine iron weapons are also being included in a steady stream.

A year later, the expansion of the towns was almost completed, and Huang Degong used the strength of one town to resist Zuo Liangyu's southward army, and was able to defeat the left department, which was the result of this year's development.

Each town has a large territory, even if it is two Huai Xuzhou, it is much richer than the ruined and withered north, especially the human and material resources are sufficient, and the strength of each town is sharply expanded.

In the Southern Ming Dynasty, there was no point in eating empty salaries and the like, the number of military towns continued to grow, and the generals understood that force was the guarantee of their status and a further ladder, so they did not hesitate to spend money on their subordinates.

Like Wu Xiang, as the chief soldier of Liaozhen, although his words when he was summoned by Emperor Chongzhen were shameless, they were also true.

Liaozhen has a large number of soldiers and horses in name, but Wu Xiang bluntly said that there are only 3,000 people who can use them.

They are all fine wine and fat sheep, regarded as brothers, and can only be of great use when they are in a hurry.

The battalion soldiers raised are cannon fodder, and it is not uncommon to develop a beggar-like appearance.

In the period of the four towns in Jiangbei, although Neiding was still arrogant and still the most relied on by the generals, but under the large-scale war, the role of the battalion was also highlighted, and the towns also paid relatively much attention to the battalions led by the generals.

Like Liu Zeqing in Huai'an, even if he sent teams to collect food everywhere, he also wanted to ensure the army's military needs.

If the four towns can work together to resist the Qing, even if hundreds of thousands of troops cannot go north, it will not be difficult to defeat the Qing army in the south.

It's a pity that the towns surrendered one after another, exhausted the financial resources of the Southern Ming Dynasty and swept the army accumulated in Xuhuai, and made a wedding dress for the Qing court in vain.

In the past six months, in addition to expanding more than half of the army, Liu Zeqing also wants to work hard to build an elite army.

The so-called elite soldiers stationed near the city of Huai'an are the embodiment of this idea.

Every few days, the battle formation is trained, and the soldiers are required to practice martial arts every day, and elite weapons and armor are distributed as much as possible, and the cavalry ration is mainly to these elite barracks.

Of course, in Min Yuanqi's view, such a level of training and intensity, as well as basically unconstrained military discipline, this army can only fight a tailwind battle, bully the common people, and fight bandits and pirates to death, not to mention compared with the Qing army, that is, compared with Wu Sangui's Liaozhen soldiers and Sanshun Wang's Dongjiang soldiers, Liu Zeqing's troops are only worthy of being called miscellaneous soldiers.

After all, the Shandong town that came out of it was originally a second-tier inner town, even compared to the Sichuan soldiers and Yunnan soldiers who were mainly Tusi soldiers, and the soldiers of Huguang Xunyang Town, which had always been slightly inferior to the nine sides, Shandong Town was not much different from Henan Town and other inner towns in terms of troops, equipment, and general inheritance, and even compared to Denglai Town.

"11,000 soldiers and horses, these 10,000 infantry, can still be regarded as miscellaneous soldiers." Min Yuanqi groaned: "What is worrying is a thousand cavalry, even if most of them are not Nedin ordinary cavalry, but as long as they are cavalrymen, their courage and martial arts are not comparable to ordinary battalion soldiers, and they will not be much inferior to Nedin." And the cavalry in formation is much more difficult to deal with than the cavalry scattered in various departments......"

Although the tone was a little difficult, listening to the ears of everyone present, it felt that Min Yuanqi was only slightly difficult, but he was not intimidated by the difficulties.

Min Qiande, who had been silent on the side and looked worried, was also moved.

Unconsciously, this nephew has also grown to such a point.

More than 11,000 serious officers and soldiers came to attack, the number was about three times that of the current Yunti Pass battalion, so many enemies who came to attack, in Min Yuanqi's eyes, only the 1,000 cavalry scratched their heads, but it was not the feeling of powerlessness without the strength of a battle.

It feels like it's just a bit of trouble!

When Min Qiande first heard the number of intruding enemies, he almost collapsed in his chair.

There are more than 11,000 serious teachers of the imperial court, which is a completely different concept from rogues or bandits and pirates!

Although Liu Zeqing has no serious excuse for committing a crime, this person has always been unruly, and the court has nothing to do with him. As long as you take the cloud ladder pass, is it difficult to make up an excuse for bandits?

The imperial court will definitely pinch its nose and admit it at that time, who will compete for a Min family and a strong vassal earl, the general army of a strong town who has just won the merit of support?

Even if you want to compete, you have to see if you have the strength.

"It's a pity that I only have two hundred cavalry on hand now." Min Yuan smashed his mouth and said with regret: "And I only completed the preliminary subject training, in fact, I can ride a horse and sprint, and I don't necessarily want to slash the target on the horse." Otherwise, what kind of bullshit is a thousand fine rides, Guan Bao told him to come and go. ”

Min Yuanzhi now has more than 300 qualified war horses, and more than 100 miscellaneous horses have also been snatched back by him.

The cavalry division should often engage in training, and the cavalry is a qualified configuration with two horses, but now it is impossible to use two horses, and can only use miscellaneous horses to make up the number.

And it's not just a pair of horses, that's the configuration of the knight, and you have to match a miscellaneous horse for the servant to ride.

If you want to march for a long distance, it is best to have two horses for knights, and two horses for followers, so as to ensure the fastest marching speed and not lose a lot of horses.

According to the deductions of Min Yuanzhi, Xie Xiang, Shen Liang and others, the number of war horses rationed by the current cavalry can throw the infantry off dozens of miles when marching within 100 miles.

About 300 miles, the infantry and cavalry arrived about the same as before, and the cavalry was slightly faster.

At a distance of five or six hundred miles, the infantry will arrive before the cavalry, and the cavalry will lose about thirty percent of their horses.

The horse is too squeamish, the usual feeding and washing is indispensable, no matter how tired the cavalry is, they must take care of their horses, otherwise they will start to lose weight after a few days, and they will die after a few days.

Even if the feeding is washed and washed, it is inevitable that the long-distance march war horse will be tired, and if one horse is ridden for a long time, it is inevitable that the war horse will die of emaciation.

The Mongols marched thousands of miles westward, and it was a cavalry, a few horses or even a dozen horses, and they marched with herds, walking for a period of grazing, and even grazing for a longer time than the march.

In this way, the number and vitality of the war horses are maintained, even so, the loss of war horses on a long-term march is quite staggering, a horse needs to eat about three to four times the food of humans, the failure of Napoleon's expedition to Russia lies in the loss of a staggering number of war horses, even the war horses that pull the artillery are lost cleanly, and many artillery pieces are forced to give up because of the lack of horses without bombarding the enemy.

Min Yuanzhi's cavalry was one person and two horses, two miscellaneous horses, one with a follower rider, and the other with knight's armor and equipment.

This is already the minimum standard, and a large amount of grain must be borne by special animal power or even manpower.

The Northern Wei Dynasty was divided, and the Eastern and Western Wei often fought with heavy armored cavalry, at that time it was Gao Feng of Chinese classical cavalry tactics, the Xianbei cavalry was strong and brave, wearing heavy armor, and the war horses were also armoured, and it was common to lose tens of thousands of horses in a big battle, which was not surprising at all.

The current cavalry division, counting the miscellaneous horses, is barely one person and two horses, and the miscellaneous horses are not visible, so they can only operate within a radius of about 300 miles, long-distance running, and the loss of war horses is amazing, I am afraid that when it arrives at the place, it is not surprising that the combat effectiveness is reduced by three percent or even halved.

As for the local defensive battle, the cavalry can only be said to be barely usable, and even Min Yuanzhi, who has always been arrogant and confident, does not dare to say that his subordinates can be of great use.