In fact, a few days later, after Zhu Youzhen got all the money, the second shareholders' meeting of Xishan Group came to a successful conclusion.

For Zhu Youzhen, this may be the last time he will ask the vassal kings for silver, firstly, because he is afraid of losing his credit, and secondly, he is afraid that the equity structure will not be rebuilt.

Zhu Youzhen is not afraid that the vassal kings will come to take control of the Xishan Group, but he always has to take care of the problem of appearance.

After sending off the vassal king, Zhu Youzhen focused his energy on the construction of the new army.

So far, the new army has recruited three batches, totaling more than 9,000 people, and they are initially divided into three major categories: musketeers, spearmen, and artillery.

Of course, each category is divided into sub-categories such as scouts, grenadiers, baggage soldiers, cooks, medical soldiers, and engineers

In Lu Xiangsheng's view, reading the military books of various generations, the army with such a detailed division of labor is unheard of, and just training these different branches of the army really makes Lu Xiangsheng very surprised.

The key is these novel arms and training methods, and Lu Xiangsheng is also in contact with them for the first time, and after Zhu Youzhen has comprehended the intentions here, he has to combine them with them and apply them to actual military training.

Fortunately, thanks to the cooperation of the martial arts students recruited by Zhu Youzhen and the implementation of cultural education for all the soldiers of the New Army, the learning and comprehension ability of the soldiers of the New Army has improved a lot, and Lu Xiangsheng's pressure is slightly less.

Moreover, in the course of counterinsurgency in Guizhou, in accordance with Zhu Youzhen's arrangement, Lu Xiangsheng promoted some backbone officers with firm ideology and excellent military qualities from among the ordinary sergeants to serve as officers at and below the company level.

Today, half of the first batch of more than 3,000 soldiers to join the new army have taken up leadership posts, and those who have not held posts for the time being have also become the backbone of the company.

The new army implements a military rank management system that combines officers and non-commissioned officers, with clear hierarchies and a rational structure, with officers at the platoon level and above, and non-commissioned officers at the platoon level and below.

The lowest officer is a midshipman, and the highest is a marshal, of course, there is only one marshal, naturally Zhu Youzhen.

The lowest non-commissioned officer is a corporal, and the highest non-commissioned officer is a sergeant, and the sergeant can serve as a platoon commander, and then recommend excellent sergeants to enter martial arts studies, and graduate as a midshipman.

The smallest organizational unit of the new army is a squad, with a squad of 10 people, a squad leader, a deputy squad leader, the squad leader is generally a sergeant, the deputy squad leader is generally a corporal, and the rest of the soldiers are privates.

The smallest combat unit of the new army is a platoon, a standard combat platoon of 32 people, composed of three squads, with a platoon commander and a deputy platoon commander.

At first, Zhu Youzhen also wanted to set up a combat group with squads as a unit, but because of the limitations of weapons and equipment, the tactics of the three-three system of squads could not be used at all.

The main tactics of the new army were still to line up and shoot in sections, so the number of people was too small, and the tactical advantage of platoon guns could not be brought into play at all.

Of course, in some special battlefield environments, it is also possible to reduce the combat unit to a squad on the spot, but the battles in this era are basically fought in arrays, except for street battles, the tactics of squads are basically not used.

In addition to the musketeers, combined with the actual combat experience that Lu Xiangsheng brought back from Guizhou, Zhu Youzhen formed a separate spear regiment, which was mainly used to cover the musketeers in close combat.

In the event that the enemy was outnumbered and the attack was so fierce that the three shots could not stop the enemy's attack, and the new troops were dragged into close combat, the spearmen had to come forward to cover the musketeers in close combat, giving them time to reload their formations.

In addition, Zhu Youzhen also set up an artillery regiment, but because there were too few new steel-cast artillery, the artillery regiment could only use cast iron cannons transferred from the military headquarters for training.

Because of the fact that the cast iron cannon exploded and injured people, more than a dozen moths in the Ministry of Industry were used by Zhu Youzhen to vent the anger of the soldiers of the new army.

The more than a dozen heads that were cut off on the school field also stimulated Bi Maokang and Song Yingxing on the side, and only when the problem of open-hearth steelmaking is properly solved, can the problem of cast iron artillery exploding be solved once and for all.

The steelmaking method introduced by Zhu Youjian to Bi Maokang and Song Yingxing was actually an open-hearth steelmaking method in the 19th century, including a regenerator, a fuel room, a smelting room, and a blast room, and the design was relatively simple.

But there is also a difficulty that has been difficult to overcome, and that is the refractory material in the melting chamber.

Because of the smelting base of crucible steel, Xishan Iron and Steel Plant has begun to use coke as fuel, although the production of coke is made by the polluting and expensive soil pit smoldering method, but Xishan produces coal, these are not a problem.

In addition, air is the basic condition for combustion, which has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the craftsmen of the steel plant, so the introduction of the regenerator and the blower was a smooth success, and under the command of several old craftsmen, the regenerator and blower were soon made.

With coke, regenerator and blower, the temperature problem that Zhu Youjian originally thought of was naturally solved, but the preparation of refractory materials in the smelting chamber became a new problem.

Different from the original crucible steelmaking method, because there is a crucible wrapped in graphite, there is no need to consider the problem of furnaces and refractories, but now industrial liquid smelting chambers are needed, and the preparation of refractory materials has become a top priority.

In his previous life, Zhu Youzhen once went to the steel plant to investigate, and heard someone introduce the development history of open-hearth refractories, which are alkaline, neutral and acidic, as if the earliest refractories were acidic, using silicon to make clay.

As a big ceramic country, Zhu Youzhen certainly knows where the silica clay is the best, but because of the long distance, the clay from Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province cannot be transported for a while, and Bi Maokang and others can only use the clay near Gyeonggi to make a living.

However, the result of the work is that the fired refractory material is not up to standard, and it will be fragmented in practical application.

It was not until the time of the shareholders' meeting that the first batch of clay transported from Jiangxi arrived in Xishan, and with the clay came more than a dozen kiln craftsmen to make porcelain.

With qualified clay, the refractory bricks in the open-hearth smelting chamber were prepared, and by the time the first furnace of molten steel came out, it was already May.

Watching the melted steel slowly flow from the outlet to the mold that was ready, Bi Maokang and Song Yingxing were both excited.

The two of them were a large number of members of the Ming Dynasty civil official group who liked to study natural sciences, and they also had a lot of experience in forging steel and iron, and they naturally understood the hard work of forging steel and iron.

Therefore, they also once fantasized that if the iron was smelted like a clay sculpture, like porcelain, it could be easily transformed into any shape with the skillful hands of craftsmen.

But when the steel is made into a soft finger, they can only think about it.

But all this is different when they meet today, Zhu Youzhen told them that there is a way not only to make 100 steel into finger softness, but also to smelt steel into water.