"According to the original plan, the army was expanded, and the center, left, right, front, and rear, and the five admirals governed the left and right towns according to the old system, and this remained unchanged. The establishment of the warring troops in each town was expanded from the original two battalions to four battalions of the two associations, totaling 2,000 soldiers. ”

Speaking of which, when Zheng Chenggong's army division was first established in South Australia, it was a battalion directly under the jurisdiction of each town with 500 soldiers. Later, Chen Kai outwitted Chaozhou, and Zheng Chenggong expanded the establishment to two battalions per town in the process of exterminating and suppressing local bandits, with a total of 1,000 soldiers.

In the following days, Shi Lang, Huang Ting, Hong Xishan and other troops were attached to the Guangdong and Fujian armies, and Zheng Chenggong adjusted the establishment and awarded the three marshals to the left vanguard town, the aid to the left town and the right chong town. Among them, the Zuo Pioneer Town, which was composed of the strongest Shi Jiajun in the Guangdong and Fujian army, had 2,000 soldiers, which was equivalent to twice that of other towns.

For this reason, Chen Kai personally went to the occupied area of Zhangzhou Mansion to recruit ten thousand brothers, and Zheng Chenggong also established Rongqi Town, which was composed of 2,000 soldiers, and later expanded the right pioneer town to the scale of 2,000 soldiers.

In the days that followed, the scale of the towns did not change much, that is, the scale of Rongqi Town became larger and larger, from the initial 2,000 soldiers to nearly 4,000 later, but not long ago, this supernumerary town was also divided into two by Zheng Chenggong, named Rongqi Left Town and Rongqi Right Town. As for the expansion of the size of the army, it is nothing more than the establishment of new towns and battalions, and at the same time, there is also the intention of placing generals.

All in all, before this expansion, this army only had two battalions of 1,000 soldiers in all the other towns, except for Rongqi Town, Left Pioneer Town, and Right Pioneer Town. Now, it's nearly doubling the size!

"Five Admirals and Ten Towns, Rongqi Left Town, Rongqi Right Town, Qinding Town, Left Pioneer Town, Right Pioneer Town, ......"

"Zhongchong Town, Zuochong Town, Right Chong Town, Qianchong Town, Houchong Town, Aid Middle Town, Aid Left Town, Aid Right Town, Aid Front Town, Aid Hou Town......"

"Qianfeng Town, Zhongquan Town, Houjin Town, Zhengbing Town, Qibing Town, Dianbing Town, Guerran Town, Yingbing Town, Renwu Town, Yiwu Town, Liwu Town, Zhiwu Town, Xinwu Town, ......"

"Do the math, there are a total of 38 towns in each town of our army's soldiers, and there are now 42,000 soldiers, and it is estimated that the army will be expanded to 76,000 troops, and the shortage of 34,000 soldiers before the expansion is completed."

This is only the establishment of each town, in addition, in addition to the local garrison troops such as Nanao Town and Chaozhou City Guard, there are also 28 star camps, each battalion of 500 soldiers, which is 14,000 soldiers.

The artifact town that was separated from Rongqi Town was a pure firearms town, with artillery, firearms, and even fire bricks, fire sticks, explosive barrels, etc., but all firearms were their weapons, but the establishment was relatively small.

In addition, there are five cavalry towns, including Beizhen, Xiaoqi Town, Iron Cavalry Town, Cheqi Town, and Hussar Town, each with 500 cavalry. When it comes to the proportion of foot riders, it is already very low, but there is no way, Fujian and Guangdong are not horse breeding places at this time, and the war horses are all based on seizure and smuggling, and the main one is the former, and there is no way.

"The soldiers who are short of personnel in each town will be selected from the veterans of the 28 star camps and local garrisons, and the rest will be supplemented by new recruits."

"The students obeyed."

In this way, it is indeed necessary to disperse the old troops and cause the combat effectiveness of those troops to decline. However, in this way, the loss of combat effectiveness caused by the expansion of the towns can be reduced by too much, and it is nothing more than a matter of seizing the time to run in.

Such a large-scale expansion of the army and recruiting more than 30,000 people into the camp for training in one go is a feat that Zheng Chenggong has never had. Such a figure is not unfamiliar to him, and he has had basic calculations since the two of them started planning, and it is not the first time he has seen it. But every time it seemed like he had to take a deep breath, and he was terrified and excited.

In fact, Zheng Chenggong was already extremely wealthy among the various anti-Qing forces in the Southern Ming Dynasty - with the benefit of sea trade, his annual income was more than one million taels of silver, and in many cases he was even able to reach the level of two million.

This was composed of the five merchants of Shanhai, Wang Shang, Guanshang, Yishang, and Paiyu and the various maritime businesses that the Zheng group had been engaged in for many years, so that it was able to pose a substantial threat to the entire southeast coast of the Qing court by virtue of a single island.

However, even with such gains, the pace of its actual army expansion is still not too big, in the final analysis, this army has never been a guard peasant soldiers, nor is it an ordinary garrison town soldiers, let alone a half-righteous army and a half-official army like the Great Western Army and the Great Shun Army, but a professional army that eats military salaries on a monthly basis and takes its true colors.

In terms of cost, such an army model was higher, but from the beginning Zheng Chenggong had to train a professional army to fight against the Manchu Eight Banners. In terms of cost, Zheng's Group can also hold on, but it is nothing more than a slow expansion of scale.

Historically, Zheng Chenggong expropriated millions of taels of silver from the prefectures and counties controlled by the Qing court through false negotiations with the Qing court, and with this silver, he not only restored his strength, but also expanded it on a certain scale.

This was already an excellent effect, but this time it was replaced by a more despicable and shameless trader, the guy named Chen Kai unscrewed the floodgates, and gold, silver, copper coins, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, jewelry, cloth, silk and even all the goods that could be negotiated were continuously transported to the control area of the Ming army. In the six months from August last year to February this year alone, they harvested more than 10 million taels worth of taels. From February to the present, the officials of the Qing court have continued to exploit the people, not only sending large sums of gold, silver and jewelry, but also sending a large number of soldiers to the areas controlled by the Ming army.

Now, there are rich people, and the difference is nothing more than training those new recruits into the battalion to become non-commissioned soldiers who know what is forbidden by the order and can use weapons to perform tactical movements, and that's it!

"Sure enough, horses don't eat night grass and don't get fat."

Thinking of this, Zheng Chenggong couldn't help laughing, and most of the staff and generals present knew why he was laughing, and they also echoed it.

After laughing, Zheng Chenggong also knew that training would take a certain amount of time. Soon, the Qing court's will forwarded from Zhongzuo arrived, along with a letter from Liu Qingtai, Zheng Chenggong cherished it, and even paid more attention than before.

"Far away, I thought that there must be a consolation of the Yin, not for the still wavering in the line. If you don't want to settle the sea as soon as possible, report the life of the Holy Ming as soon as possible, and marry the loyalty and filial piety of the father and son, why is the answer still a thousand miles? ”

"The world's affairs are just reasonable and powerful. The honorable prince is above the minister, so that the grandmother is forced to be in the wind and candle......"

The Qing court did not agree to hand over Zhoushan to Zheng Chenggong's jurisdiction, and the demand of the five prefectures of Ningbo, Shaoxing, Taizhou, Wenzhou, and Chuzhou, which were stationed on the coast of Zhejiang, from Zhoushan, naturally had no reason to be established. But since it is a bargain, it is natural to make a price all over the sky, and it is not a deal to veto all the conditions, so the Qing court said that it can consider assigning the green camp of Taizhou Mansion to Zheng Chenggong, and said that this is already great sincerity, and requires Zheng Chenggong to be able to endure the country and restore a stable life to the people on the southeast coast as soon as possible.

In terms of the holy decree, the Qing court repaid the money on the ground, and Liu Qingtai talked earnestly about loyalty and filial piety in his letters, and used the efforts of Fujian officials to prove his sincerity to Zheng Chenggong, hoping that Zheng Chenggong could deal with the matter of appeasement as soon as possible, which would be beneficial to everyone.

"Needless to say, at this point, his mental strength has been exhausted, and he can be acquitted of all guilt when he sees that he is respected among the class associations. The success or failure of the situation is related to the next father, son and brother, although he is responsible, how can he do his duty? Only cut it with one foot! ”

A will, a letter, Zheng Chenggong read and read, but no matter how he looked at it, he still had to write a reply and send someone back. After all, perfunctory things still have to be done.

Zheng Chenggong thought about it carefully, picked up the pen and wrote a reply. Not long after, the soldiers outside the door reported that the king of Xining had a messenger to deliver the letter.

The two had reached a marriage earlier, and Zheng Chenggong always called Li Dingguo an old relative in his letters, which was very cordial. During this time, Li Dingguo's messenger arrived, and Zheng Chenggong hurriedly put away the will of the Qing court and Liu Qingtai's letter, as well as the reply he was writing, and then asked the messenger to enter.

The content of the letter still asked Zheng Chenggong to raise troops westward as soon as possible and join forces with him to recover Guangdong. In this regard, Zheng Chenggong could have expected it without even reading the letter.

In this regard, after thinking about it, Zheng Chenggong still decided to reply to a letter, first, to respond, second, to mention his military rearmament, and third, to explain the reason why he could not send troops for the time being on the matter of Zhang Mingzhen's troops in Chongming. But in the end, Zheng Chenggong didn't say anything to death, but only said that he would send troops to participate in the war, but the specific time for sending troops could not be determined for the time being.

sent away Li Dingguo's messenger, but Zheng Chenggong was always anxious in his chest, and he couldn't say anything. Seeing this, he hurriedly passed Feng Chengshi over.

"Mr. Feng, when will the weapon be ready?"

When he said this, Feng Chengshi had expected it, but Rao was like this, and he couldn't avoid sweating profusely.

The production capacity of the Ordnance Bureau was established when Chen Kai was in charge, and Feng Chengshi did not dare to change too much in this regard, because he did not find a better way to surpass Chen Kai's thinking.

This kind of production capacity is indeed quite a lot, especially the average production capacity of craftsmen is second to none in the whole of East Asia.

But now they are no longer facing the needs of more than 10,000 troops, but tens of thousands of troops. And the weapon is not something that can be done once and for all - the wear and tear of the battle is huge, in addition, poor preservation will also lead to damage to the weapon, which is to be repaired or replenished by the Ordnance Bureau, which undoubtedly affects a lot of production capacity, so that the number of spare weapons in the arsenal is far from being able to directly fill the huge gap caused by this expansion.

Khan, Feng Chengshi didn't dare to wipe it, as for why the army in Guangdong should be in charge of Chen Kai's manufacturing bureau to make weapons, he would never say it just by thinking about it. The reason is not only face, but more importantly, the embodiment of ability, he doesn't want to lose to Chen Kai, not at all!

"Students must do their best."

"Well, Mr. Feng still has to hurry up, Ben Shuai always has a feeling that it may not be October, and the army will be dispatched in advance."

………………

Feng Chengshi came to receive a group of fleeing craftsmen this time, and after the screening, he was about to go back, but he was sent to Xingyuan Er by Zheng Chenggong and ordered to be killed.

He knew the severity, so he set off overnight to return to the Central Left Office. The materials there are relatively sufficient, not to mention the production of Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Chaozhou, Qiongzhou, etc., nor to mention the fact that Zheng Tai managed to collect them from overseas, but only to say that what was obtained from the Qing army's occupied areas during this period was already an astronomical amount.

However, Feng Chengshi is not Magneto, and weapons are not just raw materials that can be made by a bunch of them. Every process, every percussion is indispensable, there are a lot of craftsmen in the Ordnance Bureau, and the production capacity is not low, but Rao is like this, Feng Chengshi is still sweating profusely in Quanzhou, because he knows very well how big the gap is this time, even so big that it makes him feel difficult to breathe.

"15,000 lancets, 20,000 lancets, 9,600 rattan plates, 21,000 rattan helmets, and ...... birds"

Sitting on the boat, Feng Chengshi memorized those numbers like a stream, but the more he thought of them, the more he felt out of breath. Hurriedly out of the cabin, the sea breeze blowing, it seems to be better, but the feeling is still there, as if it is gushing out from the depths of the heart, as if it is about to block the trachea.

On weekdays, under his leadership, the Ordnance Bureau has never worried Zheng Chenggong about weapons and equipment, with the only exception being that Chen Kai's fortress tactics consume a huge amount of gunpowder, which exceeds the production capacity of the Ordnance Bureau, but it has not caused too much bad impact. Who knew that this time, the scale of the expansion of the army was so huge, Rao was already aware of it earlier, but the loss of weapons was not only in the land division, but also in the amount of weapons in the Ming army's naval division, which required him to do his best to manufacture.

Probably spoiled by Chen Kai, Zheng Chenggong lacked a clear understanding of the wear and tear of weapons, so that whether it was a land division or a naval division, as long as the weapon was broken, it would be directly sent to the Ordnance Bureau for repair, and if it could not be repaired, it would be replaced. All in all, all Zheng Chenggong cares about is that the soldiers can use qualified weapons, nothing more.

Inventories have never been raised, the pressure on the shoulders is getting greater, and there are only a few months left, and the inventory is rising, but it is rising too slowly. With an anxious mood, he rushed back to the Ordnance Bureau of the Zhongzuo Institute, and Chen Qi, the chief inspector who existed as his deputy, reported the weapons production of the past two days, and his deep brows squeezed the ravines of the mountains and rivers even deeper.

"Stopped the rest of the year first......

"Joining the army, the ten-day break has long been stopped."

As soon as he said that, Feng Chengshi had already realized that he was in a hurry. The mid-year holiday was stopped a few months ago, and even the Spring Festival was only for one day.

"Then work overtime!"