From the Huangzhushan era, the main factor restricting the expansion of the main force of the Tang New Army was not food and soldiers, but the output of muskets and artillery.

Soldiers, whether it is recruited or captured by the Ming soldiers, or even forcibly pulled strong men, can get initial satisfaction, although there is a shortage of food, but it is barely enough, if it is not enough, go outside to collect food.

But with muskets and artillery, there's not much that can quickly increase production.

Even if the Ministry of Industry continues to expand the scale of each workshop, but this expansion takes time, and it is not two or three days to say that the expansion can be completed, let alone a buffer time of more than half a month or even a month or two.

After the expansion of the workshop, there must be enough skilled craftsmen and ordinary workers, ordinary workers are easy to solve, but skilled craftsmen are not so easy to find or train, at present, the craftsmen in the workshops under the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty are basically recruited and forced from Xingquan Mansion and Liping Mansion.

However, even so, it is far from enough to meet the needs of the workshops of the Tang Dynasty.

Then there is also the problem of raw materials, at present, the Xingquan Mansion and most of the Liping Mansion occupied by the Tang Dynasty do not have large-scale iron ore, copper ore and other minerals, not to mention saltpeter, sulfur, lead and other minerals, so that the current Tang Dynasty is heavily dependent on the purchase of various raw materials.

Even if all this is satisfied, it will take time to produce muskets and artillery!

A musket needs to go through many processes from raw materials to finished products, and each process takes time, and all these times add up, if it is a craftsman using the traditional method to build, it takes a month, if it is according to the current large-scale streamline production adopted by the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty, it will also take about 20 days.

In other words, even if the Ministry of Industry has another super-large-scale expansion now, it will take at least two months before the Datang New Army can get the musket after the expansion!

This time is too long for the Tang Dynasty.

From the beginning of the year to the present, the Tang Dynasty's Ministry of Industry workshops have continued to expand and increase production, but the scale of the Tang Dynasty New Army is also constantly expanding, in the past, the Tang Dynasty New Army only had a few hundred musketeers, but now, the musketeers in the establishment of the troops are already thousands of people, which is a further increase in the demand for muskets, and it is to the extent that the workshops under the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty can not meet at all.

Therefore, the batch of muskets currently lost by the Datang New Army cannot be replenished in a short period of time!

In response to this problem, Zeng Ziwen suggested that the scale of the garrison camp should be further expanded by using the existing many Ming army prisoners!

You can't let all these Ming army prisoners go to be coolies, that's a waste of human resources!

"Although our army has also begun to prepare for the establishment of a reserve battalion equipped with pure cold weapons, the reserve battalion is still a regular army of our army, and in addition to the training of cold weapons, daily training will also insist on training all kinds of musket tactics, infantry and artillery coordination and other tactics, and the equipment of cold weapons is because of the limited production of muskets and artillery, but after the output of guns and artillery comes up in the future, the reserve battalion troops can become regular infantry battalions in a short period of time by replacing them with new guns.

At the same time, the soldiers of the reserve battalion will also be able to replenish the battle damage of the main infantry battalion in time! "Zeng Ziwen and his previous party are very enthusiastic about the expansion of the troops, whether it is the main battalion or the reserve battalion, or simply this garrison battalion.

At the same time, Zeng Ziwen also continued: "Considering that now and in the future, our army will capture a large number of Ming troops, this number may be thousands or even tens of thousands, even if a few people are selected from it to supplement the main force, but the remaining number will still be very much, and it is not a way to let these people all act as coolies, it is bound to increase the scale of the garrison battalion, even if the combat effectiveness is weaker, but it is still possible to serve as auxiliary combat missions, especially secondary tasks such as garrisoning places and maintaining supply and transportation lines!" ”

"The main force of our army is not numerous, and the tip of the knife should be used in the most important places, and it cannot be wasted on some inconsequential secondary tasks!"

Zeng Ziwen's words, everyone present also nodded slightly!

Li Xuan also pondered a little and said: "The expansion of the garrison camp is necessary, the current two garrison battalions are indeed too different from the scale of the existing prisoners, and it is not easy to arrange!" ”

"In this way, Zeng Aiqing, you work harder, now make a plan for the expansion of the garrison battalion!"

Zeng Ziwen immediately said: "The minister obeys the order!" ”

Then Li Xuan said again: "These Ming army prisoners have bad habits, and they can't keep them the same way when they are assigned to the garrison, they must be trained strictly!" ”

The position of the garrison battalion in the new army of the Tang Dynasty has always been relatively embarrassing, because of the problems of weapons and equipment and the quality of soldiers, the combat effectiveness has never been high, and the will to fight is relatively weak.

In several major battles, the garrison battalions actually did not perform well, and at best they could only be said to be decent.

Now that we want to expand the scale of the garrison camp, we can't always be like this, even if it is equipped with cold weapons, it must be a real cold weapon army, it can't be like now, it's just a Ming army dressed in the skin of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, and it is also a guard soldier.

Although Li Xuan also knew that freezing was not a day's cold, and it was not easy to change the habits of these Ming army prisoners, as long as the heart was ruthless and spicy enough, these were not a problem!

Combat disadvantage? Kill!

Disobedience? Kill!

Mutiny in the whole army? Kill!

For the surrender of the army, it is necessary to use such strong means to spur them, otherwise, the surrender army obtained is just a bunch of waste.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, countless Ming troops threw themselves into the Tartars, and they were extremely weak in combat before they surrendered to the Tartars, but after the Tartars, they all became extremely violent.

The reason can't, it's just strict military law!

The Tartars are not open to charity, since they have accepted your surrender, then you have to give them your life, otherwise they will waste this food for what.

If the surrendered Ming army did not fight effectively, they would kill people every minute.

Therefore, after the Ming army surrendered to Cheng and became the Qing army, because the Qing army threatened with knives in the back, they all became extremely fierce.

In the end, he helped the Tartars to level the land of China, and coerced tens of millions of people with knives to shout at a group of rattail pigtails with them, the Ming army in the late Ming Dynasty was simply a shame for the soldiers of all dynasties, and there had never been such a fucked army in five thousand years.

Losing a war is nothing, losing a country is nothing, wagging their tails at the barbarians and begging for mercy is nothing, but it doesn't matter if they commit cheapness themselves, and they also force tens of millions of people to commit cheapness with them, such a history is simply embarrassed to say to outsiders, otherwise people will ask with a surprised face: Aren't they Han? Why is this happening?

Damn, who knows what's going on in their heads, and I can't go through hundreds of years to split their heads and see what they're thinking!

Putting aside these national feelings, I have to say that the way the Qing army recruited and surrendered the Ming army at the end of the Ming Dynasty was still quite bad

And Li Xuan felt that it was also quite suitable for his Datang New Army, because his Datang New Army was originally extremely strict in military law.

This is extremely harsh on himself, and even more harsh on the surrender of the Ming army, which is logical!

If there are surrendered Ming soldiers who fight and push back, or even disobey orders, then I'm sorry, there is only one word to greet them, that is, kill!

Killing and killing, these people will naturally be convinced, and then they will turn into fierce divisions, and they may be more ferocious than the Ming army that descended to the Qing Dynasty in later generations, after all, the Tang Dynasty is also a Han dynasty, and it is not easy to shave their hair or anything, and they will not have too much psychological pressure if they surrender to the Tang Dynasty.

This is obvious, Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and helped the Qing army sweep through the Central Plains to resist the Ming army, so his name was nailed to the pillar of historical shame for hundreds of years, and it is estimated that in another thousand years, Wu Sangui will still be a traitor in people's hearts.

But if Wu Sangui descends to the greatest, the most powerful Han dynasty in the history of the upper and lower five thousand years: the Tang Dynasty!

Then his name is estimated to be immortal and become a national hero admired by everyone!

Therefore, surrender is also the right one!

Li Xuan only passed by these ideas, and more importantly, he was thinking about how to make these prisoners of the Ming army play a greater role.

The existing garrison battalion is too small, and these five or six thousand prisoners will have to make a dozen or so garrison battalions, and the direct command of these garrison battalions is too problematic.

Moreover, it is not possible to concentrate all the garrison camps composed of these Ming prisoners, so the risk of betrayal is too great.

So it must be dispersed and matched!

For example, the previous 3rd Infantry Regiment, among the three subordinate infantry battalions, there were the 10th Infantry Battalion, the 1st Garrison Battalion, and the 2nd Garrison Battalion.

Although this model is still slightly lacking, it is still worth continuing to promote!

This military strategy meeting in front of the emperor was very long, and when the meeting was going on, Zeng Ziwen directly wrote with a pen how to expand the garrison battalion, because the establishment of the garrison camp is ready-made, and it is enough to determine the establishment of several garrison battalions directly according to the existing number of prisoners and the configuration of troops in the Ming army.

So when Li Xuan and Qian Mengjiu finished talking about the pension for the dead and wounded after the war, Zeng Ziwen came to Li Xuan with a piece of paper with an ink preparation plan that had not dried: "Your Majesty, this is the preliminary garrison expansion plan drawn up by the minister, and the preliminary opinion is to set up three new infantry regiments!" ”

Zeng Ziwen didn't talk about the new infantry regiment for the first time, but talked about the reserve battalion!

"According to the expansion plan of our army half a month ago, ten reserve battalions will be expanded at one time, as the reserve force of the main force, and now there are five reserve battalions established in the framework, of which the first reserve battalion has officially accepted recruits in the past two days!

With the successive formation of reserve battalions, it will effectively supplement the gap in the strength of our army's main force, and at the same time, it will be more convenient to replenish the battle damage of our army's main force in the future!

According to the predetermined plan, these garrison battalions will arrange for the existing five infantry regiments to have two reserve battalions under each jurisdiction to supplement the shortage of troops in the main infantry regiment! ”

After saying that, Zeng Ziwen paused and continued: "Given that the reserve battalion has been able to provide effective auxiliary support for the main infantry regiment, and at the same time can also provide a supplement to the reserve force.

In order to ensure the purity of the main infantry regiment and maintain its combat effectiveness, the minister suggested that the garrison battalion should not be attached to the existing five main infantry regiments.

The minister thought that a small number of regular infantry battalion troops should be combined with a large number of garrison battalion troops to form a brand-new infantry regiment that could fight independently, and be used to undertake second-line combat missions! ”