As for the choice of the Third Garrison Brigade as the first unit in the reform of the garrison force, on the one hand, the reason for this is that the Third Garrison Brigade can be regarded as a model among the current garrison units, and its combat effectiveness is relatively strong.

At the same time, there are still thousands of Ming troops in Guangzhou, which can be replenished after the third garrison brigade is cut and unqualified troops.

Of course, there is a more important task that the 3rd Garrison Brigade does not currently have a combat mission.

The Third Garrison Brigade is currently stationed in the Pearl River Delta region, and although there are occasional invasions by Ming naval divisions in this area, there is no large-scale threat from the Ming army's army forces, so it can be reorganized calmly.

With the issuance of Li Xuan's reorganization order, the Third Garrison Brigade also quickly entered the state of reorganization.

First of all, the soldiers of the Third Garrison Brigade were assessed one by one, and their physical fitness was not up to standard, and all unqualified soldiers who did not obey orders on weekdays were arranged to retire and let them return to their hometowns to work in agriculture.

Because the overall quality of the Third Garrison Brigade is relatively good, the number of retired soldiers is not large, only about 30 percent, but even so, the Third Garrison Brigade, which has a scale of 10,000 people, has rapidly dropped to less than 7,000 people.

The remaining 7,000 soldiers of the Third Garrison Brigade will undergo an intensive training period to strive to make these 7,000 soldiers reach the quality of regular army soldiers, and at the same time, the numbers of the Third Garrison Brigade and each garrison regiment will be abolished, and the above-mentioned recruits will be reorganized into the first division-level unit of the Tang Army, the Sixth Infantry Division.

The reason why division-level troops were established at this time is because of the continuous expansion of the troops, and on the other hand, because after the reorganization of the garrison army, these remaining garrison soldiers will become regular army soldiers, and according to the plan, these recruits will be supplemented into the regular army.

In order to retain combat effectiveness and integrate into the existing troops more quickly, the easiest way is to reduce the existing garrison brigade into an infantry regiment with pure cold weapons, and then directly supplement it into the infantry brigades.

And after supplementing this infantry regiment with pure cold weapons, it is not suitable for an infantry brigade with three regiments to continue to be called an infantry brigade, so it is naturally better to change the name to an infantry division.

The army has been planning for a long time to abolish the garrison, select the elite backbone of the garrison army to supplement the regular army, and then take the opportunity to expand the infantry brigades into infantry divisions.

When the 6th Infantry Division was formed, it meant that the previous five infantry brigades would be expanded into the 1st to 5th Infantry Divisions.

This kind of division-level troops, according to Li Xuan's plan, will have two musket regiments equipped with muskets, and a spear regiment equipped with spears and swords, shields, and bows and arrows.

At the same time, various auxiliary units such as artillery battalions, baggage regiments, and cavalry battalions, which were originally assigned to various armies, will also be directly incorporated into the divisions.

Under this new divisional structure, there will be two musket regiments, one spear regiment, one baggage regiment, one cavalry battalion, one artillery battalion, and various auxiliary units.

If it is full, the total strength should be 12,500 people, of course, the current Tang Dynasty is unable to do the full establishment of all troops, because the cavalry is always insufficient, the full cavalry battalion should have 400 cavalry, but in fact, the first cavalry battalion and the cavalry battalion of the Guards Army, which have the most cavalry, are only 300 cavalry.

However, there will be no shortage of infantry, but musketeers and heavy armor units.

Because in such an infantry division, there were less than 1,300 ordinary musketeers, 200 grenadiers, and the total number was only 1,500, while the 6th Infantry Division, which was reorganized on the basis of the 3rd Garrison Brigade, did not have a single musketeer or grenadier, so it could only be organized into three spear regiments first, and then slowly equipped with muskets.

The total number of heavily armored spearmen and heavy armor sword and shield soldiers was about eight hundred.

The heavy armor units are actually fine, but the number of musketeers is too small!

But this can't be helped, although the production of muskets in the Tang Dynasty is small, and it will not be possible to buy it for a while, and the muskets of foreigners in the Pearl River Estuary have been bought, and there is no goods in the hands of foreigners

According to this division-level establishment plan, after the completion of the reorganization of the six infantry divisions, plus other troops, the total strength of the Datang Army should be able to reach about 80,000 troops, which is a direct decrease of 50,000 compared with the army strength that has now exceeded 130,000 troops.

However, since the army dares to do this, it naturally has confidence, the garrison is weak, and an infantry brigade of the regular army can definitely beat more than three garrison brigades, and it is also a garrison brigade like the third garrison brigade, as for other ordinary garrison brigades, to be honest, it is useless except to be cannon fodder.

Therefore, the army would rather keep an expensive regular army than waste military funds to support the garrison.

Although the temporary regiment is a reserve battalion and garrison army with a regular army, most of these five temporary regiments have their own exclusive combat missions, and it is not easy to arrange for them to be directly revoked, so although these five temporary regiments will also be reorganized, they will still retain the number of the provisional regiment.

At present, the only mixed regiment in the Tang Dynasty, the first mixed regiment, is still retained, because the first mixed regiment was originally a regular army unit and had nothing to do with the garrison.

If the reorganization of the army can be successfully completed in the second half of the year, the army will have six infantry divisions, one mixed regiment, and five provisional regiments, and the full number of troops will reach about 80,000.

And this, naturally, does not include the Guards, the Guards do not belong to the army system, but directly belong to the royal family, to be precise, directly belong to the emperor's direct management and command, the Guards from the recruitment of soldiers to the procurement of ordnance are carried out independently, and its military expenditure is not to go through the total military expenditure channels of the army and navy, but directly from the royal expenses.

The positioning of the Guards Army is Li Xuan's direct guard, and the scale is not very large, it is a few thousand people now, and it will be tens of thousands in the future, and it is impossible to slowly expand to hundreds of thousands or even millions of people like the army.

Because the Tang Army is still in the midst of a war with the Ming Army, it is impossible to complete the reorganization work at once, so it can only be reorganized by the troops that do not have combat missions in the rear first, and then the troops on the front line are reorganized during the rest period.

For example, the Third Garrison Brigade was reorganized into the Sixth Infantry Division, and the Fifth Infantry Brigade, which was still in the process of being reorganized, was expanded into the Fifth Infantry Division.

The Third Army is also relatively easy, because the Third Army is in Guangxi, although it also has combat missions in Yunnan, but the tasks are not heavy, so it can also be reorganized as an opportunity for various units to rest and recuperate.

However, the reorganization of the units of the First, Second, and Fourth Armies was rather troublesome, because these units were all fighting continuously in northeastern Guizhou, southern Hunan, Guangxi, northern Guangdong, and the Ming Army, and it was rather difficult to reorganize.

It can only be reorganized by taking advantage of the rest time, and at the same time, it also needs the cooperation of the rear troops.

For example, after the Sixth Infantry Division is initially formed, it will go north, first taking over the combat mission of the First Army and continuing northward, while the First Army will rest and recuperate on the spot, and then reorganize it into the First Infantry Division and the Third Infantry Division on the spot.

The subsequent defense of the entire Guangdong will be entrusted to the Fifth Infantry Division and the Guards.

The Fourth Army was more troublesome, because it was on the front line, and there were a lot of enemy troops in front of them, so it was more troublesome to reorganize, but it could only be done slowly.

In the same situation as the Fourth Army, there was also the Second Army, which was also the main force fighting against the Huguang Ming Army, and they could not move around.

Therefore, the units of the Second Army that fought in Guizhou were the last to be reorganized.

At the same time, a new policy was set for the Ming army prisoners, no longer directly recruited as a garrison army regardless of merit or inferiority as before, but recruited qualified soldiers after a full month of training, and directly supplemented into the regular army.

When the Third Garrison Brigade took the lead in reorganizing into the Sixth Infantry Division, the armies outside also received orders for reorganization, but when the reorganization can be completed depends on the specific development of the situation.

However, according to the army's estimates, the Fifth Infantry Division and the Sixth Infantry Division will be able to complete the reorganization within two months, and within three months, all units of the Third Army should also be able to be reorganized into the Fourth Infantry Division.

How long it will take depends on how fierce the fighting is on the front line.

When the order of the reorganization came down, Cai Erhu, who was in Guangzhou, was happy and a little depressed at the same time, because since he served in the Third Garrison Brigade, his luck began to skyrocket, and he turned out to be a major general in the army, and now he is about to become a division commander of an infantry division.

But what made him depressed was that among the six infantry divisions that the military expected to expand, he, the sixth infantry division, was the only spear regiment without a single musket.

In other words, his Sixth Infantry Division is not as good as the other five infantry divisions, and the gold content of his army major general and division commander cannot be compared with other division commanders.

But although he was depressed, he was also very satisfied, he was a major general and division commander, but Wang Danxu and Fang Dongquan were still army colonels.

Compared to them, I am still lucky!

However, he didn't know that in this round of reorganization of the army, he was not the only lucky person, there was also Wang Danxu, and Wang Danxu would be even luckier than him Cai Erhu!