The manufacture of glass is not difficult, the more troublesome is the processing technology of glass, glass blowing requires high skills, and it takes a long time to cultivate glass blowing artists from scratch.

Chen Xian adopted a pressing method that required less skill from the workers, and he pressed the fired glass into shapes such as bowls, plates, and cups with molds.

In Chen Xian's opinion, these pressed glass products were thick and heavy, and it was too cumbersome to give him food, but in the eyes of people of this era who had never seen glass, this translucent thing was definitely a rare treasure.

In this way, six hundred-ton galleons, laden with iron, soap, delicate screw muskets, and fine glasswork, set sail south.

In addition to the six Daystar-class armed merchant ships, there are more than a dozen merchant ships of local maritime merchants in Michigan, large and small, in this merchant fleet.

……

After sending off the fleet, Chen Xian immediately threw himself into another job.

With the increase of Chen Xian's territory, the population under his control has naturally increased substantially, and according to Chen Xian's policy of giving priority to schools, the number of people who have entered his schools and received study and ideological transformation has naturally increased substantially over the years.

In addition to schools, Chen Xian's factories and militia organizations are also responsible for educating and transforming the workers' militia, so in the past two years, Chen Xian's subordinates have completed ideological transformation, and the number of people suitable for conscription has been increasing.

Although Chen Xian has also increased the number of troops many times in the past two years, his actions have not been large, because the Jin State moved its capital, and the Mongols did not have the consciousness and intention to occupy the Central Plains for the time being, so Chen Xian's military pressure was much smaller than in the first few years.

But Chen Xian knew that the Mongols would come sooner or later, and he had to train a strong enough army before the Mongols arrived.

Relying on the mobility of their cavalry, the Mongols often liked to engage in big detour tactics.

The so-called big detour tactic is to put a cavalry in front to attract your attention, and then send a cavalry to detour behind you to hit your weak underbelly.

The most exaggerated detour of the Mongols was that Kublai Khan made a detour to the southwest, destroyed the Dali Kingdom, and attacked the soft underbelly of the Southern Song Dynasty.

In that great detour, Kublai Khan set out from Gansu to bypass the mountains in the west of Guizhou, Sichuan, destroy the Dali Kingdom, and then sent troops from Yunnan, dragging the hinterland of the Southern Song Dynasty into the flames of war, which greatly accelerated the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty.

To deal with this kind of big detour tactics, Chen Xian really has no good way, his base in the eastern part of Shandong, it seems that there is Lushan Mountain in the way, in fact, the north, the middle, and the south are leaking everywhere, if the Mongols play maneuvers and detours with him on the outside line, he really can't do it, because you can't outrun him.

In order to deal with this tactic of the Mongols, Chen Xian came up with two stupid methods.

The first stupid way is to castle all the settlements in your own territory.

Even if you make a detour into my inner line, you won't be able to enforce your scorched earth policy.

The second stupid way is to build a large enough army to rely on the castle for full defense.

That is, in the north, in the middle, and in the south, there is a large army that can fight independently, and wherever you detour, it is the same for me, and then a more mobile army is stationed in the central region as a mobile force.

And to implement this stupid method, Chen Xian must have a large army, which is why Chen Xian is so obsessed with the land, and even cruelly kills the Han people and the Jurchen landlords for the sake of the land.

Because Chen Xian wanted to use this small territory in eastern Shandong to feed a huge army, he had to control the land and grain in his hands.

In the past two years, Chen Xian has expanded his army while expanding, and the army in his hands has more than 30,000 people, but this is far from enough.

In Chen Xian's prediction, he could barely cope with at least an army of more than 15,000 men on each of the northern, western, and southern lines, and in the central region, he would have to maintain a mobile force of more than 20,000 men to cope with the future situation.

In this rough calculation, Chen Xian needs at least an army of about 70,000 people to barely be enough.

Moreover, in this army of 70,000 people, the army stationed on the inner line must also have strong mobility, that is to say, it is best to be cavalry!

Fortunately, in these years, when Chen Xian occupied and cleaned the eastern part of Shandong, he collected a lot of war horses and a larger number of mules and horses from the powerful people in various places to arm the generals.

Chen Xian originally had four or five thousand war horses in his hands that he had obtained through the seizure and trading of Wanyan Pingtao, and in the past two years, he had obtained six or seven thousand war horses from the Jurchens and the rebels from various landlords such as Haoqiang, Li Quan, and Yang Anguo.

Since last year, the horse farm established by Chen Xian has also begun to slaughter high-quality war horses, although there are not many, but they are endless, and there are five or six hundred horses in a year.

After sending off the fleet, Chen Xian moved to Michigan and issued an order for each county to recruit students over the age of sixteen, with more than two years of education, and excellent military training during the school period; With more than two years of training experience, excellent military skills, and under the age of 25 in the militia, full recruitment.

The recruitment is very smooth, and the area that has been occupied by Chen Xian for more than two years is very clear about the treatment of the soldiers under Chen Xian's command, and there are ten acres of land to join the army, and the middle ten acres of land do not need to be cultivated, and the food can be received in the local agricultural company every year, and the manpower saved at home can also work in agricultural companies, construction companies, water factories and other places to earn another money.

Moreover, every time Chen Xian occupies a new place and transfers officials, he gives priority to being drawn from the army, which is the shortest way to promotion in the eyes of ordinary people.

Moreover, Chen Xian's pension for the war dead and disabled is also generous, and the war dead and disabled retired can not only continue to keep their original employment fields, but also get 30 to 50 acres of meritorious land, which is enough for the family to have no worries about food and clothing.

These systems are also the reason why Chen Xian had to bring the land under control.

In just three months, 60,000 or 70,000 recruits gathered in a simple military camp outside Mizhou.

This speed far exceeded Chen Xian's expectations, and the shelves of the new barracks he had originally prepared to form were soon insufficient, and he had to urgently transfer a group of veterans over.

Taking advantage of the current rare window period, Chen Xian successively transferred troops from all over the country to the Mizhou military camp, and after these troops came to Mizhou, they were directly upgraded, that is, the regiment was promoted to the brigade, the battalion was promoted to the regiment, the company was promoted to the battalion, and the platoon was promoted to the company......

The brigade-level unit formed this time consisted of three regiments with nearly 12,000 people.

After the shelves are upgraded, the recruits are filled in and trained briefly, so that the recruits know their officers, and then the troops return to their original stations to continue training.

The expansion of the barracks in the original garrisons of the ministries will also begin as soon as the troops leave, with a view to completing the expansion before the troops return.

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