After getting rid of the trouble of Butcher Chen, Li Xuan was also a lot cleaner in the next few days, so he had the mood and time to do other more and more important things.

Let's say the expansion of the army!

After successfully blocking the Ming army in Fucheng from crossing the river, the new army of the Tang Dynasty wanted to expand the army, which was something that Li Xuan had already decided, and many people under him, regardless of whether it was the generals of the military or Liu Bagou in the rear, they were all working hard for this.

According to Li Xuan's order, Qian Mengjiu of the rear military department has set up a number of conscription points in Xikou Village, and believes that a number of conscription points have been set up, and there are conscription points of the Datang New Army in Xikou Village, Liushazhuang and other places, and after expanding the scale of recruitment, a large number of recruits can be recruited every day.

However, the greatly increased number of recruits in a short period of time will also make the existing strength of the Datang New Army insufficient.

Three infantry battalions and a mixed battalion, these four battalions are the core of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, the total strength of the above establishment is 1,500 people, which before the war, the strength of these four battalions was almost 1,200 people, and now the increase of 300 people is full.

Then there are the baggage battalions, garrison battalions and teams directly under them, which do not need to be replenished too many recruits.

For example, the baggage battalion, this unit is somewhat special, its soldiers are mainly the original bandits and the surrendered Ming army guards, and there were already four full teams before the war, and there was no need to replenish new recruits at all.

With the current scale of the baggage battalion, it can fully meet the logistical needs of the Datang New Army, and further expansion is a waste of manpower and material resources.

The garrison battalion, which was also adapted from the surrendered Ming army, was recruited from the surrendered Ming army, which also did not need to replenish new recruits, and if the garrison battalion was to expand in the future, it would also be because more Ming prisoners were captured.

Sword and shield soldiers and archers, the soldiers of these two teams are incompetent for ordinary soldiers due to their particularity, and most of the soldiers of these two teams are now from bandits and surrendered Ming troops, if they want to expand and replenish, it is impossible to replenish from those recruits.

The cavalry team is originally small in size, if you want to expand the cavalry team, the problem of horses is far greater than the horses of personnel, and the horses of the new army of the Tang Dynasty have always been very scarce, and in the last few years, including the previous Lanjiang Ferry Battle, too many horses have not been captured, so the expansion of the cavalry team can only stay in words!

The same was true of the artillery corps, the number of artillery limited its expansion.

In the end, if he wanted to expand the size of the army, Li Xuan had no other choice than to expand the infantry battalion.

With the soldiers sent from the rear to replenish the existing troops, Li Xuan simply set up the Fourth Infantry Battalion and the Second Mixed Battalion.

The 4th Infantry Battalion was organized in the same way as the three infantry battalions in front, with two musket teams and two spear teams.

The establishment of the 2nd Mixed Battalion was naturally the same as that of the 1st Mixed Battalion, with a musket team, a spear team, and a small number of sword and shield soldiers and archers.

In this way, the main force of the new army of the Tang Dynasty will be able to reach four infantry battalions and two mixed battalions, and if you add the baggage battalion, garrison battalion, and other directly subordinate teams and miscellaneous people, the number of full personnel will reach 3,500 people.

But this is only on paper, and it will not be possible to complete this plan in at least half a year or even a year, why?

Because Li Xuan couldn't come up with so many muskets, artillery, and horses!

Let's not talk about the horses first, this thing can't be solved at all, and all the horses in Zhengtai County are not enough for the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

Artillery is also a troublesome matter, not to mention the long time it takes to build artillery, and it requires a large amount of copper, which greatly restricts the artillery expansion of the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

As for the 800-pound Italian cannon with existing equipment, I'm sorry, this is a test product, only this one, there is no semicolon, and the Ministry of Industry has no plan to continue to build this kind of big thing, not to mention the time and effort, and the weight is too big, in Zhengtai County and the surrounding mountainous terrain, it is difficult to use at all.

Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have insisted that the craftsmen behind him limit the weight of the cannon to less than five hundred catties.

Therefore, Xie Ziwei does not need to expect to be able to get a second heavy artillery of more than 800 catties in the near future, and the later Ministry of Industry will provide all 500 catties or even lighter guns.

The number of artillery pieces is small, but it's no problem to wait, it's a big deal!

But muskets are a big problem!

According to the predetermined plan, the new army of the Tang Dynasty needs more than 1,000 muskets, and this number is still the minimum requirement, if Li Xuan wants to transform the baggage battalion from a cold weapon unit to a hot weapon force in the later period, this number will have to be increased by another 200 pieces.

Moreover, this number is still the number of establishments, and the losses caused by training, combat, etc., as well as spare muskets, have not yet been counted.

If you count them all, fifteen hundred are not enough!

However, how many muskets are there in the new army of Datang today?

There are less than two hundred and fifty, and what is the output of muskets on both sides of Xikou Village and Huangzhushan? Previously, the monthly output of Huangzhushan was about fifty, which was the only supply of muskets that the new army of the Tang Dynasty could get at present.

As for Xikou Village, although it is said that with the increase of craftsmen and ordinary labor, the Ministry of Industry has continued to increase the estimated output, and even shouted on the fold that once completed, the monthly output will reach more than 200, and this number is still rising.

But there is a word for this, and that is called 'general', which means that the weapon workshop in Xikou Village is actually still in the construction stage, and although those craftsmen have also begun to make muskets, God knows when they will be able to produce 200 or more guns a month.

Next month, they will be able to send dozens of muskets, and Li Xuan will burn high incense!

This has also caused a rather embarrassing problem, several infantry battalions and mixed battalions in the Datang New Army, only the first infantry battalion and the first mixed battalion are equipped with the required muskets, and the musketeers of the other battalions can only fight with cold weapons such as spears or swords, and they can only borrow the muskets of the first infantry battalion and the first mixed battalion for training.

The scarcity of muskets and artillery is the biggest problem faced by the new army of the Tang Dynasty, and it is also a difficult problem to solve.

But what Li Xuan was thinking about was that now he didn't have a gun, so he trained these soldiers to wait for a gun!

After all, the training of soldiers also takes more than three months, and when these soldiers can fight with guns, it will be three months later, and in these three months, the Ministry of Industry should be able to make at least three or four hundred muskets, and four hundred muskets will be enough to solve the guns of two infantry battalions.

And then wait a few more months, or find some way to squeeze those craftsmen in the Ministry of Labor, and expand the production, and get a thousand muskets, once there are a thousand muskets, is it still far from the 1,500 required for the full establishment?

Well, Li Xuan, who thinks so, is overly optimistic, to solve the musket problem, at least there is no hope for this year, and even next year may not be hopeful.

But you can't stop expanding the army without guns, Li Xuan's current approach is to first set the establishment and recruit soldiers for training for a few months.

And no one stipulates that musketeers must fight with muskets, and it's okay to use spears, so it's a big deal to treat them as musketeers who have run out of bullets, and they go straight to bayonets in battle!

Li Xuan found various reasons for himself and others to expand the army, which made the generals below happy and painful.

Happily, the establishment of the new establishment represents the emergence of a number of high-level positions out of thin air, the battalion officer of the Fourth Infantry Battalion and the battalion officer of the Second Mixed Battalion, both of which are serious major positions, and they are currently the top military general positions in the Tang New Army.

A large group of officers below were staring at it.

And Li Xuan was not hypocritical, and soon determined the battalion officers of these two battalions, the former battalion officer of the first mixed battalion, Hao Bonian, was transferred to the fourth infantry battalion as a battalion officer, this transfer made him one of the only four infantry battalion officers in the Datang New Army, and this was enough to be on an equal footing with Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, and Wang Danxu.

The new officer of the first mixed battalion was promoted by the official of the original musket team in the mixed battalion, this person has the same surname as Fang Dongquan, but it has nothing to do with Fang Dongquan, Fang Dongquan himself has a nephew who is in the army as a deputy officer, but according to Li Xuan's state of defense against Fang Dongquan, it is impossible for Fang Dongquan's nephew to be promoted as quickly as Hao Bonian and Fang Xi.

The battalion officer of the newly established Second Mixed Battalion was Li Chunjing, the deputy battalion officer of the Second Infantry Battalion and the commander of the Third Musket Brigade, and his promotion path was almost the same as that of Hao Bonian at the beginning, and almost everyone could expect that this Li Chunjing would be transferred to the regular infantry battalion as a battalion officer like Hao Bonian in the future.

The officers of the two musketeers will also be succeeded by the Guards Junior Army.

These transferred high-ranking officers are all Li Xuan's students, so Li Xuan's thoughts on cultivating student generals are almost open.

However, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren and Wang Danxu consciously closed their mouths, they knew better than outsiders that Li Xuan was guarding and suspicious of them, if they still stupidly jumped out to oppose anything at this time, this is looking for death, it is estimated that Li Xuan will be killed as soon as they jump out to oppose and turn around.

Today's Datang is no longer the Datang of a year ago, and Li Xuan is not the Li Xuan of a year ago.

Today's Tang Dynasty has controlled the land of Zhengtai County for hundreds of miles, with 100,000 people and 3,000 soldiers, and Li Xuan, the emperor, has relied on a series of military victories to spread his personal prestige to everyone in the new army of the Tang Dynasty.

And Li Xuan's students are still increasing, the scale of his training class has expanded from more than 10 people in the past to more than 60 people, and these more than 60 student officers who claim to be protégés of the Son of Heaven are all the backbone of the Tang New Army, and these more than 60 people control all the infantry battalions and mixed battalions in the musket team and spear team and the position of deputy battalion officer of each battalion, and there is also an infantry battalion officer and two mixed battalion officers.

Relying on these student officers, Li Xuan can be said to have firmly controlled the Tang New Army, and can even override Huang Xueren, Wang Danxu, and Fang Dongquan in the first infantry battalion to the third infantry battalion.

Today's Datang New Army is Li Xuan's Datang New Army, and Fang Dongquan is not stupid at this point, so they naturally see it clearly.

Moreover, they also saw that it was unreliable to compete for military power with these student officers, or it was more reliable to fight for a higher title, and they fought to the death and rebelled, isn't it just for glory and wealth?

That's right, in order to appease the patriarch and also to motivate the new generals in the army, Li Xuan has already let out his mouth, and it won't be long before he will be officially crowned.