Hou Junji has a characteristic, that is, he is good at learning and exploring.

Li Shimin added him the title of secretary of the military department, and after returning to Chang'an, it only took him one day to familiarize himself with all kinds of things in the military department.

When Sun Xiangfu came over, he was still checking the roster with dozens of adjutant officers of the military department, there was a lot of food on the table, it was still warm, and he hadn't moved much, it should be a dinner sent from the house.

"Masaaki hasn't had dinner yet! Together, I will also take the time to give you a general description of the material needs of each army. ”

"Okay, but I still have to bother Lu Gong to arrange a few people to help me find out some information about the materials requisitioned by the Ministry of War in the past, and when we finish talking, I'll take them back to see."

"It's a little thing, it's not a lot of work."

Hou Junji said hello, and some of his subordinates went to work, and the two sat opposite each other in front of the desk, eating and chatting.

"Today, the old man led people to check the roster of nearly half of the government soldiers, and it is expected that the number of soldiers who can go to Goguryeo next summer should be more than 230,000, in addition, there are more than 50,000 people who are responsible for transporting all kinds of baggage materials, and after the order to assemble is issued, except for the two guards and horses stationed in Hebei Province, the rest of the soldiers and horses will be assembled in Chang'an or Laizhou, Shandong within two months.

At that time, you will provide me with the first batch of grain and grass, winter clothes, of course, the soldiers themselves have a certain amount of clothing to cover their bodies, only need to transport the grain and grass in advance, clothing, armor, weapons, and other equipment, can be a little slower, as long as they are all equipped before the expedition. ”

Hearing this, Sun Xiangfu nodded, the training before the start of the war is very necessary, two months later, it will almost be the month of Layue, which is a good time for winter training, but at that time, the consumption of food will also be very large, Sun Xiangfu calculated a little in his heart, plus the transfer of people, 280,000 people, at least 450,000 stone grain must be prepared every month for the army to consume.

This year's autumn harvest has passed, then, before next year's summer grain comes out, in addition to Lingnan and Jiangnan, there is still a season of rice to harvest, the grain output in other places has basically been put into storage, with money, but you can buy no grain, thinking of this, Sun Xiangfu asked again, "I wonder how many sergeants will gather in Laizhou at that time?" ”

"About 60,000 soldiers and horses, plus the 50,000 soldiers and horses that Liu Hongji and Zhang Liang have brought over, it looks like almost 1120,000."

Hearing this, Sun Xiangfu thought for a while, and then said, "I have advanced ships in Datang to defend the sea, and the land of Laizhou is a strategic place with excellent attack and supply, and there are more than 100,000 soldiers and horses stationed there, which should be as stable as Mount Tai."

I believe that the last quarter of this year, plus the grain produced in the first quarter of next year, will be enough for all the army to eat for a year, and at that time, the main army in Hebei Province only needs to escort grain from Laizhou to all parts of the front line. ”

"By sea? Is it safe? ”

"Rest assured, it's safe, and besides, we transported the grain to Laizhou in advance, if the Goguryeo ships dare to go to sea to attack our sea grain routes, I believe they will regret it." Sun Xiangfu said with a smile.

Not to mention that Zhang Liang had tens of thousands of sailors at the Laizhou docks, and the Lingnan navy and Sun Xiangfu's private armies, every time they faced the naval fleets of Goguryeo or the Wa State at sea, they were devastating blows, and Sun Xiangfu was afraid that they would give him too few prisoners to support the departments that had a demand for labor in all aspects.

Hou Junji nodded when he heard this, and asked, "If you go by sea, you can save a lot of people, but what about the food of the Guanzhong army?" ”

Sun Xiangfu thought about it again and replied, "There are fewer fields for planting grain in Guanzhong this year, but fortunately, a lot of grain has been hoarded in the surrounding places before, and there is still a lot of grain on the market, and we only need to supply the food of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who are training in Chang'an in winter, the gap is not big, two million stones are enough, and if you buy it at the market price, you should be able to buy it all."

And when the army goes out, next year's summer grain will come out, and when the time comes, let's buy a little more and take it with us to eat on the road. As for forage, bean feed and other livestock materials, the Anbei Army will escort them directly from Shanyang to the front line. ”

Shanyang has a lot of livestock, cattle and horses can be requisitioned hundreds of thousands of heads at will, and it is more convenient to transport materials such as forage with a larger volume, and these are produced everywhere in the north, and it is very convenient to supply the army, if Sun Xiangfu directly equips the army with a certain number of lawn mowers, he doesn't even need to bring so much forage to the front line.

"In this way, it is a lot of saving, but no matter how much you save, the money in the treasury is estimated to be not enough to pay for these military rations, yesterday I have already met the eldest grandson Shangshu, he said that this year's autumn tax has not yet come up, and the money available in the treasury is less than one million."

Normally, it would be good to be able to raise the autumn tax revenue before the wax moon, but now it is only mid-September, not long after the autumn harvest, and the local officials in various places estimate that they have not collected all the taxes! Where would the money be released into Beijing so quickly.

However, Sun Xiangfu did not plan to take this huge amount of money out of the treasury from the beginning, and it was the right way to take out a loan from the bank.

Sun Xiangfu doesn't know how much money there is in Chang'an's Datang Money Village, but at least, it is more than two or three times that of Shanyang, and there are still tens of millions of yuan, and the loan is a few million, although the amount is a bit large, but it should be able to bear it.

"Money is not a problem, as long as there are enough materials on the market, this year the people of Guanzhong and Shanyang have planted a large amount of cotton, and the output can easily equip the whole army with cotton armor."

"Equip the whole army with cotton armor? That's a good feeling, but even if it's one person, you have to prepare more than 200,000 sets, can you make it? ”

Cotton armor is a good thing, especially in the cold Northeast region, hearing Sun Xiangfu say that the whole army is equipped with cotton armor, although Hou Junji is a little difficult to be confident, but he is happy and expectant, you know, Yang Guang's million army, at least a few percent of them were frozen to death by the cold weather in the Northeast.

Sun Xiangfu took into account the cold weather in the northeast that he wanted to equip the whole army with cotton armor, nodded and smiled, "Cotton armor should not be a problem, not only that, but I also want to equip each sergeant with a thick quilt, but in this case, the amount of military expenses in the account may be very large." ”

"The cotton production in Guanzhong can still equip each sergeant with a quilt? As long as you believe, you must match! The money is owed first! If the whole army can be equipped with cotton clothes and quilts, the chances of conquering Goguryeo can be increased by at least 30%, and at that time, we can use the money in the Goguryeo treasury to pay off the debt. ”

All right! It turned out that Hou Jun's intention to move people's treasury was not formed in a day or two, and in history, it was after destroying Gaochang Guo that he moved people's treasury without authorization, which made Li Shimin disgusted with him, and forced him to regard Li Chengqian as a life-saving straw and rebelled.

Hou Junji himself is not a greedy person, it may be that before he fought Gaochang, he owed a huge debt because of some problems with armaments, and he had already planned to do it!

"Paying off the debt is naturally not a big problem, but this expenditure is going out, and I am afraid that the guilds in the court will disagree."

A set of cotton armor with silk and a full steel bar stuffed into it cost about ten times, and more than 200,000 sets is more than two million pieces.

And the quilt that can resist the cold in the north, Sun Xiangfu naturally can't make it light and thin, wide enough to wrap the whole body of the soldier, thick enough to resist the invasion of the cold, it is a must.

In this way, a quilt is almost ten catties, plus the production of cold-resistant leather quilt covers, as well as the wages of cotton, even in the case of a big drop in cotton prices this year, the price of a quilt is more than three dollars.

And that's not even counting weapons and siege gear! In terms of equipment, about three million guan has been set aside, and Sun Xiangfu is afraid that this proposal will owe tens of millions of guan to the imperial court, and the Manchu guilds do not agree.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty and all the generals will definitely support you in this matter, with these good equipment, the morale of the soldiers will be much better, you don't know, in that kind of cold and snowy place, how important morale is to an army."

With Hou Junji's words, Sun Xiangfu was relieved, and asked again, "In addition to standard knives and guns, what are the major deficiencies of the army?" ”

"Of course there is! Goguryeo has a dangerous terrain and many cities, like the bed ballistae, even ballistas, and catapults that you Shanyang showed this time, you can equip us as much as you want, and with these things, you can sacrifice a lot of children's lives. ”

"Those things are much more expensive to build, and they're expensive to use." Sun Xiangfu gave Hou Junji a precautionary word.

In terms of Sun Xiangfu's fear of death and the importance of Shanyang, he only dared to build a thousand of each chariot, which shows how high the cost of its construction and use is, in order to build three thousand chariots, light steel, bowstrings, pulleys and the like, at least more than 300,000 yuan was spent.

The key is to raise more than 10,000 war horses, because a chariot must be matched with two horses to fight, then the reserve horse must be at least four or more, just three thousand chariots, the number of horses will reach nearly 20,000, plus the cost of some chariot equipment maintenance, these 3,000 chariot troops, can cost more than 20,000 cavalry troops.

That is, Shanyang's financial abundance dared to make 3,000 such chariots to defend the city, if as Hou Junji said, the more the merrier, as long as 5,800 planes came out, it is estimated that the military expenditure of the Eastern Expedition will be doubled, because these things are mobilized on the battlefield, and that is the most expensive time.

Penetrating fine iron arrows, each of which has to be half a catty of iron, bed crossbow arrows, each arrow shaft, all need the trunk of a small tree to build, ceramic canned gravel bullets, hit a round out, hundreds of times are gone, thousands of chariots to the battlefield to fire, within an hour can knock off tens of thousands of dollars out, the big price is to fight the economy, the resource reserves, in ancient and modern times, are the same.

However, even if the consumption of these things is expensive, it is not as expensive as the lives of the soldiers, Sun Xiangfu supports the Tang Army to equip the Tang Army with more such heavy weapons, that is, in terms of money, he must find someone to pay, and if he sells the weapons made by his own industry, he is suspected of making war money, although he does not plan to make money on these projects.

"Build, if there are conditions, you must build, this matter, the old man will write a chapter for His Majesty, let him find a way to do the work of the ministers, in terms of materials, you can start to prepare." Hou Junji patted the table and said.

Seeing his momentum that he had to do, Sun Xiangfu didn't say much, nodded and said, "Okay, anyway, it costs the imperial court to make these things, and there is no need to deduct the officials' money, I believe they have no reason to object, so I will first order someone to prepare materials for production, and I can make 10,000 planes, not just 5,000 planes······"

He said this specifically to Hou Junji, only if it does not involve the interests of the courtiers, can they lower their opposition, and use more of these lethal advanced equipment on the battlefield, you can kill a lot of people, as long as you are there, how much money can not be earned?