In September of the sixth year of Longdao, all parts of Qi entered the intense autumn harvest work.

At such times, even the field army tries not to train in the field to prevent delays in the autumn harvest, and all departments, schools, and government departments of the field army also have to spare a few days during this period to help the people near the station to harvest.

This can be regarded as some kind of physical training, but also a kind of people-friendly activity.

Moreover, the participation of so many strong laborers in the autumn harvest is indeed a great help to agricultural work.

This year's autumn harvest was naturally completed very smoothly.

Even if the specific statistics have not yet come out, just by visual inspection, you can probably know that this year is a small harvest year as a whole.

In fact, Xu Shiyang always felt that some time ago, the reason why the Han people were so pressed by the Tartars from all walks of life in the north may be in addition to the problems of the Great Zhou itself, and the reason why the precipitation line moved south (there is no specific data to support it, just speculation).

In the years before and after the Great Zhou Dynasty moved southward, natural disasters continued in the north, with severe droughts year after year, a marked decrease in precipitation, a large-scale reduction in grain production, a small famine once a year, and a major famine once every three years, which were almost completely uninterrupted for 20 or 30 years.

After the drought, there will be a locust plague, and the alternation of drought and locusts will cause a large-scale decline in the national strength of agricultural civilization.

But now the situation is much better, the last large-scale locust plague was the last large-scale natural disaster that Qi has experienced so far.

In the following years, although the drought in a small area continued, Qi could maintain agricultural production at a good harvest level through large-scale construction of water conservancy facilities, and the locust plague could be effectively contained.

If the weather had been beautiful and no major natural disasters had occurred, it is estimated that the livelihood of the people in Jiangbei would have been able to recover slowly, even if it was still an agricultural society.

It's just that the emergence of Xu Shiyang has accelerated this process.

The autumn harvest was followed by the autumn tax, and the control of the grassroots level of the Qi State was far greater than in all previous eras, after all, this itself was a country developed from the village warlords, and the management of the performance appraisal and appointment and dismissal of officials by the Qi State Officials Department could directly sink to the village level.

Coupled with the gradual increase in the dependence of the people of Qi on credit (personal credit is related to bank loans, recruitment, schooling, personal politics and many other aspects) and the tax rate of Qi is not heavy, the people of Qi do not have much resistance to paying taxes on time, so the annual tax work will be relatively smoothly concluded.

At the end of October, the autumn tax work in the northern provinces of Huaxia has also come to an end, and November has begun, a month earlier than before, and the country of Qi has once again entered the conference season.

The main reason for this month earlier is that the territory and population of Qi have grown too fast this year, and a lot of data in Shanxi has just been sorted out, so the cabinet needs to give instructions in advance for the next step in the work of the two provinces.

Another reason was that none of the main representatives of the military department could attend last year's annual meeting last year, because at that time the Qi army was launching a large-scale offensive operation on the Liaoshen front.

Therefore, for the military department, this year's conference season is actually a summary of the work of the past two years.

The last reason is naturally that this year, the State of Qi officially broke away from the Great Zhou and became independent, which means that the King of Qi will soon be crowned emperor.

Becoming emperor is a very important task, and it is time to make some preparations, and this meeting season also requires all departments to coordinate this important matter of the world.

……

Xu Shiyang himself returned to Quancheng on the fifth day of November.

He immediately convened a meeting of senior officers of the General Staff and the Field Army, followed by an enlarged meeting of the Ministry of War, followed by a joint meeting of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Engineering, and ......a joint meeting of the Joint Enlarged Conference.

For more than ten days, Xu Shiyang devoted most of his working time to meetings.

He also knew that people hated meetings, but there were some things that didn't work.

Moreover, the military department not only has to sum up the work of the past two years, but Xu Shiyang plans to carry out a round of large-scale military reform starting next year, which will be a very complicated task, and he must communicate with the principal officers of the military department and the general staff in advance, so that the plan can be carried out smoothly.

The main purpose of Xu Shiyang's military reform was to enable the army to adapt to the new Qi state, which had an increasingly large territory.

In other words, the first goal of military reform is to expand the armed forces.

In fact, if you really want to talk about it, if it is just a change of dynasty of feudal dynasties, or simply fighting for the world, the current 100,000 field army is very sufficient, with these 100,000 field troops as the core, as long as a large number of cannon fodder rolls forward every time you go to a place, no one in this era will be able to resist the current Qi country.

But Xu Shiyang is a traverser after all, if his goal is only to replace the Zhao family dynasty with the Xu family dynasty, it will really be a shame for the traverser.

Xu Shiyang's goal is "absolute security" within the territorial limits.

That is to say, the people living in the Qi country, no matter where they are, do not need to go to "prevent autumn" every autumn, worrying that all kinds of savage tartars will come to fight the grass valley.

If you want to do this, the best way is, of course, to take the initiative to attack, to replace defense with offense, and let the Tartars defend this and that every year.

Secondly, it is necessary to strengthen the civilian self-defense forces, that is, the construction of the reserve system and the militia system.

In these two points, what is needed to take the initiative in the front is a strong standing army, which is also the most important part of this military reform.

Xu Shiyang's idea was to first expand the strength of each field division, and the current idea is to have a square division under the four-four system, that is, four regiments in each division, four battalions in each regiment, and 600 men in each battalion.

Increase the establishment of infantry artillery in battalion-level units, light field artillery in regimental-level units, and medium-sized field artillery in divisional-level units.

With the addition of the division headquarters and the division's subordinate engineering, baggage, cavalry, and artillery units, each field division has a regular establishment of 12,000 people.

Every two divisions were merged into a field army, and the field army was equipped with heavier artillery, more independent heavy cavalry units, and subordinate engineering units, reconnaissance units, and other units, expanding the field army into a strategic group with a strength of more than 26,000 troops.

Among the current ten field divisions, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan are combined into Li Jinghuai, commander of the First Field Army;

Zhiyuan and Jingyuan are the Second Field Army, and the army commander Feng Sanhu;

Zhiyuan and Jingyuan are the Third Field Army, and the army commander Luan Tingyu;

Jiyuan and Pingyuan are the Fourth Field Army, and the army commander is Sun Li;

Yuyuan and Weiyuan are the Fifth Field Army, and the army commander is Lin Chong.

Of the original ten division commanders, five received the rank of lieutenant general and became army commanders; One person (Gongsun Sheng) left the front-line army because he needed to succeed Xu Shiyang as the secretary of the military department; The remaining four were promoted to major generals and served as deputy army commanders and division commanders.

In addition, Xu Shiyang promoted six colonel-level officers from among the outstanding officers in the field army to serve as colonels and division commanders.

After the completion of the reorganization of the five field armies, they will be stationed in the five provinces currently owned by the Qi State: Qi, Hebei, Liao, Shanxi, and Shaanxi.

In addition, Xu Shiyang's personal guards will be reorganized into the Guards (after being crowned emperor, they can be renamed the Praetorian Guards), with a strength of 12,000 according to a division.

In addition, the garrison of the fortress, the staff and civilian personnel of the General Headquarters, the General Logistics Department and other units, excluding the cadets, the total strength of the Qi Army after the military reform will be increased to about 15 to 160,000 people.