In 1792, Xu Shiyang had less and less time left for Da Zhou in private.

With the integration and development of Huaxia, the Chinese army already had the strength to quickly resolve the Great Zhou by force without causing huge social turmoil.

Of course, some people in the Great Zhou court can also see this.

Especially after Taiwan Island fell into the hands of China, the Great Zhou instinctively found that the north had formed an encirclement of the Great Zhou.

At the Chinese National Conference in early 1792, Xu Shiliu, the envoy of the Jinghu Road of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and Ma Wenji, the envoy of the Chinese Empire, appeared in Quancheng and participated in the meeting.

The former means that Jinghu Road and Jinghu Army have already made a choice in the upcoming north-south showdown - this is not surprising, after all, Xu Shiliu is only a strategic envoy in Jiangnan, and he is the prince when he returns to Jiangbei.

The latter proves that at least some of the Jiangnan gentry families have not tied themselves to death on the seemingly stable but actually stormy ship of the Great Zhou.

But there is also a person who wants to go to the end with Da Zhou, such as Xu Shisong.

After being refrigerated for a few years, Xu Shisong went out of the mountain again, because among the several commanders of the Great Zhou, Xu Shiliu had already determined that he was no longer reliable, and Tong Guan and Weng Shuping were considered far from being opponents in the north.

At this time, except for Xu Shisong, Da Zhou was no one else.

Republic 1792

Nine years of Longdao

Emperor Longdao was very helpless, and somewhat unwilling to appoint Xu Shisong to replace Tong Guan, and was promoted to privy envoy, and began to be responsible for the command of all Zhou troops.

After Xu Shisong took office, he immediately stepped up his horse and prepared for the defense of the north.

He clearly explained to Emperor Longdao that the Zhou army did not have the ability to go on a northern expedition at this time, and it would be considered a success if it could withstand it when the northern army moved south.

The tactics adopted by Xu Shisong were relatively close to the Yellow River/Canal defense line of the Northern Army in the face of the pseudo-gold: with the Huai River as the first line, digging trenches and repairing the chest wall from the mouth of the Huai River, and digging all the way to Xiangyang, forming the first line of defense together with a part of the Yangtze River.

Then the same line of defense went all the way to the south, and the initial plan was to dig five lines of defense first, and if there was time, dig five more.

A total of ten lines of defense, and at the same time, field capable troops are deployed in important cities (such as Xiangyang) on each line of defense to form a strong support point.

It is estimated that it will take five years for the two phases of the project to be completed - if the imperial court has absolute trust in Xu Shisong and is willing to give him the greatest support.

As a rare commander in the Zhou army with rich military experience and victorious military experience, Xu Shisong knew very well that no matter how strong the turtle shell was, it would one day be broken by others.

What's more, Da Zhou still has Xu Shiliu's Jinghu Road in the west.

Therefore, if you want to defend, a strong field army is a must, the number of people does not have to be too much, about 100,000 is enough, but the quality cannot be too far behind the field army of the Northern Army, otherwise it is impossible to use the defense line to fight a defensive counterattack.

Xu Shisong's plan was to transform the existing field forces of the Zhou army to a certain extent as much as possible, and strive to make the Zhou army capable of field battles with the Chinese army.

His plan was to take the Huainan East Route Army he had formed as the main body, plus the men and horses drawn from the forbidden army and the Huainan West Route Army to form the Great Zhou New Army.

According to Xu Shisong's establishment, the Great Zhou New Army consisted of 120 infantry commanders, 60 cavalry commanders and 20 artillery commanders.

Regardless of the branch of the army, each commanded 500 soldiers, and the infantry command consisted of 200 muskets, 200 spears, and 100 swords and shields; The artillery establishment had 100 armor and 100 muskets to cover the artillery, and the remaining 300 gunners were responsible for operating 10 large and small guns.

Unlike Xu Shiyang, who attached great importance to light cavalry and dragoons, the only war horses of the Zhou army were almost all equipped with shock cavalry, so all cavalry were mainly cold weapons, and tried not to participate in dismounted foot battles.

But even so, Xu Shisong's new army still needed at least 26,000 rifles and 200 artillery pieces to fill the ranks.

Xu Shisong searched the whole army and found a total of 7,000 usable muskets, of which 5,500 were small-caliber bird guns, all of which were made in the north by Zhou, and the remaining 1,500 or so were large-caliber arquebuses, which still included a large part of the goods made in the north (after the independence of the north, the Great Zhou court has always used the north to refer to Huaxia to show that the military department recognizes Huaxia as an independent country).

The gap is at least 19,000, and if you count the spare, Xu Shisong needs to prepare at least 25,000 rifles.

The situation of artillery was better, the Zhou army only had 30 northern-style field guns and the same number of god machine guns, but the gap could be supplemented with simple and cheap tiger squat guns or bowl guns.

Moreover, the Zhou army had a part of the heavy artillery, although it could not be organized into the new army, but at least it could be used for defense and as fortress artillery.

After settling on the arrangement, Xu Shisong kept looking for craftsmen to try to make up for the gap in muskets.

According to his investigation, after removing the scrap, the Great Zhou Craftsman Supervisor could produce 100 qualified shotguns every month, and it would take 20 years to make up for the shortage of new muskets .......

This obviously could not wait, so Xu Shisong wrote to ask for the use of folk craftsmen to produce weapons, and Emperor Longdao agreed.

In this regard, he could get the help of Bao Zheng, who had an excellent reputation among the people, and Xu Shisong estimated that he could increase the monthly output of muskets to about 300.

The rest can only be imported.

And there is only one power that can export muskets: the North.

Xu Shisong felt a little embarrassed, he chose the former between loyalty and filial piety, and planned to go all the way to the black, and when he wanted to resist his family, he had to ask his family to provide him with some help .......

It's awkward to think about.

However, the North did not refuse to sell weapons to the Great Zhou - they were even willing to sell flintlock pistols that were much stronger than shotguns and arquebuses, as long as the Great Zhou was willing to pay for them.

The Great Zhou really still had some money to spare, so the Longdao Emperor waved his pen and allocated funds to buy northern muskets, the total number was: 5,000 shotguns, 5,000 arquebuses, and 2,000 flintlock guns.

At the same time, ten northern heavy artillery, ten medium artillery, and twenty light artillery were purchased.

In this huge arms order, flintlock pistols and artillery were not prepared for Xu Shisong - Emperor Longdao learned from the pain and decided to use the sons of the nobles in Beijing, the palace guards, and some of the rangers who volunteered to join the army, to form a new forbidden army completely under his own command.

This forbidden army is expected to have ten commands of 5,000 men. It is equipped with 100 artillery pieces of various types (including the god cannon made by Da Zhou himself), 3,000 muskets (also including the flintlock pistol made by himself), and 1,000 cavalry.

It is one of the most powerful armies in the world except for the Chinese army.

In addition to the above 210 commanders, Xu Shisong planned to reorganize other teams, verify the number of Ding Zhuang in the original Great Zhou Forbidden Army, supplement some of the Xiang Army and civilian young Zhuang, and form 600 new full-strength forbidden army commanders.

These units were equipped with the original cold weapons, self-made muskets, shoddy shotguns, and wooden cannons, which were mainly used to fill the defense line between the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River, and to delay the southward advance of the Northern Army during the war, so as to create a more favorable opportunity for the New Army to fight a decisive battle.

This is Xu Shisong's plan, betting everything on being able to block the northern army with Jianghuai and not let the core area of Jiangnan suffer losses.