Every time the army is expanded, artillery is the most headache for Li Xuan, on the one hand, the technology is not good, this artillery is difficult to build, on the other hand, with the scale of the new army of the Tang Dynasty is too large and the combat area is expanded, the tactics are also changing.

The change in tactics naturally made the army's demand for artillery constantly change, which made Li Xuan put forward different requirements for artillery several times.

Of course, the reason why there have been several changes in artillery demand is also because of the small scale of Datang, the small number of artillery and the small number of types, if Datang is strong and has every type of artillery, there is no need to be so entangled, all types of artillery are one hundred and eighty, and all problems have been solved, but unfortunately, this is unrealistic.

Li Xuan could only build a small number of artillery pieces in limited resources, and ensure that these artillery pieces were what the new army of the Tang Dynasty needed the most.

After thinking about it, Li Xuan first asked the workshop of the military department to make a sample cannon of this 1,300 catties first, and then talk about it, anyway, now the ship is small and easy to turn around, whether it is good or not, try to equip one first, just like the original 800 catties Italian cannon, it was only built at that time.

As for the mass-produced artillery, after thinking about it for a long time, Li Xuan temporarily determined that there were two types, one was the light infantry support artillery, that is, the battalion cannon of 150 catties, and the other was the Italian cannon of 800 catties.

As for the five-hundred-pound cannon, the high is not low, Li Xuan has already decided to give up, and the follow-up will not be manufactured, the existing five are organized into a separate team, and they will be taken back to the furnace to make new cannons when they are scrapped, and the artillery is all precious bronze, and the copper material is very precious.

As for the 1,300-kilogram heavy artillery, let the armament workshop of the Ministry of Industry study it first, and then make a sample cannon, anyway, the more than 1,000-kilogram heavy artillery is not so easy to manufacture, and then decide whether to produce it on a large scale after looking at the actual combat effect.

An artillery battalion has four artillery teams, that is to say, twenty-four artillery pieces are needed, plus each infantry battalion needs two battalion guns of one hundred and fifty pounds, which adds up to twenty guns, these artillery pieces are enough for the Tang Dynasty's Ministry of Industry Weapons Workshop to produce for a long time, and at least three or four months will not see the artillery units full.

In addition to the artillery battalion, the cavalry unit has also been expanded accordingly, and how much it can be expanded depends on how many war horses the new army of the Tang Dynasty can scavenge, and there are not many horses in Xingquan Mansion, and there are no large-scale cavalry on the Ming army before, so whether the Tang army captures or recruits horses from the people, this number will not be too high, as little as tens of hundreds, and as many as one or two hundred.

In other words, the size of the cavalry team of the Datang New Army has expanded from dozens of horses to more than 100 horses at most.

The expansion of the scale of the baggage unit is not large, from the previous four teams to five teams, and the reason why the expansion is not large is because the infantry battalion itself will also be incorporated into a baggage platoon, which to a certain extent reduces the logistical pressure of the baggage battalion.

The remaining sword and shield soldiers and archers, Li Xuan does not plan to continue to expand these two arms separately on a large scale, and the sword and shield soldiers and archers directly under him still maintain the size of one team each.

This is not to say that the cold weapon troops will no longer be expanded in the new army of the Tang Dynasty, but because Li Xuan will organize the traditional cold weapon troops such as sword and shield soldiers and archers into garrison battalions on a large scale.

However, considering that a large number of Ming troops have been captured in the last two battles, the new army of the Tang Dynasty will inevitably form garrison battalions based on these prisoners, and these garrison battalions will also be cold weapon troops at that time, and they will naturally be mainly spearmen, sword and shield soldiers, and archers.

According to the prediction of the veteran of the Tang New Army, Uncle Bai Yunqi, they will be able to select about 1,000 qualified garrison soldiers from the captured Ming army of about 4,000 people, and the rest will be thrown to those workshops under the Ministry of Industry, and if they can't be arranged, they will be allowed to farm.

The 1,000 people selected were basically recruited by Song Zhiwen before, and these people had good physical fitness and had undergone some military training, so they could not be wasted.

These 1,000 people, plus the soldiers in the previous first garrison battalion, can just be organized into two expanded garrison battalions.

The establishment of the garrison battalion was expanded, but it was not the same as the main battalion, because they were completely cold weapon troops, and the soldiers were mainly from prisoners, so Li Xuan did not strictly stipulate the proportion of each branch of the garrison battalion, and did not require how many sword and shield soldiers must be used, and how many spearmen and archers must be used, only a limit of 700 people per battalion was given.

Ten infantry battalions, two garrison battalions, an artillery battalion, a baggage battalion, a cavalry battalion, a sword and shield corps, and an archery corps, if all of these units were to be expanded, would have a total strength of more than 10,000 men.

This does not include civilian soldiers in the Privy Council, nor does it include civilian men who have been temporarily conscripted, but only refers to combat units that can be pulled out to fight.

And this is not the armed force of the entire Tang Dynasty, because the Tang Dynasty also has an armed force similar to the armed police of the robbery camp, which is not only used to maintain law and order, but also barely able to undertake some low-intensity combat missions at critical times.

At present, Datang plans to allocate a thief hunting camp in each county, each battalion is 500 people, and the three battalions will have 1,500 people.

In this way, the total strength of the entire Datang military force will reach nearly 12,000 people.

And to maintain a professional army of 12,000 people for a long time, to be honest, it is impossible to rely on one Xingquan Mansion alone, not only is there no money and food, but even soldiers cannot be found.

The entire Xingquan Mansion has a population of only more than 300,000, and if you want to gather enough tens of thousands of troops, you have to choose one person from 30 people to serve as a soldier, which is almost impossible.

Because the Datang New Army is still only recruiting, not every poor child is willing to come to be a soldier, and not everyone wants to be a soldier in the Datang New Army.

The reason why the previous Tang New Army was able to maintain such a large scale was that the entire Zhengtai County was completely squeezed, and many Tang Army soldiers were not recruited, some of them were originally bandits, and some were prisoners of the Ming army, and the soldiers who were really recruited from the people were actually about 2,000 people.

Now that the Datang New Army wants to recruit more than 5,000 qualified recruits at once, the difficulty can be said to be quite large!

In order to solve the problem of soldiers, Li Xuan once again increased the conditions for recruiting new soldiers, increased the amount of settling-in allowance, and at the same time prepared to officially pay soldiers.

Because in order to attract those who knew the characters themselves to join the army or become officials, Li Xuan no longer insisted on the tradition of the Tang Dynasty not to issue Yulu a few months ago, but indicated that the price code issued Yulu, but at that time, Yulu was in vain, not silver, but grain, cloth and other physical goods as a replacement.

Because at that time, all the silver was used to buy various strategic materials.

But in any case, since officials and officers have begun to distribute all kinds of in-kind salaries, it is natural that the salaries of soldiers cannot be delayed forever, even if they are less.

For this reason, Li Xuan asked the Ministry of War to formulate a salary system for the army according to today's prices and the Tang Dynasty's own financial resources.

Because the core of the Datang New Army to attract soldiers is not a few cents of silver a month, but to manage saturation and divide the fields!

Let a soldier eat openly, this monthly cost is not small, if the food is converted into silver, then the salary of the soldiers of the Tang New Army is definitely higher than that of the Ming army.

Not to mention that there are also fields that are distributed for free!

But the Ministry of Taxation said to Li Xuan with a bitter face, even if the salary is not paid now, the Ministry of Taxation will not be able to take out enough food or silver to maintain the army, and if the cost of food is included, in fact, the cost of raising one soldier in the new army of the Tang Dynasty is enough for the Ming army to raise three soldiers.

If the money is also distributed, it has not been given out in this day.

Li Xuan also wondered for a long time, and finally dispelled the idea of paying salaries, no way, the food standard cannot be lowered, otherwise the soldiers will not have enough physical fitness, he doesn't want the kind of soldiers in the Ming army who are tired after running a few hundred meters.

Since the food standard is high, this salary is naturally gone, but there is no salary, but the soldier's pocket money and expenses for the family still have to be given a little, not much, each lowest-level soldier to give five cents of silver is enough, no matter how much the Tang Tax Department can't take out so much silver.

It sounds like this is very little, the Qi family army is stingy enough, and ten taels of silver will be issued a year, and the new army of the Tang Dynasty is even more stingy than the Qi family army.

However, the Qi family army relied on high rewards to motivate morale, while the Datang New Army relied on high-standard food and the distribution of heaven and earth to motivate morale.

Although the two methods are different, the results pursued are similar.

Recruiting new soldiers, planning new formations, and preparing for the construction of new infantry battalions, although these tasks do not need to be handled by Li Xuan personally, but as the emperor of the Tang Dynasty and the supreme commander of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, it is actually not easy for him to go there.

After arranging these tasks one by one, Li Xuan was still not idle, because he had to consider the establishment of a higher-level command structure so that the new army of the Tang Dynasty could fight effectively after completing the expansion.

In the future, it is absolutely impossible for him to personally command more than a dozen battalions to fight, and in order for this army to display its combat effectiveness, it is necessary to have several generals who command a unit separately.