As the First Cavalry Brigade of the Datang Army with independent combat capability and establishment, it is naturally different from the other cavalry detachments existing in the Datang Army, because the other cavalry detachments are actually temporary formations of cavalry regiments in various infantry divisions, and they are not fixed.

When counting the strength of the Tang Army, you can count the First Cavalry Brigade, but you can't count those cavalry detachments, because those cavalry belong to each infantry division, and it will be repeated if you count them separately.

In addition, there are now eighteen heavy howitzer battalions, a number of independent garrison battalions, regiments, and a number of independent baggage and engineer battalions to accompany the main infantry divisions and mixed regiments to fight, if you add command organs at all levels, the Privy Council, and other personnel.

The total strength of the main forces on the front line is about 300,000 people!

In addition to the main force on the front line, the Datang Army also has more than 30 reserve divisions, each reserve division has different numbers, some are less than five or six thousand people, while others can reach more than 10,000 people.

But one thing is certain, and that is that all the preparers are not satisfied!

There are more than 30 reserve divisions, all of which add up to about 200,000 troops.

In other words, the total strength of the current Datang Army should actually be said to be 500,000 people!

However, those reserve divisions with more than 200,000 men are all used to suppress the reserve forces in various localities, and although the expenses are very low, and the cost of equipment is even lower, the combat effectiveness is not good.

After all, the total cost of these reserve divisions with a total of more than 200,000 people is only more than 5 million taels of silver per year, and on average, the annual military expenditure per 10,000 people is more than 400,000 taels of silver, which is only half of the main force on the front line.

You get what you pay for, and the reserve forces that spend less money will naturally not be good at their combat effectiveness, and on weekdays, they will suppress ordinary rebellions and defend a city or something.

In the case of a head-to-head duel, even the superintendent can't do it, the Tang Army in Xiangyang has more than 10,000 people, but there are only about 2,000 regular troops, and the remaining nearly 10,000 people are reserve divisions, but the Ming army defending Xiangyang only has more than 10,000 superintendents.

With the equal strength of the two sides, if the reserve division could beat the superintendent bid, they would have taken Xiangyang a long time ago, so why wait until now.

To fight with the enemy's main forces, you have to rely on the main forces on the front line, and the current reserve divisions are not enough.

However, the front-line main forces of the Datang Army, except for the Sixth Army, are almost all deployed on the front line, and it is difficult to deploy, let alone run around as a mobile force.

The First Army was preparing to enter Sichuan in the western part of Huxi, and the Second Army was in the northern part of Huguangxi and was currently advancing in the direction of Xiangyang; The Third Army was in Hebei and northern Shanxi, against the Tatars and the Ming army in Liaodong; The Fourth Army was in Shaanxi, confronting the Tatars, Warats, and the Western Regions; The Fifth Army, together with the First Army, was in the west of Huxi, preparing to enter Sichuan; The Sixth Army was deployed in Zhili Sidao.

There were six armies in total, and it was all over in one place.

In addition to these six armies, the Tang Army also has an infantry division that fights independently, which is the Fourth Infantry Division that has been in Yunnan and southeastern Sichuan for a long time.

However, if the Fourth Infantry Division had not struggled in the quagmire of the southwest, Guangxi and Guizhou would not have been able to guarantee their safety.

As for the three mixed regiments that fought independently, they were deployed in various strategic points in several southern provinces and served as the core strategic support force in the localities, and at the same time they were also the main forces of local border defense and coastal defense.

The second mixed regiment, deployed in the Pearl River Delta, shoulders the heavy responsibility of defending the Pearl River Delta and guarding the strategic city of Guangzhou.

The Eighth Mixed Regiment is mainly deployed in Lianzhou Prefecture and Guangxi near the border with Annan to defend the Beibu Gulf.

The sixth mixed regiment is deployed in the western part of Guizhou, and it is playing with the Sichuan Governor on the opposite side.

As for the mixed regiment above the 11th mixed regiment, it has already been reorganized into a reserve division.

So judging from the surface figures, in fact, the Tang Dynasty has a lot of troops, not counting the Guards and the Navy, the army alone has more than 500,000 troops, but the Tang Army is facing many threats such as the Liaodong Huiwang Ming Army, the Tatars, the Warats, the Western Regions, and the Southwest Jingwang Ming Army, which is really not enough.

The deployment of troops is all about moving the whole body, and it is very difficult to draw a large number of troops to fight in a certain direction!

But there is no way to not use it enough, and now these troops are already making Datang's finances feel unsupportable, and the army military expenditure of more than 20 million a year cannot be maintained for long.

Although the army still received 26 million taels of silver from the military budget for the seven-year period of Xuanping, it should be noted that the budget for the seven-year period of Xuanping reached 65 million taels of silver, which was more than the six years of Xuanping.

This year's fiscal revenue has increased, but there has been no corresponding increase in military spending, and this shows that the proportion of military expenditure in fiscal expenditure has dropped by a large margin.

And anyone with a discerning eye knows that this decline will continue!

Now the generals of the army have begun to take precautions and prepare for the hard days of this year and even next year.

Disarmament? This is impossible, the Tang Dynasty is so big, there are only 300,000 main forces and more than 200,000 reserve troops, which is already very reluctant, and disarmament is unimaginable.

How can we save military spending without disarmament?

On the one hand, it is necessary to carry out personnel adjustments, such as turning too many chaotic civilian and auxiliary soldiers into backbone combat soldiers, and there is already a call within the army to increase the proportion of non-commissioned officers in the army.

If officers are the main stream of the army, then non-commissioned officers are many tributaries, and soldiers are countless streams.

If the proportion of non-commissioned officers is high enough, then in case of emergency, it will be much easier to expand the army, and directly stuff the recruits who have been trained for three months into it, with a certain proportion of non-commissioned officers, then it will be a completely new army.

As for the officers, there is no need to worry about this, because the officers at all levels of the Tang Dynasty Division basically have deputy positions.

There are such posts as deputy division commander, deputy chief of staff, deputy regimental commander, deputy regimental chief of staff, deputy battalion commander, and deputy captain.

Moreover, officers at all levels are still familiar with each other, and even the process of honing is saved!

Now, the army also wants to expand the scale of non-commissioned officers, so that when a large-scale war and mobilization is needed, it can directly pull out the deputy position to be another set of non-commissioned officer teams, just like the officers.

Li Xuan also gave a supportive attitude towards this, but he also cautiously proposed that if the proportion of non-commissioned officers is increased, the salary expenses of the existing troops will definitely increase, because the salaries of non-commissioned officers are relatively high, how to maintain the scale of the existing troops, and if the overall salary expenditure does not change much, increase the proportion of non-commissioned officers, your army must figure out its own way, anyway, I will not give military expenses.

The army said that there is no problem at all, who said that non-commissioned officers should be paid high salaries!

The war of domestic reunification is almost over, and many soldiers who served in the early years and have reached the end of their service have expressed their reluctance to retire and want to continue to stay in the army, and even said that they would rather have a slightly lower salary and continue to stay.

The salary of the army has always been relatively high, and even if the salary is voluntarily reduced, it is much better than farming in the hometown!

In the end, the army came up with a solution, the plan is very simple, increase the rank of non-commissioned officers, in the past there were only three ranks: sergeant, sergeant, and corporal, and now, add two ranks: sergeant and sergeant major.

And the existing three levels of non-commissioned officers, the whole is directly adjusted, and the original sergeant becomes a sergeant major!

The vacant corporals and sergeants were re-recruited from the soldiers whose service had expired, and the existing salary standards for corporals, sergeants, and sergeants were appropriately adjusted.

And the salary level of the corporal is only slightly higher than that of the first class!

After this operation, a considerable number of low-level non-commissioned officers can be added, and the salary expenditure will not be much higher than that of ordinary soldiers in the past!

In addition, an even more important point is to make the troops stationed in the garrison areas self-reliant, especially the reserve division troops stationed in the rear, so that they can reclaim their own land and raise pigs and chickens and ducks.

However, in order to avoid evolving into the local guard posts of the former Ming Dynasty, the soldiers in these reserve divisions will also be mobile, and they will retire at the end of their service, and the land will not be directly distributed to the soldiers.

Farming and breeding is just to solve part of the demand for military rations!

In order to ensure the subsequent hardships, the army has already prepared a number of means, with reclamation and breeding being the key point, and replacing a large number of civilian and auxiliary units with combat arms is secondary.

At the same time, the proportion of junior non-commissioned officers will be increased with the use of deputy officers to maintain the ability to urgently mobilize and expand the army!

Of course, what is more important is that after the end of the reunification war, if there is no war, the cost of this war will also decline rapidly, and the follow-up support will mainly be maintenance costs, not as it is now, any battle can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of military spending.

Military spending has not increased with the increase in finance, so it is a disguised reduction in military spending, which is very stressful for the military, which has to support so many troops, and at the same time maintain the war in some directions, and also want to expand some forces.

At the end of last year, when finalizing the seven-year budget for Xuanping, Li Xuan had already made it very clear that the army's military expenditure for the seven-year period of Xuanping was only 26 million, and there would be no additional expenditure in the name of temporary war expenses in the future.

That's all there is to it, how to live these days, your army will figure it out by yourself!

Under this big backdrop, when the Southwest Campaign had not yet ended, the army transferred 2,000 men from various units of the Sixth Army like squeezing toothpaste, and then transferred some guns, ammunition and other supplies to prepare to reinforce Port Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula!

At the same time, in Port Arthur, several army officers of the Tang Dynasty were circulating a document, and everyone frowned after reading it!