In Zhaoqing, about twenty miles away from the city, in the garrison of the Third Garrison Brigade, Cai Erhu ushered in the second most important turning point in his life.

His first turning point in his life was that he decisively chose to surrender to the Tang Dynasty, thus becoming a general in the Tang Dynasty, which allowed him to get rid of his previous bandit identity and go out of the mountains to see the outside world.

Since then, like many bandit-born high-ranking generals in the Tang Dynasty, he has seen a wider world and come into contact with people and things that he could not get in touch with before.

In this process, most of the bandit-born generals are sinking!

Their previous knowledge and concepts limited their future path, and when the Tang Dynasty grew rapidly step by step, they could not keep up with the rapid expansion of the Tang Dynasty.

Most of the last part of the people are either hung high and unable to grasp real power, such as Huang Xueren and Fang Dongquan.

However, the other part of the people who were even worse were first arranged to carry out the baggage troops, then the second-line troops, finally the garrison troops, and finally the robbery camp.

At the beginning, the bandit officers of the Huangzhushan era, especially the officers who were born as bandit leaders at the beginning, have now been arranged to serve in the robbery camp, let alone stay in the regular army, even if they stay in the garrison.

There are actually very few people who can really keep up with the rapid development of the Tang Dynasty, strictly speaking, there is only Butcher Chen, and now Butcher Chen is doing a good job in the artillery unit.

In addition, Wang Danxu and Cai Erhu, although they also lack ability and poor learning ability, they have been persevering.

Wang Danxu is ambitious, but his ability is limited, and he has always wanted to stay in the main force to develop, but he is much worse than the brigade commander, so he has always served as the commander of the Fourth Infantry Regiment, and now he is defending the city in Xingquan Mansion.

Butcher Chen won't talk about it, although his current military rank is not high, he is only a lieutenant colonel, and he does not have many troops, only one of the First Artillery Battalion that is not under the formation.

But everyone knows that the reason why Butcher Chen was not promoted was only temporary, even if the Tang Dynasty did not have a more advanced artillery unit, after all, no one stipulated that an officer from an artillery background must command artillery, and he could also command a regiment or even a brigade.

At the same time, he was also able to be transferred to the Privy Council, and Xie Ziwei, the former commander of the First Artillery Battalion, was transferred to the Privy Council.

After the Battle of Wuzhou, Xie Ziwei was promoted to colonel, and now serves as the director of the Artillery Department of the Privy Council, presiding over the development and training of artillery.

In the future, as long as there are no accidents, Butcher Chen will be able to climb up steadily, unlike others, who also need all kinds of opportunities and military exploits.

Cai Erhu is much simpler and simpler, but this simplicity and simplicity are also shrewd, he has already gone to serve in the garrison army, because he has long known that he can't climb up in the main force at all, and he can't do it at all in the line combat of the modern army.

He is best at it, and the only thing he can do is to lead the soldiers from above to hand-to-hand combat, so instead of feeling down, he is quite happy to go to the garrison.

Under the leadership of his style of daring to fight and kill, the Third Garrison Brigade also slowly formed its own unique combat style, and finally stood out among a group of garrison troops in the Tang Dynasty, and finally made great contributions in the Battle of Wuzhou.

Even if the 3rd Garrison Brigade was only a cannon fodder unit at that time, it was not easy to become a successful cannon fodder unit.

After the Battle of Wuzhou, the Third Garrison Brigade ushered in a rare opportunity, first of all, to rest and replenish, this kind of rest and replenishment is not simply to replenish a little troops and equipment, but to give priority to supplementation, and the quality of the personnel and equipment to be replenished is much better than that of several other garrison units.

After arriving in Zhaoqing, Li Xuan successively strengthened the Third Garrison Brigade, and even arranged some auxiliary units one after another, and many people in these auxiliary units could see that after the Third Garrison Brigade was reorganized and strengthened this time, it was afraid that it would have independent combat capability.

There is no precedent among the many garrison brigades of the Tang Dynasty.

The garrison brigade of the Tang Dynasty did not have the ability to fight independently, and there were two lonely garrison regiments in a garrison brigade, and there were only five garrison battalions under the garrison regiment.

But there were no auxiliary units such as artillery, cavalry, and baggage.

Because in the Tang Army, the positioning of the garrison is to assist the main force in combat, and if it doesn't sound good, it is used as cannon fodder, and there is no need for these auxiliary troops at all, nor does they need to fight independently.

However, the Third Garrison Brigade was equipped with these auxiliary units in the reorganization and supplementation, although these auxiliary units were also garrison soldiers transferred from the surrendered soldiers of the Ming army, rather than regular army soldiers, but this was still the first time that they appeared.

After welcoming a group of dozens of cavalry yesterday, today is the arrival of the Chin Cha!

The young messenger sent by the Hanlin Academy read out the first holy decree in front of Cai Erhu and a group of senior generals of the Third Garrison Brigade, and the wording of the holy decree naturally made Cai Erhu look forced to listen to it.

But it doesn't matter if you don't understand, the Third Garrison Brigade also has literate officers, and his deputy, who is also his left arm and right arm, Lieutenant Colonel Sun Xiancheng, staff officer of the Third Garrison Brigade, explained in Cai Erhu's ear after reading out the holy decree from Qincha: "He also said that not only the auxiliary troops that were supplemented to our Third Garrison Brigade some time ago will be fixed under our Third Garrison Brigade in the future, but also give us another infantry battalion establishment."

Your Majesty also said that in the future, our Third Garrison Division will fight independently, and I hope that we can make greater contributions and not disappoint Your Majesty's high hopes! ”

"Add another infantry battalion and fight independently?" It is not surprising that the Third Garrison Brigade wants to fight independently, because if His Majesty does not let the Third Garrison Brigade fight independently, he will not allocate these auxiliary troops to the Third Garrison Brigade, but when he heard the word infantry battalion, Cai Erhu himself was a little surprised!

As one of the senior officers of the Tang Dynasty, he is naturally clear about the names of the various establishments in the Tang Dynasty, the same battalion, but the infantry battalion and the garrison battalion are two completely different things.

There are many battalions in the Tang Dynasty, such as infantry battalions, artillery battalions, cavalry battalions, baggage battalions, garrison battalions, reserve battalions, theft hunting battalions, engineer battalions, transport battalions, etc., and the infantry battalion generally refers to the infantry battalion in the regular army, which is generally equipped with muskets and spears, and the infantry battalion with line tactics as the core is the core combat power of the Tang Army.

How core?

There are only three such infantry battalions in an infantry regiment!

There are only six in one infantry brigade!

At present, even if the four armies are fully established, there are only six in each army, and the third army does not even have one, and the fourth army is now only five.

For example, in the entire Tang Army of Gini, there are a total of seventeen such infantry battalions, even if you add three of the Guards, there are only twenty.

It seems unlikely that such an infantry battalion will be assigned to the Third Garrison Brigade, and this is no longer a matter of emphasis, but a complete mismatch between combat methods and tactics.

The garrison army, even if it is the third garrison brigade after the reinforcement, although it has gotten rid of the fate of cannon fodder, it will still be a unit equipped with cold weapons and hand-to-hand combat as the main combat method, just like the Ming army.

The Ming army is also equipped with a lot of artillery, but they are still a very typical hand-to-hand combat army with cold weapons, and the combat mode is completely different from that of the modern army.

However, his chief of staff, Sun Xiancheng, quickly explained: "This kind of battalion is the previous reserve battalion!" ”

"If it's a reserve camp, that's reasonable!" Cai Erhu nodded slightly after hearing this.

Give him a regular infantry battalion, to be honest, he doesn't know how to use it, but the reserve battalion is much better, the reserve battalion is the cold weapon battalion in the regular army, although the soldiers and quality are stronger than the garrison, and the combat style is not the same as the garrison, but it is still a cold weapon unit, and he can still use it.

After all, at present, each garrison regiment itself has a regular army establishment, and each garrison regiment will have two teams of regular army troops of about 200 people, mainly spearmen, sword and shield bearers, and archers.

If the Third Garrison Brigade has one more regular infantry battalion equipped with cold weapons, then the strength is already rushing to nearly 10,000 people, and the next second holy decree did not cause too many accidents, this is the holy decree of promoting Cai Erhu to the rank of major general of the army.

When the Third Garrison Brigade was expanded, everyone guessed it, and Li Xuan did not hide it, he had already asked the Hanlin Academy, the Military Department and the Privy Council to prepare the relevant documents, Cai Erhu was about to be promoted to major general of the army, and it had already spread all over Zhaoqing.

Even Cai Erhu himself knew that he would be promoted in the past few days.

However, when he changed into a brand-new general's dress and took over the identity of a general, there were only five handles in the Tang Dynasty before, and now this handle in his hand is the sixth handle of the 'Imperial Gilded Command Knife';

is not the kind of nominal and boastful general in the past, but a general who really commands 10,000 troops!

And he is also the sixth general in the system of the Tang Dynasty!