Since the Xingtian Army defeated tens of thousands of officers and soldiers after the year and stopped the large-scale expansion action, all the war battalions have carried out a long period of rest and replenishment and training, taking advantage of this opportunity to replenish the soldiers, and the temporary formation of the fourth battalion of soldiers has also been determined, Liu Bao temporarily served as the commander of the fourth battalion, so that the Xingtian Army war battalion has reached the state of four battalions, as for the new barracks, at this time, a relatively complete township soldier system has been formed in the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army, It was enough to provide sufficient reserves for the Xingtian Army, so there was no longer much need to continue to keep it.

In terms of weapons and equipment, not to mention, arquebuses have been continuously produced and equipped to the army, and the four battalions have basically reached more than half of the arquebuses in the army in July, making the combat effectiveness of the Xingtian Army's combat battalions reach a higher level, each battalion has 700 birds, as long as it fires, it is a large area, and in several skirmishes with the surrounding officers and soldiers, the officers and soldiers have never fought a decent battle in the face of the fierce firepower of the Xingtian Army, They are often defeated at the first touch, so that the officials and troops in the prefecture capitals and counties around Shanxi dare not touch the Heavenly Army again.

And the quality of the bird gun after a long time of production, the assembly line operation also makes the craftsmen who specialize in the production of accessories more skilled, and now the bird gun is much more powerful and quality than the original production of the bird gun, Xiao Tianjian deliberately took out a few Lu Mi guns they seized from Xu Dingguo and compared them with the self-produced arquebus, and found that the heavy bird gun of the Xingtian Army is only higher than the most advanced Lu Mi gun that the official army is now equipped with. And it's basically the same in weight.,There's one more bayonet than the Lumi Gun.,In addition to having the ability to attack from a distance.,It also adds a melee function.。

This is nothing, the use of the iron fan cannon casting process has greatly improved the casting speed of the Xingtian Army, and the quality of the cast iron cannons has gradually improved a lot, and the quantity has met the needs of the Xingtian Army.

In addition to the three-pounder and six-pounder field guns, Gao Su also began to trial produce eight-pounder guns, so that as long as the eight-pounder cannon is successfully trial-produced and equipped with the Xingtian Army, the field combat and offensive capabilities of the Xingtian Army will go up to a higher level, and ordinary county towns or Zhuangbao are facing the bombardment of the eight-pounder cannon, which is already difficult to parry.

In terms of artillery shells, Gao Su and Gao Cheng did not live up to Xiao Tianjian's expectations, in addition to producing solid bullets and grape bullets with quite precise casting, the two of them at the end of June of the ninth year of Chongzhen, using a few newly recruited craftsmen from the north, finally made a usable flowering bullet, and passed the test firing test.

This kind of flowering bullet is actually a hollow iron ball, there is a raised hole on it, after the gunpowder is filled inside, the hole is plugged with a hollow wooden stopper, and the small hole is then loaded with slow-burning gunpowder, so that it can be used, although the loading speed is slower, but the power is much higher than the ordinary solid bullet, but this thing is more dangerous to use, and the loading is also cumbersome, and the shell sometimes does not fire or explodes early, so it can not completely replace the use of ordinary solid bullets, However, for Xingtianjun, it is already good to be able to do this, and Xiao Tianjian personally ordered the production of this six-pounder flowering shell, which will be equipped for use in the artillery team in the future.

Only the flintlock pistol encountered some problems in the development, Yang Changshou and the craftsmen also tried to produce the flintlock pistol, this flintlock pistol is based on Xiao Tianjian's hand-drawn schematic diagram, through continuous improvement and groping to produce the impact flintlock pistol, the barrel is still the barrel of the heavy bird gun, but it is replaced with a new firing device, canceled the dragging fire rope, and can basically be used after the test, but there is a problem of too heavy trigger firing force and unstable quality of steel spring blade, high failure rate, It also affected the accuracy of shooting to a certain extent, and the firing rate was not as good as the firing rate of ordinary arquebuses.

However, for such a problem, it is also within Xiao Tianjian's expectations, for these craftsmen in China, the flintlock pistol is still a new thing after all, and the structure is much more complex than the arquebus, and the production of many parts and components requires a process to mature, it is impossible to achieve it overnight, and it is a little difficult to completely improve it in just a few months, with the current level of these craftsmen under him, it is still a little difficult.

Therefore, Xiao Tianjian was not very anxious, so Yang Changshou and other craftsmen continued to temporarily maintain the production of arquebuses, while gradually expanding the production of flintlock pistols, so as to speed up the technical maturity of flintlock pistol production, and also asked Yang Changshou to start producing short-barreled flintlock pistols on this basis, that is, as the saying goes, handguns, specially distributed to officers and cavalry equipment, so that the cavalry has the ability to fire once or twice before the enemy engages with the enemy, and enhance the firepower and combat effectiveness of the cavalry in close combat. Even he himself personally wore two flintlock pistols to promote the production and use of flintlock pistols in the Heavenly Army.

As for the construction of the army, after the war after the year, Xiao Tianjian only made the battalions replenish the soldiers, and did not expand for the time being, the current number of soldiers is already the limit of what he can bear, if he continues to expand the army, his military food problem will be more severe, and the financial system that has just reached the balance of revenue and expenditure will collapse, so at the moment he is not in a hurry to expand the army, but began to shift the focus of army building to the construction of the township army.

Originally, the system of the chief of the Xingtian Army was that each village set up a security chief, and each village set up a township army to maintain local law and order, and this method effectively improved the ability of each village to protect itself, but there was also a problem, that is, the troops were scattered and fought separately, and they could not exert greater combat effectiveness and could not play more roles.

Therefore, at the end of last year, Xiao Tianjian set up a chief security officer in some important areas, under the jurisdiction of several villages, and when necessary, the township troops in several villages could be gathered together to form a security battalion for use, so that the township troops could play a greater combat effectiveness and role.

After this method passed the test of the Great War after the year, the effect was quite good, which was equivalent to invisibly expanding the strength of the Xingtian Army a lot, and also completely liberating the war barracks from the local garrison affairs.

Therefore, this method began to be implemented in all parts of the Xingtian Army after the year, with the township as the unit, the area under the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army was divided into townships, and there was a township chief and a chief security chief, the township chief was a civil affairs officer under Fu Deming, who was responsible for presiding over the civil affairs of the township, and the chief security chief was an officer who was responsible for presiding over the military and political affairs of each township, completely separating the military administration and civil affairs, and each performing its own duties without interfering with each other, so that the efficiency of work could also be guaranteed.

In this way, the chief security officer will be able to assemble the township soldiers of a township when needed, and become a relatively large combat unit, so that in wartime he can become a self-contained unit and assume the responsibility of defending the territory of his own township.

As for the quality of the equipment of the township soldiers, after the war after the year, Xiao Tianjian distributed a large number of captured weapons to the township soldiers in the townships and villages, so that the quality of the equipment of the township soldiers has also been greatly improved, as for the training, the village security chiefs are required to make full use of it, and carry out basic training for the township soldiers in the way of training the Xingtian Army. In order to ensure that the local township soldiers can have considerable combat effectiveness, they can fully assume the auxiliary strength of the Xingtian Army's war barracks in wartime.

In this way, these township soldiers will serve the people in their spare time, and they will be soldiers in wartime, and they will basically achieve all the people in the jurisdiction, and these township soldiers do not need Xiao Tianjian to raise at all, and they also play a role in hiding soldiers in the people.

During this period, Xiao Tianjian personally went down to various localities to raid and inspect the training of the township soldiers, so as to supervise the building of the combat effectiveness of the township troops, so that the security chiefs in various localities did not dare to slack off, and set off an unprecedented upsurge of military training within the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army, thus ensuring the development of the local armed forces.

In addition, Xiao Tianjian, in the case of ensuring that the number of soldiers is not greatly expanded for the time being, still officially set up a water battalion of about 500 people in the ancient town based on Yang Kunshan's gang, which directly belongs to his personal management, and cooperates with Yan Chongxi's battalion to garrison Yuanqu County, this small-scale water battalion has since become a formal formation of the Xingtian Army, and the water battalion is not equipped with any warships for the time being, mainly with fishing boats as the main combat equipment, and they are also disguised as fishermen on the river in peacetime, acting on the Yellow River. He was responsible for plundering official ships and merchant ships on the Yellow River to obtain more supplies, monitoring the activities of the official ships of the inspection department on the river, and also being responsible for transporting fine crops to the south bank of the Yellow River.

In the past few months, Shuiying has done several major cases, and gradually it has also aroused the idea of the Henan government, and the inspection department of Fenglingdu upstream has to strengthen the patrol of the Yellow River on this line, so that the Shuiying and the government's ships have launched an open and covert struggle for control of this section of the Yellow River.

Originally, the Fan family and the Xingtian Army used to travel by land in Zezhou, Qinshui or Wenxi County, but since the New Year, the local government set up cards on the road to intercept them, and cut off the contacts between the Fan family and the Xingtian Army, so that the Fan family's freight did not enter the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army, and the iron of the Xingtian Army could not be transported, which made the Fan family really have a headache.

But when the Xingtian Army established the water camp, all these problems were solved, the Fan family simply began to give up on land and Xingtian Army exchanges, all changed to the Yellow River waterway and Xingtian Army trade, their ships from Fenglingdu, Pinglu County Wharf or Luoyang Wharf and other places, through the ancient town docks, drop off the goods, load the goods given to them by the Xingtian Army, and then transport them to other places, the Xingtian Army Water Camp will meet and escort them, although there is also a Yellow River Inspection Department in the Shaanzhou government, But at this time, the Inspection Department had no ability to block the Yellow River, let alone easily come to trouble the Xingtian Army, so even the government had no way to take them anymore.