For a few days, the family ate American food every day. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Steamed corn in the morning, mashed potatoes at noon, baked sweet potatoes in the evening, no jade noodles, corn tortillas, fried small potatoes. Li Chao suddenly felt a little disgusted, but the women in the family were all beautiful.

The American cuisine in the Li family's greenhouse even made Li Shimin worry about it. Every morning, there will be attendants in the palace to come over, and all kinds of vegetables will be picked in several large baskets.

The vegetables in several greenhouses at home grow well, and they produce a lot every day, and Cui Yingying also sends favors everywhere. Every day, I happily visit relatives and friends, this family sends corn, that family sends potatoes, and then sends some green peppers, pumpkins and so on.

When the wealthy nobles of Hanjing meet now, they are not boasting that their families have bought a few luxury carriages, or buying sweaty BMWs or something, but boasting about the American food they ate today.

Morning.

Li Chao grabbed a corn cob and went out.

The parliament was almost over, and after the group deliberations, the progress was very rapid, and more than 10,000 bills were quickly screened through layers of screens, and finally more than 100 excellent bills were selected, which were presented to the emperor and the three houses in the name of the House of Lords, and handed over to them for discussion.

So far, the House has only gone so far, but it's a good progress. This is like when the imperial examination system first came out, isn't it also more symbolic than practical.

What's more, these bills taken out by the House this time are indeed very good, and it is impossible for the prime ministers of the court to ignore them.

Once these bills are put to the Imperial Council of the Prime Ministers and discussed, it will be a very good result.

Li Chao drew lots to be selected as the head of the Shaanxi Provincial delegation, and he was also the leader of a young lady in the following ten groups. Sitting in the No. 1 conference room of the Shaanxi Hall of the House of Representatives, I listened to the deliberations of the morning.

The working meal eaten at the council at noon was a buffet, and there were even several new dishes made of American dishes such as mashed potatoes and corn stewed pork ribs on the table, which attracted a group of noble parliamentarians to like it very much.

In the afternoon, Li Chao, Qin Qiong and other high-ranking nobles went to the imperial court's ordnance supervisor.

The ordnance supervisor is the department in charge of weapons and equipment manufacturing in the imperial court, the Weiwei Temple is the weapons storage department, and the military department is the higher-level administrative department of weapons.

Under the Ordnance Superintendent, it is divided into bureaus.

Such as armor bureau, sword bureau, spear bureau, bow bureau, crossbow bureau and so on. In addition, there is a firearms superintendent, under which there is a Musket Bureau, an Artillery Bureau, a Gunpowder Bureau, etc.

Datang has an army of 800,000 people, and the production level of weapons and equipment is very high, and the production capacity is also very strong.

Xu Jingzong, the supervisor of the Ordnance Prison, is also Li Chao's old subordinate, and this year he was implicated by Li Chao, was demoted from Wei Weiqing, and returned to the Ordnance Superintendent.

The old boss came, and Xu Jingzong came to meet him in person.

"What is the current state of the imperial court's equipment reserves?" Li Chao asked, there will be a big war next year, and the imperial court has also set a strategy to continue to expand externally, so that the vassals and nobles can be armed, which is also the resolution of the imperial court.

"We now have a very developed military manufacturing system." Xu Jingzong patted his chest and said, with important materials such as steel provided by the Li family, especially some advanced technologies such as hydraulic forging hammers, the ordnance manufacturing is indeed very fast.

However, it was not an easy task to supply the nobles with weapons in large quantities.

According to the number of soldiers given to the nobles by the imperial court, the lowest sons and men had 1,000 soldiers, 2,000 Hou Bo, 3,000 county dukes, 5,000 national dukes, 8,000 county kings, and 10,000 kings.

If this amount is really followed, then the Tang Dynasty has thousands of real nobles, and I don't know how many millions of soldiers will be served.

In fact, although the imperial court gave a quota, few nobles could maintain so many soldiers.

One is short of people, and the other is short of money.

In particular, the equipment is stuck in the hands of the imperial court, and the price of the equipment sold by the imperial court to the nobles is very expensive, ridiculously expensive.

Most of the nobles now actually have very few troops.

Some barons have dozens or even hundreds of miles of fiefdoms and a thousand soldiers. But many of the lords in the baron's fiefdom are not thousands, how can it be a thousand soldiers. Therefore, the method of dividing the territorial knights is adopted, and there may be one or twenty territorial knights in a total of barons.

Each knight of the realm had fifty militiamen, and there were a thousand militiamen.

Usually, the baron also has some other family members under him.

There is only a wealthy family like the Li family, who is rich and rich. The Li family occupies an excellent Dawan Valley in the Western Regions, with a territory of 600 miles, seven earls, and 2,000 troops each.

Each Earl's castle had five hundred permanent homekeepers, and there were forty or fifty knights of the realm below, with two militias.

Li Chao is actually fully capable of producing ordnance and armor by himself, but the imperial court has strict control in this area, and whoever dares to cross the line will inevitably anger Li Shimin.

Li Chao also had to come to the Ordnance Supervision to purchase equipment, and the equipment was limited by the upper limit of the number of soldiers, but this time Li Shimin added another one, and the lords would give as many equipment as they had.

This soldier refers to those recruited soldiers, and the militia does not count. Militia equipment is also sold, but only some light weapons and equipment can be sold, and it is impossible to sell any swords, horse lances, heavy crossbows, and artillery.

The militia is not counted as soldiers, but the recruited mercenaries are counted as soldiers, and Li Shimin's rule still puts a lot of pressure on the lords. In this way, the militia with the lowest cost is limited by equipment, and its combat effectiveness is bound to be low.

Although mercenaries can purchase ordnance, the cost of raising a professional mercenary and a militia is very different. A baron, the court really gives a thousand soldiers, but how many can really raise a thousand? It's not easy to raise a hundred mercenaries.

Li Chao is not short of money, but he is also short of people.

Dawan is too far away, and it is not easy to recruit the lords, let alone recruit a large number of soldiers.

The Li family now has more than 20 titles, and if the number of soldiers is full, each territory can raise tens of thousands of troops, and at the current price of the imperial court's ordnance and equipment, it is simply a black heart.

If Li Chao really buys tens of thousands of equipment according to the regular army structure, he can make the Li family hemorrhage, and at least tens of millions of yuan will be spent on the military.

In order to maintain such a mercenary army of tens of thousands of people, the average military expenditure for a soldier is at least 50 per soldier a year, and 1 or 2 million a year.

This can be regarded as a conspiracy of the imperial court, and you can't afford to give you soldiers.

The cost of the militia is cheap, but the imperial court does not give you good equipment. In addition, the imperial court also has clear regulations that the militia is not recruited for free, and the leaders who recruit the militia for training and fighting have to pay the militiamen's salaries, and even give the imperial court an extra sum of money. This is calculated on a per capita basis, which is equivalent to the rent paid by the lord to the imperial court, which is quite a cheat.

"How many ordnance is King Zhao going to order?" Xu Jingzong asked with a smile.

My Zhao Guoling ordered 10,000 sets of territorial guard equipment, plus another 10,000 sets of militia equipment. Luo Guo received 5,000 sets of guard equipment and 5,000 sets of militia equipment. The Seven Earls of Dawan Valley, 14,000 sets of territorial guard equipment, plus 14,000 sets of militia equipment. In addition, my eldest man is the county prince, the second lang and the third lang and the eleven lang are the county princes, and the four of them have three thousand soldiers each, adding up to 12,000. The other sons are still young, although they have fiefs, but now they can't be vassals anyway, and the fiefs are safe, so they only need a thousand sets for each person for the time being. ”

Xu Jingzong was stunned.

Qin Qiong and a group of nobles were stunned.

The ordnance officials were stunned.

Joke?

Li Chao now has twenty-one sons, and he also has a father and five brothers. In this way, the Li family now has twenty-eight titles, even if they are only a few years old, they also hold the title of baron, and there are as many as a dozen Hou Uncles.

There is also a prince and a duke, a county duke and four county dukes.

Six marquises, ten counts, plus two viscounts and three barons.

All combined, these titles of the Li family have 67,000 soldiers.

Now Li Chao has a few words, which means, bring me 67,000 sets of military equipment and 67,000 sets of militia equipment.

With this amount, how could Xu Jingzong not be dumbfounded.

He sneered a few times, "King Zhao, Your Majesty has an order, the vassals can purchase armaments according to the number of soldiers, and they can also purchase the same amount of militia equipment, but they must purchase according to the actual number of soldiers they have. ”

Li Chao wants to purchase 134,000 sets of equipment at once, even if half of them are militia light weapons and equipment, but only 67,000 sets of regular army equipment can scare the imperial court.

What is Li Chao going to do?

More than 60,000 sets of equipment, do you want to rebel?

Li Chao smiled slightly.

"Just kidding, although the Li family has so many titles and soldiers, how can they recruit so many soldiers. I can't afford to raise it even if I recruit it, and besides, this ordnance and equipment is so expensive, more than 60,000 sets, I can't afford it. ”

Everyone laughed together, feeling relieved, but also disdainful in their hearts, you Li Chao can't afford to buy 60,000 sets of equipment? You can afford to buy 600,000 sets, who doesn't know that you have half of the sky in the Li family.

"Well, 15,000 sets of equipment for the regular army and 15,000 for the militia."

The Li family has so much territory, and 15,000 sets of regular uniforms and 15,000 sets of militia uniforms are not much.

If the militia is well equipped, one spear per person, a bow per person, and two sets of militia uniforms per person, it is almost the same. If the lords have money, they can also equip the militia with some more shields, or buy some war horses to form a militia cavalry team or something.

The regular army is different, there are infantry and cavalry formations, and the lord can buy equipment except for hoplites and hoplites.

War horses, iron armor, leather armor, bows, crossbows, spears, horizontal knives, tents, horses, carts, etc., complete sets of equipment are very expensive.

"1,000 sets of half-body plate armor, 10,000 sets of armor, and 5,000 sets of leather armor."

"Twenty thousand bows."

"Five more crossbows."

"Musket, give me five thousand."

Xu Jingzong felt that his forehead was already sweating.

"King Zhao, I'm afraid that this matter still needs to be asked to His Majesty."

"Naturally, this king is waiting for your reply."

On the same day, Xu Jingzong handed it over, and Li Shimin personally summoned Xu Jingzong.

After listening to Xu Jingzong's detailed performance, Li Shimin pondered.

Li Chao opened his mouth to ask for so many weapons, will he give it or not?

"Come on, summon Li Chao into the palace!"