"That's right, from the strength of a garrison battalion in each county town to the strength of a garrison regiment in each prefecture, a prefecture has several county seats, some prefectures have a dozen, more than 20 county seats, so that the expenditure of the garrison troops is also huge, and as the war gradually goes away, the military expenditure is too large for the development of the good, this proposal can be, let each prefecture have soldiers available, if a prefecture has a big rebellion, The troops of the neighboring provinces and the field brigades stationed nearby can quickly reinforce and extinguish the enemy's rebellion through our well-connected roads. ”

Wei Wuji continued Zhang Qiang's words and said: "I have calculated, a state has about a dozen prefectures, and some only have five or six large prefectures, and a prefecture with many prefectures and cities can reduce the strength of the garrison regiment, a prefecture with 1,500 people, and a large prefecture with 3,300 people per regiment, each prefecture has a garrison headquarters, a continent can have two to three garrison brigades, and a small continent can have a garrison brigade, plus one or two garrison regiments.

After this distribution, our garrison battalions can all be disbanded, upgraded to garrison regiments, garrison brigades, and garrison headquarters, and the total strength of the garrison headquarters may reach the size of a division, or it may slightly exceed the size of a division. ”

"We now have Zhejiang, Suzhou, Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guangzhou, Hubei, Henan, Jiangxi, Shandong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Baodao, Yunnan, Qiongzhou, a total of fifteen states, each state 15,000 soldiers or 23,000 to 5,000 soldiers, the total strength of the garrison will have about 220,000 to 300,000 troops, compared with the previous expansion of the garrison force, from 100,000 to 600,000 today, a reduction of about half to more than half of the strength, It is possible to save at least half of military spending. ”

Zhang Qiang was very satisfied with Wei Wuji's idea, and he said to Wei Wuji: "I can reduce half of the army and half of the military expenditure, I think it's okay, this is passed, you can adjust it, but this seems to need to be adjusted by the Cabinet and the Ministry of War, you just give them a document to convey your intentions to them, and let Li Guo be responsible." ”

"Okay, let's talk about the adjustment of the field brigade: I think the field brigade is now too manpower, and in the future, we will fight in the situation of the corps, and a corps will be responsible for one direction, and the General Staff will summarize all the war situations in this direction, troop strength, material mobilization, road conditions, who the enemy is, and the enemy's troop movement and material situation will be summarized and handed over to a special staff group to be responsible, and then the staff group will report to the chief of the General Staff, and the chief of the General Staff will report to the Ministry of Defense for approval. The Ministry of Defence will present the situation to the Cabinet and to His Majesty the King, and after receiving the decree, begin preparations and begin to launch an operational offensive according to the plan, the specific combat operations to be decided by the Admiral of the Corps in charge. Wei Wuji reported to Zhang Qiang.

Zhang Qiang listened and nodded, thinking that this kind of combat method is more and more like the combat mode of the army in later generations, and the general staff will formulate the battle plan, and the Ministry of Defense will approve the battle plan, and the Ministry of Defense needs to accept the decision of the cabinet and the emperor or the supreme leader of a country to deal with various political factors that may arise.

This may limit the authority of the combat generals and the play of various capabilities, but a country always has the overall situation to look forward to, there are always some balancing factors to consider, high-level people always have all kinds of concerns, the bigger the ship, the more difficult it is to turn around, Huaxia has nearly half of the land of the later generations, these lands are almost the total land area of the previous Song Dynasty, maybe slightly larger, or about the same.

At present, Yunnan Prefecture is actually not considered the land area, because it is the advance base of the Southeast Asian campaign that is being conquered and operated, and it belongs to the war zone.

Yungui and Sishan Prefecture were actually counted as the territory of the Ming Dynasty before, but in fact they were occupied and divided by the Tusi, the Ming Dynasty did not actually occupy it before the previous dynasties, and the contribution to the entire kingdom was not large, although there were many Han people, but the successive dynastic changes were killed, and then the new court immigrated, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, whether it was the Qing Dynasty or Zhang Xianzhong did it, in short, the Han people in Sishan Prefecture are actually not very many, and there are more Han troops in Sishan Prefecture, as well as the Tusi who have been hit hard, and those autonomous Ming Dynasty remnants.

Wei Wuji didn't care what Zhang Qiang thought, and continued to report: "My idea is this, the country is divided into eighteen field brigades, all of which have been upgraded to Class A field brigades, and the strength of the upgraded brigades is 18,000 people per brigade, divided into four field regiments, one artillery regiment directly under the brigade headquarters, one cavalry regiment directly under the brigade headquarters, plus the troops directly under the brigade headquarters and the brigade headquarters, the total strength reaches 18,000 troops. ”

Zhang Qiang felt incredible when he heard that he had increased the strength of the brigade, in this case, it would be better to divide it into a division, and named after the division, the brigade was no longer suitable for accommodating troops of such strength.

But he didn't interrupt Wei Wuji's report, and continued to listen, "Eighteen brigades form six corps, except for the current Xiao Fei Corps, Xuanyuan Longfei Corps, Feng Wuyu Corps, Jinqi Corps, plus the Baghyalu Corps, Ma Sanli Corps, two corps, the total strength is 320,000 troops, if you add fifteen militia elite brigades, it is 47 troops, plus about 330,000 troops of the garrison troops, then the total number of troops in the country is 800,000 troops...... ”

Zhang Qiang frowned, 800,000 troops, it costs a lot of money to raise these 800,000 troops, "Can you reduce it a little more?" ”

Zhang Qiang interjected and asked, Wei Wuji shook his head, "Your Majesty, this has been calculated by me to be the most suitable for the current situation of the army, now that our small countries in Southeast Asia have not taken it, where are there still many militia troops in the account book, the total strength is also 200,000 troops, although it is on the account book, the expenditure is not much, but the food, materials, guns and ammunition, and the military expenditure they need to ensure their needs is an astronomical amount."

In addition, we also have eight ordinary militia units, five elite militia brigades, and quite a few garrison battalions and garrison regiments, so that the total strength is actually more than 500,000, of course, these 500,000 are the strength of several field brigades transferred, and it can be said that the establishment of these calculations has not been added to the establishment of these 500,000 troops. Perhaps where else will it be necessary to maintain at least 200,000 troops in the future.

There are also Sishan Prefecture, Yunnan Guizhou, and Kangding Prefecture, and other places we have not yet beaten down, the main combat direction of our main force is now to the north, to the north, and it is necessary to recover Shaanxi, Gansu, Shanxi, Hebei, and Beizhili Prefecture (that is, the general name of the Qing army in Northeast Liaodong and other places,), there is a long way to go, the strength I calculated is at least 1.5 million, of course, we can also learn from now, when the rear is stable, the troops will be transferred away, and then repeatedly pushed forward, but the rear must always leave some field brigades to garrison, As the garrison expands its territory, it will add a lot of troops, as the new occupied areas will need to be guarded by troops. ”

Zhang Qiang frowned and asked, "Do you mean that after the adjustment now, our troops need to be increased instead of decreasing, especially the garrison?" ”

Wei Wuji said helplessly: "Yes, Your Majesty, that's what I think. ”

(End of chapter)