After everything was normalized, Chen Yue began to train the army. Through discussions with Wang Yin, Yuan Keli and others, it was decided to fine-tune the Xishan Army. It is reorganized into two posts on the left and right, which are respectively headed by Yang Zhengping and Iron Lion. There are three hundred-member teams under each outpost, as well as a general flag directly under the thousand general commands, with a total of more than 600 people. Yang Ping's left post is headed by Chen Ping, Li Yi, and Xiao Bing, Xu Qingtian, Wang Meng, and Li Daozi as the chief flag officers. The right post of the iron lion was headed by Chen Mo, Jin Xin, and Lu Dayouwei, and more than 50 old subordinates when the iron lion joined the Xishan Army were also arranged in the right post. The two outposts on the left and right had a total of 1,200 troops, all of which were mainly chariot soldiers, with spears and firing arrays.

The basic structure of each post is a small flag, each small flag has 15 people, equipped with a chariot, 15 people have a small flag officer, two army commanders, and each is in charge of four soldiers. Among the fifteen men, in addition to the small flag officer, there were three musketeers, three sword and shield men, one crossbowmen, and three pikemen, one charioteer, and two artillerymen, who were responsible for firing the tiger squat cannon that crashed into the chariot, and finally a man. Of course, at the moment, there are few tiger squatting artillery in the army, and artillery only exists in name. Due to the previous wars, a large number of armor weapons and firearms were captured from the Manchu Tartar soldiers, and the equipment of this 1,500 army was still very complete, and the level was above most Ming troops. Officers above the small flag have armor, ordinary soldiers have half-body armor or leather armor, and the worst ones also have mandarin duck battle jackets.

Of the remaining 300 people, 100 cavalrymen with superb horsemanship were selected to collect cavalry at night, and the number of war horses captured in the past was more than 200, which was enough for one hundred cavalry to ride in pairs. Each cavalryman was equipped with a three-eyed firearm, a crossbow, a long knife, and a half-body armor, which can be described as well-equipped. Wei Yang served as the cavalry commander, and Liu Neng was the deputy, and fifty cavalrymen were divided into a unified general banner.

The remaining 200 people are all Chen Yue's personal guards, Chen Yan, who is recuperating from his injuries in Jingshi's hometown and has not returned, is the general guard, and others such as Yu Feng, Lin Fucheng, Ma Chuang, Li Yulin, etc., are all small flag officers of the general banner. There were only two kinds of weapons for the guards, firearms and spears, as well as a war horse for each person, and this army was the reserve in Chen Yue's hands, shouldering the task of attacking fortifications during battle.

Every day, except for the troops who were on duty on the city walls, the other officers and soldiers began to undergo rigorous training under the leadership of their respective generals.

In addition to the 1,500 formed troops, Chen Yue also set up an ordnance department, which was responsible for the production of firearms, ordnance and chariots in Xishan. With Li Xiong as the head of the Ordnance Division, Liu Sandezhi, the son of Liu He, a famous craftsman in Beijing, both of them are thousands of household titles. Below the Ordnance Division, four divisions were established: the Gunpowder Division, the Gunpowder Division, the Combat Vehicle Division, and the Artillery Division. Li Xiong concurrently served as the manager of the Gunpowder Department, responsible for the preparation and production of gunpowder and firearms such as the Divine Fire Flying Crow, the Flying Dragon, and the Ten Thousand Enemies. Liu San concurrently served as the manager of the firecracker, leading more than 30 blacksmiths recruited from the Jingying craftsman household, responsible for making firearms, now there are only more than 300 firearms in the whole army, less than a quarter of the army, the number is too small, Chen Yue is ready to have at least six firecrackers in each small banner fifteen people, so there are still a lot of firecrackers needed. The chariot division is stewarded by carpenter Lu Sanyou, with the rank of deputy thousand households, leading more than 20 carpenters in the battalion, responsible for the production and maintenance of chariots, rejecting horses and wooden shields and other wood-related work. The steward of the artillery department is Pan Xuezhong, the adopted son of Tang Ruowang, who is also responsible for the casting of artillery in the official position of deputy Qianhu, but at present he is still the commander of the light pole, and Chen Yue plans to allocate some blacksmiths and logistics officers and soldiers to assist him in casting cannons. It takes a lot of steel and coal to make artillery, and it is necessary to build a blast furnace, coal is easy, send someone back to Xishan to spread a message, and naturally a large amount of refined coal will be shipped, as for steel, except for mining, it can only be purchased from merchants. Chen Yue placed an order with Fan Tianyu to purchase a large amount of refined iron at the price of two and a half cents of a pound of iron, which was twice the market price, but only Jin merchants could purchase a large amount of refined iron, a military material.

After the establishment of the Ordnance Division, on the high ground of the river valley, they set up their own barracks, and the craftsmen began to work intensively, Chen Yue gave them a very high salary, as long as they were skilled craftsmen, they all enjoyed the treatment of 100 households, and they had a monthly salary of three taels and five dollars, just these fifty or sixty craftsmen, the monthly salary was nearly two thousand taels, and Chen Yue naturally would not let them be idle. In addition to a large number of coal mines in Xishan, there are several small iron mines and even gold mines, but the output is very low, the annual output is only tens of thousands of catties, and the iron produced is mainly supplied to Beijing. However, since Chen Yue needs it, the iron ore in Xishan will also be squeezed out. However, with the control of Xishan by the imperial court in the future, the coal and iron mines will definitely fall into the hands of the noble eunuchs and civil officials, and it will not be so easy to get iron, so they can only be purchased from the Jin merchants.

After entering June, three or four thousand catties of pig iron and hundreds of thousands of catties of coal were transported from Xishan, and the craftsmen were able to start work normally.

Pan Xuezhong took a few people to choose a place on the edge of the river valley and set up a blast furnace, which was made of cement from the bottom of the valley. Chen Yue was just a policeman before, and he didn't know anything about steelmaking, so he could only watch Pan Xuezhong busy, directing a few blacksmiths to mix iron ore and refined coal and pour it into the furnace, and then start to light the furnace, but he couldn't help and couldn't come up with ideas.

However, Pan Xuezhong is a senior disciple of John Tang, and he has the book "Fire Attack Essentials" granted by John Tang in his hand, so he is very familiar with making fire guns and even cannons. And to build a cannon, naturally, you have to melt steel, which is not difficult for him.

Professional things are handed over to professional people to do, Chen Yue just put forward some requirements to Pan Xuezhong, requiring the production of artillery to be mainly small artillery, tiger squat artillery to build at least more than 50 pieces, and strive to have one for each small flag, which is placed on the chariot on weekdays, because the tiger squat cannon is only more than 30 catties, and it is okay to put it on the back of a war horse when moving.

In addition to the Tiger Squat Cannon, four or five hundred pounds of Franc machine guns were built, although this kind of cannon has a small power and a long range, it is light in weight and easy to move. Moreover, this kind of Franco machine artillery is also a molecular mother gun, a mother gun is equipped with four or five sub-guns, and the child gun is installed with gunpowder and put into the mother gun, which can greatly save the gunpowder loading time and increase the rate of fire. Chen Yue personally drew the drawings and asked Lu Sanyou, the director of the chariot department, to build a gun carriage for installing artillery according to the drawings.

ps: The second update, go order noodles, and see if you can write another chapter after dinner.