Zhang Qiang finished the day's work, picked up the porcelain cup on the table, and slowly tasted the bitterness of the tea.

Decades of traverser career, decades of hard work for the rise of China, at this time, in retrospect, I actually feel bored, the surrounding gas lamps swaying lights illuminate the palace almost without a trace of dead ends, but he still feels that it is not as bright as the incandescent lamp, not as bright as the cold color of blue and white created by fluorescent lights, the royal guards standing around are still standing, and there is no trace of fatigue, more than ten years later, Zhang Qiang suddenly felt that there is a lot of boredom in this life.

The captain of the guard who served on the side was gray-haired, but he was still loyal, without the slightest slackness, these were the only people close to him, they had fought and died outside since they had cultivated them themselves, and when they were old, they would come back and continue to protect him, each of them was a meritorious achievement.

These are also the most secretive people around them, from time to time to go out to do what they need them to do, and at the same time they also manage the intelligence of the Military Intelligence Department for themselves, and now the Military Intelligence Department is not a small department, it is a huge department, and the scale is no less than that of the Military Intelligence Department and the Civil Intelligence Department.

However, compared to the two departments handling cases in the open, the Military Intelligence Department has been hidden in the dark, with capable personnel, and will not expose itself unless necessary, and the exposed senior personnel of the Military Intelligence Department will destroy the contact signals secretly set up around them, and other Military Intelligence Department cadres who are close to them will never contact them again, will not try to figure out how they died, and ignore them, and then this line will be restarted at some point in the future, as for the peripheral personnel, because they will not send out information from time to time, Therefore, they are lurking like ordinary people, and they cannot be traced to the Military Intelligence Department even if they are exposed.

These mercenaries also have infiltrators of the Military Intelligence Department, but they are two-faced, ostensibly they are agents of the Military Intelligence Department, ordinary agents, but in fact they are ordinary peripheral agents of the Military Intelligence Department, providing the same information to the Military Intelligence Department and the Military Intelligence Department.

What he looked at just now was the information that the Military Intelligence Department had recently gathered, the mercenaries had suffered heavy losses abroad, 200,000 people were wiped out, and even lost several agents of the Military Intelligence Department and dozens of agents of the Military Intelligence Department, but they also handed back some information, such as the Russians organized a servant army of millions of people to enter the borders of Poland, Hungary, and Turkey, and even went deep into the Austrian border to attack Austrian territory.

Moreover, for the revenge of the Swedes for the attack on the Chinese Empire a few months ago, Russia took the initiative to take it and sent a force of 100,000 mercenaries and servants to attack the Swedish territory, and fought several general battles with Sweden on the Swedish border, with 100,000 dead and 80,000 dead, but it went deep into Sweden at a depth of 30 kilometers, allowing the Swedes to flee in a hurry and mobilize more troops to attack them.

Sweden can be said to have suffered heavy losses, and Russia has only paid some ordnance and materials, and in Sweden, it has let go of the servant army and mercenaries to rob the Swedish civilians, almost making dozens of miles of red land, and smoke is everywhere, the Swedes are in a hurry, and they have no time to estimate Russia, and they are chasing and killing these mercenaries and servant troops everywhere, although these mercenaries and servant army teams are no longer controlled by Russia, they still go deep into the depths of Swedish territory, causing a lot of panic and blows to Sweden.

The attack of the Hungarian infantry regiment was not contained, and when the Hungarian cavalry appeared at the rear of the battlefield wearing white armor, wearing the red tasseled helmets of the Roman Empire, and wielding sabers that were much straighter than the Turkish scimitars, the mercenary regiment collapsed, and many of them threw down their weapons and began to flee for their lives.

As a soldier of the Guards of the Chinese Empire, although he did not fight for the Guards for a day, many Guards have not fought a single battle in recent years, and the occasional battles are also small-scale battles.

For example, he was besieged by more than 3,000 troops, and the combined garrison of several corps was less than 600 men to meet so many Swedes, and the infantry platoon of two Guards participated in the battle, and almost all the troops were annihilated.

Not in the first few years, not in the next few years, most of the battles were fought by the garrison army and the cavalry army, the garrison army because it was impossible to get out of the core area, and the core area was still far away from the border, so the garrison army except for a few brigade-level troops that were sent out for exercise, most of the garrison army was the same as most of the garrison army and the field army, and slowly waited for death within the Chinese Empire, or boiled up the qualifications, which was tantamount to suicide for the soldiers.

The Chinese Empire was already preparing to dismantle or merge some of its troops again, and the field army would once again be reduced to a retrenchment, as most of his duties were almost replaced by cavalry corps and border garrisons.

The Guards, after several reductions, have been reduced from one million to three hundred thousand, and this time they are going to be reduced to about 100,000 or 80,000 men, and only two overgrown armies will be retained, and the field armies will also be merged, but if the field armies are merged, the strength of the Guards will be expanded by a certain amount, and the Cabinet and the Privy Council are discussing the matter, and the Council of Ministers is also discussing it on a small scale if it is permitted.

Why can't the Council discuss the military, it's because the establishment of the House itself is part of the body for listening to opinions and part of the body for supervising and containing the cabinet and the Privy Council, although they are also very majestic and have rights, but they are only internal, they can't decide on foreign affairs, they can't discuss the rights of the army, they can discuss some things that don't involve major changes on the edge, but they can't go deeper, whoever wants to discuss the army in depth will be investigated by the Ministry of Supervision the next day, talk, if it is confirmed that it is just a gaffe, then nothing will be pursued, If he still insists on his idea, then I'm sorry, whatever your motives, you can only resign, and then the Ministry of Civil Affairs will intervene to investigate or spy on you.

Except for the Privy Council and the Prime Minister and the Vice-Chancellor of the Cabinet and the Emperor, who have the right to discuss military rights, no one can do his own administrative work, and unless the Emperor convenes a meeting, and allows the discussion to be heard, all those who wish to discuss military rights must be investigated, because those who are not the Privy Council and the Vice-Chancellor are considered careerists who want to control the army, and the army has no right to be controlled by anyone except the state and the emperor.

This is the emperor's bottom line, Zhang Qiang from later generations knows what is the right out of the barrel of a gun, even if those people want to use their strength, they can't involve his rights, it is he who controls the country, not those who have mouths to control the country, he sometimes doesn't even want them to send out too many of their own ideas, they can only follow their own ideas.

However, Zhang Qiang never interfered in the internal affairs of the cabinet, he only controlled the personnel and the army, as well as the will of the people in the country and some remarks.

With the precedent of Du Ge and You Haibo, he could not tolerate those officials who wanted to get their hands on the command of the army and establish power in the army, and he had the final say on everything, and any official who wanted to stuff people into the army would not see the rising sun the next day.

As for domestic affairs, the House of Ministers can quarrel no matter how much they want, even if the prime minister takes down the vice minister, even if he demolishes most of the cabinet, or even dissolves the cabinet and reappoints officials in various ministries, he will not care, that is the prime minister's right.

Pay money this year, the military budget will not be much next year, the Privy Council and the cabinet will not care, anyway, there is always military spending, more and less problems, there are not many wars, as long as the backbone and elite are there, the Chinese Empire has people, some are veterans, just beckon, you can immediately pull out millions of soldiers and horses, this era of war, rely on people, but also rely on weapons, but people play a decisive role, no one, no more people, weapons are advanced and useless, Zhang Qiang is good at crowd tactics, use people to drown you.

So he was happy to see the Privy Council and the Cabinet, and even the House of Ministers, or most of all, the Cabinet and the Cabinet quarrels over financial expenditures, personnel appointments, and the following councils, advisory bureaus, state houses, and so on.

They quarreled so that the emperor could sit in peace.

He sat with peace of mind, Li Ya They were not sitting with peace of mind, after a while, hundreds of deserters gathered in the woods, these people are Han people, everyone look at me, I look at you, I don't know what to do, at this time Li Ya, who was promoted to the staff of the lieutenant colonel of the Guards, stood up, he analyzed the current situation, and then through some persuasion, let everyone trust him.

These hundred men were quietly ambushed at the edge of the woods under the arrangement of Li Ya, and when a group of Hungarian cavalry ran over, they opened fire with only twenty-one rifles under the command of Li Ya, killing this group of ten or so cavalrymen, and then they had eleven short fire guns, five flintlock rifles, and a lot of bullets, and eleven sabers.

Weapons were redistributed, and these former soldiers, or very talented civilian officials, and those who were recognized as criminals by the Chinese Empire, became a relatively well-disciplined company.

Li Ya selected a few henchmen who had already established a good relationship with him, as well as young people who could ride horses, and looked more honest and willing to listen to him, and let them wear the clothes of the Hungarian cavalry, ride war horses, and go out to scout with sabers, and then a group of people changed places to hide, until the horse team returned, they regrouped, and under the guidance of the horse team, they left the battlefield along a safe route.

After escaping more than 20 miles and almost leaving the battlefield, they were already fully equipped with soldiers and horses, full of weapons, and killed nearly 100 more Hungarian infantry and cavalry, and rescued more than 100 mercenary soldiers who escaped, mainly Han Chinese, as well as a dozen Russian serfs, as well as Ukrainian peasants, three or so Central Asian natives, and one Gurkha infantryman.

Such a force is about to catch up with a dissatisfied battalion of the garrison of the Chinese Imperial Army.

More than 300 people.

(End of chapter)