The summer heat in the south of the Yangtze River gradually dissipated, and when the opening time of the Grand Canal was nearing the end, the divisions of the Volunteer Army, which had not been assigned to public security tasks, also entered the stage of active preparation and training, which made many people seem to feel that the war would be less in autumn and winter, and later next spring, and perhaps soon begin. However, near the end of the navigation phase of the canal, except for the two armies of the revolutionary army to reinforce Beijing to strengthen the northern defense, the main force showed no signs of advancing northward. This made Zhou Dayong also feel a little strange.

"If you can't go north this autumn, then it will be difficult to reach Lanzhou and Gansu in winter and spring to start a real expedition. . . ." At a military meeting, many revolutionary officers of the revolutionary army also proposed this. It is also extremely rare in the whole history that the rebel forces in the whole country were destroyed in just over a year in the domestic war. This made many people a little too complacent about the combat effectiveness of the revolutionary army.

However, compared with many people, Xiao Xuan's confidence is not so great, and he is not afraid to say bluntly at the military meeting: "The families of the volunteer divisions and the ten armies of the revolutionary army, I have also roughly touched them recently. In the operation to unify the south, our army has captured quite a lot, and more than 4,000 artillery pieces at all levels, mainly the newly made general and half of the second general's artillery, have been captured, and our army now has as many as 150 Hongyi artillery pieces, and the net capture of gunpowder alone is more than 3 million catties. I have calculated the captured artillery pieces and firearms according to the situation of each army, and only about half of them can barely be effectively used from the perspective of logistics and even the human resource base. The foundation of our army has improved a lot, but the revolutionary armies have not yet been able to effectively ride horses, and although the family base is much thicker than in the past, the rate of qualified iron armor is only fifty or sixty percent. Many officers and men have only been in the army for more than half a year, and at most only about a year, and even if the new training mechanism is much faster than the previous one, it will not be consolidated in many items. Bayonet flint guns with good performance are now only more popular in the first division of the Volunteer Army, and the guns and even bows and arrows of other divisions are still the main force of projection power. In essence, although the level of firepower and equipment of our army has been significantly improved compared with the domestic opponents in the past, it does not have an advantage over some strong opponents in Taixi and even the Western Regions, and its strength is far inferior to that of potential opponents. The conditions are far from ripe for launching an expedition against the West this year. ”

Xiao Xuan had roughly calculated in the past, because the gap between the handicraft industry and the military industry in the late Ming Dynasty and the West was already quite obvious, and because of the even greater disparity in the sea control, he did not grasp some key mineral deposits. It will take about 10 years to build up armaments and to arm an army that can effectively carry out expeditionary missions, to say the least. In many other overheads of the late Ming Dynasty that Xiao Xuan has seen, there are still a few examples of Dingding daring to launch a large-scale expedition in ten years. Xiao Xuan's plan to start the ultimate expedition showdown in the autumn and winter of Chongzhen's fourth year is already relatively immediate.

It's just that after careful weighing, Xiao Xuan still feels that as long as he can be invincible, the sooner this kind of foreign conquest is launched, the better. The role that the same talent and capital can play in the initial stage of domestic construction is certainly not comparable to the stage of development in the middle stage. The sooner the expedition is carried out, the more important it will be to gain sufficient human and capital resources for domestic construction. As for the odds? The quasi-revolutionary military force is the biggest capital of the old army now. However, it is obvious that the shelf life of a quasi-revolutionary army created by the environment of the times will be limited, and it will be completely useless and invalid after expiration. If we are to wait for the establishment of an era of technological and material superiority in the full mobilization of the East in terms of economic and social unity, it will probably cost much more and will not necessarily succeed. From the perspective of the law of social development, it is very difficult to have both combat effectiveness and civilization, at least within the scope of oriental culture. It was these considerations that allowed Xiao Xuan to place the time point of launching the foreign expedition in about a year or so after the Dingding. In the year or so, intensive training is undoubtedly the most important.

In addition to dealing with local government affairs in the south, Xiao Xuan also put more time and energy into strengthening his personal martial arts, the goal is of course not only to be able to effectively protect himself on the battlefield in the future, but also to let himself have a fairly vigorous physique and vitality from a young age, so as not to finally die after only being in power for only thirty or fifty years.

In the past few years since the Apocalypse, Xiao Xuan's affairs have been busy, and in most cases, it is not bad to be able to spare about half an hour for martial arts practice. Considered an amateur among amateurs. However, because the idea of training is quite reasonable, not sticking to the old dogma, and there are enough people to sparring him, he has now begun to gradually get started in spearmanship or special long bayonet skills.

In order to make up for the lack of strength due to the lack of long-term basic training, Xiao Xuan's hand-to-hand weapon was a steel bar with a handle and a front gear of more than two meters with a certain toughness, which could be said to be the best choice in melee combat in skirmish. In the case of its own strong enough, the total weight is only about three catties, which is much lighter than a rifle with a long bayonet, using this kind of "steel spear" to confront other fighting short gunners, in the case that the other party is also an ordinary soldier and has no training foundation, he can already fight against more than a dozen people in the kite flying battle in which he has the initiative, if both sides have a certain amount of sophisticated protection and armor, this kind of weapon similar to the bayonet improved advantage is even more obvious.

In the case of sufficient training conditions, in terms of how to dodge cannons and arrows and even projectiles thrown at medium and close ranges, Xiao Xuan is even much stronger than veterans who have experienced many battles at home and abroad and are not badly talented.

When Tian Xiuying practiced martial arts against each other, the gap was not as obvious as before, which made Tian Xiuying couldn't help but be surprised, and couldn't help but talk from the bottom of her heart: "I can't imagine that a person's martial arts progress can be so fast."

Xiao Xuan had actually found someone to test Tian Xiuying's martial arts foundation before, and in front of ordinary people, anyone who had a period of martial arts experience could seem very tall. However, Tian Xiuying's father didn't let her cultivate martial arts as a meal after all, otherwise it would be impossible to achieve "both civil and military".

(End of chapter)