Chapter 195: Half a year later, the strong army begins

Since the beginning of May, there has been no rain at all in Shandong and Hebei, and this situation has continued until August. In many places, the fields that are not fertile are already in the situation of no harvest. No one knows how long this will last.

Unlike the modern relief and disaster relief system, the backward agriculture of the Ming Dynasty encountered such a disaster, and there was only one result waiting for it - collapse.

The conventional way to deal with this kind of thing is that the imperial court allocates relief money, grain and rice, and provides relief to the victims, until it rains and the next batch of grain can be grown. At this time, the government treasury of the Jiajing Dynasty was relatively full, and a large amount of grain and rice was transferred from other provinces that had not been affected by the disaster.

The amount of grain and rice distributed is not based on the severity of the disaster, but according to the importance of the location. According to the 'usual practice', officials at all levels have to withhold a portion of these relief supplies.

When it is sent to the victims, it is very good to be able to leave sixty percent, and the materials are inclined to Hebei, which refers to the situation of disaster relief materials in Shandong. Perhaps it was a pity that at the end of September, it finally rained, but many of the people had no food to hold on until the fields recovered.

According to the general law, a large number of displaced people first flocked to Henan, Jiangsu Province, which was largely unaffected, and then, according to tradition, the so-called thieves began to swarm. The ground in Shandong, which had just been peaceful, was chaotic again, and the Xiangma bandits from all over the country appeared one after another, and the robbers stationed in Shandong were all busy and anxious.

When there is a natural disaster, the civil officials and Confucian scholars always have to find a reason to explain how to offend the sky, so the people are not happy. The power of the court staff in the Great Gift Case and the Court Uniform Case is still vivid, and the so-called scholars who have always paid attention to outspokenness have wisely shifted the target.

Now the government and the opposition began to faintly attack King Heng of Shandong, King Jing and Shandong officials, saying that they had done something filthy or immoral.

The situation in Dengzhou Prefecture is relatively better, because Jiang Feng, who owns most of the fields in Dengzhou, only collects a symbolic rent of Yicheng Tian this year, and the grain stored in the original capital city plus the imperial court has deducted a lot of relief, but there is no difference from previous years, and there are also some 'inexplicable' influx of grain merchants, in general, there is no shortage of grain.

The relatively stable Dengzhou in such a disaster year, in the Shandong provinces are particularly conspicuous, the nearby displaced people have poured in, the original known as the Dengzhou Tiger Jiang Feng, now nicknamed Jiang Dashanren, because many of the displaced people were recruited by him to reclaim wasteland, although the recruitment of these displaced people still have to paste their own grain.

In Shandong's military and political system, 'Jiang Da good man' is now the same concept as a fool, these days, a good man, a good man is a fool idiot, almost all the officials up and down have taken the opportunity of selling the land cheaply in the disaster year, and bought a large number of people in the field.

After the rain at the end of September, the prices of these cheaply bought fields soared, and everyone became rich, only Jiang Feng was considered to have lost money, everyone judged it this way, Commander Jiang was still young, at this time, Xinshan didn't know how much money he had lost, maybe he would be more honest if he kowtowed.

Jiang Dashan, the big fool was in the barracks of the Qianhu Institute of Yantai Mountain at this time, looking at the training of the soldiers below, the two thousand soldiers of the Dengzhou battalion were divided into two teams, of which 300 were light cavalry, these people were selected from the soldiers from Weishan Island, equipped with javelins, sabers, and spears.

But the main force on the school field is not these cavalry, but a phalanx of 1,600 people, this is what Jason called the Francois infantry phalanx, in fact, this phalanx has a rather loud name in modern times, called the Spanish infantry phalanx.

Before the advent of this tactic, the infantry encountered the cavalry or was completely at a disadvantage, the cavalry could use light cavalry harassment, heavy cavalry impact to defeat the infantry, after the appearance of this arquebus and spear mixed with the phalanx everything changed, the effective killing range of the arquebus exceeded the bow and arrow, and the impact of the armored cavalry was resisted by the spearmen nearly five meters long, so the battlefield in Europe for nearly a hundred years was a phalanx contest. Until the advent of cannons.

Jason was wearing the clothes of the ironclad men when they were not assigned to the military before, standing proudly on the earthen platform of the school field, he used to be only a lieutenant, managing more than 30 soldiers under his command, and now he has successfully trained more than 1,000 strong soldiers, as a soldier, his heart is full of pride, of course, and he is happy to get nearly a thousand taels of silver.

Every twenty people are a team, one is the captain, among the twenty people, the captain stands on the far left, fifteen people in the middle, two spearmen have an arquebus head in the middle, and fifteen people are two sword players on each side, of course, according to the Western saying, this is called a sword and shield soldier.

A platoon of twenty people, a total of twenty columns, a square of four hundred people, a total of four square teams, one thousand six hundred people. Among the four thousand households under Jiang Feng, only Luo Yi and Zhang Liang could adapt to this tactic, first, both of them had received professional military training, and second, they were relatively young.

Four teams, in addition to the rank of soldiers and horses in the imperial court, Jiang Feng led the first team, Zhang Liang and Luo Yi each led a team, and the captain of the fourth team was unexpectedly Yang Shishi, but the fourth team was jointly managed by the instructor Jason and Yang Shishi, and a hundred Tieding Jiang Feng did not call Jason to train.

This is also recognized by Jason Hogan, in his opinion, it is extremely incredible that there is such a force in the Ming Dynasty that is good at foot combat, firearms, and horsemanship, and this small but extremely powerful army does not need to train with recruits at all. Jason called the ironcladers "dragoons" according to European rules, and he first pronounced them in his native language.

Later, Jason and Lin Tongyi became more and more proficient in Chinese learning, and after reading the dragoons in Chinese, they were immediately told that this kind of name was extremely taboo in the Ming Kingdom. The Dengzhou battalion has long been called "Iron Guard", Yang Da and Liu Shisan are now in the Iron Guard, and more than a dozen Orions are also like this.

There are four drummers in each team, and when the Spanish phalanx moves back, the neatness of the queue is stricter than Jiang Feng's requirements, and there must be such a drum beat to control, which is simple, but the big drum for marching cheering is reduced by a few numbers, and the drummer can improve it slightly.

The sound of drums and the shouts of the commanders sounded in the field, and the four squares changed formations, either gathered together, or scattered into a column of ten people, and the small teams of 100 people were not chaotic at all. Although it was impossible for the arquebusiers to shoot live ammunition at this time, they still followed the simulation on the battlefield, constantly raising their guns and lowering them, loading ammunition, changing queues, and coming forward to shoot.

The spear in the spearman's hand was about three and a half meters long according to modern length, and the iron sleeve behind the tip of the spear on top of the wooden pole was very long, close to two feet.

Jiang Feng, Zhang Liang and Jason standing on the earthen platform. Hogan was silent, watching the soldiers below change formation, advance and retreat, assassinating and shooting. Jiang Feng suddenly spoke:

"Stop!"

Zhang Liang on the side took a step forward and shouted:

"Stop!"

The drums beat three times in a certain rhythm, and the schoolyard, which was still dusty just a moment ago, suddenly fell silent, and everyone stood there silently with their weapons on the ground. Only the occasional neighing of the horses under the crotches of the cavalry, Jason turned around with a smile on his face, and although his Chinese pronunciation was still stiff and strange, his words were much more fluent, and he said with a smile:

"Lord Jiang, I dare to say, even in Spain, it is impossible to have stronger infantry than this army, this is all your genius queue training and strict military discipline."

Listening to this flattering words, Jiang Feng smiled faintly, the queue exercises he learned in physical education class and military training and the collision of the infantry phalanx brought by Jason can be said to be amazing, and the power of this phalanx can only be exerted when the queue is neat and the military discipline is serious.

Jiang Feng's experience is one of the best ways to exert discipline and team awareness, and secondly, in the past six months, Jiang Feng has killed more than 50 soldiers who did not obey orders and violated military discipline, and replaced them with the strongest among the displaced people.

"If you are given two hundred taels of silver a month, would you like to shed it down to help me train the troops?"

Ignoring the flattery of the other party, Jiang Feng asked an irrelevant question, Jason Hogan kept saying that he wanted to return to the Netherlands to resist the tyranny of Spain, but such a Western officer who knew infantry tactics, knew how to use muskets, and did not have any official background was too precious to the ambitious Jiang Feng.

Hearing the figure of 'two hundred taels of silver per month', for Jason, who is becoming more and more familiar with the Ming Dynasty, he naturally knows how much it is, and the eagerness in his eyes flashed, compared to his hometown, he has changed from a humble junior officer to a teacher who is respected by everyone and has a good salary, and he is more and more reluctant to leave. But he bowed his head solemnly and replied:

"For the sake of my nation, I can't be greedy for money, I still have to go back."

Jiang Feng was a little disappointed, but he didn't expect Jason to raise his head with a smile and said:

"If it's three hundred taels a month, I'm willing to accumulate more strength for my nation!"

Without this kind of greed, Westerners would not have the motivation to make great voyages, would not have discovered America, and would not provoke wars, but Jason's greed Jiang Feng needs, he needs this instructor, he walked up to Jason, smiled and patted him on the shoulder, and said:

"Three hundred taels a month, work with me for three years!"

The camp gate suddenly hurriedly ran in a person dressed as a housekeeper, panting and running to the earthen platform, Jiang Feng recognized this person as a servant in his own house, the housekeeper first saluted, and then hurriedly said:

"Master, someone is here in Jinan, Madame asked me to find you back quickly!"