Zheng Sen went around Qiongzhou and inspected ports, forts, factories, and iron mines. In the process www.biquge.info he found more and more that the power system has become the bottleneck of the entire industrial system. For example, the mining, crushing and transportation of ore are heavily dependent on water, animal power and even manpower, which not only makes the overall production efficiency always low, but also makes the production cost high. This also made Zheng Sen more and more full of desire for the steam engine.

However, although Zheng Sen came up with the basic principle of the steam engine, (the principle of this thing is actually not complicated) drew a sketch. But the principle is simple does not mean that the implementation is simple, a series of technical problems stumped Zheng Sen's European or self-trained craftsmen, even if Zheng Sen gave a very high reward, but now the level of his steam engine is still at the level that can only be used to pump water from the well, as for the more practical high-pressure steam engine, but there has not been much progress, but there have been several explosions, resulting in a lot of casualties. Zheng Sen estimates that even if the corresponding research investment is maintained, without five or six years, I am afraid that there will be no steam engine that can be installed on ships or trains.

"Wait for five or six years, I'm afraid the daylily will be cold. At least, and Jianxuan, and the Spaniards could not count on this thing in the struggle in Asia. Thinking of the drastically changing situation, Zheng Sen couldn't help but sigh.

However, even in the face of a major war, Zheng Sen resisted the urge to reduce the development of the steam engine in order to invest more money in the military.

Leaving Hainan Island, Zheng Sen did not delay on the road any longer, but returned to Anhai directly.

In Anhai, Zheng Sen only stayed for a few days, then said goodbye to his wife and set off for Taiwan with Zheng Zhilong. Because there are still a lot of things to deal with in Taiwan. And the most important of these things is naturally the expansion of the army. In order to expand the army, the first important thing is to hold a meeting to determine personnel arrangements.

"The next two years will be crucial. In two years' time, there is a good chance that we will have to face two wars at the same time. The success or failure of these two wars will determine the pattern of the entire country and even the entire world. For this reason, our goal in the next two years is to develop and unite our forces to achieve the goal of winning two wars at the same time. In the conference room in Beigang, Zheng Sen was speaking as the chief of staff of the Model Army.

The participants of this meeting included officials from the internal affairs department and some officers of the model army, some of whom were old people under Zheng Zhilong, especially the sales department, but more young people, especially the technical department and the production department, almost all of whom were young people from the former factory protection team; In the model army, there were more young people from the factory protection team school, and later from the model army school.

"In order to win these two wars at the same time, it is necessary to expand the army. According to our plan, both the army and navy of the Model Army need to be expanded. At present, there are four infantry regiments in our model army, and each infantry regiment has about 1,500 permanent personnel and nearly 100 horses of various types. If you want to carry out combat missions, you need to add various types of baggage teams, and the number of people will be doubled. In addition to this, the army had five separate garrison battalions in various fortifications, each ranging in number from 200 to 400 men. On Jeju Island, there is also a cavalry regiment, which also has more than 1,500 combat personnel and more than 1,000 horses of various types. However, if this team were to make a large-scale combat move, it would require more than three times as many baggage troops as the average infantry regiment.

According to the general staff's estimate of the war, it is possible that our model army will engage different enemy forces in three theaters. In these three battlefields, our model army and army must have the ability to independently break the enemy's main force or resist the enemy's main force's attack. To this end, the Model Army will be further expanded to four infantry divisions and one cavalry division on the basis of the original four infantry regiments. Each infantry division has three infantry regiments and one baggage regiment, and the cavalry division is temporarily unable to expand the other two cavalry regiments due to the limitation of the number of war horses, so two baggage regiments and one artillery battalion directly under it are added. As a result, the number of combatants in our model army will almost triple the number of combat personnel it has already had. The increase in the number of logistical baggage troops has been even more pronounced.

In order to accomplish this task of expanding the army, this year, the Model Army Officers School will open a branch school dedicated to training low-ranking officers at the company and platoon levels, and the name will be the Model Army Noncommissioned Officers School. The duration of this school is one year, and the students are mainly recommended by various combat units to have soldiers with certain combat experience, and in addition, according to the number of militia units, some members will also enter the army non-commissioned officer school for full-time study. The number of students enrolled in the Army Non-commissioned Officer School will be four times that of the current Model Army Army Officer School.

In addition, the battalion and company commanders of the current combat units will be arranged to return to the Army Military Academy for further training in the next two years in order to understand the accumulated experience of the various units and the latest techniques and tactics.

As for the soldiers and auxiliaries needed to expand the army, they were mainly recruited in Taiwan and Luzon. After studying, the General Staff believes that some Koreans, Taiwanese, and Luzon natives who have already attached themselves to our army can also be selected to join our army and undertake combat missions. In this way, our model army will need to expand its strength by about 25,000 troops in the next two years.

In parallel with the expansion of the army, the navy must also be expanded in parallel to deal with the Spanish threat and further secure my domination of Luzon and absolute superiority in the seas east of Malacca. To this end, over the next two years, four new fast warships will be launched. In order to be able to form combat effectiveness as soon as possible, the navy put forward the guiding ideology that 'only personnel can wait for equipment, and not allow equipment to wait for people,' and decided to prepare the personnel of these warships in advance before they are launched. And use the time of the existing fleet to renovate, so that the new fleet crew can use our existing ships of the same type for adaptive training. In order to compress as much as possible the time from the launch of new equipment to the formation of combat effectiveness.

In addition to the four new fast warships, the Navy will receive ten of the newest fast cruisers, which will form the second detachment of the Navy. The commander and personnel of the detachment were transferred partly from the existing fleet, and partly from civilian conscription.

Ladies and gentlemen, the army is our iron fist, and behind the iron fist we also need to have a strong physique. As the saying goes: soldiers and horses go first before grain and grass are moved. If we don't have enough supplies, our expansion plan will be nothing more than a castle in the air. The following is a brief introduction to the preparations of the sector by the relevant personnel of the industrial and commercial and agricultural departments. Zheng Sen looked at Zheng Zhilong, who was sitting on the chief, and ended his speech.

As soon as Zheng Sen's words fell, a round of applause rang out below. This practice of applause was naturally brought by Zheng Sen from later generations, and now it has become a habit in the whole of Taiwan, and even in the entire Zheng family's control area, even Zheng Zhilong and his old brothers have become accustomed to it. Zheng Zhilong also applauded, drumming, and he suddenly smiled to himself.

When the applause gradually stopped, Liu De, who presided over the meeting, asked Gu Jiang to introduce the situation of the industrial and commercial and agricultural departments according to the agenda. When Zheng Sen got married, Gu Jiang came to congratulate, and after Zheng Sen and Gu Jiang talked deeply all night, Gu Jiang became an important staff member around Zheng Sen, and in the past few months, Zheng Sen also began to hand over some civil affairs in Taiwan to him as a staff officer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there are now 327 migrant villages in Taiwan, of which 36 are large central settlements, with a total population of 620,000. Nearly half of them are adult men, and despite our efforts to increase the number of female immigrants over the years, the problem of insufficient female migration has not been completely solved. Because being a soldier gives priority to getting a wife, young people are highly motivated to join the army. Of the 620,000 agricultural population alone, it is not a problem to provide less than 50,000 soldiers.

The proportion of grain in Taiwan's agricultural production is not high, and a large amount of land is used for the production of other cash crops. However, in the past two years, due to the large use of struvite and the fact that there is no shortage of water on the island, the grain yield has increased a lot, and the rice production on the island of Taiwan alone is enough to support the daily supply of the island. Coupled with the success of potato cultivation on Jeju Island last year, the yield is also impressive. This year, the planting area will be further expanded, and the harvest will naturally increase. At present, we have very sufficient food reserves, and even if we do not harvest anything in the next two years, the food reserves we have at present will ensure that our troops will not starve.

In addition to grain, the supply of meat and fats is also good. We were able to dry our own salt, salt was not a problem, and we had a large number of fishing boats and whaling vessels that brought us a lot of blubber and cured whale meat every year. Even taking into account the fact that a large number of whaling ships and seafarers were requisitioned by the Navy two years later because of the influence of the Spanish fleet, their production and reserves were sufficient to meet the needs of our enlarged army. Of course, there will be a large decrease in the amount available for sale. In general, neither the agriculture nor the fishing sector requires special preparation to achieve the target.

Then there is the pastoral aspect. We now mainly raise horses of all kinds in Jeju Island. This area of work has always been under the direct jurisdiction of the model army, and our civil affairs department has limited knowledge of the relevant situation. However, the replenishment of food and forage needed to raise horses is also not a problem for us. ”