"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that it is completely feasible to follow the method of Meng Yuan to form an expeditionary army, and with the method of the Mongols fighting and herding, the number of the expeditionary force can be one or two times more than expected, and there is no problem in maintaining more than 100,000 soldiers in Siberia and Central Asia."

Forbidden City, inside the Qianqing Palace. A military meeting was being held, including the left and right prime ministers, the chief and deputy chiefs of general staff of the Generalissimo's Office, and Peng Yulin, the general soldier of Liaodong Town, who had just returned from the northeast, all accompanied Emperor Zhu around a huge beautifully made sand table. This sand table is the Mongolian topographic sand table made by the Generalissimo's Office after nearly three years of consulting a large amount of information and conducting several field investigations and measurements. The terrain of the south and north of the desert is dangerous, and it is all clear at a glance.

Before the start of the meeting, Emperor Zhu officially announced the strategic goals to be achieved by the Ming Dynasty in the future war against Russia: to seize Alaska, seize the Russian-controlled Sakhalin Island, seize most of Eastern Siberia, completely control Xinjiang and Tibet, and bring most of Central Asia under the protection of the Ming Dynasty!

In short, it is a sentence, if the Ming wants to become a fat man in one bite, it is best to turn the Russian Empire into a European country!

However, Russia, a fighting nation, will not swallow such a big bitter fruit if it does not fight to the end of the mountain, right? So this war must have been quite long and brutal. As the saying goes, fighting a war and fighting logistics, especially in Central Asia and Siberia, where transportation is quite inconvenient, and whoever has stronger logistics means that more troops can be invested. With a large number of troops, it is always easy to win.

Secondly, it is the soldier. Because of logistical constraints. The number of troops thrown into Central Asia and Siberia will certainly not be too large. It is completely unrealistic to rely on the sea of people to come out with a victory. Even if it was learned from the Mongols. It is not easy to pile up 100,000 soldiers in Central Asia and Siberia. So. Every soldier should be a high-quality elite.

Third, it is military spending. Because the stakes of the war between Ming and Russia were too high, and there was no way to reach Moscow and Petersburg, the Russian Empire would not easily admit defeat, and the war was likely to be protracted until one side's economy could no longer bear it. This is also the main reason why Emperor Zhu chose Russia to start a war with Britain and France, because at that time, Russia not only had to spend a lot of money on the battlefield on the Western Front. And there is no way to obtain financing from the international market, so they can only rely on their own old capital to support. Therefore, as long as the timing is grasped and Mongolia's manpower and material resources are fully utilized, military spending should not be too much of a problem.

Zuo Zongtang had already made a calculation of military spending, and said: "Your Majesty, the minister of military spending has asked the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of War to set a preliminary budget. If 100,000 soldiers are mobilized, 200,000 Mongolian herdsmen are mobilized to maintain logistics, and military horses, cattle and sheep are also purchased from the Mongolian steppe, it will take about 20 million yuan in special military spending to maintain a year's war, and 100 million yuan in five years...... This does not take into account the costs of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the maintenance of the occupied territories.

Other than that. To form an expeditionary corps of 100,000 people before the war, it would be necessary to spend at least 10 million yuan to purchase horses, harnesses, vehicles, winter clothes, tents and other materials. Recover the Khalkha Mongols and pacify the southern and northern desert tribes. Liaison with Buryatia Mongolia and Oirat Mongolia requires a lot of money, as well as the repair of the Chengde summer resort......"

"Chengde Summer Resort is my property, and it is naturally repaired at my expense, and I have already asked the shopkeeper of the Style Lei firm to come to Tianfu to discuss business."

The Ming Dynasty has now entered the capitalist era, although it is still very rudimentary, but from a legal point of view, it is already very capitalist. Private property is protected by law, and public and private property are also relatively distinct. The property of Emperor Lao Tzu undoubtedly belongs to the category of private property, but Emperor Zhu shamelessly registered the palace, prince's mansion, and royal gardens left over from the former Qing Dynasty as private property! The same is true of Chengde Summer Resort, so the usual maintenance and repair funds are paid by Emperor Zhu out of his own pocket.

"What about the cost of appeasing Monan and Mobei Mongolia?" Zuo Zongtang said tentatively.

"It depends on the name, if it is the expenses of the concubine and the monk, of course I will pay out of my own pocket." Zhu Jishi said. The way to win over Monan and Mobei Mongolia is to marry and build temples, and the emperor's concubines and monks are indeed not suitable to use the state's money.

"Then 150 million special expenses are enough for five years." Zuo Zongtang said, "You can issue bonds to solve the problem." ”

"Well," Zhu Jishi frowned, "but all procurement projects need to be subject to public bidding, and the bidding results must be published in Ta Kung Pao, Qingliu Daily, and Industry and Commerce Daily." ”

"The minister knows it." Zuo Zongtang nodded quietly.

The current Ming Dynasty, of course, is very corrupt! The officials below are all masters who want to reach out and make money at the first opportunity! And Emperor Zhu is kind-hearted, and the anti-corruption method of peeling the skin and grass really can't be done, so he can only do everything possible to reduce everyone's chance of making money. This method is mainly to make it public, and the real estate of Ming officials should be registered and reported; All government procurement projects are subject to public bidding; The government's budget and final accounts are to be made public to the parliament and the newspapers; All court trials are also to be open to the public, with journalists allowed to attend; All government funds are managed by HSBC and Lixin Bank.

However, even so, Emperor Zhu's court was still very corrupt, and the incidents of accepting bribes were repeatedly prohibited, and several corrupt officials would be exposed in the newspapers every three days......

"Although fighting a war is fighting silver, but it is not enough to have silver soldiers who are not fine, the expeditionary force must take the road of elite soldiers, and the pressure on logistics is too great, so every soldier fighting in the front must be an elite soldier, and it must be able to use one top three!"

Emperor Zhu looked at Liu Jiong with blazing eyes, and said very seriously: "I want 100,000 elite soldiers, are you sure?" ”

The Ming Army is still taking the road of quantity, and now, including the Guards, there are a total of 15 field troops, a Guards Cavalry Corps, each infantry corps has 36,000 people, and the Guards Cavalry Corps has 10,000 people, totaling 550,000.

In addition to the field troops, the Ming army also had two armed forces, the "Tun Army" and the "Zhen Army". Among them, the "Tuntian Army" is a Tuntian Army deployed in Liaodong, Bohai, Jiaozhou and other places. The total number of troops is around 180,000.

The "town army" is the local army of the inland provinces, and the treatment is worse than that of the field army and the tuntian army, and the service period is also shorter. There are also some warlord armies, such as Miao Peilin, Zhu Guangfu, Du Wenxiu, Zeng Guoquan and other troops who belong to the "town army". The total strength of the town army is more than 200,000, and its combat effectiveness and weaponry are worse than those of the field army and the tun army.

In addition, Zhu Jishi also has a special armed force in his hands that is not in the Ming army system - more than 20,000 Japanese samurai! Some of them live in Japan and take care of the affairs of the Yokohama Domain, and some of them teach and study in Zhu Jishi's 10 major foundations, Jese University, and Jeshi College, but most of them still live in the "Samurai Town" near the Imperial Palace of the Purple Mountain in Yingtian, waiting for work arrangements, and in the second imperial examination of the eight southeastern provinces not long ago, more than 2,000 samurai who are proficient in Confucianism participated. More than 800 people passed the Wenju exam and became Xiucai. More than 1,600 people passed the martial arts exam and became martial artists. Among them, there are more than 600 samurai who have won the fame of civil and military talent at the same time, which can be regarded as pillars.

"If you don't use the Guards cavalry, and leave another division of the brocade guards to defend the palace, the guards can dispatch 25,000 people."

Liu Jiong snapped his fingers and began to calculate the number of troops that could be used: "There are still 75,000 people, and the General Staff recommends recruiting 20,000 people in southern Mongolia, selecting 35,000 people from various army armies, and recruiting 20,000 people from Japanese retainers under His Majesty and the Japanese mainland." ”

Zhu Jishi shook his head: "Forget about the Mongols, now is not the era of Genghis Khan, the Mongols believe in the Yellow Sect and are stupid, and they can't practice it...... Recruit 5,000 men to serve as horsemen and cavalry instructors. Recruit more samurai, at least 40,000 people! (To be continued......)