First of all, these three counties are rich in gold, although with the current technical conditions, more than 4,000 tons of gold reserves may not be mined in a few years, but let alone 400 tons of gold, even if there are only 100 tons of gold, with the current world gold and silver price calculation, that is equivalent to more than 80 million taels of silver!

Although Zhaoyuan is mainly mountainous, there are more than 300,000 people, and the total population of the three counties is almost no less than 2 million.

And there are not only a lot of people here, but also relatively poor, the current Jiaodong Peninsula is not after the reform and opening up, due to the dense hills, inconvenient transportation, except for Yantai and Weihai, which opened up earlier, other places are all poor and scum, this person is poor, life is worthless, and it is naturally much easier to encourage them to rebel

On the other hand, the mountain people are hard-working and brave and aggressive, and they have always been the best source of soldiers, and Jiaodong is also a coastal area, so they are poor and not closed, and the local people are actually quite flexible, so the potential for training qualified officers is also great, and it is completely possible to train the world's first-class strong army based on this.

Considering the current situation that the Manchu Qing Dynasty only had more than 50,000 modern troops, Li Hui believed that as long as he had 15,000 truly modernized armies, it would be enough to divide one side, and for a base area with a total population of nearly 2 million, there would be no pressure to maintain a regular army of 30,000 (according to the experience of the Red Army during the Agrarian Revolutionary War, as long as the ratio of soldiers to civilians in the base area did not exceed 1:60, the people could bear it, and it was still a particularly poor area). ）。

If we take into account that Li Hui does not actually need to obtain income from the base areas, and has a systematic economy on military spending, it is not difficult to maintain an army of 50,000 or 60,000 troops, and if we ignore the possible intervention of the Western powers, such a force is enough to fight in Beijing to overthrow the Manchu government

However, Li Hui still had a little doubt in his heart, that is, whether the combat effectiveness of the biochemical soldiers was really as strong as the system explained?

Although professional ability has been proven by venture capital companies, practical ability and technical level are not necessarily equated, only by proving himself in actual combat, Li Hui can be completely assured of them.

At this time, the bandits in Shandong were becoming more and more serious, and "Shandong Xiangma" had become the most headache for the government in China (the bandits in the Northeast and Henan did not form a climate until after 1900, and Shandong Xiangma had a large scale as early as before the first day. On the one hand, he tested the real combat power of the biochemical soldiers through the battles with the real Xiangma and the Qing Army, and on the other hand, he eliminated the harm for the people, exterminated those unjust thieves and dog officials and inferior gentry who cruelly harmed the people, and at the same time integrated the Shandong Xiangma, which is currently just a plate of scattered sand, and cultivated a capable army for Li Hui in advance.

Although he had such an idea for a long time, considering the nobility of the biochemical soldiers, Li Hui was still reluctant to lose too much, so he originally planned to study several systematic technologies about army weapons before sending them out, but after Li Hongzhang made him deeply disappointed, Li Hui finally made up his mind to implement his plan of "hiding soldiers in bandits" in advance

Considering that the initial strength of the "Xiangma" was limited and could not be directly confronted with the Qing army, it had to focus on mobile combat, so it could only choose cavalry, so that even if it could not be defeated, it could run away.

However, Shandong is hilly after all, although there are not many particularly rugged terrain, but there will still be some special requirements for war horses, if the horses will only walk flat terrain, it will definitely not be competent.

Considering that the Qing army also had cavalry, and sooner or later it would fight against the modern cavalry of the great powers, the speed of the war horse (including the speed of sprinting and marching) would definitely be as fast as possible.

In addition, for the whole cavalry team, the war horse often has to be used as both a horse and a pack horse, so it must be a horse breed.

According to these three requirements, although there are many horse breeds to choose from in the system, none of them can fully meet the requirements, which makes Li Hui, who is full of expectations, stunned

It is no wonder that the research and development of system technology has been carried out around the navy since the third line, and the category of military animals is mainly determined by the progress of the army's technology tree, so the horse breeds that Li Hui can choose at present are all bred before 1870 in history.

Among them, Western horse breeds are only adapted to flat terrain, which is not easy to use in mountainous countries like China. As for the Oriental horse breed represented by the Mongolian horse, it has not been improved at this time, and the body size is generally too small and the sprint speed is not fast

Although many admirers of Genghis Khan boasted of the Mongolian horse's ability to endure rough breeding and hardship, calling it the best war horse in the world, their weakness was obvious - they were too small.

Small physique, small strength, perhaps Mongolian horses in the case of empty or light load endurance is indeed excellent, but after carrying a fully armed cavalry and the necessary equipment and supplies, the lack of strength of Mongolian horses will be much greater than the Western high-headed horses, the so-called "excellent endurance" can not be played at all, and the disadvantage of slower speed is more and more prominent.

As for the advantages of saving money, the value is already quite limited at a time when the cavalry of various countries is constantly shrinking

In fact, in history, the reason why Genghis Khan's cavalry was able to ride a short Mongolian horse but was invincible, in addition to the advantages of strategy and tactics and weapons and equipment, was mainly because of the configuration of one person with more horses (an average of one person and eight horses during the Western Expedition) to save horsepower, so as to successfully exploit their strengths and avoid weaknesses.

However, the tactical coordination of modern cavalry units is far more detailed than that of ancient times, so they are basically one person and one horse, or even more people than horses.

In this way, the Mongolian horse could not be remedied, and naturally became an inferior horse that could not be used

Li Hui was a little frustrated by the lack of ready-made horse breeds, but fortunately, the system also had a "breeding" function, which allowed Li Hui to use the existing breeds to generate new breeds for selection by spending 1 kilogram of gold each time.

If he is a layman, even if he has such a function, he may not be able to use it well, but Li Hui's best course in college is genetics, and as a fanatical military history enthusiast, he also has a better understanding of the breeding process of those famous horse breeds in history