Just when Lu Dengyun and the others were in a panic, Pang Yue looked like he was at ease, and he was constantly busy with various matters in the army. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

At the beginning of Hengzhou, Emperor Longwu had already approved Pang Yue to increase the establishment of four more battalions. However, in the past ten days or so since he arrived in Chenzhou, the army has just settled down, and Pang Yue has been busy building school yards and barracks and rectifying the Ordnance Bureau, and he has not paid too much attention to expanding the army for a while. Now, most of the construction of the barracks and school yards has been completed, and the Ordnance Bureau in the city has been completely controlled by Pang Yue and has entered the normal production stage in accordance with the rules and regulations implemented in Ganzhou, and Pang Yue has begun to prepare for the expansion of the army. After all, the current situation is still dangerous, and only by strengthening one's own strength can one avoid becoming a spectator in this turbulent era.

Regarding the name and nature of the new four battalions, Pang Yue and his subordinates decided after some discussion. The names of the four new battalions are Huben, Pojun, Agni, and Huashan. Among them, the Tiger Battalion and the Broken Army Battalion are mixed infantry battalions, and like the original Gangfeng Battalion and the Trap Battalion, cold weapons and firearms are mixed; The Agni Battalion is an artillery battalion, which is expanded on the basis of the original artillery team directly under Ganzhou Town, as a long-range strike and fire suppression force; The Huashan Battalion is an engineering battalion, which is mainly composed of auxiliary soldiers who have undergone corresponding training, and is responsible for carrying out tasks such as paving roads and bridges, and building fortifications.

As for the original four battalions, the nature and scale of the Flying Tiger, Gangfeng, and Taishan battalions remained unchanged, and the trapping camp was changed to a heavy infantry battalion, and the establishment of one team was increased, with a total of more than 4,000 people in four teams, and all the officers and men of the battalion wore heavy armor and were mainly equipped with cold weapons, which would be used as a battlefield assault force in the future.

In this way, in the near future, Huguang Town will have eight battalions, including a cavalry battalion (Flying Tiger Battalion), three mixed infantry battalions (Gangfeng, Huben, and Pojun Battalion), one heavy infantry battalion (trapping camp), one artillery battalion (Agni Battalion), one baggage battalion (Taishan battalion), and one engineering battalion (Huashan battalion).

Among them, the cavalry battalion has two teams of armored soldiers and a team of auxiliaries responsible for taking care of the war horses, the officers in the battalion wear iron armor, the soldiers wear cotton armor inlaid with iron leaves, and the auxiliary soldiers wear cotton armor without iron leaves.

The mixed infantry battalion has one team of firearms and two teams of ordinary spears, swords and shields and other cold weapons, officers and soldiers wear iron armor, and soldiers wear cotton armor with iron leaves inlaid inside.

The four teams under the heavy infantry battalion were all cold-weapon troops, leaving only one division of more than 300 musketeers under the direct jurisdiction of the battalion officer, and the officers and soldiers were all wearing heavy armor.

Although the artillery battalion is the establishment of a battalion, at present, due to the relative scarcity of artillery and artillery under Pang Yue, it is estimated that it can only have a scale of more than 1,000 people in one team for the time being, equipped with the existing three-pounder guns, Furlong bronze cannons, tiger squat guns, and so on. The officers of the artillery battalion wore iron armor, and the soldiers wore cotton armor inlaid with iron leaves.

The baggage battalion and the engineering battalion are both auxiliary battalions, each under the jurisdiction of three teams of auxiliaries, the officers wear iron armor, the captain and the chief wear cotton armor with iron leaf inlay, and the ordinary soldiers wear cotton armor without iron leaf wood. In addition, the best men in each battalion are selected to form a team, which receives both relevant training for auxiliaries and firearms training, and is distributed with weapons in wartime, ready to serve as a supplementary force for the soldiers at any time.

However, now, the existing soldiers, armor, weapons, and war horses in Huguang Town are not enough to meet the scale of the new establishment. According to the new establishment, the eight battalions in the town have nearly 24,000 soldiers, nearly 5,000 pairs of iron armor, more than 11,000 pairs of iron-leaf cotton armor, nearly 8,000 pairs of non-iron-leaf cotton armor, more than 3,000 war horses, plus a number of mules and horses for the baggage battalion and artillery battalion, and various weapons.

As soon as he saw these huge figures, Pang Yue felt that his head was big, and he sighed in his heart: No matter what time it is, the army's equipment is piled up by money, and it is impossible to build a strong army with blood alone. And now, the silver taels in his hands are not very much, there are more than 20,000 taels of silver and various rewards of silver received in Ganzhou, before leaving Ganzhou, the nearby squire landlord sent more than 10,000 taels to show his gratitude, and later before coming to Chenzhou from Hengzhou, the household department first allocated 60,000 taels of silver to Huguang Town for three months, so the existing silver taels in his hands are a total of 100,000 taels. …,

100,000 taels is undoubtedly a large amount for an individual, but for an army of more than 20,000 people, it still seems a drop in the bucket, and there are many things that will be inadequate. What's more, not all problems can be solved simply with silver, for example, the war horses that Huguang Town is currently lacking are difficult to buy even if they have money in the south. However, now there is only one step at a time.

After the new establishment was decided, Pang Yue first began to recruit soldiers, sent many people to the prefectures and counties of Huguang that were still under Huguang's control to recruit troops, and sent people to take his own warrants and go to Yuanzhou, Baoqing, Yongzhou, Jingzhou and other guards in the name of the Huguang Command Envoy, and select some qualified young men from the local military households to serve as battalion soldiers. This is because, according to Pang Yue's assumption, in the future, the guards under his jurisdiction will no longer be used as military combat units, and the combat tasks will be completely undertaken by the battalions, and the guards will only be used as logistics and agricultural reclamation units and military service institutions, and no longer retain separate combat units. However, considering that a large number of manpower was still needed in the garrison Tuntian, Pang Yue explained to the responsible persons of all walks of life who went to recruit troops that the soldiers selected from the military households should be precise, not too many.

As for the selection criteria for soldiers, Pang Yue also determined them according to Qi Shaobao's experience back then, and only recruited those young adults who were honest and healthy, and as for those idle prodigals, even if they took the initiative to send them to the door, they could not accept them.

On October 13, the recruitment teams from all walks of life set off one after another, and the high-level generals of Pang Yue and Huguang Town toasted them one by one. In the face of such hospitality, the leading officers of the recruitment teams from all walks of life were overwhelmed and repeatedly said that they must complete the task.

After all, in the future, the Ordnance Bureau will need a lot of iron materials to build armor and weapons, and if it only depends on purchase and allocation by the imperial court, it will not be enough at all, and it will still have to be self-reliant. Fortunately, due to his previous experience in opening an iron plant in Ganzhou, Pang Yue has brought many experienced mining technicians and iron-smelting craftsmen from Jiangxi, and as long as a suitable mine can be found, the iron factory should be able to be opened quickly.

Therefore, Pang Yue sent many people to the territory of Chenzhou Prefecture and even the nearby Changde, Changsha Prefecture, Zhenyuanwei (in the later Guizhou Province, now belonging to the Huguang Command Mission) and other places to find suitable mines. This time, he decided to build a big one if he wanted to, and if the financial resources and manpower permitted, he would open a few more iron factories and completely expand the scale of production.

Before you know it, it's late October.

On October 25, Pang Yue's recital to Emperor Longwu finally responded. On this day, several eunuchs, more than a dozen officials of the Criminal Department, and dozens of Jinyi guards came to Chenzhou, bringing the will of Emperor Longwu: Pang Yue sent troops to cooperate, and the commander of Chenzhou Wei Lu Dengyun, the commander of Tongzhi Lian Jinpeng, and the two thousand households of Chenzhou Wei were dismissed and sent to Hengzhou, and their family property was confiscated.

As Pang Yue expected, He Tengjiao, who was restless about the defeat, didn't bother to pay attention to Lu Dengyun's distress message that Lou Jingzhi handed over on his behalf. Emperor Longwu was also angry about the defeat of the armies in northern Hunan again, and after receiving Pang Yue's recital, he was even more furious, and sighed left and right: The state has such a black sheep, how can it be undefeated? ! He summoned Zhu Dadian, the secretary of the Ministry of War, and after a brief discussion with him, he approved Pang Yue's request, and severely punished Lu Dengyun, Lian Jinpeng, and other military attachés of the guard.

Pang Yue, who got the will of Emperor Longwu, was relieved in his heart, sighed that he had finally eradicated this snake, and immediately sent troops to cooperate with the Jinyi Guards who came to surround the Chenzhou Wei Command Mansion, as well as the two thousand mansions under Chenzhou Wei, and disarmed Lu Dengyun, Lian Jinpeng and others without bloodshed, and confiscated all the family properties under their names.

Lu Dengyun, who had been in a panic for many days, now ushered in such an ending, and his heart was almost hopeless, so he couldn't care about anything else, and struggled to scold Pang Yue when he was shackled and put in prison. The scolding is nothing more than that he and Pang Yue have no grievances in the past and no enmity in recent days, but they still suffer from this catastrophe, which shows that Pang Yue is a snake and scorpion, insidious and cunning, and will be a great disaster for the country in the future. …,

In the face of Lu Dengyun's last jump, Pang Yue didn't pay attention to it at all, and just smiled.

The results of the seizure of Lu Dengyun and others' property also surprised Pang Yue, who copied more than 10,000 acres of land, more than 200,000 taels of silver, more than 20,000 taels of gold, and a large number of jewelry, silk and satin, and a number of various shops.

In addition to being shocked, Pang Yue couldn't help but sigh in his heart: several military attachés in remote areas can also accumulate such wealth, as for the wealth of the official gentry and landlords in the land south of the Yangtze River, you can imagine how it is! However, the treasury of the late Ming Dynasty in history was perennial and could not make ends meet, and Emperor Chongzhen couldn't even make up the military expenses when the Shun army approached Beijing, such a stark contrast is really a great irony!

However, Pang Yue also thought that if Lu Dengyun's fall could be a wake-up call for the other military attachés in Huguang, so that they could become honest and make his orders unimpeded, he would not be ready to use force against the rest of the military attachés in Huguang for the time being. Because it is not difficult to defeat a Lu Dengyun, but it is not easy to fight against the entire Huguang and even the entire Ming Dynasty's military attache system by himself. After all, it is impossible for him to recover all the military land that has been embezzled, and once the interests of these guards are too touched, it will most likely cause them to unite and counterattack, and even cause them to defect to the Qing army. At a time when the situation is critical and the national crisis is at hand, such a situation will undoubtedly accelerate the erosion of the situation and be counterproductive.

Three days later, the Jinyi guards who came to Chenzhou escorted Lu Dengyun, Lian Jinpeng and other prisoners and confiscated property back to Hengzhou to resume their lives. And Pang Yue, who made a great effort in this raid, naturally did not find nothing, and like the eunuchs, the leading officials of the Criminal Department, and the captain of the Jinyi Guard who led the team, he got a share of the confiscated family property. Pang Yue accepted this kind of routine of officialdom in the late Ming Dynasty with a smile, after all, this kind of atmosphere has not obviously violated his interests for the time being, and he is powerless to reverse it.