From 1781 to the present, although the size of the army has not been substantially expanded, the war potential of the Tang Dynasty has increased more than tenfold overall. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info This is not only the growth of the population base, the rise of industrial capacity, these growth is not a simple multiple growth, but actually exponential growth. Although Datang has not suffered any obvious threat to its homeland, Datang has been engaged in national defense construction all the time. Though the kingdom is great, the warlike will perish; Although the world is peaceful, it will be dangerous to forget the war. In recent years, one of Datang's priorities has been to train its own reserve forces.

A few years ago, Datang engaged in militia construction, almost every unit has its own militia establishment, although everyone does not have strong military skills, but more or less can use light weapons, and more or less united, organized, compared with some countries temporarily recruited soldiers, much stronger.

But the militia is the militia, and it can't really be used to fight a war, and conscripting the militia to fight will obviously suffocate the normal operation of the country's economy, so unless it is a crisis of national annihilation, it is impossible for Datang to use the militia to fight in an all-round way. The reserve is a different matter, and the combat capability of the reserve is not even worse than that of the regular army, because many of the reserve soldiers are previously discharged soldiers, have ready-made military skills, and are able to use complex heavy equipment such as artillery or infantry fighting vehicles.

Generally, a country's reserve force will be less than the active army, but the reserve force of Datang is actually more than the regular army, with a total size of 60,000 people. The core is veterans who have been discharged in recent years, and there are also some civilians who have passed the military assessment, among which there is a considerable proportion of naturalized aborigines, and the desire of aborigines to join the army has always been strong in Datang.

The 60,000-strong men were organized into 10 reserve brigades, each of which was built to full regular army standards. There are generally three to four regiments under the brigade. Each brigade has a heavy brigade. Equipped with Type 82 infantry fighting vehicles or old half-tracks, the artillery battalion also has highly mobile Type 83 self-propelled guns. Brigade artillery regiments (some of which have no artillery regiments in three-regimental formations), and some are armed with heavy cannon howitzers of 155 mm, and their firepower is no different from that of a regular army's artillery regiments. Small arms are also equipped with a large number of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. They regularly conduct intensive training and even conduct regular military exercises, and joint training with the regular regiments of the West Coast Military Region is also common. The intensity of their training is incomparable even with the regular armies of some European powers.

In addition, in 1788, the Ministry of Defense of the Tang Dynasty prepared to strengthen the military strength of the Southeast Theater, which was relatively thin in the early days. In addition to the strength of one brigade of the Foreign Legion, there is only one reinforced regiment of the Army and one regiment of the Marine Corps. Today, the three southeastern states already have a population of more than one million, and it is impossible to defend with thousands of troops, although the local defense pressure is not great, but the British are slowly getting bigger, and Spain has to defend, so the southeast theater is bound to need to be strengthened.

However, the West Coast Theater and the Far East Theater cannot be weakened, and the troops cannot be translated, so they can only be expanded. The West Coast theater of operations was originally three brigades. This time, the Ministry of Defense is preparing to expand the ground forces in the Southeastern Theater of Operations to two brigades. This gave rise to the Army's 8th and 9th Brigades. The Eighth and Ninth Brigades were formed in the three southeastern states, and their personnel were mainly immigrants. Although the Ministry of Defense has taken out a number of veterans and officers as seeds to go to the three southeastern states to participate in the formation of the troops, a strong army needs time to polish and experience on the battlefield.

The growing military power of the Tang Dynasty naturally posed a strong threat to New Spain, which was lying on the side of the couch. In essence, Datang has also been developing its military power in accordance with its own strategy, and the spearhead is New Mexico, Louisiana, and Mexico. Needless to say, New Mexico and Louisiana are another superpower, a country of great hope for mankind, a beacon of democracy and freedom, the territorial composition of the United States, and Datang also has the dream of a superpower from the ocean to the ocean, so it is absolutely impossible to give up. Although Mexico is a weak chicken at the feet of the United States in the other plane, and the country is extremely chaotic, Mexico actually has rich resources, such as iron ore reserves. Where Latinos do not develop well, it does not mean that the Tang people do not develop well, and if the Chinese accept Mexico, they will naturally have the confidence to make it a different look. And further down is the Sino-American Isthmus, which is even more difficult to give up. Although the completion of the two-ocean railway has alleviated the problem of communication between the east and the west to a certain extent, it is still not efficient enough, especially considering the future development and expansion of the country, the exchanges between the east and the west can only be closer. With the Panama Canal, the transportation of bulk goods will be easily solved, the cost will be greatly reduced, and the control of this strategic artery can also make Datang's influence completely envelop the entire Americas, especially South America.

In the medium and long-term national strategy of Datang with Bai Nan's participation, some countries in South America do not have much strong intention to rule directly, but Datang has the intention to take all the land from Mexico to Panama into his own pocket. Although the Spaniards have been operating here for 300 years, relying on the huge number of Chinese people, as long as they migrate to Mexico and other regions for a long time, the Tang Dynasty can make the Chinese occupy the core position of the regional population and strengthen their control over this region.

Bai Nan wanted to take this opportunity to march into New Mexico in a big way, first to obtain New Mexico and Louisiana, and as for the Spanish threat to cut off trade, Bai Nan was not afraid. Spain's local consumption power is getting worse and worse, and for Datang, it is not something that cannot afford to lose. In addition, as long as Spain dares to confront Datang, Bai Nan will dare to incite a series of colonies such as New Granada and Peru to rebel, and the new country finally established under the guidance of internationalism will inevitably be closer to Datang, and at the same time give Datang a more preferential trade policy, coupled with Datang's investment opportunities, can completely make up for the loss of Spain's cut off trade.

The cutting off of trade and trade was basically not hurtful to the Spaniards, and Spain did not have many ways to obtain high-end technical goods, and only Datang provided a variety of goods, including industrial machinery. If Spain interrupts trade, not only will its consumers be dissatisfied with the loss of some cheap and high-quality Datang goods, but its own industrial development will be seriously affected. Because their competitors all purchase a large number of machines from Datang every year. (To be continued.) )