Since the beginning of the war in this world, the two warring sides have always been fighting with infantry as the main force, so the infantry has been a cheap and important branch of the army since ancient times, and the infantry occupies an extremely important position in every war, coupled with the easy training and low cost of the infantry is destined to only need to undergo a period of training The common people can be called infantry after taking the rifle.

The infantry was born in ancient times, during the slave society, and in many countries, the infantry was the main force on the battlefield, divided into hoplite and light infantry.

In ancient China, infantry was called apprentices or pawns, and there were names such as apprentices, apprentices, warriors, sharp soldiers, technical strikers, and armor, which mainly revolved around chariot combat, and later gradually became the main combat force.

During the feudal period, cavalry developed as the main type of troops, and infantry assumed auxiliary tasks, but with the emergence and development of firearms, infantry once again became the main branch of arms.

Therefore, it is officially for this reason that the infantry has become one of the main forces in modern warfare.

As the army under Wang Bin began to expand, infantry was the first supplementary element to bear the brunt, artillery needed to be fed with shells, engineering troops and baggage troops needed a certain amount of technical content, and only infantry training was the simplest.

The main thing is that as long as there is a stable source of troops and sufficient funds, it is not too difficult to build a military force dominated by infantry.

"Your Excellency, the imperial court has issued an edict to allow us to expand the standing army of Fengtian in two more towns, and the imperial court also asks your lord to eliminate all unqualified old armies and strengthen your control over the situation in Fengtian."

At this moment, in Wang Bin's office, Ma Zikai was reporting to Wang Bin about the imperial court's views on this army expansion.

As for the opinion of the imperial court, Wang Bin is not worried that he will refuse to expand the army, after all, the situation outside the pass, the princes of the court are like a mirror, and the military strength of a town alone cannot be defended, and Yuan Shikai will definitely vigorously promote the expansion of the army above the court, after all, in Yuan Shikai's view, as long as Wang Bin's army is expanded, it will inevitably become a part of the Beiyang power in the end.

Therefore, there is no opposition to the army expansion plan proposed by Wang Bin in the court, but now Yuan Shikai's power is getting bigger and bigger, and there are not a few people in the court who are quite jealous of Yuan Shikai.

"Hmm. Now that the imperial court's edict has come down, you must complete the expansion of the army, how have you done now to eliminate the old army? ”

In Wang Bin's view, the first step in the expansion of the army is to eliminate these old armies, and then recruit soldiers from outside the customs.

"My lord, the elimination of this old army is much smoother than before, when the old army below is mixed under Zengqi, it will take two or three months to get some barely subsistence salaries, this time I heard that the adults are going to expand the army, there will be military salaries every month, where will there be opposition thoughts, besides, those soldiers who have been laid off are still another severance pay, how can there be another incident, it is too late to see these old soldiers happy with the department!"

Ma Zikai's words were full of dissatisfaction with Zengqi's private withholding of soldiers' salaries.

Regarding Ma Zikai's words, Wang Bin didn't expect that it was really unexpected that the old army had not given birth to moths this time, but this would save him from worrying, and then Wang Bin followed Ma Zikai's words and asked

"This time, how many soldiers have been selected to join the Fengtian Standing Army?" Wang Bin is still more concerned about how many soldiers were selected from the old army.

"Lord Hui, the Ministry of Duties has selected a total of more than 4,000 soldiers with strong bodies and clean backgrounds from the old army to enter the Fengtian Standing Army, and then the Ministry of Duties is also preparing to merge the four patrol battalions into the Fengtian Standing Army."

Ma Zikai not only stated the number of the old army to be cut off, but also put forward his own views on the establishment of the standing army.

In order to be able to quickly control the Fengtian Standing Army after its establishment, Wang Bin had already considered merging about more than 2,000 people from these four patrol battalions into the Standing Army, so that in the early days of the establishment of the Standing Army, more than 2,000 people could be mixed in, and the control of this Standing Army could be maximized in a very short period of time.

So for Ma Zikai's suggestion, Wang Bin naturally accepted it.

After sending Ma Zikai away, Wang Bin began to consider the source of officers in the standing army, which was nothing more than the transfer from the fifth town, but it was far from enough to meet the needs.

In this regard, Wang Bin began to train lower-level officers at the beginning of the recruitment work of the standing army, so Wang Bin proposed to gradually build the original camp school as the basis and gradually build it into the Jinzhou Martial Arts Hall.

Some capable non-commissioned officers should be trained in their tactics and qualities related to lower-level officers, and while training non-commissioned officers, some of the original officers should also be trained to provide further military education to these officers.

These officers must start with the officers who have made meritorious contributions, after all, these officers have made contributions, and after the officers are trained, Wang Bin will be promoted, so the training of this officer Wang Bin needs to be well selected.

Even within the Fifth Town, there were quite a few officers vying for the qualifications of this officer.

The training of soldiers is much simpler, only need to select some excellent soldiers, and after simple training, these soldiers will immediately be filled into the Fengtian Standing Army, so as to ensure their mastery of the lower levels of the Fengtian Standing Army.

Wang Bin also put forward a series of requirements for the teachers of the martial arts hall, because it was the beginning of the grass, it must need the support of Yuan Shikai, after all, Yuan Shikai has a group of excellent teachers in his hands, but he does not have it in his own hands.

So Wang Bin put forward this request to Yuan Shikai, and also put forward his own requirements for the teacher Wang Bin.

Wang Bin knew that there was such a group of officers in the martial arts hall under Yuan Shikai who had the experience of studying abroad, and they had this good vision for the military tactics and systems of various countries, and in addition, these international students were more or less able to accept some new ideas after being baptized, and these students often had a talent after returning to China, but because Yuan Shikai did not pay attention to it, except for some of them who were reused because of their talents, the rest of them were all teachers in the martial arts hall.

If such a group of high-quality instructors don't use themselves, it's a pity, let them go to the ocean to the end but a teacher, it is better to go to their own subordinates, nothing to lead the troops, teaching students Wang Bin can even consider changing it from a teacher to an officer, so that it can also win the hearts of many of these instructors, for Wang Bin, this way is really a double benefit, wooing, teaching is not wrong.