The main task of the military in 1861, and indeed in the next three or four years, was to expand the size of the existing troops, replace them with new rifles and artillery, and at the same time maintain their military strength in the border areas, especially in the Trans-Khingan Mountains and Xinjiang.

Therefore, the expenditure on military spending is mainly based on the above aspects!

However, when the military submitted the reorganization plan for 1861, Lin Zhe rejected the military's reorganization plan and explicitly asked the military to refer to the new establishment proposed by the Establishment Department of the Military Training Department for reorganization!

The so-called new establishment is a special establishment planned by the military for the tactics of skirmishers who issue breech-loading rifles.

So far, although the Chinese army has been equipped with rear-loading rifles in batches, the establishment of the army is still the same as in the early days of Yu Shengjun.

The infantry in this formation is composed of a platoon of ten, eight platoons as a company, six companies as a battalion, three battalions as a regiment, three regiments as a division, or two regiments as a mixed brigade.

An additional artillery platoon was placed on the infantry battalion with two four-pounder light infantry guns.

A regular infantry division is attached to subordinate units:

Three standard infantry regiments.

A cavalry company of two hundred horsemen.

An artillery regiment with twenty-four twelve-pounder guns, six large-caliber mortars, and six six-pounder cavalry guns.

A baggage regiment has 1,200 baggage soldiers, equipped with all kinds of mules, horses and carriages.

An engineering battalion is equipped with more than 300 engineering troops.

A marching band.

There are also various types of staff officers in the division headquarters, and one division belongs to the guard company.

When the division is fully staffed, it has 9,000 troops!

This establishment was in fact the standard of the era of the front-loading rifle line. Its basic structure, that is, the rank of infantry company and infantry battalion, was modeled after the colonial troops of the British army.

However, the formation of this line era is obviously not suitable for skirmish tactics, and the troops using breech-loading rifles are mainly paratrooper tactics. And the troops tend to be scattered and relatively open.

In the era of line formation, the commander of an infantry company could easily and directly command his eight, ten, or even more ten-man infantry platoons. The commander of an infantry battalion can easily command six or even eight companies under his command.

However, in the era of skirmishers, due to the large deployment area of the troops, it was difficult for the reputation of the battalion commanders and company commanders to be transmitted to the subordinate units in time, and at the same time, a ten-man infantry platoon was a little embarrassing.

Because the rear-loading rifle has a great rapid-fire ratio to the front-loading rifle, a ten-man infantry platoon can exert about three to four times the firepower density of the front-loading era with the same strength. However, it is worth noting that this infantry platoon is also spread out widely, and they often face not ten enemy troops, but twenty or even thirty enemy troops.

In the face of all kinds of inconveniences. For example, the commander of an infantry battalion will often send his deputy battalion commander to lead two or three infantry companies alone, but the battalion commander himself will directly command three or four infantry companies.

Similarly, the commanders of those infantry companies often have the deputy company commander and the senior sergeant platoon commander under their command lead two or three infantry platoons alone.

In this way, in actual combat, although the Chinese army still maintains the eight-platoon and six-company system in terms of establishment, it actually forms an actual combat application establishment similar to the three-three system or the three-four system.

Due to the impact of actual combat, he is responsible for the training of troops. The military training department of officer training has even set up relevant command courses in the army officer academy, such as how to better split and deploy the six infantry companies under the command of an infantry battalion in actual combat to obtain better actual combat results.

For this reason, the Establishment Department of the Military Training Department has also specially studied this kind of establishment suitable for skirmish tactics!

Within the Military Training Department, the current new establishment is called the 'skirmishment system'. To distinguish it from the previous line system, the details of this so-called skirmish formation are:

A division has two infantry brigades, and an infantry brigade has two infantry regiments. An infantry regiment has three infantry battalions and an infantry battalion has four infantry companies. An infantry company has three infantry platoons and an infantry platoon has three squads.

The most basic infantry squad has fourteen riflemen, including the squad leader!

This kind of compilation is completely different from the previous line and column compilation. Because the difference is too great, and no one knows whether it will work or not, military generals generally have a certain degree of resistance to this kind of establishment.

Because the Chinese army has been accustomed to using it in the past many years of war, and it is even said to be very good at the line formation, and it has not encountered any failures, so in the eyes of many generals, even if the army begins to use rear-loading rifles and begins to use skirmisher tactics, there is no need to adjust the existing formation.

Therefore, in the reorganization plan of the military in 1861, there is no mention of the new establishment.

But these generals in the military don't pay attention to it, it doesn't mean that Lin Zhe doesn't pay attention to it, as a latecomer, although he is not a military enthusiast, but he also knows that the troops before and after World War II are mostly three-three systems.

At the same time, considering that the Chinese army has gradually and comprehensively replaced with rear-loading rifles, although these rear-loading rifles cannot be compared with the mature rear-loading rifles of later generations, they are also rear-loading rifles, and the firepower density is not as bad as that.

In addition to the fact that the artillery has not yet been equipped with rear-loading artillery, in fact, the current Chinese army is not bad in terms of weaponry, and it can barely use some tactics in the late 19th and early 20s.

Therefore, Lin Zhecai personally intervened in the military's reorganization plan and asked the military to refer to the new stragglers for the reorganization plan!

As a last resort, the military can only reformulate the reorganization plan, but the military in any era is very conservative, and it is difficult for the so-called new establishment or new weapons to gain the complete trust of the military without being tested for a long time and without the test of war.

Therefore, in the new reorganization plan of 1861, although the military listened to Lin Zhe's opinion, it only listened to part of it!

In the plan, it is planned to adopt a new establishment in the new 24th Infantry Division and the 25th Infantry Division, but it is not clear whether such a new formation is feasible at present. I am also worried that if this new establishment really works well, the troops that are now too old will have to start anew. So the military simply decided to create only two new infantry divisions in 1861, namely the 24th Infantry Division and the 25th Infantry Division. The training plans for the 26th, 27th, and 28th Infantry Divisions, which were originally planned, were directly tentative.

Originally, military expenditures were diverted to the refitting of rear-loading rifles, the construction of local garrison units, and the construction of cavalry and artillery units.

As for the establishment of those old troops, they will continue to use the old establishment, and if the new establishment is really feasible, then it will continue to be reorganized into a new establishment in the future.

Although the expansion plan of the other three divisions was suspended, the formation of garrison units, the replacement of new rifles and artillery, and the formation of more cavalry plans have been suspended, so on the whole, if the plan can be carried out smoothly, the military strength of the Chinese army will still be greatly increased.

It is expected that the strength of the field army will be increased from about 200,000 to about 300,000, and the local garrison is expected to increase from 150,000 to about 300,000.

At that time the empire nationwide. The combined number of combat troops on the first and second lines will be about 600,000.

Moreover, this does not include the Guards!

Since the end of the fighting in Yunnan and Sichuan, the two mixed brigades of the Guards Army returned to Nanjing, and at the same time, the temporary numbers of the 1st Guards Mixed Brigade and the 2nd Guards Mixed Brigade were revoked, and the units were returned to the three Guards Divisions to which they belonged.

At the same time, in order to further increase the control of the Imperial Family or Lin Zhe himself over the Guards, and to prevent the Guards from being influenced by other army generals, Lin Zhe further stripped the connection between the Guards and the Royal Army.

All the affairs of the Guards, including recruitment, training, and operational command, were separated from the Royal Army, and the Royal Guards General Headquarters was established separately to form a special body. For example, the Department of Military Training, the Department of Staff, the Department of Ordnance, etc.

It's basically a miniature version of the Supreme Command.,Although it's not much.,But the sparrows are small and have all the organs.,There are basically all that should be.。

At present, the three Guards Divisions are fully staffed according to the old establishment. The total strength of the army is about 28,000 men, and if you include a few independent guard battalions that also belong to the Guards system, but are only responsible for the defense of the palace and various cabinet agencies. Then the total number of troops is about 30,000.

And now Lin Zhe sees that the generals of the military are relatively conservative and dare not apply the new establishment on a large scale. It's also not good for him to oppose directly, after all, the generals of the military are not all stupid. And for good reason. To put it simply, the state of the army is now in a relatively good state, and it is extremely risky to rashly adopt a new type of establishment that has not been tested by practice and war.

At that time, hundreds of thousands of troops will be incapacitated, and if this situation really occurs, who will defend the territory of tens of millions of square kilometers of the empire?

So Lin Zhe can't object, let's get two divisions!

However, Lin Zhe turned around and reorganized the Guards, and the Royal Army was large and difficult to recuperate once it made a mistake, so it could not be easily reformed. But the Guards only had 20,000 or 30,000 men in total, and the so-called ship turned around, and if something really happened, it could recover quickly.

Therefore, Lin Zhe directly instructed the Guards to carry out the reform of the new establishment, further give full play to the advantages of rear-loading rifles and skirmisher tactics, and reform in advance to provide reform experience for other fraternal units.

Based on this, the 1st Guards Division of the Guards became the first unit in China and even in the world to reform its organization according to skirmishers.

If we look at it from the perspective of future generations, once the reform of the establishment of the First Guards Division is successful, its new establishment model will become the standard template for the next 50 years or even 100 years of the global army.

You must know that the establishment of one division, two brigades, two regiments, three battalions, four companies, three platoons and three squads was the standard symbol of the global army from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century.

Even after World War II, the basic establishment of the army did not break away from this restriction, but some details were changed back and forth, and it was not until the 80s that it was gradually replaced by composite establishments.

Of course, these current Guards officers do not know that they are writing an important chapter in the history of the world army. (To be continued.) )