At the same time, the Sixth Mixed Brigade, which was formed with the Third Infantry Regiment under the former First Division as the core, was incorporated into the operational sequence of the First Army, and the subsequent First Army will have the Third Division, the Sixth Mixed Brigade, the Second Cavalry Regiment, and the 19th Auxiliary Defense Division.

As for a large number of auxiliary defense divisions, the previous policy was followed, and some of the auxiliary defense divisions with acceptable combat effectiveness continued to be incorporated into the front-line units and undertook auxiliary combat missions, while the Sixth Army and the First Army together excluded the Ninth and Nineteenth Auxiliary Defense Divisions, and there were about 10 auxiliary defense divisions under the direct command of the above two armies, and the strength of this part of the auxiliary defense division was about 40,000.

In addition to making slight adjustments to the field units such as the First Army and the Sixth Army in the north, the Chinese Army Command announced the formal formation of local garrison units and the formation of garrison commands in various provinces, which were:

The commanders of the Guangzhou Garrison Command, the Fuzhou Garrison Command, the Shanghai Garrison Command, the Hangzhou Garrison Command, the Jinan Garrison Command, the Anqing Garrison Command, the Kaifeng Garrison Command, and the provincial commands are all officers dispatched by the Royal Army, and in principle, the rank of colonel shall prevail.

Judging only from the ranks of the provincial garrison commanders, it is clear that the political status of the provincial garrison commanders is far lower than that of the field army units, and at most it is equivalent to the commander of an infantry regiment.

The above-mentioned garrison headquarters will be responsible for the ordinary tasks of suppressing bandits and suppressing local areas in their respective provinces, and will select the best from the auxiliary defense divisions stationed in the provinces to be reorganized into local garrison units, and set up a number of garrison battalions and garrison regiments to be stationed in the localities, but for the time being they will be limited to the four provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Jiangsu, which are not in the course of war.

However, due to the limited quality of the soldiers in the auxiliary defense division, there are quite few soldiers in the auxiliary defense division who can be reorganized into garrison units, and most of the soldiers in the garrison force still need to be recruited.

In other provinces where there is war, including Shandong, Anhui, and Henan, the troops of the auxiliary defense divisions will maintain the status quo and continue to be under the commanders of the front-line armies, and the local garrison headquarters will not be allowed to select soldiers from the auxiliary defense divisions. Why? Because there are only a few soldiers of the auxiliary defense division who can be selected to enter the garrison unit, and they are the only troops in the auxiliary defense division that can fight, if they are transferred, the front-line troops will lack some qualified cannon fodder troops to fight, so in the provinces where there is a war, the local garrison troops are mainly directly recruited.

Overall. The establishment of provincial garrison headquarters on a large scale this time is a major move by the Chinese army to reform the existing military system, not only to maintain local stability, but also to provide qualified reserve soldiers for the field troops, so that when a large-scale war breaks out, more troops can be mobilized to participate in the war in a short period of time.

This local garrison is actually an important part of the Chinese army's war mobilization system!

"At present, the work of organizing and training garrison troops in various provinces is proceeding relatively smoothly, especially in Zhejiang, where three garrison battalions have been organized at present, and it is expected that a garrison force of more than 5,000 people will be formed within half a year. So as to undertake the local defense of the entire Zhejiang Province! Chen Yuntao, as usual, reported to Lin Zhe in a calm tone.

Lin Zhe looked at the report in his hand and asked, "Do you have any relevant plans for the adaptation of the assistant defense division, and how is it going?" ”

Chen Yuntao said: "When the provincial garrison units were formed, the colleagues of the various departments of the General Headquarters had already discussed the issue of the auxiliary defense division in depth, and most of the colleagues believed that the quality of the auxiliary defense division was poor, and it had no value in being reorganized into a new army, such as the current test of the two auxiliary defense divisions stationed in Zhejiang by the Hangzhou Garrison Command. Nearly 8,000 soldiers of the Auxiliary Defense Division and 300 of them passed our comprehensive test.

In this regard, the opinion of the High Command is: A small number of soldiers in the auxiliary defense division were selected to enter the garrison through the test, and the rest remained in their current state, and after the subsequent formation of the garrison troops in various provinces, the auxiliary defense division was transformed into an engineering force to build water conservancy and other large-scale infrastructure tasks in the local area, and at the same time arranged to retire year by year, and the number of the soldiers in the department was directly revoked after the retirement was completed! ”

It was only out of eight thousand men that three hundred qualified garrison soldiers were selected. This made Lin Zhe quite speechless, you must know that this selection is not a field army soldier, but just a soldier of the garrison force, and the requirements for the soldiers of the garrison force in all aspects are lower than those of the field army, and their height, weight and physical fitness are relatively low.

But even so. These assistant defense forces have only singled out such a few people, which has to be said to make Lin Zhe quite disappointed.

But Lin Zhe also knew the reason, there were relatively few people who could be picked out by the assistant defense division in Zhejiang, mainly because the two assistant defense divisions stationed in Zhejiang were originally part of the middle, middle and lower reaches of the auxiliary defense division.

In the early years, the Chinese army divided the auxiliary defense forces into A, B, and C, among which the first-class auxiliary defense division was in relatively good condition and could undertake secondary combat missions under certain circumstances, and the second-class auxiliary defense division was used as cannon fodder, and the second-class auxiliary defense division was used as cannon fodder.

Later, although the Chinese army abolished the division of the auxiliary defense division A, B and C, but in fact this distinction exists, the current Chinese army auxiliary defense force has four kinds, the first class is the ninth auxiliary defense division, the 19th auxiliary defense division, the soldiers are mainly soldiers of the new army of the Qing army, equipped with flintlock pistols, firing guns and artillery, although the combat effectiveness is not as good as the royal army, but it is still possible to fight with the new army of the Qing army. This kind of auxiliary defense division is also capable of fighting alone, and the front-line generals generally use them as the main force in actual combat.

But there are only two of these assistants!

The second is the regular auxiliary defense division that follows the major main divisions to coordinate operations, in the previous words, it is a first-class auxiliary defense division, although its soldiers are selected from the Qing army's green battalion, regimental training, and Taiping army, but they are all given priority to select soldiers with excellent physical fitness, with a standard musket regiment, two cold weapons hand-to-hand combat regiments, among which the musket regiment is equipped with flintlock pistols or arquebuses, etc., and the hand-to-hand combat regiment is equipped with cold weapons.

However, their weapons are generally uniformly designed, not to mention that they are all messy weapons like other cannon fodder troops.

This kind of assistant division often has a battalion of sword and shield soldiers, these sword and shield soldiers have excellent physical fitness and strong hand-to-hand combat ability, especially in the case of hand-to-hand combat on the wall.

And often the essence of a three or four thousand auxiliary defense division lies in the sword and shield soldiers of three or four hundred people, and the others are very ordinary.

The second is the largest number of real cannon fodder, half of the more than 50 auxiliary defense divisions in the Chinese army are like this, their soldiers are ordinary green battalion, regimental training or Taiping Army soldiers, physical fitness is average, there are some arquebuses on the weapon, all kinds of chaotic cold weapons, basically what is the use, can not maintain a unified system.

These auxiliary defense divisions are generally used as cannon fodder, and the green battalions and regiments in the Qing army have to be trained depending on the situation, and if there is a royal army to suppress the formation, they can generally win, but if there is no royal army to suppress the formation, the basic fight is five or five, and who wins and who loses depends on the actual combat command and luck.

However, unless it is time to conquer the fortified city, the senior generals of the Chinese army generally do not line these auxiliary defense divisions on the front line, and generally undertake auxiliary tasks in the rear, such as transporting supplies, maintaining supply lines, garrisoning key areas in the rear, digging trenches and building fortifications, and so on.

Again, there are those assistant defense divisions that are not even cannon fodder, and the soldiers of these auxiliary defense divisions are often old and weak among the captives, and their physical fitness is no better than that of civilians, and what is the use of weapons, some soldiers do not even have standard weapons, only a bamboo gun or wooden stick.

Even if these assistant defense divisions go to be cannon fodder, the front-line generals think they are in the way, and they generally stay in the rear to undertake some manual labor, for example, there are many auxiliary defense divisions of this nature used to dredge the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and some are used to build cities damaged by war, such as Yangzhou, Huai'an and other cities.

This division basically allows the auxiliary defense divisions that can fight a little more to be on the front line, and the auxiliary defense divisions that can stay in the rear are basically old and weak soldiers, which are basically useless.

The two auxiliary defense divisions stationed in Zhejiang are only the kind of auxiliary defense divisions that are slightly worse than cannon fodder, and it is not easy to pick out 300 people among these remnants.

Closing the report in his hand, Lin Zhe said: "The formation and training of the local garrison troops should be accelerated, and the auxiliary defense divisions that remain in the rear and are weak in combat strength must also be disposed of as soon as possible. ”

Although the soldiers of the auxiliary defense division do not need to be paid, but they also have to eat, it is definitely not possible to raise so many useless soldiers of the auxiliary defense division in vain, but they cannot be disbanded on the spot regardless of it, which will cause some unnecessary trouble.

No matter what, they are also part of the Chinese army, at the most important words, they are all soldiers of the empire, and they are all his Lin Zhe's people, he can't ignore them, if they are kept, they can still eat every day, but if they are directly disbanded on the spot, those who have a home to return to are fine, and they can still farm and live when they go back, but if they are homeless, or there is not enough land at home, this will be equivalent to sentencing them to death if they are driven out of the barracks.

Therefore, regarding the disbandment of these weak auxiliary defense divisions, it cannot be simply one size fits all, and all aspects must be considered!

Those who are willing to return to their hometowns will be discharged with travel expenses, and those who are unwilling or homeless will be arranged to work, and the easiest arrangements are all kinds of engineering teams.

The post-war Chinese Empire already had a lot of engineering construction, not to mention that the Chinese Empire was now at the beginning of industrialization, which required a large number of industrial workers, even if the cities could not consume so much labor.

But a large amount of water conservancy construction in the countryside is enough to consume the labor force of these retired ADF soldiers!

However, in this way, it will definitely directly increase the burden on the local government, but there is no way to do it, and it is impossible to keep the assistant defense division all the time.

After Lin Zhe decided to carry out the establishment of local garrison units and the gradual abolition of the relevant reforms of the auxiliary defense divisions, along with the establishment of the local garrison units in the provinces, the provinces that were not fighting in the rear also carried out relevant rearrangements for the numerous auxiliary defense divisions, and in December, the Chinese army revoked the number of a total of 13 auxiliary defense divisions stationed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces. (To be continued......)