In mid-April of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the nine-headed bird issued an assembly order.

Groups of summoned men and horses are rushing to Huangzhou, troop carriers flying the flag of nine-headed birds on the Han River and the Yangtze River are continuous, and on the land route, convoys and cavalry are also constantly marching.

The number of troops dispatched this time was more than 30,000, and one-third of the troops in the three towns of Huguang were transferred. The soldiers and horses of Yunyang Town, the eighth town, are mainly transferred, and some soldiers and horses from the ninth town and the tenth town are also transferred. Half of the army of the last Eastern Crusade remained behind, and the new army in the ninth and twelfth towns went to fight and train in actual combat.

Zhang Guozhu pointed to the distance, "We are organized in the First Combat Brigade, and the soldiers and horses of the Three Towns and the Water Division are mixed with water and land infantry and bicycles, with a total of more than 10,000 people. Such combat brigades, there are three. ”

Qi Yuan suddenly heard the useful information inside, "Is this Eastern Crusade going to divide the troops into three routes?" ”

"I don't know if it's divided into three ways, but it's certainly not 30,000 people who will act together. We are going to attack and harass the coast of eastern Liaodong, and we don't want to go deep into Jianzhou, so we definitely don't need to gather too many troops and horses to act together. ”

The setup of a combat brigade is actually not new, it is actually a battalion. In ancient times, there were already existing, such as the Sui and Tang dynasties, when the government military system was mainly used in peacetime, and the imperial army was scattered and stationed everywhere in the form of a military government, and in case of war, the government soldiers were mobilized. Then, these government soldiers who were not subordinate to each other were reorganized into a battalion, divided into front, rear, left, and right departments, and appointed commanding officers, and mixed infantry and cavalry.

The 1st Combat Brigade consisted of a brigade headquarters, a reconnaissance division, a cavalry division, three infantry divisions, plus a vehicle department, and a logistics support department, plus an artillery regiment, and a detachment.

The brigade command consists of a command and a brigade direct department. The headquarters has four parts: the Operations Department, the Staff Office, the Logistics Department, and the Equipment Department.

Originally, the nine-headed bird was based on battalions, but now it is divided into combat brigades but does not have a battalion-level structure, and the largest is a ministry of about 1,000 people. There are more than 1,000 people in the brigade headquarters, 500 scouts in the reconnaissance department, and more than 3,000 people in the three infantry divisions. With the addition of 2,000 men from six companies of the artillery regiment, more than 3,000 men from the detachment fleet, and more than 1,000 men from the Logistics Support Department, the total number of this combat brigade exceeds 10,000.

Zhang Guozhu was originally an infantry battalion general, but now he is appointed chief of staff of the 1st Combat Brigade, the commander of this brigade is Fu Shan, and the deputy commander is Zhang Guodong.

"Doesn't the infantry have a battalion of troops? How do I cancel the battalion level? ”

"It is true that the First Combat Brigade has more than 3,000 infantry, but these three infantry divisions are drawn from each of the Three Towns Infantry Battalion, and the same is true of the other two combat brigades." Zhang Guozhu explained that although this disrupted the original establishment and deployment. But from a distance, it can also strengthen the control of the three towns, and also give the other two towns outside Yunyang Town the opportunity to train their soldiers and horses.

"Our three infantry divisions are not simple, in addition to your department, the other two departments are famous, one is a white pole soldier from Kuizhou, and the other is a town soldier from Hunan."

The white pole soldiers are the soldiers of Shizhu Tusi in Chongqing, Sichuan, and the soldiers of Qin Liangyu, because Qin Yimin is the deputy general of Hubei. Therefore, the Chu army also had a white pole soldier. And the Zhenxiao soldiers are also a Tusi soldiers, known as one of the three strongest Tusi soldiers in the Ming Dynasty along with the white pole soldiers and the Guangxi wolf soldiers. The white pole soldiers are Tu soldiers, while the Zhenxiao soldiers are Miao soldiers.

These townsmen are fierce and brave. When the Hunan New Army was reorganized, a battalion of Zhenxiao soldiers was also reorganized, and this time Liu Jun transferred the Zhenzhen soldiers of this battalion and divided them into three combat brigades.

In addition to being fierce, the townsmen and white-pole soldiers are fierce. They are also best at mountain warfare. The eastern Liaodong region is also a mountainous area, and Liu Jun specially transferred these two troops. It also seems to have obvious intentions.

A few days later, outside the city of Huangzhou, more than 30,000 people had gathered here and were mixed into three combat brigades. The General Headquarters of the Eastern Expedition was established above, with a battalion directly under the headquarters, and the three combat brigades below also set up headquarters respectively, and the brigade headquarters and brigade headquarters were organized. All officers at all levels were appointed.

In the camp of the First Combat Brigade, a brawl had just passed, the two sides of the brawl were separated, and a large group of military prison gendarmes wearing black armbands surrounded the school field, and Fu Shan swept the soldiers who were still red-eyed on both sides with cold eyes.

"What is our slogan? Nine-headed bird, brother! Join the barracks, we are brothers, what are brothers? A brother is the one you can give your back to him on the battlefield, and he is the one who lives and dies together. But you are fighting with each other in the barracks, and you are beating in groups, tell me, why did you fight? ”

After asking for a long time, I finally got the cause of the brawl.

When a white pole soldier passed by a town soldier, he glanced at the Miao soldier more, and then the Miao soldier opened his mouth to scold and say a word, and then the two sides scolded each other, and then they started to do it, and then each came to help, and finally it became a brawl of hundreds of people.

"Just because you look at it, you want to fight?" Fu Shanqi didn't know what to say. These native soldiers are really nonsense. Zhang Guodong said helplessly to Fu Shan, "The white pole soldiers are already very fierce, but the Zhenxiao soldiers are even better than them, usually these Miao soldiers can fight because of a little thing, and they have to fight several times a day." If you want to quarrel and fight with foreigners, it will be even more at once, and it will be all in one fight. Although we vigorously grasp military discipline, we will not be able to change it for a while. ”

"With these soldiers, it's really better to recruit more of our Eastern Hubei disciples, honest and willing to work, train hard, and be tenacious, no better than these barbarians."

"It's useless to say this now, this is what Hou Ye meant. Discipline more carefully, and everyone will be punished for standing in a military posture for an hour. Fu Shan announced the punishment decision.

A group of native soldiers who were still red-eyed heard the punishment for an hour, and they all lost their heads. They are not afraid of being beaten with sticks or whips, but they are afraid of being punished for standing in a military posture and being locked up in a dark room.

After an hour of painful military stance, the soldiers were disbanded, but they had no food to eat today, and they had to be responsible for cleaning the toilets and cleaning the barracks.

A group of native soldiers kneaded their sore legs and feet along the way, while honestly cleaning the thatched house. Although he was very unhappy in his heart, no one dared to rise up and make trouble. In the past, when I was in Hunan, I had just been reorganized into Changsha Town, and some people were not used to the strict military discipline, and as a result, those who took the lead in making trouble were beheaded.

Later, under the lessons of standing in the military posture and closing the black house, these people have become much more honest.

Of course, it is impossible for them to be so honest if they just stand in a military posture and close the black house, and many native soldiers endure it because they have a salary of at least two taels of silver per month, and they can have additional rewards for their good training performance. Not to mention, although the training in the military camp is hard, he eats four meals a day, and he has clothes, shoes and socks.

After the life in the Hydra Army, no one wants to go back to the mountains to live the kind of hard life of not having enough to eat. This time, the Zhenxiao soldiers were transferred to Hubei to fight in Liaodong. After they came to Hubei, they found that it was more prosperous than Changsha, and they saw the huge warships and countless cannons moored in the Yangtze River, and also saw how chic the soldiers of the Eighth Town were.

Hundreds of taels of silver, which is incomparably attractive to the town soldiers.

On the Yangtze River in Huangzhou, the newly built cannon casting factory has been in trial production, which is a new type of cannon factory, using the blast furnace method to smelt iron, and then use iron to cast cannons, the main technology is European cannon casting technology. In fact, this technology has a history of 100 years in Europe, and many European powers such as Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, France, and Sweden have mastered this technology, and Liu Jun has now obtained this technology from craftsmen in the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, etc.

Although the iron cannon is not as good as the bronze cannon, the cost is cheaper, and the material is not too restricted, and the cannon is also light, especially for the naval guns used on the battleship, the cannon on the ship is larger, and the barrel of the bronze cannon is relatively soft.

Today, the new gun factory uses the technology of monolithic cast barrels and uses the most advanced boring technology for monolithic cast barrels at this time. This made the guns more accurate and standardized, and each gun was no longer a stand-alone product.

At the same time, because the standards of the guns captured from various countries are different, the types of guns are complicated and diverse, which makes the supply of ammunition a very troublesome problem and a heavy burden, and the role of guns is reduced. In order to change this situation, the Europeans all standardized artillery.

Liu Jun also standardizes artillery now, setting three models of four-pound, eight-pound, and twelve-pound field guns, and two models of siege guns of 12 pounds and 24 pounds, and four standard models of ship-based long guns of 12-pound, 24-pound, and 32-pound, and 64-pound heavy guns.

and the construction of a new type of artillery shell factory, specializing in the production of new types of solid, scattered and explosive shells.

The Nine-Headed Bird formed its own artillery standard, that is, the Nine-Headed Bird Twelve-Year Style, with six standards: 4, 8, 12, 24, 32, and 64.

Artillery that was not part of this set of standards was transported to various castles for use as city defense guns. And those old-style Hongyi cannons were also changed to be used in the castle. As for the light firepower guns such as the Franc machine and the Tiger Squat and the Exterminator, they were changed to melee support firepower in use, and even became the subordinate heavy firepower of the bureau flag, and were uniformly included in the scope of light artillery.

Before the Eastern Expedition was dispatched, the Fire Gun Workshop also launched two new types of Fire Gun with relatively complete performance after testing. One is a flintlock short flint for cavalry, and the other is a flint long flint for infantry.

Liu Jun changed the weapons of all the cavalry, and the weapons of the cavalry and scouts were changed to two cavalry guns, one long fire gun, one spear, and one cavalry knife, no longer with bows and arrows.

The infantry was changed to one-third of the original firecracker, and the infantry was increased by half, and the infantry was equipped with a new flintlock firecracker.

The artillery was equipped with field four-pounder, eight-pounder, and twelve-pounder guns, and 24-pounder mortars, and the equipment of thousand-pound Franc machines was abolished.

Before the expedition, Liu Jun completed a new round of optimization of the firepower configuration of the Eastern Expeditionary Force. (To be continued......)