Since the Hunan army surrendered on a large scale and organized basis, the degree of organization was quite intact, and it is polite to say that even if there is no need to reorganize, these surrendered Hunan troops can fight if they are pulled out.

At the same time, because the Hunan army's attitude of surrender is quite good, the Chinese army has not yet conquered Wuchang, and has not even entered Hunan, Zeng Guofan took the initiative to surrender, and at that time, in order to make Zeng Guofan feel at ease, Lin Chengfei and other senior military generals also promised to give preferential treatment to the officers and men of the Hunan army, so this time the military training department's reorganization of the Hunan army was relatively smooth, and it was also relatively preferential.

For this reason, among the four towns of the Hunan Army, most of them have been annihilated, except for the second town, which has existed in name only, and most of them have been annihilated, and thousands of people have surrendered on the north bank of the Yangtze River such as Hanyang, the other three towns will not be split, and will be directly reorganized into the Royal Army of the Chinese Army as a whole without disbanding, and will be awarded the number according to the existing strength and weapons, among which the first and third towns of the Hunan Army have been reorganized into the 17th Infantry Division and the 18th Infantry Division of the Royal Army, and the fourth town of the Hunan Army stationed in Guangxi and southern Hunan has been reorganized into the Seventh Mixed Brigade of the Royal Army due to the slightly smaller troops. The surrender and reorganization of the division will be handled by the Third Army, which is in charge of the war in Guangxi.

Of course, in order to be able to effectively control these troops, the Chinese army also sent a large number of officers and backbone soldiers to the above two divisions and one brigade, in addition to the division commander and regiment commander are still served by the former generals of the Hunan army, including the chief of staff, deputy regiment commander, and battalion commander, all of whom are re-dispatched officers by the Chinese army.

And some of the senior generals in the Hunan army are also the only ones who can continue to serve in the army and command the original troops in the Chengcheng army for so many years, although they have been completely emptied. But it's not still possible to lead the army, in comparison. The people before weren't any better.

For example, Shi Rongchun, who surrendered at Shanhaiguan, although the Qing army in Shanhaiguan was also reorganized into a new army. Awarded the number of the 16th Infantry Division of the Royal Army, but Shi Rongchun did not serve as the commander of the troops, and after surrendering, he was sent to Nanjing, and now serves as a senior military adviser to the Joint Staff, and was awarded the rank of major general of the army.

So thanks to the early surrender of Zeng Guofan. Many middle and senior generals in the Hunan army are still very lucky to keep their glory and wealth.

However, the preferential treatment of the Chinese army is limited to these new Hunan troops, and the other old Qing army units that surrendered or were captured were not so lucky, not because they were loyal to the Manchu Qing Dynasty or anything like that, but that the Chinese army now does not pay attention to the prisoners of the old army, basically selecting a part of the garrison to form a garrison, and then most of the rest will be dismissed on the spot.

This time the same was true, and the more than 30,000 old Qing troops who surrendered with the new Hunan army were all dismissed on the spot, except for about 4,000 people who were selected to be incorporated into the garrisons of Hubei and Hunan provinces. Not a single one remained.

Most of these soldiers of the old army are old and young, not to mention training or anything, just physical fitness does not meet the requirements of the Chinese army for soldiers, so there is no value in accepting adaptation at all.

But then again. If their physical fitness was acceptable, the Qing army would have reorganized them into a new army a long time ago, and they would not have been allowed to wear the skin of the old army until they surrendered.

Zeng Guofan's voluntary surrender undoubtedly brought a great shock to the situation in contemporary China. Strictly speaking, this Zeng Guofan has much more prestige and strength than Lin Chengting, and the Hunan army under this person is the last obstacle to the Chinese army in the southwest region. His surrender also had a ripple effect.

In late March, the Chinese army had not yet entered Guizhou. However, there was already a military rebellion in Guizhou, and then many local officials united to send a letter of allegance to the Chinese army, and invited the Chinese army to enter Guizhou to protect the safety of the people.

At the beginning of April, Yunnan also declared its allegiance to the Chinese Empire!

In late April, the Chinese army entered Shanxi, defeated tens of thousands of new troops in Shanxi under the command of Nader, Nader led the remnants of the army to flee to the Shaanxi and Gansu regions, and many prefectures and counties in Shaanxi learned of Nader's defeat, the first time was to declare allegiance to the Chinese Empire, and later the Fifth Army and the First Army continued to move westward into the Shaanxi and Gansu regions.

For example, after Lin Chengting learned that Zeng Guofan had surrendered in Guangxi, he scolded Zeng Guofan while looting a large amount of goods in Guangxi, and then led 20,000 people to run all the way to Yunnan, waiting to defeat the local troops in Yunnan who had declared their allegiance to the Chinese Empire.

Lin Chengting ran faster than a rabbit, and the Chinese army behind him couldn't catch up for a while, and because Zeng Guofan's surrender also brought a problem, that is, victory came too quickly, and it was a bit troublesome for the Chinese army to completely control so many areas in a short period of time, and it was also extremely consuming of troops, after all, after Zeng Guofan's surrender, not everyone would surrender, more or less there would always be people who tried to resist to the end, plus there were a large number of civilian armed forces in Huguang, Guangxi and other places, including bandits, local troops in prefectures and counties, county bravery, township bravery, Even ordinary landlord armies, these need to be eliminated one by one.

In addition, the march in a short period of time was too fast, and now that the Third Army has penetrated deep into the hinterland of Guangxi, it is already deeply aware of the difficulties of logistical supply, so it has to slow down the pace of pursuing Lin Chengting.

However, Lin Chengting, who has already occupied Yunnan, will definitely not be able to jump for long, and now the Chinese army has successively controlled Guangxi, Hunan, and even entered the Guizhou region, and it will not take long for the army to enter Yunnan, can Lin Chengting hold it by then?

In the first half of 1859, the Chinese army's westward expedition can be said to be smooth, and even except for the Jiujiang Battle accident, there was no large-scale battle at all, thanks to the surrender of Zeng Guofan, Lin Chengting's escape, the Chinese army's military operations in Jiangxi, Huguang, Guangxi and other places are like wars, but rather marches.

And the limited military operations are mainly to clean up the local civilian armed forces!

"In the future, our military operations will still focus on clearing out local civilian forces, and there are more illegal armed forces in Huguang and Guangxi than we expected, and the terrain is complicated. Many of the Qing army's routs and local armed forces need to be cleared one by one, which greatly restrains the actions of our main force in the Western Expedition! ”

Another Gozen strategy meeting. It was not Chen Yuntao who explained the current situation to Lin Zhe and many generals, but Shi Qingxuan, who was very familiar to everyone.

Early June. The Chinese Army established the Eighth Army with the Fifth Division of the Western Expeditionary Force as the core, and the 17th Infantry Division adapted from the Hunan Army, and the first commander was Chen Yuntao, the former chief of the Joint Staff.

After Chen Yuntao was transferred to Hunan to serve as the commander of the Eighth Army, the vacated post of chief of the Joint Staff was held by Shi Qingxuan!

This appointment can be said to be unexpected by many people, because Shi Qingxuan's outstanding military exploits have made him the most famous general in the local Chinese army, and before returning to Nanjing, Shi Qingxuan has just led the Sixth Army to conquer Shanxi.

However, after Shi Qingxuan took Shanxi, he did not continue to lead the army westward, but was transferred back to the headquarters by Lin Zhe's edict as the new chief of the Joint Staff.

This appointment also made many people see a hint of unusualness. Many people will unconsciously emerge four words: high merit and shock the master!

With Shi Qingxuan's current outstanding military exploits, if he continues to lead the army westward on the front line, he will take Shaanxi and Gansu in the future, and he will really be the first person in the Chinese army at that time.

In fact, Lin Zhe's sudden edict to Shi Qingxuan to return to Beijing to take up his post was also based on this consideration!

Although he still values Shi Qingxuan's ability, he must also pay attention to the balance between senior military generals, in the early days of the Chinese army, Shi Qingxuan, Xu Yanqing, Lin Chengfei and others stood side by side, but since 1857 Shi Qingxuan rose strongly in a series of wars in the Northern Expedition. was stunned and left everyone behind him.

And the situation of one person being dominant is absolutely intolerable to Lin Zhe, and this is one of the reasons why Lin Zhe reused Shi Langyi at the beginning of this year, because Lin Zhe needs to have several other strong generals to maintain the necessary balance with Shi Qingxuan.

And Shi Qingxuan is not a stupid person, those in China's history a few years ago only cared about the limelight. And then there are many famous generals who are hidden by the birds, and he Shi Qingxuan's ability to fight is good, but he is more good at being a man. Back then, he was able to persuade Lin Zhe to ascend the throne in Shanghai, regardless of his shame and snot. Now he can pull down his face as well.

When he first won Beiping, Shi Qingxuan had already played and said that he was not in good health. Not adapting to the cold climate in the north, he asked Lin Zhe to transfer him back to Nanjing.

However, the situation of the Northern Expedition was still unstable at that time, so Lin Zhe was not sure!

Later, after Shi Qingxuan led the army into Shanxi, Shi Qingxuan played again, saying that his body and mind could no longer bear to lead the army, and hoped that His Majesty would pity him and let him return to Jiangnan to recuperate.

Shi Qingxuan is interested, Lin Zhe naturally knows, just at that time, the situation has been mostly stable, although the Sixth Army and the First Army are still continuing to advance westward, but Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang and other regions in the west are no longer worried, and they can be defeated by sending individuals to lead the army, and there is no need for Shi Qingxuan to go.

Therefore, after some consideration, Shi Qingxuan was transferred back to Nanjing, of course, it was naturally impossible for him to really recuperate when he was transferred back to Nanjing, but he was appointed as the chief of the Joint Staff.

In addition to arranging operational affairs, he also wanted Shi Qingxuan to use his experience in organizing and training troops in the new era, so that the Chinese army could complete the overall transformation and transform from the era of line lines to the era of stragglers.

"In the later period, the newly formed local garrison units should be responsible for the clean-up and bomb suppression tasks in Huguang and other places as much as possible, and the main force should complete the rest and recuperation as soon as possible, and then enter Sichuan and Yunnan!" Although Lin Zhe rarely speaks in strategy meetings, whenever he speaks, it is basically when he makes a decision.

"In the second half of this year, the focus of the work of the General Headquarters will be to conquer Yunnan and Sichuan as soon as possible, in addition to continuing to reorganize the troops!" As he said this, Lin Zhe suddenly remembered something, and then said: "In addition, the cabinet meeting a few days ago has decided that starting in the second half of this year, military spending will be gradually reduced, and by next year, it will drop to less than 30% of financial support, and all ministries must prepare for this in advance!" ”

"Military spending cuts?" As soon as Lin Zhe's words came out, the faces of the generals below changed greatly, and even Shi Qingxuan's face changed instantly, and in their opinion, this news was even more frightening than the loss of tens of thousands of troops on the front line.

After the meeting, Shi Qingxuan and a group of generals all had black faces, and Han Xiangfang, the chief of the ordnance department, said: "The great enemy of our army is not the former Qing Dynasty or the Taiping thief army, let alone Lin Chengting's clown, but the group of corrupt officials in the cabinet!" ”

"It's just me off, hundreds of thousands of soldiers in our army are fighting for the hegemony of the empire on the front line, but they want to cut their military spending at this time, and it will only be 30% next year, how is this enough, they are shaking the foundation of the empire!" (To be continued.) )