After some more bargaining, Li Yongji soon signed a secret agreement with Brigadier General Charles, commander of the Sixth Army of the Tennessee Army of the Union Army.

According to the provisions of this agreement, without violating the official military orders of the Allied Army and without affecting the Sixth Army's execution of orders, the Sixth Army will set aside a part of the "supernumerary personnel" to be hired by the Chinese Expeditionary Force in the form of mercenaries, so as to alleviate the disadvantage of the shortage of manpower of the Chinese Expeditionary Force.

During the employment period, the "supernumerary personnel" of the Sixth Army must fully obey the orders of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, and the treatment is the same as that of the Chinese Expeditionary Force. At the same time, once the Sixth Army needs it, it can recall these "supernumerary personnel" at any time, and the Chinese Expeditionary Force has no right to stop it under any circumstances.

Judging purely from the content of this agreement, in fact, this is nothing, after all, the alliance army only allocates a part of the "supernumerary personnel" to serve the Chinese, which can be regarded as a cooperative behavior, and in the process of cooperation, the Chinese are responsible for the supply of these people, which is also natural.

Moreover, it also said that the Sixth Army could recall these "supernumerary personnel" at any time, and the Chinese Expeditionary Force had no right to stop it, which was equivalent to the Chinese Expeditionary Force taking greater risks, but the Alliance Army itself did not need to bear any responsibility.

Therefore, on the surface, this agreement is relatively fair, the Chinese Expeditionary Force is short of personnel, and temporarily borrows a group of people from the Sixth Army to serve themselves, and is responsible for the food and drink of this group of people during the period, and they also have to pay them; At the same time, the Sixth Army can temporarily send some of the "extra soldiers" that are not currently needed to the Chinese to help, and by the way earn a little extra money from the Chinese, but the ownership is still its own, so it is a win-win situation.

If you look at it from the point of view of mercenaries, there is nothing wrong with this agreement, but the biggest problem is that this Sixth Army is not a mercenary, but a PACS!

The so-called PACS is the abbreviation of the Provisional Force of the Confederate States of America, and the full name is TheProvisionalArmyoftheConfederateStates.

This provisional force was established by the Parliament of the Union in 1862 and was formally formed in April.

The biggest feature of this force, as the name suggests, is that this force is a temporary force of the Union State, which was formed only to deal with the Civil War, and once the war is over, this force will be disbanded.

So, this is a temporary mercenary force set up by the parliament with a grant of funds, so the requirements are not high, and almost all people, including the Union Army, the local national army, and the militia, as long as you are white, as long as you are willing to accept the leadership of this force, as long as you are between the ages of 18 and forty, you can join.

It will be said here that before the formation of this PACS, that is, the Provisional Forces, there were two main military forces of the Union State:

The first is the so-called regular army, whose full name is the Army of the Confederate States of America, abbreviated as ACSA; The second is the so-called militia, also known as the National Army, which is a local force hired by the local state government itself.

The difference between these two units is the same as the difference between the regular Army and the local National Guard in the United States, except that the bosses who pay their salaries are different.

The Confederate Army was dominated by the Confederate government, mainly Richmond, while the National Army was primarily responsible for the finances of the local state governments.

Because of this situation, and because the federal government has always been very financially tight, although the ACSA has been formally established since 1861, and the standard is not high, the number of personnel is only 15,000, but because of the financial constraints, it has never been fully staffed, and until now, it has basically remained at about 10,000.

Although the number is small, the level of weapons and equipment, status and treatment of this army are above that of ordinary national troops, and the personnel composed of them are basically above the middle class of white people in the south, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is an aristocratic army. Unfortunately, this force has basically not done much at present, because this force is mainly responsible for defending the capital of the Confederate State, Richmond, which has not suffered much damage so far, and its record is very average.

More often than not, the regular army was treated as an honor, as was the case with famous generals such as Robert Brown. Lee, all of whom were included in this system to signify their status above those ordinary commanders who commanded the militia.

This is not only the case for the Union States, but also for the United States of the North, which still has only a small number of regular armies, and the largest number is the National Guard.

In short, after the start of the war, the regular army of the Confederate state, or the central army, was limited, so the main force fighting the federal army was basically local militia, such as the Northern Virginia Regiment, which was actually a local militia unit supported by Virginia.

At the beginning of the war, relying on the local troops and the 10,000 regular army was barely enough, but as the time of the war became worse and worse, the scale of the war became larger and larger, and seeing that the desire of the federal army to attack was not reduced at all, they did not want the alliance to be safe and secure, so in order to cope with the new challenges, especially the unified and coordinated forces, the coalition parliament announced the formation of PACS, that is, the temporary force of the coalition army!

This force is of the same nature as the Allied Army, and it is also a Central Army hired by the central government of the Allied State, except that the requirements are lowered, and the treatment is also reduced. For comparison, the regular army is like regular workers, and these temporary troops are temporary workers.

Although the treatment of these temporary workers is far worse than that of the regular army, no matter how bad it is, it is still the regular army, just like the temporary workers of those government agencies and units in later generations, no matter how bad they are, they are still in government units.

Therefore, after this temporary force was assembled, it began to mix with the national armies in various places to form a mixed corps of the central and local governments, such as the Northern Virginia Legion, the Tennessee Legion, etc., which were basically in this mode.

The purpose of this is to strengthen the strength of the local army corps and facilitate unified deployment, but in the final analysis, it also has the purpose of controlling the local army.

After all, the establishment of the Union State itself was self-reliant under the support of the states, and the so-called Union government mainly refers to several core states such as Alabama and Virginia, and other slightly more remote states, such as Tennessee, which only joined later, are actually fetters states, and the Union government's ruling power over these places is relatively weak, so it gives these states a lot of autonomy.

Originally, the meaning of the Confederate States was good, but Tennessee was soon occupied by the Union Army, which caused the Confederates to lose a lot of territory, but also destroyed the military system of these local state governments, making it easier for the Confederates to intervene.

Therefore, when the Chinese defeated the Union Army in the Battle of Vicksburg and fought all the way to Memphis, the Confederates quickly sent several temporary troops to join the Tennessee Legion with heavy losses, on the one hand, to fill the Tennessee Legion with strength, and on the other hand, to control these places.

Originally, Davis also wanted to add a temporary army of the Union Army to Pemberton's Mississippi River Army, but unfortunately, after Pemberton cooperated with the Chinese, to be precise, after making transactions with the Chinese, there was no shortage of people, money, weapons and ammunition, and fame, so he did not obey the orders of the central government of the Confederate State at all.

There was no way, for the sake of the overall situation, Davis did not move Pemberton for the time being, but started the idea of the Tennessee Army.

In a word, although Charles's troops are the so-called Central Army that eats the money of the central government of the Allied States, they are actually a group of temporary troops, temporary workers, not regular workers, and their treatment is far from that of the regular army, and not much different from the treatment of the local national army.

Although it is not much different from the treatment of the National Army, to be exact, Charles's people are not natives of Tennessee, but from other places, such as Charles himself, a native of South Caroliro, who has never been out of his hometown before enlistment.

In fact, before Charles joined the army, he was just an ordinary farmer who inherited his father's property and carefully managed it, and after the outbreak of war, in order to protect his homeland, especially those farms with a large number of slaves, he only raised a soldier, and his original intention was only to protect his private property.

However, raising soldiers was too expensive, and he didn't think it was cost-effective, but he didn't dare to disband, after all, those were always a little disobedient during that time. So in the end, he followed the example of everyone else, and all of them were assigned to the sequence of the provisional forces, so that he could not only get an officer to be a one, but also let the government raise soldiers for him.

However, since the government is asking you to raise soldiers, then you have to listen to the government, so he had to leave his hometown with the troops because of a paper order and entered the barracks to participate in temporary training, and he also became an infantry major because he had more soldiers under him, higher education, and high school.

Later, he led this private army to participate in many battles on the Eastern Front, perhaps because of good luck, after so many battles, he not only had no trouble, but also accumulated merit to become a brigadier general, and his subordinates were no longer the original private soldiers, but had more troops.

Later, he was sent to the Tennessee Army, to Memphis, and then to what he is now.

All in all, Charles was not an officer from a regular military academy at all, and he did not have the so-called honors of those regular military managers, and the real purpose of his joining the army was to protect his property at first, and then to go with the flow.

Therefore, it is not surprising that someone like Charles can make such a decision, after all, the benefits of doing things for the Chinese are real.

If nothing else, Pemberton, the commander of the Mississippi River Legion, is a good example, if this guy hadn't been for the help of the Chinese, he would have been destroyed in Vicksburg long ago, but because of the Chinese, he not only escaped the doom of defeat and surrender, but also unexpectedly received a lot of help from the Chinese. Lee's troops were fine.

Although Pemberton's behavior may seem somewhat despicable to many regular military administrators, it is an example for most people.

Isn't it, fame and fortune, it can be said that you have gained fame and fortune, who doesn't want such a good thing?

In the past, Charles didn't have a chance, so he could only think about it secretly, and usually because the new commander hated Pemberton, he also scolded him a few times, but he didn't mean to follow it in his heart.

However, what he didn't know was that Pemberton could make so much money because he had better conditions and did not completely surrender to the Chinese.

Because he was originally the host of Vicksburg, and the Chinese later wanted to stop in Vicksburg and rent the port, for the purpose of dealing well with the locals, naturally they had to give him a sum of money as rent on a regular basis.

Compared with the resources and effort required to manage a foreign city, it is of course the most cost-effective thing for Chinese to obtain local residency and port use rights for only a small amount of rent.

In addition, after the Battle of Vicksburg, Pemberton even included Jackson City, and justifiably seized the military and political power of the two places.

From then on, the ordinary people in these two places had to pay taxes for him, and things like the purchase of agricultural products, because the Chinese did not want trouble, simply handed over this matter to Pemberton and let Pemberton contract the purchase of agricultural products from below.

After all, the purchase of agricultural products requires people who are familiar with the local situation to be responsible, and because the price is to be lowered when purchasing, it is inevitable that people will be offended in the process, and this offending person is not to offend ordinary people, but to offend those farmers, so this work is not willing to be done by Chinese.

On the contrary, it is best for the Chinese to have one more local magnate as a middleman, to give a little benefit to the middleman, and let the middleman take on all the acquisition work.

Pemberton relied on these agricultural product contracts of the Chinese, looting and desperately earning the difference, while at the same time, the Chinese saw that he was doing very well, and simply even sold industrial products and military supplies to the local area were handed over to him.

In this way, Pemberton bought agricultural products for the Chinese and sold industrial products locally for the Chinese, and this time and again, the difference in the price earned in the middle alone was full of money, so of course he did not look at the meaning of the compensation given by the Allied government.

Moreover, it is precisely because of these two earning channels that Pemberton is unusual, and actually began to disobey the words of the Confederate government, but instead resisted the orders from above, neither letting the higher authorities send people over, nor letting the higher authorities send troops over, and now the entire Mississippi state is somewhat uncontrollable, almost becoming an independent border state.

The reason is very simple, Pemberton does not want outsiders to interfere with the two financial roads he masters, so he is all kinds of unruly, but outsiders do not know, and they think that he is arrogant after winning the First World War, so that he was deceived by the Chinese.

There will be this idea, and it is also related to Pemberton's brave label.

At present, the two most famous generals of the Confederate States, one is Robert. Lee, the other one is Pemberton.

However, Robert. Li's fame mainly refers to his ability to lead troops to fight wars, and he has inflicted heavy losses on the federal army many times, and everyone values his ability to lead troops.

Pemberton was different, and although he was praised for his ability to lead troops, he was most praised, or perhaps famous, for his moral character of sticking to Vicksburg and never surrendering even if he ran out of ammunition.

In the Western countries of this era, surrender is not a shameful thing, so according to Pemberton's situation at the time, there is no problem for him to surrender Grant in advance, after all, there is a huge difference in strength.

Well, Pemberton did not surrender at that time, even if he was short of food, he began to implement rationing, and he was still gritting his teeth and holding on after 21 hours of shelling every day.

Many people think that this is a symbol of Pemberton's loyalty, but what they don't know is that Pemberton has not surrendered because he is not convinced, or because he is angry.

Because in the previous time, his strength was not much worse than Grant, but he was teased by Grant many times, and was repeatedly used by the other party to attack the west, and gradually entered a predicament.

If at that time he listened to Joseph. Johnston's Jianyì led his troops out of Vicksburg ahead of time and went to Jackson City to join forces with the other side, so Grant would definitely not be able to trap him.

It is this unconvincing that he has always insisted, so it is not at all what outsiders say, what is born loyal and brave.

Charles is the same, he doesn't know about Pemberton's situation, he only thinks that Pemberton is close to the Chinese because of Geng's straightness, and because of this, he turned out to be rich, so he also wants to learn.

Anyway, Pemberton is so close to the Chinese, almost everyone knows it, and he doesn't see any problems, but he is promoted and rich, so it seems that there is no big problem for him to cooperate with the Chinese army in private.

Well, like the guy named Li Yuanzheng said, it's just helping each other.

But isn't it, now that everyone is an ally, and when people are in trouble, it makes sense to help each other.

So, Charles sold himself and an army to Li Yongji step by step, and when he reacted and found that there was no turning back, it was a long time later. R1152