Of the 13 retrenched divisions, there were about 40,000 soldiers in total, and in addition to about 3,000 of these soldiers who were selected to join the garrison, about 10,000 of the remaining soldiers returned to their hometowns with travel expenses, and about 5,000 of the remaining 30,000 soldiers who were unwilling to return to their hometowns or were homeless were arranged to enter some factories, of which about 3,000 soldiers were accepted by the major mines under the Jiangnan Mining Company, and about 2,000 soldiers were accepted by the newly established Xuzhou Railway Company in the royal family.

In addition, some soldiers took severance pay to find jobs on their own, some went to the military's collective farms as hired farmers, and more joined various engineering teams and construction companies supported by the military, and then were hired by the local government to build various infrastructures, the largest of which was naturally the water conservancy facilities in the countryside.

This work will continue from December to February next year, and if this reform goes well, then the Chinese army will continue to promote the reform of the auxiliary defense divisions, gradually abolish the auxiliary defense divisions that are weak in combat effectiveness, and it is expected that by June next year, all the auxiliary defense divisions in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces will be dismantled, and the local general defense headquarters will be responsible for the local garrison commands.

Waiting until next year, it will be a gradual reorganization of the auxiliary defense divisions of the front-line provinces, but the combat effectiveness of the auxiliary defense divisions of the front-line provinces is much stronger than that of the auxiliary defense divisions of the rear provinces, and they cannot be completely abolished at once, so the reorganization of the front-line auxiliary defense divisions will be mainly reorganized, for example, the Ninth and Nineteenth Auxiliary Defense Divisions will be reorganized into the Royal Army, and some of the auxiliary defense divisions will be reorganized into local garrison forces, and the rest will be directly withdrawn.

The High Command estimates that the reorganization of the entire auxiliary defense division will last for about a year!

In order to cooperate with the reform of the auxiliary defense division, the Chinese army also changed the treatment policy of new prisoners of war, no longer implementing a one-size-fits-all approach, or even forcibly reorganizing into an auxiliary defense division.

From December. Among the newly captured prisoners of war, those who are willing to join the army and have passed the physical and tactical training tests will be directly recruited into the Royal Army, which is mainly aimed at the new soldiers of the Qing army.

In addition, soldiers of the second class who are willing to join the army on their own initiative and pass the physical fitness test, but fail the tactical training, will be assigned to the provincial garrison. This is mainly aimed at some of the more outstanding soldiers in the old army in the Qing army and the Taiping army.

The rest of those who were unwilling to voluntarily join the army, or who failed the physical fitness test, were all dismissed on the spot, but their hair was cut off according to the usual practice before dismissal.

If the severance policy is not implemented, it is estimated that there will be more and more of these assistant defense divisions, and there will be no way to talk about this reform.

The above policy is only for ordinary soldiers, if it is an officer prisoner of war, there is a different set of policies, if the officers of the old army such as the green battalion and the regimental training, their lower-level officers are willing to take the initiative to surrender to the party, and the relevant quality is qualified. If they are unwilling to surrender, they will be detained for a period of time, and if they do not have clear reactionary words and actions, they will generally shave their hair and be dismissed directly.

If the middle and high-level officers of the green battalion are generally willing to take the initiative to surrender, they will not be arranged to serve in the army, but will be arranged to serve in the local area, and if they are unwilling, they will continue to be locked up. I won't just let it go.

The treatment of the new army officers in the Qing army was much better, and the middle and lower-level officers were willing to take the initiative to surrender. And those who have passed the relevant tactical skills test will generally be directly arranged to serve in the army, and the basic arrangement of the lieutenant is the position of deputy company commander, and the basic arrangement of the rank of the school officer is to be the staff officer, civilian or battalion deputy position.

If you want to, and get a recommendation, then you can also enter the army officer school. After coming out, he was no different from a normal student of the Army Military Academy.

However, these policies are generally only aimed at middle-level and grass-roots officers, and those high-ranking generals, whether they are the Green Battalion or the New Army, the Qing Army or the Taiping Army, and their high-ranking generals who are captured or voluntarily surrender and surrender are special arrangements. Either convicted and shot, or placed under house arrest for life, or went to Nanjing to take up an idle post, or directly served as a local high-ranking official, or even continued to lead the army, all kinds of possibilities are available, and they cannot be uniformly discussed.

The reform of the Chinese Army's auxiliary defense divisions is a long-term work, and it is impossible to say that it will be completely completed in a short period of time, because in any case, the current auxiliary defense divisions, especially the many auxiliary defense divisions fighting on the front line, are still an important part of the Chinese army.

To put it bluntly, if the Chinese army does not have a total of more than 200,000 auxiliary defense forces, it will be difficult for the royal army with about 100,000 people alone to completely control the existing chassis in the case of large-scale field battles with the Qing army and the Taiping army.

It is estimated that the complete dismantling of the auxiliary defense force will not be completed until the end of next year, and at that time, basically the garrison units under the provincial garrison headquarters will be able to be established one after another, and they will be able to undertake ordinary local defense and fight in coordination with the field army.

In December, when the Chinese Army began to reform the auxiliary defense division with great fanfare, the Chinese Army's high command also set its sights on Jiangxi.

"According to the relevant information of the Intelligence Department of the General Staff, in October, a number of senior staff members from the shogunate of Zeng Guofan went to Nanchang, although we cannot know what they did in Nanchang, but it can be concluded that they must have negotiated with Lin Chengting and reached some strategic cooperation agreement.

Because from October, the Zhenhu army began to draw troops to the north, and at the same time, the Hunan army also began to launch a large-scale attack on the Taiping army in October and successfully conquered Yueyang, and has now entered Wuchang, Hubei, and the Hunan army has also sent a large number of troops into the northern Jiangxi region.

Beginning in November, the Zhenhu army launched a large-scale attack on Jiujiang, and the Hunan army also engaged in a large-scale fierce battle with the Taiping army that reinforced Jiujiang in the northwest region of Jiangxi, that is, the western part of Jiujiang, and successfully defeated the Taiping army that had originally reinforced Jiujiang.

It is very obvious that Zeng Guofan and Lin Chengting have reached some kind of agreement for in-depth cooperation! ”

"And according to the information we have obtained now, it is very likely that the Taiping army will not be able to hold Jiujiang, and even Wuchang will not be able to hold it!"

On December 10, at the new round of the Imperial Strategic Conference, Chen Yuntao stood in front of many colleagues as always, analyzing the current imperial strategic situation.

His judgment that the Taiping army could not hold Jiujiang and Wuchang was grounded, because since last year, Shi Dakai of the Taiping army had already begun to adjust the future development direction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Most of the troops were successively transferred to Sichuan.

Chen Yucheng, who was entrusted with important tasks by Shi Dakai, took the lead, leading more than 50,000 people from his headquarters to run thousands of kilometers all the way into Sichuan, according to the news from the people, Chen Yucheng's division of the Taiping Army had captured Chongqing, an important town in Sichuan in July this year, and the Taiping Army in Sichuan was rumored to have swelled to more than 300,000.

It is very obvious that Shi Dakai has put all the strategic focus on Sichuan. As for northern Jiangxi and Hubei, although they are still occupied, Shi Dakai is already ready to give up these areas.

Under the simultaneous attack of the Hunan army and the Zhenhu army, it was actually very difficult for the Taiping army to hold Jiujiang and Wuchang!

But in this way, the situation of mutual containment between the Zhenhu and Taiping armies and the Hunan army that the Chinese Empire wanted to see would be broken.

On the surface, this seems to be the retreat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which has nothing to do with the Chinese Empire, but in fact it is not only related, but also has a lot to do with it.

Once let the Zhenhu army recover Jiujiang. Once the Hunan army conquered Wuchang and occupied Hubei, this would not only be the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but also have a great negative impact on the subsequent westward expansion strategy of the Chinese army.

Without the Taiping Army in Hubei and Jiujiang to contain the Zhenhu Army and the Hunan Army, and Zeng Guofan has cooperated a lot with Lin Chengting in the past two years, in the subsequent face of the Chinese Empire's large-scale westward advance, it is difficult to guarantee that Zeng Guofan will not completely unite with Lin Chengting to resist the westward advance of the Chinese Army because of the cold lips and teeth.

Lin Zhe, who knew this, couldn't help but admire Shi Dakai, who was facing the situation of the rivers and rivers after the internal strife in Tianjing in 1856. It is not easy for Shi Dakai to lead the Taiping Army to stubbornly defend Jiujiang and Hubei, and the more important thing is that they are now going directly to Sichuan. This not only opened up a new horizon for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but also avoided direct military contact with the Chinese Empire.

If the Chinese army wants to fight the Taiping army in the future, it must first destroy the Zhenhu army and the Hunan army before entering Sichuan to fight the Taiping army.

This group of enemies is still behind them, and even uses them as their shields, which is a great thing for the Taiping army.

Naturally, this kind of change in the direction of Jiangxi and Hubei has also attracted the attention of the Chinese Army Command, otherwise there would not be today's imperial strategic meeting.

"At present, the strategy of the empire is still based on the Northern Expedition. However, the Jiangxi issue can no longer be dragged on, and it is necessary to capture Jiangxi as soon as possible in order to extricate ourselves from the current strategic predicament on the southern front, to prevent potential enemy forces from attacking Fujian or Guangdong, and then to cut off the land connection between Guangdong and the Jiangnan region. ”

"In the last three months. Our army has basically wiped out the remnants of the Qing army in most areas of Guangdong, and last month, the Third Army's westward advance force had already captured Wuzhou, Guangxi, and at the same time, with the end of the war with the British and French forces, the British and French forces had successively withdrawn a large number of troops from Hong Kong, and at present they only maintained a defensive force of less than 2,000 men in Hong Kong. After inquiring about the current international situation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the High Command believed that in a short period of time, at least two years, the Empire should not have the possibility of war with Britain, France, or other Western countries.

Based on this, the Third Army and the Second Army, which are currently located in the direction of Guangdong, should also be reactivated, and in addition to retaining a part of the troops in Guangzhou, most of the troops can be mobilized to participate in the attack on Jiangxi! ”

Hearing Chen Yuntao say this, Lin Zhe above thought about it himself, while the other military generals below were noisy one by one.

Immediately, Lin Chengfei, the commander of the Fifth Army, said: "Now that the empire is investing a lot of resources in the Northern Expedition, in this case, is there enough spare power to support the operation against Jiangxi?" Lin Chengting in Jiangxi is not those Taiping troops, let alone the twisted bandits in northern Anhui, but he has a new army of more than 20,000 people, or even 30,000 people, and a considerable number of auxiliary troops?

If we want to attack Jiangxi, if we want to achieve a greater advantage, we need to invest at least 30,000 or more main forces, and ammunition and other combat materials also need to be quite abundant. ”

Lin Chengfei's implication is already obvious, that is, he does not agree to attack Jiangxi now! (To be continued......)