In 1878, the biggest thing for the empire was undoubtedly the canonization of the crown prince, although many military ministers in the court did not understand why Lin Zhe wanted to canonize the second prince Lin Lu as the crown prince, but with Lin Zhe, the founding emperor, has always had a strong attitude.

The decision he made was something that no one could oppose to change, and even Jiang Daoquan, the person who was the most staunch supporter of the eldest system, did not dare to say a word when Lin Zhe was crowned prince.

The queen mother in the harem is the most fond of the eldest prince Lin Xuan, but after learning that Lin Zhe canonized the second prince Lin Xuan as the crown prince, she can only sigh secretly in the Buddhist hall in the palace.

Not to mention the others, no one dared to oppose Lin Zhe's decision!

After officially canonizing Lin Lu as the crown prince, Lin Zhe gave Lin Lu an office on the second floor of the Xinhua Palace, and asked him to act in the name of the prince in charge of agriculture and forestry affairs.

Of course, although he said that he was acting, in fact, Lin Lian was also very aware of his current situation, and he was not capable enough to take on the heavy responsibility of one of his departments alone, and even if he had this ability, it was not easy to intervene directly.

Because this involves the struggle for power, in all dynasties, the relationship between the prince and the emperor is very complicated, definitely not a simple monarch or a father-son relationship, there are too many power struggles mixed here.

Therefore, Lin Lu is very honest and study-oriented, in agriculture and forestry affairs, even though he is the prince's respect, but he is also honest only to listen to and not speak, and the affairs of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are still specifically responsible for the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.

Lin Zhe's performance also made Lin Zhe more satisfied, although he didn't mind Lin Zhe's desire for power, but in Lin Zhe's training plan, the current Lin Lian has not yet been specifically responsible for some major things, and now his focus is still on learning.

According to Lin Zhe's predetermined plan, in the next ten years, Lin Lu will take turns to study various departments and even military affairs, this process not only gives him an in-depth understanding of the operation of the major departments of the empire, but also allows him to learn the practical experience of handling government affairs.

After all, even if Lin Yan has some talent, but after all, he is only an eighteen-year-old young man, and he still has a long way to go if he wants to grow into a qualified prince.

In the second half of 1878, there was no foreign war in the empire, and even after the signing of the Sino-Russian treaty, the Sino-Russian border conflict that had lasted for many years was suspended.

According to the experience of the Siberian War, the army believed that although the empire had a large standing force, the reserve force was seriously insufficient, and the imperial army wanted to establish a larger-scale mobilization mechanism in order to expand the army in the shortest possible time when the war broke out.

In addition, the war in Siberia revealed a very serious problem, that is, in the case of the use of a large number of artillery pieces and repeating rifles, the rate of consumption of ammunition exceeded the army's own estimates.

Strictly speaking, the war lasted less than three months, but during these three months, the army depleted the strategic ammunition reserves stored in the northern region, and more importantly, sometimes even if there were ammunition reserves in the rear, they could not transport ammunition to the front line due to the limitations of logistics and transportation capabilities.

In this regard, the army has proposed a number of solutions, one is to increase investment in the construction of combat-ready railways, especially the northern railway to Lake Belga and the northwest railway to Central Asia.

In addition, the Yunnan direction is under pressure because of the existence of the Ning Kingdom and the British, so the army will promote the construction of the Southwest Railway.

In addition to supporting the construction of war-ready railways, the army is also preparing to increase the scale of material reserves, set up warehouses for war-ready materials in remote provinces close to the borders, and establish super-large strategic material reserve bases in some transportation hubs or large strategic cities, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xuzhou, Tianjin, Hubei, Xi'an, Chongqing, and Shenyang.

Subsequently, the logistics and transportation system was reformed, and in addition to the transportation system directly under the logistics department, the front-line troops' own material carrying capacity was strengthened.

After all, when a unit is fighting, the ammunition and materials carried by a corps-level unit when it sets off basically directly determines the combat time of the army in the short period of time in the future. During the Siberian War, the troops basically consumed all the combat materials within half a month of the outbreak of the war, and some of the battalions and regiments that undertook the task of attacking the fortified positions even ran out of ammunition in just one week, and could only passively wait for the supplies to be transported from the rear.

For this reason, the army is preparing to greatly increase the logistical capability of front-line troops, such as the artillery regiment, and the army has decided to at least double the number of artillery shells carried by the artillery regiment itself, and to increase the number of artillery shells carried by itself, then it needs to be equipped with more logistical personnel.

As a result, the number of artillery regiments and the number of mules and horses increased significantly.

The divisional baggage regiment was also expanded on a large scale, and the full strength of the regiment was increased from 1,500 to 2,000.

In addition, the establishment of heavy units at the regimental and battalion levels has been increased to increase the material carrying capacity of grassroots units.

After the reform, the full strength of the infantry division will be increased from 18,000 to about 20,000, and if some additional logistics engineering support units are attached to it during the war, the strength may even reach 23,000 or even more than 25,000.

However, since this change in the establishment is concentrated on the changes in the logistics support units, it has not changed much in the current situation of the troops.

Because there are so many troops, except for a few front-line troops stationed on the border all year round, most of the others are peace-keeping establishments, and only in wartime will they replenish the mobilized forces and reach full strength.

This is also the reason why the Imperial Army has as many as 48 infantry divisions, 12 cavalry divisions, more than a dozen artillery brigades and many other independent units, but the total strength of the army still does not exceed one million.

For example, a division belongs to a baggage regiment, and the number of people in peacetime is only four or five hundred, and there is not even enough mules and horses.

At that time, the baggage regiment of this division will swell to a full strength of more than 2,000 people.

Of course, this will lead to the lack of combat effectiveness of many troops in the early stage of the war because of the need for mobilization time, but it is also a matter of no choice.

After all, military spending is limited, and the military always prefers to retain officers and key soldiers in peacetime, so that in wartime, it can quickly replenish the reserve force, and then rapidly expand the number of troops.

It's better than having a large group of idle auxiliaries in peacetime!

In addition to reforming the logistics-related system, the army also conducted more in-depth research based on the Siberian War and proposed a number of reform plans.

For example, the army believes that during the Siberian War, although the 1872 Northern rifle was fast enough to play a great role, because of the use of maroon powder as a ******, the smoke after firing would seriously affect the soldier's vision, and when the battle was fierce, it would often not be long before the soldier would be blocked by the smoke emitted by his own gun.

Therefore, after the Siberian War, without Lin Zhe's guidance, the group of people in the military paid great attention to the smokeless gunpowder that those people in the Ordnance Department were researching.

In the second half of 1878, the military invested at least one million dollars to fund several major research institutions in China, including the Jiangnan Chemical Company, the Department of Chemistry of the Imperial University, and the Royal Academy of Sciences.

There is only one requirement of the military, that is, the smokeless gunpowder that can be used in actual combat is developed, of course, the research and development is not enough, it also needs to be mass-produced, and the cost must be within the range of military acceptance.

In addition to smokeless gunpowder, the Army has also paid attention to the research and development of many new book technologies and provided related research and development funds.

This kind of thing happens after almost every large-scale war, and not only in the Reich, but also in other countries, such as after the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans could not wait to develop and serve the Mauser 1871 rifle, while other countries, including the Reich, quickly followed suit and developed and entered service with steel breech-loading rifled guns.

In this war, the Empire's 1872 Northern rifle was generous, and before the war ended, the Russians had already begun to research related new rifles, and by 1878, basically countries with independent research and development capabilities had already launched the research and development of repeating rifles, and even some countries had begun small-scale trials and services.

Modern warfare has played an irreplaceable role in promoting science and technology.

Just when the Imperial Army learned from the experience of the Siberian War and carried out a number of reforms, the Imperial Navy was not idle, except for continuing to invest in the construction of two Shaohao-class warships and the new armored cruiser Laurel.

In 1878, according to the custom, the navy started construction of another battleship, which was not too new in terms of design, and the basic design was to continue the Shaohao class.

Due to the limitations of the current level of technology, there has not been much progress in power, armor and artillery technology, and even if the designers of the Navy and Ship Administration Department have many new designs, it is difficult to build them.

This situation is not new to now, in fact, there was this problem throughout the seventies, when the empire designed and built several new battleships and armored cruisers, basically did not change much, the most common change was that the caliber of the gun was larger, the body barrel was longer, and the change of the Shaohao was only from the previous low freeboard to the conventional freeboard, but some basic design concepts still did not get rid of the influence of the Chiyou class in the late sixties.

If you look at it purely from the perspective of combat effectiveness, although Shaohao is much stronger than Chiyou, it is actually not much stronger, because although the two are different, there is no decisive generation difference. (To be continued.) )