Yang Shande immediately said: "At present, the reconstruction work of the Eighth Division is progressing steadily, and the personnel have been preliminarily put in place, and preliminary integrated training is currently underway!" ”

Although Yang Shande is in charge of reconstruction, in fact he can only be in charge of replenishing troops, and the appointment of officers is in charge of the Quanxu Department, which has nothing to do with him, and the required weapons and equipment and military salaries are in charge of the Ordnance Department, the ammunition and food required are in charge of the Quartermaster Department, and the General Staff Department is responsible for the specific deployment of operations.

It can be seen from this that the system of the Feng army is actually a dispersion of many powers, and the five major departments of the General Staff, the Quartermaster Department, the Ministry of Education, the Ordnance Department, and the Quanxu Department control many powers, and none of the above can independently control a certain army, and the commanders of the following troops have no way to do so.

Not to mention those division commanders, even a military boss like Meng Enyuan has no way to control the troops privately!

You see, the replenishment of soldiers is controlled by the Ministry of Education, the appointment of officers is controlled by the Quanxu Department, the distribution of military salaries, weapons and equipment are controlled by the Ordnance Department, the food and ammunition are controlled by the Quartermaster Department, and the specific deployment and combat orders are controlled by the General Staff.

Therefore, after Yang Shande finished saying that this soldier replenishment, he consciously closed his mouth, and then Zhao Dongping on the side also spoke at the right time: "It is still relatively difficult to replenish the weapons and equipment of the Eighth Division, there is still a shortage of about 4,000 rifles in light weapons, and the artillery is only a mountain artillery battalion for the time being, and the machine guns and mortars are less than one-third of the full strength. At present, the Ordnance Department's efforts are mainly focused on the direction of northern Jiangsu and Henan, and according to the current situation, the Eighth Division will be restocked with weapons until the end of the year. ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "This Eighth Division is now short of weapons, can it take on the important task of guarding and ensuring the logistics and transportation line of Jinghan?" ”

At this time, Fang Biyong of the General Staff also spoke: "The Jinghan Line is north of Wusheng Pass, and it is already under the control of our army, and the enemy army is far away along the line, and the security of Luoyang on the Henan side is also responsible for the Third Army, and the Eighth Division is only responsible for the section of the line from Zhengzhou to Shijiazhuang, so it can still be competent!" ”

The reconstructed Eighth Division is now deployed in Shijiazhuang, Anyang and other areas in the south of Zhili, saying that it is to encircle the Jinghan Railway, but in fact the main force is still stationed in Shijiazhuang, the meaning of which is very obvious, that is, to prevent the Jin army from advancing eastward.

After listening to everyone's answers, Zhao Dongyun continued: "Since the personnel of the Eighth Division have been initially full, and the recruits in the new barracks of the Ministry of Education cannot continue to train, they will always have to be transferred after the expiration of the month period. ”

Hearing Zhao Dongyun say this, the generals below all showed joy, expand the army, who doesn't like it!

The first division, the 11th division, the first mixed brigade, and the eighth division were actually all incorporated and surrendered, and what the Feng army did was to change the appearance of these units and incorporate them into the Feng army system, while the three units of the 13th Division, the 9th Mixed Brigade, and the 10th Mixed Brigade were actually adapted from the 1st Division, the 1st Mixed Brigade, and the 2nd Mixed Brigade of the Army of the three eastern provinces, which began to be organized and trained last year.

In other words, although the scale of the Feng army has swelled dramatically recently, there is not a single newly formed army!

Now that Zhao Dongyun said this, the generals below are naturally full of joy, what does the expansion of the army represent? It means that they are more powerful!

However, not everyone is happy, Zhao Dongping listened to Zhao Dongyun's words, but his face was cautious.

Zhao Dongping, as the chief of the ordnance department, has been the money bag of the Feng army for many years, and he basically controls most of the Feng army's expenditures.

Although there is a difference between military and political affairs, this person and Xiong Xiling in the civilian system are the two most important financial system officials under Zhao Dongyun, but Xiong Xiling is in charge of making money, known as the God of Wealth of the Su Department, and he Zhao Dongping only spends money, and many Chinese people jokingly call him a good money boy, and tens of millions of dollars are spent in his hands every year.

Others may not know how tight Fengjun's military spending is, but as the actual financial steward of Fengjun, Zhao Dongping is very clear. Others now only know that his ordnance department spends money every month, buying countless artillery and ammunition and supporting the salaries of the soldiers, but few people know that the ordnance department under his control has accumulated arrears of up to 10 million yuan to many domestic military suppliers, especially the Fuyuan Machinery Qì factory has not paid off since last year.

In addition to the majority of the Fuchang side, his ordnance department, as the only procurement department of the Fengjun (the munitions department is only in charge of transportation, construction, etc., and has no power to directly purchase munitions materials), can not only purchase weapons and ammunition, but also have to purchase military uniforms, food and other various military supplies, and a considerable number of these materials are also in arrears.

For example, it is now October, the autumn and winter season is approaching, and the Ordnance Department has also started the procurement of autumn and winter military uniforms early, but the purchase of this clothing is only a small part of the deposit, as for the bulk of the follow-up payment is still delayed, whether it can be settled next year is unknown, and the Ordnance Department alone owes a total of nearly two million yuan to Fuyuan Yarn Factory, Huludao Textile Company, and Shenyang Huilong Textile Company.

During the war, the Feng army did not deduct the soldiers' food expenses, but directly supplied them by the military, and the 200,000 people in this army ate horses and chewed every day It was not a small amount, and the Feng army itself did not have so many grain reserves, so it could only be purchased from the major grain merchants, which was a large amount of expenses.

Fortunately, when the southbound troops are too far away from the rear and the logistics and transportation are not in time, the front-line troops will often requisition local food as supplies, although this requisition will also give vouchers, but it is a military ticket printed by the Feng army itself, and the credit value of this military ticket is even more unbearable than the paper money made by Zhao Dongyun, at least before Zhao Dongyun completely unifies China, don't expect Zhao Dongyun to be able to redeem these so-called military tickets.

Although it is a very disgraceful thing to use military tickets on the front line, but when the logistics supply is not enough, the troops do not even have to eat, so naturally they cannot expect the troops to be able to do it without disturbing the people.

In addition, the large-scale local requisition of the Feng army on the southern front also relieved the logistical pressure of the Feng army, and at the same time, it also reduced the pressure on the purchase of military rations.

However, the only thing that could be requisitioned on the spot was food, and a large amount of other materials needed by the army had to be purchased by the Ordnance Department one by one and transported to the front.

In the past few months, the Ordnance Department has purchased at least 40 million yuan of materials, but only imported goods have been paid in full, and most of the purchases from China, regardless of whether they are weapons or food, have only paid a deposit, and only half of them can be given, and the rest is delayed again and again.

Among them, even the arsenal like the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, which even Zhao Dongyun has to take care of in person, is unable to collect all the payments, and what Zhao Dongping of the Ordnance Department can do is to pay a batch of payments to the Fuyuan Machinery Factory every once in a while, so as to avoid the cash flow of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory from being completely cut off and then stop production, anyway, the arrears are accumulating more and more, and only God knows how to pay it back in the future.

In the case of so many arrears outside, the Ordnance Department can still continuously purchase a lot of materials to maintain the front-line operation, which has to be said to be a great innovation, and it is not much different from Xiong Xiling's ability to tear down the east wall and make up the west wall in the cabinet.

In addition to the purchase of materials, in fact, the bulk of the army's expenses are also the salaries of the troops, and the salaries of the troops alone are millions of dollars per month, and it is impossible for Zhao Dongping to take out all the real money and silver, so Zhao Dongping's solution is to cooperate with the Bank of China to issue paper money instead of silver dollars, and directly distribute them to the soldiers' personal accounts in the bank.

In this case, as long as not all soldiers withdraw all their deposits overnight, and they still want real money, then the Bank of China will be able to maintain a false appearance of continuing to pay military salaries, of course, such a bad will also cause the credit of paper money to plummet, but Xiong Xiling and Zhao Dongping They can't manage so much, if they don't issue paper money, they can't take out so much real money to pay military salaries.

Of course, in order to support the credit of the newly issued paper money, the republican government has already announced early that paper money can be used to pay government taxes.

This kind of credit guarantee is much more effective than a bank with a deposit, as long as the tax can be paid, the government recognizes the value of this paper money, then the people will be more likely to trust the monetary value of this paper money.

Although these methods have temporarily relieved the pressure on Fengjun's military spending, these can be said to be temporary measures and must not be maintained for a long time; if there is no additional large amount of financial revenue, in fact, it is not possible to say that it is possible for Fengjun's finances to be completely bankrupt by next year, but 100 percent.

And in this case, Zhao Dongyun even said that he wanted to expand the army!

If the army continues to expand, it is estimated that it will not be able to maintain the entire ordnance department if it is dismantled!

However, Zhao Dongping's worries, Zhao Dongyun doesn't know?

He knows very well what trouble he is facing, and his financial problems have not been solved since last year, but so what, it has not come to this day, the army under his command has swept through the three provinces of Zhili, Henan, and Shandong, and is now in Xuzhou, and taking Jiangbei is just around the corner.

If there is no money, will there be no war if the army is not expanded? Joke, if that's the case, everyone won't have to fight, just compare who has more money.

Moreover, what he Zhao Dongyun needs is not money, but all kinds of shells, food and other materials, but these materials need to be purchased with currency, and this currency can be gold and silver or a blank piece of paper.

Could it be that he could not mobilize the productive forces and materials in his jurisdiction without enough gold and silver in his hands? Impossible, even if he doesn't have a tael of gold or silver in his hand, he can still mobilize the people and materials in his jurisdiction to wage war.

For example, paper money or military tickets, as long as he Zhao Dongyun said that this small piece of paper can be used to pay bills and taxes, then this is 'money'!

So you can see that Zhao Dongyun vigorously issued paper money, and its purpose was very simple, that is, to use the pieces of paper he printed to collect domestic productivity.

Of course, this method is limited to the domestic market, and does not work for international trade.

As long as we look at the relationship between government, taxation, and money, we will find that for a government that controls the power to issue money, the government has as much money as it wants, and there is no such fact as the so-called financial difficulties. For example, the additional issuance of various currencies in later generations is not directly printed and spent by the government, you say that these are money, but in fact it is just a printed matter, you say it is not money, it can really be spent as money.

Now Zhao Dongyun under the control of the Soviet financial system has signs of developing towards this trend, the Soviet financial system is actually not compatible with the indirect gold standard, silver standard, foreign exchange standard, the central finance of the Soviet Union, that is, the Bank of China only used as a total of silver reserves, barely tens of millions, and these are not the Bank of China itself, but depositors' money. However, according to this reserve, the issuance of paper money is already hundreds of millions, and it is still in continuous large-scale issuance, and this kind of over-issuance of paper money is almost impossible for other countries, but in contemporary China, and China is still in the midst of war, it has become a reality.

Of course, this over-issuance has also caused the credit value of paper money to decrease a lot, but after the government promised that paper money can be used to pay taxes, many people still reluctantly accepted, and then the first time it was used to pay various taxes, and finally the Ministry of Finance received a bunch of paper money......

The credit value of this kind of paper money is not based on the reserves of the central bank, but on the credit of the government, and to go deeper, it is actually based on the combat effectiveness of the Feng army. As long as the Feng army is not defeated, then Zhao Dongyun will not fall, and Zhao Dongyun will not fall, then the paper money issued by the central bank will naturally be able to continue to hold strong.

So as long as the Feng army can maintain the victory, then there is no need to worry about the collapse of the financial system in the rear!

Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if the financial system collapses, but with more than 200,000 troops in hand, Zhao Dongyun is a big deal to come to an armed tax, especially in the Jiangnan region, he doesn't believe that he can't collect tens of millions of silver and gold, as for the people's heart, it can be well interpreted in two words: 'hehe'!

When you think about it from Zhao Dongyun's point of view, then you will understand why Zhao Dongyun continued to expand the army when he could run mice in the warehouse of the Ministry of Finance!

Because the army is the guarantee of finance!

This is the same as the poorer the family, the more children the poorer the warlord, the more the army is expanded, this is a road of no return, either die a miserable death, or die a very miserable death! ――

PS: When I wrote these two chapters, I drew a schematic diagram of the Battle of Xuzhou, I hope it can help you understand the recent plot development, the picture has been uploaded to the book friend group album, you can go and see, group number: 35923224