The so-called vicious incident refers to a fighting incident that occurred at the end of October 1863.

The cause of the incident was that the central tax personnel went to the headquarters of a company called Huaiyang Salt Industry Group to collect taxes, but the boss of the salt industry group refused to cooperate, and the tax officer was also young and could not stand the cynicism of the other party.

The boss of the Huaiyang Salt Industry Group is called Wang Tianer, who was an outlaw who sold smuggled salt in the Manchu Dynasty, and later saw the strong rise of the Jingwu Army, relying on his relationship with Li Yongji's grandfather Wang Tianzhong, who was Wang Tianzhong's distant cousin, and as a result, he pulled a group of people to defect to the Jingwu Dart Bureau at that time, and Wang Tianzhong was also in urgent need of expanding his power and influence at that time, and that guy was also somewhat influential, so he accepted it.

Later, when the new dynasty was established, this guy named Wang Tianer was also very hardworking, although he was not needed to fight on the front line, but it was still very useful to engage in intelligence and play against him, and played a certain role in the offensive of the elite army.

In this way, because of some merits, plus very good at being a man, constantly filial piety to Wang Tianzhong and Li Zhengxiang, after the establishment of the new dynasty, he got a few salt farms in Huaiyang, and also established a salt company, which is a royal enterprise, that is, a subsidiary of the imperial Huaxia Salt Group, and Huaxia Salt Group, the major shareholder behind it is the emperor Li Zhengxiang, the imperial enterprise, so it can be affiliated with Huaxia Salt Group, become a subsidiary, and get involved with the Queen Mother. This Wang Tianer is a figure in the local area.

There are so many layers of relationships, and the local people in Yangzhou respect him more. Or fear, slowly, this Wang Tianer became more and more bold, and became a local tyrant in Yangzhou, and ordinary people didn't pay attention to it at all. He even had a family of 500 men, and the weapons and equipment were the same as those of the National Guard, even the artillery.

The reason why this can be done is also Li Yongji's negligence, because after he founded the country, he may have been influenced by some trolls in his previous life. There was no immediate ban on guns, on the contrary, if the people wanted to buy weapons, as long as they gave enough money, their status was fine. You can still buy it casually. Of course, the weapons that can be bought can only be the weapons produced by the Ma'anshan Arsenal itself, and modern weapons are absolutely impossible to buy.

Since the country had just ended from turmoil soon after the founding of the People's Republic of China, many landlords and gentry ordered weapons from the Ma'anshan Arsenal to form armed families. In the beginning, there was a real need. After all, the empire was newly established, and there were many rogues in various places, especially the defeated army of the former Qing Dynasty and the former Taiping Army. Basically, they are scattered to various places and have become green forest bandits, and there is no armed guard, and the security problem is indeed worrying.

However, since the official implementation of the million-dollar defense force plan, these armies have often trained in the name of suppressing bandits.

The Imperial Army has had no bad deeds since the Jingwu Army. In addition, the country under the leadership of Li Yongji has indeed made significant progress in all aspects, so it is deeply loved by the people. When the local people heard that the Wehrmacht was going to suppress the bandits, they would wholeheartedly help. Not to mention the small favors, it is absolutely no problem to ventilate the news.

With the support of the local population, these bandit-fighting defense forces are often more agile than the local bandits, and with more advanced weapons, more numbers, and stronger organization, the local bandits are no match at all.

In addition, after Shen Shiming became the prime minister, in order to eliminate bandits in various places and make the traffic between the east and the west, the north and the south completely become safe and smooth, he added a lot of Huairou policies, that is to say, no matter what forces the local bandits belonged to before, as long as the bad deeds were not too big, and they sincerely repented, they were willing to go to the local construction team to do free labor for three years to fund the construction of local infrastructure, and you can return your freedom after three years, and the past is not to blame.

Although I still have to do three years of hard labor, the conditions are not very good, but in the face of the strength of the national defense force, coupled with the people's determination, many bandits have also agreed to this so-called recruitment policy, even if there are a few big leaders who do not want to accept recruitment because of their bad deeds are too strict, but they can't bear the displeasure of the people below.

Because the current situation is obvious, the imperial court is powerful, and it is not ordinarily big, and it has won the hearts of the people, and there is only a dead end in confrontation.

After all, at the same time as the imperial court issued an order to recruit security, it also issued an ultimatum, saying that if you do not take the initiative to surrender within the time limit, as soon as the army arrives, regardless of your crime, you will be shot, and you will be killed!

That's right, for these bandits, Shen Shiming's policy is to carrot and stick, and Zhao'an and clean-up are carried out at the same time, of which clean-up is the main and Zhao'an is secondary.

Anyway, Shen Shiming can see it, even if those national defense forces are not allowed to suppress bandits, the intensity of their usual training is not small, the ammunition consumed, and the various subsidies eaten are not small, but it is better to let them suppress bandits. Strictly calculated, the consumption of various ammunition during the suppression of bandits, as well as other subsidies and the like, is cheaper than training by yourself.

The reason for this situation in which the cost of anti-bandit combat is lower than that of training in peacetime is related to the current treatment of the Wehrmacht.

If it weren't for wartime, these Wehrmacht troops would have to do it according to the standard meals, and the training would be in accordance with the requirements of the syllabus.

However, as mentioned above, the weapons and ammunition of the empire and the equipment of the Wehrmacht are basically self-produced, but because of the problems of the industrial system, the performance of self-produced ammunition is worse and the cost is higher than that of modern imported weapons.

Therefore, once the training is carried out according to the training syllabus, the amount of ammunition consumed is not a small amount, although it will increase the proficiency of the soldiers, but many Wehrmacht soldiers are compulsory soldiers, not volunteer soldiers, that is to say, they will be discharged after three years and transferred to the reserve.

However, even if it is a conscript, the training intensity is also planned according to the outline, but the number of conscripts is large. As soon as the number of people came up, all kinds of but to consume is slowly rising, the army does not care about anything else, anyway, it must ensure that there is no shortage of ammunition supplies and the like, and if there is less things, they will order, but the money that can be ordered is all from the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Defense has no money, so they began to ask the Ministry of Finance for money, and the Ministry of Finance did not dare not give it, but they could see that the military spending increased every month. It is also a headache, and in the end, it can only find Prime Minister Shen Shiming.

Shen Shiming found that it would not work if this continued, so he began to convene a meeting between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defense to discuss the issue of military spending, and asked if there was anything wrong with it.

The results of the discussion. That is, there is no big problem with the increase in military spending itself, but it is mainly due to the fact that the army is expanding by one million itself.

In fact, it was also because of the beginning of the Million Wehrmacht that the consumption of ammunition increased so slowly, because the number of recruits was limited, and the intensity of the recruits' firing was also from weak to strong.

In other words. The current increase is only the beginning, and in the future, as the number of recruits increases, the time of the recruits becomes worse and worse, and the intensity of shooting becomes higher and higher, the amount of such ammunition consumed will be even greater.

At this time. Shen Shiming has not thought of attacking the marginal enterprises or affiliated enterprises of the royal family, so the finances are still quite tight, so the people below have to find a way, but everyone can't make money immediately, so open source can't be done in the short term.

Since open source can't be used, it is necessary to reduce expenditure first, discuss and discuss, and finally let a young official named Zhang Zhidong come up with a solution.

Zhang Zhidong is now only an eight-rank official. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, and is mainly responsible for counting things like ordnance and materiel, and then archiving. Kind of a rather inconspicuous little person.

However, it was this little person who actually spoke with a number of jù and came up with a brilliant solution.

Zhang Zhidong's idea was simple, in his opinion, he could not overturn the training syllabus set by His Majesty himself. and want to save money, and the two seem irreconcilable. In fact, there is still a way, and the way is to get those Wehrmacht troops out of the barracks. Go outside and crack down on bandits!

According to Zhang Zhidong, the training syllabus formulated by His Majesty was too extravagant, and the training program of the recruits was mainly to line up and shoot guns, and the intensity of shooting guns was too high, which caused the consumption of ammunition to be strict.

As a matter of fact, according to the kind of shooting training intensity formulated by Li Yongji, it is suitable for assault training, but it is not suitable for compulsory soldiers, but it cannot be changed for the time being, and can only be continued.

However, if it is to send troops to suppress bandits, or to suppress rebellions, then the situation is different, because during the suppression of bandits, it is impossible to shoot targets every day, and more time is spent marching and searching for the enemy, even if they exchange fire with the enemy, with the strength of those bandits, it is impossible for the Wehrmacht to expend too much effort, in other words, the ammunition consumed by the bandits is far less than the amount of ammunition consumed in peacetime training.

In addition to the small amount of ammunition consumed, the burden of diet was also small, because during the training they were given a standard diet, which was of high quality, and in general, ordinary kulaks could not meet that standard of food.

However, if it is to send troops to suppress bandits, according to the regulations, in order to reduce the logistical pressure during the march, they only bring dry food with them, and buy local supplies on the spot to eat.

The reason why this is the case is also Li Yongji's stipulation, because in Li Yongji's view, it doesn't matter if you eat well during training in peacetime, but if you have to eat and drink well when you march and fight, you can't eat bitter at all, which is like the spaghetti soldiers during World War II.

Therefore, during the march and war, the conditions in all aspects are not as good as during the peacetime training period, and in the same way, it is more economical to do so.

The suppression of bandits is not a day or two, the army usually has to stay in one place for a long time, and when the army is outside, it is considered wartime, and the implementation is wartime supply, so all kinds of expenses are much cheaper than the training period.

This is different from the situation of all dynasties, where the officers and men of all dynasties consume less in peacetime training, and many military training is almost a formality, and there is no major consumption at all. On the contrary, when there is a war, there will be heavy bleeding, and all kinds of rewards will be given highly, otherwise no one will be willing to use their lives.

But the Wehrmacht is different, since the establishment of the Empire, the identity of the Wehrmacht itself is a sweet and sweet spot in society, and being a soldier not only has a huge economic temptation, but also has a huge hidden benefits in terms of status and other aspects, so everyone is rushing to become a soldier, even if it can only be a compulsory soldier.

Moreover, the military promotion system of the empire is different from the past, it is completely calculated according to seniority and military merits, volunteers are okay, after all, it is a profession, and the chances of promotion are greater and more, but for those compulsory soldiers who can only serve for three years, obtaining actual combat merits during the three-year service period is the fastest way to obtain the qualification to become a regular soldier, that is, to become a volunteer.

But three years is too short, if you can't get the qualification to fight during this period, at least one merit value for participating in the battle, if you want to accumulate points for regularization, it's really not easy.

Therefore, just because of this merit point system, because the volunteers who have been turned into regular soldiers are far from the compulsory soldiers in terms of treatment and status, those poor children who have no background background, the mentality of longing for war is stronger than anyone else, and even stronger than those volunteers with a higher level of technology and tactics!

After all, volunteers get points, for a higher rank, not much pressure, compulsory soldiers get points, just to change their fate, after all, once they become regular volunteers, in many small places, it is almost a carp jumping over the dragon gate.

Because of this, even if the treatment is poor during the dispatch of the army, it is not as comfortable as the training, but the compulsory soldier is also willing, because this means that he can participate in the battle, and participating in the battle means that he has more merit points and more opportunities to become regular.

Anyway, the Imperial Army has better weapons and equipment, and there are more people, and even if it starts, the casualties of the Wehrmacht are very low, except for some bad luck, there is basically no danger, and this situation has intensified everyone's desire to fight.

After all, there are benefits, but there are not too many real dangerous things, and everyone is willing to do them.

In short, after Zhang Zhidong proposed this plan, Shen Shiming and the others pondered that it was really like this, and they were all sighing why they didn't expect it earlier.

In fact, this is a blind spot in thinking, they have always thought that the consumption during the peaceful training period is small and wartime, so they didn't think about it from this aspect, but Zhang Zhidong, who usually does copywriting work and deals with all kinds of numbers.

After repeated confirmations, Shen Shiming made a formal decision and asked the national defense forces in various localities to adopt the form of a round battle, that is, leaving half of the troops in the garrison to continue training, and the other half to suppress the bandits, and then come back to replace the bandits.

In this way, bandits in various places have indeed been greatly curbed, but in this way, the families of the squires and landlords in various places have become decorations, and there is no chance to play anymore, so slowly, it has become a symbol of showing off status.

The reason is very simple, who has more armed families, it means that you are more rich and powerful, think about it, come forward with a vote of armed family with a loaded gun, whether it is useful or not, that majesty, that magnificent, the general county master can not compare, after all, the county master can manage the police at most, but the equipment of the police is regulated, not like the armed family, you can order standard weapons, such as Hua 2 rifles and Hua 2 field guns.

Wang Tianer is such a master with many armed soldiers, his armed family not only has a water Hua 2 rifle, but also an artillery squad, with two Hua 2 field guns!

Such a rich and powerful landlord who is related to the emperor's relatives was handcuffed by a few small young tax officers in full view, even if Wang Tianer could bear it, the people below couldn't bear it.

Therefore, the moment Wang Tianer was arrested, his family and nursing homes immediately rushed up, tied up those young and poor tax officers at once, and whipped them and hung them on bamboo poles to show the public!

If you don't say it, this is the habit of being powerful and blessed, and you don't know that the sky is high and the earth is thick, and you start to die by yourself. They thought it was just a small punishment, but they didn't know that it was a slap in the face of the tax bureau in public, and those tax officers were also civil servants, that is, officials, and they were blatantly against the government by doing so!

Therefore, at this point, what could have been good can not be good, if you give in at this time, and you can't even save face, then not only will the tax bureau lose face, but the entire empire's official system will lose face, this is a completely different situation, Wang Tianer's group of people are completely dying by themselves. (To be continued) R580