The establishment of the Qingpu Military Academy, if you don't count the various influences in the future, simply from the situation at that time, actually means another change in the military system of the Jingwu Army.

At the beginning of the establishment of the elite army, Li Yongji was very lacking in both economy and experience, so he followed the strategy of elite soldiers, that is, from the time of recruiting soldiers, he first strictly selected soldiers, and after they were selected, he began to conduct closed training with modern weapons and modern teaching materials, which was not so much training as running a school.

This is the so-called policy of educating the army, which can transform the soldiers to the greatest extent, train them into elites in the shortest possible time, and begin to disconnect from the whole society, so that they can no longer be separated from the elite army.

This strategy has indeed worked, and to this day, the officers and soldiers of the Jingwu Army who were recruited at the beginning are all desperate for Li Yongji himself and the Jingwu Army group, and the cohesion is violent, and this is the basis for Li Yongji's future actions.

However, in the subsequent process of army building, due to Li Yongji's immaturity, many horses were added too early, which seemed to be good, but it was actually equivalent to a detour. Because of the addition of a large number of horses, it not only complicates the study of elite officers and soldiers, but also wastes a lot of their energy, after all, horses are not ordinary difficult to serve.

Because of this, in order not to distract the officers and soldiers of the elite army and waste too much unnecessary time, it was necessary to recruit many horsemen, in addition to recruiting many civilian men such as carpenters and masons to help the original officers and soldiers of the elite army to deal with general logistics and miscellaneous affairs, so that the earliest elite soldiers could concentrate on studying.

After that, Li Yongji found that even in the marching battle, these horsemen, carpenters, masons and others were also very effective, plus they had lived with the Jingwu Army for many years, and they were already very familiar with each other, and they were also affected a lot, so he simply incorporated them into the Jingwu Army sequence as auxiliary soldiers or logistics soldiers. Officers and soldiers who previously went through the formal recruitment procedures were counted as combat soldiers.

In this way, the size of the Jingwu Army immediately more than doubled, reaching the size of one division and nearly 20,000 people. Among them, the treatment of the soldiers is the highest, and the treatment of the auxiliary soldiers is second, but they are all stronger than the so-called green battalion soldiers or the Eight Banners soldiers, and as long as they are elite soldiers, regardless of the auxiliary soldiers, they are all covered with food and shelter. The family will be protected by the elite army, which is what makes them the happiest.

Of course, since the auxiliaries have also become the sequence of the elite army, in addition to the work that the auxiliaries have to do, they usually have to learn shooting training and march in formation, but they are more focused on shooting, and walking in formation is not so important, that is, they are also equipped with Sharps rifles or revolvers.

But here comes the problem again. The troops of such a division have been expanded to the limit, and their combat effectiveness has also tended to be perfect. On the contrary, it is not conducive to command. But as Li Yongji's territory is getting bigger and bigger, there are more and more places that need to be guarded by troops, and it is no longer just as simple as needing an invincible army, but more and more. More troops.

In other words, the pressure of reality forces the elite army to make changes again. It is necessary to expand its scale on the basis of elite troops.

At this time, Li Yongji made a strategy of dividing the troops, that is, dividing the division into three infantry regiments and cavalry regiments, and stationed them evenly in the three cities of Suzhou, Wuxi and Changshu, and then each city used this regiment as the backbone to expand the army into a division of 20,000 people on the spot.

Of course, in order to rapidly expand the army, the new recruitment conditions have been greatly reduced, mainly requiring the recruits to be aged, eyesight, height, and whether they have serious diseases, and the literacy rate is not deliberately pursued.

In this way, the original regiment has all become officers, and at least they can be a squad leader, which is also very happy, and the life of the Jingwu officers and soldiers before is continuous study and training, everyone can be an instructor when they go out, recruit new soldiers in the past, as long as they follow what they have learned before, they can lead the troops well.

However, the original elite military officers and men were already uneven, with some people having a high level and some people having a low level, so how can this large-scale expansion of the army not only reflect fairness and justice, but also not affect combat effectiveness?

Well, the rank system came into being.

Military rank is closely related to military position, but it is actually two different things. The military rank is more like the rank of an officer, what non-commissioned officer major, second lieutenant, major, etc., all indicate how much actual treatment you can enjoy, and the military rank is the actual position, such as platoon commander and company commander, etc., which indicates how many soldiers and horses you can actually bring.

In peacetime, it is natural that the official position is higher than the military rank, but once the troops are scattered and formed in battle, the people with low military ranks will automatically obey the people with high ranks. In addition, for some people who are very poor in ability but very old in qualifications, they can also be given a high rank and low position, so that they will not be emotionally overwhelmed, but they will not drag the troops back.

In addition, after the large-scale expansion of the whole army, it is equivalent to digesting all the veterans that Li Yongji had worked so hard to pull up, and at this time there is an urgent need for another cradle to train grassroots officers like before. In this way, the Qingpu Military Academy, which used a small number of elites in the original elite army as instructors and Yangxinju old camp as the base, also came into being.

Therefore, whether it is the military rank system or the Qingpu Military Academy, in essence, it is to adapt to the development of the form, and more far-reaching things, Li Yongji has not yet taken into account that the many praises of later generations, especially Li Yongji's many far-sighted and strategic masters, can only be said to be over-interpreted by later generations.

It is precisely because the Jingwu Army is rapidly expanding its army that there must be a period of weakness before it re-runs in and matures, which is why Li Yongji has relaxed the pace of expansion and become conservative again in the recent period.

To an uninformed outsider, it was as if he had been satisfied with the position of Admiral and had never thought of making any more progress.

Of course, this is a joke, or a matter of course, they have no idea what kind of changes are taking place in the territory of the Jingwu military-controlled zhì, nor do they know what kind of dire situation the officials sent by the Qing court have been doing recently in the areas controlled by the Jingwu military.

At the beginning, after Weng Tongji brought civil and military officials to Li Yongji to add officials to the knighthood, he began to openly seize power, and at first he first installed civil officials in Suzhou, Wuxi, Changshu and other places, and in this process, there were no accidents, very smooth, very harmonious, and very friendly.

However. Then, when the civil servants in various places took their places and began to carry out their official duties, such as normal tax collection and servitude, they began to feel a strong resistance, so that they could not carry out their work normally.

For example, a certain county wants to send people to a certain village to collect taxes, but the people sent there can't collect the money at all, but they are beaten up, because most of the people in that village have people in their families who are soldiers or workers in the Jingwu Army, so the families of these people who serve as soldiers or work in the Jingwu Army are protected by the Jingwu Army. And any family member who is protected by the Jingwu Army does not have to pay taxes to the government, if you want to collect taxes, you can, go to the Jingwu Army to talk.

Well, if there is a more serious one, and you really go to the Jingwu Army to reason, then the people of the Jingwu Army will say, there is no way. Our elite army does not eat the money of the imperial court, it is a troop that is pulled up by itself. This soldier always has to eat food, he always has to buy weapons, this all needs money, right? Where does the money come from? Naturally, we ask for it from our own people's families.

Well done. We have contributed so much to the national court, are you embarrassed to collect taxes from us again? If you want to collect taxes, you can give us the arrears of military expenses first. Plus the interest, not much, the entire Jingwu army. Give 10 million taels of silver, and the military expenditure for the first half of this year will be almost enough.

What the? Why is military spending so expensive? There is a reason why you are expensive. You see, we use foreign guns and foreign cannons, these are all very expensive, right? In addition, our salary is high, the pension is also high, and if we drag our families, we must also have an allowance to support our families.

How can you say that? Okay, you have raised so many green camps, not to mention anything else, that Jiangnan camp spent more than 10 million taels before and after, but what happened in the end? It's not that they have been beaten by bandits, and the things they spend money on have become trophies. What about us, don't look at the small number of people, there are no 100,000 or 200,000, but we can win the battle, so calculated, the court has made a lot of money.

This is still reasoning with you, or willing to tease you, and if you change some elite military people, they won't talk to you at all, and they will directly let people blow you out, and it will not be easy to do anything in front of them.

Well, since you can't afford to provoke it, you can afford to hide, this village can't collect it, just find another village to collect it. But the problem is that as long as this kind of thing has a beginning, it will be spread ten times and hundreds of times, and it can no longer be stopped.

In order to escape the government's taxes and forced labor, most of the middle and lower class people enthusiastically signed up for the Jingwu Army, and if the conditions were not enough to be a soldier, they would go to work, or become a tenant farmer of the Jingwu Army.

Originally, these civil officials sent by the imperial court didn't care, thinking that even if they could shelter, how many people could they shelter? But their articles are well written, but arithmetic is not very good, and they don't know the word multiplication.

The protection of the Jingwu Army, although it is a soldier or a worker, will also shelter your immediate family members, including your biological parents, as well as your own brothers and sisters.

In other words, as long as one person is a soldier or a worker under the command of the elite army, he can at least shelter at least three to eight people.

So what about those cousins and cousins and stuff like that? It's easy to do, divide the family, according to the requirements of the Jingwu Army, divide it into a small family composed of immediate family members, so that as long as there is one person, whether male or female, working under the command of the Jingwu Army, then the family can be blessed.

In this way, the formation of a small family can not only be exempted from the oppression of the government, but also by the way, it can also be exempted from the constraints of the family, which is the best for liberating the productive forces.

In just a short period of time, more than 800,000 people in Changshu were sheltered by the Jingwu Army and no longer taxed the imperial court, while more than 2 million people in Wuxi were not within the scope of the government's control, and Qingpu County as a whole was not subject to the government's restrictions, only Suzhou was slightly less, because Zhang Wei deliberately did not force too much, and gave the government a little face, only nearly 600,000 people were not under the control of the government.

The people who are still paying taxes to the government are either big families who don't look down on the Jingwu Army, or tenant farmers under the names of big families, or big families who are bound by big families and dare not participate in the Jingwu Army, or because of the remoteness of the place, the news is blocked, and they have not yet received the news.

That is to say, where the main force of the Jingwu Army is stationed, the local people are basically no longer restricted by the government, and only other places where the Jingwu Army is stationed are still obeying the leadership of the government normally.

However, most people do not pay taxes, but the monthly tax required by the imperial court cannot be discounted, and other places still point to the silver here. Therefore, there is no choice but to increase the taxes of the people who are still paying taxes, which makes people feel miserable, which is equivalent to pushing those who were originally still interested in the imperial court to the Jingwu army.

For this reason, whether it is Xue Huan or Weng Tonggong, they have sent people to Li Yongji to theorize more than once, but Li Yongji has been hiding in the Qingpu Military Academy for this period of time and has not come out, and the people sent there have not even seen each other.

Weng Tongyi personally went out and wanted to break into the old camp of the elite army with his identity. That is, the current Qingpu Military Academy, but it is still blocked, and the people guarding the gate of the military academy do not care whether you are a personal soldier of the minister of the Qincha, and whether you are the minister of the Qincha or not, even if Weng Tonggong does not believe in evil himself, he also kicked it over, so as to hang Weng Tonggong out of internal injuries.

There was no way, Weng Tongji could only continue to go back to write a complaint and impeach Li Yongji for flying and domineering. It's not regulated, but what about that? The imperial court is far away in Beijing, and the whip is beyond the reach of the whip, and now it has to rely on the elite army. Once you are in a hurry, what should you do if the elite army rebels?

It was at this time that everyone knew the power of the Jingwu Army, and also understood that the Jingwu Army was already too big. But there is no way, the elite army has become the climate, so it can only be dragged like this first. In the name of it, lie down and taste the guts, waiting for the opportunity.

Xue Huan Weng and others have also made other small moves, such as frequently wooing officers at all levels of the Jingwu Army, sending people to persuade Zhang Wei and Zhou Da and others more than once, and constantly trying to win over with high-ranking officials, and even the two chief soldiers also showed up to tell how many benefits there were to follow the imperial court.

However, it's useless, it's useless, Zhang Wei is okay, he waited for you to finish with a smile, and then served tea to the guests, and then turned around and told Li Yongji directly on the radio about the conversation.

Zhou Da, Lin Chunsheng, Jiang Hai, Jiang Yun and others are not so good-tempered, the better ones will directly give you a closed door, and they won't see you, and the worse ones will send someone to beat you out as soon as you say anything to win you over, and when you turn around, you will either send a telegram to report to Li Yongji, or prepare a case with the intelligence department officials around you, in short, there is no sign of defecting to the imperial court at all.

Direct persuasion didn't work, and they also tried to figure out the families of these people, but they found that the families of these middle and high-ranking officers had already either moved to Qingpu County or moved near the Qingpu Military Academy, and they were all protected by the elite army, and they couldn't penetrate at all.

Finally, someone met Zhou Da's third cousin through layers of relationships, but the other party also refused as soon as he opened his mouth, and made it clear that Zhou Da and these people were greatly favored by Li Yongji, and they followed Li Yongji with an iron heart, and they couldn't persuade them at all. Zhou Da himself said in front of these old men that whoever dares to persuade him to betray General Manager Li, as long as he says one thing, even if it is his own father and mother's own flesh and blood, he will slaughter it with a knife...... It's all said such cruel things, so is it useful to say anything else?

It can only be said that these Qing court officials did not understand the internal situation of the Jingwu Army at all, they did not know that the Jingwu Army had long been separated from the Qing court, and the people of the Jingwu Army encouraged internal speculation, that is, looking at problems from all angles.

In the eyes of the people of the Jingwu Army, the strength of the Qing court cannot be compared with the Jingwu Army at all, even if they rebel now, they are confident that they can fight all the way to Beijing City and dominate the world without being defeated. Li Yongji is not anti-Qing now, he must have his concerns, what the concerns are, they can't see it, but listening to the words of adults is definitely right.

It is not beneficial to do anything with the Qing court, and a special system is implemented within the Jingwu Army, and all the officers and soldiers at the grassroots level have received great favors, and they have all pinned this kindness on Li Yongji, which has become a self-contained entity, and outsiders are simply unable to infiltrate such a collective.

If it was more than half a month ago, then with Emperor Xianfeng's urine, maybe after hearing this, he really issued a strict order to arrest Li Yongji and enter Beijing, but in a short period of time, the situation in the Jiangnan region changed, and the Qing army had two heavy defeats in succession, so that he could not give this order, and could only continue to endure the survival of the Jingwu army and Li Yongji's dominance.

Which two failed to do so?

First, there's the West Side. At the beginning of August, Chen Yucheng suddenly led the army to attack, led the army of 20,000, not only relieved the siege of Anqing in one fell swoop, but also annihilated the main force of the Hunan army under the city of Anqing, and then took the opportunity to take a boat to wave the army westward, during which the momentum was like a bamboo, breaking through Jiujiang, reaching Hankou, after looting in Hankou and Wuchang, because of the fear of logistics being cut off, he returned to Jiujiang, ploughed the regiments in various places along the way, and finally re-established the defense line in Jiujiang.

Secondly, in the east, the city of Hangzhou was attacked by Li Shixian, and the defender Zhang Yuliang suddenly rebelled, and as a result, the city was captured in one fell swoop, and the Hangzhou general Ruichang was also buried in Hangzhou. That's not all, after that, the foreigners in Ningbo suddenly sent an army composed of foreigners, conquered Taizhou and Wenzhou one after another, burned and looted, and handed over the city to the Taiping army!

At the same time, the foreigners in Shanghai also dispatched an army, and began to break Nantong, Jiangyin and Zhenjiang one after another with the support of warships, and in the turn of Zhenjiang and the Taiping army, the two sides joined forces together, all the way north, and now they have broken Yangzhou again, and the soldiers are pointing directly at Huai'an!

There are beacons everywhere, which makes Emperor Xianfeng's rare good mood no longer good, and he can no longer continue to play with his Lan nobles, so he can only turn the original order to arrest and investigate into an order for Li Yongji to send troops to rescue, and his tone is very relaxed, a faction of saints is long, I believe in your posture very much.

As everyone knows, Emperor Xianfeng's actions made the people in the Jiangnan region even more alienated from the imperial court, and now, even the people who were most unaccustomed to Li Yongji knew that Li Yongji's climate had become a success, and the imperial court had nothing to do with him. (To be continued......)