As a matter of fact, after the Battle of Suzhou, Li Yongji had the idea of dividing his troops, and his original purpose was just to temper the independent combat capability and strategic coordination ability of the regiment-level troops, and to test the ability of the generals leading his own troops to lead the troops.

After all, the Jingwu Army will definitely continue to expand its army in the future, the number of troops will increase, and the territory will become larger and larger, and it is impossible to be confined to only one place, nor can it be completely commanded by Li Yongji himself, and it is a matter of time before the troops are separated.

In addition, because Li Yongji's troops have their own characteristics, that is, Yan Zhan Zhòng relies on modern products, especially in terms of command, Yan Zhan Ng relies on modern communication facilities. Such a unit is indeed very advanced, and its combat capability is naturally very strong, but once it leaves these, it is difficult to say whether the troops will fight. However, for the time being, Li Yongji will certainly not be able to popularize modern communications equipment on a large scale in the army in the future, and modern communications equipment can only be used by the guards under Li Yongji's own command.

Therefore, the purpose of separating the troops is very clear: first, to temper the troops, and second, to prepare for the future expansion of the troops.

In Li Yongji's plan, those who followed him to Wuxi will continue to expand their troops in the future and continue to become their own guard troops, and the troops who follow Wang Sanwu and Zhang Wei will also expand their troops on the spot, but these two troops will become ordinary modern troops after expansion.

That is to say, in the future, except for Li Yongji's directly subordinate guard troops, other units will not be equipped with so many modern communication facilities, and radios will only be deployed at and above the regimental level, and communication command below the regimental level will still be carried out in traditional ways such as signal flares, heralds, and command flags.

Although this will affect the command efficiency of ordinary troops, it is better to be reliable, and the deployment of radios at and above the regimental level can also ensure that the overall strategic planning of the troops will not be wrong.

In other words, the current division of troops is not simply to deal with Li Xiucheng's threat, but the main purpose is to temper the troops and prepare for future training and expansion plans.

In fact, the strength of the Jingwu Army is now strong enough, and if a field regiment is fully formed, that is, after deploying artillery and cavalry, it can basically be undefeated, which is also the biggest support for Li Yongji to order separation.

After listening to Li Yongji's true thoughts, especially after understanding that in the future, on the basis of his own regiment, he would recruit troops on the spot to train and expand the new army, Zhang Wei and Wang Sanwu stopped talking, after all, the ** who led the troops alone was not ordinary.

Although the plan was like this, it still took three days for the specific division of troops to begin, and in addition to explaining the new plan after the officers explained to each other, the main thing was to adapt to the new gadgets that Li Yongji had gotten.

This new gadget is not a high-tech weapon, but a bicycle!

Li Yongji has always paid attention to the mobility of the army, otherwise he would not have gone to great lengths to get horses from modern society in the first place.

At the beginning, Li Yongji wanted to get cars and motorcycles, but considering that there was no petrochemical industry in this era, there was a lack of fuel, and he would have to rely on Hyundai to buy it in the future, which would strictly occupy the transmission tonnage, so he dispelled this idea and bought Hyundai horses instead.

At that time, it was also the time when Li Yongji's military thinking was not yet mature, although he saw the benefits of mobility, and also knew that modern vehicles could not be used in the late Qing Dynasty for the time being, and chose horses, but he did not know the real use of horses, and actually thought of using these high-headed horses as strategic mobile tools to build a carriage-like army.

Of course, Zhang Xinda at that time was not clear about this, Zhang Xinda did not look at the previous writing of historical novels, but writing history and writing military are two different things, Zhang Xinda used to mainly write about the Three Kingdoms, and he was a pseudo-military fan in the military aspect, saying that the military blindness was similar, and he did not know the advantages and disadvantages of horses, and he did not know that in the military strategic movement after modern times, the speed of horses was no longer as good as that of human foot marching.

Not to mention ancient and modern times, even the Japanese pack horse division during World War II in later generations mainly used the capacity of horses to pull cannons, rather than playing the trick of horse-drawn infantry. At the beginning, Li Yongji engaged in horse-drawn infantry to fight the Wang family, which looked very good, but it was purely too close, and if the distance was far away, there would be more problems immediately.

Fortunately, with the development of information in modern society, Zhang Xinda quickly understood this when searching for information, and stopped the thankless task of continuing to buy horses, and at the same time avoided Li Yongji from making big mistakes at critical times in the future.

In short, it was precisely because he understood the horse's ability to move, coupled with the help of the Swede Karlsson, that Li Yongji really used the horse's power in the right place, but in this way, the mobility of the troops needed something new to help.

After thinking about it, especially after a field investigation, Li Yongji decided to purchase bicycles and turn the unit into a bicycle unit.

In fact, bicycles have appeared since 1860, but due to the level of design, materials and craftsmanship, they are not as strong and durable as later bicycles, and the price is naturally outrageously high. However, even the kind of simple and expensive bicycles can make a huge difference.

It is said that in the Franco-Prussian War that followed, the Germans began to use bicycles as a means of transportation for heralds, proving their value, and in World War II, both Germany and Japan established formed bicycle units.

According to the statistics transmitted by Zhang Xinda, European troops during World War II had research, that is, under ideal conditions, a soldier could carry 50 pounds of supplies and march 25 miles a day at a speed of 3 miles per hour; A bicycle soldier with a 50-pound weight can march 75 miles a day at a speed of 10 miles per hour; A cavalryman, carrying 100 pounds, can travel at 15 miles per hour and can march 100 miles a day.

The problem is that the cavalry runs a maximum of 400 miles, that is, for four consecutive days, and after running 643 kilometers, the body will fall strictly, and it needs to stop to recuperate, and the consumption on weekdays is too great, and the food that a horse eats is often more than five or six people.

In this way, in terms of strategic movement, the speed of the bicycle far exceeds that of people and horses.

In terms of tactics, the ability of the bicycle is also very strong, and it can complete some tasks that only cavalry can do, such as reconnaissance and communication.

This is because the bicycle's pavement is very strong, stronger than many off-road vehicles, as long as the road surface is not ridiculously poor, all stone pits, basically ordinary dirt roads and gravel roads and other roads, bicycles can easily pass guò.

In terms of the road conditions in the late Qing Dynasty, at least in the Jiangnan area, most of the road surface can be easily passed by bicycles, if it is an official road dominated by dirt roads, then there is no problem, even if it rains and the road is slippery, there are some mud puddles that are really not passable, and the bicycle is not heavy, and a single person can carry it over.

At the beginning, the Japanese army during World War II once formed a bicycle unit, which achieved brilliant results in Malaysia, and proved that the bicycle's ability to pass guò and march speed in poor areas was proved to be much worse than in the late Qing Dynasty.

Of course, these are all Zhang Xinda's sue to Li Yongji, and Li Yongji also hoped to talk about the army's bicycle early on, but there were too many things before, and it was delayed when it came and went, and now, bicycles are no longer a problem.

Zhang Xinda has successively purchased 30,000 bicycles, of which 20,000 are travel bicycles, that is, the load is larger, the tires are wider, the speed is average, the effort is relatively low-saving, and it is not easy to damage.

This touring bicycle is not a historical 28 bicycle, but a 26-inch rim, the reason for this is because Zhang Xinda has researched that the modern 26-inch bicycle is not worse than the famous 28 bicycle in terms of cargo carrying capacity, labor-saving and riding speed, and even slightly stronger, and the price is also cheaper, and it is especially suitable for shorter Qing Dynasty people to ride, so it took 26 laps.

As for the other 10,000 vehicles, there are some human-powered tricycles, some of which are large human-powered tricycles that can be ridden by two or even four people at the same time, mainly to facilitate the lifting of baggage.

There is no doubt that these sudden appearances and uniformly painted grass green bicycles make everyone particularly curious, but fortunately, there are endless novelties in the Jingwu Army, and everyone is not surprised, at most because there are new toys and excited.

It's easy to get started with the bike, as long as you listen to the essentials, be bold, if you're fast, you can master it in an hour or two, if it's slow, you can learn it for a day, and once you learn it, it's basically a lifelong skill.

With a bicycle, every soldier of the elite army can carry a weight of 30 kilograms, at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour, riding the standard 8 hours a day, and if you are forced to march, you can ride for more than 12 hours continuously.

To put it simply, after the bicycle, the daily marching speed of the elite army is to carry a weight of 30 kilograms, and travel 120 kilometers a day on the road surface of the official road, if it is a forced march, it can easily break through 180 kilometers a day without affecting the combat effectiveness. If it's not an official road, it's a country road, and the speed may be reduced to two-thirds or even one-half of the original speed.

What is this concept? To make a simple comparison, on the official road, the ordinary marching speed of the bicycle troops, that is, 120 kilometers per day, will be 8 times the marching speed of the Qing army and the Taiping army at this time, because the Qing army and the Taiping army at this time have a daily marching speed of 30 miles, that is, 15 kilometers.

Moreover, this 120-kilometer journey in a day does not weaken the combat effectiveness much, and it can be done to enter the battle immediately after arriving at the destination, which is something that the Qing army and the Taiping army at this time cannot do, not to mention, with bicycles, their own weight is stronger, their own baggage is more, and the logistics support is also stronger.

All in all, with bicycles, the mobility of the elite army is equivalent to a great step, and in disguise it is equivalent to improving its combat effectiveness.

Don't say anything else, let's say Wuxi to Suzhou, it is currently more than 80 miles apart, that is, about 40 kilometers, if it is walking, at least it takes a day and a night, but if it is a bicycle, you can go from Suzhou to Wuxi in three hours, Suzhou and Wuxi, a day can walk back and forth is more than enough.

What's even better is that the bicycle doesn't take up space, doesn't occupy the establishment, doesn't drink water or eats, it's not as difficult to serve as horses, and it's so convenient to carry it when you encounter a really difficult place to walk.

Sure enough, after the officers and soldiers of the Jingwu Army were familiar with the performance of the bicycle, they all liked the feeling of riding the bicycle, and they were full of praise for this thing.

In this way, the Jingwu Army took the opportunity of dividing the troops to complete a comprehensive bicycle and turned into a bicycle unit, and in the days to come, as long as it was the main field corps of the Jingwu Army, before the motorized transformation, it was basically a bicycle army.

Because the rims of the bicycles are all silver, in the days that followed, many people called the field troops of the Jingwu Army the Silver Wheel Troops, and the protagonists of the Jingwu Army also began to popular this unofficial name.

Although the title of the Silver Wheel Force has always been an informal title and has not been officially recognized by the official, its fame has been throughout and has become the pronoun of the main force of the Jingwu Army, which is more famous than the official name of the bicycle force.

Interestingly, even if the main force of the Jingwu Army has become motorized and mechanized, the title of this silver wheel unit has not changed, and it has also gone abroad and into the world, of course, that is all for later.