After the discussion was settled, Shen Shiming soon issued a national proclamation in the name of the Ministry of National Defense, announcing that due to the widespread corruption in the previous compulsory conscription activities, all the previous conscription operations would be nullified.

The announcement said that this major corruption case was mainly due to the threats and inducements of the officials below, and most of the people were forced, so the main focus was to punish the offending officials.

As for those who spend money to buy a quota for the army, although the money paid before will not be returned, the quota for serving in the army will also be invalidated, as a small punishment and a big warning, but considering that most of the parents love their children, and at the same time, they also try to give young people a chance, so even if they have bought a quota before, if they are willing, they can re-participate in the conscription activities after the abolition, and the past is not to blame.

In addition, in order to take care of everyone's enthusiasm for joining the army, the Ministry of National Defense has deliberately expanded the number of conscripts and initially decided to recruit another 500,000 conscripts on the basis of the original 500,000 conscripts, for a total of 1 million conscripts.

However, in consideration of the financial problem, the empire decided to implement a combination of general recruitment and expansion of recruitment.

General recruitment is ordinary conscription, on the surface, it is not particularly aimed at a certain group of people, it is strictly according to the conditions of various military conditions, and the nearest proportional conscription to all the jurisdictional areas, that is to say, as long as the hard conditions are suitable, you can be a soldier, no need to spend money, and no matter what your identity is, it is the most fair.

Having said that, in the actual recruitment process, because the officials at the recruitment points are deliberately tilted towards the poor after being assigned by their superiors, the general recruitment is actually mainly aimed at low-income people, that is, the children of poor and middle peasants. Although the general recruitment does not refuse to come to the wealthy class, the number of military quotas given is very small, and some representative people are generally selected to show the impartiality of the ordinary recruitment without discrimination.

As for the expansion of recruitment, it is actually a special recruitment, because the word special recruitment is not very good, so it is called expansion of recruitment, also called expanded recruitment. If you want to be an expansion recruiter. You have to pay money, 200 taels of silver for a place, which is called the expansion fee.

The expansion of recruitment mainly depends on whether you want to pay money, and the other is to look at the physique, and there are no strict requirements for whether you are an only child or whether you are eighteen years old. In other words, for the expansion of recruitment, as long as you are between the ages of 18 and 24, you can come to the army. Other conditions, such as not accepting only children, will be released.

Although it is an expansion of recruitment, according to the requirements, after the expansion of recruitment into the barracks, it must also be mixed with general recruitment, without any privileges, and it is impossible to buy and enjoy it by spending money.

Taking into account the current level of arms production and the ability to supply roads, the one-million-strong Wehrmacht conscription will be carried out in two batches.

The first batch of 400,000 recruits, half of them were recruited by general and half were expanded. The second group called up 600,000 and another two months later.

This was done primarily because of the lack of armament.

Today, Zhang's factory has stopped producing Sharps rifles. Switching to the production of the Type 1860 large-cap rifle, the production line of the Sharps rifle has been successively transferred to Ma'anshan.

The Type 99 Bolt-Action Large-Cap Rifle of the Type 1860 has been produced 300 pieces per day due to the use of automatic machining. That's 9,000 guns a month, because you can use 7.62mm bullets, and there is a lot of stock. There is no shortage of bullets for the time being.

Despite the high production of this new gun, so far, the Imperial Army has only 40,000 new large-cap rifles, all of which have been reequipped by volunteers in the Wehrmacht, but the gap is still very large, and only some of the elite of the Wehrmacht units are still used, so even if the Wehrmacht is a volunteer, most of them are still using Sharps rifles.

As for the Sharps rifle, as early as three months ago, the Ma'anshan Arsenal began to implement the crowd tactics of division of labor because it unified new weights and measures and realized the standardized production of parts.

To put it simply, some easy-to-produce parts such as bolts and wooden butts are handed over to a large number of private workshops to make them, and the main body of the factory only focuses on the production of main components such as gun barrels, and finally still relies on crowd tactics to assemble them.

The Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant has reached a daily production capacity of 620 tons of steel, half of which continues to produce steel rails and the other half is used to produce weapons and civilian supplies.

The steel quota of the Ma'anshan Arsenal is 100 tons of stainless steel per day, because the joint production of the arsenal and the steel plant has been realized, that is, the steel billet is directly poured into the relevant mold to form at one time, which is used to produce various types of seamless steel pipes, so the output of weapons is very high.

With new technologies, especially the possibility of producing large quantities of seamless steel pipes, the production of weapons is relatively simple.

For example, the barrel and barrel only need to be rifled with different seamless steel pipes, and then simply polished, and other parts can be added, which greatly increases the output of weapons.

Although the production of other spare parts is also very cumbersome, because of the modern machine tools, lathes, hydraulic presses, hydraulic presses and other equipment, coupled with the development of crowd tactics, after gathering 30,000 workers before and after, the weapons output of the Ma'anshan Arsenal has reached the scale of 300 Sharps rifles and 15 12-pounder Napoleon guns per day.

Among them, the number of barrels and barrels is very large, and the main thing that restricts the output is the production speed of accessories.

However, after receiving modern molds, automatic lathes and other stamping equipment sent by Zhang Xinda, the output of other spare parts increased dramatically, which led to the production of Sharps rifles immediately reaching the speed of 3,000 guns per day and 50 12-pounder guns, not counting other equipment such as sapper shovels, bayonets, grenades, sabers, machetes, etc.

In this way, just a Maanshan arsenal can produce 90,000 guns and 1,500 guns a month, which can be said to be quite terrifying in this era.

However, not to mention the cannon, let's just talk about the copycat version of the Sharps rifle, at present, there are more than 1.4 million Sharps rifles in the entire Chinese Empire, which seems to be a lot of them, but the Sharps rifles held by the Wehrmacht are only 800,000 guns, and most of the other guns are in the hands of the Construction Corps.

In addition, the production of guns has gone up, but the scale of ammunition production has not yet gone up, although the production of smokeless gunpowder seems not small, but if it is supplied to the consumption of a million troops, it is still slightly insufficient, especially the tradition of the national defense army inherited from the original elite army, especially pay attention to live ammunition training, so the consumption of gunpowder is quite large.

Although the ammunition plant is already expanding, production is increasing month by month. But the gap of gunpowder is also very large, after all, gunpowder is not only used by the army, but also used by the construction corps, not only to build roads and open mountains, but also to use high-explosive gunpowder for other mining purposes, especially in the current atmosphere of large-scale construction, the use of civilian gunpowder has long exceeded that of the army, and the ratio of civilian and military gunpowder has basically reached 3 to 1.

According to estimates, if the amount of civilian explosives is not reduced. According to the current increasing rate of demand for civilian gunpowder, it is difficult to ensure the daily consumption of 1.3 million national defense troops in less than half a year.

In short, there is still a big gap between guns and gunpowder, if nothing else, just the Wehrmacht. The 300,000 volunteers had to give priority to ensuring the supply of weapons, so the amount of guns given to the conscripts was only 500,000, which was the reason why only 500,000 conscripts were recruited in the first place.

Fortunately. The Ministry of Defence has decided to temporarily collect the Sharps rifles of the Construction Corps and give priority to the supply of the Wehrmacht.

As for the construction corps, it has now passed the most dangerous war years, and it is mainly construction. There is no need for the construction corps to keep so many rifles, at most, to keep some rifles so that everyone can practice in their free time, and the main thing is to realize the meaning of the word "construction".

So. The gap in the Wehrmacht's rifles can be temporarily plugged, but it will take some time to collect the rifles, and the collected rifles will have to go through a series of inspections and repairs to prolong their life, which will take at least two months.

Because of this, it was necessary to divide it into two batches, the first batch of 400,000 people, and the second batch of 600,000 people two months later, a total of 1 million people.

Although it is divided into two batches, the general recruitment and expansion are carried out at the same time, for example, the first batch of 400,000 people, 200,000 is the general recruitment, and the other 200,000 is the expansion, and the second batch after that is also implemented in this way.

As soon as this announcement came out, the world shook, and the ordinary people in the direct jurisdiction of the empire didn't think much about it, most of them cheered, chanted the emperor's sage, and then tried every means to send their children to become soldiers.

As for the mentality of the other autonomous provinces, it is subtle, and they are all suppressed by the empire's big spending.

You know, this is a conscription of 1 million troops, plus 300,000 elite national defense forces, and an unknown number, it is said that there are also 300,000 Praetorian Guards (actually only in the early 200,000s), plus the militia troops (including the construction corps) that are said to have exceeded 2 million, and now the Central Army (the name of the army directly under the imperial government) is more than 3.5 million troops!

More than 3.5 million troops, this is a joke!

You must know that this is a standing army, not a temporary mobilization army, and it seems that there have not been so many standing armies in the whole of China since ancient times, not to mention that people can mobilize in wartime at any time, and it is said that once mobilized, more than 10 million troops will not be a problem.

That's right, there are many Chinese, but raising soldiers requires money, where did the Chinese imperial government get so much money to raise soldiers? Where did so many weapons come from?

Although many people are puzzled, no one dares to question the authenticity of this matter, because this is an official document issued by the whole country, and it is stamped with a jade seal, so it is impossible to brag indiscriminately, and according to the actual situation, there are indeed busy conscription activities in various parts of the imperial territory.

But soon, they knew the news of the expansion of the army, and knew that half of them had to spend money to become soldiers, but they couldn't figure out why so many people were still vying to become soldiers.

You must know that within the scope of the autonomous province, being a soldier is still not a good livelihood, and many times they rely on catching strong men to become soldiers, so they can't figure out why the common people in the area under their jurisdiction are so willing to become soldiers, and even spend two hundred taels of silver for this.

The reason is very simple, these autonomous provinces have only been in the Chinese Empire for a short time, and these original governors have deliberately kept a distance from the imperial territories, so they don't know much about the changes within the imperial territories, only people like Zeng Guofan, Hu Linyi and others know a little more.

However, before they could figure out these things, an official letter from the State Council was sent to the governors of the provinces, telling them to prepare their barracks in advance and wait for the Wehrmacht garrison to enter.

At this moment, everyone understood, and only then did they remember the previous agreement, and they felt that these troops were going to come and station.

According to the agreement, the military expenses of the national defense forces stationed in the country will be divided equally, and the central government will only be responsible for half of it, and the other half will be responsible for the local government.

It is said to be flat. But in fact, it is equivalent to making these local provinces all responsible for military spending.

Because Shen Shiming made people make a series of complicated calculations, try to make all kinds of consumption of a national defense force as detailed and exaggerated as possible, and finally came to a conclusion, that is, to support an ordinary conscript, including all kinds of food expenses, arms loss expenses, welfare security expenses, etc., it will cost at least 6 taels of silver every month!

Moreover, this does not include the cost of mobilization, if you include the cost of troop redeployment. That's at least doubled.

Based on the principle of equal apportionment, the local autonomous province must provide a subsidy of at least 3 taels of silver per person to the garrison, and the central government is responsible for the other "most" military salaries, including promotion fees and the like.

In this way, the garrisons were stationed separately according to the rich Cheng dù of the autonomous province. For example, Guangdong, which has a critical strategic position and is relatively wealthy, has to station 250,000 soldiers and horses, that is, it has to spend 750,000 taels of silver every month, and Guangxi is relatively poor. For 100,000 soldiers and horses, 300,000 taels of silver are required every month, and 150,000 soldiers and horses are stationed in Hubei, at least 450,000 taels of silver are required every month. 200,000 soldiers and horses in Hunan cost 600,000 taels of silver every month......

In short, this is the case. The formation of the Central Army actually did not cost much money, but on the contrary, it made a lot of money, and the financial pressure overwhelmed the localities, but the troops raised by the localities did not listen to the localities, but only to the central authorities.

The areas where the Wehrmacht is stationed do not interfere in local affairs, and they train alone in barracks, in isolation from the localities.

In addition, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht are all citizens of the directly administered areas, and when the troops are stationed in other places, they have radios, and they have quite close ties with the central authorities, and the army is fortified at various levels, and the General Staff, the Military Intelligence Bureau, the Military Judge Advocate General's Office, the Political Propaganda Department, and other departments control all the logistical materials and the soldiers' minds, so it is completely impossible for the localities to infiltrate and corrupt such a modern army.

In the long run, the autonomous province will be overwhelmed by the burden of supporting the central defense forces alone, and after a long time, it will no longer be able to confront the central government.

Everyone is not stupid, and they will not fail to see through the mystery here, but the Chinese Empire has occupied the righteousness at this time, it is the orthodoxy of the country, and its own strength is strong.

Now that the people are determined, and the prestige of Li Yongji and the central government is getting bigger and bigger, once they rebel, they will definitely be unpopular, not to mention the hearts of the people, even the original soldiers under them will resist, because they are also soldiers, but the difference between the treatment of the local miscellaneous army and the central army is too big.

In this case, maybe you say that you want to rebel in the front, and those soldiers in the back will cut off your head and go to the central government, hoping to turn over and sing and realize the beautiful long-cherished wish of the miscellaneous army to mutiny the central army.

Therefore, this is a dignified and upright conspiracy, a big trick that you can't hide from no matter what, and it can only be played by the court that occupies the righteousness.

Perhaps because of this, the governors of some autonomous provinces began to reflect on whether it was appropriate to continue to be such a local emperor, but in the end, most people still had luck and continued to choose to remain the same. Only a very small number of people were able to break through this shackle and begin to consider the idea of completely surrendering to the central government and turning an autonomous province into a province directly under the central government, and in this case, Hu Linyi, the governor of Hubei Province, was the most radical.

Hu Linyi's health has been getting worse and worse recently, and his hemoptysis is getting worse and worse, and he has to cough up blood almost every day.

may know that his life is short, so Hu Linyi's pursuit of power is not as heavy as others, and the reason why he engaged in an autonomous province like others before was not for power, but because he was worried that Li Yongji was a foreigner's lackey, and wanted to observe for a while more just in case.

However, when the Imperial Navy defeated the Russians, captured the Russian Expeditionary Force, and forced Russia to sign the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nanjing, which greatly boosted the morale of the Chinese people, the reputation of the two devils was lost.

The reason is very simple, it is impossible for the real two devils to go against foreigners, since they are right, even if they were two devils before, they are not now.

What's more, the contents of the "Sino-Russian Treaty of Nanjing" have been widely spread throughout the country recently, and most of the people know that the Russians have suffered a great defeat and have to cede land and sue for peace with China, ceding a large piece of land in the north to China, and also paying compensation to China, which is a great victory that has never been achieved before, and all Chinese feel that their faces are bright, and therefore sincerely obey Li Yongji, the new emperor.

At this time, I heard that the national defense force was greatly expanded, and I thought that I would have to bear so much military spending every month in the future, for the interests of Hubei, Hu Linyi took Zuo Zongtang with him when he heard the news, and took a steam river steamer. He came directly to Nanjing, wanting to meet the emperor and hoping to make Hubei a province directly under the central government.

It's a pity that after Hu Linyi came to Nanjing, he didn't see His Majesty the Emperor, because it is said that His Majesty the Emperor was busy with industrial upgrading in Ma'anshan at the moment, so all state affairs were handed over to Prime Minister Shen Shiming.

Although Hu Linyi was slightly disappointed that he didn't see the emperor, it was not bad to see Shen Shiming.

After all, Shen Shiming is also famous now, as the prime minister of the Chinese Empire. can be regarded as a monstrous power, and he has done quite well in a series of recent domestic and foreign affairs.

For example, the "Sino-Russian Treaty of Nanjing", which greatly boosted the morale of the Chinese people, he was China's signatory, as well as the Imperial Military Service Law and the Qingmiao Law (similar to Wang Anshi's Qingmiao Law, but the interest rate is lower, a little higher than the interest-free, and it goes directly to the bank, not the local government). In addition, there is a loan process and insurance, and once there are irresistible natural and man-made disasters and other reasons in the farming process, there will be insurance compensation. ), the Farmland Water Conservancy Law (mainly stipulates laws such as the Law on Encouraging the Construction of Water Conservancy and Formulating the Law on the Protection of Water Conservancy Facilities), and the Industrial and Commercial Law (specifies in detail the relevant taxes of all walks of life in the industrial and commercial circles. In addition to these taxes written in the law, all other local miscellaneous taxes are illegal) and a series of decrees that benefit the country and the people are almost all formed in his hands, so his prestige is second only to that of Emperor Li Yongji.

Although Shen Shiming himself knew. Many of these decrees for the benefit of the country and the people were personally instructed by the emperor, and he just re-polished these emperor's instructions and then implemented them. But because the emperor himself has a high prestige, the icing on the cake is meaningless, and everyone talks about the emperor more than these policies, but the emperor's military talent, so Shen Shiming also followed suit, because of the implementation of these decrees, and was nagged by the people.

The thinking of the Chinese people at this time is very simple, that is, when the Son of Heaven is in the court, there will inevitably be a group of capable ministers to assist, especially the founding king, who is often assisted by a group of famous ministers.

Li Yongji is undoubtedly the most famous monarch in the past, since he is a Ming monarch, the prime minister under him must also be a famous minister, and he can't be wrong.

In short, Shen Shiming's prestige in China at this time is very high, and although Hu Linyi's reputation is not small, it is much worse than Shen Shiming, who is in the sky.

However, because Li Yongji is a strong emperor, Shen Shiming, who knows the inside story, has always been conscientious and conscientious, and has never been proud and complacent because of his fame, so even in the face of the outdated Hu Linyi, he is also treated preferentially, especially after hearing the purpose of his visit this time, he admires the courage of the other party even more.

"Master Hu can understand the righteousness so deeply, admire, admire."

"Where, where." Hu Linyi smiled bitterly, "It's really that Your Majesty and the Prime Minister's wrists are too high, and I can't wait to parry." ”

Master Hu laughed. Shen Shiming smiled slightly, "Then I don't know what Master Hu's plans are in the future?" You really didn't ask for anything to give up the position of governor of Hubei this time? ”

"Yes." Hu Linyi nodded, "I plan to go back to my hometown to run a school after I resign, and if I have the ability, I also plan to do some foreign affairs, so that my Hubei fathers and elders can also be contaminated with this style of Western learning." By the way, when the time comes, I hope that the Prime Minister will help me a lot, and I don't want anything else, so I want some books that introduce Western studies. ”

"Don't worry." Shen Shiming said with a smile, "Once Hubei is included in the provinces directly under the central government, it will all follow the routine of the provinces directly under the central government, in our direct jurisdiction, from children must be forced to contact Western learning, all textbooks are provided by the central government for free, and students only need to be responsible for tuition and miscellaneous fees and food expenses." ”

"I've heard about it, and it's really good governance." Hu Linyi nodded, and then coughed uncontrollably.

Seeing that Hu Linyi was coughing badly, especially when he found that he actually took out a glass bottle from his arms, poured out a little white powder from it and prepared to swallow it, Shen Shiming was immediately shocked and hurriedly stopped: "Wait, what is Lord Hu eating?" ”

"Oh, this is a foreign medicine that my student got from a foreigner, and it's called Hailuoyin." Hu Linyi smiled, "Hey, it's not a secret, the old man has hemoptysis, and other drugs are useless, only this Hailuo has a miraculous effect, so whenever you cough, you can eat a little, but it is also useful, but this thing seems to be only an indicator, not a cure, once it is stopped, the cough will still be there." ”

"Sure enough." Shen Shiming nodded, "Master Hu, this thing can't be eaten anymore, I told you clearly, this is poison, not medicine." ”

"Is it poison or not medicine? How so? ”

"I don't understand the specifics." Shen Shiming sighed, "In short, this medicine is actually produced by us, under the pretense of the name of a foreigner, this thing only goes out of the mouth, and our own people never use it, even if we want to use it, it is strictly limited." Well, in short, Master Hu must not eat again in the future, we have better doctors and better medicines here, and the adult's illness may be difficult for you, but in our case, it is not a problem at all. ”

"You're saying that hemoptysis can be cured?"

"Of course." Shen Shiming smiled, "It's just hemoptysis, we are no longer an incurable disease here." Okay, in short, Lord Hu, don't worry about it first, I'll report to Your Majesty, and let Your Majesty send an imperial doctor to come over to see you, and promise to cure your illness, so you can rest assured. (To be continued......)