Episode 41 The Weak Giant

"I also want to talk about the New Han Army," said Fourteen Gege, "and the purpose is to compete with the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banner Divisions." It would not be an exaggeration to say that it is a political armed force. The equipment and training of the new Han army are also not bad, although there is less royal favoritism, but it has the support of Han officials. Although the equipment they used was more miscellaneous, their military discipline and style were better than those of the old Han army, and their combat effectiveness was much better.

"But it's only relatively good, and only at the soldier level. The officer system is just as erosive. In the Battle of Nanjing a year ago, in addition to the Eight Banners Division, the main confrontation with our army was the New Han Army. And in that battle, the New Han Army lost nearly ten divisions. The number of the New Han Army was originally planned to be from 73 to 122, but in fact, only the 97th Division was built, and the others only had numbers and no troops. In other words, the New Han Army planned fifty divisions, but only half of them actually had personnel. The other half is just on the books. ”

"Next, there is the most important component of the Qing Army, the Old Han Army. The old Han army was a product of the era of great military expansion during the European War, and the number of the establishment was also varied, and even the Qing Army itself had a headache. It is estimated that there should be almost two hundred divisions. Some of these units have some combat effectiveness, and some are basically rabble.

"As for the equipment, it is even more uneven, some companies have 150 or 60 people, two heavy machine guns, and a few mortars; Some units have only a few dozen people in a company, and they don't even have rifles. As for the discipline training style, that's not to mention. Although it is such a force, they are huge in number. Some troops in better condition were arranged to the Yangtze River valley to be used as cannon fodder in the battle against Ming.

"Behind the Han army is the Qing National Division. The name of the national division is the name of the Qing army for the Hui (Uyghur) Tibetan and other ethnic armed forces. After the reform of the Wuxu Reform Law and the blows of several counterinsurgency wars, the ethnic minorities of Xin-Xinjiang-Xi-Tibet basically obeyed the rule of the Qing Dynasty in the Central Plains, but each ethnic group retained its own armed forces to some extent, and the government also recognized and gave them the number. However, the actual control of these armed forces is basically in the hands of the princes of various nationalities, nominally the national army, but in fact the private army. As for how many people there are in the national division, even Beijing does not know this. And it is certain that when the Ming Dynasty fought against the Qing Dynasty, it would basically not encounter this force.

"And then there's the garrison. The garrison division can be said to be the oldest army in the Qing Dynasty, and they are stationed at the border, coast, transportation hub and other places all the year round, and they are engaged in farming and reclamation. Now they're basically peasants with guns. In some places where the emperor was far away, the garrisons there were also soldiers and bandits, and they simply started to kill people and overhaul the goods. There were also many garrisons in remote places, and some old Han troops formed a lot of local warlord forces, relying on bribing local officials and the protective umbrella above to dominate one side.

"The lowest unit of the Qing army, and the last type of troops, is the shelf division and the national division. They are twins, so to speak. The shelf division is actually a troop structure composed of officers, and the soldiers are supplemented to become the unit in wartime; The national division is actually equivalent to the militia village bravery, they only have soldiers and organizers and no officers; The reason why they are separated and given separate numbers is because of the consideration of domination. The number of Han troops is already very large, and with the addition of the national division, the number of Han armed forces is too large, which makes the court uneasy. In this way, the officers and men were separated in wartime and dispersed in peacetime, and there would be no danger of threatening the rule.

From this point of view, although the Qing Army is known as a thousand divisions, in fact, the units with combat effectiveness are only 24 Manchurian Eight Banner Divisions, 32 Mengba Banner Divisions, 15-20 Han New Army Divisions, and less than 100 divisions of the 200 Old Han Army Divisions. The total combat division is about 170-180 divisions, and the number of combat personnel is about 300-4 million. The rest of the more than three million troops were either rotten soldiers who were not in shape, or they were numbers on the books and makeshift peasant actors.

"Of these three or four million combat-ready troops, about a third of them went to the north, and among them there were quite a few elite divisions. In this way, the troops that can actually fight the Ming army are only about 2 million regular combat divisions. Even these troops, equipment, training, morale, and officer quality, etc., are also greatly inferior to the Ming Army.

"To sum up, among the world's largest 'Thousand Divisions Army', the one that can compete with the Ming Type 36 Infantry Division is the 56 Eight Banner Divisions of Manchuria, less than one million people. In the entire Qing army, there are almost no that can compete with the armored division and infantry division of the Ming People's Guard. ”

……

After Fourteen Gege finished speaking, he nodded to Xiaoqiang, then put down the command pole and stood aside.

Everyone below looked at Fourteen Gege in a daze, and they couldn't react for a while. They didn't expect that the Manchu "Thousand Divisions Army" in their minds would be so weak in the mouth of this Manchu Gege and former spy leader. She even said that "the troops that can actually fight the Ming army are only about 2 million", which is too sensational. The existing strength of the Ming Army is more than this number.

The Manchus were a weak giant, a concept that had been used before Ming officers and soldiers. But no one could have predicted that this giant would be so weak.

Considering the status, status, and position of the fourteen Gege's original in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, no one dared to rashly raise objections. In terms of the analysis of the current situation of the Qing army, Fourteen Gege is the most authoritative person in the entire Ming Dynasty.

Xiang Xiaoqiang had already listened to the analysis of the fourteen grids, and the analysis at that time was the Qing army that could fight a dozen with the Ming army, that is, about three million. At that time, Xiang Xiaoqiang felt very satisfied with it, so he asked Fourteen Gege to say it again at the meeting, and at the same time he was optimistic. But he didn't expect the fourteen grids to be so optimistic, from three million to two million.

Xiang Xiaoqiang coughed twice, took the command pole, knocked on the map, and said:

"So guys, how many of our Ming Army do we have? As everyone knows, there are 166 divisions and 2.6 million people. And not counting our People's Guard. ”

After he finished speaking, he looked around at everyone, but he thought in his heart: This is indeed a bit optimistic. In this way, the Ming army not only surpassed the Qing army in quality, but even surpassed the Qing army in quantity.

……

Li Gensheng couldn't hold back a little, and said again:

"My lord, you can't count it like that. The first is that even in full accordance with Princess Liaoyang's algorithm, the number of Qing land forces is 400-500 divisions against 166 divisions. It's just that the relatively high-quality troops among them are about the same as our total strength. Among our 2.6 million troops, there are also low-quality troops. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang immediately said:

"Yes, but it's definitely not as low as the Qing army. Our worst troops were also much better than the best of their Han army. And the quality of our medium mainstream troops is equal to their most elite Eight Banner Division. ”

Li Gensheng didn't refute when he heard this, but just nodded and said:

"Well, my lord is right, our average quality is much higher than theirs. But their forces cannot be used against us, and likewise, our troops cannot be used against them. If we attack the Manchus, we will only be able to use half of our troops at most. Because we certainly can't attack along the entire line of defense along the Yangtze River, we can definitely only choose a small section. Then there is also a long line of defense to defend. This requires troops.

"Also, we have to deploy some troops in Zhejiang and Fujian to prevent Japan from taking advantage of the fire to loot. In addition, any war must have a strategic reserve. Therefore, we still need to keep enough strategic reserves in the rear. And then there's the South Seas, where we've just gotten the island of Pachia, to develop, to operate, to defend, and possibly to suppress the local natives. It takes a lot of troops. So, my lord, we are still at a big numerical disadvantage. We can't be so optimistic. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang heard some cattiness, squinted his eyes and said:

"Gensheng, no, the garrison forces deployed in Zhejiang and Fujian can be completely the same thing as the strategic reserves, they can be both strategic reserves and defensive forces. Why do you have to get two troops there? Also, how many troops can Nanyang use? The island of Pachia is currently in our hands and is largely protected from the threat of third countries. It is impossible for the Netherlands to take it back, and it is unlikely that Britain, France, or the United States will attack our South Sea territory. We have to deal with nothing more than natives who may cause trouble, and some pirates. In that case, one division and 10,000 people are enough. We can take out 100-120 divisions for the offensive, and it's still okay. ”

Li Gensheng was stunned, but he didn't expect that he would take advantage of Lord Xiang's unprofessionalism, and the little tricks he played were still recognized.