Of course, because of the crazy money thrown by merchants before, which led to inflation, Pingzhou is the place with the most serious inflation, and the prices of many things have also doubled. For example, the salary of an ordinary county soldier was only seven silver a month, but now it has soared to three gold, and the salary of the war army and the Praetorian Guard is even more exaggerated.

Of course, this is not without benefits, at least the average income in Pingzhou and other places is much higher than that in Guannai, attracting a large number of people to take the initiative to immigrate to Pingzhou.

Although each of the twenty-four combat legions other than the Praetorian Guard has only two or three hundred thousand people, the annual military expenditure is as high as more than 30 million gold, and the annual maintenance cost of the Praetorian Guard is as high as 180 million gold, which is almost equal to the total number of all the county soldiers under its rule!

It can be said that the Shang Ji army can always maintain strong combat effectiveness, which is inseparable from a large amount of capital investment, and there is no way for the gods to come without money!

Including the county soldiers and naval divisions in various localities, the military expenditure of the whole army is as high as 1.5 billion, accounting for about 35 percent of the total financial revenue of the merchants.

From a modern point of view, military spending accounts for 35 percent of fiscal revenue, which can definitely be regarded as frenzied and reckless use of military force. However, in the midst of the flames, the proportion of military spending of 35 percent is simply the conscience of conscience, especially under the premise that the current situation is becoming more and more tense, the proportion of military spending of only 35 percent can be said to be unenterprising.

"The Wancheng plan has been preliminarily completed, and all large cities in the whole territory have achieved gallop through, and cooperate with the water transportation system, and if there is a problem in any place, the county rapid reaction force can arrive at the place of the incident within eight hours after receiving the news.

In addition, our army has also built more than 900 large-scale granaries throughout the territory, with a reserve of 13 billion stone of grain and 1 billion boxes of high-quality finished military rations (300 servings in one box, enough for one soldier to eat for a month). Generally speaking, our army's financial operations, material reserves, resource dispatch, and other aspects are in good condition, and we have laid a solid foundation in the three years of laying the foundation, and we have the strength to accumulate and develop steadily. ”

Speaking of the back, Deng Yan glanced at Shang Ji, obviously meaningful.

Although he is the boss of the government system, the desire for expansion is not as eager as the military. However, after three years of hard work, the civil officials headed by Deng Yan also had a strong desire to expand their territory.

The civil officials are like this, and the mood of the military generals can be imagined.

Seeing that Deng Yan's report was finished, Liu Yi immediately couldn't wait to come to the stage and said in a loud voice: "Colleagues, all robes, under the wise command of the lord, after three years of development, our army has made great progress. ”

"In the past three years, the size of the army has not changed significantly, and the total strength of 9.6 million county soldiers, 6 million war troops, and 200,000 Janissaries has been maintained. However, the troop structure has been further optimized, and the proportion of high-level special troops such as Ice Battle Shield, Dragon Spear Soldier, Northern Crossbow Battle Tiger, Berserk Battle Axe, and Divine Sword Guard has been further expanded, replacing the original Giant Shield Soldier, Giant Axe Soldier, and Heavy Armored Sword Soldier.

The proportion of special auxiliary units such as the Star of Light Girl, the Five Elements Daoist, and the Wolf God Sacrifice has been greatly increased, and the combat effectiveness of the army has been enhanced.

After three years of hard training, the number of ninth-order non-commissioned officers of the Praetorian Guard Legion was increased from the original 40,000 to 50,000, and the rest of the Praetorian Guards were at least eighth-order non-commissioned soldiers.

Among the 24 combat legions, the proportion of seventh-order soldiers is close to fifty, and there are currently more than 3.2 million seventh-order and above soldiers (including military generals) in the whole army.

According to intelligence, in terms of the number of high-ranking soldiers, our army undoubtedly surpasses all other princes!

Among the county soldiers in various places, there are currently more than 2.3 million reserve war troops (in line with the sixth-order standard of the war army, but because there is no shortage, it cannot be replenished into the war army for the time being). ”

Compared with three years ago, the overall combat effectiveness of the Shang Ji Army has been significantly improved.

It stands to reason that there has been no decent war in three years, and it is impossible to make such obvious progress just by relying on training, especially the new 10,000 ninth-order soldiers - as we all know, ninth-order soldiers are fought, not trained, and no matter how good a military general is at training, it is impossible to train ninth-order soldiers in a formation on the training ground.

But the new 10,000 ninth-order soldiers of the Shang Ji Army broke this iron law!

The reason for this situation is related to the willingness of businessmen to invest.

Different soldiers have different treatments, whether it is military salary, status, food, and the higher the rank, the higher the treatment they enjoy.

Since the fierce beast breeding farm can stably produce fierce beast meat, Shang Jijun has modified the recipes of the top soldiers, and the ninth-order soldiers can enjoy the super high treatment of fierce beast meat + spiritual rice every meal.

The eighth-order soldiers are much worse, and they can only enjoy a meal of fierce beast meat every three days.

As for the ordinary soldiers below, unless there is an additional reward for meritorious service, it will only take half a month to get a piece of fierce beast meat that weighs less than two taels.

Ordinary county soldiers, unless they make meritorious contributions, can only be rewarded with a small piece during the New Year.

Although the amount is pitiful, the effect is surprisingly good.

Needless to say, the value of the beast meat is needless to say, the eighth-order soldier can feel the obvious change after eating a meal, and the ninth-order soldier will also benefit immensely from eating it for a long time.

Over time, although the Shang army did not engage in high-intensity warfare, it was able to accumulate 10,000 new ninth-order soldiers by relying on resources.

Obviously, the anomaly in the ratio of seventh-order and eighth-order soldiers also has a lot to do with "eating meat".

When Shang Ji received this report, Le's mouth couldn't close. Originally, it was just a whimsical experiment, but I didn't expect the effect to be so obvious, and it was from that period that the breeding of fierce beasts became a major strategic plan of the Shang Army, and the priority was very high.

Shang Ji sold countless pills to the outside world, and there were even god-level pills such as the Heaven Breaking Pill, but he had never sold a piece of fierce beast meat from the beginning to the end, which can be seen how much Shang Ji attached importance to fierce beast meat.

I thought that the conditions were not available, the beast breeding was still in its infancy, the output was very low, and it was going to enter the production capacity explosion period from this year.

"In addition to the significant improvement in the quality of non-commissioned officers, after three consecutive years of huge investment, the armament of our army has also been further optimized.

According to the plan formulated by the lord three years ago, the county soldiers are equipped with semi-silver hui, (that is, the main equipment is silver-hui, and the secondary equipment is iron-level, taking archers as an example, the bow and arrow are silver-hui, and the rest are iron-level. The same applies below), the standard equipment of the soldiers is half golden, the standard equipment of the Praetorian Legion is half purple Yaohua, and the ninth-order soldiers are equipped with a full set of spirit-level equipment.

Up to now, our army has completed all the refitting in accordance with the above requirements, and some combat corps have also exceeded their tasks (for example, some of the troops of the First Combat Corps led by Liu Yi have achieved semi-purple Yaohua).

In addition, large equipment has been improved, with greater tackling ability and faster maneuverability. According to the assessment of the Participation and Research Department under the General's Office and the inference of several military exercises, the comprehensive combat effectiveness of our army has increased by at least 60% compared with three years ago! ”

After a pause, Liu Yi looked around at everyone, held his head high and said: "According to comprehensive research and judgment, the comprehensive combat power of our army is enough to form an absolute combat power advantage over any prince in the world!" ”

After speaking, he looked at Shang Ji with burning eyes, and the meaning was self-evident.