The tactics and establishment of the armed forces are like the relations of production and productive forces, and only when the tactics and establishment conform to the current equipment allocation and the quality of the soldiers can they stimulate the greatest combat strength.

For example, without a sufficient number of tanks, armored vehicles, and planes, Guderian's blitzkrieg could not be put into practice.

In the same way, at present, this Apocalypse Guard is limited by the quality of equipment and soldiers, and it cannot be done in one step, and directly adopts the most advanced establishment and combat methods.

Xu Rui basically planned his troops according to the pre-World War I organization and tactics.

Due to the small number of soldiers, all the soldiers of the Apocalypse are selected and trained according to the standards of grassroots officers, and the prerequisite criteria are flexible, diligent and studious, with good physical fitness and enterprising spirit.

After just three months of intensive study, the soldiers were fully literate, understood basic military theories, and became familiar with various military rules and regulations.

At this time, most of the weapons and equipment of the Apocalypse Guard were in place.

Xu Rui organized every ten people into an infantry squad, and the ordinary individual soldiers were configured with a Black Phoenix repeating crossbow per person, three grenades, a small round shield, a saber and a war horse, and each infantry squad was equipped with a sniper and an additional moon-chasing sniper crossbow.

On this basis, Galaxy Group created an improved chariot, which Xu Rui called the "Apocalypse Chariot".

The so-called Apocalypse Chariot is actually a horse-drawn tank, in which the axles are reinforced on the wooden chassis of the van carriage, the carriage is made of thin steel plates, and a giant repeating crossbow triggered by the "Gatling" principle is set in the carriage instead of the tank's main gun.

The giant repeating crossbow is in the shape of a tube, equivalent to a collection of twenty black phoenix repeating crossbows, with a calibrated optical sight, which can be fired by shaking the handle, and it takes thirty minutes to reload at a time, and can shoot four hundred crossbow arrows up to half a meter long, with a range of 150 meters.

An Apocalypse Chariot is allowed to have four passengers, including a driver, a shooter, a bombloader, and an escort.

Every three infantry squads were mixed into an Apocalypse chariot to form an infantry platoon, plus the platoon commander and escort for a total of forty people.

Three platoons formed an infantry company, about one hundred and twenty people.

Five infantry companies, plus a chariot company (equipped with twenty Apocalypse chariots for solo operations, about one hundred and sixty men), a reserve company (one hundred and twenty men in the reserve company, which is different from the training subjects of the other companies, and is very mysterious, no one knows what Xu Rui intends to use these men for), and a transport company (one hundred and twenty men equipped with baggage vehicles and horses, specializing in transportation and logistical supply, including cooking), a total of 1,000 soldiers.

In addition to the above-mentioned combat units, there are also 32 battalion headquarters staff officers and officers at all levels, and the total number of Apocalypse Guards is 1,032, which is almost exactly the strength of a modern infantry battalion.

In addition, Xu Rui and the Galaxy Group have put a lot of effort into the equipment of each soldier.

Not to mention the latest repeating crossbow, the steel used in the saber is also just developed by the Galaxy Group, and the carbon content is 0. 65%~1. 65%, and using the latest heat treatment process, the hardness can reach about 60HRC or more, and the flexibility is relatively good, facing other tools in this world has been called cutting iron like clay.

In terms of protection, Xu Rui borrowed from the shape of body armor in another world, sewing segmented thin steel plates into camouflage clothing to form cascading protection, which not only ensures the concealment and flexibility of soldiers, but also takes into account the protection ability beyond ordinary chain mail.

In fact, in the choice of weapons, Xu Rui also considered whether to directly make muskets, but the early muskets were not rifled, and the landing point of the round lead bullet was completely unpredictable, and it had to be shot on a large scale to be effective, which was not very significant.

Because the number of Tianqiwei is too small at present, standing in a row and fighting with the three-stage shooting method is not only not effective, but also the battle loss rate in the face of cavalry is bound to be not small, and no matter how you think about it, the gains outweigh the losses.

Secondly, at present, the smelting level of Galaxy Group needs to be improved, and the problem of chamber pressure and sealing cannot be completely solved, and the forced production of muskets is not only very powerful, but also very easy to explode, far from meeting the requirements of large-scale production.

Thirdly, simple machine tools powered by water turbines are actually very primitive and barely suitable for wood processing, but it is impossible to drill rifling in steel pipes.

After practice, Xu Rui was disappointed to find that the large-scale production of rifled muskets was basically an impossible task until further breakthroughs in smelting technology were made and steam engines and more powerful machine tools were built.

Finally, and the biggest problem, that's money!

With the full support of Emperor Hongwei, Xu Rui had spent nearly 700,000 taels to equip this army of 1,000 people, not counting the 4,000 war horses he had stolen from the military department.

If the musket is equipped again, this number will have to triple based on the consumption of the hot weapon era, and even if Emperor Hongwei supports it again, it will be impossible to withstand such a big pressure, so he can only leave it for later to reinforce.

In addition to equipment, Xu Rui directly borrowed from the common military rank system of European countries during World War I, where soldiers were divided into private, first class, and sergeant major, and officers were divided into second lieutenant, lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, and general.

The squad leader of each infantry squad is a sergeant major, the platoon commander is a second lieutenant, the company commander is a lieutenant, the deputy battalion commander and chief of staff are captains, and the battalion commander is a major.

Apocalypse currently has only one battalion of troops, so his leader is only a major rank.

Of course, his military rank system has not been recorded in the Ministry of War, and it is currently only promoted and used on a small scale in Tianqiwei, which is convenient for soldiers to form the concept of military ranks.

After the preparations were completed, in the next few months, Xu Rui braved the severe cold and led the newly formed Tianqi Guards to brave the wind and snow, and conducted a long field training, so that the soldiers could master the use of weapons and the use of new tactics as soon as possible, and they did not even go home for the New Year.

The winter in the north is very terrifying, and the training plan formulated by Xu Rui is very cruel, with heavy off-road, wilderness survival, cliff rappelling, street fighting coordination, tactical drills, and live confrontation exercises are almost all training methods and intensity of special forces.

Coupled with knee-deep snow, this training began on the first day and ended on the last day, and the sound of crying fathers and mothers in the barracks never stopped, and almost everyone took off several layers of skin.

But fortunately, several officers selected by Xu Rui are quite effective, the company commander of the first company is Zhang Zuofeng, the centurion of the seventh grade who he specially asked from the Northern Wuwei, and the rest of the company-level officers are also the backbone of the Northwest Frontier Army, not only hard-working, but also have a lot of ghost ideas.

In addition, most of the soldiers of the Apocalypse Guard were also born in bitter cold places, and they had already developed the spirit of perseverance, so although the training in winter was hard, it was fruitful.

In addition to the training of non-commissioned soldiers, Xu Rui also set up a special staff department in accordance with the standards of modern warfare, and directly selected more than a dozen tribute students who were familiar with the art of war from the Guozi Prison as staff officers with the recommendation of the master.

However, although these people are good at reading, most of them know nothing about the actual war, so Xu Rui had to be a teacher himself, and forcibly instilled his military theory into their brains.

Then let these staff officers and ordinary soldiers go through training together to understand the hardships of battlefield operations and the specific details of military operations.

At the beginning, these talented old men naturally complained bitterly, and their resentment and contempt for the soldiers made it unfavorable to the soldiers and even the officers, resulting in a lot of conflicts.

Xu Ruihao was not partial, he just played fifty boards in accordance with the military law, and then took the lead in training like ordinary soldiers, and even after the prescribed training was completed, he still continued to practice the nameless swordsmanship according to the plan on weekdays.

The image of him, a saint, is still like this, and the other talented men naturally have nothing to say.

To say that difficulty is definitely the best glue, no kind of relationship is iron to fight together.

After several months of eating and living together, working towards the same goal and direction, the estrangement between these dozen talented masters and soldiers quickly dissolved, and finally became one.

Knowledge is power, and this is not a deception.

With the same training and study, these dozen or so talented staff officers are much higher than ordinary non-commissioned officers and even officers in terms of learning speed and comprehension ability, and when others are still drawing scoops on gourds and memorizing Xu Rui's new tactics by rote, they will already be able to understand the principles of the new tactics and rationally apply tactics according to the actual situation.

In the last collective confrontation with the Apocalypse Chariot as the tactical core, the three companies that were responsible for formulating the battle plan by the General Staff easily took out the other three companies, winning the easy ride and leaving no chance.

This made Zhang Zuofeng, who was in charge of commanding the other three companies, depressed for several days, and specially came to Xu Rui to open a small stove.

In this way, the group of staff officers stopped doing it again, they finally tasted the joy of victory, how could it be so easy for Zhang Zuofeng to get his face back?

So a small stove became two, and in the end, it became a "night school" in which all officers and even non-commissioned officers spontaneously participated, and Tianqiwei once again became a university hall with a loud voice.

Of course, Xu Rui is happy to see such a healthy competition, and every real competition allows the commander to directly see his own progress and shortcomings, which is more effective than emphasizing it a hundred times with boring theories.

And Tianqiwei was like a shriveled sponge in such an atmosphere, frantically absorbing all the war knowledge thrown by Xu Rui.

Time flies, and in the spring of the second year, Xu Rui finally brought back to Changxing City this Apocalypse Guard, who had been practicing in the mountains all winter.

When they left, the soldiers were brightly dressed, but when they came back, they were in rags, but the spirit on everyone's face had a qualitative leap, and unconsciously, they had changed from a plate of loose sand to a collective.

Xu Rui looked at these young and resolute soldiers, and his heart was also full of pride, this was the first time he had built an army with his own hands, and it seemed that the progress was not bad at present, as long as it went through one or two more baptisms of war, this Apocalypse Guard would be able to move towards a truly strong army.