Li Zhaoji said that Ling Ran seemed to be very good to Zheng Sen, but in fact, he did not give the soldiers of the trading company as gifts, but created an extra choice for them.

With the end of the conflict on Kinmen Island and the complete end of the Northern Expedition, the plan and strategic concept that Li Zhaoji had originally formulated for the Northern Expedition were completely realized, and even overfulfilled the task. At the beginning, Li Zhaoji expected that the northern expedition would be able to create a profit of more than 500,000 taels on the basis of capital preservation, but the actual receipt was far greater than that.

The entire battle in Liaodong obtained a net income of 1.8 million taels, and then, Li Zhaoji successively obtained three more incomes, one from the hijacking of the Guanning military family, Wu Sangui's family property, which was equivalent to about 750,000 taels, and then the capture of the wealth of Nanjing looted by Liaozhen in Wenzhou Bay, about 2 million taels.

Finally, and the largest, it was the Zheng family's wealth obtained from Kinmen Island, which was roughly counted and calculated, and its value was about 3.2 million taels.

And the Liao soldiers and their families on Jeju Island can also be sold for a good price, and Li Zhaoji tentatively set it at 300,000 taels.

Removing some expenses, a simple calculation can be concluded that Li Zhaoji's Oriental Trading Company obtained a net profit of 8 million taels of silver in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and this is an exciting income, it can be said that Li Zhaoji used a small army and the not very strong strength of the trading company to change history, and at the same time create a huge wealth for himself.

After Li Zhaoji knew the number of eight million, his first idea was to use it to build an elite army, go to Liaodong, and destroy the Manchus.

However, with a series of calculations and deductions, this idea was gradually extinguished by reason.

When the Eastern Brigade was formed in Guangdong, the 4,500-strong army spent a total of 250,000 taels of silver, but this cannot be regarded as the entire cost of this army. By this standard, the Eastern Brigade was expanded.

At present, the Eastern Brigade has become a bloated unit, the size of which is more like a division than a brigade.

At its peak, the Eastern Brigade had ten infantry battalions, totaling 6,000 infantry, two armored battalions, jumping and selecting, totaling 1,000 men, one heavy artillery battalion and one field artillery battalion, the former for siege and the latter for cooperation with infantry, and three battalions of engineers and baggage.

The cavalry, on the other hand, had a battalion of heavy cavalry and a battalion of hussars.

The Eastern Brigade is now a supernumerary brigade with 11,000 men and 4,200 horses.

Before the establishment of King Fu, all the expenses of the Northern Expedition were 1.6 million taels, and if the expenses related to the Oriental Brigade are listed separately, and only the equipment costs, salaries, daily consumption and training expenses are counted, excluding the expenses such as pensions, there are about 700,000 taels in total.

But this absolutely does not mean that such a supernumerary brigade can be formed with only 700,000 taels. After all, the equipment of the Eastern Brigade includes a large number of captured materials, and in its daily operation, there are also a large number of Liao people who exchange captured materials for services.

For example, of the more than 4,000 war horses in the Eastern Brigade, only more than 300 were purchased from western Liaoning and Shandong, and the rest were captured. The vast majority of the armor of the armoured units also came from captures, and if these were included, it would cost a million taels of silver to form an Eastern Brigade of 11,000 men, or even more.

This army has carried out several battles in Liaodong, except for the battle of Qinghe, the rest can only be regarded as low-intensity battles, but even so, the Eastern Brigade also consumed ammunition worth 350,000 taels, you know, this is also discounted, this is only counting the standard ammunition provided by the Tamsui Arsenal, a large amount of lead, gunpowder and gunpowder raw materials were captured in Liaodong, which were directly used in the training and even operations of the Eastern Brigade, such as the heavy artillery battalion, which was captured ammunition.

After a rough calculation, Li Zhaoji felt that the army was too expensive, after all, the Jeju Island, the strongest warship of the trading company's navy, would definitely not spend more than 100,000 taels a year, from the purchase cost to the allocation of all the guns, ammunition and personnel.

However, Li Zhaoji considered from the actual situation, taking the Manchu Qing as an imaginary enemy to defeat and occupy the entire territory of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it would not have been possible without 40,000 troops, plus the various service detachments attached to it, in fact, it was equivalent to four supernumerary Eastern Brigades, to put it bluntly, four army divisions.

It would cost four million taels to build these four divisions alone, which included only one year's salary, and if you count the time to build, train, and defeat the enemy, it would be at least three years. The salary of an army division is 600,000 taels a year, so in three years, the cost of these four divisions is 8.8 million taels.

In three years, the trading company can still earn at least 3.5 million taels, so the trading company still has 2.7 million taels for these four army divisions to use for ammunition consumption, combat damage, and bereavement allowances.

Obviously, this is absolutely not enough, in a high-intensity war at the national level, the consumption of ammunition is absolutely astronomical, if Li Zhaoji has sufficient finances, he will definitely store more than 10 million taels of ammunition for the four army divisions.

Even if the Qing army was very cooperative, and was wiped out by the Eastern Trading Company in one or two decisive battles, reducing the war consumption to a minimum, the trading company had to borrow on a large scale from Guangdong Pass for this purpose.

But the question is, what will the trading companies gain after the destruction of the Manchu Dynasty?

Although the Manchus were very wealthy because of several raids in the Guannei, the destruction of one of their countries and the seizure of money and materials could not offset the cost of building up and attrition of the army.

The Manchus were only a small country with a population of more than a million and no formal tax system at all. Even if the Manchus surrendered directly, and everyone should be the obedient people who paid taxes, how much tax would a million people collect? Not to mention, it is impossible to be obedient.

Therefore, the elimination and annexation of the Manchu Qing will never recover the cost.

In fact, that was only the beginning of great attrition, once the trading company replaced the Manchus, it immediately became Dashun's strongest enemy on the mainland, and even if Dashun did not come to fight, Li Zhaoji had to spend millions of taels a year to maintain the army to protect the security of the occupied area.

And for a trading company that has already borrowed money to fight a war, how can it maintain such expenses?

At the end of the unwarranted fantasy because of the 8 million taels in hand, Li Zhaoji suddenly had a rather absurd idea, if he really invested all his resources in the army and established four army divisions, then why did he go to fight the Manchu Qing Dynasty and not fight the Ming Dynasty?

The Ming Dynasty is the richest, if it can be defeated, it will definitely be able to return to its capital, after all, even the Hongguang Imperial Court has more than six million taels of taxes every year.

But this is just an unrealistic fantasy, with the resources and manpower that the trading company has now, it is impossible to swallow the Ming Dynasty, if it only swallows one or two provinces, the result is still beyond its means.

It is better to attack the Ming Dynasty than to attack the DPRK, Xian or Japan, after all, you can loot without limits, or directly carry out the colonization of the fishing style.

Obviously, the army is a pixiu, and it is difficult to produce any benefits if you invest money in it, and Li Zhaoji decided to use 8 million taels to do something more meaningful.

He wanted to invest his money in the steel industry, the military industry, and the shipbuilding industry to promote the technological progress of the trading company.

He wants to put his money into the navy, build a strong fleet to protect everything that the trading company currently has, and have a navy to knock on the doors of the eastern kingdoms, and use trade to earn more money and make money with money.

He was going to put the money into colonization, to San Francisco, to Sydney, wherever there were gold mines, to pan for gold.

He wanted to invest his money in the development of trade, allowing merchants to sail to the Mughal Empire, Safi Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and even to Europe to make more profits.

All of these are promising, and they can also strengthen the strength of the trading company, which is input, output, and consumption, but also saving.

Therefore, instead of expanding the army, the army will need to be disarmed on a large scale, and Li Zhaoji will not spend more than 600,000 taels a year to maintain the current Dongfang Brigade; after all, the Dongfang Trading Company is a maritime force, and a large-scale land combat force can only be used when it is expanded, and it is not needed at all when defending, and retaining such a large-scale army is completely chicken.

Li Zhaoji is already planning for disarmament, but he does not want to bring it up now, because the soldiers of the Eastern Brigade have already received all the salaries for this year, and the officers have also established great martial arts, and they should go home and enjoy a prosperous and beautiful New Year, instead of thinking about unemployment at the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner.

As for how to reduce the army, Li Zhaoji already has a basic idea.

The first is to eliminate the armor-clad units that have no meaning at all in the Eastern Brigade, and the 1,000 people of the Jumping Battalion and the Xuanfeng Battalion can be completely eliminated.

Even in the crucial Battle of Qinghe, the two armored battalions were deployed at the junction of the phalanxes that would not come into contact with the Qing army, and they were embarrassed by each other, because their presence would only prevent the rest of the infantry battalions from developing their firepower.

Moreover, Li Zhaoji found that similar armored units were actually easy to obtain, and they could be recruited temporarily in the war zone, and those fleeing routs, men who had no livelihood, and clothed slaves who had bitter hatred for the enemy were willing to join such an army, and there was almost no need for any training, only a strong body capable of wearing two layers of armor, which was enough.

After all, such an army does not need to undertake frontal combat missions, but only conducts street battles and other operations in a small area, and even in street battles, Li Zhaoji attaches more importance to the performance of artillery, grenadiers, and combat engineers.

What's more, there is no shortage of similar units among the friendly forces.

Fighting with the Qing army, the Shun army was a friendly army, and fighting with the Shun army, the Ming army was a friendly army. In these classical armies, there were not only many armored soldiers, but they were also elite units, which could be a useful supplement.

The army currently has twelve infantry battalions, ten of which are subordinate to the Eastern Brigade, one garrisoned on Sado Island and one stationed at Tamsui Castle.

Of these 12 infantry battalions, Li Zhaoji planned to reduce them to eight, and to reform their establishment on the basis of the experience of fighting in Liaodong.

First of all, all the elite units in the infantry battalion are retained, and the so-called elite units are the chasseur company and the grenadier company, but the infantry battalion must be expanded.

The infantry company is the basic unit of the army, but the basic tactical unit of the army is the battalion, and any frontal combat mission must be carried out by the battalion or a unit larger than the battalion.

At present, a standard infantry battalion consists of six companies, a company of chasseurs armed with flintlock rifled guns, a company of grenadiers of tall stature and entirely veterans, and the remaining four companies of line infantry. Each company was a scale of 100 people, but in actual combat, Li Zhaoji found that a company of 100 people was very inappropriate.

Because a company has non-combat units including three officers, five adjutants, drummers, and standard-bearers, there are fewer than ninety real combatants.

In fact, there are not even ninety people, and the soldiers will get sick, they will be wounded, they will die, they will be deserters.

In the Battle of Qinghe, the infantry company at the end of the situation had only ninety-four people, and many companies had more than eighty people.

Obviously, this will greatly reduce the combat capability of the infantry, and Li Zhaoji found that the phalanx is in good condition, once the horizontal attack is launched, the two rows of companies can easily produce gaps, the front row is killed and wounded, and the rear row is replenished, but if the people on the supplement are also injured, it cannot be replenished.

But the third platoon is again a waste, the third platoon of soldiers cannot participate in the shooting, the firepower is a waste.

Therefore, Li Zhaoji decided to expand the infantry company, raising the size from 100 to 140 people.

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