For Liu Bei, this irrational emperor Li Zhi had an army of 300,000 and was not very envious.

After all, Kong Ming had already broken it up more than once and told him that it was never difficult to command an army of more than 100,000 people.

The logistical supply, the liaison between the superiors and subordinates, how to effectively convey orders, and how to command when a fight starts, etc., are all difficulties.

But these difficulties are not insurmountable.

Cultivating officials, making officers literate, formulating norms to give orders with banners and drums, and recruiting more staff officers to accompany the army were all ideas that came up with during the talks.

For the domination of the army, it is possible to cultivate a replica.

But the victories of those famous generals cannot be replicated.

For example, the champion Hou will not get lost behind enemy lines, and can fight bravely.

For example, Li Jing's snowy night rushed to sweep the plough court, and he could predict that the enemy would be hit.

At this moment, Liu Bei said to future generations that the meaning of a famous general is to speed up the process of history, which is more clear.

10,000 to reach your goal of 300,000 people, and in less time, with less food and grass consumption, the goal is better accomplished.

[The decline in the combat effectiveness of the Tang army during the reign of Emperor Li Zhi is visible to the naked eye.

Some people attribute it to the gradual collapse of the government military system, and say that the strength of the Tang Dynasty during the Li Shimin period was due to the integrity of the government military system.

But in fact, in the later period of Li Shimin, the military system could not keep up with the times, and the most typical example was Xue Rengui.

Xue Rengui was not a government soldier, but a recruit, and was called a recruiter in the Tang Dynasty.

"Taizong Benji" is very clear: send the world's armor soldiers, recruit 100,000 people, and move to Pyongyang to defeat Goryeo.

Why? Because there are simply not enough government soldiers.

The government military system is similar to the integration of military and agriculture, with soldiers in wartime and farmers in leisure time, exempt from taxes, but required to serve a corresponding number of days per year.

For example, there is a thousand-person military government within 500 miles of the Tiger Prison Pass, and according to the regulations of the Tang Dynasty, this thousand-person military government needs to be divided into five or two hundred squads to serve in turn once in five months, that is, five times.

After the Tang Dynasty began to expand, such a government military system was completely insufficient.

As a result of the rapid expansion of territory, the military often served thousands of miles away from the military government, and each service could take a year or more.

Moreover, wars were frequent during the Zhenguan period, and it was often possible that one government soldier had completed one year of military service, and another war had started, and the government soldiers had to go to another battlefield, which made the calculation extremely complicated.

The second is that in the case of military exploits during the Zhenguan period, the government soldiers limited the scale of the troops.

Taking Wuban as an example, Li Shimin Zhenguan set up 634 military offices in the world in the past ten years, and the military government is divided into upper, middle and lower three classes, with 1,200 people in the upper military government, 1,000 people in the middle military government, and 800 people in the lower military government.

From this, it can be vaguely calculated that there are 600,000 government soldiers in Zhenguan ten years, and according to the regulations of five rotational services, the limit of government soldiers that Zhenguan can draw in ten years is 120,000.

These 120,000 government soldiers not only have to guard the border passes, but also defend the Beijing division, and the number of people who can be drawn out to fight in the end is about 40,000 or 50,000.

If you take into account the time spent on the road and the regulations on taking turns to rest, if you encounter continuous battles, the number of government soldiers who can be dispatched to fight can even be reduced to about 30,000.

It is also for this reason that Erfeng began to recruit troops when he fought Goguryeo, and finally drew a gold card called Xue Rengui.

"All those who take the vows, raise ten to get hundreds, raise hundreds to get thousands, and those who are not allowed to join the army are all indignant and depressed"

This is a record of recruitment, it can be seen that the effect is very good, after all, for the people of the Tang Dynasty, the army doesn't care about your two jujubes, everyone is going for military merits.

And during the battle of Liaodong, the combat effectiveness of this group of recruits was also obvious to all.

Not to mention the killing god Xue Rengui, he is simply the best spokesperson for recruitment.

Typical is the battle of Baiyan City, the city lord surrendered and rebelled, which made Li Shimin angry, and immediately ordered that after the city was broken, he did not take any prisoners and treasures, and all of them were rewarded to the soldiers.

Under this kind of encouragement, Baiyan City was conquered in three days, during which Qibi He Li even led only 800 people to repel 10,000 reinforcements from Wugu City, and the combat effectiveness of the recruited troops can be seen.

After the Battle of Goguryeo was temporarily over, although the two battlefields were very similar, Li Shimin still issued an edict that those who had already participated in the Battle of Goguryeo were forbidden to participate in the Battle of Xue Yantuo.

This edict can be said to be related to the people's livelihood, and it can also be said to be so that the soldiers at home can also have a bite of meat to eat.

But tossing and turning in the middle is enough to show that it is not so much that the government military system is gradually collapsing.

It is better to say that the government military system has gradually failed to meet the national conditions of the Tang Dynasty, which often needed to cross thousands of miles to fight. 】

Although he has not yet issued an edict to integrate the military government of the world, Li Shimin also has to admit:

"This conflict is really a worry."

"The military government is mostly located in Henan, Hebei, Hedong, Guannei and other places, if it is good to go to the year, the road is only thousands of miles away."

"If you recruit troops from Huainan Province into the Western Regions, you may have to go back and forth for a year."

But you can't completely ignore the soldiers of Huainan Province.

Because if the Western Regions are only sent out of the nearest Guannei Provincial government soldiers, after the Western Regions are pacified, it is estimated that the Guannei Provincial Government has a few military merits per capita, and the Huainan Provincial and Hebei Provincial Provincial soldiers are afraid that their eyes will be green.

Therefore, in this case, Du Ruhui is quite curious:

"I wonder what the military system will be like in the future?"

Li Shimin has been immersed in the battle array for many years, but he doesn't care much about it:

"No matter what kind of military system, in the end, it is just the heart of seeking soldiers to dare to fight."

"The soldiers of Zhenguan Mansion are strong, and they are also strong in meritorious service, they must be rewarded and punished, and the generals dare to be the first and do not hesitate to do anything for the country."

"Those who can do this, regardless of whether the government recruits soldiers, are all strong pawns."

"If you can't do it, it's useless to have a military government."

It is not only an answer to Du Ruhui, but also Li Shimin's self-questioning and self-answering.

At this time, Li Shimin remembered that the army of later generations was named after the people, and remembered that the army of later generations could march against natural disasters.

He vaguely understood a little, and even remembered a self-question a long time ago:

"What is a strong army?"

Li Shimin asked and replied:

"The Taoist makes the people agree, so that he can die with it, and he can live with it, and he is not afraid of danger"

Li Jing can be called a backward reciprocal recitation of Sun Tzu's Art of War, and at this time he explained to the ignorant Su Dingfang:

"Sun Tzu said that there are five ways to win by strengthening the army, one is that the law is strict, the second is that the general is handsome and wise, the third is that he knows the geographical advantage, and the fourth is that he can win the time."

"None of the four is difficult, and what Your Majesty said is the fifth."

As soon as Li Jing spoke, Su Dingfang wanted to roll his eyes, isn't this difficult?

Well, it probably won't be hard for you to get older.

Su Dingfang also remembered that this was the opening sentence of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Because it is the beginning, it is often ignored, and they all study the later plots, troops, virtual and real, military battles, and so on.

Sun Tzu said it simply, but Su Dingfang also understood:

"How difficult it is to attain the Tao of these five words, who can do it?"

The people agreed, that is, the soldiers and the people had the same will as the monarch, so that the army could not fear life and death.

According to the light curtain, the government soldiers in the Zhenguan period were just fighting for military merits, and they were far from being successful.

Du Ruhui also remembered the people's army that was charging against the natural disaster, and sighed lightly:

"The army of the Hereafter is the army of enlightenment."

Su Dingfang and Li Shiyun couldn't believe it.

Li Shimin smiled and expressed understanding.

[Therefore, the decline in the combat effectiveness of the Tang Army has little to do with the government soldiers or not, but has more to do with Li Zhi.

Li Zhi saw that his father's recruitment effect was very good, and he also learned from it.

But the difference is that Li Zhi's recruiting combat effectiveness is getting worse and worse, and the sturdy recruits are getting fewer and fewer, and even in the later period, there was a situation where the old and weak were dissatisfied with the recruitment, which was in stark contrast to the Li Shimin period.

Later, Liu Renliang couldn't stand it anymore, and Shang Song Shu gave Li Zhi a beating of yin and yang, and he summed up a key point in time.

In the fifth year of Xianqing, that is, in 660 A.D.

This year, Su Dingfang leveled the Three Kingdoms, and the class returned to the dynasty, and then in the reward, Li Zhi did something not very authentic:

The soldiers who died in the expeditionary force will no longer be awarded merits, nor will they be questioned.

One of the reasons why the soldiers dared to die during the Zhenguan period was that even if they died, as long as they made meritorious service, this merit could also be left to their families, and during the Li Shimin period, they would also send special envoys to comfort the families of the deceased and pay tribute to the souls of the fallen soldiers.

For these benefits, Li Zhitong canceled them.

Later, when it came time to pyeong Baekje and besiege Pyongyang, Li Zhi intensified, not only did the war dead have no reward, but the living would also be deducted from military merit.

Therefore, 660 years later, the scene of each conscription in the Tang Dynasty was reversed from the time of Li Shimin:

People who are strong and strong, have surplus wealth, and have connections in the government will try to work up and down, hiding in Tibet, just not being conscripted.

People who don't have money to go, even if they are old and weak, have to be forcibly recruited into the army.

How could the combat effectiveness of the Don Army not decline under such circumstances?

In the Gaozong Dynasty, soldiers must be recruited in every battle, and more and more are recruited, just like after the defeat of Dafeichuan, Li Zhi is likely to learn from the pain:

I haven't recruited enough soldiers!

So he raised 300,000 people and handed them over to Pei Xingjian, just because he was afraid of losing.

That is, Pei Xingjian did have a level at that time, and arranged the 300,000 army in an orderly manner.

Otherwise, if you change someone else, before you start fighting with the Turks, this group of Tang troops with uneven quality may collapse the logistics first.

And why did Li Zhi suddenly become so stingy? Because it is of great use for him to keep the money:

He is going to take his father's place.

Gaozong and Empress Wu's large-scale preparations for the canonization of Zen began in 664, and it was not until the beginning of 666 that the official canonization of Zen began.

This trip can be called the most huge face-saving project after the founding of the Tang Dynasty.

Only a month after the closure of Zen, Li Zhi, who directly abolished the treasury, officially ordered:

Cast new money and waste old money.

He is going to grab money with the people of Datang. 】

(End of chapter)