Chapter 597: A New Battalion
Zhao Yulin believed that the Ministry of War should begin planning a new army equipped with new weapons, armed with new concepts, and capable of fighting efficiently.
After reading the manuscript, Miao Gui handed it to Yang Xingyun, nodding his head continuously, and told everyone that front-line combat troops often had the phenomenon of wasting firepower, and there were also situations where teams lacked firepower support and had to work hard. It was time for adjustments.
Zhao Yulin used the newly formed machine gun company as an example to explain to them: In the past, our Shenwei Army kept a close eye on the Mongolian Army's military system, and referred to their teams of ten thousand, one thousand, and one hundred men to establish the Shenwei Army's squad, squadron, and battalion organization, which was formed under the combat conditions at the time.
Now the Mongolian army is on the decline and there is no need to worry about it. Our military equipment has also developed rapidly. We can say this: if the two armies face off, except for the fact that our infantry will have to deal with the same number of cavalry as theirs, our 10,000 infantry will not be inferior to their 20,000 infantry.
Everyone nodded with smiles on their faces, thinking that what he said made perfect sense.
Zhao Yulin continued: If we further optimize the configuration of military equipment, equip our thousand-man teams and hundred-man teams with mortars, and equip the hot air balloon army with a column of ten thousand people, just think about it, how powerful will such a team be?
Everyone immediately became excited and offered suggestions one after another.
Zhao Yulin decided to form a new Shenwei Army special battalion with the three-three system as the most basic combat unit, with the organization of battalion, company, platoon and squad, to test the combat effectiveness of the new battalion in actual combat.
Nine people form a squad, five squads form a platoon, and three platoons form a company. In addition, there is a company headquarters squad and a cooking squad. A battalion has three infantry companies, plus a baggage company, a machine gun company, a direct police investigation team, and a battalion headquarters. With this organization, a company has about 150 people, and a battalion has about 800 people . The combat power of such a battalion-level battle group is definitely not low.
The brothers were very excited after listening to his step-by-step explanation. They were particularly looking forward to the emergence of the new machine gun company, which would completely change the situation of insufficient firepower of the front-line infantry.
He immediately said, "But," we don't have so many heavy machine guns and mortars to equip our troops right now.
Everyone burst into laughter. What Zhao Yulin said was absolutely the truth. It was indeed a long way to go to ensure that a team of a thousand people had powerful weapons such as machine guns and cannons.
Finally, he said to Yang Xingyun and Cao Yong in public: Yousan is our good brother. He has devoted his life to the logistics of the Shenwei Army. His family must be taken good care of.
Cao Yong and Yang Xingyun nodded repeatedly, asking him to rest assured that they would take good care of Deputy Envoy Tan's family.
This was the first time that Zhao Yulin specifically discussed family matters at a meeting of the chief officers, which shows the position of Tan Yousan in his mind. Tan Yousan was devoted to the logistics of the Shenwei Army, working hard and honestly, and he was a role model for the new Song army.
He asked Yang Xingyun to arrange people to show off his achievements again and again so that his brothers could learn from him.
Now the Shenwei Army is having a better and better time and is gradually moving towards regularization. However, corrupt elements are constantly being found within the army. Zhao Yulin is worried. Loyal ministers and generals like Tan Yousan who are dedicated to serving the country must be stood up.
After he dealt with the affairs in Chengdu, he rushed to Cuiping Mountain without stopping, where a new version of banknotes was being trial-produced.
The first edition of paper money of the New Song Dynasty has been issued and used for nearly ten years. The coins circulating on the market are seriously damaged. After the old coins are recycled, exchanged for new coins and destroyed, the inventory of the transportation department is almost exhausted.
In recent years, the Inspection Department has uncovered cases of counterfeit currency one after another. The counterfeit currency made by the criminals looks so realistic that it is difficult to distinguish it without careful observation. All signs indicate that it is time to issue new currency.
Zhao Yulin and the masters of the mint made repeated comparisons and confirmed that the bamboo charcoal paper made from the bottom mud of the Muchuan papermaking workshop was soft, smooth, wear-resistant and durable, and started printing the second set of New Song Dynasty banknotes.
Director Dai showed him the cut banknote samples: each new banknote had soft colors and beautiful printing, and made a strong crisp sound when the paper was tapped.
Zhao Yulin told him: This time when we sent Madam Hulan to Qiongzhou, we discovered a large number of papermaking workshops on the Baimo River in Huojing County. Some of them have been making paper for a long time, and there must be a lot of decomposed and carbonized base materials, which can be used as the raw materials for our next coin making.
Old Dai was delighted and said happily that he would arrange people to collect them.
He said: We have made a lot of tools and machines for coin making, and have trial-produced a lot of paper. We can transform these mature technologies into civilian use.
For example: We can produce general anti-counterfeiting bills for local government offices and businesses, design and manufacture durable tickets for carriage bureaus and railway stations, and design and manufacture exquisite tickets for famous mountains such as Qingcheng Mountain and Emei Mountain. This will not only increase the revenue of the coinage office, but also continuously improve production tools.
Old Dai's eyes suddenly opened up, and he told himself that a craftsman had wanted to do this a long time ago.
For example, we can order 10 or 100 sets of new printing presses from Guigu at a time, train qualified technicians, and send them to major cities across the country to open branches and manufacture according to the needs of merchants. We can also send new printing presses to major academies across the country to improve book printing technology.
Zhao Yulin smiled and nodded, thinking that our Old Dai had not fallen into the dead end of money.
He said that he would not open a branch. Director Dai could support our masters to open a printing factory and let them run it independently, which would also contribute to the revitalization of the local economy.
In the Dali Kingdom in the south, the little emperor was overjoyed when Duan Xiaolin escorted the purchased military equipment and supplies back. This time, Xiaolin used the money he planned to use to arm one column to buy equipment for two columns. It was amazing.
The imperial guards of Dali Kingdom had already trained tens of thousands of soldiers who could use the new weapons. Once they got the equipment, they could go into battle and kill the enemy. The young emperor immediately ordered an expedition to the south to Bagan.
The roads of Dali Kingdom were crowded with the rumbling of carriages and horses, and there was an endless stream of vehicles transporting food and supplies.
The movement of troops revealed that Dali lacked everything. The young emperor excitedly planned in the palace and summoned his ministers to discuss the matter.
The young emperor learned that the New Song Dynasty court had sent out various imperial inspectors to supervise local corruption and arrested many corrupt officials, which not only cleaned up the officialdom but also seized a lot of illegal gold and silver treasures to enrich the official treasury, killing two birds with one stone. He also wanted to follow the example of the New Song Dynasty court and send eight imperial inspectors to various places to punish corrupt officials and get rid of the root of the problem.
The little emperor's medicine was too strong and he got it wrong.
The new Song Dynasty would rectify the officialdom every once in a while and stabilize society before using military force, or in other words, one must first stabilize the country before fighting foreign enemies.
However, the Central Council of the New Song Dynasty did not conduct sweeping inspections across the country every time. Instead, it chose to inspect counties and prefectures where there were more complaints from the people, where various problems were concentrated, and where the inspection intervals were longer, thus maintaining the stability of the state power as much as possible.
As for this guy, the purpose of punishing corruption is to make money. He sent out imperial envoys to rectify local corruption only after he had already launched an expedition to the south. It can be said that he was doing both.
Perhaps the young emperor thought that his imperial capital was close to the governorates in various places and he could handle it with just a little effort.
However, this kind of radical measure is, after all, a major surgery in the country. If some local evil forces are afraid of their scandals being exposed and take risks, wouldn't that be a perfect opportunity for them to take advantage of the domestic weakness to start a rebellion?
As a result, several tribes and two military governorates in the south of Dali Kingdom and the west end of the Xinsong-Tibet Road rebelled. The local chieftains and corrupt officials who were plotting independence saw that the imperial envoy was coming, and they knew they would be imprisoned or die anyway, so they simply joined together and rebelled.
The young emperor was stunned and furious. He immediately ordered the southern expeditionary army to withdraw and let Duan Xiaolin lead the troops to quell the rebellion.
However, before Duan Xiaolin took over the Imperial Guards, several groups of soldiers from various places secretly fled back to their respective tribes with new weapons. The morale of the Imperial Guards was unstable, and Xiaolinzi's first task was to reorganize the troops and stabilize their morale.
From then on, the Dali Kingdom entered a period of civil war among itself.
The northern grassland empire took advantage of the civil unrest in Dali and sent merchants and spies to purchase ironware and weapons sold to them by the New Song Kingdom.
The grassland empire was quickly defeated on the battlefield in the Central Plains and lost an important base for steel smelting. They did not initially realize the seriousness of the problem, and were immediately stunned when Zhao Yulin asked them to ban maritime trade and iron trade.
At present, ordinary people in the empire who can own a complete set of iron pots and kitchen knives are considered to be upper-class wealthy families.
The empire's army needed iron weapons, and apart from the only blast furnace they had, they bought iron from the public and ordered the people to hand it in. After the government and the princes searched and confiscated it over and over again, there were fewer and fewer iron pieces on the grassland.
Therefore, the grassland empire sent officials, businessmen, and spies to the New Song Kingdom and the Dali Kingdom in disguise to secretly purchase scrap iron, trying every means to buy ironware and bring it back. Merchants who collected scrap iron often appeared near the border of the New Song Dynasty.
The Shunfengsi of the New Song Dynasty was very sensitive to steel. They followed the clues and immediately arrested a large number of Mongol spies. The whole country was on alert. Anyone who collected ironware would be arrested and interrogated carefully. The collected ironware could only be sold to the government and was not allowed to be kept privately.
Da Mengge and Hubili were not able to obtain the much-needed steel, and they were very upset. They had recruited able-bodied men to form a team, but how could they train them into brave soldiers without machetes?
Hubili's traitorous adviser gave him an idea: we have too little fine iron, and good steel should be used on blades. We should organize the army like the Shenwei Army of the New Song Dynasty and form teams according to the specialties of the soldiers. For those who like to play with swords, we will give them cast iron scimitars with fine iron on the blades.
For those who are used to using guns, we will give them cast iron spears wrapped in fine iron.
There is no way to deal with the arrows. We have to mobilize those untouchables to dig and search on the battlefield. We can wrap the arrowheads with fine iron, and they will be able to pierce three layers of cowhide.
Damn, these military strategists have a way. They can still arm a large number of soldiers.
However, it is difficult to manufacture a more advanced Huihui cannon. This powerful weapon not only requires iron, but also high-quality refined iron, and the consumption is huge.
It is not as simple as just casting iron.
