The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 404 The Empire's Army

October 1737, 10, Yunyang, India (now Navi Mumbai).

The empire's military was mainly composed of two forces. The first was the Imperial Army itself, whose headquarters was located in the Army Headquarters in Dongsheng Lane, Xuanwu District, Chang'an.

As of last year, the size of the Imperial Army had exceeded 100,000, with a total strength of more than 104,000 troops, divided into three home guard regiments, seven cavalry regiments, fifteen infantry regiments, eight artillery regiments and an engineering corps of initial scale.

More than two-thirds of the soldiers in this army were stationed overseas, with army garrisons and task forces around the world. They guarded Qi's economic interests in India, they were stationed in Thang Long and Thanh Hoa in Annan to monitor the puppet regime of the Le Dynasty, they also cooperated with the navy fleet in Ryukyu and Japan to establish Qi's prestige in the East, and they also had a considerable number of soldiers deployed in the distant Mediterranean, North Africa, and Ireland, trying their best to maintain Qi's global hegemony.

Since the time of Emperor Taizu, the army as a part of the imperial social system has hardly changed much. Oh, that's not accurate. At least the imperial army has gradually expanded from less than 20,000 people to more than 100,000.

The Imperial Army has gone through various tests in decades of fighting, and has also established a great military prestige in the process of the Empire's development and conquest. Although its reputation is not as glorious as that of the Imperial Navy, it is still a powerful force that is feared by countries around the world.

The officers of the Imperial Army were not like those of European armies, where all of them were fashionable sons of dignitaries or wealthy families. Nor were they like those of the English or French armies, where most of the officer positions were bought and they generally did not consider themselves to have any heavy national obligations.

Most of Qi's army officers have undergone two to four years of systematic training in the empire's three army academies and have to gain rigorous apprenticeship experience in the army before they can be formally appointed.

It can be said that the Qi State Army officers may be the most professional and militarily qualified officer group in the world.

You have to know that during this period, the army training of the Kingdom of England was generally kept to a minimum, so that each officer could spend a lot of time on outdoor sports and horse breeding, or spend a happy time in the city and flirt with girls at the dance. Their ordinary soldiers were still the kind of scum that senior generals said, and they could only be united and easily controlled through severe discipline and the threat of punishment.

Qi State was a country that implemented a universal compulsory military service system. Every citizen of appropriate age had to unconditionally obey the military conscription, and then the best candidates would be selected and selected as suitable soldiers.

The service period of soldiers in the army is generally determined by the deployment location, and most of them are four to five years. When the time for discharge is reached, if the soldier is willing and passes the military skills assessment, he can be transferred to a professional non-commissioned officer and extend his service period.

In comparison, the service period of soldiers in the armies of European countries such as England, France, Austria and Prussia was generally more than ten years, or even more than twenty years (during this period, soldiers recruited by the Kingdom of England had to serve for 21 years). Although this ensured the stability of the army to a certain extent, it also inevitably caused the aging of the soldiers.

Although the Qi Army's various data on paper were better than those of other countries in the world, this army had not been tested in large-scale wars for decades, and the enemies it faced were all weak and backward countries or tribal natives.

Even so, a few years ago, the State of Qi conquered the Kingdom of Annan within ten days, and its performance was amazing enough to terrify the surrounding countries. It even greatly frightened the powerful State of Qin, making it dare not stand up to uphold "justice" for its vassal.

But if you really study and ponder this war, you will find that the reason why the Qi Army won so easily and fought so brilliantly was not because the Qi Army was strong enough.

The reason why Annan was destroyed in ten days was not only because of the gap in weapons and firepower density that was far inferior to that of the Qi Army, but more importantly, during the war, a large number of Annan generals were bribed by Qi spies, or were afraid of Qi's strength, so they either chose to surrender on the battlefield or chose to passively avoid fighting. As a result, the Qi Army encountered almost no fierce resistance and was able to advance straight into the country. In just a few days, the enemy broke through the city of Thang Long, captured the King of Zheng and his followers, and completely subverted and controlled the Le Dynasty.

No matter what, Qi's army, relying on its strong national strength and reputation of being invincible, is still a force that is feared by countries around the world.

As part of the imperial army, the Qi-Indian Army is another indispensable armed force of the empire. Although its strength is far from that of the Imperial Army and its loyalty is questionable, it has played an extremely important role in many aspects of the empire's external expansion, suppressing resistance forces, overseas wars, and safeguarding India's interests.

This force was composed of armed forces from different war zones, namely, four large administrative divisions: Qi Bengal, Cochin, Guangwei (the surrounding area centered on Mumbai) and Jinmen (now Karachi), to deal with military threats from Bengal, South India, Maratha and northern India respectively.

This is a very special armed force in the history of India. Although their personnel are composed of local residents and their pay comes from local taxes, the emperor of the Great Qi State is the actual controller of it and is subject to the dispatch and deployment of the Imperial Military Privy Council and the Imperial General Staff.

The soldiers of the Qi-Indian Army came from different ethnic groups in India and had different beliefs. Their uniforms did not look like those of the Indian Army at all. Although they were also completely different from the traditional navy blue uniforms of the Imperial Army, their style and design basically maintained the style of the Qi Army.

They received the same training as the Qi State, and their unit numbers were also the same as the Qi State's, but their middle and senior officers were all Qi State Army officers. Similarly, the promotion and reward of the army was based on merit, just like the Imperial Army.

Perhaps serving in the hot India for many years inevitably had an impact on the health of the officer corps. Many officers in the Indian Army showed signs of premature aging, mental depression, or began to indulge in sex and overeat. However, the generous treatment, low-intensity combat, and high status still attracted countless officers to try every means to become one of them.

Although the Qi-Indian Army was poorly equipped and poorly trained than the Imperial Army, it was still a powerful war machine - they had a far superior combat power when fighting against many old-style local armies in India, had good combat experience, and acted more professionally. Moreover, they were large in scale, with a force of more than 80,000, almost equivalent to the Kingdom of Prussia.

The soldiers of the Qi-Indian Army usually come from the local military caste, who are quite proud of their professions passed down from generation to generation and have a certain respect for them. Under the influence of the increasingly commercialized economy in society, these people rely on selling their labor to serve their employers and earn money. They themselves do not have modern national concepts and sense of identity.

In the eyes of these Indian officers and soldiers, the Qi people were not much different from many Indian princes and feudal lords. As long as they did not violate the traditional village identity and religious beliefs and received satisfactory military pay, they were willing to be loyal to any employer who funded the recruitment.

However, over the years, the command of the army has always been in the hands of the Qi people, which in disguise prevented Indian natives from entering the command and decision-making level to prevent unpredictable events from happening.

In addition, artillery, a key weapon that determines the outcome of a war, was also completely controlled by the Qi people, thus restricting and constraining the Indian indigenous troops in terms of weapons and equipment.

Of course, during the years of war and the expansion of the army, internal conflicts among officers and soldiers began to emerge. Although the Indian native soldiers showed a certain degree of discipline and obedience, and the Qi officers also tried to learn the local language to communicate with the soldiers, as the colonial ruling class, they always unconsciously discriminated against these native soldiers.

But in general, Indian soldiers were able to endure the racial discrimination and prejudice from their superiors, fight hard and maintain the basic professional ethics of Indian "mercenaries".

Although it seems incredible, in the eyes of these indigenous mercenaries who come from different regions and believe in different religions, as hired military labor, they cannot let some unfavorable factors affect the reputation of their profession and thus ruin their own jobs.

Yes, joining the Indian Army is definitely an ideal career for an ordinary Indian native, and it is also the best choice to change one's own destiny.

In the eyes of ordinary people in India, whose average monthly income is less than 70 cents, the soldiers of the Qi-Indian Army can get a high salary of three yuan, and they are also issued two sets of military uniforms a year, as well as daily supplies of rare materials such as tobacco, alcohol, sugar, coffee, etc., which is undoubtedly very attractive, making many Indian natives with certain military skills flock to join the Qi-Indian Army. "Oh, if we want, we can easily recruit one million soldiers in India, and then conquer the whole world with them!" Xu Chaowu, commander of the Guangwei Garrison Army and Guangwei General (Major General), stood on the reviewing stand, with his hands on the pergola, watching the teams of Qi-Indian soldiers on the parade ground, under the training of officers' sticks, braving the scorching sun, meticulously conducting basic formation training, and nodded with satisfaction.

"One million troops?" The chief of staff of the Guangwei Garrison Army, General Mingwei (Brigadier General) Cao Quan was speechless after hearing this. "Even if we completely conquer the entire India, with the power of hundreds of millions of Indians, we may not be able to support such a large army."

Xu Chaowu just smiled and didn't explain further.

No matter how large the number of Indian native troops was or how well-trained they were, they were ultimately cannon fodder and a handy tool for the empire to expand its territory.

In view of the stalemate in the Franco-Sicilian War, the military has been continuously dispatching naval warships to the Atlantic to strengthen the strikes and blockades on the French mainland and its overseas territories. At the same time, it is also increasing the deployment of army troops to Sicily, Malta, North Africa, as well as Chenzhou and the Caribbean to deal with the invasion of French troops.

In fact, long before Qi and France declared war on each other, the military had successively drawn more than 6,000 imperial army troops and Qi-Indian vassal troops from the two major governorates of Bengal and India to strengthen the defense of the Mediterranean and Caribbean regions.

However, in late August, news came from Egypt that the French had organized a powerful expeditionary fleet, which raided Sicily. With the cooperation of a large number of rebels on the island, they successfully landed at the southwestern port of Marsala and sent more than 8,000 French soldiers to the island.

After landing, the French army rested for a few days and then headed towards Palermo, the seat of Qi's military and political administration on the island.

Although Qi had prepared for the worst and sent more than 2,000 soldiers to Sicily during the period of tension between Qi and France, bringing the number of Qi garrison troops to more than 6,000, it was still somewhat unable to defend such a large island with an area of ​​more than 25,000 square kilometers.

Needless to say, under the instigation of some "interested people", rebellions broke out one after another on the island, greatly distracting the energy of the Qi garrison.

After the outbreak of the Qi-French War, in order to deal with a possible invasion by the French, the Qi garrison had to temporarily abandon the vast rural areas and concentrate its main forces in several port cities such as Palermo, Messina, Catania, etc. to build strong city defenses to resist the French landing operations.

Half a month ago, a telegram was sent from the mainland to order the Indian garrison to withdraw another 15,000 ground forces and Qi-Indian vassal troops and transport them to the Mediterranean to support the garrison in Sicily. It was imperative to keep this important stronghold that was finally obtained and launch a surprise attack on the French mainland at the appropriate time.

The Guangwei garrison was allocated 4,000 soldiers, who were loaded onto ships and sent to the Port of Suez ten days ago. They will then cross the Isthmus of Suez by rail to the Port of Damietta on the Mediterranean coast and eventually converge on Sicily.

The State of Qi was unwilling to engage in a large-scale land battle with France, but that did not mean it did not dare to compete with the French for the ownership of Sicily.

If the French were allowed to seize the island, it would be a loud slap in the face to the State of Qi.

What a slap in the face!

For the dignity of the empire, the military must defend Sicily at all costs and annihilate all the French troops that landed. Only in this way can the mighty power of Qi be demonstrated and the empire's hegemony in the Mediterranean region be initially established.

Considering that the withdrawal of troops would weaken the defense of the Guangwei Governorate to a certain extent and might not be able to suppress the neighboring Maratha Empire, after reporting to the local military privy council and the general staff, the local garrison commander ordered the recruitment of 1,000 Indian natives to slightly make up for the shortage of troops in various defense zones.

After being severely damaged by the Empire more than 20 years ago, the Maratha Empire had been quietly dormant for a long time, not daring to challenge the Empire again, which also enabled the two countries to maintain long-term peace.

But the Maratha Emperor Bajirao I was not a man content with mediocrity. During this rare period of peace, he rectified internal affairs, encouraged industry and commerce, and trained a new army.

The Maratha Empire abandoned its outdated combat methods, hired a large number of European military advisers and experts, organized troops according to the scientific methods of Europe and Qi, and practiced the latest combat modes.

Eight years ago, the Marathas took advantage of the war between Qi and Britain and attacked the newly established Kingdom of Hyderabad. Relying on their military advantage, they seized a large amount of territory and forced the other side to sign a humiliating treaty, thus establishing the Maratha Empire's dominant position in the Deccan region.

In order to avoid a decapitation attack from Qi, the Maratha Empire moved its capital from Pune, which was adjacent to Qi's Guangwei Governorate, to Jalna, and spent a huge amount of money to turn it into a glorious imperial capital.

More than a decade ago, in order to safeguard Qi's commercial interests in India, a truce policy was implemented for various local forces in India. The policy stipulates that without the knowledge and consent of the Qi government, Indian states are not allowed to mobilize troops, start wars, or negotiate alliances or territories with any other states. The security of various local forces will be maintained by the Qi army (including the Qi-Indian army) to resist any invading foreign enemies. In return, they will cede part of their sovereign territory or provide a corresponding amount of taxes to pay for the daily expenses of the Qi army.

Only the weaker princely states were willing to comply with such a policy, and the powerful Maratha also took a negative attitude towards it after the Mysore Kingdom rejected it.

The Marathas knew that it was extremely dangerous for Qi to interfere in their affairs, so they opposed any alliance or subordination with Qi. The emperor Bajirao I also tried to maintain a certain form of unity among the various forces in the country for a long time, and always tried his best to resist Qi's interference and infiltration in internal affairs.

Faced with such an unruly local force, the people of Qi had long wanted to find an opportunity to "weaken" it again so as to make the other side face up to reality and stop being so "capricious and rebellious".

"What do you think of the new Shanghai Garrison Commander Li Yanliang?" Xu Chaowu took a wet towel from his adjutant and wiped his face vigorously. Suddenly he thought of something and turned to Cao Quan and asked.

"I received a telegram from him in Jianye a week ago, saying that he was on his way by ferry." Cao Quan said, "I estimate that he will arrive in the next few days."

"Humph, after being appointed, he actually delayed taking up the post for three months. ... Is he extremely reluctant to come to India to take up the post?" Xu Chaowu said with dissatisfaction.

"Haha, those who are fortunate enough to be promoted naturally don't want to leave their homeland, so they will inevitably procrastinate, hoping to be reappointed by His Majesty and the Privy Council."

"A lucky person?" Xu Chaowu's face turned cold. "Humph, if you miss the opportunity, you will be punished by military law!"

(End of this chapter)