The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 241 Military Reform
I saw that it was written in the Tang newspaper: On June 26, the second year of Longwu, Fang Guoan was in Shaoxing Mansion under the title of Yue Guogong, and welcomed the King of Lu back to Zhejiang, and he was still called Jianguo. 28. Fang Guoan proclaimed himself General Dingguo, guarded Qiantang, and with Zhang Huangyan and Xu Fuyuan as deputy generals, he led more than ten thousand troops to invade Quzhou.Lu Zhi, the prefect of Quzhou, and Liu Guoxuan, a guerrilla general, asked the imperial court for help in Quzhou.

"Fang Guo'an actually honored Lu Fan again?!"

Zhu Linmei rubbed her forehead, sighed and said, "There have been many changes in my Taizheng dynasty recently, and it is the young master who is ruling the country. It is not surprising that Fang Guoan has other thoughts in his heart. I just don't know what high position the king of Lu promised him, so that his Made up his mind so quickly.

"Hey, why is Daming always fighting among himself..."

Zhang Jiayu put away the pond newspaper and said anxiously: "Your Highness, there are only a few hundred people from the Tourism Office in Quzhou, and Lin Yaotian's rebel army is no more than a thousand people. We should send troops to Quzhou for reinforcements as soon as possible."

Quzhou is the southernmost state capital of Zhejiang Province and the only foothold of the imperial court north of Fujing. If Quzhou is lost, it will have an extremely adverse impact on the Northern Expedition to Nanjing.

Zhu Linming certainly knew the importance of Quzhou, but right now the Dragon Guards had to maintain order in Tianxing Mansion, so they couldn't go north for the time being.And the defenders of Xianxia Pass cannot be easily called out. Although it is unlikely that Fang Guoan's men will turn around and attack Xianxia Pass, they have to guard against it.

He thought for a long time, and told Zhang Jiayu: "Send someone to order Gu Yanwu's department to turn eastward and help defend Quzhou. I hope we can make it in time."

Polu Ying had just fought a big battle with Liu Guangbi's Jianlu, and it was supposed to be repaired for a period of time, but the situation is urgent now, so they can only persevere for a while.

"In addition, tell Liu Guoxuan that if you can abide by the rules, if the enemy is too strong, you will give up Quzhou. It would be a pity if a general like Guan Guan fights in the civil war."

"Yes!"

The two discussed the details of troop deployment, and Zhang Jiayu turned around and left, rushing to the Ministry of War to make specific deployments.

Looking at the map on the case, Zhu Linmei couldn't help shaking her head slightly. It seems that the military reform must be accelerated.

Just like the situation in Quzhou, there is not even a garrison that can be called nearby, and the entire Ming Dynasty can't rely on the Dragon Guards and Polu Camp to rush back and forth for defense.And if there are military incidents in many places at the same time, even if they are exhausted to death, it is impossible to take care of them.

In fact, Daming had an army of at least [-] on the books, but apart from the Dragon Guards and Poluying, only Yang Tinglin's men could really be used to fight.

The rest are either guard soldiers who are no different from peasants, or warlords who rely on private soldiers.

The former just wanted to farm at home, even if he was forced to go to the battlefield, he would be cannon fodder.The latter, on the other hand, only wanted to preserve his own troops, and his thoughts were all about how to get more military pay, and he would never move if he didn't go to war.

At the same time, the imperial court spent a lot of money to feed these "waste".The guards occupied a large amount of fertile land, and many of them were occupied by officers and became their private property.

Not to mention the warlords, if the imperial court didn't have enough money, they would ask the local officials for money, and most of the local officials had the task of supporting the troops stationed in the local area.If the local area can't make ends meet, the warlords will even send troops to plunder, and the harm is comparable to that of Jianlu.

As for the strength of these warlords gathered to a certain level, they will be too big to get rid of, and even threaten the court in turn.Like Zuo Liangyu, he led the army to approach Nanjing at the slightest disagreement, and eventually brought down the Hongguang Dynasty indirectly, which is the "peak work" under the warlord private army system.

Zhu Linming's main idea of ​​the military restructuring is to learn from the military region system of later generations, to professionalize the military, supplemented by the military academy training and staff system.

The country establishes a standing army based on recruitment. Of course, it will gradually transition to a conscription system in the future.These standing troops no longer carry out agricultural production, and all their tasks are military training and fighting.

A professional soldier who practiced with a gun all day, his combat effectiveness is definitely far superior to that of a farmer on weekdays and a soldier in wartime.You know, even the Jianzhou Eight Banners soldiers, who are known as the most elite in Asia nowadays, also have to farm when they return home, but their training volume is much higher than that of the Ming army.

Raising a professional army seems to cost a lot, but in fact, because the army is more professional, it has a strong combat effectiveness. It only needs to maintain a small but refined force to complete national defense tasks.Calculated based on actual expenditure, the military expenditure will be reduced by a lot.

When Jianlu entered the customs, there were no more than [-] troops at best, and the hundreds of thousands of Ming troops could not find their way to the north. This is evidence that the combat effectiveness of a small number of elite troops is far superior to that of a large number of miscellaneous troops.

Of course, Zhu Linming also knew that if she wanted to complete the transformation from the guards and private soldiers system to the professional military system with military regions as the unit, there would definitely be huge resistance.

The first is how to deal with these troops.Don't look at these people's ability to fight Jianlu, if you say that they are smashing their jobs now, their ability to make trouble is first-rate.

Zhu Linmei's coping strategy is to convert these old troops into police use.Although there was an inspection department in the Ming Dynasty, it still preferred the former between the army and the police, and there was no clear police function and organizational structure.

The establishment of a professional police organization will be an important guarantee for social stability in Ming Dynasty.The cost of maintaining the police is much lower than that of the army.

Of course, establishing a sound police system is not an easy task, but it can be divided into several steps.First cancel the old-style army and turn it into a police force.Then set up an independent police administrative system and improve the division of police functions.Then there is continuous training, which can consider building some police academies.

Disbanding the old-style armies will be much easier when the exits for existing soldiers are paved.

Among them, the guard soldiers are the simplest. After all, they are basically farmers with military registration. As long as the problem of military officers' private occupation of land is handled well, the transformation should be completed soon.

It is more troublesome for warlords who have a large number of private soldiers under their command.

In Jiangxi, because Yang Tinglin's management is fairly good, there are no big warlords, and the "little shrimp" with hundreds to thousands of soldiers can be solved with only one official document from the court.

However, Fujing left a lot of self-respecting guys in the hands of Zheng Zhilong before. It is estimated that the entire Fujing has at least [-] to [-] troops, and at least half of them are warlords.How to reduce the military power of these people is not a small challenge.

After the old army is dealt with, it is time to start recruiting new professional troops.

One is to reorganize the current Ministry of War to align with modern national defense management. The details involved in this have been listed in detail in his "Development Outline".

The second is to vigorously develop military academies. After all, fighting is also a very professional thing, which requires professionals to continuously study and summarize, and systematically pass it on to future generations for learning.

(End of this chapter)