warring states careerist

Chapter 944 Military Reform
As soon as this plan came out, Young Master Fu's confidants were startled.

Not to mention that there has never been such a thing as a coup d'état that the army ran violently to kill the national traitors, but the fact that the Mohists declared war on their own initiative to start a war would shock the world even more.

He tremblingly asked: "In this way, I'm afraid the Mo family will go north..."

Pang Juan sneered and said, "If you use your troops properly, can't you be active and passive?"

"Now that the princes are gathering in Luoyi, saying that they are going to meet the Son of Heaven, is it possible that Kaizhi will believe it? He certainly knows that this is a matter of the princes discussing against Mo."

"However, the Mo family has newly gained five thousand miles of Chu land, and they are unable to advance northward for a while, so they just don't know. If our army provokes, the Mo family will definitely not move lightly, but will choose to declare war instead of mobilizing troops."

"The current situation of the Mohists needs time. Within three to five years, if Nanyang Jianghan is not restored, there will be no one in the world who can control the Mohism."

"But how can the princes not know? Therefore, the princes must take the initiative to attack, and the Mohists only need to hold on. If the princes take the initiative to attack, they must use troops together and advance in several ways."

"If the Mo family really has the ability to go north, how can he just sit back and watch the alliance of princes? If he still has the power, he will definitely take advantage of the failure of the alliance of princes and replace defense with offense. Then the princes will be unable to attack. If he doesn’t do it, it’s because he doesn’t want to, and he really can’t.”

Young Master Fu's confidants thought about it for a while, and felt that it seemed reasonable, and asked uncertainly: "You mean, if this is the case, the princes must quickly abandon their differences, and first discuss the matter of anti-Mo to reach a result. At that time, Young Master Xu has already died, if the Wei State is not stable, the Mo family can threaten Qi and Han?"

Pang Juan nodded confidently and said, "Chengyang, successively Wei and Qi. Once the princes are angry, we will withdraw in the name of Chengyang's withdrawal to prevent the princes from interfering. Qi Wei will beg us not to withdraw, and will agree to any conditions."

"Daliang is connected to Han's enclave. If our army pretends to abandon Daliang, South Korea will definitely fight desperately with any prince who wants to continue to cut off Wei."

"The matter has come to this point, the land must be cut, but this kind of struggle can save less. Moreover, if the situation is like this and then cut the land, it is taking the overall situation into consideration, rather than being oppressed by all countries."

"Xihe pawns entering the capital can deter those who are not close to the prince. The princes dare not let the Wei state go into chaos at this time, and they will not add fuel to the flames. Things can be done.

"In the battle against Mo, if there is a big victory, Han, Qi and Qin will be strong, which will be disadvantageous to Wei; if there is a big defeat, no one can stop the Mohist family going north, and it will still be disadvantageous to Wei. Therefore, only small victories and small defeats are in the best interest of you. "

"You can take the opportunity to reform and rebuild the army with the veterans of the military as soldiers, Sima Chang, and Wuchang. The Mohist Chen Bing is in front, and the son can clean up the old nobles to centralize power. expensive."

"The revival of the Wei Kingdom is the only way."

Young Master Fu's confidant said: "This matter is getting bigger and bigger, it's not up to me. I want to go to Luoyi immediately..."

Watching Prince Fu's confidant leave, Pang Juan had other plans in mind.

In his opinion, Wei Guo's road can only go on in this way.

He has been in Xihe for a long time, he has experienced the military formation for a long time, and he has read a lot, so he can see the problem of Wei Wuzu.

30 years ago, Wei Wuzu was the most powerful army in the world. It is undeniable, because Wei State was the first to form a pure infantry phalanx, and it was also the first to start the semi-enlisted military system.

At that time, the state of Wei expanded in all directions, and each expansion meant land, population, and the ability to transform military achievements into real benefits.

30 years ago, the Wei military soldiers were still young. Once they were selected and trained all day long, they could really fight five farmers and soldiers.

A newly selected Wei soldier has enough land in his family. His brothers and parents do not need to serve in the army, they only need to farm at home. Everything in the family is earned by the soldiers.

Some who have made military exploits can also have slaves, so that the family can afford a real full-time soldier.

In addition to the weapons and crossbows issued by the army, you can also buy better leather armor and bring your own horses to carry goods.

At that time, there were no firearms, no gunpowder, and even crossbows were rare.

At that time, archers were still selected by the village shooting system. There were not many archers in various countries, and Qin State still used ancient chariots.

The off-the-job training soldiers are unstoppable in defensive counterattack and attack formation.

However, 30 years later, problems began to emerge.

More and more full-time military soldiers are getting old, and when they get old, their sons will take over, and their combat effectiveness will inevitably decline.

Wei Guo fought three or four battles in 20 years, and lost all of them. There was no extra land and population to reward military exploits.

The gunpowder and firearms on Sishang changed the situation of the world, and the invincible soldiers in the era of bronze chariot battles have fallen behind in the new era.

A musketeer of the Qin people may be just a farmer who has been trained for a year, but he can also kill a soldier who has been trained for 20 years with simple means.

The emergence of gunpowder narrowed the gap in force between the farmers in Sishang and the full-time taxi class 30 years ago.

It's the same in Xihe.

These new military self-cultivators or small landowners with military merits are too expensive, and the advantages of training all day when they are cold weapons are too great. Serving for a lifetime is very different from the kind of peasants and soldiers who usually train for a few days in wartime.

But now, the cost of one military pawn is enough to support four or five soldiers recruited to form an army formation, and four or five soldiers holding firecrackers in formation can outperform military pawns by a lot.

The State of Wei did not force the separation of families, and the treatment of military soldiers was calculated according to the family.

Therefore, Wei Guo often has large families with more than a dozen people.

This kind of large family of more than a dozen people does not need to pay taxes and labor because they support a military soldier. About four young and strong men are sheltered by brothers who are military soldiers. Serfs and maidservants worked the land.

Once you become a military soldier, you don’t need to do hard labor. This alone is much better than ordinary families. Hard labor will destroy a family of farmers, and some people who do labor and others don’t do it are the best way to annex land.

After 30 years of development, among those old military soldiers back then, none of the families had seven or eight hundred acres of land, seven or eight slave farmers, and more than a dozen family members.

In addition to these, the weapons, armor, food, etc. on a soldier's body require about two young and strong laborers in the rear.

The reforms back then have become incomplete, leading to the fact that the old nobles in the Wei state are now rotten and useless, and the cutting-edge soldiers have also begun to become interest groups that cannot be moved lightly. This is the reform dilemma that the Wei state is now facing.

Pang Juan has always had great ambitions, and believes that if he has the opportunity to assist Gong Zifu, he can try to carry out reforms.

Too drastic reforms were difficult to implement in Wei, so Pang Juan thought of a reform method that would not affect the interests of the majority ruling class.

That is to start with the fight between princes and nobles to divert the conflict.

Since the foreign wars have been defeated in a row, the Wei State cannot break the situation, and cannot distribute enough benefits to satisfy the new and old nobles, then take advantage of the dispute between the sons and daughters to kill a group of old nobles and use their land to feed the new military landlords.

These new military pawns who were born as landowners with military merits were soldiers by profession. When it comes to training and discipline, they are much better than ordinary farmers.

The reason for Xihe's defeat was not that the soldiers could no longer fight, but that the number of Qin people was too large, making it difficult for the soldiers to fight under "fair" conditions.

Pang Juan looked at the 30 years of war and believed that after the emergence of firearms, cavalry, and infantry, no one can defeat twice as many enemies in a battle, including the troops on Sishang, unless it is the training and morale of both sides. Too much difference.

Therefore, he believes that the direction of the military system of the Wei State is to change the military pawns from "pawns" to "soldiers", from soldiers to officers, dismantle the military pawns, and create a group of professional officer classes to replace those decadent bloodlines that are out of date scholar.

Military pawns practice all day long, and their discipline and combat effectiveness are no less than those of bloodline soldiers, and compared with orthodox soldiers, these military pawns occupy relatively less land.

Dismantle the Xihe military soldiers and use them as the base to serve as officers such as corps chiefs and Sima chiefs at the grassroots level.Using the conscripted peasants and soldiers as soldiers, you can quickly pull out a politically reliable army that is attached to the kingship; its combat effectiveness is lower than that of pure military soldiers but it can still fight.

Sacrifice a group of old nobles. For example, taking advantage of this dispute between the son and the son, kill the confidant nobles of the son and the son, and let about [-] military soldiers divide up their corpses, and become Wei. A new batch of low-ranking military nobles.

These old soldiers who were born in the army will become officers and enrich the newly-built legions in the future. A large number of farmers and urban handicraftsmen will be recruited. They don't need to fight for anything, as long as the officers above them know.

With such a group of military upstarts who will obey the orders of the monarchy and attach themselves to the monarchy, then the monarchs can have an army that obeys orders, and they can subdue the rest of the nobles, and gradually start to change.

And these military upstarts who were born as soldiers can be hereditary officers, obtain a good education with the help of land and family wealth, and cultivate enough grassroots officers with the family tradition of professional officers.

As long as there are enough officers, all kinds of people can be trained into a qualified army that marches with the sound of drums and is not afraid of copper cannons. A new army of expensive junior officers.

Give certain privileges to newcomers who were born in the military, and make them loyal.

Use military pawns as grassroots officers to train new troops and subdue old nobles.

Under the premise of not making major changes, Jiugui was forced to provide soldiers and a certain amount of military expenses.

Under the premise of not changing the fundamental interests of the old and noble, re-establish a new army with a basic guarantee of combat effectiveness and far more numbers than military soldiers.

Rewarding soldiers does not reward soldiers, because if rewarding soldiers, the Wei family can't afford to reward them at all, because even if the land rewarded to new soldiers can only be cut from the flesh of some old nobles.

Pang Juan's idea of ​​military reform stems from Sishang's military system, but it is not the same. After all, the two sides have different economic foundations, and their national power and wealth are also very different.

But one thing, Pang Juan is very clear, Sishang also has a group of "soldiers", that is, those professional soldiers and professional officers. Can learn this method of mixing professional soldiers and conscripts.

However, the professional soldiers in Sishang received wages, and the industrial and commercial profits, taxes and cheap food in Sishang could guarantee that the money paid was enough for the professional soldiers to live on.

The state of Wei couldn't do it, it couldn't afford it, so it had to use land instead of money, because it needed a developed industry and commerce to replace land with money, which Wei state couldn't do.

Looking at the whole world, Pang Juan felt that his strategy of military reform was more similar to that of Qi State. It also made some soldiers become hereditary officers, and their interests in the war were closely related to them.But Qi State was undergoing a complete set of economic and military reforms. Those military officers and nobles with the surname "Xuanyuan" were not comparable to the land and population control of these military soldiers, and the economic model was completely different.Because Qi is close to Sishang, it can deepen the system of peasants and slaves, so as to benefit those officers and nobles, sell food and crops for profit, and have cheap farmers trapped in the fief as soldiers.

If Wei Guo wanted to revive, he had to go another way.A road of external expansion in which the monarchy relies on the soldiers and the monarchy to suppress the old nobles, the old nobles and the monarchy, and the new military meritorious landlords work together to suppress the resistance at the bottom.If there is no external expansion, the new military landlords and the old aristocrats can only eat each other, just like his strategy now, relying on the corpse of the young master to stabilize the soldiers' morale - when there is not enough food outside, big things may happen.But this is something to consider in the future. Wei Guo has reached a dead end, so he can only go on, otherwise he will not even be qualified to talk about the future.

(End of this chapter)