Chapter 407 Army Expansion Plan
The main reason is that Liu Feng's strategy and tactics have always been very clear, which is to do everything possible to fight a war of annihilation and avoid a defeat. Coupled with the improvement and innovation of siege equipment, the enemy stationed in the fortified city became a turtle in the urn.
After a series of brilliant victories, it is normal to capture hundreds of thousands.
Yuan Shu captured 60,000 to 70,000 prisoners in one breath, Liyang Sun's army surrendered nearly 20,000, and Lujiang sent more than 10,000 in support. After crossing the river, all the more than 20,000 Liu Yao's troops surrendered, and Xue Li and Zuirong contributed tens of thousands of Buqu and more than 40,000 to 50,000 young men and women.
This part alone has exceeded 200,000 young men, not counting the 70,000 to 80,000 Sun Ce army, the 40,000 to 50,000 Wujun local forces, and the tens of thousands of Kuaiji local rebel nobles and Shanyue.
After this series, Liu Feng captured at least 400,000 prisoners, and they were all young and strong, and the majority of them were men.
If Liu Feng hadn't sent a steady stream of manpower to the north of the Yangtze River, the water conservancy projects in Jiujiang and Lujiang would not have been completed so quickly.
Fortunately, Jiujiang and Lujiang are undergoing great construction projects, otherwise it would be really troublesome to place these prisoners.
Fortunately, things are different now. Liu Feng occupies a large amount of land in the northern part of Wu County and Kuaiji County. The remaining young men and women selected for this expansion of the army can also arrange farming in these places. If there are more, they can wait to be relocated to Yuzhang and Danyang.
Liu Feng now only dislikes the small number of people, not the large number of people.
Even if the number is doubled, when Jingzhou is captured, it will be a mess and the empty Nanyang County will be able to arrange millions of people. This doesn’t even count the land that can be confiscated in Jingzhou.
Apart from anything else, Huangzu of Jiangxia will definitely refuse to surrender. Once Jiangxia County is captured, the Huangzu family's farmland alone will definitely not be less than hundreds of thousands of acres, and may even be more than one million acres.
You must know that Huang Zu raised 20,000 buddies in Jiangxia by himself. These buddies plus their families amounted to more than 100,000. Food and drink for a year would cost 1.5 million shi. above.
There is not that much land, and there is no way to support so many tribes.
This time Liu Feng and Liu Bei had agreed to give priority to the experienced prisoners of war from Sun Jiajun and Yuan Shujun. The first batch of 30,000 people had already set off, and they were all carefully selected brave men.
Yang Xiu didn't know this, he looked shocked and asked in surprise: "May I ask how many soldiers and horses Ming Gong has now?"
Liu Feng glanced at him and replied solemnly: "Seventy or eighty thousand soldiers and horses."
Even if the army is expanded to at least 150,000, it will be doubled.
This made Yang Xiu secretly speechless and shocked.
Around the emperor, I was used to seeing warriors running rampant and doing evil.
There were only 70,000 to 80,000 warriors in Xiliang, and Li Jue only had more than 20,000 people. He already had the courage to bully the emperor and give orders to the government. Who would have thought that Liu Feng, a humble man, already had a victorious army of 70,000 to 80,000 men, and now he wanted to expand it to 150,000 men.
From the looks of it, today's emperor is really out of his mind. At first, he was as obedient as a rabbit in front of Li Jue, and he still knew how to pretend to be submissive to appease the other party. However, when he came to Liu Feng, he had the courage to play tricks.
It's a pity that he found the wrong person, Yang Xiu sighed secretly in his heart, and felt a little disrespectful to the emperor, so he quickly gave up the idea.
Since the topic of army expansion was mentioned, Liu Feng happened to have something he wanted to talk about.
In this expansion of the army, Liu Feng wanted to try three things, but he lacked confidence and was quite hesitant.
This is a good time to listen to the opinions of everyone present.
"Gentlemen, in this expansion of the army, I intend to recruit the best of the entire army, organize and train it into a type A army, named the front-destroying army, and temporarily set up ten battalions with 20,000 people, so that they can be the elite of the entire army."
Liu Feng looked at the reactions of everyone in the hall and said slowly: "What do you think?"
Everyone in the hall looked at each other and fell into thinking.
In fact, Liu Feng's idea was not the first. The Central Army established by Emperor Guangwu followed this method.
But for now, Liu Feng's vision is still slightly different from Emperor Guangwu's Central Army. Emperor Guangwu's Central Army and Northern Army, in addition to being elite field armies, also served as officer corps and non-commissioned officer corps.
The Eastern Han Dynasty had a fixed mobilization system, but it was limited to Sili.
Once faced with a large-scale war and the tens of thousands of Central Army troops under the central government's control are not enough, the entire Sili army will be urgently recruited to expand the army. At the same time, the North and South Army will serve as the backbone of officers and non-commissioned officers to fill the expanded army. As for Sili's Sanhe Knights and Infantrymen, they are all from good families. They have combat skills and military experience, as well as institutional advantages. They can be put into actual combat after only a short training under the leadership of officers and non-commissioned officers.
The Destroy the Front Army set up by Liu Feng was not like this, but was more similar to the concept of an elite field army, closer to the North and South Army after the expansion of the army.
But even if there are these differences, everyone in the hall is well-informed, resourceful and talented people, so they can naturally distinguish and see clearly.
Yang Xiu became more active now and was the first to speak: "This strategy is feasible. The Northern and Southern armies decided by Guangwu will be expanded based on this. It's just..."
Liu Feng is quite tolerant of Yang Xiu. This is not because he is a good person, nor because he likes Yang Xiu, but because Yang Xiu is profitable.
Don't look at the fact that the Yang family is now in dire straits and can be suppressed and ravaged by Liu Feng and Cao Cao at will. But when it comes to facing Yuan Shao, the Yang family's brand name is still quite useful, especially when competing for the reputation of the noble family.
This time, Yang Xiu had nothing to do with the Jingzhou strategy, but Liu Feng still dragged him into the game, which was actually a test of Yang Xiu.
"Dezu speaks frankly when he has something to say."
Liu Feng waved his hand magnanimously, signaling Yang Xiu to continue: "You should know in the future that we will never offend others with our words, so you can speak out boldly."
Yang Xiu was a little surprised, suppressed the admiration that arose in his heart, and continued: "General Qi, it's just that at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the pay for the Northern and Southern armies set up by Guangwu was very generous, with a monthly salary of five baht, grain, cloth, and salt. There are also rewards during the New Year, and even the lowest level sergeant has a total income of at least 80 to 120 dan a year.”
The income of one hundred and twenty shi of grain mentioned by Yang Xiu is the soldier's net income. It is the income that can be taken back to support the family after excluding his personal food, drink and clothing. Of course, this income will not all be food. Generally, it is half money and half in kind. The kind also includes cloth, salt and grain.
In addition, the income Yang Xiu mentioned was actually twice that of the county assistant official, who was the lowest official in the county court. Those who can earn such a high income must be the standing armies of the North and South armies, that is, professional soldiers.
Service soldiers drawn from all over the country cannot earn such a high salary, which is only about half to one-third of that of professional soldiers.
But even so, it is still very generous, after all, it includes food and accommodation.
With the collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty, local forces expanded their armies wildly, and natural and man-made disasters continued incessantly, causing refugees to spread everywhere.
At this point in time, many of the various princes did not pay military salaries, or only paid military salaries to elite troops. The ordinary troops were exhausted and had nothing to eat.
By the time of Yuan Cao's Battle of Guandu, the soldiers began to receive military pay, but it was still not much. After all, even during the Cao Rui period, Cao Wei's central army's pay in the north was less than one-third of that of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
It is conceivable how shabby the lives of the soldiers under the current various forces are. On the contrary, the soldiers of the early princes such as Liu Zhang were treated better because their territories had not experienced the destruction of large-scale wars and could still recover. A large amount of food and taxes can support soldiers and horses.
But even so, the treatment they gave was quite low, at most it was slightly better than that in the Central Plains. Yang Xiu asked this question with all his heart. After all, the Yang family has been a public official for generations, and his ancestors were four Taiwei.
Yang Xiu had some research and understanding of the military system, and he soon realized that if Liu Feng wanted to select elites and form an army alone, then the next step would be to pay the elites.
Otherwise, how are the elites different from the masses?
But he was worried that Liu Feng's financial ability was not enough to support such an operation, so he quickly reminded Liu Feng.
Liu Feng had to pay the Destroying Front Army at this time. The difficulty mainly focused on three aspects. The first aspect was the financial pressure that Yang Xiu reminded.
Without money everything is nothing.
Fortunately, Liu Feng had money, and the income in Yangzhou was higher than that in Xuzhou. In the previous war, the treasuries of various counties and prefectures were sealed, and the harvest was extremely rich. At the same time, Liu Bei promised to provide assistance next year. Coupled with Liu Feng's own industries and the farming in Xuzhou and Yuzhou, it is still affordable to raise 20,000 elite troops, or even more.
Now Liu Feng's annual private property income should be in the hundreds of millions, and he is truly as wealthy as any other state.
The grain trade with Liu Biao in the past two years has relied on Liu Feng's endless supply of money and supplies.
However, the situation has changed so far, and Liu Biao's trade will inevitably decline significantly from the second half of the year.
Liu Biao will definitely not stop the trade. Firstly, he is reluctant to part with the huge profits. Secondly, he does not want to break up with Liu Bei. Thirdly, he can no longer suppress the trade desire of the local nobles in Jingzhou.
Almost all official trade between Liu Biao and Liu Bei was eaten up by Liu Biao's family.
But the people below are also greedy for the huge profits. Not to mention other things, the Kuai and Cai families are powerful enough for smuggling, and the Huang family, which is like a vassal town, almost openly uses Jiangxia Navy and Liu Feng to start the business. Smuggling business. Last year alone, Jiangxia imported more than 100,000 shi of grain, all of which were exchanged for supplies such as snow salt, frosting sugar, and sesame oil.
However, Liu Feng did not plan to tell Yang Xiu about these things for the time being, but just affirmed: "The state's finances should be able to squeeze out 250 million yuan for payment every year."
250 million yuan, that is, a monthly share of about 20 million yuan.
Yang Xiu calculated the result in two or three breaths, and immediately responded: "In that case, Xiu thinks it is best to select the best!"
Liu Feng nodded and looked at the others.
Sure enough, everyone in the hall also agreed. This was equivalent to solving two of the three things Liu Feng wanted to do, which was to select elites and form an army to pay them.
Having solved two things so quickly, Liu Feng was a little happy, and then he threw out the third thing: "Gentlemen, this time I choose elites, but I don't just want to pay for the Destroying Front Army."< br>
Yang Xiu and others were shocked when they heard this, and they all looked at Liu Feng.
Just now Liu Feng said personally that he wanted to expand his army to more than 150,000.
Calculated based on 150,000 yuan, if everyone is paid military pay, how much will it cost each month?
If calculated based on the monthly military expenditure of 20 million yuan, each soldier would only receive 133 yuan. Moreover, the salary of officers is much higher than that of soldiers, and the lowest officer's salary is twice that of soldiers. Mid-level officers start at least five times, and senior officers start with dozens of times.
We can't let officers and soldiers receive the same military pay, right?
Liu Feng saw that everyone wanted to dissuade him, but he raised his hand to stop them one step ahead.
Immediately, Liu Feng stood up and walked back and forth thinking.
He knew that if he said this, he would definitely attract everyone's opposition, but it would not work if he didn't say it.
Liu Feng needs to adjust from these objections, and at the same time, he can avoid making mistakes himself.
If your plan can be approved by the counselors after adjustment, then many potential problems and dangers will be eliminated, which is a very important thing.
As for why it was clearly a military proposal but was discussed with the scribes first, the reason is also very simple.
How can a warrior not want to expand his army?
After discussing with them, except for a few people like Zhao Yun who are very knowledgeable and have strategic vision, the more troops the better, the more the better.
"My lord, do you want to provide military pay to the entire army?"
Zhuge Liang asked softly from the side.
Liu Feng nodded heavily: "That's right."
"I'm afraid..."
Pang Tong hesitated and said: "The resistance is huge."
Liu Feng nodded again, this matter was not limited to General Zuo's system.
All the troops under Liu Feng are paid, what about the troops under Liu Bei's system?
To follow or not to follow?
In fact, in Liu Bei's territory now, it is not difficult to provide military pay to the entire army. After all, the rich are rich and the poor are poor. Even if you give each soldier a hundred dollars a month, or even dozens of dollars, the soldiers will only be happy and not dissatisfied.
But the financial pressure is indeed extremely huge. For an army of 250,000 to 300,000 people, even if each person is only given 20 yuan, it will cost at least 60 million yuan a year.
Xuzhou's annual revenue is only 200 million, which is equivalent to one-third of Xuzhou's total fiscal revenue.
The most important thing is that this expenditure does not exist in the first place. A sudden increase will inevitably arouse considerable opposition.
It is naturally impossible for the ingenuity of Zhuge Liang and others not to see this, so they hesitate.
But Liu Feng knew very well that this matter was inevitable.
It should be noted that people do not suffer from scarcity but from inequality. Elite troops can receive more salary rewards based on their strength, but other troops cannot live without them.
Under the premise that everyone has a salary, the amount of salary will stimulate the soldiers to be more brave and dare to fight. But if salaries are distributed differently, the morale of ordinary troops will be lost.
You can't just rely on 20,000 troops to conquer the world in the future, right?
It would be better not to reorganize it.
(End of chapter)