Chapter 443 Problems caused by military expansion
"I must remind you here not to think that the existing thousands of troops are enough to protect our personal safety and interests. Our military is indeed stronger than its contemporary opponents in terms of combat effectiveness, but its shortcomings are also very obvious, that is Troop size." Yan Chujie made a gesture, and the orderly immediately hung a new map on the wall. It could be seen that the Military Commission had made considerable preparations for today's meeting.
The scope of this newly hung map is even wider, covering almost all areas currently accessible to Haihan ships.
Yan Chujie pointed to the map and continued to explain: "Please see, in addition to Hainan Island, we are currently actively expanding our power to the northeast and south, and have achieved very good results, but the land we occupy is not unreachable. The main land must be protected by armed forces. You may wish to think about it. Can an army of one company really control the Indochina Peninsula in the south if it is as vast as the Pearl River Estuary? The planned port areas are waiting to be developed. These port areas will become our overseas territories in the future. Why not send troops to garrison them? There is also a five-year plan formulated before we crossed over. One of them is to achieve actual military control of Hainan Island. It is now the third year after time travel, and we are still quite far away from this goal. If we want to achieve actual control of the entire island, I think the number of militia groups stationed on the island must be maintained at least two regiments. , and we only have two battalions now.”
When everyone at the meeting heard this, they began to whisper among themselves. After all, Yan Chujie's tone this time was different from before, and he had clearly proposed the establishment of a regiment-level combat system. If calculated based on the most basic establishment, if the current militia army stationed on the island is to be expanded to the regiment level, then at least half of the troops must be added. If it is the "enhanced" establishment that the military has always pursued, then it will have to be expanded now. Doubling the scale is enough.
For ordinary militia soldiers, the total annual salary, ordnance and uniforms, daily consumption, training expenses, etc. are approximately 200 yuan per person per year to maintain. This does not include wartime rewards for official operations. , post-war pension rewards, etc. are included. The current establishment of the Army's first battalion is a reinforced battalion of about a thousand people, which means that it requires at least 200,000 yuan in military expenditures to increase the establishment of a battalion. This is just a very conservative estimate. If we include the costs of recruitment, training, and the elimination of soldiers during the training process, the actual military expenditure will increase by at least one-tenth. In addition, in the army's establishment, battalion-level units will also be equipped with artillery companies. Although artillery is a separately organized service, adding an artillery company is also an expense that cannot be ignored.
What is the concept of two hundred thousand yuan? This is almost half of the annual output value of the Shengli Port Saltworks Commune, and about one-thirtieth of Haihan's fiscal revenue last year. It is definitely not a dispensable amount. The military's previous expansion plans have always been based on companies, but this time it can be regarded as a big move.
"Is it really necessary to directly expand to regiment-level combat units?" Gu Kai first questioned: "Now the company-level officers of the militia are basically our own people. If it is expanded to the regiment level, then company-level officers Can we still maintain the current specifications? ”
"If we expand to the regiment level, we will probably have to promote some naturalized civilian officers. At least there will be a large number of naturalized civilian officers at the deputy company level. But I don't think this is a problem. We have done it several times A group of qualified grassroots officers have been gradually discovered and trained in the battle, and they have gradually taken over the command of the front-line troops. This is also a necessary process." In order to show that his views are well-founded, Yan Chujie also gave an example. Explained: "For example, grassroots officers like Gao Qiaonan and Yu Tiezhu, whose loyalty and personal abilities are not in question, can be promoted to company commanders now. And we ourselves can also be promoted to battalion commanders as the tide goes up. Department, regiment headquarters, or serve in the staff department.”
"No, no, no, I think you have misunderstood me." Gu Kai shook his head and said: "I am not worried about the career prospects of our people in the military system, but what can these naturalized civilian officers do after they are promoted? They cannot reach the same or similar level of command. You must know that they do not know how to play high-tech gadgets such as radios and walkie-talkies. The command system they can understand and use should still be at the level of using flags, gongs and drums. "< br>
Yan Chujie said: "Don't underestimate the naturalized civilian officers. These people don't have much education and their knowledge is very limited. But as long as they have potential, they are basically selected into the officer training class for long-term training. Even if They don’t have walkie-talkies to use, but they have various actual combat examples and battle-tested tactics that we brought from hundreds of years later. They also have maps, sandboxes, and powerful weapons to assist them. I can guarantee that these will be naturalized. The tactical level and awareness of civilian officers are definitely far beyond those of their contemporary opponents. They are not stupider than you and me, they just need a window to see the outside world.”
"How to solve the problem of expanding military spending? This year's budget probably doesn't include this part, right?" Seeing that Yan Chujie couldn't argue with him from this angle, Gu Kai had no choice but to question in another direction.
"It is indeed not included in the budget, but this year's revenue in South Vietnam is also not included in the budget." Yan Chujie argued calmly: "Our seizures in Hue, plus the military expenses paid by Thang Long after the war, reduced After deducting our operational expenses, there is still a considerable amount of revenue that has been used for the navy expansion plan in the first half of the year, but there is still some balance that can be used for the expansion of the army.”
When Yan Chujie said this, he proudly shook his two fingers and said, "At least it is enough to expand the establishment of two battalions."
"But military spending is not a one-time investment. The expansion of two battalions this year means that next year's military spending will also increase by hundreds of thousands!" Gu Kai continued to question Yan Chujie's statement.
"This is normal! Will our fiscal revenue next year stay at this year's level?" Yan Chujie spread his hands and said: "In that case, I think the target of your complaint should not be the military, but General Manager Shi Commerce and Finance Department”
Schneider smiled and answered: "I didn't say a word, so why did I have to lie down and get shot?"
"Who asked you to take care of the money bag?" Yan Chujie teased.
"Well, since we are talking about money, let me briefly share my personal views." Schneider put away his smile and said in a deep voice: "Currently, we still maintain a considerable surplus in the import and export trade with Guangdong. , I am personally optimistic about the growth of trade income in the coming year. However, considering that most of the construction projects currently underway are expensive and slow to produce results, and the expenditure on resettlement will increase year by year, I think the increase next year The military budget still needs to be cautious. Of course, I personally do not oppose the military’s intention to expand the military. I just hope that the military will also consider the financial pressure that the military scale will bring in the future.” What you mean is that it is okay to expand the military, but the military budget has to be increased by the military itself." Yan Chujie quickly figured out the clues from Schneider's series of official words.
"At least there must be such mental preparation." Schneider readily admitted Yan Chujie's guess: "After all, in this year and next, the Shilu project is our first priority. The total amount of funds required for this project will exceed The sum of all our colonization projects, in order to ensure that this project will not be delayed due to funding issues, we may have to exercise stricter control over other expenditure budgets, including the military budget, in the future."
"That means that in order to raise military spending, we must launch a new round of war?" Yan Chujie shook his head repeatedly: "It is not impossible to support war with war, but we don't have many opponents to choose from now. The Ming Dynasty is far away. Recently, we can't fight. Annan is an ally and the Portuguese are trading partners. The Spanish and the Dutch have no scruples about it. But the problem is that our naval power is not enough, and we can't reach them at all now. Moreover, there is no guarantee of victory against these two companies at sea.”
"It is not necessary to obtain profits through war. You can think of other ways." Schneider expanded the topic: "For example, you can increase the trade volume of arms. Haihan Military Industry's profits from exporting various weapons and military supplies. Your military also has a share, doesn't it? For the arms trade, two hundred thousand yuan is just a few thousand muskets, or one or two hundred artillery pieces. As long as we are willing to sell, market demand is not a problem at all. Yes, it’s time for us to consider cooperating with Ming Dynasty and selling weapons directly to the government. The demand and solvency of Ming Dynasty’s military are not comparable to that of Annan or Xu Xinsu.”
When Schneider said this, his eyes turned to Tao Donglai. This kind of adjustment of foreign policy must be based on Tao Donglai's opinion.
Tao Donglai, who had been listening quietly, saw that everyone's eyes began to focus on him, so he responded: "It is not impossible to cooperate with the Ming government, but the main thing is to look at the external conditions of the environment. To put it simply, that is Let’s see if Ming Dynasty really needs external help like us. If we operate it properly, we can certainly obtain huge economic benefits from the arms trade, and even reach some exchange conditions that are beneficial to our own development like in Annan. But what if. If the operation is not done well, or the timing is wrong, it will be easy for Ming to regard us as a threat and generate unnecessary hostility.”
"About the external environment... Ning Qi, what do you think?" Tao Donglai expressed his attitude, and then quickly kicked the ball to Ning Qi's feet.
As one of the very few people within the Executive Committee who is familiar with the historical environment, Ning Qi is shouldering his responsibility. He cleared his throat and said: "The biggest thing in the first half of this year is probably that Emperor Chongzhen issued an order to finalize Wei Zhongxian's case. Cui Chengxiu, Liu Zhixuan and others were sentenced to beheading, and then more than a hundred accomplices were sent to the army. Others were sentenced to three years in prison and were reduced to civilian jobs. They were lucky enough to escape. In addition, there was a famine in Shaanxi, and there were peasants among the people. An uprising was organized, but it did not create much momentum and was quickly suppressed by the troops led by Hong Chengchou. ”
"Is there anything related to us?" Bai Kesi asked.
Ning Qi nodded and said: "There is one related thing. Xu Guangqi, the Minister of Rites, because the old calendar calculated the solar eclipse in May this year was inaccurate, he wrote to Emperor Chongzhen, asking to refer to the Western calendar. This was approved by the emperor, and he allowed Xu Guangqi is responsible for supervising the compilation of the new calendar, so when communicating with the Ming court in the future, at least there will be common ground in this regard. ”
"But it has no direct effect on what we just said." Yan Chujie also said a little impatiently: "Have any major military-related events happened? Especially on the northern battlefield."
"A big event?" Ning Qi thought for a while before nodding and responded: "A big event really happened this month. Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao Wenlong in Shuangdao. Is this considered a big event?"
There are different opinions in history about Yuan Chonghuan's false edict to kill Mao Wenlong. Dong Qichang, Yuan Keli, Sun Chengzong and others all have relatively positive comments on Mao Wenlong's behavior of guarding the border and resisting the enemy. Moreover, there are two stone tablets erected on Dalu Island in the sixth year of Tianqi and the first year of Chongzhen. One of the stone tablets is engraved with Mao Wenlong's The oath to kill the enemy: "The whole Liao Dynasty will be restored soon. With this, we will serve the country wholeheartedly and our loyalty will be based on this." This shows that this person still has a loyal and patriotic side.
Negative evaluations of him in history mostly pointed out that Mao Wenlong was arrogant, acted recklessly, and deliberately exaggerated his military achievements in order to ask for more military pay and supplies from the court. However, Yuan Chonghuan recklessly corrected the twelve major crimes and killed Mao Wenlong, which directly caused the local garrison to become disheartened, so that they later rebelled against the country and surrendered to the enemy.
When Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao Wenlong, he probably did not expect that his behavior of ignoring the emperor's orders would become one of his life-threatening talismans in the future. Only half a year later, Yuan Chonghuan was imprisoned for poor command. In August of the next year, he was sentenced to Lingchi for negotiating peace with the Qing army without authorization and killing Mao Wenlong without authorization. In addition, his family moved three thousand miles away and all their property was confiscated. It can be said that the family was ruined.
The debate about Yuan Chonghuan has lasted for hundreds of years in another time and space. Some people think that he is a national hero, while others think that he is a traitor who had an affair with the Manchus. However, Ning Qi had no intention of provoking a debate here. Instead, he went straight to the point of the issue: "In the second half of this year, Hou Jin's troops were divided into Sanlu and attacked the pass from Da'ankou, Longjing Pass, and Hongshan Pass. To the capital. Although they still retreated at the end of the year, this entry still caused great losses and impact to Ming Dynasty. If we want to achieve military cooperation with Ming Dynasty, I suggest that we consider how to use this year. Military Trends in the North in Half a Year ”
(End of chapter)