A journey to the heavens starting from the Red Mansion

Chapter 147 Expansion of the Army
Next is the military issue, which is the core work at present.

In terms of military weapons, Su Xinghe followed Lin Yao's orders and summoned craftsmen from the Liangzhe Road and other valuable talents who were ridiculed by the scholar-bureaucrats for their uncanny skills.

Prepare to use Hangzhou's rich mineral resources and shipping resources to build an arsenal covering the two Zhejiang roads.

The previous decentralized production of small workshops was ended and a larger and more centralized military factory was built.

Compared with the previous insufficient production of spears, swords, heavy axes, crossbows, and armor, the improved production efficiency can greatly alleviate the pressure on military logistics.

Further reducing dependence on Lin Yao laid the foundation for future military development of muskets and artillery.

Nowadays, under Lin Yao's rule, there is a shortage of sulfur and nitrate, and he cannot afford large-scale firearms.

Due to insufficient raw materials for the production of gunpowder, the arsenal was unable to produce gunpowder on a large scale, and the rebels had rarely used firearms before.

Small scale firearms are pointless and can be replaced by the lower cost more powerful God's Arm Bow.

But this does not mean that the rebel army does not have technical reserves of gunpowder and firearms. In fact, it does have a large number of them, but it can only wait until it is accumulated later.

After all, black powder with simple production technology is very weak, and it is impossible to make guns and artillery stronger than crossbows.

The production process of powerful gunpowder is very complicated. Forcibly "grafting" would be a waste of Lin Yao's energy and the gain would outweigh the loss.

In fact, the rebel army has always been eager to build a large arsenal. After taking control of the two Zhejiang roads, the arsenal in Hangzhou was built.

The arsenal was built near Hangzhou Bay and not far from Hangzhou City.It already has a preliminary scale and is still gradually expanding.

The geographical environment of this place is very advantageous, and resources from other regions can be coordinated through sea transportation.

Moreover, this place itself is next to an iron ore mine, so there is no need to worry about the resources for early production.

The Hangzhou government of the Song Dynasty mined and smelted iron here. After the rebel army captured Hangzhou City, they took over the mining area and took over all the facilities here.

There used to be a few government officials stationed in this mining area, supervising hundreds of miners. These miners lived a harder life than the tenant farmers, and death and injury were not uncommon.

After Lin Yao took over this mining area, he also gave them the opportunity to choose. They could either continue mining and enjoy the generous rewards from the rebels, or they could change their registration to ordinary civilian households.

Both parties have quotas for dividing fields, and those who are miners have even more quotas.

These people also had families and families. Faced with Lin Yao's generous conditions, they were naturally willing to fight for more land for their families, and joined his subordinates one after another to continue their original work.

If Lin Yao didn't have a stable source of troops, he would also learn from Qi Jiajun's method of recruiting miners to form an army.

Compared with farmers, miners are "trained" and have a certain degree of organization. They have been a good source of soldiers since ancient times.

Now, he doesn't need to force these already hard-working people.

When managing the mine, Lin Yao also proposed to expand personnel through recruitment.

I believe that the generous remuneration can recruit many surplus laborers from their families to join in the mining work.

This measure allows the lower class to have more jobs, have more disposable money, and improve their happiness in life.

Not only that, by improving textile technology and setting up textile factories, women can become workers.

However, these all take time, and raw materials are still insufficient. Compared with the high cost of silk, Lin Yao values ​​​​cotton more.

Originally, cotton was cultivated in small quantities during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but it became widely popularized more than 100 years later, when the Song Dynasty was almost gone.

Therefore, Lin Yao plans to speed up the popularization of large-scale cotton planting, and by creating a machine for picking cotton seeds, cotton can become mainstream.

After everything is ready, Wang Yuyan's call will further allow women to participate in the construction and work together.

Of course, supervision must be done well to prevent some people from making textile factories dirty.In fact, the Song Dynasty was unexpectedly fashionable in some weird ways. There were hired cooks and servants very early on, and the public's view of women was not so oppressive.

It was only in the late Northern Song Dynasty that the ruling ideology of the Song Dynasty became more and more harsh on the oppression of the lower classes, and the bad habit of foot binding began to appear.

The scholar-officials couldn't defeat the foreigners, so they used their efforts to oppress women.

……

Peasants who pass the test can become auxiliary soldiers or escorts. After the outstanding ones are converted into regular soldiers, the number of regular troops in various places will be increased.

This rather effective process greatly ensured that the combat effectiveness of the regular rebel army would not be reduced too much by the newly added soldiers.

The number of rebels continued to increase, with the number of regular and reserve soldiers reaching 8.

With no shortage of troops and the army becoming increasingly bloated, the rebel army followed Lin Yao's order and began to expand its army.

The size of the army was expanded again, to eight division-level units.

In order to facilitate management, Lin Yao formally established two main army units of the rebel army. The first division was changed to the Xuanjia Army, and the second division was changed to the Trap Army.

Each army has one general and four lieutenants.

Each army has four divisions under its jurisdiction. The deputy general serves as the commander-in-chief and two deputy commander-in-chiefs.

Each division has five regiments under its jurisdiction. Each regiment has one regiment commander and two deputy regiment commanders.

Each regiment has four battalions, each battalion has one commander and two deputy commanders.

The demand for military officers at all levels has increased, and training tasks have been further intensified.

Faced with this military reorganization, Lin Yao made some adjustments to military personnel.

He transferred some experienced officers from the original [-]st Division, including the [-]nd Division, which had recently joined, and also selected various outstanding soldiers to serve as officers in the [-]rd to [-]th Divisions.

Up to now, the changes seem to be huge, but in fact, it has only been less than two years.

As long as the disciples of the Xiaoyao Sect and the thousand "old people" are still alive, they have all entered the middle-level officer level. Even the 5000 people who joined later have entered the middle-lower officer level.

Some of the soldiers who joined the rebel army during the change of ownership of the "Two Zhejiang Roads" also became officers and began to lead the newcomers in training and operations.

The tight time accelerated their growth.However, there is nothing that can be done about it. The uprising is still short, and the army is expanding too fast.

As the rebel army gradually grew, many young officers followed in Lin Yao's footsteps, growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Just like the Peixian Group of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty and the Huaisi Group of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, the civil servants and generals had extraordinary abilities.

But this is not because they are all talented people, but because they follow the right people.I got enough experience and growth opportunities, and relied on survivor bias to survive until the end.

Therefore, why the founding emperor could calmly kill famous generals, but these generals could only die obediently.

"A thousand-mile horse often exists, but a bole does not often exist."

Since Lin Yao studied the ancient "Horse Theory", he no longer believes that talent is the most important. Instead, he feels that talent is important, but it is useless without opportunities.

Without suitable growth opportunities, talents can only be lost among the crowd.

Therefore, there is really no need for those seniors who traveled back in time to collect famous ministers and generals in history. There are talents everywhere whose potential has not yet been explored. They can try to cultivate them themselves.

(End of this chapter)