I want to be emperor

Chapter 96 Expansion: The First Infantry Battalion

Luo Zhixue will continue to expand the rural protection camp!
Soldiers are the easiest thing to deal with. As long as Luo Zhixue raises the banner of recruiting soldiers, he only needs to be given a bite of food, and there will be a lot of young and strong recruits outside.

In addition, some experienced veterans, cavalry, archers and other technical arms can also be obtained from prisoners of war.

Regarding the issue of food and grass, although this is a big problem, it is more focused on the food and grass needed for long-term maintenance in the future, and there is no shortage of food and grass in the short-term rural protection camp.

Just now the Rural Protection Camp can support an army of more than 5000 people for about a year.

The problem is that it can only be fed for one year. If you can't get enough food within a year, you will starve to death!

But even so, there is no problem with food and grass in the short term.

Now the biggest problem restricting the expansion of the Rural Battalion is all kinds of equipment!

The expansion of infantry and artillery is actually simpler. The only thing that restricts the expansion of infantry is muskets. Although the musket factory is constantly expanding its production, the output in a short period of time is far from keeping up with the needs of the Baoxiangying.

However, Luo Zhixue intends to equip some of the main force first, and the other part of the newly formed troops will use cold weapons first, and then change their equipment when the production capacity of muskets comes up later.

At the same time, the two-hundred-jin light artillery needed by the infantry is also simple. The existing ten guns are divided into one point, which is enough for three infantry battalions. It will not be difficult to expand the army and organize the fourth, fifth, and sixth battalions in the future.

As long as the raw materials are sufficient, the production of this thing is very simple, and it is far less difficult than the [-]-jin long cannon. With the production capacity of the Songshan Village Artillery Factory, a batch of [-]-jin light cannons can be produced quickly to equip the troops if there is demand.

But the [-]-jin long cannon is more troublesome, not to mention that it needs to consume more iron materials, and casting takes too long.

At present, the Cannon Factory still uses the traditional mud molding process for casting cannons. It takes about two and a half months for a cannon to start from making molds and then leaving the factory.

The main reason is that it takes too long to dry the clay fan mold naturally, and it takes more than a month in good weather. In addition to the time of other processes, it is not easy to make it in more than two months.

After the artillery factory moved to Songshan Village, a new round of casting of [-]-jin artillery began, and this batch of artillery would not be completed until mid-February at the earliest.

This batch consists of four artillery pieces, plus the current two pieces, just enough to be used by the first artillery post for long-range fire suppression and strikes.

It is estimated that the six [-]-jin artillery needed for the second artillery post that is expected to be established in the future will not be able to make up six more until April.

The third artillery post in the future is even more unpredictable, because the Baoxiangying temporarily does not even have the iron materials needed to cast the third batch of artillery. If you want to make the third batch of artillery, you must first collect enough iron. Besides, if there is no iron material, the production of artillery is like a dream in the mirror. No matter how many craftsmen there are, no matter how strong the technology is, it will be useless.

The casting of the artillery was affected by many factors such as the long time it took to manufacture, the small number of craftsmen, and the lack of raw materials, so it could not be fast for the time being.

In order to save labor and raw materials, the artillery factory now restricts the casting of two-hundred-pound cannons, otherwise thirty or thirty two-pound light cannons would have been produced long ago.

Whether it is infantry or artillery, no matter whether it is difficult or not, the rural protection battalion has a way to solve it, at most it will take a long time.

Only the expansion of the cavalry is difficult to rely on the strength of the Rural Protection Battalion itself.

Because cavalry expansion requires a large number of professional cavalry and qualified war horses.

War horses are all right, the Baoxiang camp has captured a lot of horses in several battles, among which hundreds of horses can be picked up and used for riding.

But horses can barely be found, but qualified cavalry is hard to find.

According to the current standards of the cavalry of the Baoxiang Battalion, good riding skills are the most basic, and they must be able to ride and shoot.

However, cavalrymen who can ride and shoot are hard to find. This thing is harder to train than a gunner.

Artillery can also select some good seedlings, and train hard enough to cultivate some. After all, the number of people needed is not many, and concentrating on cultivating a dozen or twenty can temporarily solve the problem.

However, it is impossible to train hundreds of cavalry who can play cavalry and archery in a short period of time.

Cavalry is the same thing as archers. It is difficult to cultivate in a short period of time, and there is no way to speed it up.

At most, it's just a bunch of half-baked guys.

And the half-baked cavalry will die miserably against the elite cavalry.

The more than 100 slack cavalry under Chuang Potian's command before were hanged and beaten by the elite cavalry like Wang Xiazi all the way, so it can be said that they were powerless to resist.

This made Luo Zhixue very headache, but there was no good solution. He could only increase his efforts to recruit or even select from prisoners of war.
For example, among these rogue prisoners of war, a dozen or so who could ride and shoot could barely be found, and they were lured into the village protection camp by threats and lures.

The rest are trained from some people who are good at riding. Even if they can't play riding and archery, they must be able to charge with a saber at any rate.

As for the later stage, Luo Zhixue thought about getting a cavalry pistol for the cavalry. Since it is too difficult to play cavalry and archery, he can directly play pistol cavalry.

When Luo Zhixue revealed to Zhang Malin that the battalion-level organization was going to be established, he didn't keep Zhang Malin a secret, so it didn't take long for Xiazi Wang and Er Yongduo to know about it.

We are not surprised by this.

They also know that with the expansion of the scale of the rural protection battalion, it is inevitable to increase the establishment of a larger level.

And they didn't understand the specific compilation, so they didn't participate, and they did what Luo Zhixue said.

On the other hand, Huang Guangmao, the general who was demoted, was very interested in the new establishment, and thought that these things were something he was good at and could play a role in. That night, he excitedly took a report on the new establishment that he had written to Luo Zhixue.

Even though Luo Zhixue would not accept the many opinions put forward by Huang Guangmao, Luo Zhixue was still very pleased about it.

This means that the surrendered generals represented by Huang Guangmao have been fully integrated into the big family of Baoxiangying, and have made suggestions for the development of Baoxiangying.

However, more people are concerned about the selection of the chief officer of the new establishment after the establishment of the senior establishment.

Promotion, this is what they pay more attention to.

For this reason, except for Wang Xiazi, the cavalry general, and Zhang Malin, the artillery general who sat firmly on the Diaoyutai, the other infantry generals such as Lin Dongsheng were all staring.

After cleaning the battlefield and returning to Songjiazhuang, Luo Zhixue didn't keep his generals waiting too long. The next day, he announced the plan to set up the [-]st Infantry Battalion, the [-]nd Infantry Battalion and the [-]rd Infantry Battalion.

Among them, the first infantry battalion took the lead in forming an army, and the second infantry battalion and the second infantry battalion trained while forming.

In terms of the establishment of the infantry battalion, he mainly referred to the fifth post, and also referred to some of Huang Guangmao's opinions, and even listened to the opinions of Lin Dongsheng, Wang Xiazi and others.

But in the end, Luo Zhixue's own ideas were the main ones.

That is to expand with the establishment of the fifth post as the core.

When Luo Zhixue was working on the fifth post, he was fighting in line.

The previous fifth sentry consisted of sixty spearmen and sixty musketeers, together with more than a dozen sword and shield players, archers, and a number of officers, messengers, cooks, coachmen, etc., were finally established. New infantry formation.

This also led to the fifth infantry post having more troops than the other four posts, reaching a scale of about 150 people, and thirty spearmen among them were also issued armor.

However, during the actual combat, Luo Zhixue found that the scale of the fifth post was still too small, because the number of troops was too small, and the width of the lines formed by it was too small, so it was easy for the enemy to bypass it.

In view of this situation, Luo Zhixue's response method is simple and rude: directly increase the troops!

According to the principle of one-to-one musketeers and spearmen, each of the spearmen and musketeers was expanded to 210 six people.

In the specific array, there are spearmen in the middle and musketeers on both sides.

There are 36 spearmen in each row, six rows in front and back, a total of 210 six spearmen, and the front row of spearmen is equipped with armor; these spearmen are divided into two posts.

There are musketeers on both sides of the formation. Each row of musketeers on one side has 18 people. The same is six rows. There are 210 people on one side of the musketeers. post.

The above-mentioned 430 two together constitute the core combat power of the infantry battalion.

In addition, in order to ensure the combat diversity of the infantry battalion, in addition to these core forces, a reconnaissance team must be assigned to perform other tasks such as reconnaissance and cover line operations.

This reconnaissance team is actually playing the traditional mandarin duck formation, equipped with armored swords and shields, light swords and shields, archers or musketeers, and spearmen.

Arrange another artillery team equipped with three [-]-jin light artillery to strengthen the direct firepower of the infantry battalion.

The above-mentioned combat forces plus the battalion officers, officer guards, messengers, and auxiliary personnel such as cooks, coachmen, grooms, and medical soldiers, it is estimated that the strength of each battalion will reach about 550.

According to Luo Zhixue's conception, three such infantry battalions form an inverted formation during combat, and together with at least six [-]-jin field artillery and at least one sentry cavalry unit, form an independent battle group for use in the field. Used in large-scale combat.

Of course, it is unrealistic to have three such infantry battalions now, because there are not so many muskets and not so many armors.

Now counting the muskets seized and self-made in the Baoxiang camp, the total number is only about 200, which is only enough for one battalion.

The lack of armor is even worse. After ensuring the supply of armor for the cavalry battalion, the armor in the infantry unit has always been very small. Now the battalion still lacks enough armor for training, and it can only be used as much as it has.

Because of the lack of equipment, Luo Zhixue decided to use the fifth post as the core, join the first post that had already started musket training, and then transferred some spearmen, sword and shield players, and archers from other posts.

The above-mentioned forces are first organized into a combat-capable first infantry battalion as the main force, while the second infantry battalion and the third infantry battalion are training and fighting at the same time.

Because the personnel and equipment are ready-made, and because they can be reorganized and adjusted directly, the formation of the army is very fast. Just five days after the announcement of the establishment of the First Infantry Battalion, the personnel and equipment of the battalion are already in place.

But it will take a certain amount of time for the soldiers to use new tactics.

As for the chief officers of the battalions, which attracted the attention of many generals, Luo Zhixue also made an announcement after careful consideration.

(End of this chapter)