The effect of the [Hundred Family Holy Lands] on NPCs was slowly becoming apparent in the army.
Sun Chuanlin, Shao Bu, Sun Tengjiao, Zhao Yan, Liao Kai and the other local generals had all broken through the barrier to become high ranking military generals.
In the near future, Shanhai City would welcome a large number of local high ranking military generals.
The position of Division Commander no longer needed to be held by historical generals. For the future expansion of Shanhai City's army, the most difficult problem of high ranking military generals had been solved.
Other than that, with the operation of the army's martial hall, when the first batch of students graduated, there would be a large number of professional officers, including logistics officers, secretaries, staff officers etc, who would join the various divisions.
In the future, every division would be able to fight independently.
Replenishing soldiers, expanding the garrison division, reorganizing the Leopard Tao Army, in the entire process, only a hundred thousand prisoners of war were used up, leaving close to a hundred thousand prisoners of war waiting to be reorganized.
Out of the hundred thousand prisoners of war, after deducting the injured and unqualified soldiers, as well as the city defense forces prepared for Zhaoqing County, there were roughly sixty-five thousand people left, enough to form another army.
Ouyang Shuo did not choose to reorganize a new legion. Instead, he decided to expand the existing three legions. The current army was formed by four divisions, each division had 13500 men, for a total of 54000 men.
The army's position was to be able to fight a large war independently. But according to the current development of the war, fifty thousand men was no longer enough to control the situation.
One [Southern Alliance] could easily gather a two hundred thousand man army.
Thus, it was necessary to expand the army.
Ouyang Shuo decided to expand the army from four divisions to five divisions, which was in line with Shanhai City's standard of five divisions. Then, he would equip each army with a direct brigade.
Thus, the army's strength would increase from 54000 to 70000, an increase of 16000 men.
An army of seventy thousand elites was enough to deal with an area war.
To complete the expansion of the three armies, they would need 48000 men, which was equivalent to an entire army.
After the army's expansion, he needed to appoint three division commanders.
Ouyang Shuo's principle was to promote as many generals as possible from the battlefield. Therefore, Shao Bu and Sun Tengjiao, the two cavalry generals, became the commanders of the Fifth Division of the Dragon Xiang Legion and the Tiger Ben Legion respectively.
As for the commander of the Leopard Tao Corps' Fifth Division, one of the generals was promoted from the fallen generals.
In this battle, out of the 200,000 surrendered soldiers, only Di Qing was promoted. Such an obvious difference in treatment would inevitably make the surrendered army bitterly disappointed. After weighing the pros and cons, Ouyang Shuo decided to promote another surrendered general.
The specific candidates would be chosen by Du Ruhui.
After this reorganization, Shanhai City gained four guard divisions and six field combat divisions, resulting in an army of over 130,000 soldiers, which was close to the total number of soldiers it had in the past.
The field army consisted of three main battle legions with a total of 210,000 soldiers. Apart from them, there was also Ouyang Shuo's personal army, the Three Thousand Divine Guards and the Imperial Guard Division.
As for the remaining seventeen thousand captives, Ouyang Shuo transferred them to work as bailiffs.
That's right, a yamen runner.
To raise the status of the Internal Affairs Bureau, apart from giving it the power to investigate cases, the second step was to equip it with a strong team of bailiffs. The bailiffs of the Public Order Bureau were equivalent to the modern police force.
Maintaining law and order, arresting bandits, fighting crime, and other duties were all handed over to the Public Order Bureau.
Thus, it was necessary to establish a strong team of bailiffs.
With enough bailiffs, the Public Order Bureau could further loosen the shackles on the local defense forces, allowing them to specialize in military operations and not neglect their armaments.
Ouyang Shuo's requirement for the local defense forces was to be able to enter the battlefield at any time.
At this point, Ouyang Shuo could be said to have made full use of the 200,000 captives. The reason why he didn't demobilize them like he did in the battle of Leizhou, apart from the objective need to expand the army, was that the overall quality of this batch of captives was higher.
The 200,000 captives were basically all allied forces.
For this battle, the allied forces had mobilized the elites of the territory, and their overall quality was excellent.
Thus, Ouyang Shuo didn't want to waste them.
After all, if he relied on recruiting soldiers, training them, and letting them experience the baptism of the battlefield, it would take at least three months, if not longer.
Reorganizing the captives was a shortcut.
After the battle, not only did the Shanhai City army not weaken, but their strength had increased greatly. Thinking about this, Ouyang Shuo really had to thank the [Southern Alliance] for their wealth.
After confirming the plan, the following reorganization would naturally be carried out by the military office, with the cooperation of the various generals. This reorganization involved hundreds of thousands of soldiers, spanning across all the major armies.
Conservatively speaking, it would take at least a month to complete the initial reorganization.
The military office already had a complete set of procedures for the reorganization of the army.
The first step was to get rid of the injured and unqualified soldiers. These retired soldiers would be handed over to the Internal Affairs Bureau, and they would be in charge of arranging their jobs.
These soldiers were good labor, and the various places would fight for them.
Considering the population of Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo instructed the Civil Affairs Bureau to arrange for these captives to work in Shanhai City, increasing the population of Shanhai City.
Ouyang Shuo also wanted to let Shanhai City reach the population limit, and quickly rise to a second rank county city.
The second step was to register the remaining captives, and issue their military status.
Once the military status was set, it could not be changed, and they would officially integrate into the Shanhai City army system, and would no longer be discriminated against, and could even enjoy the benefits of the territory. Of course, if they escaped, they would be wanted by the entire territory.
Registering 200,000 people, recording their military types, specialties, and other basic information was truly a huge task. With just the military office, it was impossible to complete.
With no other choice, Du Ruhui could only borrow people.
The first choice was naturally the officials from the Civil Affairs Bureau, as that was their specialty. Other than that, Du Ruhui also went to the army's martial hall, and selected a batch of students to assist the military office.
It could be considered as giving these students a chance to practice, and let them come into close contact with the army.
The process of registration was also the process of selecting talents.
Shanhai City had expanded by 10 divisions, and they needed 50 Brigade Marshals, and 250 Battalion Commanders. This batch of middle ranking generals were selected from the veterans of Shanhai City, and the rest were selected from the surrendered generals.
After all, there were still many outstanding generals among the surrendered generals, and Ouyang Shuo could not ignore them.
Before the war, they were all serving their respective masters.
Now that they were a family, as the parent, Ouyang Shuo naturally had to do his best to treat everyone equally.
Of course, in the key positions, Ouyang Shuo still had to place the generals that he trusted. The direct subordinates he promoted would infiltrate the various divisions through the reorganization of the army.
Other than that, Ouyang Shuo also selected a batch of officers from the Divine Martial Guards and the Imperial Guard Division, and sent them to the various divisions to serve as Battalion Commanders or Brigade Marshals.
Whether it was the Divine Martial Guards or the Imperial Guard Division, they were all Ouyang Shuo's direct subordinates. The soldiers in the army were loyal to Ouyang Shuo, and they were dead set on him.
The transfer of these officers was beneficial to Ouyang Shuo's control over the army.
Ouyang Shuo had never relaxed his control over the army. This was the foundation of his life. It could also effectively prevent the generals in the army from becoming arrogant and ambitious.
He had always believed that it was normal for people to have ambition.
As a superior, what Ouyang Shuo needed to do was to press this ambition in a cage from the beginning, and not let it have a chance to jump out.
Ouyang Shuo spent a huge amount of money to support the professional army because of this consideration.
The generals didn't have the power to recruit soldiers, and they also didn't have the power to appoint and dismiss generals. Everything was in the hands of the military office, which was also in the hands of Ouyang Shuo.
Other than that, the salary of the soldiers in the army was uniform and transparent. The generals couldn't embezzle the salary. Once they did, the soldiers would find out and report it to the military law office.
In this way, if any general dared to rebel, as long as Ouyang Shuo gave the order, the order would be directly passed down to the brigade level. That general wouldn't be able to command the troops under him, and could only obediently wait to be arrested.
It was through these kinds of restrictions that Ouyang Shuo could rest assured and let the generals fight independently. Due to his status, the times when he personally led troops to war had become fewer and fewer.
Even if Ouyang Shuo wanted to go to war, the important officials of the territory would also stop him.
Of course, after the reorganization of the army, Ouyang Shuo still had to go to the various divisions to inspect them one by one, to show his face, and to comfort the soldiers in the army, to show his existence.
This was called imperceptible influence.
The third step of the reorganization was to gather troops for the various divisions. Generally speaking, the commanders of the divisions could personally select soldiers according to the requirements of the various divisions, accompanied by officials of the military office.
After all, different types of troops naturally had different requirements for soldiers. Cavalry, saber and shield soldiers, spear soldiers, archers, crossbowmen, and so on, all had to be matched.
After the various divisions finished selecting, they had to report to the military office and apply for the corresponding weapons, equipment, warhorses, and other military supplies. After all, after the reorganization, the equipment had to be allocated according to the standard of Shanhai City.
This was also the biggest expense of the reorganization of the army.
The fourth and last step of the reorganization was that the generals couldn't participate in it.
According to the unified arrangement of the Marquis, the military office would carry out systematic reorganization of the remaining soldiers and hand them over to the various divisions as a unit.
During this process, the commanders of the divisions, including the commanders of the armies, couldn't interfere.
After the reorganization was completed, the military office would order the various armies to go to the designated location to receive the troops. In this way, the interference of the generals in the reorganization of the army and the appointment and removal of personnel would be minimized.
Of course, it wasn't that Bai Qi and the others couldn't do anything.
As generals, they could ask for merits for their subordinates and recommend outstanding generals. (To be continued.)
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
