Chapter 331: A New World

That day, Wang Dou appointed Ye Xi and Qin Yi to his staff. Ye Xi became a clerk in the Civil Affairs Division, while Qin Yi served as an advisor and clerk in the Staff Division; both were also nominally listed in the Education Division.

Although Wang Dou valued them, they still had to start from minor posts and lowly clerk positions — this was an unavoidable process. If he immediately gave high rank to anyone who came over to him, it would be unfair to the talents who had followed him first, like Zhong Rong, who had followed him since the seventh year of Chongzhen and only received significant promotion in the twelfth year of Chongzhen.

Those who came first must enjoy the best treatment — this is a posture. Only thus can a solid inner core be formed, continuously sweeping up and expanding the group. Those who come later must go through this process, demonstrate their ability, and only then can they be used in major roles.

This was a principle. Wang Dou believed that, given the two men's abilities, gold would always shine.

On the fourth day, after Wang Dou finalized his staff structure, the heads of every division were busy filling out their subordinate officials, and Wang Dou was just as overwhelmingly busy. During these days, apart from staff matters, Wang Dou was also occupied with the generals in reorganizing and consolidating the troops.

The battles of the eleventh year of Chongzhen had left a deep impression on Wang Dou; he felt his army needed some adjustments. On the seventh day of the fourth month, the Shunxiang Army, which had returned to Baoanzhou, ended its leave, and the entire force returned to camp to begin reorganization and adjustment.

Wang Dou had already promoted Gao Shiyin to Company Commander. Counting this way, under Wang Dou's command were eight Company Commanders — Wen Fangliang, Zhong Xiancai, Yang Guodong, and others — plus two Garrison Commanders.

The Ministry of War had already issued transfer orders, appointing Han Chao as Garrison Commander of Laishui, and Zhong Diaoyang as Garrison Commander of Baoanzhou City. Yang Guodong, formerly under Lu Xiangsheng, had gone to Yixing in the third month, when Wang Dou returned in triumph to Baoanzhou, to handle Lu Xiangsheng's funeral affairs; presumably he would not return for several months.

The reorganization began on the seventh day and was completed by the fifteenth.

Wang Dou now had roughly 8,500 troops. Divided among each Company Commander and Garrison Commander, each had only a few hundred men.

Yet for Wang Dou, a mere local Defense Assistant Regional Commander, maintaining such a massive force was already shocking and invited criticism. Although Wang Dou had previously reported a troop strength of 3,500 — the establishment of one mobile battalion — with the rest being unpaid garrison battalion militiamen,

everyone knew Wang Dou was lying through his teeth. Which garrison battalion troops had the combat effectiveness of Wang Dou's units? Was Wang Dou imitating Li Chengliang, or did he have other plans? Wang Dou's fame was now at its zenith; Senior Grand Secretary Liu Yuliang and Minister of Rites Yang Sichang were both vigorously courting him, so they maintained a tacit, unspoken silence.

For Wang Dou, it was like a pillow meeting a sleepy head — a fine opportunity had arrived, allowing him to train troops vigorously with full justification.

After the Qing invasion in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, court officials began proposing troop training. Under Yang Sichang's direction, the Great Ming drew up a concrete plan for drilling elite troops from each garrison. In the three garrisons of Xuan-Da, it was decided that from the garrison troops totaling over 178,800 men, each of the three Regional Commanders would train ten thousand, the Viceroy would train thirty thousand, and the rest would be distributed among garrison supervisors and Provincial Governors for training.

After returning to Baoanzhou, Wang Dou corresponded frequently with Ji Shiwei. Besides setting an auspicious date for his marriage to Ji Junjiao, Ji Shiwei also secured for Wang Dou a quota of five thousand men for troop training.

This was a rare thing. Xuanfu Garrison had seven Defense Assistant Regional Commanders, and only Wang Dou received such treatment. As a local Assistant Regional Commander, Wang Dou's troop establishment was actually similar to a mobile battalion, with 3,500 men drawing pay under his command. Having this quota of five thousand new troops meant Wang Dou could request provisions and pay for five thousand more men from the imperial court.

For Wang Dou, provisions and pay were a minor matter; being able to expand his forces openly and justifiably was the real advantage. Of course, given Wang Dou's current financial resources, the maximum number of troops he could support did not exceed twenty thousand, and among them cavalry no more than five thousand.

The reorganization was carried out by branch: infantry, cavalry, artillery, and logistics. In the infantry, there was a slight consolidation: each squad was changed to ten men, the sword-and-shield squad was abolished, five squads formed a platoon, and excluding the platoon officer, a platoon had fifty men. Furthermore, the platoon officer's bodyguard was reduced to one man, and the platoon deputy, who served as a Squad Commander, no longer had a bodyguard.

Platoons and squads also ceased to carry distinguishing banners, with identity distinguished solely by waist tags and armor insignia.

Four platoons formed a company, with two pike platoons and two arquebus platoons. Excluding the company commander's headquarters, a company had a total of two hundred combat troops.

Four companies formed a battalion. Excluding the battalion commander's headquarters, a battalion had a total of eight hundred combat troops.

Han Chao, Wen Fangliang, Zhong Xiancai, Zhong Diaoyang, Gao Shiyin, and Yang Guodong, who commanded the infantry, were all organized this way. Although Han Chao and Zhong Diaoyang were Garrison Commanders, Wang Dou only had them manage one battalion's worth of troops. Given the Shunxiang Army's combat power, a single battalion was more than enough to garrison a city.

Thus their ranks were uniform, their numbers fixed, each independent and not subordinate to one another, receiving orders only from Wang Dou alone, thereby establishing a tight and complete command system. Every officer obeyed only Wang Dou, and the entire army obeyed only Wang Dou, ensuring the absolute loyalty of the military.

The cavalry was organized in the same way, differing only slightly in equipment. Li Guangheng's original force had only four hundred men; after supplementing with some veterans from the infantry, they made up one battalion's strength. Training these new cavalrymen was a problem — no one knew how long it would take for them to develop combat effectiveness. Wang Dou calculated that since his army had many horses, could he train Wen Fangliang's and the others' infantry into cavalry, or mounted infantry?

Wen Daxing's night-scout battalion was in worse shape. Training night scouts was even more difficult than training cavalry. After much competition for manpower, his night scouts had only four platoons totaling two hundred men. This matter could only be addressed slowly later.

Zhao Xuan's artillery battalion faced the same situation as Wen Daxing's, suffering from a shortage of gunners. Including the gunners who had come over from the Viceroy's Personal Battalion, his battalion's various gunners and soldiers numbered only a bit over two hundred. He could only leave the establishment vacant and gradually train more.

Sun Sanjie's logistics battalion was the easiest to staff. In its establishment, each transport squad also had ten drivers, managing five horse-drawn carts pulled by two horses each, with each cart capable of carrying five dan of fodder and provisions. One logistics battalion had four hundred carts, capable of transporting two thousand dan of fodder and provisions in a single trip.

The remaining troops, including the sword-and-shield soldiers reorganized out of the various battalions, were temporarily placed under Wang Dou's direct command and stationed at the Baoanzhou camp. Among these directly commanded troops were several hundred warriors who had been wounded in the battles of the eleventh year of Chongzhen and had since recovered — they could be called formidable.

These troops would all be the strongest candidates for non-commissioned officers when the army expanded in the future.

……

While Wang Dou reorganized his own core army, he also reorganized the troops of the various officers within the prefecture, strictly ordering that no one was permitted to maintain private soldiers or retainers, and that the government troops under each fort's jurisdiction must also be reorganized. Those incapable of combat were all to be made military households, farming garrison lands. The main targets were Yang Zhichang, the Garrison Commander of the Five Forts, Shi Min, the Garrison Commander of Zhangjia Fort, and others.

In response to Wang Dou's actions, everyone remained calm, even secretly pleased. By now, countless examples had proven that even without retainers, one could advance very well in the Shunxiang Army — Lin Daofu, Wen Fangliang, even Tian Changguo and others, all without exception.

Perhaps by joining the Shunxiang Army, each of them might rise to prominence and success.

Wang Dou had expected some commotion; such calmness rather surprised him.

On the sixteenth day of the fourth month, after the entire army had completed its reorganization, Wang Dou held a grand military review at Shunxiang Fort. Watching square after square of soldiers march past in high spirits, Wang Dou's heart surged with emotion, and at the same time brimmed with a deep sense of pride. His gaze turned toward the direction of Yongning City — a new world was about to unfold.

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Old White Ox:

Farming plotlines tend to be rather dull. In the future, I will write in detail about peripheral reactions and interactions, and only sketch the farming content.

Also: Old Ox has noticed that many readers have considerable prejudice against their own traditional culture, such as Confucianism. It seems as if going back to the past without abolishing Confucianism and without adopting that Western set of things means the country will cease to be a country, and the time-traveler has no purpose at all.

This kind of thinking completely ignores social reality. What makes society progress is not any particular system, but productive forces. Progress should be gradual, not forced. When productive forces reach a certain level and the people develop certain needs, then one should follow the trend. Forcibly imposing some system — honestly speaking, trying to draw a tiger and ending up with a dog — is not necessarily good for the nation.

Many readers urgently say that in the future, the country must quickly enter a constitutional monarchy and eliminate feudalism; otherwise, the time-travel has no meaning, and so on and so forth.

Does becoming a capitalist country mean it won't perish? Looking at historical records, in modern times, not to mention the countless capitalist countries that have perished, even socialist countries have perished in no small number. The empire on which the sun never set had only three hundred years of glory. The present British Empire, to use an ancient Chinese saying, has fallen from the level of the great Han dynasty to that of the Southern Ming Yongle petty court.

From Germany to Russia, in Chinese terms, dynasties have changed countless times already.

So it is not true that becoming a capitalist country means it won't perish.

In Old Ox's view, everything should still follow productive forces and let things happen naturally. So-called divisions like feudal and capitalist are utterly meaningless; no system has any meaning in itself. Letting the common people live well is the best thing.

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