Chapter 1198: Taiping Dao Headquarters

"Venerable One, this is the army established by the Taiping Dao over these years." "Please give me some guidance, Venerable One."

In the valley, Zhang Jiao brought Su Fan to a military camp.

This valley is the headquarters of the Taiping Dao. The entire valley is surrounded by mountains on four sides, with only two passages leading to the outside world, one in the front and one in the back. However, these two passages are both under thousand-zhang mountain walls.

The entrance of the passage is only a hundred zhang wide, and the Taiping Dao has established layers of checkpoints. It can be said that one man can hold the pass, and ten thousand cannot get through.

The valley is like a small plain. Su Fan can see that the valley seems to have traces of development.

"This place, after several years of development, has expanded a bit."

Zhang Jiao also brought a bit of pride. Originally, the plain in this valley was not as large as it is now, but after he and several disciples developed it, the plain in the center of the valley was almost several thousand square kilometers.

Now, in this valley, there are hundreds of thousands of people, almost reaching one million. Raising so many people actually had some pressure at the beginning.

But with the development of the valley to the current level, plus the improvement of productivity, even if it reaches one million people, there is no need for outside assistance here, and it can be completely self-sufficient.

Su Fan can naturally see that the productivity in this valley is already not low, comparable to the level of the 1950s or 1960s.

In this valley, it can be said that it is the essence of the Taiping Dao, and most of the technical factories are here.

Of course, the Taiping Dao's three steel mills are not here. There are only primitive steel mills here, the earliest research and development base.

Zhang Jiao's ability is indeed not bad. This valley is managed very well by him. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are core disciples of the Taiping Dao.

The Taiping Dao's Daoist boys are all from here, and the Taiping Dao disciples who preach are also educated here.

Although most only have two years, after going out, they can become guides for a village, and these Taiping Dao disciples who go out to guide, after preaching for two or three years, have to come back to continue receiving deeper education.

This is not Su Fan's guidance; it is something Zhang Jiao and the others discovered on their own.

And after experiencing two or three years of preaching, these disciples have experienced a lot, often with deeper experience. Coming back to continue receiving more and deeper knowledge is of great help to their improvement.

In the future, they will become the middle level of the Taiping Dao and important officials who govern the local areas when the Taiping Dao takes over the world.

The Jiuzhou are very large. If the Taiping Dao truly wants to compete for the world, because they walk the bottom level, those aristocratic families clearly cannot accept the Taiping Dao's philosophy. At most, a part of the enlightened aristocratic family disciples can accept it.

However, most clearly cannot accept it.

As such, in the future, when the Taiping Dao takes down a place, they will need manpower to govern the local area. The Imperial Court is out of the question, and aristocratic families cannot be counted on, so they can only rely on themselves.

Zhang Jiao, under Su Fan's guidance, also understands that the Great Harmony world they will establish in the future is different from feudal dynasties.

The number of government officials and clerks needed in the local area is far beyond that of the Liu Han Imperial Court.

In fact, the Great Qin era had many officials and clerks. Even the Great Song, which had redundant officials, was far behind the later administrative personnel.

It is not that the later administrative personnel had poor ability, but that the later administration was divided more clearly, which made it more convenient to handle problems.

And professional people doing professional things is also more suitable.

Historically, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, some scholars who only read books passed the imperial examination and became county magistrates. However, nine out of ten such successful candidates who became officials were useless.

A group of people who only read books had no experience at all. Later, the "private secretary" also became a profession.

The 21st century of later generations learned these lessons.

The Taiping Dao disciples who go out to preach now, after preaching in some villages for a few years, preaching is not just preaching. Many have even replaced the powers of village elders and village heads.

After a period of training, they come back to learn systematically. This is very similar to the re-education of government personnel in later generations.

Of course, now, Taiping Dao disciples certainly cannot be like those administrative personnel in later generations, receiving a wide variety of knowledge.

But even so, they are much stronger than those village elders and village heads. With practical experience and systematic learning, their growth in the future will be faster.

These disciples will become the middle level of the Taiping Dao in the future. Once the Taiping Dao enters the struggle for hegemony, then the county cities they take down can be quickly filled by these people. County magistrates, county assistants, and various clerks in the county government offices will all be quickly filled by these people.

The Taiping Dao can even extend its hands to local villages.

This can lay a solid foundation and thick logistical strength for the Taiping Dao.

To conquer the world, besides the army, there is grain.

As for talent, of course, it is also important, but in Su Fan's view, as long as the army is commanded properly and with powerful strength, crushing the enemy army, there is no need for any schemes.

Schemes are only used when forces are evenly matched or when strength is not as good as others.

When true strength is enough to crush, there is no need to consider anything else. Being upright and open is enough to make the other party despair.

The Taiping Dao is prepared to be like this in the future, establishing a strong army and massive logistics, using absolute strength to crush the enemy.

The construction of the army, besides soldiers, is logistics. Logistics includes grain and weapons, the two major blocks.

And these two blocks—grain goes without saying. Over these years, the Taiping Dao has been purchasing grain and storing it.

At the same time, they are constantly reclaiming wasteland. Because the Taiping Dao has Daoist priests who practice, they can use magic to make the weather favorable.

This valley has developed two or three million mu of land, with an annual harvest of about 1,200 shi of grain.

An ordinary soldier in the army consumes at most 100 shi of grain a year, and this is still eating and training openly.

Ordinary local armies consume less than 50 shi of grain a year because they don't train much.

Only the elites at the border will consume a large amount of grain.

The army in this valley of the Taiping Dao has already built 50,000, all of whom have been trained for three years. Not to say that the training volume is the same as the People's Liberation Army of later generations,

but it is definitely the one with the largest training volume in the Liu Han Imperial Court. Besides grain, there is also meat, and the army supply has always been very sufficient.

So this 50,000-strong army, with Su Fan's insight, is naturally extraordinary, not much different from the elites at the border.

The only difference is that the number of battles might be a bit less.

According to Zhang Jiao's introduction, this 50,000-strong army has also seen blood, often going out to pursue and suppress mountain bandits and robbers.

But they have not fought any hard battles. After all, the combat power of mountain bandits and robbers is limited.

The 50,000-strong army established by the Taiping Dao has swept away the mountain bandits and robbers appearing within a radius of a thousand miles around the valley.