Chapter 47: War Horse Gap On the east side of Xiangping City, on the endless plain, a huge military camp stood in the middle. The sounds of soldiers training echoed through the sky. After the court decided on the post of governor of Liaodong and chief secretary of vassal states, it also promoted him to General of the Central Army, which made Tian Ze overjoyed. The Zhonglang Jiang is qualified to command a Duwei, and in theory can be in charge of 20,000 to 30,000 troops. Tian Ze could legitimately expand his army again. He selected some young and strong men without hesitation and increased the number of soldiers under his command to 30,000. At the same time, Tian Ze spared no expense in spending a large amount of gold and silver treasures, and mobilized his extensive personal connections to recruit many outstanding officers from the military forces in various places through various means such as lobbying, poaching, and bribery. Among them are Zhang Liao, Xu Huang, Zang Ba, Taishi Ci and Qu Yi, and the camp of famous generals has expanded again. Currently, Tian Ze has fourteen famous generals under his command. In addition to the 1,000 personal guards led by Dian Wei, and the 1,000-man Xianzhen Camp and the Xiandeng Death Squad formed by Gao Shun and Qu Yi, the rest of the generals each led 2,000 troops, and there were also several thousand defenders. Among them, Han Dang and Ling Cao focused on the navy, Guan Yu, Zhang Liao, Zhang He, Xu Huang and Ma Teng focused on the cavalry, and Xu Rong, Yu Jin, Le Jin and Zang Ba focused on the infantry. Tian Ze stood on the reviewing platform in the military camp, looked at the soldiers in training, and nodded secretly.
After learning about the military training methods of this era, he had completely given up the idea of training his own troops. The military training methods of later generations are suitable for hot weapon combat, but cannot be fully applied in the current era and cannot be copied and used rigidly. The military training in the Han Dynasty was relatively complete. In addition to basic daily life training, there were many similarities with later generations in terms of formations, fighting, running, weapons training, etc. Therefore, Tian Ze only slightly improved and perfected the drill and physical training, and emphasized the importance of strengthening the attention to cooks and military doctors. After truly gaining a deep understanding of the Han army of this era, Tian Ze finally understood why Chen Tang had uttered the bold words "One Han army can defeat five Barbarians". With their absolute advantage in weapons and equipment, excellent quality of their soldiers and strict organization, it was reasonable for them to achieve such results in the face of those scattered and guerrilla Hu people. But that can only be achieved if there is sufficient money and food and complete logistical support. The food, wages and logistics of the current Han army are in a terrible state. It's not that they can't train elite soldiers, but because they don't have enough money and food to train them. In terms of grain alone, there were 300,000 people in Liaodong before, and the average annual net grain production per capita was only 4 shi, totaling about million shi. Most of them belonged to wealthy families, and the government could only collect more than 100,000 shi of grain at most. After deducting various basic expenses, the amount of food that can be invested in the army will definitely not exceed 100,000 shi. The annual grain consumption of an ordinary soldier is at least more than 20 shi. Taking into account factors such as the consumption of transporting grain during combat, if we only rely on the grain output of Liaodong County, it is basically the limit to feed 3,000 soldiers. As for issues such as horses, military pay, and equipment, there is no need to mention them. If you count them, with Tian Ze's standard of training elite soldiers, it would be good to have 500. In such a vast Liaodong area with 11 counties, if one wants to provide the greatest possible security, the choice is between three thousand ordinary soldiers or five hundred elite soldiers. The result is obvious. There is no one who does not desire to have elite soldiers, but it is just that they cannot afford to maintain them because the cost-effectiveness is too low. The emperor granted Tian Ze the title of General of the Central Army, not intending to expand his power, but just a symbolic reward. Because now almost all the money and grain of the imperial court is used to fill the bottomless pit of Xiliang, and the food and wages allocated to Liaodong are very few. Liaodong alone cannot feed many soldiers. A good cook cannot cook without rice, and resource scarcity is an unsolvable dead end. Tian Ze was able to overcome this difficulty because he fundamentally improved the productivity of his people, relying on the black fields in the Liaodong Mountains, nearly 600,000 hidden households, and commercial trade. In terms of grain, because of the black fields, the per-acre yield doubled, the per capita net grain output could reach more than 40 shi, and the total net grain output could reach 24 million shi, which was 20 times the previous output of Liaodong.
And the most important thing is that without the exploitation of the wealthy and powerful families, most of this grain would go into Tian Ze's pocket. With so much food, as long as there are enough men, Tian Ze can easily train 100,000 elite soldiers. This is also the biggest reliance of Jia Xu and others who dared to follow Tian Ze, face the powerful families and fight for the world alone. Wars are fought with money and food, and with logistics. As long as the money, food and population can keep up, what is there to fear for one state to fight against the other twelve states alone? Even if we can't win, can't we defend it? Looking at the enthusiastic training scene of Guan Yu and others, Tian Ze was deeply moved. Now they have all become generals at the level of captain and colonel, and they directly command a force of 2,000 men. This is the school organization finally decided by Cheng Yu and others after discussion. According to Cheng Yu's plan, a normal school of 2,000 soldiers would include about 1,000 infantry, about 400 logistics reserves, and 600 cavalry. If we make a further detailed classification, it can be divided into heavy infantry, light infantry, archers, crossbowmen, charioteers, armored cavalry, light cavalry and so on. There are many types of troops but they are not chaotic, and they complement and cooperate with each other. Based on this overall plan, except for Ma Teng and Taishi Ci whose organizations are all cavalry, other generals have their own emphases but also pay more attention to balance. As for why Liaodong did not form a large-scale cavalry unit. On the one hand, Tian Ze currently does not have the strength to counterattack the grassland, and is mainly focused on defending Liaodong. On the other hand, Tian Ze still lacks the number of horses and cannot support large-scale cavalry operations. You know, horses, like weapons and armor, are consumables and they are worn out very quickly. In the previous battle under Xiangping City alone, more than 1,200 pieces of armor and nearly 2,000 horses were destroyed. This is the case when fighting with the wind and at a short distance, otherwise the losses would have been even greater. In normal cavalry combat, each person is basically equipped with more than three war horses, and nearly 70% to 80% of the war horses will be lost in one battle. Such a cost is somewhat unaffordable even for Tian Ze, who is financially strong, after all, horses are not so easy to buy. Over the years, Tian Ze purchased and bred about 200,000 war horses, of which less than 50,000 were good horses suitable for combat, and the rest could only be used for daily marches and transportation. Even if Liaodong and its vassal states were taken over, the number would only increase by less than half, and still could not meet Tian Ze's needs. Therefore, Tian Ze has been studying the matter of trade with the Xianbei recently. It is naturally impossible to provide the enemy with iron tools and the like, but it is still feasible to exchange wine, salt, tea, etc. with the tribal leaders for some horses and Hu captives. After all, the Xianbei were now divided into pieces, and because Tan Shihuai had laid a very good foundation, there were too many Xianbei people in the entire grassland, and there was simply not enough pasture and food, so these Xianbei people had to fight each other. Rather than watching so many horses and Xianbei people being lost in the fighting, it would be better to trade with them in exchange for something more useful. As long as it is handled properly, not only can a large number of war horses and population be collected, but also the internal conflicts within the Xianbei can be intensified. At the same time, it is not impossible that the Xianbei people were gradually accustomed to trade and a "sheep eating people" enclosure movement was replicated. (End of this chapter)
