Just as Josiah Child was studying the latest information on the East Coast Army and Navy that he collected and sorted out, outside Jingjiang County on the shore of Wujiang, the 11th Mixed Battalion of the Army was holding a flag-raising ceremony.

The young acting battalion commander Captain Li Zhixin was slightly excited to take the battalion flag handed over by Army Minister Mo Ming, and then solemnly raised it to the flagpole amid the cheers of the soldiers. At this point, the 11th Mixed Battalion of the Army was officially established.

The battalion is a brief battalion with Jingjiang County as the recruitment site. Currently, there are about 400 people in the entire battalion, with a total of 1,000 vacancies. However, this is not a big deal, because officers, staff officers, non-commissioned officers and veteran backbones are there, and you can fill in the new recruits in the future. As long as you train for a period of time, your combat effectiveness will naturally be able to rise.

After the establishment of the 11th Mixed Battalion, it will immediately go to the Patagonia Taiwan area to find indigenous barbarians to fight in the local area, so as to hone the soldiers' combat skills and combat will, and at the same time it also means to strengthen their adaptability to different battlefield environments. Only by completing the above process can the battalion become a mixed force with independent combat capabilities.

"Minister Mo, is the Army going to promote the Executive Committee to participate in the possible European war?" At the invitation of Mo Ming, Sun Wuben, editor-in-chief of the "Prince Truth", came to Jingjiang County with a group of disciples to interview and report on the establishment of the 11th Mixed Battalion. As a well-informed top leader of the state-owned media, Sun Wuben knew that the purpose of the Army's high-profile establishment of the "Combat Army" was to fully understand that it was nothing more than taking the opportunity to expand the troops, and the troops have always been the power base of their military leaders. Therefore, this time he was invited by the Army, and he was also happy to support him.

"The Executive Committee has held a meeting before, and has basically established a 'close connection' with the United Republic of the Netherlands, including a series of trade aids such as military supplies, daily necessities, and labor supplies (promising that prices will not be raised during the war, and the Dutch are allowed to take credit first) to consolidate the traditional friendship between the two countries. In addition, the Executive Committee's Dukes also gave a positive response to the overall employment of our army as the Dutch demanded. This allows the army to expand four battalions is a manifestation of this spirit." Mo Ming, who is already in his sixties, still looks good, and he speaks very calmly, making people vaguely see the strong men who led the army to Shandong more than 20 years ago and presided over the reform of the army. In fact, thinking about it, how could a man who fought with the civilian group several times as the spokesperson of the military headquarters have no momentum?

The matter of expanding the four battalions of the army mentioned earlier by Marshal Mo actually thanks the new Dutch ambassador Hironimus van Bevreninghe. If it were not for his strong request to hire the East Coast Army, how could the Executive Committee, which had been unable to see the annual Navy and Army spending millions of yuan, agree to expand the scale of the army? You must know that they even delayed the matter of replacing new ships for the Navy and replace old ships. You can imagine what the face would be for the Army.

However, when the Dutch used huge economic interests to "tempt" the Executive Committee's official could not hold on anymore. Therefore, after a series of complex behind-the-scenes transactions and compromises, the above finally agreed to the Army's military expansion plan, that is, to add the number of the 9th to 12th Battalions within the Army's organization and include it in the national military expenditure budget.

The 9th-12th battalions were respectively Dingxi, Zhongshan, Jingjiang and Yiling as the recruitment sites for troops. They are currently initially designated as a brief battalion, with the army responsible for allocating officers and backbone veterans. Then the above four counties recruited some excellent militias from the security regiment system to enter the troops, with a post of no more than 500. In addition, the four battalions of the army that were originally reduced in the last tide of disarmament (after signing the Treaty of Aachen with the French and Spanish) will be recruited from their respective military sources in the near future and become a full battalion.

In this way, the army of the East Coast Republic of China had eight full battalions, four simple battalions, a total of twelve independent combat units, with a total strength of more than 13,000. If we included several independent artillery companies, cavalry battalions, baggage troops, engineering troops and military staff, the total strength of the army was steadily close to 15,000, and it would consume more than 2.5 million yuan of huge military expenses (including militia expenditures in each county) every year, and this was still in peacetime.

The army had to use 2.5 million, and as a gold-eating beast, the consumption was even more insignificant. Especially in the world of professional naval forces in the East Coast, the scale of professional naval forces was very small, such as the Netherlands. Most of the British naval warships were sealed in normal times and merchant ships were recruited in wartime. Zheng Chenggong of the East was not to mention. He was mostly fishermen in normal times, but only large-scale recruitment was shocking. After signing the Aachen Treaty, the East Coast government was a little overwhelmed. He took advantage of the east wind of disarmament to seal some warships and lay off some naval personnel, which reduced the expenditure by a small reduction, otherwise the finance would probably go bankrupt.

Therefore, it is indeed a very difficult task for the military to convince the Executive Committee to expand its military. Because based on the current annual fiscal revenue of more than 10 million, military expenditures may account for 60% (considering that the navy will also "return" some warships, this undoubtedly means an increase in expenditures). Other expenses in people's livelihood, construction, scientific research and government maintenance will be much less. How to solve this problem has to be considered another way.

Fortunately, the Dutch have promised that once the East Coast agrees to hire mercenaries, they will pay more than three million rupees in advance for preliminary preparations, including personnel transfer, food preparation, material transportation, etc. After arriving in the United Provinces, the Netherlands will pay 90,000 rupees per battalion of the East Coast people every month, and will also bear the food and accommodation expenses of the soldiers. The conditions are quite generous, which is equivalent to helping the East Coast people solve a large burden. This is also one of the important reasons why the Executive Committee's officials agreed to expand the army, because they obviously had the idea of ​​the Dutch helping to support the army during the war and then lay off the ground after the war.

According to the consensus reached by the Executive Committee and the Joint Staff Headquarters, once an employment agreement is reached with the Dutch in the future, the newly formed four battalions will be stationed in the local area and trained by war. Only the eight mixed battalions who are qualified to travel to Europe may be part of the eight qualified battalions. The reason for this is that they are mainly afraid that the newly formed troops will not be able to stand the battle. If they are sent to the European battlefield, they will be ridiculous. The officials of the Executive Committee cannot afford to lose this person.

Moreover, even though the officials of the Executive Committee do not interfere in military affairs much, they still vaguely heard that the First Mixed Battalion has many children of officials in the capital, and they have always been different for other battalions. The Sixth Mixed Battalion’s military source is Qingdao County, the largest and most prosperous city in China, so there are many rich businessmen with poor habits and are often ridiculed by other battalions, so they are not willing to send these two battalions out to fight, especially the Sixth Mixed Battalion.

So after all, if you take apart the two mixed battalions stationed in the Far East and South Africa, there are actually only four or five battalions that can be sent out. Six or seven thousand people are barely able to participate in a battle, but this is impossible for the East Coast people, because they do not want to destroy their troops in a large-scale battle with more than 100,000 people participating.

In their ideal situation, they should deploy their troops in the critical Dutch province, preferably The Hague or Amsterdam, to protect the safety of various important facilities and the many Republican MPs who are intimate with the East Coast people, including Speaker De Witt. Because their safety is also related to the interests of the East Coast Republic, there is no doubt that this is true.

President Qi Wangping once vaguely asked Dutch Ambassador Van Beverninghe, pointing out that the call for missing the Orange family in the Netherlands has gradually risen, which has greatly challenged Speaker Dewit's status. Moreover, this family is not a good man and a woman, and can be used by any means. Therefore, I hope to send a mixed battalion to the Hague and protect the security of the central authority of the third-level parliament tomorrow, in fact, to protect the Speaker Dewit's family.

Van Beverninghes slightly and agreed to the proposal, but said that this matter still needs to be consulted in China, and the East Coast people's calculations may not be satisfactory, because although the militia in The Hague, Amsterdam and other places are not very combative, they are very strong and most of them are unwilling to enter the city. Therefore, the specific situation needs to be discussed in China.

At the same time, Van Beverninghe also said that it is best for the East Coast army to prepare as soon as possible, and personnel, materials and equipment are in place as soon as possible. Once a war breaks out in Europe, it is very likely to be in the Dutch, because Louis XIV has no longer concealed his attempts and the news came, so these troops would board the ship to the United Provinces as soon as possible.

But why can't we say that, because Van Bevernhe may be destined to be disappointed! The reason for his disappointment is that there is a force in the Joint Staff Headquarters of the highest military in the East Coast that opposes the army to fight in Europe, and the general backing of this force is the founder of the new army, and the commander of the army minister has been the commander of the army for 20 years.

This sounds puzzling because Mo Ming was quite active in promoting the expansion of the army before, and also created the title of "Combat Army", which sounded like it was formed to go to the United Provinces to fight. But in fact, this guy did this just to expand the size of the army, that is, to use the east wind of participating in the war to pull up the army's pole. As for whether to go to the United Provinces to participate in the war in the future, cough cough, let's discuss it again!

To put it bluntly, General Mo borrowed the ancient wisdom of Duan Qirui's formation of the "Combat Army" during the Republic of China period. It was called forming troops to participate in the First World War, but in fact it was just a disguised expansion of his own strength! Mo Ming's actions this time were quite similar. He helped the army expand four battalions with the reason of the Dutch people all over the world to find mercenaries, and nearly 6,000 people. As for whether to send troops to Europe or how many people to Europe, the operation space would be greater.

There is no doubt that the Executive Committee will definitely not agree to the Army doing this, but this can be bargained. If it really doesn't work, send one or two battalions, and then capture some non-nationals to form a few temporary troops such as the Fengguo Army, the Zhongguo Army, and the Baoguo Army, and piece it together into a temporary regiment, which can almost fool the troops to send to the United Save for wandering around. He didn't believe that with the critical situation of the Dutch, they would not want this army that seemed to be war-worthy in general.

Of course, the above calculations are just the calculations of the upper level of the army. What is the final result depends on the struggle within the authority. Even though Sun Wuben is well-informed, he obviously cannot be as "advanced" secret as with Wen. Therefore, after interviewing Mo Ming and some enthusiastic officers of the 11th Mixed Battalion, he returned to his temporary residence with satisfaction. He put it in the night and fabricated a magnificent article introducing the "Combat Army", which planned to be published in Pravda next week to lead a wave of rhythm in China.

After Sun Wuben and his disciples left the next day, Mo Ming led his team to Daxing County and visited the militia conference in eight counties in Wujiang. During this winter regular meeting, more than 12,000 militiamen from Jingjiang, Yong'an, Guide, Fuguo, Daxing, Yichang, Zhangwu and Houqiu held a large-scale conference operation, showing the success of the training of the militia in the East Coast.

After reading it, Mo Ming encouraged the security commanders of each county who led the team, but also pointed out that their combat effectiveness still had great shortcomings. The militia training in some counties seemed to be nothing but a formality, and they were at a disadvantage in the practical training of comparing and comparing them. After returning, they must practice hard, otherwise they would be useless in the future, which would make a group of people feel frightened and terrified.

On June 15, 1672, Mo Ming and others returned to Dongfang County, the capital, and then held a high-level military meeting within the Army Department. The main content of the meeting was the question of how many troops were sent to the United Provinces to participate in the war in the future, and who would be the commander.

There is no doubt that the position of commander-in-chief of the war army in the East Coast is now the Joint Staff Headquarters no longer advocates that the old guys continue to take charge, but that the new generation is popular and the competition will be extremely fierce. Because once anyone finds this position equivalent to the position of regiment commander, the future career in the army will be obviously one step ahead, and everyone will not compete with their eyes red.
Chapter completed!