Chapter 72                                                             �

Zhou Mengchen glanced at everyone and said, "August has passed. The Tartars suffered a pain. I think they would not cause any trouble again. However, Ma Fang, you still can't be careless. You have to send them to the night without stopping. Arrange your manpower within a hundred miles outside the border. As long as the Tartars approach the wall, they will immediately pass it to me."

Ma Fang said: "I will prepare until the end."

Zhou Mengchen did this just to be prepared for any incidents. Although the weather in Datong is not like the snow in August, it is about to enter the frost period. I don’t know whether it will snow. However, it is cold and cold, so it is indeed not suitable for long-term use of troops. The time window is only about one month. I think the Tartars regrouped and the army set out. It will take half a month to arrive in Datong.

Sometimes the war ends very quickly, such as the battle between Zhou Mengchen and Xiao Qin, from the beginning to the end, the battle lasted four or five days. But this situation is not common. The military operations in the past are delayed slightly, and it is based on years. Half a month or fifteen days, it is not long or short. The Tartars are so confident that they will win Datong within fifteen days, and then return with a full load.

Anyway, Zhou Mengchen didn't believe it. But if you don't believe it, you should be careful. Who knows what tricks Xiao Qin has come up with?

Zhou Mengchen settled this matter and said, "This winter, by next spring, I will only do one thing in Datong, that is, expand the army."

As soon as Zhou Mengchen said this, all the generals became excited.

For them, expanding the army is a great thing. Once the army is expanded, they can be promoted. Maybe a hundred households will be promoted to a thousand households, a thousand households will be promoted to guerrillas, etc.

And they also expected this matter. Because Datong's 50,000 troops were not fully equipped. This is a historical problem. Now that Datong has food, it is naturally filled with the army that was previously unsatisfied.

But they never expected that Zhou Mengchen's work was so big.

Zhou Mengchen said: "Overall, Datong can be divided into three lines of defense. The first is the Yanbian Fort, which is the first line of the Great Wall, which is the extreme rush. The second line of defense is Yulin, Datong Guards, Yanghe Guards, Polu Guards, etc., all dozens of miles south of the Great Wall, including Datong, ready to attack the enemies who break through the Great Wall at any time. If the enemy breaks through the Great Wall, each city should be defended. The third line of defense is to exist at the inner Great Wall, Yanmenkou, and other county towns outside the checkpoints such as Maguan, and the prefecture city, as a buffer for the inner Great Wall."

"To be ashamed, the first line of defense has disappeared, and the second line of defense has barely been maintained. If the war was defeated last year, the Tartars would now break through the third line of defense and directly detain the Great Wall. However, Datong City, which is known as the Iron City of Pass, and the Iron Cavalry of the Ming Dynasty, who is known as the soldier and the vest in the world, are the people of the world without any face to see the world."

"In the war last year, it was said to be a great victory, and it can be said to the outside world, and even to the court. But we closed the door and said that the victory and loss were only a line between us."

"It's just a lucky chance. I've said this before, so I won't say much. It's just that God helped us today. Can we hope for our so lucky ones? Therefore, the focus of this expansion of the army is Weiyuan Guard, Pinglu Guard, Yulin Guard, Yunchuan Guard, Datong Wu Guard, Yanghe Guard, Gaoshan Guard, Zhenlu Guard, Tiancheng Guard. Thirteen Guards, including the thirteen Guards, with more than 70,000 troops, all filled with more than 70,000."

These thirteen garrisons are lined up along the Great Wall. Among them, the five garrisons of Datong are three in Datong City, which are all the troops along the border.

In addition to the Andong Zhongtun Guard in Yingzhou, there is also a specialized garrison in charge of farming, other garrisons must be fully organized.

The purpose of Zhou Mengchen's choice is very simple, which is to truly enrich the front line of the Great Wall. If you really want to complete it according to Zhou Mengchen's plan, you just need to repair the Great Wall and add some levels and the city wall. It's really a solid wall.

In this regard, he was much more powerful than Qi Jiguang. When Qi Jiguang was in Jizhou Town, he also thought about training 100,000 troops to protect the walls of thousands of miles. As a result, there were rumors in Beijing that Qi Jiguang was about to rebel. In the end, he only gave Qi Jiguang 30,000 troops.

As soon as Zhou Mengchen said this, everyone was upset.

Ma Lu immediately said: "Sir, the garrison is involved in many cases, and the accounts are chaotic. Many garrisons don't even know how many garrisons are. Moreover, the soldiers of the garrisons cannot fight for a long time. Even if they are filled, they may not be able to fight, right?"

Zhou Mengchen said: "If you can't stand the battle, let the ones who can't stand the battle come. I don't care about how many soldiers each guard has. I'm passing on our military orders to order all the soldiers to shoot themselves, because the reason is that the soldiers are. If they can be used, they stay. If they can't stand the war, they will be released for the people. I can still live in the guard station. It's just a matter of being organized as a household."

Many people think that the garrison is a military institution, but in fact, the garrison still undertakes the management of some civil households. There are some people under each garrison, and this situation is most obvious in Liaodong. At the beginning of the founding of the country, Liaodong actually set up prefectures and counties for a while, but there were too many soldiers and too few civilians, so they all assigned them to the garrison. It does not mean that the local people are all organized into military households, and there are still civil households, but they are all under the management of the garrison.

Ma Lu was stunned and said, "Sir, this is simply building thirteen wards from scratch."

Zhou Mengchen said, "That's right. The ancestors established guards to guard the border walls. Now that they cannot guard the border walls, what's the point? Moreover, last year, the court gave nearly 200,000 silver rewards. You all have gold hidden around your waists, but you have promoted and made money. When you have money, where does this official come from?"

After Zhou Mengchen said this, many generals below suddenly had their eyes lit up.

One by one, I would like to think about it. There would be thirteen commanders, even Thousand Houses, Punishment, etc. I don’t know how many officers. Last year, the soldiers of Datong participated in the Battle of Baidengshan, and almost everyone had to become officials. Of course, most soldiers could only be one general flag or a hundred households.

After all, in this era, low-level officers are not demanding high, as long as they dare to fight and rush.

Ma Lu said, "Sir, isn't this good?"

Zhou Mengchen said: "There is nothing bad. Of course, I treat you equally and reward you with merits. Yanghewei and Gaoshanwei performed quite well in the battle last year. The commanders of the two guards asked them to come to Datong to report their duties and remained the commanders."

However, it is impossible to keep them in Yanghewei and Gaoshanwei.

The Yanghewei and Gaoshanwei were the soldiers who were guarding Yanghekou. Although they made a big mistake, they did not escape after all. Holding their positions, among a group of guards, this was already considered good.

Ma Lu said it right. Zhou Mengchen simply rebuilt the Thirteen Guards of Datong into a military commander named Guards, but in essence, the only one with a completely different army is perhaps the same number. What was originally called Guards, and what was now called Guards.

The reason why Zhou Mengchen did this was that on the one hand, he had to do things thoroughly.

After Zhou Mengchen arrived in Datong, he suppressed the officers of the garrison station in a drastic manner and blood flowed. He paid so much money and did not deal with this stubborn disease and made them rekindled in the future. Wouldn’t he cause trouble for himself?

Secondly, although Zhou Mengchen was the governor of Datong, he was not the King of Datong after all. There was another court above him. Is it possible to expand the army by saying that the army could be expanded? It really didn’t exist in the court. So Zhou Mengchen used this method. From the paper, the military strength before and after Datong has not changed at all.

Finally, Zhou Mengchen actually wanted to carry out certain reforms to the garrison system. After all, the most fundamental reason for the decline of the Ming Dynasty's military was that the Ming military system had completely collapsed. The garrison system was rotten, like a zombie, not dead but not dead, and still occupied the resources of the court. That's fine, because the garrison system was the system of the ancestors of the court. Even if it could no longer last, it still occupied the position. Whether it was the family system, the battalion system, the recruitment system, etc. that were developed later, they were all restricted by the garrison system. Or it was simply repaired by the garrison system. In this way, the military system of the Ming Dynasty was in a mess inside and outside. Under such circumstances, there was no problem in winning one or two defensive battles. However, it was almost impossible to break the ground and open the border.
Chapter completed!