Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 146: Training Plan
Zhou Anmin was stunned: "Little brother, what are you going to do...?"

"Nothing, I just thought it was a shame that the Qi Family Army was gone. If it were possible to gather the remnants of the Qi Family Army, even if it was just a few people, at least we could leave some seeds for the Qi Family Army."

Zhu Shenzhui's words seemed to be reasonable. The last battle of the Qi Family Army was admirable, and the destruction of this army was also heartbreaking. For Zhou Anmin, the loss of the Qi Family Army was indeed a heavy loss for the Ming Dynasty, but it was a pity, and Zhou Anmin just sighed in his heart, but Zhu Shenzhui's words made him alert.

"Little brother, you don't want to...?"

"Brother-in-law, what are you thinking?" Zhu Shenzhui saw Zhou Anmin's alert expression and shook his head, "I just feel sorry for the Qi Family Army. Besides, the Qi Family Army fought for the country and now has such an end. Don't you feel any regret in your heart?"

"General Qi Jiguang founded this army. For decades, the Qi family army fought in many battles and made outstanding contributions. It was known as the strongest army of the Ming Dynasty and never served the country. In the Battle of Hunhe, the whole army was annihilated. Thinking of this, I feel sad, but what can I, an ordinary member of the royal family, do? Don't mention me, even you and uncle are powerless in dealing with important matters in the court."

"Finding the remnants of Qi's army, taking them in and treating them well, is just a way to put my mind at ease. If we can find them, I will also trouble my brother-in-law to help bring them to Luzhou Guard for resettlement. There are some things that the court does not do, but I have to do them, after all, I am a member of the royal family!"

After listening to Zhu Shenzhui's words, Zhou Anmin nodded silently and had to admit that these words also touched him.

"I'd like to think of a way to deal with this matter, but don't have too high expectations. After all, Liaodong has fallen into the hands of the Jiannu. We don't even know if anyone from Qi's army is alive, let alone whether we can find them." Zhou Anmin said to Zhu Shenzhui.

"Of course, I hope you will work harder, brother-in-law."

"You don't have to say that. The Qi Family Army was heroic and won an honorable defeat. You can do this, so can't I, your brother-in-law, do something for the Qi Family Army?" Zhou Anmin patted Zhu Shenzhui on the shoulder and said. Then he hesitated and said, "You have a special status. You should not show up in public for some things. You should be careful when doing things. Your brother-in-law will handle this matter. If we can really find the remnants of the Qi Family Army, I will make private arrangements with my uncle. You don't need to show up directly for the time being."

Zhu Shenzhui looked at Zhou Anmin, and saw that Zhou Anmin gave him a knowing look and nodded.

The two chatted for a while, and Zhou Anmin stood up and said, "It's getting late and cold at night, so you'd better go to bed early." After that, Zhou Anmin went back to his room. After Zhou Anmin left, Zhu Shenzhui sat for a while before getting up and going back to his room to rest.

After returning to the room, Zhu Shenzhui lay back on the bed, but he still couldn't fall asleep. The tragic scene of the Battle of Hunhe seemed to echo in his mind.

Zhu Shenzhui asked Zhou Anmin to help find the whereabouts of the remnants of Qi's army for the reasons he mentioned, but he also had other ideas in his mind.

It would be a pity if such a strong army disappeared in the long river of history. With the battle of Liaoyang, the situation in Liaodong deteriorated to an unimaginable level. Zhu Shenzui was worried about what would happen next.

The troubled times are coming, and Zhu Shenzui has to make some preparations. In fact, he had already made such preparations a long time ago, whether it was initially taking the people of Wangjia Village to sell private salt, or going to the grassland in person, or now using Wei Zhongxian's way to place Zhou Anmin and Wang Rong in Luzhou Wei, and then taking control of the Jinyiwei and Weisuo of Luzhou Wei. These were all deliberate actions by Zhu Shenzui.

Zhu Shenzhui had no shortage of money at the moment, and it was not difficult for him to become extremely wealthy by relying on the private salt trade and grassland trade. However, no matter how much money he had, it was just a thing outside of his body in Zhu Shenzhui's eyes. The key to his trying to do these money-making businesses was not the money itself, but to use it to achieve his own goals.

This has always been Zhu Shenzui's idea, and now it has finally begun to bear fruit.

Zhou Anmin and Wang Rong have now joined forces to control Luzhou Guard, but this alone is far from enough. Zhu Shencui must further enhance his strength and have the power to protect himself when troubled times come. Luzhou Guard is also the foundation for Zhu Shencui to achieve this.

Zhu Shenzhui still has time to take things step by step. After learning about the tragic Battle of Liaoyang today, Zhu Shenzhui thought of the remnants of Qi's army. If he could really find these remnants and bring them to Luzhou Guard, perhaps he could use them to build a new Qi's army?

Although it is unknown whether this can be done, it is always possible to give it a try. Even if it cannot be done, Zhu Shenzui has already had the idea of ​​training troops.

Previously, through Wangjia Village and smuggling salt, Zhu Shencui had trained the people of Wangjia Village to some extent, but that was just a small fight. Even after retaking Li Hu's people from Yangtou Mountain, it was still far from being a formal training, let alone organizing a real military force. But now it is different. With the acquisition of Luzhou Guard, Zhu Shencui can completely train troops under the name of Luzhou Guard and organize a real army.

But how to train these soldiers and to what extent? Zhu Shencui has been thinking about it all the time. Initially, he planned to arm them with firearms and train a different pure firearms army, but later Zhu Shencui gave up this idea because it was too difficult to do so.

Although a pure firearms army is strong, the investment is too huge. Not to mention other things, Zhu Shenzhui's current financial resources cannot support the firearms equipment and training alone.

The cost price of an ordinary musket currently equipped by the Ming army is about three taels according to the Ministry of Works. If other factors are added, such as gunpowder, bullets, holsters, fuses, etc., the total cost is probably just over four taels.

Four taels of silver may not seem like a lot, but this was only the cost price of the Ministry of Works. Moreover, given the production status of the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Works, the muskets they produced were of extremely poor quality, and even the Ming army itself did not use them. Not to mention whether these crudely made things could kill the enemy on the battlefield, they might even explode and kill themselves first when they fired.

The firearms used by the Ming Dynasty's firearms troops were all picked up, and they tried to select the best and most durable ones from a pile of broken firearms before they could barely use them. Even so, they would not fire if they could avoid firing on weekdays, because what if they fired too many times and the quality was not good and they were damaged? Even on the battlefield, they were still nervous when using them.

Therefore, to use sophisticated firearms, you must have sophisticated manufacturing, just like Zhu Shenzhui asked Zhao Da to make a musket, to ensure the quality of the firearms. But in this way, the complexity and cost of the process will increase sharply. Without the initial industrialization, relying solely on manual labor, the cost will at least double.

That’s not all. The cost of daily firearms training is also huge. Every bullet fired costs silver. Add to that the other equipment of the soldiers, such as paper armor and military pay, and the expenses are also not small.

In addition to muskets, firearms units must also have other firearms equipment to form combat effectiveness, the most important of which is artillery.

An ordinary French cannon costs at least 50 taels of silver to manufacture, an 8-pound imitation red cannon costs 200 taels of silver, and a 12-pound imitation red cannon costs about 320 taels of silver. As for the 24-pound red cannon, the Ming Dynasty could not manufacture it yet, so they had to go to Macau to buy it from Europeans, and the price was even more ridiculous, at 1,200 taels per cannon, and even if you had money, you might not be able to buy it.

Even if it is equipped with the most common Francois cannon, the cannon itself and the consumption of shells, gunpowder, etc. are also very valuable.

Firearms need to be large in order to form. A mere hundred people cannot play a big role. It is better to use swords, guns, bows and arrows. The current firearms are very primitive in terms of firing and accuracy. In order for firearms to form combat effectiveness, they must use line infantry formations. This formation is what later generations called the "line-up shooting" formation.

In the Ming Dynasty, such an array actually existed a long time ago. At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, General Mu Ying created the use of the "three-stage attack" firearm. Similarly, in the so-called "Warring States Period" in Japan, the three-stage attack was also used, and the same was true in Europe.

As the war progressed, Europe further changed the original three-stage attack to six or even nine stages to ensure the continuous offensiveness of firearms and enhance their lethality. But no matter how many stages there are, in order to use such tactics, in addition to the equipment and strict training of soldiers, there are also basic requirements for the number of soldiers.

Taking the most sophisticated matchlock gun as an example, generally speaking, the shooting distance can reach more than 120 meters, but in fact, in order to ensure accuracy, the normal firing distance is less than 100 meters, and even as close as 50 or 60 meters.

Even so, the hit rate of such shooting on the battlefield is very impressive. A well-trained firearms unit can achieve a hit rate of 30% when using line infantry tactics. However, the hit rate of the Ming Dynasty's firearms units on the battlefield is even more impressive due to the poor manufacturing of firearms equipment and training reasons. Usually, hundreds of guns can only hit a few people in the end, and the rest of the bullets have long been unknown.

Calculated with such a low hit rate, the firearms unit would need at least a thousand people to form combat effectiveness. A thousand-man firearms unit would cost a lot of money just for equipment, not to mention the military pay and training expenses. Zhu Shenzhui could not afford such a large expense.

What's more, it is impossible to form a force of a thousand people at present. According to the Ming Dynasty's garrison system, a garrison is divided into five thousand-household units in the front, back, left, right and center. Each thousand-household unit is subordinate to a hundred-household unit, and a hundred-household unit has two general flags and ten small flags.

Calculated in this way, the normal establishment of a garrison was 5600 soldiers, which would be about the size of a brigade in later times. However, this was the situation of the garrisons in the early Ming Dynasty. With the changes over the past two hundred years, the garrison system had long been in name only. On the surface, it was still the same. In fact, the number of military households from the garrisons to the thousand-household garrisons and then to the hundred-household garrisons was much larger than this, but in fact, the actual number of military households was much smaller than this number after deducting the military pay.

(End of this chapter)