Late Ming Dynasty: Special Forces in 1645

Li Chengming already knew Huang Daozhou's purpose in coming; he simply wanted to recruit Anxing Fujun.

There's no way we'll accept amnesty. We're doing just fine on our own, why would we need to find a new master?

The Restoration Army was a highly independent armed force from beginning to end, capable of developing independently without relying on other traditions or forces.

The Restoration Army takes a grassroots approach. As long as it unites the people at the bottom and ensures that they have food, clothing, land to cultivate, and roads to travel, it can gain their support.

Li Chengming's administrative system was mostly composed of officers and soldiers selected from the Xingfu Army who had some literacy skills. There were also many students and scholars who came to join him. However, the methods and means of administration had abandoned the old ones and incorporated modern administrative methods in many aspects.

This meant that most of the students and scholars who came to join the Restoration Army agreed with its policies and system. In other words, once they entered the Restoration Army's system, they had to agree with its values, or else they would have to get out as soon as possible.

Li Chengming also needs to gradually experiment with the construction of the political system and improve it through practice.

The most important thing is the implementation of the new policy, which has already been implemented in Shangrao, Yushan County, Qianshan County, and Guangfeng County.

Of the other three counties, Xing'an County is located north of Qianshan County. When Jin Shenghuan's army arrived, the magistrate of Xing'an County immediately surrendered to Jin Shenghuan, plundering the people while providing money and food to the Jin army.

Later, upon learning that Jin Shenghuan had fled in defeat in the middle of the night, the magistrate of Xing'an County was so frightened that he fled without even packing his belongings.

The Xingfu Army then occupied Xing'an County.

Yiyang County is located to the west of Qianshan County. The magistrate of Yiyang County had long since joined the Xingfu Army, but the Xingfu Army had been busy dealing with foreign enemies and had not sent troops to actually occupy the area.

After the Jin army was defeated, the Xingfu Army took the opportunity to send troops to take over the defense of Yiyang County.

Guixi County is separated from Qianshan County by Yiyang County. The magistrate of Guixi County fled at some point. After the Jin army was defeated, Li Chengming sent troops to occupy Guixi County.

After the Jin army was defeated, the Xingfu Army newly occupied the three counties of Xing'an, Yiyang and Guixi. Li Chengming instructed Zhang Xiyan and Yang Xuedong to send work teams to these three counties to survey the land and implement new policies.

In areas where the new policies were implemented, Liang Zicheng was in charge of setting up agricultural administration teams and sent officers from the Restoration Army to train them.

Li Chengming inspected the results of the new policy implementation and also offered many suggestions for improvement.

While implementing the new policy, we are also revising and improving it.

Most importantly, the implementation of the new policies has cultivated a number of talents who are learning and implementing them at the same time.

In areas where the new policies were implemented, the taxes levied on the Restoration Army were calculated starting from the autumn harvest of that year.

In other words, after the land survey was completed, the autumn harvest of grain had to be taxed.

Land rent was capped at 30%, so landlords had to refund any excess rent collected from tenants.

Some landlords found it difficult to accept and tried to resist the new policies, but after being singled out by the Restoration Army as a warning to others, the other landlords were forced to accept the Restoration Army's new policies.

Landlords who had seized land by trickery and force had no choice but to obediently return it under pressure from the Restoration Army.

Some landlords had hundreds of acres of land, but after returning the land, they were left with only a few dozen acres.

If you don't want to return the land, the Restoration Army can only accuse you of resisting the new policies, then drag your whole family out for a public trial. Minor crimes will be prosecuted as major crimes, and major crimes will be sentenced to death. After all that is done, the land will be returned.

Although Zhang Xiyan and Yang Xuedong came from gentry families, they were far more ruthless than Li Chengming had imagined when they raised their knives against landlords and gentry!

However, while both men were ruthless, they also had justifications for targeting landlords and gentry.

After learning more about them, Li Chengming was quite satisfied with Zhang Xiyan and Yang Xuedong, and sometimes even felt that they had gone a bit too far.

However, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, so as long as the direction was correct, Li Chengming did not interfere much.

......

In addition to the new policies, the military system will also be adjusted.

Five thousand troops were stationed in and around Qianshan City, four thousand five hundred troops were stationed in and around Ehu Town, six thousand troops were stationed in and around Xinzhou City, and three thousand troops were stationed in Yushan County.

The Restoration Army had a total strength of 18,500 soldiers.

The battalion level was too small and not conducive to commanding operations, so Li Chengming took the opportunity to establish the regiment level above the battalion.

Three battalions make up a regiment, which consists of about a thousand men.

Five regiments were reorganized in Qianshan City, five regiments were reorganized in Ehu Town, three regiments were reorganized in Yushan County, and six regiments were reorganized in Xinzhou City.

There are a total of nineteen regiments.

Because assault team members can be directly commanded down to the regiment level, there is no requirement to establish divisions or brigades for the time being.

Xinzhou Prefecture alone has nineteen regiments of the Restoration Army!

With a population of over 400,000, Xinzhou Prefecture struggled to support 19 regiments of the Restoration Army.

Especially for an army like the Xingfu Army, which requires daily drills and consumes a great deal of food, Xinzhou Prefecture simply could not afford to support these nineteen regiments without the spoils of war.

Therefore, the Restoration Army cannot expand its scale for the time being.

Looking at the money and supplies being consumed like water, Li Chengming felt a sense of unease. The money and supplies he had could only last for three months at most, so he had to find a way to increase the source of income.

After defeating Kim Sung-hwan, the Restoration Army gained at least three months of stable development.

If the Restoration Army had not taken the initiative to attack, this period of stability could have lasted even longer.

Since the steel plant no longer needed to operate on three shifts a day and night, Li Chengming discussed with Liang Zicheng the possibility of building a cement plant and a glass plant, which could be used for their own purposes or sold to other companies.

As for other profitable products, such as soap, sugar, and salt, those can also be produced.

However, Xinzhou is not a wealthy place, so sales are not expected to be very good.

Ordinary people didn't have spare money to buy these things, and even wealthy landlords were extremely frugal.

Most landlords' favorite thing to do was collect rent, sell grain, save money, buy land, and repeat the cycle until they owned more and more land. As for extravagant living, they didn't do much.

Of course, large landowners who own tens of thousands of acres of fertile land are another story.

Comparatively speaking, merchant families lived more affluent lives because they had readily available cash and were more willing to spend it.

For most people, filling their stomachs is the most important thing, and few people are willing to spend money on other things before they can fill their stomachs.

Therefore, the greatest source of wealth is still land. Before solving the problem of food and clothing, it would be difficult for Li Chengming to extract wealth from the people.

There was no better way to obtain money from landlords and officials than to rob them.

After much deliberation, Li Chengming thought to himself: In the end, it still comes down to food; we still have to rely on the land's output.

Land productivity depends on fertile land, good seeds, good farming methods, and fertilizer.

To cultivate fertile land, it is necessary to organize a large number of people to build reservoirs and irrigation canals to ensure sufficient irrigation for the fields, while also preventing floods.

Superior varieties can be continuously propagated through self-pollination and selection, which has been done since ancient times. Therefore, there is not much room for improvement in the selection method. As for modern breeding technology, it is not very practical.

Good farming methods, accumulated over thousands of years, are unlikely to be too bad, and there isn't much room for improvement.

Fertilizers, apart from farmyard manure, can be obtained from mineral resources for phosphate and potash, but nitrogen fertilizer, which is used in the largest quantity and is the most important, can only be obtained through large-scale artificial ammonia synthesis.

Li Chengming rubbed his forehead and muttered to himself: "After all the calculations, there is nothing that can easily and quickly increase grain production. In this era, the simplest and fastest way is to solve problems with force."