Chapter 246 The era of worse! (Here it comes!)

Author: The Cat on the Wall 1

Chapter 246 The era of worse! (Here it comes!)

The soldiers standing guard at the door and patrolling everywhere are quite tall and obviously carefully selected. However, their clothes are white from starch, their weapons are rusty, and their mental state is loose. Not only do they not reflect the spirit of a soldier, God even has a gangster spirit.

Zhang Heng shook his head repeatedly. Even the selected people were like this. Then you can imagine what the other soldiers looked like.

Chen Changyou led everyone into the military camp and asked Zhang Heng and others to take their seats.

As soon as Zhang Heng took his seat, he asked: "Mr. Chen, how many people from the Baojie Army are in the military camp now?"

Chen Changyou hurriedly said: "Most of the Baojie Army are guarding in various villages. There are currently about 70 soldiers in the camp, about 35,000 people."

Zhang Heng nodded and said, "When will training take place?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Changyou looked at each other and Du Yuhou Chen Yanzhu, and then said: "Mr. Zhang, do you want to inspect the army?"

Zhang Heng said: "How often do you train?"

Chen Changyou hurriedly said: "Let me tell you, the Baojie Army trains every three days."

Zhang Heng frowned: "According to the training code, it should be practiced once a day. Why does the Baojie Army practice once every three days?"

Chen Changyou smiled bitterly and said: "According to the drill regulations, this is naturally the case, but every time you drill, the food consumed will increase. The Baojie Army only has so much military rations every month, which is definitely not enough. By then, the soldiers will not have enough to eat, and they will be very hungry." If you are tired, you will have to mutiny.

Dissatisfied with Zhang Xianggong, the so-called three-day training of the Baojie Army is actually just some queue training, and other high-intensity training is not dared to be carried out, otherwise there will be a lot of grievances, and many people will even be injured, and they will be treated when the time comes. The cost will also increase.”

Zhang Heng was silent for a moment and said, "When is the next training?"

Chen Changyou said quickly: "Tomorrow, just tomorrow."

Zhang Heng looked at the sky and said, "Okay, let's do this for today."

After saying that, Zhang Heng stood up: "Find someone to take me to my hotel. I am sleepy and want to sleep."

Chen Changyou hurriedly said: "Okay, I will hold a reception banquet for you and Di Shuai that night..."

Zhang Heng yawned, looked at Di Qing and said, "Commander Di, please talk to the generals for me. Don't call me for the reception. I'm very tired and want to have a good sleep."

As he spoke, Zhang Heng raised his feet and walked out.

Chen Changyou wanted to follow, but was stopped by Di Qing: "Chen Du, Chen Yuhou, please stay and chat with me."

Chen Changyou and Chen Yanzhu stayed.

Di Qing smiled gently: "When did you two transfer to the Baojie Army?"

Chen Changyou said quickly: "I just transferred from the Suide Army at the beginning of the year, and I have only been here for about half a year."

The soldiers of the Song Dynasty had to change their positions everywhere, and the same was true for the generals. Many times they had to be changed everywhere to prevent the generals from supporting their own troops. However, because of this, it resulted in what later generations called "the generals do not know the soldiers, and the soldiers do not know the generals." situation.

Hearing this, Di Qing breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that Zhang Heng had chosen a good candidate for disarmament. Chen Changyou had just come here not long ago, and he might not have even completed control of the army. The entanglements of interests involved Much less.

Di Qing asked Chen Changyou about other things about the Baojie Army.

Zhang Heng was not really tired. He returned to his hotel and did not rest. Instead, he waited for the person who sent him here to leave, then changed into a pair of simple regular clothes, walked out, and met the guards at the door in the military camp.

Wandering around, he wanted to see what the actual situation was like inside the military camp.

This Anzhai is a permanent military camp, so the military camp is not a tent, but looks like a city. The outside is built as a fortress, and the barracks inside are like private houses.

These are nothing. This city was probably transformed into a fortress from an ordinary city before. But what made Zhang Heng frown was that this was obviously a military camp, but there were many ordinary people living there. Zhang Heng asked, and found out that these people also had

There are even many people with military status and even wearing military uniforms hawking and doing business in the market.

The sanitation inside this fortress is also very poor. People defecate on the ground, all kinds of garbage are left uncollected, sewage and blood are flowing everywhere, and the smell is even worse.

The soldiers wearing military uniforms who were walking around looked either irritated or timid. They were very different in height, short, fat, and thin. The older ones might be in their fifties or sixties, and the younger ones might be in their teens.

Zhang Heng shook his head repeatedly.

When you go to war with soldiers like this, it would be normal if you lose, but it would be weird if you win.

However, as long as you understand the history of the founding of the Baojie Army, you can understand why the Baojie Army is like this.

The Baojie Army is mainly based in Yanbian, Shaanxi Province, and the people recruited are also from Yanbian. This area is on the front line of the confrontation with Xixia. In the past few decades, there have been countless wars, large and small, including the Song-Xia War.

It is well-known only because the two countries officially fought, and its scale exceeded other wars. In fact, there were hundreds or even thousands of conflicts between Song and Xia!

Decades of war have long ago severely damaged the vitality of the people in Yanbian. In many villages, widows live in groups, hugging each other for warmth. Later generations said that women in Shaanxi have strong personalities. In fact, there are also such historical factors.

Yes, all men are dead. If women are not independent, who can they rely on?

The main source of soldiers of the Baojie Army is Yanbian, Shaanxi Province. Naturally, they are not qualified to be picky. Of course, all the young, old, sick and weak are welcome. Therefore, it is quite normal for the Baojie Army to look like this.

In fact, this is also the case in Hedong and Hebei. After many years of fighting and the supply of troops is exhausted, naturally they can only accept all who come.

Of course, this kind of thing cannot be forgiven so simply. In many cases, it is also the inaction of the generals. Those who are truly motivated and capable, such as Di Qing, who has excellent military management skills, can also lead an outstanding army.

Zhang Heng sent the guards to follow him far away, and then he met some soldiers and chatted casually. They chatted too much, and his five senses were mixed.

Firstly, they became more confident in this disarmament matter, and secondly, they were disappointed with the military system of the Song Dynasty.

After his understanding, many soldiers are not opposed to disarmament. On the contrary, they are very much looking forward to retiring and returning to their hometowns. They see no hope of serving as soldiers here. Some of them are in their 50s and 60s and have never returned since they started serving as soldiers.

When I had the opportunity to go to my hometown, I didn't even get a wife.

And young soldiers are not satisfied with the food they serve as soldiers. The reason is naturally that the military pay they can get is too small. After sending some back home, they have no money to save here. In this way

If I go on, I'm afraid I won't be able to afford a wife in the future.

Zhang Heng asked about the military pay they could get. It was surprisingly small. Compared with what he knew when he was in Duzhi Division, it was much less than what each soldier could get. He also knew the reason. It was just that

Layers of deductions enriched the generals above, while the soldiers below suffered the consequences.

The more Zhang Heng inquired, the heavier his heart became. Before he came, he could probably understand the extent of the decay of the Song Dynasty's army, but it was only when he actually saw it that he truly understood the extent of the decay.

Zhang Heng also lamented that it was a miracle that such an army could fight against the Xixia Liao Kingdom for decades or hundreds of years without destroying the country.

Of course, the Xixia people were small and poor, and their national power was far inferior to that of the Song Dynasty. The Liao Kingdom had more people and was much richer than Xixia. However, the Liao Kingdom was no less corrupted than the Song Dynasty's army, so it actually maintained a balance of power, which is also miraculous.

Very.

So, this is a bad era.

Zhang Heng sneered for a while, and then remembered that when the Jin Kingdom rose later, the new forces were very elite. They easily penetrated the Liao Kingdom's pretentiousness, and then took advantage of the situation to destroy the Northern Song Dynasty. One can imagine how bad these three kingdoms were.

Already.

The reason why the Song Dynasty's army was so bad was still due to its military system.

The Emperor of the Song Dynasty painstakingly designed this military system of mutual checks and balances, and he really went out of his way to minimize the possibility of all kinds of self-respecting troops. Even Zhang Heng couldn't do anything if he wanted to, but this army

The production is really bad.

It is precisely because generals have no way to train soldiers by themselves. Every time they fight, some soldiers are randomly matched and brought to you. In this way, generals will naturally not pay attention to training soldiers. Anyway, they may not be able to use them after training themselves.

It's better to save some energy and spend it on how to make money.

Many generals regard soldiers as cash cows.

After Zhang Heng's investigation, it was found that generals used many methods to make money, and some of them were clever or stupid.

A relatively rudimentary method of making money is to directly deduct soldiers' pay and rations. This method is easy to be investigated, and soldiers are prone to mutiny. The risk is quite high, and the method is really despicable.

The relatively advanced thing is to use the advantages of the army to do business. The army guards the border and can naturally enter and exit freely. The Song Dynasty would close trade with Xixia from time to time, and the army could take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune.

It didn't matter when the Song Dynasty started trade, so they could smuggle out items such as salt, iron, and tea that were prohibited from export at any time.

The highest level is to make war fortune. From time to time, the border generals would stir up friction, and then under the nervousness of the court, they would allocate a large amount of military pay, food and fodder to prepare for war, and these things would go into their pockets.

Zhang Heng's original idea before coming here was to cultivate some cronies here and control some troops, so that he could use them at any time when needed in the future. However, after he actually came down to investigate, Zhang Heng gave up on this idea.

Of course it's not because the generals are too corrupt, but because of this system where the generals don't know the soldiers and the generals.

As mentioned before, the military system of the Song Dynasty was divided into four levels, with a hundred people forming a capital and five capitals forming a battalion, also known as a command, and this command was the basic combat unit of the Song Dynasty.

The military reports of the Song Dynasty basically use command as the unit, for example, which army a certain general is sent to, how many commanders there are in the army, etc.

In other words, the generals of the Song Dynasty had no way to control the soldiers. The only ones who could really control the soldiers were the commanders under the command, and they would get along with the soldiers in the command day and night.

Zhang Heng wants to control some troops. Does he want to make friends with the commander who controls 500 soldiers?

This is simply impossible.

After such a trip, Zhang Heng had completely given up on the idea of ​​controlling the army. With this energy, he might as well make more friends with the military attachés of the three yamen.

At the same time, Zhang Heng was completely disappointed with the Song Dynasty's army.

Under such a military system, it is impossible to train a combat-effective army, because it is fundamentally wrong!

but……

Zhang Heng looked to the northeast. There was Fugu, Qingjian, and Linzhou over there. That was where the most promising army of the Song Dynasty was located, and there was the real Western Army!

The Zhe Family Army in Fugu, the Yang Family Army in Linzhou, and the Zhong Family Army in Qingjian City have been passed down from generation to generation to guard the border for the country. They cultivate their own soldiers, so they will do their best and naturally form a strong combat effectiveness.

The next day, Zhang Heng woke up early, but he didn't hear the military bugle. He went outside and asked the guards, and found out that even if he was practicing, he wouldn't get up very early because he couldn't get up at all.

Zhang Heng could only wait patiently. It was after nine o'clock before the bugle sounded.

Zhang Heng rushed to the playground. Unexpectedly, he was the fastest person to arrive. After waiting for a while, low-level generals and soldiers came over sparsely.
To be continued...