Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Qian Wu was a soldier in the Patrol Battalion, belonging to the Second Squadron of the Second Battalion of the Patrol Battalion's New Army.

He served as sergeant in the third squad of the third team with the rank of first-class sergeant.

These organizations and positions were all tried out in the new army of the patrol camp.

Compared with the previous battalion system, there are both inheritance and changes.

For example, Qian Wu’s position as sergeant was derived from the battalion system.

After the collapse of the Wei Suo system, this was the most popular organization in the Ming army.

According to the ancient system of "five people form a group, two groups form a ten, and there is a group leader", the group that Qian Wu was in, including the group leader, had a total of eleven people.

He and another sergeant each commanded five soldiers, including themselves, and were the lowest-level officers.

At the same time, these two sergeants are also equivalent to deputy squad leaders. In the event of the death of the squad leader, the two will take over according to the command order.

This was a clear order from the emperor last year. Every commanding officer must have a successor, so that when an officer is killed or unable to perform duties, someone can quickly take over.

When determining the order of command, Qian Wu defeated another sergeant and became the first candidate to succeed the squad leader.

If there are other vacancies for squad leaders in the future, or new squad leaders are established, he will have a better chance of being promoted than another sergeant.

This made Qian Wu quite proud, and he always competed with another sergeant to avoid being outdone by the other.

The organization of squads and above is "three squads form a team, with one team leader".

The third team that Qian Wu is in, including the captain and deputy captain, has a total of thirty-five people.

The squad leader was a regular officer with a ninth-rank rank.

That is the rank of honor added by the current emperor. The ninth rank is junior lieutenant, which is referred to as second lieutenant.

The deputy squad leader is a senior non-commissioned officer who has served in the army for many years, usually called a sergeant major. The assistant squad leader may be a young military student who suppresses the troublemakers in the army.

It can be said that at the three levels of team, squad, and team, there is not much difference between the new army and the soldiers in other battalions.

Soldiers like Qian Wu were still accustomed to calling their squad leader "captain", omitting the word "small".

However, some team leaders were relatively young and had not established their prestige, so their subordinates deliberately added the word "small" to their names, causing them to make fun of them.

But Qian Wu didn't dare to make fun of his captain. Not only because he had been beaten by the captain several times, but also because he wanted to be a sergeant.

In the assessment of sergeants, in addition to the duties of command, training, and communication, the ability to assist the squad leader in disciplining the soldiers under his command is also one of the assessment contents.

Whether the sergeant can be recommended to enter the military academy and get the opportunity to become an officer, the opinion of the squad leader is also very important and he can even veto it.

Those sergeants who allowed their subordinates to laugh at the squad leaders were reprimanded and even replaced by other sergeants.

As a young first-class sergeant, Qian Wu also dreams of becoming a sergeant major in the future and becoming an officer after studying military science.

Therefore, he respected his team leader very much, and even tried to figure out how to handle the relationship with him.

Qian Wu has an advantage in this regard.

Because he had a relative who served as a hereditary centurion in Fuyuwei, he had some knowledge of how to serve as a grassroots military officer.

In fact, the reason why his ancestors joined Zhuolu Guard as military households was because this relative was transferred to Fuyu Guard after his meritorious service. However, the names of the Qian family were still retained on the list of Zhuolu Guard, and they were selected as deserters.

His relatives were so annoyed that they asked a member of the same clan, Qian Wu's ancestor, to serve as a military household on his behalf, and gave the 50 mu of land that was allocated to military households to their family for cultivation.

Qian Wu's ancestors had no idea of ​​the hardships of military households, and were tempted by the prospect of owning fifty acres of land.

However, they did not expect that over the past two hundred years, the lives of military households became increasingly difficult. Not only was their land occupied by military officers, but they also had to keep sending people to serve as soldiers, making them the officers' slaves.

But relatively speaking, their family was relatively well off. Because they originally belonged to the Fuyu Guard of the Beijing Xingdusi, but were later moved to the capital. Now they belong to the Shenshu Camp, one of the Beijing Camp Guards.

With a relative who served as a hereditary official in the Beijing Guard, the Qian family was able to keep more than 30 acres of land even if they were bullied. According to the current division of the court, the Qian family belonged to the permanent property owners.

However, even though it was a family with permanent assets, the Qian family was unable to raise all five children to adulthood.

Qian Wu had two older brothers who died young, and because of the family's financial difficulties, the reputation of military households was not good. Qian Wu was unable to find a wife and start a family until he was 20 years old. So when the patrol camp recruited new soldiers at the beginning of the year, he was sent to the barracks by his father.

At that time, Qian Wu wanted to earn a living in the patrol camp and see if he could have the opportunity to join the Jinyiwei in the future as advertised during the recruitment.

But they did not expect that after entering the patrol camp, they were still training as soldiers. Qian Wu even met soldiers from the patrol camp who were transferred back from the Weiwei Temple and trained them in formation.

Qian Wu’s immediate superior, the team leader, was one of them. It was he who taught Qian Wu and others to conduct queue training.

At first Qian Wu was not used to it and even wanted to cause trouble by relying on his rudimentary family martial arts.

But after being beaten several times, he became obedient, successfully completed drill training and became a private.

Those who were eliminated could only become auxiliary soldiers, helping them to repair barracks, transport supplies, and handle some chores.

Qian Wu was very proud of this, and felt that his status as a private already made him superior to others.

Moreover, soon after becoming a private, he got an opportunity and soon became a sergeant.

This was because the Zhuolu Guard where he was stationed began to reform its guard system.

Because the Qian family had served as military households in the garrison for a long time and their ancestors had made great contributions, they were designated as third-class hereditary soldiers and were allocated 120 acres of land.

After understanding the court's policy, Qian Wu's father discovered that this third-level hereditary sergeant could be divided into three first-level hereditary sergeants. Each family could get 50 mu of land, a total of 150 mu.

So he presided over the division of the family, and set up Qian Wu and his two brothers in separate households as first-class hereditary soldiers.

It was also at that time that Qian Wu became famous, from Qian Wu to the current Qian Wu.

Today, Qian Wu's two elder brothers are serving in the Zhuolu District Garrison Camp. Qian Wu's father retired from the army and recruited some civilians from Zhuolu Guard to help them cultivate the land.

Qian Wu therefore gained the status of a sergeant, and compared to an ordinary private, he was qualified to serve as a grassroots non-commissioned officer.

As a result, he was appointed as sergeant, and relying on his family's rudimentary martial arts skills, he defeated another sergeant and became the first in line to succeed the squad leader.

In the future, as long as he serves in the army long enough, he will be able to be promoted to a mid- to senior-level sergeant based on his seniority and be qualified to serve as a sergeant major.

So Qian Wu set his sights on the position of sergeant major, and even wanted to use it as a springboard to study martial arts and become an officer after graduation.

After consulting with the distant relative who was a hereditary centurion, Qian Wu was now trying to figure out how to build a good relationship with the squad leader. He was even trying to learn to read and pass the exam to enter the martial arts school.

This is another way to enter the military academy besides being recommended as a sergeant after making meritorious service on the battlefield. After serving for two years, soldiers in the army can take the examinations organized by military academies such as martial arts and enter military academies.

The original martial arts of the Three Guards of Zhuolu have now been changed into the Zhuolu Non-commissioned Officers School and its affiliated primary and middle schools, which specialize in training sergeants and junior officers.

There was even a requirement by the imperial court that the heirs to hereditary officials of the Wei Suo must attend military academies, otherwise they would not be eligible to inherit the throne in the future.

Those people can enter the preparatory class based on their status, but whether they can become military academy students and whether they can successfully graduate from the military academy and obtain the qualification to inherit the business is a test.

Many children of hereditary officials complained about this, but Qian Wu was very envious, because as long as he could graduate from the military academy, he could become an officer.

His biggest hope now is to enter the military academy and become an officer, or even make meritorious contributions in the future and obtain a hereditary official position.

After half of the hereditary officials of the Three Guards of Zhuolu were forcibly relocated to Dongning, there are now many hereditary official positions vacant, and there are plenty of opportunities.

So when the rebellion broke out in the west of Beijing and the emperor dispatched soldiers from the patrol camp, Qian Wu was extremely excited and planned to gain merit on the battlefield and get a chance for promotion.

Compared with recommendations and examinations, he hoped more to achieve military merit and become an officer.
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Sergeant Qian Wu has the ambition to achieve great things, but his superior Zhang Yongan is in a very bad mood.

As a descendant of Zhang Xueyan, a famous official during the Wanli period, Zhang Yongan inherited the hereditary centurion position of the Jinyiwei passed down by his great-grandfather, and last year, he was transferred to the hereditary centurion position of the Jinwuwei.

These two positions were nominal to him, as the Zhang family had never served in the Jinyiwei before.

This is because his ancestor Zhang Xueyan was highly valued by Zhang Juzheng in the past, and was greatly criticized after Zhang Juzheng's death.

In particular, Zhang Xueyan, as the Minister of Revenue at that time, presided over the implementation of the Single Whip System and land survey, and completed the compilation of the "Wanli Accounting Records".

This made the Zhang family even more unpopular among the gentry, and the Zhang family's children were often criticized in the imperial examinations.

By the time of Zhang Yongan's generation, the Zhang family had completely fallen into decline. If it weren't for Zhang Yongan's hereditary position as a centurion passed down from his ancestors, the Zhang family might have been completely forgotten.

However, the current emperor admires Zhang Juzheng and even conferred the hereditary title of Duke on Zhang Tongchang.

Zhang Yongan's luck turned around and he was selected by the emperor as a reserve official of the Jinyiwei.

At a time when the Jinyiwei was expanding rapidly, Zhang Yongan, who was well-versed in literature, had no shortage of job opportunities.

Even if he joined the army, he could serve as a civilian officer as a son of a scholar.

However, Zhang Yongan keenly realized that the current emperor attached great importance to military merit. If one wanted to seek wealth and honor, the best way was to fight on the battlefield.

He envied Zhang Tongchang for getting the hereditary title, so he rejected the arrangement of Jinyiwei and chose to go to the martial arts school for short-term training and became a grassroots officer of the patrol camp.

However, as a grassroots officer, he actually still enjoyed some preferential treatment.

According to the rules set by the emperor, hereditary officials who entered the new army had to be demoted by three ranks. A hereditary centurion of the sixth rank could only start from the ninth rank.

A lieutenant of the ninth rank can be a squadron leader, but it is usually difficult. He needs to work as a deputy squadron leader for several years and be promoted to captain of the eighth rank before he can take the position.

Because Zhang Yongan was a son of a scholar and had excellent performance in martial arts, Xu Guangqi took a special liking to him and directly appointed him as the squadron leader.

At the same time, because of the lack of literati in the army, he also served as an instructor. He guided the soldiers' ideological and political work, helped them read newspapers and write letters, and taught the soldiers who wanted to learn to read.

It was under his guidance that Qian Wu decided to enroll in a military academy.

During this process, Zhang Yongan, as a squadron leader and instructor, received great training.

At this time, he had already deeply understood why the Wei Suo system was based on the Bai Hu Suo and why the new army attached great importance to the squadron and regarded the squadron as the basic tactical unit.

The squadron of about a hundred people is really too important and can be regarded as the foundation of the army.

As a squadron leader, he not only had to train the three squadrons under his command and make them familiar with three-stage shooting, but also had to skillfully change from three rows to two rows and one row to form a general formation when marching.

We also need to cooperate with other squadrons to form various square formations——

The square formation was introduced from the Portuguese by Grand Secretary Xu Guangqi, who was in charge of the training of the new army.

Now the Portuguese were divided into Spanish and Portuguese, so the phalanx was called the Spanish phalanx.

This type of phalanx consists of spearmen and musketeers.

However, because the Ming Dynasty's new army's muskets were equipped with bayonets, the number of spearmen was reduced after a period of drills.

Just to be on the safe side, some pikemen were assigned to each squadron. The soldiers were mainly musketeers, with a mix of light and heavy muskets.

Zhang Yongan and others mainly trained in the hollow square formation proposed by the emperor, which could better exert firepower and was very effective in resisting cavalry.

Zhang Yongan needed to train his three teams to quickly form a square formation, and at the same time cooperate with other squadrons to form a larger square formation.

At first he was very distressed because it was easy to form three teams into three sections for shooting, but difficult to form a four-sided square formation.

There were even some squadron leaders who proposed increasing the organization, raising the three squads under their command to four squads.

But in the end the number was not increased because a sergeant proposed a method, which was to arrange the troops in units of ten into four square formations.

A squadron consists of three squads, which is nine squads. If the squads are arranged in a square formation, two squads can be placed on each side. The remaining squad and the squadron's direct personnel will serve as the reserve team, ready to provide support at any time.

This finally solved the problem of forming a hollow square with a squadron, allowing training to continue.

However, a hollow square formation composed of a squadron is not very powerful. Usually, the squadron will use three or two rows in a horizontal formation to maximize its firepower.

Each squadron is responsible for one direction, and four squadrons form a hollow square.

Because of this, the brigade's organization was determined, with five squadrons under its jurisdiction:

In addition to the four squadrons that form the square formation, there is also a support squadron, which includes artillery, cavalry, reconnaissance and other teams, as well as baggage soldiers selected from auxiliary troops to provide various support.

The strength of a squadron is about three squads with 105 people, plus four officers: the squadron leader, instructor, deputy squadron leader, and quartermaster.

There is also the squadron sergeant who is responsible for the square formation, as well as the communicators, buglers, medics, and armorers directly under the squadron, and cooks selected from the auxiliary troops.

The total number of people is 125, which may increase or decrease depending on actual conditions.

For example, Zhang Yongan’s squadron had only 124 people because he also served as the instructor.

Four squadrons make up 500 people, plus the supporting squadrons under the battalion, each battalion has about 660 people.

It is more than twice the number of the 300-man Niulu of the Jianlu, who are their imaginary enemies.

The new troops of the Patrol Battalion have now been organized into ten battalions, with more than 6,000 regular soldiers. (End of this chapter)