The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 76 Elite Soldiers and the Future

The retreat was extremely smooth. We travelled a hundred kilometres downstream, and the most dangerous section was completed in less than two days.

Afterwards, Mo Zibu successfully arrived at the small town of Aobo mentioned by the captives, and the soldiers of Kunlun Mountain Hall easily drove away the local guards.

At this time, the news of the attack on Pyin U Muay may not have reached Ava, the capital of the Konbaung Dynasty.

After waiting for two days in Aobo, Li Xianwen, Ou Long, Zhou Yuanquan and others led the fleet upstream to Aobo.

Then it was easy. Mo Zibu even waited for a day until the local officials of the Konbaung Dynasty organized a group of thousands of local militia members to come and drive them away.

Then Mo Zibu ordered the warships to fire artillery, making the Burmese scream in pain. The Burmese were completely frightened and no longer dared to follow the fleet from a distance.

In this battle, Mozibu led less than 600 people across Myanmar for 800 miles, killed a king, captured a city, and killed more than 1,000 Arakan soldiers and Konbaung Dynasty soldiers, and captured 2,000 to 3,000.

Three hundred and ten captured French artillerymen and sailors, as well as more than 1,300 of their family members, were rescued.

They looted goods worth 70,000 taels of silver from the Arakanese capital of Myo-U, and emptied the entire city of Myo-U of gold, silver, and jewelry worth more than 30,000 taels.

In addition, there were sixteen field guns, three hundred and ten 1730-style Irish harp flintlock rifles, ten thousand pounds of gunpowder, thirty thousand lead bullets, and nine hundred artillery shells.

It was a huge profit. Not only did it train the team, but it also earned a lot of money.

At least now, among the 1,400 soldiers of Kunlun Mountain Hall, 800 can be considered elite.

To understand the level of eliteness, let’s take the Qing Dynasty, Mo Zibu’s biggest imaginary enemy, as an example.

They were not as good as the Black Water Camp commanded by Zhao Hui, who had just passed away. They fought with 3,000 men against 50,000 in an undefended place, and relied on cannibalism to fight for 100 days, dragging down the two Hezhuos. Even in the Han and Tang dynasties, they were considered super macho men.

It should not be as good as the powerful Qing army that Fukangan and Hailancha led across the plateau for thousands of miles to attack the Gurkhas and fought all the way to Kathmandu a few decades later.

It is highly likely that they were still not as good as the Qing Dynasty warriors such as Mingrui and Guanyinbao who were able to penetrate the hollow square formation of Burmese flintlock rifles with cavalry alone in the Qing-Myanmar War a few years later.

But apart from that, it is estimated that the elite in the Green Camp should be able to fight on equal terms with the hundreds of people in Kunlun Mountain Hall.

As for the Eight Banners stationed in various places and most of the bannermen in Beijing, they are not soldiers. They are good at fighting, but they are not as good as ordinary Green Camp in fighting.

Therefore, considering that Mo Zibu's career has just started, in another five to eight years, the elite Green Camp of the Qing Dynasty will probably not be able to defeat the soldiers under Mo Zibu's command.

I think everything will go smoothly. If they really want to go north in ten or twenty years, if they operate properly, it will just be a fight between Mo Zibu's elite soldiers from Kunlun Mountain and the elite Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty.

As long as we defeat or drag down these tens of thousands of Qing Dynasty's pillars, it seems that our Qing Dynasty will not be so difficult to overthrow.

After thinking about it for a long time, Mo Zibu thought about the future of Kunlun Mountain Hall in the captain's room at the stern of the Lucky.

So far, the more than 1,000 people in Kunlun Mountain Hall have made Mo Zibu truly realize how difficult it is to support an army.

Military pay, rewards, bedding, weapons, and pensions all cost money.

Especially the navy, which is simply a money-eating beast. He didn't even have to buy these ships himself, but the sailors' salaries were a huge expense.

Taking ordinary sailors as an example, among European sailors operating soft sails, apprentice sailors earned five or six pounds a year, which is approximately equivalent to seventeen to twenty taels of silver based on today's purchasing power.

For mature sailors who have passed the apprenticeship stage, you have to pay them at least fifteen pounds a year, which is approximately equivalent to fifty taels of silver.

Considering the large number of trainee sailors on a warship, the average salary of these people is eight pounds, or about twenty-five taels of silver.

There were 120 sailors on the Lucky, which cost about 3,000 taels of silver.

Besides the 120 sailors, there were about 90 soldiers, chiefly 30 gunners and auxiliaries, officers, and fusiliers.

Their salaries were high. The highest-ranking captain needed about 250 pounds a year, a gunner with the rank of second lieutenant or lieutenant needed 120 pounds, and a gunner needed at least 50 pounds.

All in all, the average salary of these ninety soldiers was about twenty pounds, which is about sixty-seven taels of silver, and the total salary of all ninety people was about six thousand and thirty taels of silver.

Only the sailors' wages are counted, that is, the food expenses, the consumption of muskets and cannons, and the natural loss of warships are not taken into account.

Maintaining a fifth-level sailing cruiser with 32 guns requires at least 9,000 taels of silver a year. If you add up all the costs, even 12,000 or 13,000 taels would be enough.

Damn it! Mo Zibu took a deep breath. This navy is really a money-burning thing!

Even if there is only one level 5 sailing cruiser, and the rest are mostly hard-sail Chinese warships, the total expenditure is still not small.

His navy of nine warships would probably require at least 50,000 taels of silver a year.

Including the army, at least 90,000 to 100,000 taels of silver a year would not be enough to cover the salaries. If the expenses were included, it would definitely be more than 130,000 taels of silver a year.

I'm speechless. I, Mo Dalongtou, looted the palaces of the Sultan of Kedah and the Kingdom of Arakan, and only got a little over 100,000 taels in total. It seems that this is not enough to support an army of 2,000 people including sailors for a year.

He finally realized that even Zhengzhou in the north, Nguyen Dynasty in the south and Siam basically did not build their own sailing battleships or train naval talents. With the strength of the Southeast Asian countries, they simply could not afford it.

In fact, even Britain and France couldn't afford such a ferocious spending spree. To solve the problem of horrific naval salaries, they resorted to a time-honored trick: conscription.

Suppose you are a fisherman on the European coast, having sold your catch in a town not far from your fishing village, and are about to buy a glass of cheap wine to drink.

After a while, you will see the crowd suddenly panic and start running around. Don't doubt it, it is the conscription group hired by the army to conscript able-bodied men.

For example, during the Seven Years' War in 1757, British troops surrounded New York and captured people at one time.

In 1760, they captured people at one time in Halifax, Canada, which frightened the people of Halifax into forming a militia and preparing to go to war with the British Navy.

These captured sailors naturally do not have to be paid much salary. Even when the sailors are about to complete their service, the officers will find an excuse to punish them and confiscate their salary.

Some were even extremely unscrupulous and would even choose to kill some sailors to avoid paying large salaries.

Cowhide!

After hearing Manuel Bonn's solution, Mo Zibu could only give a thumbs up and praise the British and French naval officers who were so lacking in virtue.

But he couldn't use this route. What a joke! If Mo Zibu drove a warship to the British and French territories to conscript men, not only would he not be able to win, but Britain and France would not allow him to do so.

Well, not necessarily. When I go back, I can go to the pubs in Johor and rob all the drunk European sailors there.

According to Li Xianwen, there were quite a few people there, at least three or four hundred scum European sailors.

However, distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. After thinking it over again and again, Mo Zibu finally decided to take a risk and issue military notes within the Kunlun Mountain Hall.

This military note uses a real-name system and cannot be used directly as money, but in the future it can be used to purchase various daily necessities in Ha Tien, Mong Kok (Bangkok), Hoi An and other places, as well as to offset various taxes after the founding of the country.

Of course, we cannot replace all expenditures with military notes, but we can replace salaries with military notes.

As for wartime incentives, all post-war rewards must be discounted, which may temporarily control the rapid expenditure of funds.

If this works, the funding gap should be alleviated in a short period of time. However, we still need to have our own territory in the future, and we must obtain the financial power of Ha Tien within the next few years.

This is a huge income of more than 700,000 taels per year. After deducting the fixed expenses, there will still be more than 400,000 to 500,000 taels per year.

With this money, it is entirely possible to support an elite land force of about 8,000 soldiers, a dozen regular warships, and 5,000 to 6,000 sailors.

In addition to the salary issue, Mo Zibu also faces the problem of the organization of mountain hall soldiers.

At present, Mo Zibu's Kunlun Mountain Hall is still in a completely old-style military system, and fighting depends on the comprehensive management of officers at the level of battalion commander.

However, according to the evolutionary direction of the new European army, the squad leader who manages a few to ten people is the father of the army.

This is what the emperor said. He is a military god, and his knowledge and ability exceed Mo Zibu's by 10,000 times. Naturally, this is the golden rule.

In order to achieve the effect of the squad leader being the father of the army, first, the organizational structure must be adjusted, and second, the military rank system must be introduced.

Only in the military rank system can we inspire grassroots individual progress, enhance the sense of mission of soldiers, and reflect the importance that Mo Zibu, the leader, attaches to every soldier.

Moreover, in battle, when encountering a bloody battle and the organization is completely destroyed, the team can be quickly organized by relying on military ranks.

It is of great significance especially to those brave warriors in the army who are only capable of being a soldier king and are not suitable to serve as officers at the battalion level or above.

He had to find a way to systematically recruit some regular British, French, Dutch and Spanish military officers to help him build the framework.

The names of military ranks are ready-made and can be directly copied from the People's Liberation Army of later generations. We just need to abandon the bizarre setting of borrowing from Japan and ranking the rank of lieutenant below the colonel.

Well, it would be better to change the rank of lieutenant to guard. From now on, the ranks below the colonel will be junior guard, lieutenant, and senior guard, instead of second lieutenant, lieutenant, and captain.

Mo Zibu thought about it carefully for a while and felt that he couldn't just make a decision on his own. He planned to solicit everyone's opinions at a senior military officer meeting in a few days and work together to come up with a version suitable for the current stage.

Just as he was planning for the future, the fleet finally sailed near Thanlyin.

Although Shalian City was destroyed by the White Elephant King Meng Bo, the port is still there. Li Xianwen had repaired it long ago and it is barely suitable for docking.

Mo Zibu planned to recuperate here for a few days before returning to Port Bolivar and preparing to support Zheng Xin's war against Myanmar.

It is now May, and the Burmese army has probably been besieging the city for about two months. The White Elephant King has lost half of his artillery, so he can probably hold out longer than in history.

Now it depends on Zheng Xin's operation. The best way is to break out of Ayutthaya as soon as possible.

"Dragon head, Bishop Peter is here."

Just when Mo Zibu was lost in thought, he heard the voice of Wang Wuchutong, the guard, from outside.

Mo Zibu stood up immediately. Peter had just separated from him not long ago. It must be something big that Peter risked his life to come here so late at night.

(End of this chapter)