Zhou Shixiang, the candidate for the village head, did not appoint all the people from the Taiping Army, but selected some of the originally dismissed chiefs with a good reputation to serve as them, and the others were nominated by the local villagers themselves.
Because of the strong clan power in this era, the landlords and gentry took advantage of the loopholes in the election of the village chief, and most of the village chiefs elected by the villagers themselves were gentry people, even if they had nothing to do with the local gentry, they were all brothers in the village on weekdays, and the villagers were afraid of them.
Basically, among the ten village chiefs elected by the villagers themselves, at most one or two are honest people who are more convincing to the villagers on weekdays, and the rest are elected by the villagers because they are afraid of pressure.
Of course, Zhou Shixiang was dissatisfied with this situation, but seeing that these people knew that the knife handle was in the hands of the Taiping Army, they were still cooperative with the Taiping Army, and most of the grain tax payment tasks issued by the township could be completed, so they also acquiesced in this situation and did not intend to conflict with local clan forces at this time.
Of course, for serious corruption in the process of paying grain and paying taxes, Zhou Shixiang's hand will not be soft.
Thanks to the military disasters in Guangdong in recent years, the population of Xiangshan has also decreased a lot, which has made a lot of land vacant, and the land left by the escaped landlords in each township has made the people settled in each township have enough land and property to pay for their military exploits.
The village chiefs of these villages, with the exception of some of the former rear battalion managers, are disabled soldiers who have retired from the army.
When the old and weak were resettled, Zhou Shixiang deliberately asked Song Xianggong to resettle according to the original geographical and blood relationship, which made the cohesion of the new villages scattered in various townships very strong, and with the support of the Taiping Army, the locals did not dare to bully these outsiders.
It is necessary to set up new administrative regions, set up security teams, organize the people of new villages to carry out spring plowing and production, refine the specific duties of the township offices, strengthen the ties between the townships and villages, and the county, and implement a new mobilization system and take stock of the various affairs of the townships.
Zhou Shixiang is also a hands-off shopkeeper, he only explained the major policies and guidelines to Liao Ruixiang and Song Xianggong, and he didn't ask about the specific implementation, and only asked about the latest progress every ten days.
This made Liao Ruixiang and Song Xianggong suffer, and not long after the New Year, the two of them had more gray hair.
Liao Ruixiang has the official certificate and official seal of the Yongli Imperial Court, and has become an official of the Zhengqipin, but Song Xianggong is still in the name of the general affairs of the Taiping Army, and does not have the official official status of the Yongli Imperial Court, which makes Zhou Shi very guilty about him.
Song Xianggong was open-minded, and he didn't care if he had a formal official status, the more he didn't care about Zhou Shixiang, the more guilty he felt, so he simply reorganized and expanded the Taiping Army by using the title of the Governor of Guangdong, Lianchengbi, to his own named Chaozhou General Army, and also officially formed the Taiping Army.
The head of the camp is the head of the camp, and the army is the army.
Nowadays, any family in the Southern Ming army can build a new battalion head, and some bandits in the mountains can also set up a camp head as long as they are willing to accept the recruitment of the Ming army, but this battalion head has many names, all of them are called anything, and the number of people is also different, it is not institutionalized, and it is also dispensable in the eyes of the Yongli regime.
The formation of an army is much more formal than the head of the camp, and those who can form an army must at least have the rank of chief soldier awarded by the Yongli Imperial Court, rather than a random guerrilla or capital division who can be pulled out to form an army alone.
The Yongli court did not give Zhou Shixiang the official rank of general soldier, but the governor of Liangguang, Lian Chengbi, gave Zhou Shixiang the official title of Chaozhou general soldier out of expediency.
The chief military officer of the Ming Dynasty did not have a fixed rank, and he was also very delegated, and the command of the army and the establishment of the quota were also uncertain.
Generally, those who can serve as the commander-in-chief are mostly the commanders of the princes or guards.
The Ming military system began with the guard system, with the commander of the capital, the commander of the guard, the thousand households, the hundred households, the general flag, and the small flag for the officer establishment, and in case of war, the general officer was awarded, and the general soldier below added the deputy general, the general, the guerrilla, the garrison, and the thousand generals.
For example, Wu Sangui was the commander of the capital governor and served as the commander-in-chief of Liaodong.
During the Chongzhen period, even if the wars inside and outside the customs continued year after year, there were only more than 30 general officers in various places, and there were very few of them who could be called "the general town" or "marshal" by the general number.
After Jiashen, the number of chief military officers became proliferated, and there were more than 10 chief military officers in various coastal areas of Guangdong alone, and there were even more registered general soldiers who flew into the sky.
The title of chief soldier is really worthless.
However, it is worthless, there is the title of registered general soldier, Zhou Shixiang and the Taiping Army are soldiers and horses belonging to the Yongli Imperial Court, and they are no longer the kind of dispensable battalion heads.
If it weren't for the fact that the city wall was really weak, I was afraid that this would have sent the prison army to Xiangshan as usual.
With the expansion of the ranks, the original system of 100 households and general flags is definitely no longer suitable, so Zhou Shixiang decided to implement a new command system in the army by virtue of the title of named general soldier.
In other words, Zhou Shixiang is about to promote his subordinates.
Before being promoted, Zhou Shixiang ordered each battalion to report the new conscription, although the people of Xiangshan did not join the army in groups, but the figures reported by each battalion still made Zhou Shixiang quite satisfied.
The most recruited soldiers are the trapped camps stationed in Yongle Township and Changning Township.
Tie Yi carried out a brutal purge of the landlords and gentry in the local area, and it can be said that all the gentry who were originally riding on the heads of the peasants in Erxiang were killed, not only that, but he also uprooted the local clan forces, although this move made the Taiping Army have a bad reputation, and also made the local surnames extremely hateful to the Taiping Army, but it received the support of the non-big surname farmers.
After receiving the high-quality fields and the floating wealth of the landlords' families, which they had never dared to think of, and seeing the good treatment enjoyed by the newly resettled families of the Taiping Army, the peasants of Yongle and Changning townships were extremely enthusiastic about joining the Taiping Army.
By the end of the month, the camp had recruited 1,950 recruits.
The second is that the Hujie battalion stationed in Longyan has recruited the most troops, because Longyan is close to the Tan River, and the local people are no strangers to the war that took place in Xinhui on the other side of the river, and they all know that the Qing army was defeated in Xinhui, and they saw that the river was full of Ming army sailors, so the fear of the Qing army was greatly reduced.
Song Xianggong personally sat in Longyan to carry out land consolidation and gave these people sweetness, Qin Zhisheng tried his best to restrain military discipline, so that the local villagers did not commit any crimes, so although the local clan strength is still there, but the clan is not opposed to the villagers participating in the Taiping Army, which allowed Qin Zhisheng to successfully recruit 1200 recruits, of which more than 400 are fishermen who fish by the river all year round.
The Xiongwei Battalion stationed in Liangzidu also recruited 600 recruits, the Zhenyu Battalion stationed in Renhoufang recruited 700 people, and the Guards Battalion stationed in Qianshanzhai recruited more than 900 people.
All battalions were recruiting troops, and Qi Hao was not idle, taking advantage of the opportunity to train artillery, he also recruited more than 500 recruits.
In addition, the remnants of the Ming army who came out of the mountains such as Qiniang Mountain and Wutong Mountain successively joined the Taiping Army, so that the number of soldiers of the Taiping Army expanded from more than 4,000 after crossing the river to 12,000.
There are a lot of soldiers, but the recruits have not been trained, let alone battle, there is almost no combat effectiveness, and the important thing is that the grain and grass of the Qing army seized by the Taiping army from Xiangshan are constantly consumed, and before the new grain is harvested, Song Xianggong gave a period of food shortage of up to two months.
At the same time, he reminded Zhou Shixiang that in this year's war, it is not about the combat effectiveness of both sides, but whether the officials can feed their subordinates. oshow7 t1706231537: