Meishan Su family, Su Yun is the most virtuous

Chapter 236 The seeds of a strong army are growing!

“…The Guo Dynasty rose in the last dynasty, and before the establishment of the Guo Dynasty, the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun had been ceded to the Khitan by Shi Jingtang, who usurped the Central Plains regime.

You are all soldiers, and you should know what the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun mean. It was the most important line of defense for the Central Plains against the barbarians. Before the founding of our Great Song Dynasty, this line of defense had already been lost.

Without this line of defense, we will need to deploy millions of troops in the north to prevent the Khitan from moving south.

The amount of money and food consumed every year by these millions of troops is beyond your imagination.

And all this money and grain, every penny comes from farmers like you. The taxes are heavy in normal times, and even heavier when war breaks out.

The Dangxiang people took advantage of the Liao Dynasty's pressure on our country and launched a rebellion, directly splitting the country. This land is a place where war horses are produced, which directly blocked our channel for building cavalry.

Without cavalry, we can only defend with a clumsy method like a fortress, which is extremely costly. "

Having said that, Su Yun sighed.

A soldier below asked: "Since we can't win, why don't we just not fight and maintain peace?"

Su Yun smiled and said, "Well, that's a good question. Some or most of the ministers in the court don't want to fight. They say that it's better to maintain peace so that everyone can live in peace. The sons of the people don't have to die on the battlefield."

Su Yun laughed, his expression turned sarcastic, and said: "The Liao Kingdom and Xixia are now like two axes hanging over our heads, and in order to defend ourselves, we desperately put on heavy armor.

But brothers who have traveled a long way should know, when you carry a heavy load, how far can you go?
These heavy burdens are borne by the imperial court, but the people at the grassroots level are actually the ones who bear the real pressure, that is, you, your parents, your brothers and sisters, and your children and grandchildren.

Therefore, in order to get rid of this burden, we must become strong, then defeat the Dangxiang people and the Khitan people, take back the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun, and take back the Hetao area.

By then, we can rely on terrain defense and only need hundreds of thousands of troops to guard the country's borders.

The imperial court can then reduce taxes, use the taxes to manage water conservancy projects, and support the people, so that people's lives can get better!

You always think that fighting with the Tanguts and the Khitans will not benefit the common people at all, and the only ones who benefit from it are the officials and the powerful... Is this actually the case?

Besides, can we have peace just because we want it?"

Su Yun paused and smiled, “In the Battle of Sanchuankou, Li Yuanhao led a large army to besiege Yanzhou;
In the Battle of Haoshuichuan, Li Yuanhao led an army of 100,000 southwards to attack Song;

In the Battle of Dingchuan Village, Li Yuanhao sent a large army directly south to attack the heartland of the Central Plains;

Battle of Dashun City, Xixia attacked Qingzhou;

These were all invasions initiated by the Dangxiang people against our Great Song Dynasty.

As for the Khitans, in the first year of Jingde, Empress Xiao and Emperor Shengzong of Liao launched a massive attack on the Song Dynasty, which was known as the Battle of Yingzhou.

In the same year, Empress Dowager Xiao and Emperor Shengzong launched another large-scale attack on Song, which was the Battle of Chanzhou.

After these two wars, Emperor Renzong felt the severity of the crisis and thus launched the Qingli New Deal.

So, sometimes we can’t avoid fighting just because we want to. They occupy the advantageous terrain and can move south at any time.

Our Great Song originally occupied the most fertile land in the world. I think you all understand the principle that an innocent man is guilty of possessing a treasure.

The Dangxiang people lived in the bitter cold of the northwest, and the Khitans who occupied the north were also poor. They looked at the wealthy yet weak Song Dynasty. Could they really resist taking a bite?

I still say this: we can’t just stop fighting if we want to.

As for us, whether we fight or not, our burden will be heavy.

Your family has to pay a large amount of taxes every year. Originally, this money could be used to buy vegetables and meat, to cut a few feet of cloth to make some beautiful clothes for your wife and children, or to save for years of disaster.

Therefore, as long as we don’t take back Hetao, the Western Regions, and the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun, our descendants will have to live in poverty and insecurity…”

From that night on, every night thereafter, it was no longer just singing songs, Su Yun would often talk about similar topics with the soldiers.

Of course, what Su Yun talked about was mainly to make it clear why soldiers fought.

Su Yun did not dare to say too much about other domestic issues in the Song Dynasty, for fear that these soldiers would rise up in rebellion.

So it mainly talks about the heavy military pressure that Liao and Xia brought to the Song Dynasty, and the subsequent economic consequences, which would eventually fall on every citizen.

There is certainly nothing wrong with this logic, it just avoids discussing some other issues.

After basically explaining why they were fighting, Su Yun began to instill in the soldiers the concept of being soldiers from the people, and began to introduce the three major disciplines and eight points of attention.

Su Yun then led five hundred soldiers to Suide City. The first thing they did was to clean the streets and repair the damaged areas.

The appearance of the army in the city immediately caused the people of Suide City to panic.

But then I was surprised to find that these soldiers spoke very kindly, and when they went to the streets, not only did they not take people's things, but when they needed something, they actually traded fairly.

Some women from ordinary families were met on the street, but no one came up to tease them.

These soldiers needed brooms and other repair tools to clean the streets and repair damaged floors, so they borrowed them from shops on the street.

The shop owners sighed in their hearts, thinking that these things would never be returned after being borrowed, but they did not dare to offend the soldiers. Unexpectedly, after using them, the soldiers actually returned them respectfully.

This army is really interesting.

In the past, the army did not dare to let them enter the city at will. Once they entered the city, they would smash, loot and rob much more severely than some bandits. As the saying goes, "Bandits pass by like combs, and soldiers pass by like rakes." This is no joke.

Afterwards, Su Yun took 500 soldiers to where the poor people lived, helping them replace the thatch on their roofs, repair roads, and even help with farming.

After this period of time, the battalion led by Su Yun won great fame, and the people called it the People's Army.

Su Yun didn’t care much about the people’s evaluation of the army. He was concerned about the changes in these 500 soldiers.

Su Yun found that as he explained why they were fighting, the soldiers' eyes gradually became clearer. And as they helped the people, the people's praise and closeness made the soldiers' eyes gradually become firmer.

Su Yun was quite relieved that these soldiers were not really that numb. It was just that they were rotten from top to bottom and there was no one to guide them. In fact, it was proved that in the genes of the Chinese people, as long as someone united them, they would be the best fighters in the world!

However, Su Yun did not relax, as it was still just a prototype.

A soldier who has a strong body and knows why he is fighting can be considered a qualified soldier, but fighting is not that simple. This is just the foundation of the foundation. But as long as this foundation is solid enough, the upper limit will be higher in the future.

And now the Qiying Camp is barely in shape.

But it is far from enough.

The soldiers of the Qiying Camp now only have some basic skills, but they are still far from the skills and tactics required for fighting!
In Su Yun's opinion, none of the soldiers in the Qiying camp had up to standard in terms of skills and tactics.

There were less than 20% cavalry in Qi Ying's camp, but when these cavalry faced the Iron Harriers, they ran much faster than others.

In Su Yun's opinion, these cavalrymen's riding skills, archery skills, and horseback charging and close combat skills are still too poor and there is a lot of room for improvement.

And 80% of the infantry’s archery skills and the ability to deal with cavalry charges are too poor.

Of course, during actual combat, what Su Yun saw were soldiers with no fighting spirit, but during training on the parade ground, Su Yun also shook his head repeatedly.

All kinds of skills are unfamiliar, and there is no cooperation between them. Apart from some crude concept of leaving your back to your brothers, there is basically no other cooperation. And this is the cooperation between infantrymen.

It cannot be said that there was no coordination between infantry and cavalry, it can only be said that there was none at all.

Especially in recent days, Su Yun thought that the previous foundation was enough and he could add some skills and tactics, so he conducted a simulated training, and then he saw a noisy scene.

The infantry's formation was in disarray after running for a while. Su Yun didn't even need to ride his horse back and forth to distract them; the infantry was in chaos on their own.

The cavalry that Su Yun requested to launch a basic tactic of luring and attacking the enemy's position from the flank, luring and attacking again, unexpectedly, after running for a short distance, the formation was completely scattered. Some ran fast, some ran slowly, and some even ran away from the team...

However, Su Yun did not blame these soldiers because he knew how difficult these tasks were that required the cooperation of multiple people.

Someone in later generations described it this way: "If you don't understand how difficult it is to organize the deployment of a military force, then you can try to organize a spring outing for dozens of people in your class, and you will know how difficult it is."

When it comes to matters involving the cooperation of multiple people, firstly, there must be a sufficiently complete plan, and secondly, training must be conducted ten, a hundred, or even a thousand times.

If you have participated in football or basketball, you will know that a simple two-person tactic is difficult enough. If there is one more person, the difficulty will be doubled. If there are more than four or five people involved, without an extremely good coach, it will be impossible to coordinate.

The coordination during wars involves dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in large armies. The complexity of that kind of coordination is beyond human imagination.

Training, to a certain extent, represents the combat effectiveness of the army.

A well-trained army, even if it has never fought in actual combat, will definitely have strong combat effectiveness.

Even if an army has fought many wars, if it has too little training, then the upper limit of their strength may not be very high.

Because personal combat power can indeed be improved through actual combat, but when it comes to teamwork, it must be achieved through repeated practice over and over again.

In Su Yun's opinion, the Song Dynasty's army had too little training due to various reasons. When they had too little training, they became unfamiliar with the army. When they were unfamiliar with the army, they could be taken advantage of. When they were attacked, their morale would easily collapse!

The bottom line is, you just don’t practice enough!
The military is just like competitive sports, as long as you practice, it will be useful!
This is an eternal truth.

In later generations, the Chinese men's basketball team would basically reach a trough every ten years, and then the Chinese men's basketball team would invite Gong Luming to lead the team. Gong Luming was able to successfully lead the men's basketball team back to the top every time, and his secret was actually just one, that is, to implement the three obediences and one major principle.

The so-called "Three Obediences and One Big" are to be strict, to be difficult, to start from actual combat, and to conduct high-intensity training.

This principle, which seems unscientific and somewhat against human nature, has repeatedly saved the Chinese men's basketball team from dire straits.

In fact, the reason is very simple.

——Practice and it will be useful!

Su Yun began to organize the Qiying Camp to conduct technical and tactical training.

It is natural that each captain has to lead their team again at this moment. After these days of training and improvement in their spiritual level, these captains are now obviously more energetic and spirited.

Under the guidance of Wang Shunchen, the Qiying Camp implemented the training principles of strictness, difficulty, actual combat, and high-intensity training.

Su Yun wanted to build a strong cavalry, so he mobilized hundreds of horses from Qi Keyong, trying to ensure that each of the 500 men in Qi Ying's camp had at least one horse.

After the horses arrived, all the soldiers underwent high-intensity training in horse riding and archery, as well as various cavalry tactics. When the horses got tired, the soldiers would continue to rest while the horses rested, and would conduct another simulation of cavalry tactics.

The training was extremely arduous, but Su Yun had laid a solid foundation. Nearly two months of long-distance running and a large amount of carbohydrates and meat every day made these soldiers' physical fitness very strong, allowing them to barely adapt to this intensity of training.

Sure enough, practice pays off.

After a month of intensive training, the Qiying Camp had already looked somewhat presentable. When the five hundred cavalrymen began to charge, the sense of oppression had already taken shape.

Under the high-intensity training, not only have the original infantry basically learned horse archery, but various cavalry tactics have also been practiced quite well.

Su Yun still felt quite accomplished. When the Qiying Battalion was sent out to practice martial arts with the Northwest Army, except for some extremely elite personal guards battalions, most of the cavalry might not be able to achieve such an effect.

Putting aside the strength of Qiying Camp, just looking at the various cavalry tactics, even the Iron Harriers would probably applaud.

Su Yun was naturally not idle. He worked hard with the people from Qiying Camp every day. He practiced the same way as Qiying Camp did. This was also the reason why Qiying Camp was able to persevere.

What, you said you can’t hold on? Look who that is, Manager Su is practicing along with them, and you say you can’t hold on. Are you nobler than Manager Su?
Su Yun watched with joy as the seed sprouted and grew. As long as he was given a year, he could train these 500 people into an elite cavalry.

And each of them can become a captain, and then these soldiers who have been carefully trained by him can spread his training methods, ideas about why they fight, etc.

And the five hundred captains can expand the army into 50,000 troops. If the 50,000 troops are trained according to his current training method, then in another year, he will be able to have 100 Qiying camps!

If he is given three or four years, these 50,000 troops will become the elite among the elite in the Northwest Army!
(End of this chapter)