Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Not selecting is more effective than selecting...

Sun Weifan was stunned for a moment before he understood Zhang Shikang's intention, and his scalp went numb.

It turns out that everyone in the camp was included in this guy's plan!

“But we can’t keep dragging it on. Without a lieutenant commander, the Infantry and Cavalry Camps will be affected during the drills.” Sun Weifan said, scratching his messy beard.

"Uncle Shi, I was just kidding. Let's do it at the end of this month." Zhang Shikang said with a chuckle.

"You kid, you are always so unruly, but are you really not going to allocate some of the people in your firearms battalion to be gunners?" Sun Weifan asked.

In addition to musketeers, the Shenji Camp also had artillery. The Jingying warehouse stored as many as fifty or sixty French cannons and tiger squat cannons, and even a dozen Invincible General cannons for city defense, but Zhang Shikang had never used them.

"It's not that I don't want to, it's that I can't." Zhang Shikang shook his head helplessly.

The French cannon and the tiger squat cannon were the main field artillery of the Ming Dynasty. Although they were field artillery, they still needed a mule to carry them and five or six people to operate them.

There were too few artillery pieces to cause any damage; if there were too many artillery pieces, there would not be enough musketeers. Moreover, even if the artillery pieces were transported by mules, they would not be able to move quickly.

What's more, the Beijing camp now has only sixty or seventy mules, which are already insufficient to transport supplies during battle.

After weighing the pros and cons, Zhang Shikang decisively gave up the artillery temporarily. After all, if the musketeers were defeated, they could still run away, but if the artillerymen ran away, the artillery would be gone, which would be a good opportunity for the enemy.

In fact, at present, not only is the Firearms Battalion of the Beijing Camp short of people, but the Cavalry Battalion is also short of people. The Cavalry Battalion has only 3,000 people, which is not enough to even form a battalion.

This is not the worst. There are 3,000 people in the cavalry camp, but only 2,000 horses. Moreover, many of these horses have been in service for more than ten years. According to the average service life of war horses, which is five years, these horses should have been replaced long ago.

But even so, Sun Dasheng, who had just "rebelled" to the Ma Junying, still raised those war horses as treasures.

The last time he went to see Brother Chongzhen, Zhang Shikang also mentioned the problem of the Beijing army's lack of horses. Emperor Chongzhen then took out the silver that Qian Rulong and others had seized from their homes and ordered someone to send it to Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Xuanda.

Now, most of the Mongolian tribes outside the Great Wall have surrendered to Huang Taiji under the threat of the Qing Dynasty, except for the Tumed Mongols, who are still wavering.

Lu Xiangsheng's defense zone was adjacent to the Tumed Mongols and he had always traded with this tribe.

It’s been about a month and a half, so it should be about time.

In addition to daily training, Zhang Shikang would go to see Mao Yuantong's group of craftsmen whenever he had time. In addition to asking about the progress of the imitation of the banjiu-foot gun, Zhang Shikang also asked them to make some practical gadgets.

This includes whistles. Line infantry pay particular attention to the coordination of steps. The battlefield is too noisy and not everyone can hear the command of a person. But whistles are different.

It’s true that Mao Yuantong and others had great craftsmanship. The whistle was made of wrought iron, and after repeated polishing, it was basically the same as the iron whistle of later generations.

On May 14, the war horses that Lu Xiangsheng delivered to the court finally arrived at the Xishan camp.

It is said that this time Lu Xiangsheng bought more than 6,000 war horses from the Tumed Mongols. This was the largest horse market transaction in the border town of the Ming Dynasty in the past ten years.

The main reason is of course the obstruction of the Qing Dynasty. Of course, the secondary reason is that the Ming Dynasty was too poor.

There were a total of 3,500 war horses sent to the Xishan camp, all of which were at their golden age of two or three years old. The 2,000 old horses in the Beijing camp were no match for them. Looking at those Mongolian horses with their shiny coats, Sun Dasheng was so happy that he wanted to pounce on them and give them a kiss.

Together with the two thousand war horses of the Cavalry Camp, the Cavalry Camp of three thousand people suddenly had more than five thousand horses. However, Zhang Shikang did not mobilize soldiers from the Infantry Camp to fill the troop quota of the Cavalry Camp.

Zhang Shikang eliminated 1,200 old horses, of which 200 better ones were kept for use in the military camp to transport supplies, and the remaining 1,000 were sent to the Ministry of Revenue.

The Ministry of Revenue was responsible for the transportation of food and fodder to military towns in various places. What they lacked most were pack animals. Of course, Zhang Shikang did not give away these one thousand war horses for free. He exchanged them for a lot of bean feed, which was used as fodder for the war horses.

Three thousand cavalrymen and more than four thousand horses may seem like a lot, but in fact, at that time, not to mention the Mongols and the Jurchens, even the bandits in the interior and the elite cavalry could ride two horses per man.

This is actually one of the reasons why it is difficult to completely wipe out the bandits. The government army is mainly composed of infantry, and they are always played around by the bandits like walking a dog.

Ever since the Mongolian horses entered the Beijing camp, the parade grounds in the Xishan camp have become much more lively. The three thousand cavalrymen were in the limelight for a while, and Sun Dasheng was very proud of himself.

Zhang Shikang finally had a warhorse of his own, which he asked Sun Weifan to select from more than 3,000 young Mongolian warhorses.

The horse's fur is shiny black all over, except for the four hooves, which are white, just like a war horse stepping on the snow.

So Zhang Shikang named the horse:

Two dogs.

Zhang Shikang was not good at horse riding, but this Mongolian horse seemed to understand human nature and could always speed up or slow down according to Zhang Shikang's shouting. Zhang Shikang was very satisfied with this.

On the afternoon of May 24, the selection of generals that all the soldiers in the Beijing camp had been looking forward to for two months finally officially began.

The total number of people participating in the selection reached an astonishing 8,600 people. Zhang Shikang specially selected a preliminary jury of 200 people from those who had never participated in the selection.

Two hundred people were divided into fifty groups of four, and competed in endurance, strength, and archery/musketry on the parade ground.

Endurance mainly measures muscle endurance, strength tests explosive power in the form of weightlifting, and bows and muskets naturally test accuracy.

There were only these three basic items in the preliminary selection. After the first round of selection, out of more than 8,600 people, only more than 800 were left after two days.

What made Zhang Shikang happy was that more than a dozen people from the Second Son Group, including Chen Tao and Song Liangzu, advanced.

In addition to the three basic events, the second round of selection also includes advanced events, including endurance confrontation, strength confrontation, and actual combat. Bows and muskets have also changed from fixed targets to moving targets.

This knockout round was extremely brutal, especially the actual combat, where blood was shed almost every few rounds.

The elimination round lasted for two days, and finally 128 people won. Only Sun Dasheng and Xu Wenyuan remained from the second son group.

The third round mainly tests the coordination between infantry and cavalry, which includes the coordination between archers, cavalry, spearmen, shieldmen, muskets and even artillerymen.

In addition to the coordination between infantry and cavalry, there are also aspects such as terrain, battle formations, sieges, defenses, food and supplies, etc.

The topics were mainly set by Sun Weifan. From this round on, Zhang Shikang and Sun Weifan were responsible for judging the papers.

After this round of selection, only twelve people were left to win. The remaining 116 people were not discouraged because they were all qualified to serve as patrol chiefs or even low-level generals.

However, what embarrassed Sun Weifan and Zhang Shikang was that Sun Dasheng was actually among the twelve people.

During these two months, Sun Dasheng worked harder than when he was in school as a child. Zhang Shikang hadn't noticed it before, but this guy's concentration was really scary.

However, Sun Dasheng had a father who was a martial arts fanatic, so he had some family training. Whether it was martial arts or other aspects, he was impressive. So no one thought that the examiner Sun Weifan was giving his son a pass.

On the last day of May, twelve chosen ones who stood out from nearly ten thousand people participated in the final selection in the Beijing Camp.

The chief examiner for the final selection was only Zhang Shikang, and no one else knew the questions except Zhang Shikang.

The training ground was in complete silence; none of them knew what kind of questions Zhang Shikang would give.

But they know that the person who will win in the end will be their leader, and no one will fail to take seriously a matter concerning their lives and property.

Zhang Shikang stood on the reviewing stand. He looked around at the twelve people and said with full energy:

"Are you all ready?"