He Xinyin and his disciple were right about one thing. Zhao Hao's visit was indeed like a military review in Mengjin. But he was not reviewing the troops, but reviewing various ideological trends.

Everyone has his or her own judgment on the major changes in the future.

For example, Zhao Shizhen looked down on the Taizhou School. In addition to his own class attributes, there was another very important factor, which was that he believed that He Xinyin seriously underestimated the strength of the Jiangnan Group.

They simply don't understand how strong the group's military is.

The total strength of the four major war zones of the Coast Guard, plus the strategic fleet directly under the General Command and the Western Expeditionary Fleet in Europe, is about 105,000 people...

Well, it's too bullying to compare with the navy. After all, all the warships of the government army combined are no match for an armored cruiser. And the cruiser is only a second-level ship of the Coast Guard.

Even if compared with the army alone, the group is no less powerful than the official army.

Leaving aside the Coast Guard and Marine Corps, the training and equipment level, fighting will and discipline of the 60,000 soldiers alone are beyond the reach of most government troops.

Of course, as the focus of Zhang Juzheng's reform, the improvement of Ming's military strength in recent years is also very significant. Although famous generals such as Yu Dayou and Ma Fang have died one after another, there is still Qi Jiguang in the capital, Li Chengliang in Liaodong, Ma Gui in Ningxia, Deng Zilong in Yunnan, Liu Jing in Sichuan, Qi Jimei in Fujian... and other generals are still shining.

These famous generals each had their own strengths in commanding and deploying troops, and their direct troops in particular were extremely powerful.

But in the eyes of Zhao Shizhen, who believed in the theory of weapons only, as long as all his soldiers were equipped with Wanli rifles, the barbed wire was put up, the trenches were dug, and a series of field artillery developed by himself were used, they would be able to crush anyone they faced.

What? You said 60,000 soldiers are too few? That's the standing cadre! There are a full 1.8 million reserve troops on the roster of the People's Armed Forces Departments of the 18 administrative regions!

Because the arduous overseas immigrants have to face various threats such as pirates, savages, indigenous peoples, and wild beasts, they must have sufficient self-defense capabilities.

According to the group's regulations, all registered residents of all administrative regions, males aged 16 to 36, healthy, without disabilities, and without criminal records, must register as reservists at the local armed forces department and undergo regular military training. Whenever wartime or disaster strikes, the armed forces department can recruit and mobilize at different levels according to regulations and lead the reservists to participate in war or disaster relief.

According to statistics from the group's household registration department, by the end of the 14th year of the Wanli reign, the registered population of the overseas administrative regions totaled 11.2 million, of which 33% were aged 16-36 and 54% were male. Therefore, there were nearly two million young and middle-aged men in the administrative regions, and after deducting those who did not meet the requirements, more than 1.8 million people became reserve forces.

In fact, the proportion of young and middle-aged people in overseas administrative regions once exceeded 50%. However, due to the baby boom in various administrative regions in the past decade, and the initial batch of immigrants entering middle age and old age, the proportion of young and middle-aged people has dropped to one-third.

The reservists are civilians in peacetime, but their military training time is no less than 300 hours per year, including no less than 10 days of off-duty intensive training.

Usually, the production teams and villages would conduct drills for an hour every morning. Then, during the slack season, they would take a few days to conduct intensive training and exercises organized by the People's Armed Forces Department, and they would be able to complete their annual tasks.

This will not affect working hours. On the contrary, due to long-term joint training, it will make young and middle-aged people physically strong and well organized, thus greatly improving work efficiency.

Although the reserve training time is not too long, it is enough to train a qualified musketeer.

In the cold weapon era, a peasant needed two or three years of training, physical exercise, combat skills, and teamwork to become a qualified soldier. It even took five or six years to train an archer. Therefore, it was extremely difficult for countries to recruit soldiers. The hastily armed peasants were just a bunch of decorations, and they were completely vulnerable when they encountered a tough battle.

But musketeers can be trained in large numbers. In as little as one or two weeks, or as long as a month, a musketeer can complete basic training and be sent to line up for execution...

Moreover, the physical fitness requirements for musketeers were not high. You didn't need to be very strong, as long as you could hold the gun. There was no requirement for shooting skills, because once the volleys were fired and the smoke rose, no one knew where their bullets were going.

So in an emergency, theoretically the group only needs seven days to convert 1.8 million reservists into 1.8 million soldiers.

Of course, limited by the group's transportation and logistics capabilities, the maximum number of troops that can be mobilized in a short period of time is around 400,000. In the case of long-term combat, 200,000 troops are the limit.

But if a war really breaks out in the mainland, the number of troops that Jiangnan Group can mobilize will be far more than 200,000.

The 50,000 armed security guards of Jiangnan Security Group, the 500,000 young and strong male employees of the group's subsidiaries, and the 4 million agricultural workers and construction workers of various development companies are all excellent sources of soldiers with loyalty, organization, and discipline. They can also be armed and sent to the battlefield in an endless stream with only one or two months of training.

The most powerful part of Jiangnan Group is not its powerful firearms and technology, but its organizational ability that is completely ahead of its time. This powerful group that Zhao Hao has painstakingly built over the past 20 years has the ability to mobilize its own potential, which is beyond the reach of even the most outstanding political power of the same era.

Moreover, as radio technology comes into use, the group's organizational capabilities will inevitably be improved. This is the key to their victory!

Therefore, in Zhao Shizhen's view, once the two sides go to war, the gentry in Jiangnan will not dare to stand on the side of the emperor! Because the group will take over the political power at all levels in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiaodong and Liaodong in the first place. Then the army will land in Caofeidian, rely on Tangshan City, and march straight to the capital. In less than a month, the country will change hands and the mountains and rivers will be Zhao again!

By then, it will no longer be up to my uncle... I guess my nephew can at least be made a prince, right?

~~

In short, facing this unprecedented major change, the various voices within the group can be roughly divided into two categories.

The first group was like a master and his disciples, believing that the group was too much stronger than the imperial court and that they would surely be defeated if a war broke out.

One type is like Zhao Shizhen, who treated the imperial court as a piece of chicken and pottery dog ​​selling mobile phones, and thought that he could win the battle quickly without much effort.

The current level of confusion in the group's thinking is clear. Confused thinking will inevitably lead to organizational disorder, so it is necessary to unify the thinking as soon as possible.

In Zhao Hao's opinion, the former view was indeed too pessimistic. He was blinded and frightened by the accumulated power of the Zhu family and the imperial court for two hundred years. It was an indisputable fact that the group's military strength crushed the official army and its economic strength was far superior to that of the imperial court. Otherwise, he would not have hidden the percussion cap guns and more advanced firearms.

The so-called "finite generation gap theory" actually means - I look down on you. That's why I hide my better weapons in the bottom of the box.

However, the latter "quick victory theory" is blindly optimistic. Just like King Wu's conquest of King Zhou, the biggest problem for the group against the Ming Dynasty has never been a military problem, but a political and economic problem.

First is the question of the legitimacy of the war.

As the saying goes, "a teacher must have a good reputation." Even a rough man like Lu Zhijie knows that he must find an excuse before beating someone. Zhao Hao, who has always regarded himself as a righteous and civilized teacher, must be more cautious before starting the film. At least he must make all officers and soldiers, the 18 administrative regions, and the people of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Jiaodong firmly believe in the justice of the war. Otherwise, once the faith is shattered, he and the group will pay an unbearable heavy price.

But Zhao Hao's family has been blessed by the emperor for generations. His mother-in-law is the emperor's aunt, his father-in-law is the emperor's teacher, and his biological father is the top scholar appointed by the previous emperor, and he holds the position of the second assistant university scholar of the first rank. The Xishan Group and the Jiangnan Group relied on the protection of Emperor Longqing to grow from nothing to something, from weak to strong.

It is an extremely difficult task to legitimately stand against the royal family...

In addition, in terms of economy, the group has a fatal weakness!

The Jiangnan Group created a miracle in human history. They built the world's most powerful navy without relying on taxation, without increasing the burden on the people or affecting economic development. They opened up tens of thousands of miles of overseas territories, continued to carry out large-scale immigration of two million people each year, and carried out efficient and powerful management of the 18 administrative regions.

Generally speaking, each of these businesses can empty the treasury of a large country, allowing the government to collect taxes for decades. But Zhao Hao has no power to collect taxes in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Jiaodong. In overseas administrative regions, the tax rate is only one tenth, and the first three years are tax-free. At least for now, that little tax is not enough.

In fact, the group’s main sources of funds are two aspects.

One is its own operating income.

The group occupies a dominant position in more than 20 major categories, including silk, cotton spinning, glass, cement, construction, porcelain, tobacco, sugar, tea, pharmaceuticals, shipping, trade, iron smelting, mining, finance, chemicals, agriculture, spices, etc., and contributes profits of over 100 million taels of silver to the group every year.

In addition, the group has been able to absorb a large amount of private wealth through the continuous issuance of bonds by Jiangnan Bank and the listing of various companies. This has enabled the group to cope with the continued surge in expenses and to distribute dividends every year...

But only Zhao Hao and Jiang Xueying knew that behind this prosperous situation, there was a fatal crisis - that was a serious shortage of silver!

In the fifth year of Wanli, the gross domestic product of Jiangnan Group reached 200 million taels of silver.

After ten years of rapid growth, the group's gross domestic product in the 15th year of Wanli will steadily reach 2 billion taels of silver!

In the fifth year of the Wanli reign, the gross domestic product of the Ming Dynasty was only 1 billion taels, including the Jiangnan Group...

In the past ten years, under the rule of my father-in-law and driven by the Jiangnan Group, the economy of the Ming Dynasty has also flourished. In addition, the Single Whip Law has been implemented throughout the country, and the demand for silver in society has increased day by day!

Moreover, after the seventh year of the Wanli reign, the galleon trade stopped, and American silver had not flowed into the Ming Dynasty for eight years.

It is said that the Ming Dynasty should have experienced a serious silver shortage long ago...

However, this was not the case. There was always sufficient currency in the market and economic development was not affected at all.

Why is this?

ps. No more tonight.