My life skills in Daming Liver

Gao Wuguan said: "If you ask me, in the future, the battle will not be about honor, but about logistics."

Li Yangong fell silent.

Gao Wuguan said: "We are about to enter a degenerate and boring era. War has become a report and a number. Troops that can provide stronger supplies can win the war."

Li Yangong also works in logistics. He nodded and said: "You are right, I also feel the changes in war. It is not that generals are no longer important, but that war has become an overall consumption, and the victory or defeat of one or two battles , it will no longer have a crucial impact on the battle situation, and the final battle is still the overall strength."

Li Yangong said: "I already discovered when I was in Guangxi that as long as the logistics supplies can keep up, the outcome of one or two battles will not affect the entire war situation at all."

"If we lose one or two games, we can organize more troops to go up the mountain. If those Yao villages lose one game, they will be completely defeated."

"I have also encountered Yao villages that resisted tenaciously, and defeated our attacks many times. But in the end, the Yao village ran out of ammunition and food and surrendered."

Li Yangong thought of the Yao village that had been forced to surrender, and of the Yao leader who had led the charge many times and cut his throat to commit suicide when the southeastern army entered the Yao village. He also agreed with Gao Wuguan's words.

This is a fallen era. Courage is no longer the hymn of the times, nor is loyalty. War has become a competition of pure strength.

No matter how hard it is for the weak to defeat the strong, this is an era where the strong get stronger and the weak resist desperately and there is still no miracle.

The qualities that are praised by others on the battlefield and the honor of not being afraid of powerful enemies will eventually become sacrifices on a more bloody battlefield.

War has changed.

Gao Wujian nodded and said: "The emergence of firearms has greatly expanded the scope of qualified soldiers."

"In the earliest Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, many arms could only be filled by nobles. A qualified charioteer required a lot of training and investment. That was the era of classicism that the Grand Governor called."

"In the wars of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, honor was valued, so Song Xianggong did not attack even after crossing the border."

"Future generations will laugh at Song Xianggong's stupidity, but in that era when war was still the honor of the nobility, Song Xianggong's behavior was just the last glory of the aristocratic war era."

Li Yangong nodded.

Gao Wuguan added:

"The qualified soldiers of the Qin and Han Dynasties have become sons of good families. This is why later generations have said that 'the one who wins the Guanzhong wins the world.' In this era, you need to prepare your own weapons and horses. Only wealthy yeoman farmers can bear a The prime-age labor force went to war, and the rewards of war were titles and acres of land awarded by the court.”

"This is the Age of Courage. Countless good men from the Qin and Han Dynasties are fighting on the battlefield, pursuing military glory and title, and pursuing the success of one general."

Li Yangong continued to nod.

"Since the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, war has changed again. Since the beginning of Cao Wei's military system, driving professional military households to the battlefield has become the mainstream of the times."

"The military government of Cao Wei is actually similar to the military household system of our Ming Dynasty. It allows some people to serve as soldiers for generations and forces them to fight on the battlefield for generations."

"Soldiers are sent to the battlefield because of harsh punishments and the driving of their superiors. War no longer brings courage and honor to ordinary people. Ordinary soldiers begin to pursue personal interests."

"Although the Fubing system of the Sui and Tang Dynasties wanted to restore the military merit and title system of the Qin and Han Dynasties, it was because of the collapse of the Fubing system that it was replaced by recruitment."

"From this time on, both the late Tang and Song Dynasties adopted a system of recruiting soldiers, in which the court paid to hire soldiers and support the army through finances."

Li Yangong nodded quickly. His family also had a tradition of war. Although there are occasional twists and turns in history, China's military development generally follows this vein.

The armies of the Han Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty had strong combat effectiveness and a large number of cavalry, relying on the system of military merit and land conferment for good men serving as soldiers.

However, the number of standing armies in the Han and Tang Dynasties was far less than that in the Song Dynasty.

Although the army of the Song Dynasty was large in number, the troops hired by the government could not bear the consumption of war horses, so they could only rely on infantry.

The military equipment of the Song Dynasty was weak, but its military technology was more advanced than that of the Han and Tang Dynasties. However, the soldiers had changed from elite professional soldiers in the classicism to soldiers raised through money. These soldiers themselves did not have a strong will to fight, and fighting was just a matter of time. A job for a living.

In fact, at that time, the Southern Song Dynasty was still able to stay in the south of the Yangtze River when the Mongolian iron hoof was lashing the world. This was already the role of the Southern Song Dynasty's amazing financial and logistical capabilities.

Gao Wuguan continued: "Times are different now."

"The military household system in the early Ming Dynasty has existed in name only. This hereditary military household system is no longer used in both the north and the south. They can only be regarded as local troops to maintain local security."

"The professionalization of the military will be a major trend in the future."

Li Yangong nodded. When Su Ze started to raise troops, he gave up the peasant army that had been a guard of honor for all the rebellions in the past, and relied on the new army that he had single-handedly raised.

Gao Wuguan said: "The key to the reason why the governor can achieve something that no one in history has been able to achieve is weapons."

Li Yangong was stunned for a moment and asked, "Weapon?"

Gao Wujian nodded and said: "Yes, it is a weapon."

"In the era of classical war, war relied on the personal qualities of soldiers."

"Strong infantry, cavalry who are good at riding and shooting, and even a brave general are all decisive factors in determining the direction of the war."

"Especially in siege warfare, the role of being the first to reach the camp is very critical, and the reward for being the first to reach the camp is the most generous."

Li Yangong nodded. It can be said that before the rise of the Southeast, and even in the battle to quell the Japanese pirates in the Southeast, the rewards for the first climbers and the vanguard battalions were the most generous.

However, the rewards for the new Southeast Army to enter the city first are far less generous than those of previous dynasties, and can even be said to be stingy.

On the contrary, when assessing military merit, whether the commander can complete the tasks specified by his superiors has become an important criterion for assessment.

After hearing what Gao Wuguan said, Li Yangong realized that the New Southeast Army mainly relied on artillery and explosives to attack the city, so naturally the rewards would not be as generous as in the past.

Gao Wuguan continued: "A musket can allow an ordinary person to easily kill a strong man."

"It only takes a period of shooting training to make an ordinary person more lethal than an archer who has practiced archery for ten years."

"Artillery can even collapse a city wall that took years or even decades to build."

"But why didn't the Grand Governor and the Ming Dynasty expand their armies?"

Li Yangong was stunned.

Although the Southeast New Army is indeed more elite and the assessment and training of officers can be said to be quite strict, in fact, in this battle of Xuzhou, the fifth brigade expanded from 5,000 to 10,000 in only a few months.

Those new recruits quickly adapted to the battlefield, and expanding the army was actually not a problem at all.

If the southeast still has strategic advantages, so it does not carry out large-scale military expansion, then the Ming court is already at a disadvantage, but the new army only maintained three towns.

The ambitious Li Chengliang has only added a few thousand recruits so far.

Gao Wuguan said: "It's still money and logistics."

"When a musket is delivered to a soldier, it also needs to be supplied with lead shot and ammunition, as well as gun oil to maintain the barrel. These all need to be delivered to every soldier on the front line."

"And a gun costs more to maintain."

"The lightest artillery piece in our southeast requires two horses to pull it, and four horses are needed during a rapid march."

"A twelve-pounder would require eight horses to operate in the field."

"This is just artillery. Cannonballs and gunpowder also require additional transportation, and each horse also requires corresponding fodder."

"In our southeast, an artillery battalion with only twenty guns needs to be equipped with nearly a hundred horses, and it also needs grooms who specialize in taking care of the horses."

"And Mingting's artillery is heavier and requires more horses than us."

Li Yangong served as the logistics staff officer of the Guangxi New Army. Of course he knew that Gao Wuguan was talking about fighting in the northern plains. If fighting in a place like Guangxi with complex terrain and worse road conditions, the amount of logistics required would be doubled.

Li Yangong was even more shocked when he calculated this. Southeast's army had already burned so much money to maintain its current size.

This is also the reason why Southeast and Mingting have a tacit understanding not to expand their troops wildly.

I really can’t afford it.

Gao Wuguan said:

"That's why I say that war has reached a time when it is very boring."

"An outstanding general may be able to reverse a battle or win a certain battle, but he cannot determine the final trend of the war."

"What determines the outcome of a war is who can continuously deliver supplies to soldiers, who can prevent financial collapse in a full-scale war, and who can squeeze out more supplies to invest in the war."

"In the classical era, one exciting battle determined the direction of the entire war. There will be fewer and fewer wars that determine the fate of a country."

As a disciple of the general, Li Yangong remained silent.

According to Gao Wuguan, the battlefield is no longer a venue for honor, but has become an auction for financial resources.

The honor and struggle of soldiers are just a series of numbers on a report.

This kind of war is indeed, as Gao Wuguan said, a decadent and boring era.

Even the standards for evaluating a general will change in the future.

A general who can always bring victory, but consumes a lot of money, leads the country to destruction.

Generals who can carefully calculate gains and losses and preserve their strength in war will be more favored by the higher-ups.

The Battle of Xuzhou also illustrates this point. In this battle, there was no gorgeous cavalry hedge, no iron-blooded human wall to physically block the enemy. There were only cold trenches and cold barbed wire, and there were only musketeers hiding in the trenches waiting for the enemy's shelling to end. .

The busiest people are not the soldiers on the front line, but the logistics staff coordinating and arranging supplies in the rear.

Both sides spent a lot of manpower and material resources, but the battle line did not move at all.

Such a war is so boring.

Gao Wuguan patted his friend's shoulder and said:

"As the Grand Governor said, war is no longer an art, but a technology."

"The general staff is a sophisticated machine that directs the direction of the war. All we need to do is make this machine run more smoothly."

Gao Wuguan added:

“But this era is also an exciting era.”

"New weapons appear every day, and the rules we develop will be the iron rules guiding the battlefield for hundreds of years to come."

"We are facing an unprecedented enemy. How challenging is this?"

Li Yangong also cheered up, Gao Wuguan was right.

This is just like what the New Year's address in the "Warning World News" said, "This era is a 'big change unseen in a century' and an 'era of great contention' that will determine the fate of the next few hundred years."

It can be said that Li Yangong and the others are lucky and unlucky to be able to live in such a "world of great contention".

Gao Wuguan stood up and said: "I'm about to set off, Brother Li, this is my meeting gift to my nephew or niece."

After speaking, Gao Wuguan took out a gold lock from his arms and stuffed it into Li Yangong's arms.

After bidding farewell to the Li Mansion, Gao Wuguan rode north from Nanjing to his hometown in Xinzheng, Henan, to persuade his father Gao Gong to move to Nanjing.

In the second year of the New Calendar and the second year of Longqing (AD 1564), it came to an end with the sound of firecrackers in Nanjing and the capital.

In the third year of the New Calendar, in spring, a new page has been opened on both sides.

Nanjing Army Academy, just when Gao Wuguan believes that logistics will determine future wars, there are also people who have different views on future wars.