Chapter 115 - Regularization

Fortunately, the Executive Committee placed great importance on standardization and strongly supported it at the meeting. The production from the blast furnace also alleviated the pressure on steel, allowing it to be implemented.

“Fourth, the Fubo Army’s land force establishment is changed as follows. The establishment consists of squads, platoons, companies, battalions, and brigades. The battalion is the basic tactical unit. The basic operational unit is the combat brigade, which is formed by infantry battalions and other combat units in wartime. Combat, command, and logistics within the operational area are all based on the brigade.

“The establishments of squads, platoons, companies, and battalions remain unchanged. The combat brigade establishment is as follows: 3 infantry battalions, 1 artillery battalion, and 1 battalion-level logistics supply column. The brigade headquarters directly commands a brigade headquarters column, 1 special service company, and 1 cavalry company (temporarily vacant). The entire brigade has about 5,000 personnel. A joint establishment of multiple combat brigades in the same operational direction is called a combat group. 2-3 combat brigades are called a division-level group, 4-9 combat brigades are called a corps-level group, and 10 or more combat brigades are called an army group. The commander of each combat group is appointed by the General Military Affairs Department. After the mission is completed, the combat group is disbanded, and the commander relinquishes his post. The Marine Corps and the National Guard will be reorganized according to this establishment principle based on their own circumstances.”

Wei Aimin listened with boredom as Dongmen Chuiyu read from the script on the stage. As an Elder, he was already familiar with the content of the meeting. In Wei Aimin’s view, although the concept of a combat group seemed new and beautiful, it essentially revealed the Executive Committee’s restriction on the number of troops that senior military officers could command. An officer could only command a brigade-level unit. Beyond that level, they could only wait to be assigned to a so-called combat group headquarters.

“Truly worthy of being called descendants of the Great Song,” Wei Aimin thought to himself. Although he believed this consideration was necessary. As he had once chatted with a few good friends in a booth at the South China Sea Cafe, although everyone was eating from the same pot now, if there were more fruits and a bigger cake in the future, and everyone wanted a little more than others, the difference between having guns and not having guns would be huge.

It is difficult for ordinary people to resist the temptation of using violence to solve problems once and for all. All the Elders were well aware of this.

A burst of warm applause woke Wei Aimin up. Dongmen Chuiyu announced that the next agenda item of the meeting was “regularization construction.”

The newly compiled Training Outlines, Drill Manuals, and Internal Service Regulations for all branches of the armed forces were officially distributed and would serve as the basis for future assessments of all branches and departments.

“I don’t need to repeat the importance of regularization. Everyone present, especially the Elders, is very clear about it,” Dongmen Chuiyu said from the podium, straining his voice. The auditorium had no fixed sound system, and today was a small meeting, so he had not brought a portable megaphone.

“I know that according to the current standards, the Fubo Army is the most…” Dongmen Chuiyu originally wanted to say “in this era,” but seeing that most of the people below were Guihua soldiers, he quickly changed his words, “…the most regularized army in this region. However, the regularization construction of the Fubo Army is far from enough. The situation of doing things as one pleases and each going their own way is quite serious. In the past, we have been facing heavy combat and duty burdens, and it is understandable that we did not have time for this. Now that large-scale military operations have temporarily come to an end, it is inappropriate for each service to continue to play its own game according to its own taste.”

To add emphasis, he paused deliberately and cleared his throat: “At present, our general situation is that there are major rules, but overall, it is not standardized. We still do things as we think of them, and there is too much arbitrariness. Comrades! The discipline and style of an army are cultivated through small details in peacetime. It is not regularization to make the orderlies wear white gloves; it is not regularization to award medals to soldiers and officers; it is not regularization to march in goose-step…” Dongmen Chuiyu waved his arms vigorously, using strong parallel sentences. “All kinds of military etiquette, dress and grooming, internal affairs and hygiene, daily life and rest, and combat training all need to be strictly implemented according to the regulations.”

The General Military Affairs Department had held several internal meetings to discuss the construction of regularization. Everyone agreed that if they continued to build the military system in such a haphazard way, with each Elder doing his own thing according to his own taste, it would sooner or later become a contradictory and nondescript thing.

With the end of the security warfare in northern Qiongzhou, the scale and situation of the security warfare in southern Qiongzhou were much smaller than in the north. Many of the previously dispersed detachments on duty had been gradually concentrated and returned to their units for rest and reorganization. This was the golden period for formulating, promulgating, and promoting new regulations and new outlines.

Promoting them now would not only eliminate many hidden dangers in discipline and combat effectiveness but also be less difficult to implement while resting and reorganizing, and it would also allow the army’s combat effectiveness to leap forward again.

The compilation of the new regulations and new outlines was based on pragmatism. It was basically a copy of what was available in this era. After a full exchange of views, He Ming and Chen Haiyang, when instructing Dongmen Chuiyu, who was specifically responsible for this project, on the “compilation policy,” stated that they should “try to accommodate the existing regulations that are already being implemented, and not make any changes that do not affect the major principles.”

Dongmen Chuiyu understood the hint. He immediately sent people to collect all the current regulations and drill manuals of the various branches of the armed forces, including some “local regulations” that were not written down at the time but had been implemented in the troops for a period of time. He then sent out a letter of inquiry to all the Elders to “fully collect the opinions of the Elders.”

This approach stabilized a group of senior Fubo Army officers who were not from the PLA and the “extra-military military groups”—the so-called extra-military military groups were a group of Elders who were not serving in the army but were interested in military affairs. They had a strong interest in military affairs, and some of them had a profound knowledge of military knowledge. They were a group of people who had a great say on military issues among the Elders. Their representative figure was Wen Desi himself.

He and Chen were well aware that these people had a strong influence on the Fubo Army. If their “bad tastes” were not properly accommodated and only the PLA’s regulations were copied, the “regularization construction” would probably encounter great resistance. Of course, given the current weapons and equipment of the Fubo Army and the specific social conditions, it was also inappropriate to completely copy the military regulations, drill manuals, and outlines of the 21st century.

Having fully understood this guiding spirit, Dongmen Chuiyu organized his staff to start preparing after the New Year. He entrusted some of the professional content to specialized personnel, and he himself organized people to copy books for other parts. After ten revisions, he finally obtained a set of regulations and training outlines that were “a collection of the strengths of all” and were relatively satisfactory to all parties.

These documents were collectively referred to as the Military Compendium of 1631 and served as the guiding military documents for the Fubo Army for a considerable period of time.

“…With these seeds and framework of regularization, future expansion of the army can also be carried out step by step without pressure, producing batches of new-style troops. In short, comrades, it is better to regularize the army sooner rather than later!” Dongmen Chuiyu said with emotion.

Finally, the personnel order was announced: Chen Haiyang was appointed as the commander of the Joint Operations Command for the Engine Operation. According to the new regulations, the newly established Joint Operations Command would not have a permanent commander. A commander would only be temporarily appointed when a large-scale military operation was launched. In normal times, the executive secretary of the General Staff would be responsible for routine work.

The Zhejiang and Dengzhou operations were mainly carried out by the navy, so it was most appropriate to appoint a naval officer as the commander.

Finally, the end of the meeting was announced. After the luncheon at noon, there would be professional group meetings in the afternoon. The main topic was the coordination between the logistics and industrial groups. This was followed by three days of map exercises, including escorting, landing, frontal battles, defense, pursuit, long-distance infiltration, and the defense of warehouses and supply lines. Some subjects would also have live-fire exercises, and all technical personnel were required to participate throughout.

This three-day map and live-fire exercise focused on rehearsing the “Engine Operation” to evaluate the rationality and feasibility of this new system, and at the same time to test the results of the previous phase of officer on-the-job training and NCO training.

The Engine Operation was the Fubo Army’s first large-scale amphibious operation carried out in a relatively complex environment. Although the military intensity of the operation was relatively low—the General Staff believed that the possibility of a large-scale armed conflict with forces such as Zheng, Liu, and the Ming was not high in this operation—preparations for a military conflict had to be made.

The Engine Operation was actually composed of two operations: Zhejiang and Dengzhou. In terms of specific timing, the Deng-Lai rebellion began in October 1631 and reached its peak in July and August 1632, finally ending the fighting on the peninsula in November of that year. The great drought in Zhejiang began in March and April 1632. Therefore, in terms of implementation, the Fubo Army could use this time difference to first transport the Zhejiang refugees and then the Shandong refugees. The Shandong refugees could be transported until March and April 1633—after the Deng-Lai rebellion was completely over. Judging from the administrative efficiency and financial capacity of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible for the Ming to carry out perfect post-war relief work in Shandong. The Deng-Lai region after the war would inevitably be a barren land with destitute people, and the Fubo Army would have a large number of refugees to transport.

According to Zhao Yigong’s report and the information from the Great Library, although there were no major natural disasters in Zhejiang and Southern Zhili in 1631, small-scale natural disasters were constant in Zhejiang and Southern Zhili during the Little Ice Age. In fact, a spring drought had already occurred in some prefectures and counties of Zhejiang, causing some farmers to start migrating. Therefore, Zhao Yigong’s suggestion was to start transporting refugees from Zhejiang in small batches from the second half of 1631.

This small-scale transportation could also be regarded as a warm-up for a large-scale refugee transport operation. Therefore, the operations command considered this plan feasible. As long as the reception work on the Zhejiang side was implemented and the preparation of the ships went smoothly, the first refugee transport mission would begin in October 1631.