I want to be emperor

Chapter 1003 The empire will never surrender until all the natives are dead
Compared to the Army, which uses the Type 26 rifle but dislikes it, the Navy is only very satisfied with the Type 24 rifle...

Unlike the Army, which has high ambitions and low ambitions, demanding a lot but not willing to pay a big price, the Navy has always been more pragmatic and willing to spend money.

Especially when it comes to individual weapons... After all, for the navy, the cost of individual weapons is actually not much... The main expense of the navy is those huge battleships. Any cruiser costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Daily General, maintenance and operational expenses are also high.

Relatively speaking, the expenditure of the Marine Corps is actually not large. A rifle only costs more than ten Chu Yuan, and the artillery only costs a thousand Chu Yuan.

Therefore, the Navy is more willing to spend money on the cost of individual Marines... The Type 26 rifle of the 24th and [-]th Chu Yuan Dynasty, and the Type [-] rifle of the [-]th and [-]th Chu Yuan Dynasty are both very similar in price to the Navy, and they are both very cheap... …

This is also the reason why the Navy is willing to purchase Type 24 rifles with better equipment performance and more expensive prices!
Of course, this is also the case with the Type 24 rifle. In fact, its research and development has been funded by the Navy from the beginning, and many of its performance requirements are developed to meet the needs of the Navy.

For example, the key performance of gun length is very critical. The standard model of the Type 24 rifle is only 1.1 meters, which is much shorter than the standard model used by the army, which is about 1.2 meters in length.

This length standard was proposed by the Marine Corps...the Marine Corps' demand based on its many years of combat experience!
In actual combat, they found that the standard version of 1.2 meters for infantry was too long, but the one-meter version used by technical or auxiliary arms such as cavalry and artillery was too short. Finally, the middle number was used to formulate a length standard of 1.1 meters.

Moreover, the bayonet of this rifle is not long. It does not use the traditional Type 32 bayonet, but the Type 42 bayonet specially developed by the Navy. This is a short knife style bayonet with a total length of only 32 cm.

This is not the same as the bayonet tradition of the Dachu Empire!
Because the Dachu Empire had been using relatively long spears or bayonets since the age of matchlocks, and with the development and advancement of smelting technology, the spears turned into daggers, and then evolved into double-edged daggers.

At present, the type 32 multi-bayonet is widely used in the army. It is in the form of a dagger, with a total length of 46 cm and a hilt. It can be used as a bayonet when mounted on a rifle. It can be paired with a 1.2-meter-long Type 25 rifle or a 1.7-meter rifle of similar length. Type rifle, the total length of the gun can reach [-] meters.

This length is taller than the height of most of the indigenous population!

The bayonet used by the new Type 26 rifle is also an improved version of the Type 32 bayonet. This improvement is actually a simple improvement of the interface to adapt to small-caliber rifles such as the Type 26 rifle, but there are no other changes. The length is still the same. the same.

This short sword bayonet can also be used as a soldier's sword for daily self-defense, prying cans, chopping branches, etc. It is the first generation of multi-functional bayonet in the Dachu Empire.

But today, more than ten years later, many people in the military think that this kind of too long bayonet is useless... The cost is still high, and longer bayonet opium often requires better steel and better processing technology to ensure performance. , the cost is not low.

What's more important is that the current bayonet no longer has the original preset application scenarios... In this regard, the Navy's attitude is more radical, so the Navy uses the shorter Type 42 bayonet.

What is the default scenario for Bayonet?
According to the past combat traditions of the Dachu Empire, starting from the sleeve thrust of the matchlock gun, the bayonet/spike was used as a weapon for infantry to resist cavalry attacks and engage in hand-to-hand combat with enemy infantry... turning the rifleman into a short spearman.

This is the core function of the bayonet!
Until the era of flash cap percussion guns or even the era of single-shot breech-loading rifles, this function cannot be replaced!

This is also the core factor of the bayonet of the Da Chu Empire, which has maintained a length of forty or fifty centimeters in the past few decades... If the bayonet is not long enough, the tactical effect will decline rapidly. After all, when using the bayonet, it is actually a cold weapon. In combat, fighting with cold weapons is one inch short and one inch dangerous. Not to mention that the longer the bayonet, the better, but it must not be too short.

However, with the improvement of technology and the increase in firepower of the Chu army, the Chu army has not encountered a cavalry charge for many years... Even the Chu army's own cavalry has not engaged in saber combat for many years, but has begun to use rapid maneuvers. The cavalry's route is gone, and the main method of combat is dismounted and infantry combat, and they pull out various artillery such as 75mm infantry cannon and even [-]mm mountain cannon.

Even those indigenous armies will not engage in cavalry charges when facing the Chu army. This is no different from committing suicide...

At the same time, when the indigenous infantry faced the Chu army, it was difficult to gather a large number of troops. After approaching, they launched a bayonet charge. During the process of gathering troops and advancing, they were often hit by the devastating firepower of the Chu army... only Able to advance in scattered formations and then launch sporadic attacks.

This became even more obvious after the Chu army was equipped with repeating rifles in batches... The Chu army had not had a large-scale bayonet battle with the indigenous people for many years.

Under such circumstances, the two preset functions of the bayonet lose their value on the battlefield!
Of course, it's not that it's completely useless, but it's far less effective than before.

Based on this situation, when the Navy was developing and equipping small-caliber repeating rifles, it put forward new requirements. The bayonet should not be too long and should be developed in a multi-functional direction.

Therefore, in the end, Huguang Arms Company and Hantian Machinery Company jointly developed the 42-year-old bayonet. This is a short knife-type bayonet with a total length of about 32 cm. It has a handle that conforms to the human body and focuses on functions such as chopping, sawing, and prying. , is a multi-purpose bayonet.

这也使得了装备42年型刺刀的24型步枪，全长只有1.5米多点，比26型的1.7米要短二十公分左右。

The Navy believes that a rifle of this length is more suitable for their actual needs!
Of course, the Navy has its own reasons for thinking so. After all, the combat scenarios of the Marine Corps are different from those of the Army. The Marine Corps engages in more amphibious landing operations, and there are certain restrictions on the length of the gun itself.

At the same time, the Type 24 rifle has one advantage over the Type 26 rifle, that is, it has more bullets and a faster rate of fire.

Using a unique cross-row double-row ammunition supply, the magazine can be loaded with eight rounds of bullets. Coupled with their exclusive rear-end locking structure, the rate of fire is very fast, so the firepower of this rifle is quite fierce... To be exaggerated, In the hands of a skilled shooter, its firepower can even reach the level of early semi-automatic rifles.

Relatively speaking, the Type 26 rifle's five-round single-row ammunition supply and front-end locking structure are much worse in terms of rate of fire and sustained firepower.

The Navy's Type 24 rifle has a faster rate of fire, more powerful firepower, and a shorter but not too short gun length, which are more in line with the actual combat needs of the Navy.

Therefore, the Navy is relatively satisfied with the Type 24 rifle, and in the sporadic actual combat that has occurred, the Type 24 rifle has not disappointed the Navy.

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Regardless of the dislike from the Army or the satisfaction from the Navy, it does not prevent the Chu army's front-line regular troops from fully replacing themselves with small-caliber repeating rifles, and simultaneously equipping them with a large number of eight-mm caliber versions of the [-] water-cooled rifles and [-]-mm Three air-cooled machine guns.

Armed tax police and armed patrol police in some areas also changed their uniforms simultaneously.

A large number of 25mm caliber Type [-] repeating rifles replaced by the first-line troops were instead distributed to the second- and third-line troops, that is, unmobilized B-class standing divisions and a large number of C-class garrison troops stationed in local areas.

This means that the regular army of the Chu Army has been fully equipped with repeating rifles and is gradually moving towards being fully equipped with small-caliber repeating rifles.

This improvement in equipment also led to more changes in the tactics of the Chu army, especially the large-scale transfer of machine guns. The Chu army began to delve into more tactics for using machine guns, and in some cases, such as defensive operations, At that time, tactical arrangements began to be made around the machine guns.

The development of military tactics and strategies is complementary to the development of military equipment...because tactics are often based on equipment.

For example, the German infantry in World War II had a combat group with machine guns as the core. The infantry squad did not have a general-purpose machine gun with particularly strong firepower and light weight. If you add a submachine gun to it, you would not be able to do this... Even ordinary light machine guns cannot do it, because the firepower sustainability is too poor, and the rate of fire of ordinary rifles is too slow. Without a submachine gun, it will be a disadvantage in medium and close range!

Therefore, without general-purpose machine guns and submachine guns, you cannot have any team tactics with machine guns as the core firepower.

In addition, if you start to equip a large number of semi-automatic rifles or even assault rifles, then you don’t need this set of things!

Tactics and equipment are matched with each other and will change appropriately according to the enemy. They are not static, or which tactics are good and which are bad.

The Chu Army is currently in a period of transition from pure rifle firepower to small-caliber repeating rifles and machine guns. The various tactics are actually very imperfect and still require a lot of exploration and experimentation.

Relatively speaking, after the Foreign Legion was equipped with Type [-] rifles, its tactical changes were much simpler and easier. There was no need to make any changes. They could just copy the tactics used by the regular Chu army many years ago.

Just like the previous Foreign Legion copied and used the line tactics used by the regular army in the early years.

Although the overall quality of the soldiers of the foreign legion after the change was far inferior to that of the regular soldiers of the Chu army, they still showed a combat effectiveness that far exceeded that of the line era.

In May of the 46th year of Chengshun, an indigenous unrest broke out in the Italian Peninsula in southern Europe. In the Papal States, a large number of people, instigated by religious leaders who were unwilling to lose power and money, besieged Chu's concession in Rome, shouting Slogans such as expelling the Chu people and restoring freedom were issued.

There were more than 20 soldiers under the Indian No. 100 Third Division of the Foreign Legion that defended the concession. Relying on the Type 100 rifles in their hands, these more than 600 soldiers repelled three attacks by the Papal State army and killed more than [-] indigenous soldiers in total. People... so much so that the passage leading to the Chu concession was covered with the corpses of indigenous soldiers.

Subsequently, with the reinforcement of hundreds of soldiers from the 23rd Indian Division who arrived urgently, the No. 20 Third Division of the Foreign Legion not only defended the concession, but also completely defeated the army that had occupied the Papal States.

What followed naturally was the same old but more brutal purge operation... Most of the main force of the Indian No. 20 Third Division stationed in the Italian Peninsula entered this small country with extremely strong religious significance and launched targeted retaliation and purges.

The Pope was arrested and then arrived late... This also triggered the subsequent release of a new religious document by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Great Chu Empire, requiring all vassal states to strictly investigate illegal religious organizations with extreme beliefs. Except for legal Buddhism and Taoism, all other religions are included Strictly prohibited.

The Papal States and even the local religions in Europe will fight against the Chu people... In fact, the reason is very simple. It is not because of any religious issues, but because the vassal states supported by the Chu people do not engage in tithe tax... ...The interests of these vassal states can be plundered by the Chu people themselves, but they will not be ceded to those religions!
In the past, the Chu people were not very interested in these. As long as their own interests could be guaranteed, they did not care about other religions. However, this time the siege of the Roman Concession caused many high-level officials in the empire to People are very angry.

Then a religious ban was directly issued...requiring all vassal states to hunt down illegal clergy and destroy so-called churches...No person or god more holy than the emperor is allowed to exist within the empire, including the territory of vassal states!
It's just so boring!
This also directly led to large-scale turmoil in Europe...but this is a story for later.

In a short period of time, the military paid more attention to the Foreign Legion fighter jets equipped with Type [-] rifles. This time the battle in Rome allowed the military to see the combat effectiveness of the Foreign Legion and strengthened the empire to form more Foreign Legions. Determination to replace the regular army in performing low-intensity combat missions.

Not long after, in September of Chengshun 46, the Military Academy submitted a report on expanding the existing Foreign Legion from the existing size of more than 50 to 100 million.

These expanded foreign legions will undertake more garrison tasks in vassal countries and field combat tasks in Africa, thereby reducing the number of overseas deployments of the regular army, reducing the regular army's high military expenditures, and reducing the casualties of the regular army.

This report was quickly approved by Luo Zhixue!
In Luo Zhixue's view, the Foreign Legion has so far been a relatively successful military deployment plan for overseas territories... The cost is low, there is no need to worry about casualties, and it is good to use the natives to deal with the natives.

And because the equipment level of the Foreign Legion is two generations weaker than that of the regular army... so even if there is any rebellion in the Foreign Legion, there is no need to worry about being unable to suppress it.

At the same time, the Type [-] rifles used by the Foreign Legion also rely heavily on the Chu State's own industrial system... Even if the Foreign Legion rebels and controls a certain area, it will not be able to make its own bullets to replenish it.

As long as the logistics supply, especially the supply of bullets and artillery shells, is strictly controlled, there is basically no need to worry about the rebellion of the Foreign Legion.

In this case, it is acceptable to appropriately build more foreign legions to perform combat missions overseas.

However, in order to make the Foreign Legion more controllable, Luo Zhixue also instructed the Military Academy that the weapons and equipment of the Foreign Legion must be more than two generations behind the regular army!
We will not consider equipping the Foreign Legion with repeating rifles in the short term... The Foreign Legion's combat targets are indigenous people, so single-shot rifles are sufficient and do not require very good weapons and equipment.

The same is true for artillery. Early field artillery, mountain artillery, and infantry artillery are enough. More advanced field artillery and large-caliber artillery are not required.

At the same time, we must limit the number of technical weapons and not produce too many... This is also to reduce costs.

These changes can also allow the Army to save more military expenditures, which can then be used for the construction of technical arms, such as artillery, cavalry, engineers, etc.

More importantly, it can reduce the casualties of Chu people... In various low-intensity security operations, sporadic casualties are unavoidable. Maybe not many people die at one time, but they can't sustain the death of people all year round... Even in the 21st century The military strength of the US military here exceeds that of small and backward countries for countless generations, but there will still be certain casualties during security operations.

Therefore, when the Army is deployed overseas, the pressure on casualties is actually not small. Now that there are more foreign legions that can be used as cheap substitutes, the Army can also breathe a sigh of relief.

One million foreign legions will be recruited from different regions such as India, West Asia, North Africa, and Europe, and then trained and deployed based on the principle of serving in remote locations.

Therefore, for many years to come, the so-called Chu troops that the native Europeans saw... were actually Indian untouchable soldiers in the Foreign Legion.

At the same time, the Chu troops seen in India, West Asia and other regions were actually white European soldiers in the Foreign Legion.

At the same time, some preferential policies for the Foreign Legion were also announced. For example, they can settle in the administrative territory and obtain a certain amount of land after their service. Senior non-commissioned officers and officers can arrange official work in the administrative territory after retirement.

Of course, these preferential policies are only limited to administrative territories and do not include territories directly under the Central Government...

At the same time, the service years of these foreign soldiers are very long... In the regular army of the Chu Army, the service years of ordinary soldiers are four years. This is considering the cost of soldier training and the need for subsequent large-scale mobilization. The service years of soldiers cannot be too short, but It can't be too long either.

The service time is too short, the cost of training soldiers is high, and the combat effectiveness is not very good... Especially since the Chu army is deployed globally, it takes about half a year for soldiers to train locally after serving, and then they have to float at sea for several months when they are deployed overseas. ...The preliminary preparations alone take almost a year...so if the service time is too short, it will be very difficult.

But if the service time is too long, it will lead to the inability to mobilize enough retired soldiers when a large-scale war breaks out, which is also very fatal.

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration of many factors, the Chu army implemented a four-year service period.

However, soldiers in the Foreign Legion have longer service years...the minimum is ten years, because the first service contract signed after being recruited for service is for ten years.

After ten years, the contract can be renewed for another five years according to the wishes of both parties... The entire service period is 15 years. This refers specifically to ordinary soldiers and does not include foreign non-commissioned officers and officers.

When the Chu army recruits foreign soldiers, they usually recruit young soldiers between the ages of 20 and 30. If they serve normally, they will not retire until they are in their [-]s.

On the one hand, this is to ensure the combat effectiveness of these foreign soldiers, and on the other hand, it is also to give these foreign soldiers a certain degree of protection!

Among the low-income indigenous groups, the treatment for the Chu people as soldiers is still very good. Just having enough to eat is enough for them to work hard.

You said that after recruiting them for three or four years, they were retired. The indigenous soldiers themselves were not happy...

Therefore, the Chu people's foreign legion is actually a purely professional army, and the soldiers inside are often veterans who have served for several years or even more than ten years.

Such a professional army, even if it does not hold more advanced weapons and only holds flintlock rifles, can still defeat the ordinary armaments of various European vassal states.

Just like before!
The previous Foreign Legion also used front-loading smoothbore weapons, percussion guns and smoothbore cannons, but they still defeated the European indigenous troops.

Now that it is equipped with newer weapons, the combat effectiveness advantage is even greater, and it is enough to replace some of the regular army's deployment combat tasks.

Against such a background, starting from the autumn of Chengshun 46, the Dachu Empire began a large-scale foreign legion formation work. It is expected to complete the recruitment of all soldiers before next year, and at the same time complete the formation of all new foreign legions next year, bringing the foreign troops into the army. The size of the legion expanded to more than 100 million people.

Based on this scale and the future arrangements of the foreign legions by the empire's top officials, when officials in the empire face any huge crisis many years from now, they can say this: The empire will never surrender until all the natives are dead!
While expanding the foreign legions, the Chu army also began to downsize the regular army...

The three armies of the regular army, the Army, the Guards, and the Navy, add up to a total of more than 300 million people...most of them are sent overseas and to newly conquered areas such as Eastern Europe.

But when these expensive regular troops go overseas, they only engage in low-intensity security operations... It's too wasteful.

Spending so much military expenditure every year to maintain a huge army for public security operations, and suffering some casualties from time to time... Even the military itself feels bad after seeing it.

Now that the foreign legions are on top, the regular army can also do its own business: suppress internally and act as a strategic deterrent externally.

Needless to say about internal pressure.

Let’s talk about acting as a strategic deterrent to the outside world. Since it is acting as a deterrent, it must have better combat effectiveness and many technical weapons... but it does not need to frequently participate in security operations, so daily military expenditures will be relatively small, and there will be no need to frequently bear sporadic military expenditures. Casualties and pressure are relatively small.

According to these plans of the Military Council, the European region took the lead in implementing them, further increasing the number of foreign legions deployed and reducing the number of regular troops deployed.

Moreover, the deployment of the regular army has been further concentrated, instead of being like before, with a battalion here and a battalion there, too far apart from each other, making it difficult to quickly assemble and form a fist to fight out when something happens.

Under this wave, the Chu army stationed in the British area also mobilized.

And this kind of mobilization also caused great panic among the five indigenous kingdoms in the British region... After all, the Chu army was fine before, but now it suddenly started to mobilize on a large scale, and they were afraid...

(End of this chapter)