I want to be emperor

Chapter 207 Gathering Heavy Soldiers
When the main force of the fifth garrison brigade and the first sentry of the first siege artillery battalion went south to Zhongxiang.

A military order has already been delivered to Luo Zhixue outside Zhongxiang City ahead of time with the battle report of the Nanzhang Battle.

Luo Zhixue didn't pay much attention to the situation of the Ninth Defense Regiment and other ordinary troops in the battle report. Anyway, it was just like that. What he really paid attention to was the situation of the first post under the First Siege Artillery Battalion.

To be precise, it focuses on the actual combat application of the [-]-jin mortar.

In the battle report, the actual combat situation of the post is reported in detail, and each artillery piece records the combat situation separately, the amount of charge, the range, the hit rate, the dud rate, the kill rate, the normal shooting time interval, and the maximum rapid fire rate. interval and so on.

Every data is recorded in detail in order to obtain the most accurate data, and follow-up combat manuals are formulated based on actual combat data.

Luo Zhixue briefly looked at the summary data, and said to Zhang Malin, the artillery director beside him: "Although the rate of fire of this artillery is a bit slow, it is powerful enough. It is indeed a weapon for siege. Our army will definitely equip this artillery in the future. Even larger 48-jin mortars, your artillery must formulate training codes and combat manuals in advance, and train relevant gunners."

Zhang Malin said: "Don't worry, General, I have already asked people to start to comprehensively sort out the combat data of the [-]-jin mortar. The training and combat manuals will be released within five days at the most. We will continue to improve the follow-up more detailed ones while actually fighting."

Luo Zhixue said: "That's good. In addition, we should also pay attention to the fact that the current grenade is still a bit inferior. I discussed the research and development of the grenade fuze with the people from the Ammunition Department of the Ordnance Department. Your artillery unit should follow up in time and pay attention to it." .”

The detonation method of the so-called grenades currently used by the Baoxiang Army is still too primitive. In order to detonate the shells smoothly, they can only directly install matchlocks on the grenades, and rely on the length of the matchlocks to control the delayed explosion of the shells.

But this method is too unreliable and extremely dangerous.

Although there were no accidents in the first actual combat of the [-]-jin mortar gun in the Nanzhang Battle, this was only achieved when the artillery unit deliberately controlled the rate of fire and strictly inspected every firing step.

If the battle situation is tense and the mortar troops need to increase the rate of fire, once the rate of fire increases, the artillerymen will easily be in a hurry, and accidents will eventually occur.

And once this kind of artillery has an accident during firing, it can directly reimburse a gun group every minute...

In this regard, Luo Zhixue also asked the Ministry of Ordnance to let technicians from Xiangyang Arsenal and other factories develop a new type of detonation method for artillery shells, that is, to develop fuzes.

Luo Zhixue didn't expect to be able to produce the kind of modern collision fuze of later generations, as long as he could produce a more reliable time-delay fuze, it would be enough.

The principle of the time-delay fuze is relatively simple, it is nothing more than controlling the burning speed and time of the firelighter, plus the way of igniting the firelighter.

If the matchlock is unreliable, then find a way to replace it with other flammable materials, such as nitrated cork.

Now the Ordnance Department has begun to organize manpower for preliminary research and development. As for when it can be produced, it depends on luck, but it will definitely not be used in a short time.

In the short term, especially for the attack on Zhongxiang City, if you want to use mortars, you can only continue to use matchlocks to fuze such backward and primitive shells.

——

The fifth garrison brigade and other troops came very quickly, and it took only five days to arrive at Zhongxiang City. They went south and captured Yiyangsuo, the stronghold of the Ming army's guard here.

There were not many Ming troops at Yiyang Station, and the fifth garrison brigade and other troops didn't even need to set up a formation. They just dispatched a battalion of garrison troops, and the generals who stayed at the guard station on the opposite side moved forward neatly. He ran away, and the remaining generals of the middle and low-level guards surrendered decisively.

Therefore, conquering Yiyang Station did not waste much time for the fifth garrison brigade and other troops.

And when they arrived in Zhongxiang City, another group of fleets from Xiangyang also arrived in Zhongxiang smoothly.

This batch of fleets is fully loaded with various military supplies, including combat weapons such as muskets and armor, as well as ammunition, food and so on.

And the most important thing is the two batches of artillery.

One batch is the first batch of [-]-jin long-tube iron cast artillery produced by Xiangyang Arsenal, and the other batch is the second batch of [-]-jin mortars produced by Xiangyang Arsenal.

The main productivity of the Xiangyang Arsenal in the near future is all on the manufacture of guns, especially artillery.

The first and last batch of iron-cast [-]-jin cannons it produced have been shipped one after another. The total number is [-]. After the production of [-] [-]-jin iron-cast long-tube cannons, the Xiangyang Arsenal can just take advantage of the trend Processing two and a half catty bronze long tube artillery.
Six of the last batch of [-] artillery pieces were added to the western front, and they were organized into a field artillery post separately, which was under the jurisdiction of the West Route Army Headquarters, so as to enrich the strength of the western front.

Even if the troops of the West Route Army are all garrison troops now, even if the garrison troops have field artillery to provide fire support, their combat capabilities can be raised to a higher level.

In the era of hot weapons, although it seems that guns are equally important, in fact, artillery is always more important.

Artillery is the god of war.

In addition, six artillery pieces were left in Xiangyang and incorporated into the Third Artillery Regiment to be used as the artillery of the Seed Field Artillery Unit. These six artillery pieces will be responsible for training more gunners in the future. Xiangyang compiled and trained, because these artillery will also be used as teaching artillery in the Artillery Department of the Military Academy.

Six of the remaining eight were added to the First Artillery Regiment on the front line of Zhongxiang. After adding these six two-and-a-half-pound artillery pieces, the number of two-and-a-half-pound field artillery owned by the First Artillery Regiment will reach 24.

In addition, there are two more, but they were incorporated into the [-]st Cavalry Brigade and used as artillery directly under the cavalry.

So far, the various units of the Township Protection Army have owned 24 two-and-a-half field artillery pieces, [-] pieces from the [-]st Artillery Regiment of the [-]st Division on the southern front, and [-] pieces from the [-]st Cavalry Brigade Artillery Brigade;

Six units of the Third Artillery Regiment of the Third Division stationed in Xiangyang;

The [-]nd Artillery Regiment of the [-]nd Division on the Northern Front has [-] units under its jurisdiction;

There are six field artillery posts directly under the Western Front Command.

The two and a half catties of field guns mentioned above are all iron cast artillery. In the future, the rural protection army will not continue to be equipped with iron cast field guns, but will be completely replaced with bronze field guns.

These iron-cast two and a half catty field guns will gradually retreat to the second line after their service life reaches a critical point, and they will be retired from active service when they are completely unusable.

In fact, even now, the barrels of some iron-cast field guns have almost expired, especially the batch of artillery built during the Funiu Mountain period. After several battles, each artillery shell has fired more than four. Baifa.

Although these artillery can still be used, the frequency of use must be reduced, especially the frequent rapid fire. At the same time, the charge will be reduced to reduce the pressure on the barrel, but the cost is that the rate of fire is slow and the power of the shells is also small.

This batch of artillery, which was approaching the service life of the barrel, was replaced when the main force passed through Nanyang, equipped with the Northern Front Army, and is now incorporated into the Third Artillery Regiment of the Third Division.

The main artillery unit, that is, the original First Artillery Brigade, and now the First Artillery Regiment of the First Division has been replaced with twelve new artillery pieces.

Today, the artillery of the artillery regiment is either brand new or relatively new, and the remaining life of the barrel is enough to support several large-scale battles.

And then continue to provide fire support for the troops going south.

It will not happen that the artillery of the artillery unit is forced to suspend operations because the barrels have reached the end of their service life in the middle of the southward battle, or there will be a common bombing accident after the bombardment is forced to continue.

For a big battle, a batch of new artillery has to be prepared to replace it. This is the helplessness of iron cast artillery now, and it is also Luo Zhixue's determination. Even if the cost of bronze artillery is several times that of iron cast artillery, it must be completely replaced. For the sake of the bronze field gun.

——

In addition to the eight two-and-a-half-jin field guns in Zhongxiang's fleet going south, there is also a new batch of twelve eighteen-jin mortar guns.

Xiangyang Arsenal is working day and night to produce all kinds of artillery, and the production of [-]-jin mortars is the highest priority.

At the same time, this kind of artillery technology is relatively simple, and it is relatively easy to produce, so the output is relatively large, so that more than ten [-]-jin mortars can be provided in more than a month.

The twelve [-]-jin mortars newly arrived at Zhongxiang were also incorporated into the First Siege Artillery Battalion.

After obtaining these twelve [-]-jin mortars, the First Siege Artillery Battalion was truly full, with a total of eighteen mortars in charge of three artillery posts.

These eighteen mortars will be an important weapon for the rural protection army to attack Zhong Xiang.

After the First Siege Artillery Battalion arrived at Zhongxiang and received a batch of new mortars, they did not immediately attack Zhongxiang, but conducted emergency training.

Although the gunners in the First Siege Artillery Battalion are veteran gunners directly drawn from various units, strict and intensive training is still required to master such a dangerous weapon as the eighteen-pound mortar.

Otherwise, it will explode in minutes for you to see.

While the artillerymen of the [-]st Siege Artillery Battalion were training hard, the other units were not idle and were also making various preparations.

For example, the Fourth Infantry Regiment, after hundreds of members of the regiment arrived in Zhongxiang, they successively accepted new recruits who set out from Xiangyang City and went south by boat. These recruits also needed adaptive training.

Another example is the fifth garrison brigade. At the beginning, only one regiment of the brigade went south, but soon the remaining regiment, the tenth garrison regiment, also went south.

In this way, the fifth garrison brigade under Zhongxiang City can be regarded as all arrived. There are more than 4000 people in total, and various trainings are also needed at present.

As the Fourth Infantry Regiment and the Fifth Garrison Brigade went south one after another and arrived in Zhongxiang, more than a dozen mortars arrived.

It also means that the day when the township protection army storms Zhong Xiang is getting closer.

(End of this chapter)