I want to be emperor

Chapter 260 The Whimsical Army

After dealing with the tax law and instructing the Court of Justice to speed up the formulation of various laws such as civil law and criminal law, Luo Zhixue soon put his focus on industrial affairs again.

To be precise, it is not an ordinary industry and people's livelihood, but a defense industry closely related to the military.

On November [-], Luo Zhixue convened military generals and civil and military officials from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Finance to discuss the issue of military expansion and combat readiness.

At the meeting, Xu Zhixian ghostwritten the military and proposed that with the continuous reorganization of the main force and the reorganization of the garrison, the military's demand for various weapons and equipment is still very large, and the Ministry of Industry is urgently needed to provide more weapons and equipment.

Especially hot weapons such as guns and ammunition, and the armor gap on cold weapons is also very large.

Judging from the current output of weapons supplied by the Ministry of Industry, it is still unable to meet the needs of the military, and the gap is relatively large.

Major General Hu Hongzhuo, head of the Ordnance Department, also emphasized: "Now we have seven main divisions. According to the current main division planning, each division needs eighteen nine-pound field guns and 36 five-pound field guns. Cannons, 36 two-and-a-half-pound field guns, eighteen eighteen-pound mortars!"

"As for the garrison division, according to the plan, a garrison division is equipped with at least twelve five-pound field guns, 24 two-and-a-half-pound field guns and corresponding mortars!"

"But now, even the artillery of the first division is far from the full range, let alone the other divisions!"

When Yuan Gaofeng from the Ministry of Industry heard this, he said in his heart: Who made your brains twitch to formulate such a huge artillery equipment plan!

Yuan Gaofeng has a lot of opinions on the new establishment of the military, especially the new establishment of the artillery force

Before the first division, there were only more than 20 two-and-a-half-pound field guns in total, but after the end of the Wuchang Battle, what new establishment did the military make to expand the proportion of artillery equipment.

According to the so-called plan of the group of people in the military, the divisional artillery regiment of a main division governs three field artillery battalions and one mortar battalion.

The field artillery battalion has one nine-pound field artillery post, two five-pound field artillery posts, and each post has six artillery pieces, a total of eighteen pieces.

Adding up the three field artillery battalions, there are eighteen nine-pound field cannons and 36 five-pound field cannons, for a total of 54 field cannons.

But the problem is that there are only a few nine-pound field guns in the Great Chu Empire, and they are still prototypes for live ammunition testing, and there is not a single one actually equipped.

Only a dozen or so five-jin field guns were produced in total, and no more than twelve were formally equipped.

But as soon as these armies opened their mouths, a division needed 54 five-jin and nine-jin field guns.

That's not even counting...

The artillery regiment of the division also plans to equip a mortar battalion with eighteen [-]-jin mortars.

At the same time, the two-and-a-half-pound field artillery was directly distributed to each regiment. Each regiment was equipped with an artillery post and had six two-and-a-half-pound field artillery. In this way, four infantry regiments, plus the supply regiment, would need thirty two-and-a-half-pound field artillery. , The cavalry regiment also had to add a four-door two-and-a-half catty cavalry post, and the engineer battalion would also accompany two two-and-a-half catty field guns, so there were 36.

Calculated in this way, according to their statement, a division needs a total of ninety field guns of two and a half catties, five catties, and nine catties, and eighteen mortars of eighteen catties.

And the Great Chu Empire now has seven main divisions that have been officially awarded titles, that is, 630 field guns and 120 six [-]-jin mortar guns.

Not to mention that there is still a vote of the garrison who also said that they will be equipped with field artillery and mortars, and there are several independent mortar regiments, and what kind of independent field artillery regiments have been set up, ready to equip all nine catties or even larger caliber rifles. Tube artillery.

It's just crazy...

If you throw all the people in the Ministry of Industry into the iron furnace, you won't be able to produce so many artillery in a short time.

Therefore, facing the military lion's big opening, Yuan Gaofeng expressed his calmness: "Currently, the Xiangyang Armory has been working overtime day and night, and is operating at full capacity. Rao may increase the production capacity in the future, but the proportion will not be too large!"

"If you want to increase production capacity, then you need to expand the Xiangyang Arsenal, or build a few new Arsenals!"

To increase production capacity, it is very simple, just give money to people and give raw materials.

As long as it dares to give enough resources to support, then the Ministry of Industry will dare to start another or even several arsenal projects, train more skilled workers, and build more machinery and equipment for the production of weapons and equipment.

But as soon as these words came out, Huang Chengxuan, the head of the finance department next to him, laughed and said, "It costs a lot to build a new factory. Although we have a financial surplus in Dachu, it is all captured in the previous immediate battle." One-time income, the real tax is not so much!"

"There's only so much money and food. If it's for building an arsenal, or for military expansion, or for administrative disaster relief, you have to be cautious. It's just a joke. My finance department can't conjure up new money and food for you out of thin air."

Luo Zhixue listened to the words of the humble courtiers, thinking about this in his heart. Although the Great Chu Empire has some money and food in stock, these money and food are basically prepared for next year's war expenses.

Don't mess around!
Just like what Huang Chengxuan said, if you spend recklessly now, you will be blinded if you don't have new large-scale income when the war next year.

But the artillery of the army is also urgently needed, and the expansion or new construction of the arsenal is also necessary.

What Luo Zhixue has to do now is to make a compromise point, such as the artillery equipment plan formulated by the military, this is too nonsense...

Not to mention full equipment according to the new plan, even half of the equipment is impossible, because there are not so many artillery.

Taking a step back, even with so many cannons, the Great Chu Empire could not find enough mules and horses to use them.

It is conservatively estimated that a nine-jin field artillery post needs more than 150 horses. This is still a high-quality draft horse. If it is a poorer mule or horse, it will need more.

With so many artillery pieces, tens of thousands of horses are needed.

Even if there are so many mules and horses, Luo Zhixue has to consider the cost performance of so many mules and horses.

The cost of [-] mules and horses is enough for him to support at least [-] to [-] infantry, and it is also the kind of high-standard infantry supplied by the main division.

If it were the Ming army, it would probably be able to support one hundred thousand troops...

With such a huge expense, it is necessary to consider a question of whether it is worth it.

Cost performance, which is very important for the army, it is impossible to pile up everything when you see something good.

However, even if the military lowers the standard of artillery equipment, the production capacity of the current Ministry of Industry's arsenal cannot satisfy it.

According to the plan, after next spring, the Township Protection Army will launch a new round of offensive in the south of Chu.

This means that in the next three to four months, the Township Protection Army needs to gather as many main forces and artillery as possible to launch the Chunan offensive, and at the same time deal with wars in other directions.

And considering the equipment demand for next year, the year after, or even longer, the existing Xiangyang arsenal is definitely not enough.

Therefore, it is very necessary to expand or build new munitions factories, especially arsenals.

As for the expansion, it can only rely on the Xiangyang Arsenal for expansion, but considering the future direction of war, transportation, and raw material supply issues.

Luo Zhixue felt that instead of expanding the Xiangyang arsenal, it would be better to build a new large arsenal along the Yangtze River in the south, such as Wuchang or Hanyang.

This new arsenal can even serve as an important arsenal for the Great Chu Empire to strive for world hegemony and even expand abroad in the future.

After many courtiers debated for a long time, Luo Zhixue finally made a decision to transfer money and food personnel to build another arsenal in Hanyang.

Then I told the military not to mess around, there are ninety field guns in a division, thanks to you, you can figure it out...

It feels awkward to have a more serious artillery organization. Now that the five-pound field artillery has been mass-produced, the nine-pound field artillery will also start mass production this month. The delay will affect the formation time and combat effectiveness of the artillery unit.

Under such circumstances, the military has reluctantly reduced its establishment. The divisional artillery regiment still has four artillery battalions under its jurisdiction, but the scale of the artillery battalion and the artillery post are much smaller.

They reduced the original six artillery posts to four.

According to a field artillery battalion, there is one nine-pound field artillery, two five-pound field artillery posts, and each post is equipped with four.

Such a battalion would be twelve guns, and three battalions of field artillery would be thirty-six field guns.

Plus a mortar battalion of twelve [-]-jin mortars.

Such a divisional artillery regiment governs four artillery battalions, with twelve nine-pound field artillery, 24 five-pound field artillery, and twelve eighteen-pound mortars, for a total of 48 pieces.

In addition, the two-and-a-half catty field artillery posts belonging to the infantry regiments and the baggage regiment were also reduced from six to four.

There are still four cavalry posts under the jurisdiction of the cavalry regiment, and there are still two engineering battalions.

In this way, the entire main division will have twelve nine-pound field artillery, 24 five-pound field artillery, and 26 two-and-a-half-pound field artillery.

Although this number is still relatively large compared to the current military output, it is barely acceptable. After all, even if the establishment is established, it does not mean that all the main forces must be fully staffed.

It would be nice to be able to give the absolute main force of a few big heads a full staff. As for the other main forces, give them a staff first, and give them a small amount of artillery to support them first, and then slowly replenish them later.

In addition, the garrison division has also officially finalized the field artillery. The divisional artillery regiment of the garrison division will have four five-pound field artillery and eight two-and-a-half-pound field artillery, making a total of twelve field artillery.

There will be no more, after all, this is just a garrison.

After Luo Zhixue made these decisions, the Ministry of Industry and other departments also acted very quickly. As soon as the meeting was over, they sent people to the surrounding area to check the terrain and prepare for site selection the next day.

(End of this chapter)