I want to be emperor

Chapter 265

(The chapter name is wrong, 265 chapters are missing, the chapter name cannot be changed, I don’t want to bother editing, so be it.)
(Finally, I will give you a thousand words for free!)

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Under the violent bombardment of sixteen five-pound field cannons, four nine-pound field cannons, and twelve two-and-a-half-pound field cannons, playing the sixth garrison division of the Ming army, its infantry phalanx was destroyed one by one. Disabled.

As for the artillery of the Sixth Garrison Division, those generals' artillery failed to enter the limited range to fire and play a role on a large scale from the beginning to the end, and they have been judged by the exercise referee as excessive losses and loss of combat effectiveness.

The Sixth Garrison Division once tried to use the cavalry brigade to counterattack, trying to go around and attack the artillery positions. As a result, the cavalry began to be bombarded with solid shells thousands of meters away, and was intercepted by infantry fire halfway. In the end, they suffered heavy losses and had to retreat.

After the cavalry counterattacked in vain, the formation of the Sixth Garrison Division was completely disrupted, and the infantry in multiple phalanxes on the front line suffered heavy casualties.

At this time, the infantry of the first division began to launch volleys of guns and charge with spears and bayonets, and the opposite side completely collapsed.

Before the Sixth Defense Division completely collapsed, the exercise referee had already ruled that the Sixth Defense Division had killed or injured more than 4000 people.

And this situation is impossible in practice!

Because so far, no Ming army has been able to continue to maintain its formation and even try to launch a war against the Xiangbao Army after the casualties reached more than 20.00%, especially after the infantry phalanx in the front row was beaten one after another and collapsed. fight back...

In the words of Li Chengtong, the commander of the First Division: "This is unrealistic!"

According to past war experience, the Ming army often suffered 5.00% casualties, and it would collapse if it was about [-]% dead.

But the fact is that the Ji Liao Ming Army played by His Majesty Luo Zhixue's sixth garrison division, the soldiers' fighting will is particularly strong, the casualty exceeds 20.00%, and the five can continue to fight in formation without blinking their eyes...

So the ministries of the second brigade can only bite the bullet and fight!
However, even so, in the absolute artillery advantage, infantry firepower advantage, and protection advantage, the First Division still completely crushed the Sixth Defense Division in an unquestionable way.

Although there are still many limitations in this exercise, for example, the battlefield is the relatively gentle hilly terrain in the wilderness that is most suitable for the rural protection army to play.

For example, the [-] cavalry of the Sixth Garrison Division were not elite cavalry of the frontier army, but ordinary cavalry.

Another example is that the set armor rate of the Ming army is not high, the infantry has weak firepower, and so on.

But in the same way, Luo Zhixue set the sixth garrison division as an elite frontier army, able to withstand 20.00% five casualties, and its strength was four times that of the second brigade.

In fact, many of these conditions are divorced from reality.

But this can still reflect the hard power of the current rural protection army.

To be precise, it is artillery strength!
This exercise of the Township Protection Army is said to be a multi-arms confrontation exercise, but in fact it is about how to take advantage of artillery.

In order to make better use of the powerful strength of the current five-pound field artillery and nine-pound field artillery in subsequent actual battles.

Through a confrontation exercise between the first division and the sixth garrison division, the Great Chu Empire Army further simulated the fighting style of the main force equipped with new field artillery after reorganization through the exercise.

It further verified the powerful combat effectiveness of the new artillery against the Ming army.

If the two-and-a-half catties of field artillery used before only made the Great Chu Empire Army stronger than the Ming army in field battles, and the Ming army's repeated defeats were more due to their own poor equipment and poor morale.

Then the Great Chu Empire Army equipped with nine-jin field guns and five-jin field guns on a large scale will directly crush the Ming army in terms of combat effectiveness. This kind of crushing is not limited to the issue of fighting will, but the hardware level comprehensive crushing.

Even if the fighting will of the Ming army was beyond the charts, all the soldiers could fight to the death without retreating, and their ability to withstand the casualty rate reached the peak of the traditional feudal army.

But it will still not be the opponent of the Great Chu Empire Army.

Suppressed by the firepower of a large number of medium and large caliber field artillery, if the Great Chu Empire Army confronts the Shangming Army, then it will be a dimensionality reduction strike, and the two are not at the same level at all.

After the exercise is over, Luo Zhixue aims to gradually promote the five-pound and nine-pound field artillery in other main forces, and the original two-and-a-half-pound field artillery will also continue to be equipped, but the follow-up equipment will be directly distributed to various departments. In the infantry regiment, it is directly used as infantry support artillery in wartime.

As for the strategic support firepower, there will be five-pound field artillery and nine-pound field artillery.

It's just that although Luo Zhixue has already made an order, it will take time for the other main forces to equip the five-jin and nine-jin field artillery on a large scale.

The artillery production capacity of the Xiangyang Arsenal has reached its peak, while the Hantian Arsenal is still under construction. It is estimated that the Hantian Arsenal will not be able to enter the early production stage until February at the earliest.

But still the same sentence, let people wait for equipment, not let equipment wait for people.

Now there are not so many medium and large caliber field guns, so first train the gunners, first equip the main forces with five catties and nine catties field guns in small batches, and then use these small number of medium and large caliber field guns to train more gunners.

First train the gunners, and then the initial combat effectiveness can be formed as soon as the equipment is in place.

The Great Chu Empire Army has always done this in a series of previous military expansion operations, especially the expansion of the artillery force, and already has a lot of experience.

For example, for the current nine-pound field artillery, each artillery is oversubscribed to two artillery groups, and the two artillery groups use the same artillery, and the training is rotated so that people can rest and the artillery does not rest.

At the same time, each artillery group is also overstaffed, and there are two gunners, one is a professional gunner, and the other is a deputy gunner.

All other loaders, etc. are double.

That is to say, every nine-pound field gun in the current Rural Protection Army is actually equipped with four gun groups, and the training is carried out in the way of experienced hands and novices.

When the artillery is sufficient, three new artillery groups can be pulled out in minutes.

In late December, as the reorganization of the existing main divisions started in an orderly manner, the previous seven divisions were also full of regular soldiers such as infantry, baggage, and engineers in addition to artillery and cavalry.

Coupled with several months of continuous production, the Great Chu Empire has also hoarded and produced a batch of cold weapons, especially armor.

Luo Zhixue also ordered a re-equipment of the garrison divisions.

It is mainly to replace equipment such as swords, spears, armor, bows, arrows, and muskets, and it is equipped with two and a half catties of field guns.

Prior to this, the garrison divisions had completed the reorganization work before the change of equipment.

In the past month or so, the garrison troops of various ministries have successively cleared tens of thousands of unqualified soldiers, which has further streamlined the personnel and improved their quality.

These retired garrison soldiers were basically assigned to non-combat units under militarized management such as reclamation battalions, transportation battalions, and construction battalions.

Or simply personally willing to retire and return to their hometowns or arrange to work in various factories.

The Great Chu Empire Army carried out a certain reduction and streamlining of the garrison.

The main reason is that when the garrison divisions are forming an army, time is often very tight, and the selection of personnel is often relatively extensive. In addition, sometimes the number of captives or surrendered soldiers is not enough, and they often actively lower the standards for selection .

So much so that the soldiers of the garrison formed by the Township Protection Army were recruited from the surrendered troops at a ratio of three to one or even two to one. In this way, the quality could not be that strong.

After all, the overall quality of the Ming army is too poor. In the army of 1 people, only 3000 or [-] soldiers who have received military training have died, and the rest are all ordinary guard soldiers recruited temporarily or simply The county is brave and young.

When the Township Protection Army reorganizes the garrison, it is inevitable that a large number of guard soldiers or young men who have not received formal training will be selected.

It doesn’t really matter to these people, after all, after joining the garrison, they can train slowly, and they can actually use it after a few months, but some people’s physical fitness really can’t keep up with the requirements, so these few people don’t care much about it. Fit to continue serving in the military.

At the same time, it is inevitable that some people who are greedy for life and afraid of death, or veterans who steal rape and play tricks will be selected. These people are all people who can spoil a pot of porridge with a drop of mouse droppings, so naturally they need to be removed one by one.

Before November, the combat missions of the garrison divisions were relatively heavy, so it was not suitable for such a big move.

But after November, with the arrival of cold winter, the fighting between the Ming army and the Chu army subsided. After entering the confrontation stage, the rural protection army began to conduct a large-scale centralized cleanup of the various garrison divisions.

From the approximately 7 troops of the eight garrison divisions, tens of thousands were directly repelled.

The proportion of liquidation has reached one-seventh, and the intensity is not insignificant. The large-scale liquidation even forced almost every division to downsize a regiment.

For example, the newly formed seventh garrison division had about 9000 people when it was first formed. It had four infantry regiments plus a complete establishment of a supply battalion, an engineer battalion, a cavalry battalion, and an artillery battalion.

But after the reorganization, there are more than 6000 people left. The infantry only has two infantry regiments and two infantry battalions. Four infantry battalions are directly missing. The supply battalion has also been reduced from more than 500 people to more than 200 people. .

But this kind of retreat not only did not affect the combat effectiveness of the seventh garrison division, but also further improved the combat effectiveness of the garrison division.

Because the overall quality of the more than 6000 people after the reorganization is better, and because there are fewer people, the pressure on food supplies is relatively small, so the per capita rations that soldiers can obtain have actually increased.

At the same time, although the people were cleared, the mules, horses, carriages, and various weapons and equipment of the division were not cleared. Instead, the best equipment was selected intensively, which made the equipment more concentrated and more sophisticated.

The situation of the seventh garrison division is also implemented in several other garrison divisions. Although the number of people is smaller, the combat effectiveness has increased instead.

After the reorganization was completed, Luo Zhixue began to further replenish the equipment for these garrison troops.

The weapons and equipment used in the garrison divisions are basically captured from the Ming army, and the quality of the Ming army's equipment is hard to describe.

The many cold weapons produced by the arsenal of the Great Chu Empire before had to be supplied to the main divisions first, so there was no excess production to supplement the garrison.

And now that the cold weapons of the main divisions are gradually being assembled, there will be spare power to replenish part of the garrison.

Recycle some inferior iron knives, spears, attacking artillery and other weapons with serious quality problems that are still used in the garrison as raw materials, and at the same time supplement them with swords and spears produced by the Great Chu Empire and two hundred catties iron cannon.

Not to mention the armor.

For troops like the garrison, whose weapons, equipment and tactics followed the Ming army system, the number of armored soldiers directly affected the core combat effectiveness.

And the armor output of the Great Chu Empire is not low.

In order to manufacture and equip armor on a large scale, the Great Chu Empire not only used hydraulic mechanical equipment for forging and drilling on a large scale, but also produced and equipped armor that was relatively cost-effective and suitable for large-scale mass production. visor.

And there are three types of full body armor, half body armor, and half body light armor.

In terms of protection ability, the armor produced by the Great Chu Empire is actually just that. It can only be said to be so-so, better than nothing...

However, the cloth face armor produced by the Great Chu Empire does not seem to be very good, but the output is large!
Others have hundreds of thousands of armor equipment, while the Great Chu Empire Army has tens of thousands or even more than [-] armor equipment.

In the main divisions of the Township Protection Army, even the musketeers have special half-body light armor...

The armor ratio can reach [-]%!

The number of armor and equipment of each department of the garrison is much different. How much armor and equipment each garrison can have before basically depends on how many armors of the Ming army captured by the rural protection army at that time, and some of the high-quality armor will often be given away. Go to the main division to equip, leaving only a pile of junk for the defense division.

Therefore, for a long time, the level of armor and equipment of the garrison divisions was not good. Most soldiers didn't even have iron armor, so they could only make do with cotton armor.

Fortunately, the Ming army on the opposite side had a lower armor rate than them...so the garrison could still bully people with their armor most of the time.

This is very obvious in the battle between the garrison army of the Great Chu Empire and the Ming army in Hanzhong Mansion.

A group of second-rate garrison soldiers in the Great Chu Empire were able to overwhelm the main force of the local Ming army... just because they had a relatively large advantage in equipment and food...

Of course, the poor equipment of the garrison is a fact, and Luo Zhixue has always wanted to improve the equipment of the garrison.

There was no way to do it before, but now, when I take a breather in winter, I will arrange it directly. I didn't expect the garrison division to achieve 100% armor rate, as long as some core troops in each garrison division Just be able to wear armor.

In addition, what is really important is to directly assign two and a half catties of field artillery to each garrison division.

This is the highlight of this defense division reorganization!

(End of this chapter)