I want to be emperor

Chapter 330 The Ming Army Is Not Stupid

In the imperial strategic meeting on the outskirts of Jiujiang City, Rear Admiral Lu Xingye made a solemn promise on behalf of the navy: the navy will do its best and have absolute confidence in covering the army's landing at the mouth of the lake and ensuring the safety of the river transportation.

Luo Zhixue and the army are very satisfied with the confidence and commitment of the navy.

For Luo Zhixue, the strength of the navy can increase so much, and now it is expected to control the Yangtze River waterway, so it is not in vain that he has allocated special funds to the navy many times in the past half a year.

As far as the army is concerned, if the navy can help the army land at Hukou and help the army transport logistics supplies, then it will not be in vain for the army's support in the past half a year, and even gritted its teeth to allocate part of its artillery production capacity to the navy.

It's not that the army's field guns are directly given to the navy, but that the Hantian Arsenal has freed up production capacity to produce long-barreled naval guns for the navy.

After all, the artillery of the army is not suitable for the use of the navy.

Taking the nine-pound artillery as an example, the army’s nine-pound field artillery has a caliber of 110 mm, a barrel length of two meters, and a barrel diameter of eighteen times. The thickness of the barrel is thinner, shortening the length of the barrel and the The thickness of the tube, these are all to reduce the weight of the artillery, so as to achieve field marching maneuvers.

As for the navy's nine-pound naval gun, it has a caliber of 110 mm, a barrel length of 22 meters, a barrel diameter of [-] times, and a thicker barrel, especially where the propellant is installed at the end of the barrel. Large chamber pressure, the thickness is relatively thick, and because there is no need to consider the problem of marching maneuvers, this kind of artillery uses a small four-wheeled low-profile gun mount dedicated to battleships and land fortresses.

In fact, it is the Hongyi cannon in the Ming Dynasty, which is a typical long-barreled cannon, usually used as naval guns and fortress artillery.

The characteristic is that the barrel diameter is larger, the barrel is thicker, and it is heavier. At the same time, because there is no need to consider the maneuverability, there is no need to consider the weight issue too much. Therefore, cheaper iron cast artillery can also be used instead of expensive ones. copper.

Copper cast artillery is much more expensive than iron cast artillery.
Therefore, although the army and navy seem to be equipped with nine-pound artillery, they are actually quite different from each other. The artillery factory on the side of the Hantian Armory has separate artillery for the two types of artillery of the same caliber but for different purposes. set up production lines.

But even the production of different production lines requires the use of mechanical equipment and skilled workers, which will inevitably occupy the limited production capacity of Hantian Arsenal.

In the case of limited total production capacity, the army also paid a certain sacrifice in order to allow the navy to assist the army in capturing Hukou, Anqing, and opening up the Yangtze River waterway in order to take the overall situation into consideration.

You know, a large number of troops in the army are still waiting for artillery equipment.

Nowadays, the Ming court has refitted the Hongyi artillery into a gun mount or simply newly cast a lightweight field artillery, and then used it in field battles.

This also led to increasing pressure on the Chu army.

In the past, the Ming army could run away with two and a half catties of field artillery, but now they have to use five or even nine catties of field artillery.

And the quantity requirements are also increasing.

After all, the Ming Dynasty has always been equipped with a lot of Hongyi artillery, and at the same time, the casting level of the Ming court's Hongyi artillery is actually not low, and the output is also not low.

It's just that in the past, the generals of the Ming Dynasty had nothing to learn from, and they didn't understand the special gun mounts of field artillery, so they could only use the Hongyi artillery as the fort artillery on the spot.

Now that the Great Chu Empire Army has given them proofs, they have something to copy, so the change of thinking is still very fast.

There is no doubt that the Ming court actually has a high degree of acceptance of all kinds of new technology and equipment.

The three major pieces of equipment in the Ming court, the Frang machine cannon, the Hongyi cannon, and the bird gun, are all foreign goods, but after the Ming court saw these good things, they immediately began to imitate and equip them on a large scale.

Even flintlocks have been touched by others, but the flintlocks passed from Europe before are still spring wheel flintlocks and early percussion flintlocks.

The cost is extremely high, the process is complicated, and it doesn't have the cost-effectiveness of large-scale equipment, so the Ming court didn't do it...

Not to mention Ting, although even Europe is rarely equipped with flintlock guns now, Gustav II of Sweden, who had just died a few years ago, used matchlock guns in his reformed line tactics. Similarly, reduce the weight of the large-caliber arquebus, which is the Swedish-style arquebus that was very popular during the Thirty Years War.

It is not only used in Sweden, but also imitated and used in other European countries. For example, during the Civil War, Britain widely produced Swedish-style matchlock guns for war.

That is to say, until now, the matchlock guns used by musketeers in Europe are still mainly matchlock guns. Although the flintlock guns are also equipped, the number is very small.

Historically, after the 60s of the seventeenth century, after solving various technical problems of percussive flintlock guns, increasing the firing rate, and reducing costs, flintlock guns gradually replaced arquebus guns. for quite a long time.

During the period, the appearance of the socket-type bayonet at the end of the seventeenth century finally completely established the status of the main infantry weapon of the flintlock, and the queuing shooting tactics began to completely rampant in Europe.

Looking at the development and application of muskets in the Ming Dynasty and Europe during the same period, the Ming Dynasty did not lag behind too much.

They all use matchlock guns, and no one can say who is wrong...

Therefore, don't think that the Ming Dynasty will not learn to imitate better weapons and equipment.

People are not stupid!

It's just that, sometimes with advanced equipment, it may not be able to play its role.

In the past half a year of the Ming court, the governors have produced a lot of guns, but they still can't beat the Chu army, so sometimes weapons can't decide everything.

What's interesting is that during this process, a large number of guns produced by the governors of the Ming army fell into the hands of the Chu army.

In the early stage of the Chunan Campaign, the Great Chu Empire Army seized at least [-] intact new-style arquebus guns from the Ming army. Well, that is, the thief-killing blunderbuss imitated from the Chu army's first-year arquebus gun.

In addition, more than 20 two-and-a-half-jin field guns and three five-jin field guns were seized. Although these artillery were all iron-cast field guns, they were not small.

In the end, these new guns that Yang Sichang spent a lot of money on finally fell into the hands of the Chu army and equipped them.

The muskets and cannons used in the provisional Fourth Mixed Regiment were the guns captured from the Huguang New Standard Army compiled and trained by Yang Sichang.

And this time in the Battle of Jiujiang, the Chu army seized a large number of new guns, and these guns will also be directly supplemented for use by various ministries of the Chu army.

Speaking of which, in fact, the new standard army of the Ming army still made a certain contribution to the expansion of the Chu army.

At least those dozens of field artillery and Hongyi heavy artillery can help the Chu army relieve a lot of pressure.

——

When the first army of the Chu army began to go to the lake mouth, it began to build boats and rafts for crossing the river in preparation for the subsequent crossing of the river and attacking the lake mouth.

The main force of the Seventh Division, which is not yet full, also went south and arrived at Xingzi City, Fuzhi, Nankang Prefecture.

It's just that the Ming army stationed here learned that Jiujiang fell and almost all the defenders were wiped out. The more than 8000 Ming troops stationed here are just ordinary battalion sentinels, and many of them are young and strong conscripted civilian husbands.

They had no intention of resisting the menacing Chu thief at all.

On the eve of the Seventh Division's arrival at Xingzi City, the Ming army stationed in the city had already retreated voluntarily. Some of them crossed the lake by boat and then headed for the mouth of the lake, but more retreated all the way south.

When the Seventh Division arrived at Xingzi City, there were only hundreds of young and old disabled left in the city, and they didn't resist at all. As soon as the Chu army arrived, they opened the city gate and surrendered.

The Xingzi City was captured without a single soldier, but it did not make Major General Huang Xiangbin, the commander of the Seventh Division, happy...

Because after entering the city, it was discovered that the Ming army who had retreated early had emptied all the grain, gold and silver in the official warehouses in the city, and there was not a hair left for him.

Although it is said that money and food will still be obtained through measures such as purging the battle, confiscating the recalcitrant gentry, and compulsorily requisitioning food at a fair price, this cannot restore the money and food taken away by the Ming army.

They just don't know where the First Cavalry Brigade has arrived. If they reach the De'an area, they might be able to intercept the escaped Ming army from Xingzi City.

Although the [-]st Cavalry Brigade and the [-]th Division went south together, they were divided into two groups.

The [-]st Cavalry Brigade took the flat road directly, went directly south from Jiujiang City, walked the plain area west of Lushan Mountain, and finally headed all the way to De'an, in order to quickly reach De'an and stop the Ming army in De'an City before they reacted. They fled or other Ming army reinforcements to this place.

Of course, the more important thing is that this place is relatively flat, suitable for cavalry combat.

As for the Seventh Division, they detoured to the east of Lushan Mountain and went south to Xingzi City along the shore of Poyang Lake.

The main reason is that Nankang Fuzhi Xingzi City is quite special. It is separated from Jiujiang by a large mountain, which is the famous Lushan Mountain.

If the army wanted to go from Jiujiang to Lushan, it would be too far to detour to the west, and it would be shorter to detour to the east, so the Seventh Division took the line on the east side of Lushan.

This was due to the detour and the fact that the road was not easy to walk, so this gave the Ming army in Xingzi City enough time to retreat.

However, these Ming troops could not escape in the end...

Because they happened to meet the First Cavalry Brigade about ten miles away from De'an City, on the northwest bank of the Boyang River...

It goes without saying that the 5000 sentinels of the Dominic barracks faced the elite cavalry led by thousands of blind kings himself.

They have no other way except to stay in place and defend, which is a typical case of being unable to fight and unable to leave.

And defending in place is also very troublesome, because the first cavalry brigade turned around and took out several two and a half catty field guns to shell their camp.

After two days of torment, when the Seventh Division also followed up, the fate of the more than 5000 Ming troops was completely doomed.

After some stubborn resistance, hundreds of people were killed and injured, and the remaining four thousand people were forced to surrender in hopelessness, and handed over the large amount of money and food they had brought out from Xingzi City.

And during this process, the thousands of Ming troops in De'an City, which was separated by a river and only more than ten miles away, never came out from the beginning to the end!
The commander of the Ming army withdrawn from Xingzi City, Lieutenant General Wen Tingkai was extremely angry at the behavior of the friendly troops in De'an City who sat still and refused to rescue them.

On the day of the surrender, he voluntarily surrendered, saying that he would serve the Great Chu Empire, and also said that if the Great Chu King Division wanted to attack De'an, someone from Wen would be willing to lead the army as a forward.

(End of this chapter)