From the world of martial arts

Against the aliens on the grasslands, the firearms camp was not enough, let alone the elites. "Don't worry, Your Majesty. In terms of firearms, that guy from Ushikaku actually has a clue. He seems to have developed a new firearm that is more powerful and has a longer range."

Zhang Jiao was not angry because of Su Fan's words.

He naturally understood that what Su Fan said was true. Although the firearms camp was good, it was still far behind the experienced archers.

The archers who have been trained all year round have a shooting range that is still higher than that of the firearms camp, and the power of those heavy arrows is no worse than that of firearms, or even stronger.

There are also archers in Taiping Road, but there are not many, only about 800. Many of these are from the army. Most of them have been trained for more than three years, although they have not yet entered the extraordinary realm.

But compared to those soldiers who have been trained for three years, their physical fitness is stronger.

They all use heavy bows of eight stones or more. The range of these heavy bows reaches more than 200 steps, and the lethality of breaking armor is also more than 100 steps. They are extremely lethal against iron armor at 50 steps.

However, for the construction of these archers, the material consumption is even greater, because the consumption required for these archers to exercise is very terrible.

The firearms battalion does not require strong physical fitness and can still exert the power of firearms, but these archers cannot.

If you don't have enough strength to pull a heavy bow, how can it be powerful? A light bow is powerless against iron armor.

The training of archers takes at least three years, or even longer.

The development of Taipingdao is not as good as other forces. It started too short and requires a lot of money to buy food.

Because Zhang Jiao knows that in the future, if the chaos cannot be ended quickly and the people are displaced, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.

This is what he doesn't want to see.

Zhang Jiao did not neglect the construction of the army. On the contrary, he attached great importance to it. However, the appearance of firearms made him see the power of firearms.

As long as firearms can be modified and more powerful firearms can be designed, the resources consumed by the army will be reduced.

Compared with the same firearms battalion and archers, the latter consumes more.

In fact, the cost of firearms itself is not much different from that of bows and arrows for Taipingdao.

As for firearms soldiers and archers, the consumption between them is very large.

An archer's daily consumption may be three or five firearms soldiers.

Of course, Zhang Jiao is not short-sighted. If the soldiers can be trained to enter the extraordinary realm, he will naturally support it.

It's not like Zhang Jiao couldn't see the power of those soldiers who entered the extraordinary realm, and they were a great blessing to the army.

But ordinary people want to enter the extraordinary realm. Even if they have martial arts skills and resources, they can't just enter.

The state of divine power, the strength of a thousand pounds, and martial arts do not require qualifications, but many people may not reach this state after ten years of training and consuming a lot of resources.

Otherwise, there are so many officers and soldiers in the North, millions of elites, and among the soldiers who can reach the realm of divine power, there is barely one in a hundred. These are veterans of hundreds of battles who have gone through countless fights.

For those ordinary second-line troops, one person out of a thousand may not be promoted.

This shows the difficulty of this increase.

Taiping Dao's 50,000-strong army has been training for three years, and there are only about a hundred of them, and among them are even officers and soldiers who have experienced training for a long time.

Therefore, if he wants to build an extraordinary army, Zhang Jiao is very aware of the difficulties involved. In this case, why not choose something simpler.

Whether it is a firearms camp or an artillery camp, especially the latter, even ordinary people can operate artillery, and the power of the artillery shocked Zhang Jiao.

Zhang Jiao's inheritance naturally knew that in the Qin Dynasty, there were rune cannons, the kind of rune cannons jointly built by Mohists and Taoists, which could kill immortals.

However, the Liu Han court did not inherit.

The current artillery of Taipingdao is naturally not as powerful as Great Qin's rune cannon. However, the power of the artillery can threaten the Grandmaster in frontal bombardment. And with the improvement of gunpowder, it can even threaten grand masters and golden elixir level monks.

This is not a rune, it is entirely the power of mortals. The artillery battalion formed with cannons made by mortals now has hundreds of them.

Although the range is only 800 steps, it is enough to deal with cavalry.

The power of the volley fired was extraordinary.

And the key is that both firearms and artillery can be improved.

This is what excites Zhang Jiao.

The construction of artillery is not that difficult for today's Taiping Road.

If we go all out to build it, we can build a hundred doors in one month.

But Taiping Dao doesn't need that much now. After all, it's still too far away from the Taiping Dao uprising.

In addition, although the power of the current first-generation artillery is good, from their perspective, it is still relatively backward.

It can continue to be improved, whether it is the power or range of the artillery burst, it can also be improved.

The second generation artillery has also been developed.

Therefore, the artillery battalion currently has hundreds of guns, which are only used for the training of artillery troops, which is enough. In the future, it may be the second or third generation.

Su Fan saw the army's test firing. The firearms battalion's 15,000 muskets and 5,000 artillery had already formed combat effectiveness.

It can be said that it was definitely the peak army during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

That artillery is comparable to the power of the Hongyi cannon of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

However, it was still only a muzzleloader gun, and the gunpowder was still in the category of black powder and had not broken through.

Therefore, the power is just that.

Of course, if thousands of cannons burst out at once, even Lu Bu's cavalry would probably suffer heavy losses when facing them.

After all, the power of the explosive bullets, even if the upper limit of the power of black powder is set, is still enough to cause damage to the martial arts of some great masters.

In martial arts training, even if you are a master, your physical body is very strong, but you are not invulnerable, let alone artillery.

It's just that the range and rate of fire of the red cannon are also extremely limited, and cannot be compared with the cannons of later generations in World War I and World War II.

Once they are rushed by the cavalry, these artillerymen will have no resistance.

However, the current Taipingdao army general is not incompetent. The 30,000 heavy infantry serve as the iron wall for these artillery.

As long as they block it, the muskets and artillery of the firearms battalion will be enough to annihilate the enemy.

With an army of 50,000, Taipingdao can still handle an ordinary army with the same number, but it is no match against the elite officers and soldiers of the North.

This is Su Fan's evaluation. Artillery is beneficial, but the technology is not enough. Moreover, the elite army and military spirit will make the defense stronger by then. The artillery will not be able to move around, and the power of the artillery will be weakened.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty, we are constantly researching and developing."

Zhang Jiao nodded in recognition.

"I still have confidence in you, Meng Ling" (End of Chapter)