national surname chiming

Chapter 348 Completion of Battle Preparations
Zhu Shuren's return from the rebellion was easy to say, but in fact it took a lot of time, including several months.

King Fu's face was exposed in late May, and the flag was officially raised and King Jingjiang of Guangdong and Guangxi responded in early and mid-June respectively.

Although Zhu Shuren's direct military strikes did not take long, it took about a month before and after the march from Huguang to the south and the dispatch of the army.In the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, even if it is a horse race to enclose land, it usually takes a few months to go around the state capital involved in the rebellion, and it takes a month to march back to the end.

Therefore, even if Zhu Shuren made a little advance preparation and started to go south in advance, it was already late July after the final battle, and it was more than half of August when he finally returned to Wuchang.If the troops are to be redeployed to the front lines of Xinyang and Xiangyang, it will be almost the end of August.

After all, the mobilization of a troop of less than 10 people is not as fast as traveling with a light car, and a daily journey of seventy or eighty miles is considered fast.In addition, King Jingjiang's rebellion occurred in summer, and Guangdong and Guangxi were extremely hot.
This battle was not very difficult militarily, but there were a lot of temporary attrition caused by the epidemic in the troops.Thousands of seriously ill soldiers in the returned troops needed to rest in bed for more than a month, and patients with mild tropical diseases also had to rest for ten and a half months before they could recover their combat effectiveness.

After Lin Lin finally figured it out, Zhu Shuren could only make sure that all the troops participating in the war were fully deployed at the end of August and fully restored to combat effectiveness in September, so the time left for him was really not much.

Fortunately, there is no need to mobilize more than half of Zhu Shuren's troops for this battle, and there are still many troops that can be rotated and repaired.

In terms of internal affairs, Zhu Shuren has not been idle since he returned to his governor's jurisdiction at the end of March. He has always taken advantage of the window period after Chongzhen's death to further solidify his farming and expand the scope of technological advancement.

From March to August, plus the construction of last winter and this spring, Fang Yizhi, Song Yingxing and others also achieved a lot in Wuchang, improving several new weapons and production technologies, which can be regarded as preparations for the upcoming all-out war .

The artillery technology of the Zhu Shuren camp has been relatively developed before, because these cannons can also be used in the war against thieves, and can also be used to attack fortified cities, so Zhu Shuren started two or three years ago and just sat in Wuchang. Since the governor, he has been persistently lighting up the artillery technology tree.

The Hongyi cannons of the Zhu Shuren camp basically imitated the most advanced level in the West at the same time (initially based on the original Dutch guns on the two Dutch Galen gunboats captured by the Zheng family navy in the 1633 Liuluowan naval battle) On the day, it was replaced with high-quality materials smelted by the Daye Iron Mine and the improved new ironmaking blast furnace produced by the Iron Works, and the preheated wind steelmaking furnace for production.

Since then, it has been improved step by step, but there has been no qualitative change. It is nothing more than a slight increase in the indicators such as tonnage, range, and power, and then it has worked hard to come up with the first generation of explosive ammunition that pre-ignites the fuze before firing.

In the past ten months, the new advancements in artillery technology are mainly reflected in the improvement of the pre-ignition fuze of the flowering bombs, the reliability has been further improved, and the dud rate and bombing rate have been reduced. The details are naturally very important. It was difficult, Song Yingxing was an old man in his 60s, and he didn't know how many hairs he had pulled off, and Zhu Shuren didn't have time to understand the twists and turns.

In contrast, the indicator of the dud rate caused by the original fuze is relatively easy to reduce in subsequent research and development efforts.

The bombing rate is more complicated, because this indicator is related to the speed of the gun when firing, whether the operation is out of shape, and many complicated factors on the field.

As long as the artillery still uses a timed fuze, the battlefield will be delayed due to various accidents, causing the shell to explode directly in the barrel before it is fired.

Song Yingxing thought about this problem for a long time but to no avail. In the end, Fang Yizhi, who was more strategic in thinking, helped him develop his ideas. He felt that he should develop a simple artillery with shorter firing steps and less likely to be accidentally interrupted. To specially adapt to flowering ammunition.

Of course, even after the new cannon is developed, the existing Hongyi cannon will still be allowed to use flowering ammunition, but the efficiency and reliability will be slightly worse.

And the final product of this idea, in fact, is nothing if it is thoroughly understood. It is nothing more than re-improving the old-fashioned mortar that has long been suitable for the original flowering ammunition, and casting it with new materials. The tube wall is thicker, but the tube diameter is thicker and shorter. , reduce the chamber pressure.

To put it bluntly, it is to get a large heavy siege mortar, completely abandoning the accuracy, unable to aim and shoot, and can only bombard a fixed target slowly.

Compared with the artillery technology that has been progressing slowly, Zhu Shuren's army has made quite new achievements in the field of gun technology in the past ten months——

As mentioned earlier, in the four years since Zhu Shuren took charge of the army, the early gun technology always focused on shotgun nozzles. Later, the indicators of low chamber pressure, short range and high rate of fire were brought to the extreme, and paper cartridge cases were successively produced. / Wax shell fixed nozzle, rear-mounted double-tube nozzle, revolver nozzle...

The reason why he focused on trolls back then was also because Zhu Shuren knew his enemy's positioning very well.In the first three years when he was promoted to power, he did not fight against the Tartars at all, and only killed thieves.The bandit troops generally had no armor, at least the armor was not good enough, and as long as any lead balls and iron slag were dense enough, they could beat Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng of the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo to crying.

So in the past few years, Zhu Shuren only had to pursue the firepower density of the musket, and hardly considered the range and armor penetration rate.

However, since last winter, Zhu Shuren has also realized that his opponent is about to change, so in the past ten months, he has not invested any large amount of money in the spray technology, but just let the flow take its course,
Most of the firearm research funds and resources have been invested in traditional high-pressure flintlock guns with front loading and closed tail.As for the basis of research and development, it is natural to further improve from the traditional Lumi and Turtledove guns that fire slugs.

The reason why the technology tree has such an inclination is also because Zhu Shuren knows his enemy-the one he is about to face is the murderous Tartars, and the Qing army is by no means the poorly equipped nomadic cavalry as mentioned in many small articles. When Chongzhen died, the penetration rate of iron-clad cotton armor in the Qing army was already extremely high, and almost everyone in the Eight Banners cavalry had heavy armor.

In history, the number of red barbarian cannons in the Qing army was also the largest among all forces in the world. Now in this time and space, because of Zhu Shuren's butterfly effect, the number of cannons is not as large as that of Zhu Shuren's army.

Therefore, it is impossible to expect the small lead ball and iron slag sprayer that specializes in killing no armor and light armor to show its power.To deal with the cavalry of the Qing army, it is necessary to emphasize the single-shot armor-piercing damage and range of the projectile, and go back to the old path of the traditional front-loading high-pressure flintlock.

Fortunately, Zhu Shuren has a broad vision. Although this technology tree has not been developed much before, at least he will not repeat behind closed doors. With the most advanced similar weapons of his time as the base, he will continue to polish,
Using the latest and most sophisticated steel materials from the Daye Iron Works, coupled with a bit of modern standardized thinking, Fang Yizhi and Song Yingxing, after more than half a year of hard work, roughly created a series of pre-fittings similar to the later French 18th century Charleville series. Firearms of the flintlock level—

Don't think how tall these weapons are. As long as the material technology improves and the degree of standardization increases, it is not difficult to develop Charleville rifles based on the flintlock guns of the 1630s.

In history, the French Charleville rifle series (some transliteration is called Shaville, a thing, this series has been used until the early Napoleonic Wars), is also very classic. The first model was born in 1717, and later generations are called 1717 models. It is only 80 years ahead of the most advanced guns in the West at the end of Ming Dynasty.Before the emergence of industrial music, 80 years was not a long time at all, and technological progress was not obvious.

However, the Model 1717 Charleville has not yet achieved standardized thinking, and all firearms cannot be accurately unified in size, length, and caliber.What really achieved standardization was the improved version of the second edition in 1728.

And Zhu Shuren has modern thinking, and of course he attaches great importance to standardization and logistics simplification. In addition, he has laid a good foundation in the past few years in Daye Iron Works, so the first version produced by Fang Yizhi has completely surpassed the French version. 1728 Charleville Level.

In addition, Zhu Shuren's army has accumulated firearm accessory technology during the years of research and development of spray guns, which can be seamlessly transplanted to new front-loading rifles, such as bayonets and the like.

Historically, the French still used bayonets inserted into the barrel of the 1728 Charleville, but Zhu Shu's army switched to a hoop-type bayonet a few years ago, which can ensure that the bayonet will not affect the continued shooting.The French had to suffer losses in the Seven Years War in Europe from 1756 to 1763 before they began to switch to the hoop bayonet.

In addition, the French front-loading muskets have always used the barrel cleaning rod that compresses the gunpowder to be fixed below the barrel with a buckle. The two fixed holes on the bottom of the barrel go back through, and the next time you reload, you have to pull it out again, which is more troublesome than putting in and out the sheath of a sword, and it is easy to miss the aim and stab your hand in a panic.

For Zhu Shuren's side, because there is better elastic steel, Fang Yizhi directly designed a slot-type cleaning rod holder, which can be inserted directly into the slot after use, which can save three or four seconds more than fixing with a small hole. Putting down the time can also be regarded as speeding up the loading.

In general, before the advent of the new war, Daye Armory finally produced a new type of flintlock with a level between Charleville 1728 and 1763, and the steel used in it is It is even better than the French 1763, and the small structural optimizations such as the barrel cleaner are also better than the Charleville 1763.

Perhaps after this new weapon is put on the battlefield on a large scale, after actual combat tests and summing up experience, Zhu Shu's army can also create a rifle that surpasses Charleville's 1763 model in all aspects, so that his musketeers will completely reach the level of the Napoleonic War. Early technological level.

With standardized and epoch-making new weapons, it is natural that the original bird gun, Lumi gun, turtle dove gun and other miscellaneous names can no longer be used. Zhu Shuren directly named this new type of rifle Wuchang made. According to the soldiers who were issued to the new rifles in batches, they prefer to call this weapon "made by the country".

During the development of these weapons, there was a small batch of trial production, performance testing, and running-in tactics, so the first batch was put into production before Zhu Shuren sent troops south in May.

At that time, the output was very small, only one or two hundred pieces were made every month, and they were optimized as they were made. By the time Zhu Shuren came back in August and settled down the troops, it had been in production for about four months, and the "Made in Wuchang" had accumulatively produced about [-] pieces. stock.

Compared with the production capacity of the military industry in Wuchang Prefecture, which Zhu Shuren has been operating for three years, the speed of hundreds of pieces per month is really slow, because when the Lumi blunderbuss and improved bird blunderbuss were made, the local military factory had already reached 1000 pieces per month. The above speed should be increased to [-] per month this year. Even if it is a double-barreled gun after production, it can produce more than [-] guns per month.

Therefore, continuing to dig according to this potential curve, Zhu Shuren believes that Daye Armory will soon reach the monthly production rate of more than [-] new-style Wuchang manufacturing, and it can even expand to [-] next year.

If counted by the end of Chongzhen 17th, Zhu Shuren can produce about [-] rods made in Wuchang, and by the end of next year, the first year of Zhu Changbai's succession to the throne, the total number of rods made in Wuchang will exceed [-] rods.

As long as he is given time to continue farming, focus on developing military power in the affluent south, and accumulate enough power to push back.

For the current Ming Dynasty regime, as long as it maintains the same line of defense as the Southern Song Dynasty in history, the Qing people themselves will gradually collapse.

Because the finances of the north in the late Ming Dynasty were always unable to make ends meet, even without Chongzhen's raids, the northern economy could not sustain itself only by continuous natural disasters and bandits killing and destroying.

Historically, the Qing Dynasty did not achieve a balance of income and expenditure in the north until eight years after Shunzhi (not counting Beijing City, Beijing City still has to rely on financial transfers from the South to support it, but it means that except for the capital city, other provinces can support themselves)

Even if Chongzhen died with less struggle and died more happily, it is impossible for the Qing people to achieve self-sufficiency before Shunzhi five or six years ago. Their only hope is to quickly go south to grab areas with surplus food. You have to blow yourself up.

For Zhu Shuren, if he withstands the first few waves, the enemy behind him will become weaker and weaker.

(End of this chapter)