Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1923 Change and Strength ([-])

172 Change and strength ([-])

The sound of "rumbling" guns has been ringing for several hours before it slowly subsides.When the gunpowder smoke cleared, everyone could see that a big gap had been broken through the outer wall of this brick and wood mixed structure village, and the soldiers and horses of the Shun army in the five capitals on the periphery had already made all preparations before the attack. Just wait for an order and kill the general.They have experienced this kind of fighting process many times before, and they are naturally familiar with it.

"The one who broke the city wall is the ten general Sun Jie!" A bay red horse galloped out with a knight on its back, and called out the names of the surrounding princes, all of a sudden the whole atmosphere was mobilized, and some of them did not participate in the attack. The sergeants in the rear team also cheered loudly under the leadership of the officers, and the morale of the Shun army was greatly boosted for a while.

Seeing this, Chen Ming smiled. The level of the Shun Army Artillery Team has really improved a lot over the years.I still remember that when it was built at the beginning of the year, not only the number of artillery was seriously insufficient, but also the talents were so scarce that the people on the east coast had to transfer some gunners from the navy and army to go to Hunan to teach the Shun army to shoot artillery. A modern artillery.

Later, the people from the East Coast even half-sold and half-given some old-style cannon-casting equipment (the country has completely switched to forging barrels with hydraulic presses) to the Changsha Gun Factory in Dashun, helping them further increase their production capacity.Although it can't compare with Shenyang, Jinzhou, Beijing, Kaifeng and other major military production bases in the Qing Dynasty, it is already quite good, and may even be slightly ahead in technology, but the scale is not enough.

Modern firearms must be the weapon of choice for every country's military in a world that is becoming more and more dangerous.Anyone who cannot use it well will be eliminated by the times.Advances in industrial technology and increased productivity have profoundly changed the organization of many societies. The combination of cheap infantry and low-cost, mass-produced firearms has produced a power that terrifies the barbarians. The battle against chieftains in Southwest China has well proved this point.

In the past, this kind of local chieftain was a very difficult enemy.If it was at the beginning of the dynasty, it would be okay to say that the elites of all battles at that time might be able to completely eliminate this kind of separatist forces that were separated from the central dynasty, but it would also cost a lot of money, food and materials, and many soldiers and civilians were killed or injured. Therefore, it is often against them Adopt the strategy of appeasement, one thing more is worse than one thing less.Otherwise, do you think the imperial court doesn't want to cut off the separatist forces of the Yang family in Bozhou?It's really a bit remote there, and it would take a lot of manpower and material resources to wipe out at the same time, exhausting the efforts of several provinces, protracted, and causing heavy casualties, which is not something wise people would take.

However, when the productivity of the Central Plains dynasty has made great progress, the fate of these chieftains is more miserable. For example, this certain village that has just been bombarded by as many as [-] artillery pieces of various types-although it is a "village", But this does not mean that people lived in the mountains, in fact, the chieftains and the chieftains built cities and lived in the plains or places with slightly gentle mountains-then they were swarmed in by the soldiers of the left battalion like tigers, and they ended up It's basically set.

Chen Ming and several of his men climbed onto a small dirt bag, which gave them a wider field of vision and a better view of the battlefield ahead.Some officers and soldiers of the Shun Army scattered around far away, carefully guarding, for fear that someone would suddenly jump up from the grass and kill the official of the Eastern Kingdom.

"How is it? How is the level compared to those of Ningshao's new army?" Chen Ming is not a professional officer after all. Although his vision is not bad, he still humbly asked the military police who followed him. Intelligence officer at the headquarters.

"It must be worse." Hearing this, an officer temporarily put down the pen in his hand, looked at Chen Ming, and replied seriously: "The food standard of the new army is very high, although in our country's reserve system (including militia, guards, colonial army and other miscellaneous armed forces) is the worst class, but it is still much better than the Shunguo army, because they are not even as high as the food standard of the opposing Qing army.”

In fact, the people on the east bank also knew about the intelligence of the Qing army.In the years after the outbreak of the Battle of Zuoying into Sichuan, intelligence officials on the east bank took advantage of many conveniences to participate in the interrogation of some Qing army prisoners and obtained a lot of valuable first-hand information, including food.Compared with the Dashun regime, which only had three provinces, but had tens of thousands of people armed, the Qing government covered more than half of China, with rich products and a large population. In addition, since 10, there had been almost no major wars in the north. The country, population, and handicraft production have all recovered quickly, so the national strength is still very strong. It is not difficult to support a large army of hundreds of thousands, at least it is much easier than Shunguo, so it is not surprising that its ordinary soldiers have better food.

Good food for soldiers naturally also means better physical fitness and higher training frequency, and their combat effectiveness is naturally stronger.From this point of view, Zuoying's entry into Sichuan was really a piece of shit luck. If Wu Sangui's power had not collapsed relatively quickly, and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Qing army hadn't had time to send in large-scale reinforcements, it would have been a tough fight.In fact, it can be seen from the current situation of the two sides in northern Sichuan that the Shun army has a great advantage in strength, and the Shaanxi-Gansu Green Battalion led by Zhao Liangdong of the Qing army can still support it from being expelled.In the future, if there are no major disturbances in the northwestern border of the Qing Dynasty, if the Shun Kingdom wants to start the Northern Expedition from Sichuan, they may have to wait until their own army construction slowly catches up. At least for now, their national strength has grown. The speed is much faster than that of the Qing Dynasty, and time is still on their side.

"However, they seem to have a good grasp of the new tactics, at least the artillery tactics are quite proficient. I think we have to be vigilant about this. Are we teaching them too much? Seriously , As far as their performance is concerned, if the supply of logistics materials, equipment, food, and money is sufficient and good, their performance can be even better." Another officer also replied: "We may be able to give the development team Write a report, and focus on pointing out the problems here. It is also because the top thinks that Shunguo has a small territory, and its economic strength is not very strong. It is not possible to rise for the time being, but we should pay attention to this sign. What if they expand rapidly? Whether it will pose a major threat to us, this has to be guarded against."

"Do you think that if there is a change in the north in the future, do you think the Shun Congress will take action?" Chen Ming asked with his hands behind his back, looking at the officers and soldiers of the Shun army swarming into the city ahead.

"We have really deduced this, and the conclusion is that Shun State is very likely to take action. If Qing State is in a major crisis or collapses, they may send troops to the north, and if Qing State is in trouble but can still hold on, then Shun State The state is very likely to go south to invade Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces in order to increase the thickness of its own territory. After all, we cannot really start a war with the hostile state of Shun. If they insist on going south, it will be difficult for us to stop them. I will carefully evaluate the risks and benefits. Once I think that the benefits of seizing a few provinces are greater than the risk of losing our aid (this is inevitable), then I will definitely do it. Given the increasingly unfavorable situation of the Southern Ming Dynasty, I am afraid it will be difficult to resist. It is difficult for Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang to join hands in the current situation, and if they are not united or even turn against each other, then the Southern Ming court is really at an irretrievable end." The officer who answered first said: "Actually, this The next time Zhang Guangcui took these people south, didn’t he intend to test our strategic bottom line? Who would believe it!”

Chen Ming nodded slightly when he heard the words.In fact, he also knew that it was because Shunguo had seen some pressure from the north, and Changsha and Beijing had temporarily reached a peace agreement, so they had some thoughts about the south.Regardless of whether it was Li Laiheng's instruction or Liu Zhonggui himself couldn't bear to be lonely, but the intention is clearly there: which of the chieftain armed forces cleaned up along the way was not a so-called "court order official" appointed by the Southern Ming court? "?But now, has Shun Guo given this piece of paper any face?Obviously not!This is blatant land grabbing, and there is nothing to say.This time they are cutting off your Nanming's outer wings, and the next step may be to go straight to Huanglong, and the world will be settled in one battle!

And once the Shun Kingdom is allowed to unify the south, if they insist on continuing the current policy and are not disturbed by those traditional gentry, then the rapid growth of their national power can undoubtedly be expected.Such a Dashun, even if there is only half of China, is a big country with tens of millions of people, and it is no longer something that can be easily shaken by the east coast.By that time, it will be impossible for the people on the east coast to obtain a large number of people through military looting.Or even obtaining population has become very difficult, because neither the Southern Dynasties nor the Northern Dynasties could allow such things that would shake the basis of their rule based on legitimacy.

This is very difficult!Although the local demand for immigrants is no longer so urgent, some members of the Parliament of the Founders are also discussing whether it is necessary to continue this epic immigration action unprecedented in human history, but after all, the country has not yet If this policy is abolished, immigration will still need to continue after all, so the immediate situation is a bit tricky.

"Don't worry about it, let's report back the information first." After thinking for a long time, Chen Ming finally said: "In fact, if that's the case, it may not be a bad thing for Ningshao and Denglai. The local government will definitely loosen more policies. At the same time, this also shows that it is somewhat powerless to intervene in the situation on the mainland with the size of our country and across the ocean. How can a mainland with a population of hundreds of millions be so easy to deal with? We have interfered for 40 years. It has already performed supernormally, let’s talk about what will happen in the future!”

(End of this chapter)