A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 186 Artillery Talents
Xu Zucheng just came back from the capital not long ago. He took over the post of guarding the security guard city. He had to go to the capital in person to get the official uniform and other things. His wish was fulfilled.Hearing Wang Dou's request, he agreed with all his heart, and only his subordinates would need to handle Zhao Xuan's transfer of various documents.

When Wang Dou came to Acropolis for a great victory in the ninth year of Chongzhen, at the celebration banquet, he was deeply impressed by this young man named Zhao Xuan. His strange eyes made Wang Dou seriously doubt his sexual orientation.

This trip to Acropolis, Wang Dou had a deep talk with Zhao Xuan. Zhao Xuan used to be the general manager of a car camp in Baoding. Wang Dou felt that this young man had a lot of weird ideas and complained a lot. A non-mainstream, no wonder he was crowded out everywhere in Daming's increasingly powerful army.

For example, regarding the use of artillery and chariots, he believed that the artillery could be placed in the army formation, so that the gunners would not have to directly face the enemy's arrow rain and cavalry charge, making the shelling more calm and continuous bombardment of the enemy.When the enemy charges forward, it bombards the front to weaken its impact. After the infantry takes over the battle, it bombards the reinforcements behind. When the enemy charges, it can keep up in time and provide fire support for the infantry who are charging.

This idea is too shocking. At that time, the Ming army's chariot battalion had always put the chariot artillery on the front line as a barrier for the infantry to resist the cavalry's charge.Of course, this method of combat has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the infantry has a cover.

The disadvantage is that under the fast charge of the cavalry, the firearms on the vehicle can only fire a few rounds, and the cavalry directly facing the charge puts the gunner under great pressure, either miss or fire in advance, making the only few rounds of fire effect is further reduced.Moreover, the firearms soldiers in the front line lacking protection faced the threat of the enemy's arrow rain. Either they retreated prematurely and missed their fighters, or they suffered heavy casualties under the enemy's first round of arrow rain, and it was difficult to give full play to the role of firepower.

It cannot be said that there was a problem with the way of thinking of the Ming Army's chariot battalion at that time. Putting the artillery in the formation required infantry to challenge the enemy's cavalry head-on. Judging from the situation of the Ming Army at that time, this was unrealistic. No wonder Zhao Xuan After putting forward this idea, he was scolded by his colleagues and superiors for being extremely absurd.

However, after hearing Zhao Xuan's words, Wang Dou's heart moved. Perhaps his army could try this method of combat. After all, his army had already dared to challenge the cavalry of the Qing army in the wild, so let's talk about it slowly.

Not only that, but Zhao Xuan was very displeased with the way of the Ming army's cannons in Zhongjiancheng at that time. More and more Ming troops used Hongyi cannons, even his original chariot camp was no exception. In Zhao Xuan's view, the Hongyi cannons Cannon were heavy, inconvenient to use and operate, and prohibitively expensive.

He said: "Your Excellency, I don't know, the red barbarian cannons cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, and some heavy cannons cost as much as a thousand taels of silver. A pair of red barbarian cannons can already make a hundred French machine guns to destroy captives." , and the red barbarian cannon is not very effective in killing the enemy."

He gave Wang Dou an example, the original big destroying captive guns in his car camp were only six taels of silver each, and the hundred son guns were only two taels of silver each.Build a chariot with a pair of son-mother-god flying cannons, and each cannon is equipped with five sub-guns, which is only 30 taels of silver including the fare.As for the three-eyed blunderbuss, it is even cheaper, only seven renminbi each, and cold weapons such as long axes and sabers cost two or three renminbi.

Talking about the price and performance of various artillery, Zhao Xuan is obviously very familiar with it. He gave examples one by one, and then complained: "Hongyi artillery is too big and useless. I spend a lot of money to buy heavy artillery from Hongmao. Why not build more small artillery and save money and food for the soldiers. Wouldn't it be better to distribute the arrears?"

Wang Dou pondered. He had read relevant historical materials. At that time, there was a wave of buying Hongyi cannons from foreigners at the end of the Ming Dynasty. He even bought a large Hongyi bronze cannon weighing 23 catties, and the shells alone weighed [-] catties.

Xu Guangqi and Hong Chengchou once ordered a large number of Hongyi cannons with shells weighing ten catties from Westerners. At that time, each piece was quoted at 1000 taels of silver. Wang Dou estimated that the cost was only more than 100 taels. It seems that the profit of selling cannons is really too high.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, officials were so keen to buy Hongyi cannons, Wang Dou estimated that the rebates would be very generous.

A Hongyi heavy cannon costs 1000 taels of silver, which can make two hundred captive-killing cannons. Xu Guangqi once hired a large number of Flang machines to make hawk-beaked blunderbuss. The quotation for a pole costs four taels of silver... Don't doubt everyone's careful thinking, is it appropriate to use such expensive and bulky artillery firearms in the financial situation of the late Ming Dynasty?
In Wang Dou's view, the idea of ​​using firearms in the late Ming Dynasty was wrong. Hongyi cannons were expensive, slow to fire, slow to reload, and slow to turn. , unless it is used to attack the city... But only the Qing soldiers have always attacked the city.

In terms of cost-effectiveness, given the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Dou is more optimistic about the Ming army's previous vehicle-mounted light artillery flow, field battles in car camps, light-duty Francophones with rapid fire, small tiger squat guns for shooting shotguns, quick guns, and bird guns , swarms of rockets and other firearms carry out uninterrupted fire suppression, cooperate with the infantry to stab out from the gaps in the vehicle formation, and finally the cavalry cooperate with chasing and killing the remnants of the enemy, and the field record is even better.

Also cheap and affordable.

After hearing Wang Dou's words, Zhao Xuan was overjoyed, clapped his legs and said repeatedly: "That's right, what Your Excellency said is very true."

The two exchanged views and both felt that they had a common language.

Zhao Xuan was so excited that he just wanted to go to Baoan Prefecture as soon as possible.

……

Wang Dou asked about Zhao Xuan's situation in the Baoding chariot at that time, Zhao Xuan said: "My lord, the chariot camp where I was humbled was over 120 people, and there were more than [-] Fran cannons, and the general had eight cannons. There are [-] chariots, each equipped with two Franglers, four bird guns, and four rocket shooters. There are also sixty tiger squat guns."

Wang Dou nodded. It seems that the proportion of firearms in the Ming army camp is still very high. On average, more than a dozen soldiers are equipped with one artillery piece.

Zhao Xuan introduced to Wang Dou the situation of chariots in Cheying at that time, including vans, light chariots, and special luggage chariots.These vehicles can be double-wheeled or single-wheeled, and can be loaded with grain, rice, equipment, antlers, etc.The vans are slightly heavier, each weighing more than 25 catties, and the light cars are slightly lighter. It can be pushed and pulled by two people on weekdays, and only four people can climb mountains and wading, but they can cover [-] people in wartime.

Zhao Xuan said excitedly: "If your lord wants to build chariots and artillery, your humble job can be like a dog's job."

Then he revealed his small thoughts, hoping that the artillery team or the car battalion would be under his management in the future.

Wang Dou glanced at him in surprise, this guy's background is not simple, but he also knows how to make guns and cars?

He will definitely build chariots and artillery. With the expansion of his power, it will become inevitable to go abroad to fight in the future.There is a saying that there is no better way to plan poison than to run out of food. When going out to fight, the most feared thing is that the food will be intercepted. The Qing army has a lot of cavalry.

To strengthen the firepower of your own army, you also need to use artillery.

But to build a car, he still needs to think about it carefully, and there are still a large number of artillery in Baoan Prefecture, so let's use it first.In fact, he already has a group of technicians in his hands, and with Zhao Xuan's guidance, it should not be difficult to make some light artillery. Even Wang Dou knows the iron mold casting method and in-bore cooling method of later generations, which makes it faster to make cannons. .

At present, what Wang Dou has to do is to improve the various artillery pieces in Baoanzhou, such as changing the four-wheeled high-legged artillery carriages on some artillery pieces into two-wheeled artillery carriages that are easy to move.Now many of the Buddha Wolf machine guns under Wang Dou's command are very problematic. After the Qing army rushed into a certain range, they lost their effectiveness and needed to be remodeled.

There is also the problem of artillery training.To be honest, it is very difficult to aim and shoot the Ming artillery now, which requires a series of complicated mathematical knowledge.The cannons manufactured by Daming now don't have scales, and they don't even have basic distance measuring tools. It's too difficult to train a qualified artilleryman just by sight.

For the mathematics knowledge of artillery training, not to mention that Wang Dou is not good at mathematics, but if he wants to teach it, the mathematics of later generations and the mathematics of Daming are two completely different systems, and there is no way to teach it if he wants to.Some officials can only let the artillerymen read and write, teach them arithmetic, and finally rely on a large amount of shells and gunpowder to cultivate the experience of the artillerymen.

After listening to Wang Dou's words, Zhao Xuan pondered and said, "It's not difficult to transform the gun mount, as long as the adults let the humble job do it, the humble job will definitely satisfy the adults."

According to what Zhao Xuan said, the Ming army has widely used two-wheeled gun carriages in many places now, and there is actually no difference from the Western style.The important thing is that Wang Dou trusts him and can let him take care of it.

"As for the gunner training, if you trust me, I will train a sharp artillery team for you."

As he spoke, Zhao Xuan looked at Wang Dou with longing eyes.

The advantage of Wang Dou is that he likes to decentralize power, he does not need to be suspicious of people, and he is not suspicious of employing people. Zhao Xuan has said so, and Wang Dou is also very happy that he has obtained a vigorous artillery talent.

Zhao Xuan, who was entrusted with great trust, was overjoyed, and suggested to Wang Dou that the tiger squatting cannon should also be mounted on a double-wheeled carriage. Greatly speeds up the loading step.”

Now it is very troublesome to load the shotgun of the Daming Tiger Crouching Cannon. To load a layer of ammunition, it needs to be filled with a layer of soil, which is very slow.Zhao Xuan suggested custom-fitting the shotgun, wrapping it in cloth, stuffing it directly into the barrel during combat, and stabbing it to the bottom with a push stick.

Speaking of shotgun, Wang Dou thought of the unconscionable cannon of later generations, which was really powerful, but the unconscionable cannon relied on the power of strong explosives to generate a huge shock wave. Wang Dou now only has black powder. It has to be packed in a sturdy metal container, or nothing.

Wang Dou handed over the matter of artillery to Zhao Xuan. A few days later, Zhao Xuan was transferred to Baoanzhou City, where he happily devoted himself to the important task of transforming artillery and training gunners.

In November of the tenth year of Chongzhen, Lin Daofu happily came to Zhoucheng to report to Wang Dou that Lai Yuanlong and others from the Shunxiangbao Weaponry Factory had successfully developed a self-generating firearm, which is what Wang Dou said flintlock.

……

Lao Bainiu: Thank you Dali Monarch book friend for correcting me, I did make a mistake about the people Zheng Jinglun married.

Another: Can any benevolent friend help me calculate the current money and food of the protagonist, how much income, how much money is spent, how much inventory is left, etc. It is best to open a dedicated thread to update statistics at any time.Statistics give me a headache.If you are willing to count the population, craftsmen, and troops under the protagonist's rule at any time, thank you.

(End of this chapter)