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

Chapter 457
"Everyone is working hard..."

While pushing, Chen Xu encouraged his brothers, and his strong Shandong accent was particularly eye-catching.

The promotion of Mandarin in the Jingbian army is also part of the consideration for promotion, but Chen Xu is getting older, and his local accent is hard to change.He was able to be promoted, but he was outstanding in his skills, nailing horseshoes, building bridges, and building outposts. He was very impressive in all aspects, so although he didn't fight much, he was still promoted to Jiachang.

In the supply battalion, he was not the only officer like Chen Xu who set an example. Many armor chiefs greeted his brothers, and there were also many team officers who went into battle in person.

All the heavy soldiers pushed the carriages and chariots forward, along the mountain road, densely packed with mules and horses, winding all the way to the end of the mountain.

"Come on, all the soldiers, go forward."

Zhao Xuan yelled, and looked at the supply camp behind him with satisfaction. After 11 years since Chongzhen, his lovely chariot finally set off again.

Moreover, today's chariots are more powerful than the unicycle chariots of the past. How can this fanatic supporter of the chariot not be happy?
In this battle, the general also listened to his own opinion. The heavy battalion not only carried a large number of ten thousand enemies, but also many gray bottle bombs, poisonous smoke bombs and other weapons, all of which were new equipment from military factories.

Not to mention ten thousand enemies, the Ming Dynasty hand grenade.

As for the gray bottle bomb, it was inspired by the staff of the military factory from the gray bottle, a sharp weapon for city defense. It contains lime, arsenic and other substances.Needless to say, it will damage the eyes after it bursts open, and inhalation of the lungs will also cause people to lose combat effectiveness.

There are also poisonous smoke bombs. This kind of thing appeared before the Ming Dynasty. It is not new. The Ming army also often used rockets to launch poisonous fire arrows.During the Wanli War to Aid Korea, the poisonous rockets of the Ming army made the Japanese army suffer.When Wang Dou fought in Luoyang, many defenders also wrapped firewood with nitrate, lit it and threw it away, making the Chuang army miserable.

The poisonous smoke bombs of the Jingbian Army refer to the relevant materials of the Ming Army and the Song Army. In addition to gunpowder, there are also a large amount of croton, chamaejasma, lime, asphalt, arsenic, etc., which produce poisonous smoke when they explode. The victim's mouth and nose were bleeding, no less than sarin gas.

Considering that there will be trench warfare, these weapons will come in handy, so Wang Dou ordered the supply battalion to carry a large number of enemies, gray bottle bombs, poisonous smoke bombs, etc. to the expedition.

Of course, these weapons are double-edged swords. While hurting the enemy, they may also hurt the body. For example, when Li Rusong accidentally inhaled his own poisonous smoke, he did not recover for several months.So after these weapons were made, Wang Dou not only ordered the antidote, but also personally instructed the logistics department to make a large number of masks.

Because the masks are practical, the Department of Medicine also took a lot.

Zhao Xuan also suggested that Wang Dou use incendiary bombs, which were called fierce fire oil at this time. Some cities in the Ming Dynasty were equipped with fierce fire oil tanks, and the effect was a bit like napalm. Oil bombs.However, Wang Dou thinks that this thing is good for defending the city, but not necessarily practical for field battles.Moreover, it is too dangerous to carry this kind of thing in the army when going out in summer and the weather is hot.

Zhao Xuan was heartbroken by Wang Dou's refusal to go to war with this item, but overall he was satisfied.

……

He turned his head and looked at his artillery battalion again. At this time, a large number of gunners were assisting the horse mules, pushing the artillery in the battalion along the mountain road.

Especially those relatively heavy Hongyi six-pound guns, as well as a large number of ammunition carts in the battalion, which were full of shells and gunpowder, all of which needed the help of the sergeant to push and pull.

Because the military factory built seven more six-pound cannons during the time when the Jingbian army returned to the East Road, so at this time Zhao Xuan's artillery battalion had a total of seventy Hongyi cannons, including 33 six-pounders and three-pound cannons. 37 guns.This is also the advantage of the iron mold method, because the cannon does not need to take into account the season.

Of course, there are also ten Hongyi cannons and 35 cannons of the general Frang in Laishui. When the army arrives at the capital, the defenders there will also transport the artillery and food to the capital to join the army.

In this battle, all the Hongyi cannons went out, and 55 small and medium-sized Frang cannons accompanied them.As for the tiger squatting cannon, it has an effective lethality of [-] steps. In today's war, it is no longer useful, so it will no longer accompany the army.

All the cannons in front of us have gun mounts, and imitating the Hongyi cannons, the Franji machine no longer uses wooden sleepers of different thicknesses to adjust the elevation angle, but has been modified to use a spiral iron handle to adjust the angle.Even the tiger crouching gun left in the road still has a gun mount, but the tiger crouching gun fires shotguns with a lethality of [-] steps, so there is no need to use a crank and screw.

According to the information obtained, Zhao Xuan knew that the three-jin and five-jin Hongyi guns in the Qing army used two-wheeled gun mounts similar to those of the Jingbian army, and also used spiral iron handles to adjust the angle. All guns are like this, nothing strange.

Strangely though...

The Qing army fired more than ten kilograms of cannons, and the heavy artillery of the Shenwei General, which weighed three or four thousand kilograms, was too heavy, so it used a four-wheeled gun mount, which needed to be fixed with pilings and ropes when firing.For such a heavy artillery, it is difficult to adjust the firing angle of the artillery, and it is also very difficult to rotate.

Generally, such artillery is only used for defensive battles and siege battles, but the information came that the Qing people used a four-wheeled millstone gun mount, which solved this problem.

For this kind of gun mount, when the gun carriage is turned and the height is adjusted, a few or a dozen wrestlers can turn the grinding disc under the gun mount to achieve the desired result.

At that time, the defenders of Liaodong said: "The bandit cannon can be rotated and rotated. It can be high and low. Although it weighs ten thousand catties, it can be pushed and pulled lightly with the strength of a few people."

Zhao Xuan wondered what the thief's cannon mount looked like, and wondered if he got the inspiration from the mule Lamo.

At the same time, pride surged in his heart, full of desire to compete with the Tartar artillery battalion.

……

"Come on, soldiers."

Zhao Xuan yelled at the soldiers of the Pao Army Battalion again, and then he was in a trance, not knowing where he was flying to.

Those who know him will know that he is obviously thinking about the artillery camp.

Zhao Xuan joined the Shunxiang Army in the ninth year of Chongzhen. He was 30 years old at the time. A few years later, he is still old-fashioned. He is only interested in technical things, and the rest is indifferent.

At this time, he was really thinking about the artillery battalion and artillery issues.

After the establishment and reorganization of the Jingbian Army battalion in May, Zhao Xuan's artillery battalion had a total of 2000 soldiers, among whom the artillerymen were divided into three batches.

In the Hongyi cannon, ten people per armor are responsible for one cannon, and every twenty cannons are the basic salvo unit, with one observer and equipped with gun scopes.

There are forty artillery pieces as one, and there is a thousand headquarters, and there is a thousand general headquarters. Even counting the personnel, there are 500 people in one.

Two thousand generals are in charge of Hongyi Cannon, with a total of 1000 people.

Dafo Langji, every five people are responsible for one artillery piece, there is a general, and there is a general headquarters, including all the personnel, there are a total of 200 people.

Zhongfolangji, Xiaofolangji and other guns, every three people are responsible for one gun, there is a general, and there is a general headquarters, including all the personnel, there are 200 people in total.

Since there are enough observers and aiming hands, and the loading and ammunition hands are not high-tech, the 160 artillery pieces in this battle all have experienced gunners.

There is also an artillery battalion with a lot of ammunition vehicles inside, which are specially used to transport ammunition.

There is also a battalion department, and these people together have nearly a thousand people.

Regardless of the supply department or the battalion department, there are many artillery apprentices in it. They learn various artillery knowledge in the training camp and artillery camp.Actual combat is the best way to learn. It is better to fight for one day on the battlefield than to practice for a hundred days on the training ground, so these people acted as soldiers in the artillery battalion and followed them to the expedition.

At this time, Zhao Xuan was thinking about the medicine package.

From the previous development of the Shunxiang Army Artillery General to the present, all aspects of the artillery battalion are very mature.

In the artillery camp, Xu Guangqi and others compiled the book "Measurement Method" on artillery range measurement in the early years of Chongzhen, and the "Fire Attack Essentials" on measuring the elevation angle of gun barrels has long been collected.Even He Rubin's "Western Fire Attack Artifact Theory" and Sun Yuanhua's "Western Magic Machine" are also collected.

These books, the gunner and the gunner, have carefully studied them.

The use of the square (square) and round (gun gauge) mentioned above has been actually studied, and the range and ammunition consumption of different elevation angles are also recorded in special documents.Gunners and gunners must be memorized. This is the difference between the superior army and the inferior army in the assessment of the skills of the artillery battalion sergeants.

Therefore, although the technique of observing and aiming the Red Barbarian Cannon is a secret military skill, it cannot be kept secret within the Ming Dynasty.But the guns related to the East Road have been built one by one, coupled with a lot of live ammunition practice, and the mistakes are constantly corrected. There are also gun mirrors and telescopes. The gun battalion of the Jingbian Army has reached an extremely high level of gun operation. .

A cannon apprentice on the East Road was pulled out, and in the eyes of others, he was a master.

Medicine bags have also been used for a long time. This is nothing special. Several books above have also mentioned the use of medicine bags. There is a talk in "Bing Lu": "Use cloth or paper to sew the medicine, and still seal the seal. The name is for temporary use, first put iron nails into the fire door, and then use the fire door medicine."

After the Shunxiang Army came out with fixed-packed paper tube ammunition, the gunpowder for artillery was also fixed-packed. Paper was used in those days, and later it was changed to cotton cloth, and bullets were also used in ammunition bags.

What Zhao Xuan is thinking about now is the material of the medicine pack.

Using cotton cloth powder packs, there will always be unburned residue and soot in the gun bore. It is necessary to use a wet mop to clean the gun bore, otherwise the gun bore will be overheated, or if there is a little spark, the gunpowder will spontaneously ignite.And the cooling time of the iron cannon is too long.

Zhao Xuan knew that brass or bronze cannons required much less cooling time than iron cannons, but considering the cost, it was obviously impossible to use brass or bronze cannons on the East Road.In this way, we can only work hard on the charge bag. As long as the combustion is sufficient, the barrel will not be easy to overheat, which can greatly speed up the reloading process.

Zhao Xuan recalled that a few days ago, when he was not on the expedition, he accidentally caused a fire in his room, but luckily it was extinguished immediately.At that time, Zhao Xuan noticed a problem. Several bolts of cloth in the room were burnt, and there were cotton cloth and silk in it. The silk burned very quickly, and there was not much ash left afterwards, but the cotton cloth was not.

This gave Zhao Xuan an idea. Silk is more flammable than cotton cloth. Should the pouches of the ammunition be changed to silk pouches?
Zhao Xuan knew that when the medicine package was changed from paper to cotton cloth, many people criticized him, calling him a prodigal son, and now they use expensive silk...

Zhao Xuan thought to himself: "I don't care, it's the general's business to be scolded, I just shoot the cannon."

In addition, gunpowder cartridges are still used to pour the gunpowder into the fire door. Not to mention the slow movement, it is easy to be blown away by the wind. The gun ammunition can be used as ammunition in fixed paper tubes, why not the primer?
However, the primer needs to be fixed, and the flammable catheter needs to be considered, and it must be straight so that it can be inserted at once. What material should be used?
……

With a full mind, Zhao Xuan followed the army forward.

In front of and behind them, the gunners pushed the heavy gun carts, winding along the mountain road.

A door of shining artillery, under the sunlight, emits a penetrating light.

(End of this chapter)