The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 364 Earthshaking Changes

Zhu Linmei nodded knowingly.The last time he bought a lot of copper mines from the Helan people, he ordered Xu Erlu to rebuild a batch of field guns, all of which were cast in bronze, and the barrels were slightly lengthened.

Due to the good ductility of bronze, the amount of gunpowder charge can be increased, and even double the charge can be used without exploding the chamber.In addition, the gun barrel has also been lengthened, resulting in a nearly [-]% increase in range compared to before.

Zhao Zhibi continued: "At present, there are more than 22 gunners in the two artillery battalions. They are equipped with five twelve-pounder guns, twelve nine-pounder guns, twenty-two six-pounder guns, and five 32-pounder mortar guns."

He spoke with high spirits, like a treasure.It's no wonder that this time the Dragon Guard artillery has not only doubled in number, but also increased in caliber even more!

Due to the capture of a large number of military horses in the previous battles, and the steel wheel spokes made by the Longnan Iron Works, the [-]-pound gun finally had the opportunity to be mounted on a field gun mount.Under the drag of eight horses, this nearly [-]-jin cannon moved no slower than the nine-pound cannon, so it became the official equipment of the Dragon Guards.

You must know that besides the fixed forts, the Qing army currently has the heaviest twelve-pound cannon, but compared with the mounted artillery of the Dragon Guards, it is as clumsy as a turtle.

In addition, the number of nine-pound guns of the Dragon Guards also increased from four to twelve.This is mainly due to the discovery that the weight and power of the nine-pound cannon are the most balanced in the previous battles, so they decided to use it as the main artillery of the Dragon Guards.

As for the six-pounders, only six were added.However, due to its lightness and flexibility, it is still indispensable.

There are also five mortars, because the artillerymen of the Dragon Guards were very satisfied with the performance of the mortars after the siege of Macau last time, so Zhu Linmi simply asked someone to cast 32-pound mortars for installation.

This "32 pounds" sounds scary, but because the mortar barrel is extremely short, the weight is actually much lighter than the six-pound field gun.This thing can shoot a [-]-jin iron ball over the city wall into the city one mile away, it is really a sharp weapon for siege.

After finishing talking about the basic situation of the artillery camp, Zhao Zhibi asked curiously again: "My lord, I don't know what you want the artillery camp to prepare for the thirty No. [-] Folang machines?"

Zhu Linming kept it a secret, "You will know when the time comes."

The No. 300 Folang Machine weighs more than 1 catties, and can be carried around by a horse. It fires projectiles weighing one catty and one tael. Although it is not as powerful as the Hongyi Cannon, it is much stronger than the Tiger Crouching Cannon.And because of the pre-installed gun filling method, the rate of fire is extremely fast, and the first six rounds can be fired in just over [-] minute.

But its shortcomings are also obvious, that is, because of the air leakage of the sub-gun, the range is very low, and the effective range is only more than 200 steps. Usually, the enemy will rush up after letting go of a round.

The reason why Zhu Linmi wanted to equip these Flang machines was because when he ordered rubber from the Portuguese last time, he thought of a good way to solve the air leakage.

After the rubber arrived, and after some simple tricks, he was confident that the shooting range of the Francophone could be increased to nearly one mile!At that time, this rapid-fire gun will have a great impact on the battle situation.

In the end, Yu Xin gave Zhu Linmi an overview of the situation in the Polu Camp.

In fact, compared to the Dragon Guards, the Polu Camp has undergone earth-shaking changes.First of all, the number of troops has increased to 1000, and most of them are from military academies. Both in terms of physical fitness and training level, they are much higher than the veterans of the Polu camp who were born in the rebel army.Most of them were also assigned to the Polu camp due to the guidance of the recent recruitment, in order to further improve their military discipline and morale.

At the same time, in order to improve the capabilities of the officers, Zhu Linmi took advantage of the fact that Poluying was in charge of defending Quzhou recently, and there was no chance of combat pressure, so more than half of its officers were transferred to the Royal Military Academy for "advancement".Its troops are temporarily led by graduates of the previous period of the Military Academy.

According to Yu Xin's report, most of these advanced officers have now returned to Quzhou, and the overall military capabilities have been greatly improved.

In terms of equipment, the Poluying has begun to gradually phase out spears and bird guns, and instead distributes Type II hunting guns and flintlock guns.Due to production issues, the hunting rifle may only be equipped with [-] pieces, and the flintlock will become the main weapon.

However, due to fear that the soldiers are not used to it, the Polu camp still retains about [-]% of the spearmen.But Zhu Linming estimated that when they got used to using flintlocks and bayonets, they would definitely throw away all their spears.

In addition, the cannons previously equipped by the Dragon Guards were handed over to the Polu Battalion, and some new cannons were allocated. Now they have 30 or [-] gunners and more than [-] cannons, but the training level of their gunners needs to be improved.

As for military horses, armor, etc., there are a lot of spoils that have been seized, so Zhu Linmi will naturally not be stingy.It can be said that today's Polu Camp is almost the same as yesterday's Dragon Guard Army, even with better equipment.

Because the reform of the Ministry of War involved too much, Yu Xin hadn't had time to report the situation of the logistics and the garrison, and the sky outside the window was getting dark.

Zhu Lin saw that there were basically no mistakes in the most important aspects, so she only asked him to bring the relevant documents for the rest of the matter to herself, and after a few simple instructions, she left the Ministry of War and headed towards the palace.

On the way, he briefly looked through the documents Yu Xin gave him.In terms of logistics, the Ministry of War has recently conducted two biddings. According to his request, Jin Yiwei will supervise the whole city.

Nowadays, whether it is food, military uniforms, leather boots, tents, quilts, etc., more than three merchants have prepared supplies, and the successful bidders still need to pay a deposit of tens of thousands of taels of silver, and the Ministry of War will send people to the merchants to supervise the fulfillment of the merchants. duty.

Although the conditions are relatively harsh, this is a big business for the entire Ming army, so almost all powerful merchants in the south of the Yangtze River gather in Tianxing Mansion.It's just that Zhu Lin was alone in Guangxi at that time, but she couldn't witness the grand occasion.

The situation of the garrisons in Jiangxi and Fujing is much simpler. The Dragon Guards sent some officers to be in charge of garrison training.There are a total of more than 3 garrisons in Jiangxi and Fujian. Although the number is not large, but because they are all strong and "professional soldiers" do not need to farm or work, their combat effectiveness is definitely higher than that of the previous [-] Ming army.

As for Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan, Guizhou, the reform of the military system has also begun. However, the energy of the Ministry of War has been focused on preparing for war recently, and the progress in these places has been a little slow.

The morning of the next day was a bit dull. Although it had been decided to send troops to Zhejiang, the officials still seemed worried when they thought of the 10,000+ Qing army in Jiangbei.Only a few military generals made some suggestions for going north to Zhejiang, but they were not very useful.

Seeing this, Zhu Linmi simply ordered the court to disperse.On the contrary, when he was about to leave the Wenhua Palace, Yang Tinglin came to report that the money donated by the courtiers for the Northern Expedition yesterday had come out in total, a total of 28 taels.

Zhu Linming is quite satisfied with this number.Now it is no different than during the Chongzhen Dynasty, any official has several 10 families.In more than a year, the officials of the Taizheng Dynasty experienced the four dynasties of Chongzhen, Hongguang, Longwu, and Taizheng. Most of them ran all the way from Jiangbei to Fujing, and they saved more than ten thousand taels of silver in their hands. , It is not easy to get a few thousand taels out.

(End of this chapter)