The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 654 The Continuously Progressing Daming Field Army
After several previous battles, the Ming army discovered that the cavalry's plate armor was lined with silk, which was much stronger in defense against bows and blunderbuss than cotton armor, while being lighter in weight.

Therefore, Zhu Linmi has ordered the Ordnance Bureau to rush to produce a large number of plate armors for infantry. However, due to the low load-bearing capacity of infantry, they are only equipped with breastplates and helmets, which are more than seven or eight catties lighter than half-body cotton armor, and their combat efficiency has been greatly improved.Zhu Linmei remembers that there are statistics from later generations, the probability of being shot in the torso and head in war is more than 85%, and only wearing a breastplate can avoid most injuries, which can be said to be the highest in efficiency and load-to-weight ratio.

The flag of the Ming army cleared the way ahead, followed by the three most elite battalions of the Dragon Guards. When they were more than ten steps away from the viewing platform, the officer waved his knife and shouted, "According to the gun! Go forward—go!"

All the soldiers immediately repeated the order in a loud voice, and then placed the guns on the right side of the body in unison, pointing upwards obliquely, and at the same time stepped forward with force, and the sound of stamping on the ground immediately sounded on the parade ground, like a giant is slowly approaching.

Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu, who were behind Zhu Linmi, stared blankly, and several huge dark green phalanxes approached like a whole.They still couldn't see the weapons and equipment of the Dragon Guards clearly, but they were deeply shocked by the mighty military appearance and momentum first-the queue was horizontal and vertical, as if measured by an invisible ruler.The angle of muzzle pointing, the distance of steps, and even the height of the feet are all exactly the same for each soldier, which shows the essence of the drill!
Liu Wenxiu sighed inwardly, originally thought that the imperial court dismissed more than 4000 subordinate soldiers because they had suspicions about the Great Western Army, but now it seems that it is probably because the imperial court simply looked down on those soldiers.Compared with the Dragon Guards in front of us, even the 5000 people carefully selected from the Great West Army are only enough to carry shoes for others at most...

Li Dingguo on the side was also extremely shocked, and immediately noticed the equipment of the Dragon Guard Army, and couldn't help but asked Deng Shan on the left in a low voice: "Commander, the firecrackers used by the army are of a strange style, and there are daggers in the muzzle?"

Deng Shan lowered his voice without looking sideways: "This is a type of infantry blunderbuss, which belongs to rifled blunderbuss, and the one on the muzzle is a bayonet, which can be removed..." He found that he couldn't explain a few sentences clearly, "In short, this blunderbuss has a hundred steps. In addition, it can break cotton armor, and the head is extremely high, with almost no hair loss, and it is made by the current holy master himself."

He smacked his lips regretfully again, "This blunderbuss has just been made, and it is only allocated to the Dragon Guards. However, there are Type [-] Jaeger blunderbusses in my battalion, which are not too bad. I will take you to see them after the parade is over." some."

A hundred steps to break the armor!Few false hairs!Li Dingguo was about to ask again, when suddenly he heard the officer on the parade ground order loudly again, "Look to the right!"

While repeating the order, all the soldiers turned their heads to where Son of Heaven was, and the neat movements made Li Dingguo's heart tremble.

And Zhu Linmi had already got up, and at this time she responded with a solemn military salute.These are all the soldiers he brought up with his own hands, and he didn't put on airs at all to these warriors of Ming Dynasty.

After the three elite infantry battalions passed the viewing stand, the other infantry of the Dragon Guards and the infantry of the Polu Battalion came in mighty form.Of course, some soldiers were selected as representatives by random, otherwise it would be too time-consuming to walk through tens of thousands of horses.

Immediately behind the more than 2000 infantry were three twelve-pound guns, each drawn by eight horses, and the artillerymen responsible for operating the guns sat on top of two special four-wheeled carriages, and the gunpowder, shells and artillery Spare parts are packed in the wagons beneath their feet.

Li Dingguo had never heard of the concept of "riding artillery", and was greatly shocked by the way of hauling cannons, personnel, and utensils by horses. Wait until the military parade is over and ask.

However, Zhu Linmei noticed that a five or six-foot-high, slightly inclined iron plate was added to all the gun mounts, and she turned her head and whispered to Zhang Jiayu, "That's the new gun shield, right?"

"Returning to Your Majesty, according to your instructions, heavy artillery is equipped with a 98-jin iron shield, and small artillery is equipped with a [-]-jin iron shield."

Zhu Linmei nodded slightly, adding gun mantlets to the cannon is also one of the recent improvements.Don't underestimate this piece of iron, relying on the scientific shape can greatly reduce the casualties of gunners.Especially when the cannons are used intensively, a large number of gun mantlets can be combined to form a fortress-like effect, and infantry can even hide behind the gun mantlets and shoot outwards.In the past, the situation where artillery positions were scattered by infantry and cavalry could be greatly improved.

In the middle, several nine-pound and six-pound cannons and 32-pound mortars passed the viewing stand, and at the end were as many as twenty Francois machine guns.

These Frang machine guns are divided into two types: the small one is the traditional No. 650 Frang machine, which weighs three hundred catties and fires one catty shells.The big one is made from the simplification of the thousand-jin Flang machine, which weighs [-] catties and fires shells that weigh two catties and three liang.

After the Battle of Jurong, the Ming army was full of praise for the Fulang machine gun equipped with a sealing ring-light weight, extremely flexible, and an astonishingly high rate of fire.Although the shooting range is not as good as that of a cannon, it can shoot as far as one mile, and it is very handy against Jianlu infantry and cavalry.

Therefore, Zhu Linming ordered the Ordnance Bureau to cast as many as one hundred Frang machine guns and distribute them to the Dragon Guards and Polu Battalion. In view of the shortcomings of the No. [-] Frang machine guns, which were not strong enough, a new design of six hundred Jin Flang machine.These guns are light and lucky, occupying a small number of horses and artillery, and will not cause too much burden on the artillery battalion, but they can provide extremely dense firepower.

Especially because of the breech-loading feature of the Franc machine gun, all artillerymen can always hide behind the gun shield to operate, unless the enemy rushes to the front for hand-to-hand combat, they have almost no temper with them.

Liu Wenxiu sighed in a low voice: "These cannons look very powerful, but they are a little less in number..."

Sun Qi heard the words and turned his head and whispered: "This is just a review of various cannons. Right now, there are eight twelve-pound heavy cannons in the Dragon Guards plus Polu camp, and six-pound and nine-pound cannons." "There are more than 60 statues in total, and there are hundreds of Folang cannons!"

Liu Wenxiu guessed that the so-called twelve-pound and nine-pound guns were the cannons that passed by the field just now, and those were at least [-] jin heavy cannons. Where could there be any "small cannons"? !

Nearly seventy respect guns!His chest suddenly jumped with excitement, and the scene of dense cannons roaring in unison and fiercely bombarding the Tartars appeared in his mind.

Today, with the production capacity of Fujing, Nanjing Arms Bureau and Longnan Iron Works, it is quite easy to cast dozens of cannons.In fact, compared with the army, the navy's warships that often have to install more than 30 guns are the big ones.Moreover, what the Navy wants is an 24-pound or even [-]-pound cannon. The army's strongest [-]-pound gun is only an "entry" level in their opinion.

Now all parts of the Ming Dynasty can cast nearly [-] heavy guns weighing more than [-] pounds and more than [-] small artillery pieces a month. But even so, sometimes they have to order from the Bucarao Cannon Factory in Macau in order to supply the navy. needs.

(End of this chapter)