Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1235 Three Battles to India ([-])
In the early morning, the shelling on the north side sounded as usual.

Zhao Lisheng, a soldier of Battalion No.13, chewed today's breakfast, swallowed the greasy piece of lard, and said to his companions: "Lard, dried meat, tea with sugar... a meal for death."

The partner next to him laughed loudly. Indeed, after seeing this breakfast, he knew that he was about to enter a bloody battle.

Because, even the water in the kettle is tea with sugar added.Instead of pickles for breakfast, there were dry biscuits, pickled lard, jerky, a chunk of cocoa, and a sweet orange, and even chewing tobacco was distributed.

Their combat engineers are actually specialized grenadiers, so they are not allowed to smoke, they can only chew tobacco, otherwise accidents will easily occur.

Eating such a breakfast is called a death meal by these soldiers.

After swallowing the oranges with their peels, the company officer began to ask each Shiwu to check each other.

"Look at muskets, flints, bullets, grenades, shovels, picks, rations, and kettles. Don't leave them out."

Zhao Lisheng and his comrades mechanically checked each other's muskets. Their muskets were not standard army guns, but naval guns with short barrels, which were convenient for use in trenches and for throwing grenades.

They are the assault company.

The two companies in the back are cover companies. It looks like the tiger crouching gun has been revived in this era, but it is not. It is just an improved grenade launcher, but with a larger caliber.

One by one.

At the beginning, the Academy of Sciences' idea was to follow the idea of ​​bowl muzzle gun and Huss hand cannon, trying to equip grenadiers with this hand cannon structure that has also begun to revive briefly in Europe.

But after trying it, I found that it was not easy to use, so I gave up the idea of ​​having a bowl of hand cannons for each person, and switched to this one-by-one thing similar to a tiger squatting gun, which is used to launch grenades.

The shooting range is not far, useless in field battles, but it is particularly effective in siege, and it is a specialization.It can be curved and can launch flowering grenades. It is mainly used to attack trenches, anti-battery slopes, and triangular forts.

No one dares to use the flower bomb cannon, the chamber pressure is too high, at this time the flower bomb can not withstand the chamber pressure, and it is easy to kill yourself.

Throwing a grenade by hand can't be far away. It's okay if it's close to the trench.
The assault company that Zhao Lisheng was in couldn't hide behind and throw grenades with small cannons. They could only attack trenches, climb slopes, and fight hand-to-hand with bayonets.

As for whether these people can fight, in fact, there is a chain of contempt within the Dashun military.

To put it simply, the more actual combat, the lower the chain of contempt within the army.

The most actual battles are the garrisons of the provinces. They have to fight the former salt smugglers, smugglers, bandits, and strong men who gathered together.

In the army, they are regarded as the least able to fight.The so-called playing chess with the stinky chess basket becomes more and more stinky.

The most frequent actual battles were the reformed and returned troops in the southwestern provinces. They wanted to fight against chieftains, slave owners, and some ethnic groups.

In the army, they are regarded as "don't pull them out to participate in real wars, and all their experience can be used in the Southwest, and it is nonsense to use it in India and Europe."

For example, their experience: the troops should be fully firepower; The firing gun is not as good as the matchlock gun because the ignition rate of the flintlock gun is lower than that of the matchlock gun; the standard 12-pound gun cannot be carried to the southwest mountainous area, so the 12-pound gun equipped by the division and brigade is actually of little significance...

Etc., etc.

These experiences cannot be said to be useless, but when used in the war against Europe, it is purely a side effect.In particular, the result of the Southwest Civilization Reform War concluded that "the flintlock gun is not as good as the matchlock gun"; Or the experience of the "one-pounder" sparked a discussion in the early days of Dashun.

However, the military reform was finally completed, and the determination of the "Battle Regulations" and the model of flintlock guns with field cannons replaced those messy experiences.

The Nanyang group of specialized combat engineers belonging to the Marine Corps, specialized in siege and siege of fortresses, and essentially European grenadiers in terms of organization, belonged to the "quite well-known" combat engineers within Dashun. Can fight, can fight very much, but can only fight in suitable places" among the batch of establishments.

However, from the perspective of Dashun's Privy Council and the General Staff, Dashun would not have the chance to fight a battle with a scale of 10 people within a hundred years.

Therefore, this kind of specialized combat engineer is not very useful in field combat.

It is not much different from the elite line privates, but the cost is heaven and earth.

For example, in the large-scale field battle at this time, it can be clearly said that the 6-pound and 12-pound field guns of the standard new artillery are definitely better than these variant tiger squat guns specially designed for trenches and triangular forts, which are actually grenade launchers. The device configuration is valid.

The problem is that Dashun is really at a loss with his sword drawn at this time, and the surrounding area does not give him the opportunity to fight in the standardized line after the military reform.

Under this kind of military reform thinking, whether these combat engineers can fight or not also needs a formal war to prove themselves.

And the deeper reasons determine that this group of people can really fight.

For example, after checking their equipment, the partner around him asked Zhao Lisheng: "By the way, I haven't asked you yet. Last time your brother wrote to you, is he doing well in the Southern Ocean? When we finish our service, I also want to go there to divide the land, and I don’t know the specifics of the hype.”

Zhao Lisheng took out a piece of rock candy from his pocket, handed it over, and filled his own mouth with a piece, savoring the sweetness of the rock candy, a smile appeared on his face.

"It's been a good time. My eldest brother and second brother have both gone. But they didn't go to Dadao, but Xinkuwu."

"My brother's letter said that it is very good, and the climate is much stronger than that of Kanto. At least, it is much more relaxed than that of Huanglong Mansion. Before that, Duke Xingguo sent people there to raise a lot of cattle and horses. , there is no shortage of cattle and horses."

"I just don't know how to work, and I have to train the cattle and horses, otherwise I don't pull the harness or pull the plow at all. But there is so much land."

"Besides, I heard that there are people who were bitten to death by snakes and spiders on the big island. Xinkuwu, it's really strange that there are no snakes at all."

"Grain, meat, wine, etc. are all cheap there. Clothes, cloth, ironware, etc. are expensive. Over there, farming is not as good as carpentry or blacksmithing."

"I think it's pretty good. It's definitely better than working hard in the gem mine before."

The grant of land in the Southern Ocean is the welfare of these regular soldiers who need to serve for more than ten years, and it can be regarded as the largest expenditure given to them by the imperial court.

Nowadays, people in the army generally believe that the court basically does not regard them as Qiu Ba, but basically regards them as human beings.

After all, they can be given land—of course, wasteland is not valuable, what is valuable is the boat ticket and farm tools to reclaim the wasteland—on this point, their combat effectiveness can basically be guaranteed.

After Zhao Lisheng explained the content of his brother's letter to him, he inevitably talked about another matter, saying: "I heard that there is another reason why the imperial court asked us to go there. It is said that it is because of that place." There are a lot of barbarians here, and we occupied their land, so maybe we will have to take guns when we go. Because we are used to holding guns, the imperial court sent us there."

This is simple and true. Zhao Lisheng's partner in the same army smiled and said: "It's nothing. Those in our camp who have gone to school, don't they all talk about 'land reform'? In fact, our going to the Southern Ocean is also a kind of 'land reform'." Land reform'. Taking other people's land and taking it into your own hands, isn't this a kind of 'land reform'?"

"You don't know why I went to the Bangka tin mine back then? Our guests were in Guangdong and Guangxi, so we had to fight with the locals, grabbing land and water. Fighting with weapons all day, and then we had no choice but to go to Nanyang."

"We went to the Southern Ocean and robbed other people's land. Of course they didn't like it. If they didn't like it, they would definitely fuck us."

"Just like those who have gone to school in our camp said, if you don't dare to reform the land at home, why don't you dare to reform the land when you go overseas? Isn't Banten reformed? Didn't Ceylon also rob the Dutch of their land? ? But speaking of which, who did the Dutch rob?"

Although Zhao Lisheng's comrades cannot accurately describe the various disputes they will face when changing the natural public ownership of the primitive tribe's thinking of land ownership to the people living on it into private ownership of land.

But people who grew up in Dashun, where private ownership of land has been owned for hundreds or even thousands of years, really take it for granted that private ownership of land is a matter of course.

When this kind of taking it for granted is not the same as what others take for granted, conflicts are inevitable.

The natural extension of this kind of private ownership of land should be willing to gamble and admit defeat, the strong will prey on the weak, and it deserves to be annexed.That's why the traditional thought of granting fields from wells and primitive egalitarianism is so dynamic, because people praise themselves for annexing others, but cry dissatisfaction when they themselves are annexed and annexed.

The reason why Europe did not have such a big reshuffle in hundreds of years before is because their agricultural productivity is insufficient, and the mainstream is still the field system, the land system, and the village community system, and there is no mainstream private land ownership in the general sense. And perfect title deed land sale system.

Dashun's immigration and colonization activities in the Southern Ocean naturally added a layer of ideological conflict.

For example, a piece of land in a river valley has gone to Dashun, and it is divided among individuals; while the aborigines on the original land will inevitably find it incomprehensible, why is this land yours?

The immigrants in Dashun, on the other hand, adhere to this kind of thinking: I open up wasteland, and this land is mine, and it is the same in China, and the government also recognizes it.Even our family cuts firewood in this forest all year round, so the government will also acquiesce that this forest belongs to my family.

From this tradition, Dashun, because of this private ownership thinking, actually has the most potential to become the last bastion of capitalism in the future, but we must beware of the utopian fantasy of petty bourgeoisie reactionaries who can't afford to lose but don't want to change ownership.

At this time, especially at the stage of external expansion, this ideology that has been deeply rooted since the mid-Tang Dynasty made Dashun's external expansion process extremely smooth.

Can't afford to lose is only when you lose.

Once you start to win, then everyone will support the winning side, and everyone will own a piece of land that belongs to them.

The situation of Dashun is so special that when Dashun loses, it is consistent; but once it starts to win, it divides.

When I lose, those who oppose the rules of the game and I lose are fellow travelers; but once I start winning, those who oppose the rules of the game and me lose are strangers and enemies.

However, at this time, for these special long-serving professional soldiers in Dashun, they are of course the ones who support the victory.

It was rare for Dashun to treat them not as Qiu Ba, but as human beings, and even allocated land to them and provided them with boat tickets and ox plows for immigrating after retirement, which greatly improved their combat effectiveness.

Zhao Lisheng said that because they had held guns for more than ten years, the imperial court wanted to send them to the Southern Ocean to grab land.His partner didn't feel that what the court did was wrong, but took it for granted.

Anyway, they all took guns, and it made no difference whether they went back to China to suppress the uprising of the people, or went to fight India, Britain and France, or went to the Southern Ocean to grab land from the barbarians.

On this point alone, they are also worthy of being the number one army in the world.Because it is better than rotten, at least compared to Prussia, which relies on human traffickers to buy soldiers, and Britain, which relies on catching drunks to make slaves with lobster soldiers.

The self-cultivator in a broad sense is the most solid foundation for the expansion of the empire.The Dashun court has always believed in this point, and has been committed to the self-cultivation of elite soldiers.

At least until the death of the old emperor, this situation will continue and the soldiers recruited from these mines, refugees, and hungry people will be sent to the frontiers and overseas for land reclamation at a high price.It's hard to say whether I will be willing to spend this money in the future, but I am really willing to spend it now.

It should be said that it seems to be fruitful now.

(End of this chapter)