I want to be emperor

Chapter 819 Rear-loading Rifled Weapons Make Their First Appearance

The actions of the Great Chu Empire in the Kingdom of Siam, at first glance, seem to be anticlimactic, and no serious battle has been fought...

It can’t be counted as nothing. The dignitaries of the Kingdom of Siam who first surrendered to the Kingdom of Chu attacked the city of Ayutthaya with tens of thousands of surrendered troops. Two to 3000 people were killed.

However, the Chu army did not fight. The Third Mixed Brigade of the Temporary Guards Army did not fire a single shot.

The army is even more embarrassing... The army's strength has just been prepared, and strictly speaking, it has not yet crossed the border. As a result, the Siam Kingdom on the opposite side surrendered in full.

Although when sending troops to take over later, they also encountered some stubborn enemies, and fought several small and medium-scale battles in the middle, but these low-intensity battles are not worth mentioning.

It can be said that the military operations in the Kingdom of Siam this time are not even comparable to the series of military operations of the Chu army in Africa. When they were in Africa, they rarely surrendered to those European colonists on a large scale. It is a desperate resistance, and it will only surrender when it can't bear it, and sometimes it will run away first.

And it is actually more dangerous to fight those African natives who are still in the tribal state... Those African natives don't care about your advanced guns... In fact, I don't know where the Chu army's guns are advanced and what they have threaten.

With an attitude of ignorance and fearlessness, they often resist fiercely when fighting against the Chu army... Of course, the fierce resistance does not mean that they can cause any actual damage to the Chu army.

On the whole, whether it was before or now, the Chu army's series of military operations in Africa are more intense than the battle of Siam in the Nanyang Peninsula.

This military action was anticlimactic, but it did not mean that the follow-up matters would be easy to deal with. In fact, many follow-up affairs would be more troublesome and complicated, and it would also test the dominance of the Great Chu Empire in the newly occupied area.

On the 34th day of the first lunar month in the [-]th year of Chengshun, the newly appointed governor of Siam Zhang Yulong arrived in Bangkok and set up a governor's resident in Bangkok. At the same time, he set up a series of other official institutions under the governor's office.

Along with Governor Zhang Yulong, there were several other local administrative agencies of the Great Chu Empire, such as the Siam Prosecutor's Office, the Siam Court of Justice, and the Siam Taxation Office.

The Great Chu Empire directly classified the Siam region as a province for comprehensive direct rule, and the settings of all administrative agencies were consistent with those of other provinces.

The provincial governor's office, the inspector's office, the court of justice, the tax office, and the military's provincial garrison headquarters are all available.

The newly established Siam Province has jurisdiction over all the current areas of the Kingdom of Siam and Bangkok, the original colony of the Great Chu Empire, and the governor's resident is Bangkok.

There is an upgraded administrative organization, but the local organization is still lacking... Of course, the main reason for this situation is that there are not enough local immigrants.

At present, the population of the Great Chu Empire in Siam is mainly concentrated in the former colony of Bangkok. Apart from the garrison, the number of officials and civilians is only a few thousand, while there are scattered immigrants from Chu in other places.

Except for the soldiers, all the officials and civilians add up to over 1 people!

If you want to truly develop and actually control the Siam region, you have to immigrate in large numbers to enrich the population of the Siam region.

The construction of the administrative institutions of the Great Chu Empire in the newly occupied overseas areas is generally accompanied by the population.

Organize a group of immigrants, establish a group of settlements in villages and towns, and simultaneously build actual administrative institutions at all levels in villages, towns and counties.

And other vast places that have not yet received a large number of Chu immigrants are often directly and generally under the nominal jurisdiction of higher-level prefectures or provinces.

This is the same whether it is overseas territories in America, Africa and other places, or newly occupied areas in the Southeast Asia region.

It was the same in Malacca, Java, and Luzon in the early years. Chu State first set aside a large area to set up a certain province, and then proceeded to immigrate to establish basic immigrant settlements. After there were people, villages and towns were established. The actual administrative agencies at the county and county levels gradually covered the entire newly occupied area.

After all, the administrative institution of the Great Chu Empire was not used to rule those natives, but to rule its own people...

The same goes for the newly created Siam Province!

After the newly arrived Siamese governor Zhang Yulong arrived in Bangkok, the first thing he did was to organize the officials and the people to prepare for the imminent arrival of a large number of immigrants from China.

In order to cooperate with the development of Nanyang, the officials of the Great Chu Empire had already begun to organize official immigration last winter.

According to the previous preparations, the first batch of about 5000 official immigrants will arrive in the Siam area in the early stage. They will land from Bangkok, and then march to the surrounding areas with Bangkok as the core point, and along the river, the traffic will be Dao and others established immigrant settlements and reclaimed local farmland.

And this is only the first batch of official immigrants, and the Great Chu Empire will continue to organize official immigrants to arrive here, according to the preliminary plan.

In the 34 years of Chengshun, the Chu Empire officials will organize at least 15 official immigrants to arrive in the Siam area for life and development.

And this is only about official immigration.

In fact, most of the immigrants from the Great Chu Empire these years are not official immigrants, but immigrants at their own expense.

After all, after the large-scale application of steamships, shipping costs have fallen sharply, and ticket prices have also fallen sharply. At the same time, many government-run banks in the Great Chu Empire have provided low-interest immigration loans, so the immigration costs have been greatly reduced these years.

Many people are also unwilling to follow official arrangements to go to certain places in order to save some money. They prefer to take out their own loans and choose a place that they think is better.

In order to attract self-financed immigrants, Siam Province also proposed quite good immigration conditions: first of all, land and reclamation-related benefits.

As long as the immigrants come and settle down, a large amount of land and forests will be distributed free of charge, and the agricultural tax will be exempted for the first three years, and the agricultural tax will be halved in the fourth and fifth years.

At the same time, a ticket subsidy is provided. Although the full amount of the ticket cannot be reimbursed, a subsidy of half of the ticket price will also be given.

Subsidize the interest of immigrant loans... Those government-run banks' immigrant loans are naturally not for charity. In fact, these immigrant loans also have interest.

However, in order to attract immigrants, many overseas territories often subsidize the interest of these immigrant loans, so that immigrants can get the equivalent of interest-free immigration loans.

The boat ticket subsidy provided by the Siam province, the immigrant loan interest subsidy, and the large amount of official immigration fees are naturally not a small amount.

But since they can come up with such a policy, Zhang Yulong and the others naturally have confidence.

The first is that the central government will have a special fund for the development of immigrants in Siam Province, and the second is that there are actually a lot of local business taxes. There are now many Chu countries investing in the construction of the Kingdom of Siam, or simply the local aboriginal dignitaries investing in the construction. What about the rubber plantations...

New immigrants can obtain agricultural tax relief policy, which does not mean that enterprises investing in rubber plantations can not pay taxes.

Furthermore, the huge Siam region is rich in various resources.

The first is the export of rice. The Kingdom of Siam has always exported a large amount of rice to the mainland of the empire.

There are also many other resources, such as wood, spices, precious metal minerals and so on.

The Siam governor's office has already made plans to monetize various resources... Those indigenous rubber plantations are very good assets, and they are brought over for auction to collect a wave of money.

Then those forest resources can also be auctioned for a wave of money. Timber is also a very important basic resource. The current domestic demand is huge. Although there are many timber resources in the country, it does not mean that Siamese timber cannot be sold!
There are also mineral resources such as precious metal minerals and even ordinary iron ore coal, which can also be sorted out and then introduced to mining companies for development.

Just like the Maputo government in Africa, they are so remote, but just relying on a piece of gold can make the local government rich...

In order to attract immigrants, the immigration conditions offered by Maputo Prefecture are very good. In addition to reimbursement of boat tickets and loan interest for immigrants in full, they will also build a wooden house for free for new immigrants, distribute agricultural tools and grain seeds for free, and subsidize the second. Part of the rations for a year and so on.

If there were no such lucrative conditions, apart from the government-run immigration with no choice, few people would be willing to immigrate to Maputo at their own expense to settle down...

As for those who go to pan for gold, most of them will not settle down in Maputo.

Although most people can't make a fortune and won't return to the country, in the end most of them are estimated to settle down locally and become farmers or workers in mines.

But at least most of the gold diggers have the same dream at the beginning: go overseas to pan for gold and make a fortune, and then return to China to become a master!

It's just that the reality is very cruel. The dream of most gold diggers can't be realized, and many people even get mixed up in the end, and they can't even afford the boat ticket to return home.

In the end, he had to settle down in the local area, received free land and various subsidies, and became a farmer honestly.

The many immigration policies and local development methods in Siam Province are actually similar to those in other overseas territories. A series of policies are particularly skilled methods played by the Great Chu Empire.

The local area only needs to follow the established steps step by step, then within a few years, hundreds of thousands of immigrants will be able to gather in the Siam area, establish the real rule of the Great Chu Empire in the local area, and carry out large-scale development.

When Zhang Yulong began to engage in immigration development in the Siam area, the military also gave great cooperation.

Chu people want to come over to carry out large-scale immigration development. This is not a matter of hello, me, everyone... After all, land is limited. When Chu people came, they directly established immigrant settlements, and then ran around to enclose the land. Reclamation and development...the natives definitely won't agree.

Although the royal family of Siam and the powerful nobles of Siam have surrendered, they have now turned into Chu people, obtained the Chu country's household registration, and retained some floating wealth and private assets, but what about the ordinary Siam natives?

They did not surrender!
Some of them saw that the general trend was irresistible, and began to migrate to places that the Chu people had not yet touched, and some were unwilling to migrate and resisted.

And these things require the cooperation of the military, and a strong attack on some indigenous people who dare to resist armedly.

Some large-scale or relatively powerful rebels will be handled by field troops, while ordinary bandit suppression tasks are basically handed over to the newly transferred or expanded C-level garrison division.

In order to protect the safety of immigrants, the military directly expanded a garrison battalion stationed in the Bangkok area into a garrison division, and transferred a garrison division from Hue next door, and a garrison division from Malacca.

A total of three garrison divisions were garrisoned in various key areas to suppress the rising armed resistance forcefully.

There is also the indispensable militia!
Every village and town in the newly occupied area of ​​the Great Chu Empire will set up a militia, and quite a few young and strong immigrants will be incorporated into the militia.

In order to protect themselves, these militias will often carry out armed attacks on the surrounding indigenous gathering places.

Continuous armed suppression, deportation and immigration, these two steps are carried out simultaneously...

Without corresponding military means to guarantee, the simple immigrants would send the heads of the local aborigines.

Therefore, in the next few years, it is estimated that the Siam region will continue this state of constant small battles and no major wars. This is also the normal state of the Great Chu Empire when it first established its directly-administered territories overseas.

How can there be a happy new life of overseas immigrants without going through a lot of gunfire and blood?
You don't really think that the natives will applaud happily to welcome you Chu immigrants?

Immigrants from Chu State came to rob the indigenous land, burned down their houses, and expelled the indigenous people from the place where their ancestors lived. It is normal for the indigenous people to fight with you.

It is normal for some immigrant settlements in the overseas territories of the Great Chu Empire, especially the new immigrant settlements close to the aborigines, to be attacked by the aborigines. Occasionally, weak resistance will eventually lead to the massacre of the entire immigrant settlement by the aborigines.

These are normal conditions, and the upper echelons of the Great Chu Empire will not even feel angry about this. At most, they will send more troops to fight back.

After all, if you can kill the natives, why not allow the natives to kill you?It doesn't make sense!

The Great Chu Empire's overseas immigration actions have always believed that life and death are destiny and wealth is in the sky, and death in the hands of the natives during the immigration process is life, no wonder others!
Conversely, if you aboriginal died in my hands, don't shout...

This is what the empire did when they fought with the Spaniards in the Americas before, and the local Chu officials in the Americas couldn't even understand why the Spaniards protested?

There is no owner in America, and the virtuous live there!
I am more benevolent than you, so I occupy this place, and you protest a woolen thread... If you are upset, just call, it's not that you are not allowed to call.

The competition for living space has always been extremely cruel and naked!
The European colonization is like this, and the Chu people's immigration is also like this. This is not a question of good or bad, but a question of survival.

And when Chu State began to carry out follow-up immigration development in the Siam area, Chu State was also simultaneously carrying out military operations against the Kingdom of Burma.

It has to be said that the high-level leaders of the Kingdom of Burma have more backbone. They rejected a series of conditions proposed by Chu State to destroy the country, and were only willing to accept some of the conditions.

They are willing to cede part of the land to the Great Chu Empire, and even the land around Dagon, but they still hope to keep most of the land and the state.

And this is obviously not in line with the Nanyang Peninsula strategy of the Great Chu Empire.

What the Great Chu Empire wants is a Nanyang Peninsula that is entirely its own... The railway company is thinking about continuing to build the Southwest Railway to the southwest, all the way from Kunming to Dagon Port in Myanmar, making Dagon Port a Great Chu What about the seaport in the southwestern part of the empire?

How can we tolerate the continued existence of a Burmese kingdom!
So war is inevitable!
It’s just that after the fight, the Chu people found that they still underestimated these Burmese people... The fight was not as smooth as imagined, and the enemy did not flee in anticipation of the wind. The army engaged in small and medium-scale entanglement battles.

Using the familiar terrain to ambush the small-scale troops and logistics troops of the Eighth Division of the Chu Army in two or three days... Although it is impossible to cause any large-scale casualties to the Chu Army, this kind of ambush is very annoying.

The front-loading muskets equipped in the Chu army are naturally very powerful in regular face-to-face combat, but they seem powerless in the face of some scattered small-scale battles!
The rate of fire is too slow, and the firepower is not dense enough. It is difficult to give full play to the advantages of equipment in scattered battles. Sometimes even in complex terrain, it is not as easy to use as the indigenous bows and arrows!

As for the front-loading smoothbore artillery equipped by the Chu army in large quantities, it is useless in such small-scale combat effectiveness!
But correspondingly, the only infantry battalion in the Eighth Division equipped with Type 75 breech-loading rifles and a [-]mm breech-loading rifled field sentry, performed extremely well in this war.

The rear-loaded rifled guns showed amazing strength the first time they went to the battlefield, which directly shocked the army's top brass.

The ultra-long accurate range and convenient loading of the rear-loading rifle can allow the soldiers of the Chu army to disperse in formation, and the soldiers of the Chu army who form a skirmish line can also shoot behind various bunkers and carry out various long-distance precision attacks on the enemy. hit.

Not to mention the 75mm rear-loading rifled field gun, which has high accuracy, long range, and great explosive power.

If you find the woods or hills where the enemy is hiding, you can wipe out a large number of enemies directly with a burst of artillery fire.

After entering the era of breech-loading rifled artillery, artillery has further demonstrated its important role in warfare.

However, this 32-year-style 75mm field gun is also available, that is, the weight is still a bit heavy. The gun with a 24-caliber barrel has a weight of 750 kg. [-] tons.

This kind of artillery is still somewhat inconvenient to maneuver in tropical rainforests like the Nanyang Peninsula, where there are many mountains.

For this reason, the front-line troops quickly proposed that they urgently needed a light, fast-moving rear-loading rifled artillery.

This requirement was directly put forward by the frontline troops on the battlefield, coupled with the amazing performance of the breech-loading rifled guns on the frontline, this light artillery project was highly valued by the Army Ordnance Department, and the frontline requirements were passed back to Jinling City.

The Army Ordnance Department convened the heads of the five major weapons companies in Jinling City, and proposed the new artillery requirements of the frontline troops.

And the Ordnance Department also formulated a series of performance requirements based on the needs of the previous troops:
The Ministry of Ordnance hopes that various weapons companies can develop and provide a gun with a caliber of 75 mm that can launch the existing 75 mm impact-fuze grenade. This caliber requirement is to achieve the same ammunition supply as the existing 75 mm field gun.

At the same time, it is required that the combat weight of the artillery, that is, the weight of the artillery should not exceed 250 kg, and the weight of the march should not exceed 350 kg, and it can be disassembled for transport when necessary.

The maximum effective range shall not be less than 3000 meters, and the barrel life shall not be less than [-] rounds.

The most important thing is that the research and development time should be short. The Army hopes to see the sample gun within three months, and after confirming that there are no problems, it will directly purchase a batch and send it to Myanmar to fight against these indigenous people.

As soon as the heads of the major weapons companies heard this, they knew that what the Army wanted was not a long-barreled field gun, but a light howitzer, that is, a mountain gun.

Even this weight is basically compared to the previous 115mm smoothbore light howitzer.

The 24-year-old bronze 115mm light howitzer in active service, which is commonly known as the 115 mountain cannon in the Chu army, has a combat weight of 260 kg and a marching weight of 360 kg. It can be disassembled and transported. The regimental artillery in the army comes standard.

These army officials obviously referred to this thing, and then lowered the weight data by ten kilograms to make the request.

It's just that the research and development time is too short, three months is not enough time!

However, the person in charge of the Hebei Weapons Company showed joy on his face...

Their company is already working on a light howitzer, and they have already produced prototypes for test firing.

Although there are some discrepancies in the specific data of the project, the weight is somewhat exceeded, and the barrel life is also somewhat insufficient.

But if it is improved, the weight problem is not a big problem... If it is not possible, shorten the double diameter. Anyway, the effective range of the rifled artillery is already very large. Even if the double diameter is shortened, the effective range requirement of 3000 meters can still be easily achieved.

As for the lifespan of the barrel, it sounds like those high-level officers in the army are so tall and far away that they didn't know how to fart technology... With the current level of basic materials in the empire, the rifled artillery wants to achieve a thousand rounds of barrel Longevity is impossible.

The existing 75mm field gun has a barrel life of only [-] rounds... Even a howitzer with a short barrel and low chamber pressure, the barrel life has been improved, but it can reach [-] rounds.

Moreover, domestic basic materials are at this level, they cannot produce them, and it is impossible for other weapons companies to produce them.

In this way, the hope of their Hebei Weapons Company to win this order is very high.

After the meeting dispersed, people from each weapon company went home to conduct internal discussions on this new project.

It’s just that each weapon company, although they all have research and development projects for breech-loading rifled guns, the ones that can produce finished products in a short period of time have to be in the field of small and medium-caliber breech-loading rifled guns. The Army provides the manufacturer of the breech-loading rifled artillery: Hebei Arms Company.

The 32-year-old 75mm 24-caliber field gun currently in service in the Army is their product.

At the same time, they also have a research and development project for a 75mm caliber howitzer. Although the weight is a bit over the standard, it is almost enough to simply improve it by one or two.

Soon, after the news was sent to Tianjin by train, the artillery R&D team of Hebei Arms Company in Tianjin immediately started design revisions, preparing to bid for the project with all its strength.

As for the other companies, Huguang Arms Company is more concerned, because they also have similar projects in research and development, and the results are coming soon.

As for the other three, they lack the corresponding technical reserves, and it will not be easy to figure it out in a short while.

Especially the Jiangnan Arms Company, they basically put the focus of artillery research and development on large-caliber artillery, and they only want to win the navy's order for a new generation of rear-loading rifled naval guns. There is no research... After their company discussed the project for a while, they simply gave up the project.

The business is not suitable, there is no corresponding project and technical reserve, and it is unnecessary to force the project to lose money.

So, this time the army's 75mm light howitzer project, the final competitors are Hebei Arms Company and Huguang Arms Company.

(End of this chapter)