prosperous age

Chapter 41

"Bird gun? Impossible."

When Wei Guangde heard his father ask him something, he shook his head and said without thinking.

Just kidding, although I have never been a soldier, the information explosion in later generations has seen a lot of things on TV or the Internet, and I know a lot of news.

To end the cavalry, it must be the emergence of machine guns, and it is possible to suppress the cavalry charge under continuous firepower.

If you want to use firecrackers to defeat the cavalry charging, then the opposing cavalry must be so stupid that you can only do it by hitting the muzzle of the gun, regardless of whether you are three-stage or five-stage.

Wei Guangde still knows this, and he has seen it in movies and TV shows in later generations. The Western "queue to shoot" tactic, the two sides in the war shoot at each other hundreds of meters or even tens of meters away, and the battlefield is full of gunpowder for a while.

However, what impressed Wei Guangde the most was the drummers in the phalanx. The soldiers attacked in unison to the rhythm of the drums, very neatly.

"Father, you only talked about what to do when you meet the Tartars. What kind of trouble did you encounter? Didn't they arrange for you to go to the north? The Tartars all quit the Great Wall."

Wei Guangde was puzzled. Two days ago, when his father and uncle were discussing how the infantry could break the cavalry charge, he just said it casually, but he didn't expect to bring it up again tonight.

As for the cause and effect, Wei Meng and Wu Zhankui didn't say anything about it before, because they were afraid that the little guys would worry.

Although it was known in the Ming Empire that the emperor wanted to send troops to the north to take revenge on the Tartars, after all, it was only spread among the high-level circles in the capital, not in the market, let alone in Jiangxi.

Nanjing knew about this matter because it had to dispatch food, grass and supplies for the Northern Expedition Army, and because of the intricate relationship between the two Beijings, it was known about this matter. The spread was relatively narrow and did not spread.

"It's not like the Tartars will come this year, right?"

Wu Dong seemed to be enlightened by someone, and instantly enlightened, and asked his father loudly.

Hearing what he said, Wei Guangde and Wei Wencai both showed worried expressions and looked at Wei Meng.

"It's not what you think."

Wu Zhankui was not used to being watched by his son for a while.

"Uncle, what's the matter?"

Wei Wencai also hastily asked at this time.

He knew his father's character, and he didn't want to talk about it. It was useless to ask, so he could only try to get news from his uncle.

"Okay, I'll tell you, but you can't tell it outside, let alone tell your mother, you know?"

Wu Zhankui looked at his son and nephew, and only spoke after a little thought.

After seeing the three teenagers nodding in agreement, he glanced at his brother-in-law, and slowly revealed the news that the emperor would go north this year to take revenge on the Tartars.

"The emperor wants an army to conquer the grasslands?"

Wu Zhankui didn't finish his sentence. Whether it was Wu Dong, Wei Wencai, or Wei Guangde, they were all shocked by the news.

Everyone can hit the capital, and your emperor will send a large army to the north to save face.

Well, let's be practical, too.

The battlefield is on the grassland.

Relying on infantry to enter the grassland, can you catch up with other people's horses?
Several people in the house knew about Tumubao, even though it was far away from the northern grasslands, but when tens of thousands of veterans of the Beijing camp were buried in other places, it makes people shudder to think about it.

Those were all veterans with battle experience, but they all fell into it.

The soldiers that the emperor wants to send now must not be more powerful than those soldiers.

No matter how surprised others might be, Wei Guangde really searched his brains to recall the articles he had read back then, but he couldn't remember any plot of the army's northern expedition in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

It seems that after the Tumu Fortress, the army of the Ming Empire basically lost the ability to enter the grassland, especially after the Hetao area was abandoned, the Ming army even lacked war horses.

Don't ask Wei Guangde how he knew that Hetao was abandoned, it's just that there is such a paragraph in his impression, which emperor did it and why, I don't know.

I can’t remember the Northern Expedition of the Ming Army, so what should I do now?
After Wei Guangde recalled that he hadn't thought of this passage for a long time, he roughly sorted out the current situation in his mind. In fact, there are only two possibilities.

One is that it didn't go ahead in the end, everything was just planned, and then it was stillborn, so Wei Guangde in later generations has never seen this history that never happened.

Wei Guangde also felt from the bottom of his heart that this possibility is actually the greatest.

The remaining possibility is that the Northern Expedition was carried out, but the army may have no results, so there will be fewer reports in later generations, and it is very unlikely that it will be another big defeat, otherwise it is impossible for those historical articles not to mention this matter.

There are two possibilities. It seems that participating in this Northern Expedition is actually not very dangerous.

However, relatively speaking, the latter is still dangerous. The fact that the two sides do not have large armies fighting does not mean that there will be no small contact wars, and there will still be battle losses.

Well, at this time, Wei Guangde used his own judgment to carry out the subsequent analysis. Since there will be no major frontal battles, then in the face of sneak attacks and harassment by small groups of cavalry, there is no mother and child cannon, and a large number of bird guns, as long as they are well-trained, It seems that the danger is not too great, and it may be possible to make some military achievements.

Thinking that my parents were still discussing whether to pay to raise my official position that night, for generals, military exploits are naturally the best way to get promoted.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde looked up at Father Wei, then at Uncle Wei, and finally said: "Father, Uncle, if this is the case, since you can't get mother-child artillery to strengthen your combat power, if you can get a lot of birds The blunderbuss can also greatly increase the combat power, but the premise is that the training of the soldiers can keep up, which consumes a lot of money, food and medicine stones, can the guards provide it?"

"Do you think blunderbusses are better than knives and guns?"

Hearing what his nephew said, Wu Zhankui asked after a little hesitation.

"Of course, the current military households, what their bodies look like, uncle will not be ignorant.

Weapons such as knives and guns all require good physical condition and better military training to be effective.

According to what you said earlier, if troops are going to be dispatched this year, there will definitely be no time for training, and the time to recover their bodies may be very tight. Under such circumstances, it seems safer to train soldiers to use bird guns for long-range combat.

For firearms training, as long as the quality of the bird guns is similar to the ones in our fort, and there is enough gunpowder and lead, a few months of training should be enough for a battle. "

Of course Wei Guangde would not tell his father and uncle that this battle might not be fought, or it might not be fought.

However, in his mind, with a large number of guns and well-trained soldiers, it would be no problem to repel the small drum Tartar cavalry.

"Our Right Army's Thousand Households Office will deploy two troops from the Hundred Households Office for training. There are still more than 100 bird guns in the warehouse of the guard, and the ones in your hand are all a batch of goods, and the quality should not be bad."

Wu Zhankui nodded slightly and said.

"Then it's no problem, train more than a hundred bird gunners to come out"

Hearing Wu Zhankui's words, Wei Guangde clapped his hands together and said slightly excitedly.

(End of this chapter)