Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 585

Chapter 585
Tokyo, lecture hall.

Zhu Yihai came to attend the class in person today. The students in the audience were all fifth-rank military officers. They were newly promoted to the fifth-rank, and they were selected to enter the martial arts hall in Beijing for three months of training. After the training, they will be officially awarded the position of battalion officer. The chief officers of each battalion.

"The innovation of military equipment will inevitably bring about the innovation of tactical thinking. The future trend is the era of firearms, and muskets will inevitably eliminate bows, arrows, knives and spears. Even muskets will affect the development direction of armor and shields, not to mention the change of tactics.

We all have to adapt to new developments and actively adapt to the times..."

On stage, Zhu Yihai made a final summary.

Today's class is about the future development direction of the army. Zhu Yihai concluded that the future is the era of firearms, even the era of the navy, and the era of giant ships and cannons.

Traditional cold weapons will be eliminated.

Firearms and artillery are the mainstream, and even the current matchlock guns will soon be eliminated by flintlock muskets, and heavy armored infantry and heavy armored cavalry will all be eliminated.

These statements still surprised the officers who were about to become the chief officers of the first battalion.

In particular, they also saw the bows, crossbows, knives, and spears displayed by the emperor in class, as well as the three-eyed blunderbuss of the fire door gun, the bird blunderbuss of the matchlock gun, and the self-generating blunderbuss of the flintlock.

After seeing the display, they felt that although flintlock guns did not use matchlocks, they had many disadvantages, such as being too expensive and prone to problems. There are few accessories, etc., and it is not easy to break.

Especially after the emperor invented a sleeve-type three-edged bayonet for the three-style bird guns, it was obvious that the bird guns could be used for both firepower shooting and melee combat, which greatly improved the combat effectiveness of the bird gun soldiers.

Improvements such as fixed paper bullets and three-style buttstocks have greatly increased the power of this Shaotian three-year-style bird gun, and the cost has also been optimized to one silver dollar each.

The gunpowder and lead bullets used in it are only one yuan per thousand rounds.

And its two firing speeds in one minute, and the hit rate of more than 1% at 60 meters make this new bird gun extremely cost-effective.

Compared with the new flintlock, several times the cost, and high failure rate, everyone thinks that the three-year-style bird gun is better.

Compared with bows and arrows, they also admit that bird guns are indeed better.

The cost of a good bow can often be twice as high as that of a bird's gun. The key is the high cost of its arrows. Not to mention the blue crane feather arrows used by emperors and generals. Two or six, and one or two or four for the third class.For the arrows made of cicada and goose feathers, the five first-class arrows cost one tael seven, the second class one tael five, and the third class one tael three.

Even for ordinary sesame carving war arrows, a hundred would cost eight taels.

Yanling battle arrows, one hundred five taels.

The bow needs to be made of materials such as fish glue, beef tendon and horn, especially skilled craftsmen, which consumes a lot of money and low production efficiency.Arrows need all kinds of feathers, which are hard to come by and slow to make.

The biggest problem with using bows and arrows lies in the training of archers.

Archers need soldiers with extremely strong physical fitness, they must be very strong, and they need to go through a long period of training to achieve good archery skills, and it takes a lot of energy to draw a bow and shoot arrows in battle.

In comparison, musketeers do not have high requirements for the quality of soldiers, and the training time does not need to be very long, especially muskets, gunpowder, and lead bullets are not expensive.A smoothbore gun barrel, as long as it is a high-quality product, can fire hundreds or even thousands of rounds, and it can continue to be used after replacing the barrel.

The production efficiency of gunpowder and lead bullets is not comparable to that of traditional bows and arrows.

Soldiers can process lead bullets themselves.

Although bows and arrows have many advantages, as long as the number of musketeers increases, archers are not as good as musketeers in terms of combat effectiveness.Musketeers can be quickly increased, but archers are difficult.

Although crossbows do not have as high requirements for soldiers as archers, crossbows are also stuck in manufacturing costs and production efficiency.

Bird gun soldiers, in fact, like spear soldiers, can quickly storm soldiers.

The students all admitted that the future should be the era of firearms, and the number of blunderbuss soldiers will increase in a large number. Maybe [-]% to [-]% of an infantry battalion will be musketeers in the future.

The best shooting range of archers is about 60 bows, but the range of bird guns can reach [-] bows (about [-] meters). Archers are subject to various restrictions and cannot be increased in large quantities, but gunners do not have so many restrictions.

A feathered arrow is difficult to manufacture and expensive. Although it can be recycled, the recovery rate is very low, and the arrow is easily damaged. Although the lead powder for gunfire is a one-time consumable, the gunpowder processed with sulfur, nitrate, charcoal, etc. can be compared with Arrows processed with various feathers are easier to obtain.

A small workshop can produce millions of catties of gunpowder a year, while an archery workshop requires a large number of skilled craftsmen, and cannot produce many feathered arrows in a year.

"Everyone, although the flintlock guns you see now are indeed not sophisticated enough and the cost is high, but this is the future. The Royal Ordnance Bureau has set up a research institute for flintlock guns, which will improve these current shortcomings. , I believe that within ten years, the flintlock will be able to completely surpass the matchlock shotgun, not only in terms of performance, but also in terms of cost."

"This is the end of today's class. You are the future pillars of the country. I am very happy to be able to teach you. I have prepared a gift for you. Each student has a binoculars and a pair of flintlock pistols. A fine steel dagger, I hope it will help you even more powerful on the battlefield in the future."

The monocular telescope is produced by the Ningbo Telescope Arsenal under the name of the Shaofu Supervisor. This is a good thing. It used to be bought from Westerners at a high price, but now the Shaofu Supervisor has its own telescope research institute. , and also has its own Ningbo Telescope Factory, which produces telescopes with good effects and low prices.

However, this is not something everyone can buy.

Not to mention that the emperor personally rewarded it, it is even more precious.

After class, accompanied by the generals, Zhu Yihai walked around the Jiangwutang campus and met with the students in the senior officer training class.

It is full of senior military officers of the third grade or above, such as Zeng Ying and Wang Xiang, a group of Sichuan army admirals, generals, deputy generals, generals, etc. who were rushed back to the court in Wen'an, Sichuan, as well as Jiao Lian who was recalled from Guangxi, and Jiangxi and Fujian. Many officers.

These people were all high-ranking in the past, but most of them were not direct descendants of the emperor. There were generals of the Ming army in the original locality, and there were also leaders of the Tusai army, and there were also those who were transferred to the Qing Dynasty anyway. Anyway, their backgrounds are quite complicated.

To these people, Zhu Yihai is relatively restrained.

For example, Zeng Ying and Wang Xiang, who rebelled in Chongqing, should have been killed long ago, but for the sake of the overall situation, after Wen Anzhi sent them here, Zhu Yihai did not kill any of them.

After meeting them in person, I counted their culpability, but also mentioned that they have made contributions to guarding the stable place in Sichuan, so I gave them a chance in the end, and all they did was deprive them of their posts, demote their ranks, fine their salaries, and dismiss them. Go to the martial arts hall to study, and study in class every day.

There are several classes of senior generals in the lecture hall, and two or three hundred senior generals have been brought in from all over the world. Some of them were real generals before, and some of them just took advantage of the chaos, but Zhu Yihai doesn't care about these, just care about you He used to be a Caotou king, or a local warlord, no matter if he called himself an admiral before, or he was appointed a general by the court, now that he was forced to enter Beijing, he had to be reformed honestly.

Zeng Ying and the others have all been studying in Beijing for more than a year, and even Zhang Guozhu, Li Benshen, Li Chengdong, etc., have come in for further studies twice.

Zhu Yihai summoned this group of guys by the way, and let them have a meal together in the big cafeteria of the martial arts hall, and specially gave each of them a catty of imperial wine and two chicken legs.

Although Zeng Ying and others were very excited, showing their loyalty to the emperor and expressing their strong desire to go to the battlefield, Zhu Yihai just let them continue to study.

In other words, these people have not reformed enough.

Zeng Ying confessed to the emperor in public, thinking that what he did was really wrong at the beginning. Now that Hanzhong has won a great victory and the situation in Sichuan and Shaanxi is very good, he really wants to go back and contribute.

Even if you let him start as a battalion officer, just give him a battalion.

But Zhu Yihai still asked him to study hard. Fortunately, before Zhu Yihai left, he also gave them some hope. The various training classes in the martial arts hall also had to form camps and teams to form the martial arts hall to learn from the army. Drill as well, and even act as a blue army against other imperial camp exercises.

"As long as you can defeat the red battalion ten times in the learning confrontation, it means that you have completed your studies, and then you can be employed in the Ministry of War!"

Leaving the lecture hall and returning to the palace.

Zhu Yihai specially ordered a new one hundred thousand silver dollars for the flintlock research institute, drawn from his internal funds, and even issued generous rewards for some major problems facing the flintlock. Reward accordingly.

"The performance of the new bird gun is far superior to that of the Tarbarian firearms. It is enough. Why does your majesty continue to invest more money in researching the flintlock?"

Zhu Dadian, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, was a little puzzled.

The performance of the three-year-style shotgun surpassed that of the Tartar shotgun in an all-round way. It was enough for use, and there was no need to study the flintlock in such a hurry.

"We have to take a long-term view. We can't just stare at the front. The Tartars will not be our only enemy. In the future, the Ming Dynasty will go to the sea and face competitors from long-distance voyages. Keep funding and research new equipment. , Make a good reserve, this is a must.”

Zhu Dadian didn't agree with this, but he didn't object either.

He came to see the emperor, not because of this, but because of the bird gun order.

"According to His Majesty's order, the Ministry of War is going to order [-] three-type bird guns. At present, it has sent a notice to each bird gun factory, asking them to provide sample guns and order quotations. Now each gun factory has responded as required and sent them Please take a look at the sample gun and quotation, Your Majesty."

Zhu Yihai nodded, "Is there any new requirements for this batch of bird guns?"

"Well, our Ministry of War provided them with the latest sample gun from the research institute."

Zhu Yihai flipped through the report.

He attaches great importance to firearms. Now not only is there a Firearms Bureau under the name of the Ministry of War, but there is also an Arms Supervision under the Royal Name. In addition, there is also a Weapons Bureau under the Shaofu Supervision. All major military departments have set up various research institutes.

Among them, the research institutes of muskets, artillery, and warships have the most sufficient funds and the strongest strength.

In addition, the military industry system is also developing rapidly. There are many military factories under the names of the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Industry, the Shaofu Supervisor, and the Armed Equipment Supervisor. There are more than a dozen manufacturers of muskets alone, and they all have bird gun workshops.

Zhu Yihai now has a new set of rules for ordnance. The imperial court assigns weapons research directions to various research institutes. When they set up a research project, the imperial court allocates a certain amount of funds. reward.

According to the needs of the army, the Ministry of War invites bids for various military factories. They have to provide samples, budgets, etc. as required. Whoever has the advantage can get more orders.

Although they are all owned by the imperial court, Zhu Yihai also has a lot of business requirements for their management, not to say that if they eat public meals, there is no need to compete.

If you do a good job, you will be rewarded. If you can’t win orders or make money, the workers in your factory won’t get any bonuses, and the officials in charge may even be demoted or even removed from office and punished.

The purpose is to maintain competitiveness and ensure product quality and efficiency.

The Ministry of War obtains the best design samples from various research institutes, and then sends them to various bird gun factories, allowing them to design samples according to this, and provide samples and quotations for mass production.

The comparison is the scale of production capacity and the cost of construction.

Doing so can greatly reduce costs and even improve efficiency.

In order to win orders, get bonuses, commissions, and even officials in charge for political achievements and promotions, they must go all out.

"There are a total of seven gun factories, and the quotations are all within one silver dollar per gun. The specific differences are all within a few cents of silver. The quotations are very solid."

Zhu Dadian told the emperor that the Ministry of War had already calculated the cost specifically. One silver dollar, one new firecracker, and a bayonet with a casing were indeed the limit.

This time, we will purchase [-] bird guns, as well as matching bayonets, and an additional order for one gun with three barrels.

"Ningbo Bird Gun Factory has the lowest price this time, and their production capacity is also guaranteed. They promise to expand the production line, increase workshops, recruit more workers, etc. In my opinion, let's choose Ningbo Bird Gun Factory."

"Your Majesty, what about the other six gun factories, their quotations are similar, and their production capacity is not weak?"

"The order is given to the Ningbo Gun Factory, and then the Ningbo Gun Factory subcontracts some more to them. Since it is a bidding collection, they are not as good as the Ningbo Factory, so they can only eat second meals from the Ningbo Factory."

There is no doubt that the Ningbo factory will benefit from the distribution of orders by the Ningbo factory to the other six factories. However, since it is a competition, there must be rules. It cannot be said that this side invites bidding and finally divides the order equally among everyone.

If you can't compete with others, you can only do OEM processing for them and share a profit with them.

Even though this Ningbo Gun Factory is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry, Zhu Yihai's Royal Zhoushan Gun Factory is among the other six gun factories.

Rules are rules.

"Tarja's shotguns are said to cost at least one or two or three coins. The quality and performance are far inferior to ours, and the production efficiency is also far behind. We still have a great advantage, but we can't be complacent.

I plan to make the infantry and musketeers of the Imperial Battalion account for [-]% of the infantry within three years. In the next ten years, we will even completely eliminate the crossbow, sword and spear soldiers and equip them all with muskets.

The number of artillery pieces must also be expanded, and artillery units must be established in every town.

After the batch of [-] firecrackers is completed and delivered, orders will continue to be placed. If the Ningbo factory does well with this batch of orders, they can be given a priority next time. "

Zhu Yihai didn't have the heart to develop archers and other cold weapons. Although the Tartars were powerful in bows and arrows, in terms of development, they definitely had less potential than musketeers.

"Go back and study with the people in the Ministry of War, pick a few good guns from several artillery research institutes, make a report, and prepare to invite bids to collect artillery."

"Purchase more general cannons and Krupp cannons!" Zhu Yihai specifically confessed that the combination of firecrackers and cannons is invincible.

Zhu Yihai has long demanded that Ming Dynasty should establish its own artillery system. Army field artillery, siege artillery, and navy naval artillery should be separated.

The army mainly produces general cannons (cannons), and produces two types of cannons and short cannons, which are used to undertake tough and field missions.

He also proposed to increase the research on iron cannons to replace copper cannons. After all, copper materials are scarce. In addition, the new artillery system should be simple and not too complicated. It must meet the needs of war, and even warships and land are best It is compatible.

"Don't ignore the research on gun carriages and gun mounts."

"After the order is confirmed, pay [-]% of the deposit first, and then pay the part when the delivery is in batches, and finally leave [-]% of the balance. After the goods are accepted and accepted, the quantity and quality are guaranteed before the payment is completed. We still need to find them, there must be quality assurance, and all guns must have manufacturing inscriptions to ensure that the person responsible can be traced back.”

"Ordnance is not a trifling matter, and there must be no quality problems."

"Also, the purchase of ordnance must prevent corruption and bribery. Your Ministry of War must supervise it yourself. I will also let the Jianyuan, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and even Jinyiwei and Dongchang strictly supervise it. If anyone dares to reach out here, one You can't escape, as the Minister of the Ministry of War, you have to manage your subordinates well."

Zhu Dadian was a little embarrassed when he heard this.

After all, he is a famous corrupt official in Zhu Dadian. Although some of them were the ones who splashed dirty water in Donglin before, he is indeed not a clean official.

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty, I must guard the door, and I will never allow anyone to embezzle a piece of silver dollars used to purchase ordnance!"

The atmosphere was a little awkward.

Zhu Yihai put down the report and poured Zhu Dadian a cup of tea.

"I heard that Wanhua is doing very well in Sichuan, and the Guizhou imperial camp will also be established. I plan to let him go to the Guizhou camp. What do you think?"

Zhu Wanhua is the son of Zhu Dadian. He was the deputy admiral in the Sichuan Guixing camp before, and he partnered with the sons of Zhang Guowei and Shen Tingyang. His performance was indeed acceptable.

Lao Zhu is also very proud.

After all, he himself failed to start and end well in Huguang, and he always felt regretful when he returned to the court.

Fortunately, his son performed well, and the battle in Hanzhong even made him drink three cups after receiving the news.

"Gouzi Wanhua is in Sichuan, and he is also well-directed by Dewen Jinglue and President Qin. He is only a deputy and has no credit."

"Da Sima is humble, Wan Hua will be rewarded for his meritorious deeds. Although he is your son, I will reward you even more for the meritorious deeds of ministers' children."

After the First World War in Hanzhong, the situation in the west has finally stabilized, and now the Tartars are only controlling Guanzhong. Longyou, Hanzhong, and Bashu have basically been controlled by the Ming army.

Baocheng Town is still under siege, but even if Wu Sangui returns to help, Zhu Yihai doesn't think he can do anything.

"A year ago, could we take down Xu and Ying?" Zhu Yihai asked Zhu Dadian.

"Jinan and Xuzhou, the Tartars can only guard one, but the Tartars can't defend Xuzhou. Their best strategy is to abandon Xu and keep Qi. If they guard two places, they will not be able to defend both places."

"It seems that you are very confident, I hope!" Zhu Yihai said with a smile.

(End of this chapter)

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