Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

The whole meeting was fruitless.After the others dispersed, Xue Yongli stayed alone.He said to Wu Shigong: "Master, I'm a little sorry, I refuted your face. But I still have to think about the brothers who came with me, they all have families and mouths."

"No problem." Wu Shigong made a gesture to reassure Xue Yongli.He is not a man without spirit either.He waited for Xue Yongli to continue.

"Grandpa, in fact, your idea is very good. Line up the team and use firecrackers to attack the enemy. But to put it bluntly, this kind of idea is a bit like talking on paper. Even the young one has several ways to break you, uncle. formation."

"Oh?" Xue Yongli's words aroused Wu Shigong's interest, "Then tell me quickly, how do you break it?"

"Suppose the small ones come to break the formation. If there is enough time and manpower, the small ones only need to surround the thousand-man firecrackers, dig trenches, build earth walls, and surround them tightly. Then in order to break through, the thousand-man firecrackers The formation must attack. At that time, the offense and defense will be reversed, even if the thousand-man firecracker formation breaks through the encirclement, the loss will be extremely large, at most half of the people escaped."

"If you want a quick battle, the small ones only need a team of 150 cavalry, [-] steps away from the firing range of the firecrackers, and hold them back far away. The small ones only need to divide the cavalry into three or four teams. One The team restrains the moles, and the rest dismount to rest, feed the horses, and accumulate horsepower. Take turns, and then wait."

"Waiting for one hour is not enough, wait for two hours. Two hours is not enough, wait for three hours. When the gunfire queue is too tired, or wants to retreat. As soon as the formation is loosened, the small ones immediately gather all horses, form formation, and attack."

"For a distance of 150 steps, the horses can reach it in less than ten breaths. No matter how powerful my uncle's firecrackers are, they can knock down more than 100 horses at most. If you kick them, you can kill more than 1000 people."

After hearing Xue Yongli's words, Wu Shigong pondered for a while.Then he said to Xue Yongli: "Thank you, what you said makes sense. My uncle, I am indeed a layman when it comes to war, and I will rely on you to help me more in the future. If you have any ideas, tell me in time, don't hide it I'm afraid I'll be angry. Uncle, I'm not a small-minded person either. Let me think about what to do now. "

So Xue Yongli bowed out and resigned.Wu Shigong found himself somewhat shaken by Xue Yongli's words.Are your thoughts really wrong?

Wu Shigong didn't know, the direction of his thinking was not wrong, but it was too advanced.The way he thought of equipping all guns and forming a formation is not realistic under the current circumstances.It is the famous Spanish phalanx, which is used in combination with hot and cold weapons.However, facing the decisive impact of large-scale cavalry, the Spanish phalanx will still suffer huge losses.The obliteration of the impact effect of cavalry has to wait until the extensive use of machine guns.

After Xue Yongli resigned, Wu Shigong thought quietly by himself.He carefully recalled all the knowledge about the military before crossing.Thinking about it, he thought of the lingering Qin Bai who caused him to time travel.

Although that Qin Bai did not graduate from the military academy, he occasionally talked about some military knowledge during the chat with Wu Shigong.

What Qin Bai talked about had two things that most influenced Wu Shigong.

One point is about strategy and tactics.Qin Bai said this to Wu Shigong at the time: "I will tell you about strategy and tactics. It is too complicated for you to understand. You just need to remember two rules: one rule is that every time you go to war, you need to know beforehand." A clear strategic goal; another rule is that there can only be one strategic goal at a time, if there are two or more, it will often happen that the last one will not be obtained.”

Qin Bai went on to make a metaphor for Wu Shigong: "For example, you bring a hundred people and your opponent a hundred people to grab an apple. Then you have to know in advance that your main purpose is to grab that apple? Or knock down all the opponent's one hundred people? Of course, in the actual situation, defeating the opponent's one hundred people basically means that you have grabbed the apple. However, in war, it is not must."

Then, Qin Bai gave Wu Shigong a real battle example: "Look at the battle of Midway Island. When the Japanese fleet set off, they didn't decide the purpose of launching this battle: Is it to capture Midway Island? Or to destroy the United States?" The aircraft carrier fleet? It led to the 'bomb change incident' in the end, so that the Japanese fleet was defeated. This is the consequence of not complying with the two rules mentioned above."

(There are many other reasons for Japan's failure at the Battle of Midway, but the author believes that the confusion of Japan's fleet's strategic thinking is the main reason for the failure. This point can be debated.)

Another point that Qin Bai emphasized was about the discipline of the army.He said this to Wu Shigong: "Actually, in reality, let alone a soldier traveling to ancient times, even a famous general traveling to ancient times may not necessarily be able to forge an invincible army."

"On the contrary, if there are modern ones, any regular army will travel to ancient times, as long as they receive half a year of cold weapon training, they will sweep any ancient army of the same number. Including Genghis Khan's iron cavalry and Yue's army. Why? Mainly modern armies discipline."

"The discipline of the modern army is simply outrageous. The behavior of any soldier must follow the rules, including eating and sleeping. Not only that, but in fact, everyone in modern times has to be disciplined as soon as they go to school. Every primary school student is supervised by a labor committee member for sweeping the floor; a study committee member for handing in homework; even if you pull your little pigtails at the same table, there is a monitor to take care of it (about this point, the author is worried about new memories). Therefore, in modern times, everyone is actually trained as a soldier from an early age."

"But why do you do that? Because in the army, each soldier doesn't need to have his own thoughts. When they are combined together, they condense into a terrible war machine. How can such a war machine be different from those in ancient times? , can an army composed of basically undisciplined farmers and herdsmen be able to contend?"

Wu Shigong pondered Qin Bai's words over and over again, and his thinking began to become clear.First, you need to have a strategic goal.But what is your current strategic goal?It's very simple, to save your own life during the war in the late Ming Dynasty.

So, what should I do?It is also very clear.That is, after arriving at Qianhusuo, he trained the army, built a strong fortress, and turned his Qianhusuo into a fortress.And defending in the fortress, isn't the power of the firecrackers just to be brought into play?

In addition, isn't queue training the discipline of training soldiers?Therefore, the training of firecrackers and queues should not only be given up, but should also be the focus.

Wanting to understand all of this, Wu Shigong found Xue Yongli again to communicate.Wu Shigong told Xue Yongli about his idea of ​​building Qianhusuo into a fortress, and Xue Yongli welcomed him with both hands.

Then, Wu Shigong proposed that Xue Yongli be in charge of all the cavalry he brought to Guide and let him be responsible for the training of the cavalry.Because, in the previous conversation with Xue Yongli, Wu Shigong has already seen that Xue Yongli has a lot of experience in using the cavalry.It is better to leave this kind of thing to experts.

In addition, Wu Shigong also proposed to Xue Yongli that he would participate in the training of the cavalry together.In this troubled world, it is always good to have more self-defense skills.

For Wu Shigong's arrangement, Xue Yongli agreed immediately.

Wu Shigong also proposed to Xue Yongli that after arriving in Guide, if additional recruits were recruited at the Qianhu Office, those recruits would be trained according to Wu Shigong's training method.Wu Shigong will also personally lead their training.

Xue Yongli thought about it and agreed.Anyway, he wasn't brought from the capital, so he can practice as my uncle likes.Anyway, in Guide, there is almost no possibility of war.

In the end, Wu Shigong proposed to Xue Yongli that no matter who it is, it is necessary to have a solid grasp of the shooting technique of firecrackers.

Xue Yongli still agreed.It is always good to master one more military technology.

Judging from the ending, Wu Shigong basically achieved his goal this time.

In the capital, Emperor Chongzhen finally approved Xue Lian's resignation.Among the nobles, he chose a man with the strongest literati atmosphere, good family education, and basically no contact with Wei Zhongxian, as Xue Lian's successor.That honorable man is Wu Shigong's father - Wu Weizhong, Marquis of Gongshun! ?

If the current Wu Shigong knew this situation, he would look up to the sky and sigh: "Feng Shui turns!"