A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 46
Wang Dou now has three types of soldiers in his army: sword and shield soldiers, pike soldiers, and gunfire soldiers.

Among those veterans, they lined up and formed teams, fighting and cooperating with each other, and they already had a certain tacit understanding.So after the queue training every morning, Wang Dou trained their personal skills in the afternoon.

The skills of sergeants in Qi's army are subdivided into nine grades.Wang Dou's army has just been trained, and they are roughly divided into four grades: upper, middle, lower, and unqualified.

Each class has different treatment and rewards and punishments.Those of the highest class have meat to eat every day, and they can sit on an equal footing with the captain. When meeting the captain, they only need to bow instead of kneeling.Moderate ones, eat meat every three days.Inferior people only eat dry rice every day.Those who fail the examination each time will be beaten ten times with the military stick, and those who fail five times will be beaten thirty times with the army stick, and they will be expelled from the combat team and reduced to a soldier.

In the future, the examination will be held every two months, and the fourth grade will fluctuate. The middle and lower grades can be promoted, and the upper grades can also be downgraded to the middle and lower grades.Once the original wait, can be exempted from liability.The second original and so on, hit five sticks.Wait three times, hit ten sticks.Those who failed to advance after waiting for more than five times will be beaten with [-] sticks, expelled from the battle team, and reduced to a soldier.

Everything depends on the sergeant's performance. If the proportion of regression or failure is large, the company captain and corporal leader will be punished.

Take sword and shield soldiers as an example. When they hold a shield, it is inferior to be able to dance to cover themselves.It is medium to be able to test a knife and rush into the spear array.Let them fight with the pikemen with licenses, and it is better to beat the opponents than the backhand.

Wang Dou also recently made a batch of javelins for use by sword and shield soldiers.

From now on, sword and shield soldiers will jave their spears in their hands, and with twenty paces as the standard, if they can hit the three copper coins hanging there.Medium one, low, medium two, medium, medium three, high.If one fails, it is considered unqualified and will be beaten with military sticks.

This standard is far lower than Qi Jiajun's performance appraisal practice, but Wang Dou is not in a hurry, take his time.

The same is true for spearmen. When they practice spears, they also set up a human-shaped wooden handle twenty steps away, with five holes for the eyes, throat, heart, waist, and feet, each with a one-inch wooden ball inside.

When beating the drum, they fly forward and poke their spears forward, pick a hole at random, and after five times of stabbing, if they can stab the wooden ball in the hole on the spear three times, it will be the best.Twice, medium.Once, wait a minute.Not once, and if the technique, footwork, movement, and method of advancing and retreating are not rigorous during the test of the spear, then it is unqualified and served by the army stick.

After this hierarchical reward and punishment system came out, every sergeant had a certain sense of crisis, and also regarded everyone in his team as a competitor, but Wang Dou was happy to see this kind of benign competitive atmosphere.

In ancient times, fighting with cold weapons mainly relied on the use of waist strength. In order to exercise everyone's waist strength, Wang Dou also ordered the craftsmen to make a batch of stone locks, and asked these military households to exercise dozens of times a day.

……

However, sword and shield soldiers and pikemen are easy to practice, but gunners are more difficult to practice.

They are good at practicing swords, but the main reason is that the shooting training of bird guns is difficult, not because everyone can't hit, but because of the cost of training firearms.In the Ming Dynasty, even if it was a fine bird gun, the service life of the gun barrel was only dozens of times.Several times a day, after more than ten days, a gun barrel is scrapped, and it will take at least a month to rebuild a gun barrel.

Large batches require a lot of silver.

And this shooting training, don't think about it without a lot of ammunition.Lead can be made by craftsmen in the castle, but Wang Dou's current sub-medicine, nitrate, is basically purchased from outside.The problems of money and sub-drug raw materials seriously restrict the development of Wangdou firearms.

However, Wang Dou believed that he could solve this problem by himself, so Wang Dou let the gunners in the army practice to their heart's content.

At this time, in the still very crude arena outside the fort, the sound of firing the firecrackers was endless.

Wang Dou was standing in front of Team B led by Han Zhong watching a blunderbuss shoot. Han Zhong, Yang Tong, Gao Shiyin, and Zhong Tiaoyang all surrounded Wang Dou and watched.

The blunderbuss soldier was probably only in his early twenties, his face was round and quite fair, but his expression was focused, and everyone standing behind him still didn't realize it.

He skillfully loaded the lead bullets, then aimed his eyes at the shining star, aimed at a target fifty paces ahead and pulled the trigger, with a "pop", it was a hit.

He then tried two more shots, which again hit.

Everyone shouted hello.

Now Wang Dou dare not compare with Qi's army, when training the bird gun, he just set up a target fifty paces away.However, the training standard is the same, three hits are the best, three hits are medium, and six shots and one hit is the lowest.Six shots and one miss is disqualified.

This bird gunner hits three shots in a row, he is really a sharpshooter.

Noticing Wang Dou's gaze, Han Zhong was also quite proud, after all, the gunslinger was a soldier in his team.

Wang Dou summoned the gunner and asked, "What's his name? Where is he from?"

The musketeer resolutely focused on shooting, but when facing Wang Dou and the others, his expression was flustered. He nervously touched the hem of his clothes, and said in a soft voice, "Master, the younger one is called Zhong Xiancai." , from Weizhou."

Wang Dou nodded and said: "You shot well, I want to reward you, come here, there is a reward."

……

Wang Dou rewarded the gunner Zhong Xiancai with a penny, and then went around the field to watch the training of the sergeants, and at the same time, he was thinking about a problem.

After going through the reward and punishment system for craftsmen formulated by themselves, most of the bird guns produced by Li Maosen and the others are qualified, and the custom size of the muzzle basically has a certain standard.The excellent quality of the blunderbuss allows the gunner to hold the body of the blunderbuss with confidence during training, and aim carefully close to the tail of the blunderbuss, which greatly improves the hit rate of the blunderbuss.

Even so, the shooting and reloading speed of each soldier is still slower.With Zhong Xiancai's rate of fire, it takes nearly a minute to fire one round, and the shooting speed of other bird musketeers is even slower.

The shooting steps of the bird guns in the Ming Dynasty include pouring the powder, charging the powder, pressing the fire, loading the bullets, and loading the matchlock. Skilled shooters usually only shoot once a minute. Some ordinary bird gunners are in a hurry on the battlefield. Yes, it's fine if you can shoot one shot in 1 minutes.

Although I can't make a flintlock now, I can think of a way to reload the bird gun.

The gunners in the Ming army had certain customizations in ammunition loading. For example, in the Qi family army, each gunner carried 53 bamboo tubes filled with gunpowder, all of which were fixed.There were also 53 lead pieces in another bag.

But there is still room to go further, Wang Dou thought of the gunpowder in paper tubes of later generations.

The fixed gunpowder in the paper tube is to pack the fixed amount of gunpowder and projectiles in a long paper tube. When filling, bite the paper tube with your mouth, first pour some gunpowder into the fire door, and stuff the remaining gunpowder and projectiles into it. Even the muzzle is complete.

This not only ensures the power of each shot of the bullet, but also greatly reduces the loading steps of gunpowder.This allows ordinary soldiers' bird gunners to reach a speed of one shot per minute, and it is no problem for skilled bird gunners to shoot twice a minute.

Thinking of this, Wang Dou was very excited. He recruited Li Maosen, the head craftsman, and asked him if this method was feasible.

Li Maosen pondered for a long time, then he cupped his hands and said, "Your Excellency, this method is really subtle, it can greatly increase the shooting speed of gunners."

Afterwards, he looked distressed again: "It's just that in this way, more manpower is needed to distribute the ammunition and load the ammunition, and the small craftsmen may be short of manpower."

Wang Dou said: "You don't have to worry about this, I will send some people to you."

Now there are hundreds of households in Jingbianbao, including more than 200 men and more than 200 women. Except for more than 100 middle-aged men, the rest can be used by old and weak men, women and children.He thought for a while and said, "Well, let's build another workshop next to your workshop, and I will send you fifteen old and weak men and twenty strong women. The monthly rations and food are also distributed in the fort.”

Li Maosen's face showed joy, so he didn't have to worry about manpower.

Wang Dou emphasized: "The amount of medicine in each custom-packed paper tube must be weighed to be the same. You must supervise this point."

Li Maosen said: "Don't worry, my lord, I will take care of the little one."

……

Soon, Li Maosen made a few samples of custom-packed paper tube ammunition, put them in a special oil-wrapped ammunition bag, and took them outside the fort to be tested by the gunman Zhong Xian.

After receiving the task, Zhong Xian got acquainted with the ammunition bag on his back, and then entered the state of concentration as Wang Dou said.

He held the blunderbuss in his hand, opened the fire door, and then pulled out a fixed paper tube, bit open one end of the paper shell bullet with his teeth, and poured some gunpowder into the fire door.Close the fire door, then stuff the gunpowder and projectiles in the paper tube into the gun barrel, poke it with a cleaning rod, and the matchlock has already been installed, and the preparation for shooting is completed!

Zhong Xian had only tried firing a few guns, and he was a little rusty at first, but then he became more and more proficient in shooting. According to his estimation, the fixed paper tube ammunition can greatly save the reloading time, and he can fire about three rounds per minute.The rest of the bird gunners, after proficiency, can fire about two rounds per minute. Even if they are on the battlefield, under the influence of various circumstances, it is very easy to fire one round per minute.

Everyone around Wang Dou and the gunners in each team were also very happy, and everyone hoped to use this kind of fixed paper tube ammunition in the future.

The matter was settled in this way, Wang Dou ordered to build another large room next to the craftsman's workshop, and he also selected a group of old, weak and women to help Li Maosen distribute the ammunition in the fort. Food and food, if you do a lot better, there are also rewards.

The new batch of military factory workers are very happy. They are not the main laborers at home, but now they can also get monthly food and labor food. This makes them feel that they are useful, and they talk loudly when they return home. Some.

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Lao Bai Niu: There is another chapter tonight, and it will be released before twelve o'clock. Thank you for your support.

(End of this chapter)