Three Kingdoms, at the beginning of the game, recognize the thief as the father, hit the spectacle,

It is not basic quality, but cultural quality.

……

"My lord, although artillery is good, according to my observation the day before yesterday, anyone who handles artillery must learn mathematics, geometry and other subjects."

"The people are ignorant. If the series of major events will really happen this year... If we are recruiting artillery to study and train now, is it really too late?"

……

This is what Lu Su said to Zhang Yan with earnestness and heart at the beginning, and it also spoke to Zhang Yan's heart.

Yes, unlike most soldiers who only need to train in formation and fight, if you want to use super-standard weapons such as artillery in this era, you must know simple geometric and mathematical principles.

Whether it is simply calculating the landing point, calculating the range or something, Zhang Yan used to recruit outside craftsmen, or directly find mathematicians like Zhang Ju to give simple lectures to soldiers, but even so, an artillery If you want to form combat effectiveness, you still need nearly a year of training and study.

Taking Lujiang’s existing two artillery battalions with a total of ten battalions as an example, the artillery battalion of the Lujiang Bingma Division was formed early, and the equipment was given priority. Therefore, until now in 189 AD, some combat effectiveness has finally been formed.

Compared with the Lujiang Bingma Division, due to the late establishment of the Rebel Bingma Division, the artillery battalion was also reorganized, and it did not have the same archer foundation as the Lujiang Bingma Division before, so the training progress was slow, and the combat effectiveness increased. Formation is also terribly slow.

The second army, Ma Si, was fine. After all, in Zhang Yan's plan, this army was mainly responsible for Jiangdong's internal operations, especially against the Shanyue forces like Zu Lang and Yan Baihu who occupied a city.

Therefore, if the speed of training is slower, it will be slower. At worst, Zhang Yan will wait for a few more months. After all these people are well-trained, he will launch the suppression plan against Shanyue.

But if the same thing happens to the third army commander who is about to be formed...

That problem is much bigger.

For this third army, Zhang Yan is counting on them to cooperate with Lujiang Bingmasi to shine in the next year when they challenge Dong Dong, and show the prestige of the Lujiang army.

……

"Well, after all, the illiteracy rate of the common people is too high..."

"It seems cool to point out the key technologies in advance, but if the quality of the people as a basic package does not keep up, the pain will be really painful."

……

In fact, Zhang Yan didn't need Lu Su to say much about this matter, he had already felt it a long time ago.

You know, what is the standard that really determines the combat effectiveness of an army?

Some people will say that it is ideologically advanced, some will say that it is powerful in firepower, and some people will say that what determines the combat effectiveness of an army is whether the soldiers have the morale and courage to fight to the death.

But in the final analysis, these are the things that affect the combat effectiveness of an army, but they are not.

Thought, firepower, and morale all affect combat effectiveness, but what fundamentally affects the above three points is the level of knowledge possessed by the population that makes up the army.

Only when the basic education of soldiers keeps up, can the army have enough ability to pour firepower on the battlefield.

Only when the ideological education of soldiers keeps up, can they understand honor and shame, and then they can have ideas as their own weapons.

Only when the patriotic education of soldiers keeps up, can they understand what is home country and what is faith.

The morale piled up with gold and silver will collapse at the touch of a button, but the morale obtained through ideas can make people go forward indomitably despite the hail of bullets.

It can be said that as an influencing factor of an army's combat effectiveness, the illiteracy rate and education level have always been a very important invisible factor. It is not obvious, but it actually affects the actual level of an army.

For example, TG was able to win consecutive victories in subsequent battles with KMT. Apart from the wise command of a series of leaders, an element that is easily overlooked is that the education level of TG generals and soldiers is far higher than that of TG. It was higher than the KMT at that time, and even compared to the armies of those developed countries.

That's right, although the army known as the army of workers and peasants has a very high rate of illiteracy, but with the blessing of education, the combat effectiveness of the formed army is far from what those KMT lackeys can match.

In contrast, as another negative and extreme teaching material, it is the masters of the green camp who are so famous in Chinese history that they are so bad that they are known to be the main force of the Qing army.

Laziness, infighting, smoking crows...

It can be said that all the bad habits that low-quality people are easy to pick up are taken up by these green camp gentlemen.

In order to prevent the soldiers under his command from falling into such a predicament, Zhang Yan could only grit his teeth and re-educate all the enlisted soldiers.

Sadly, the illiteracy rate of recruits in this era is a perfect [-]%.

Really [-]%.

……

All in all, in order to solve the problem that Zhang Yan faced with the high cost of recruiting and training soldiers, Lu Su finally chose to let Zhang Yan conduct limited recruitment, that is, he recruited 2 ordinary soldiers with swords and shields in one go. And conduct training in accordance with the method of "front-line anti-line arms".

According to him, the artillery's combat method is mainly to throw firepower from the rear of the battlefield to the front to kill and injure the enemy, and at the same time use rumbling artillery and ammunition to wear down the enemy's will to fight.After the artillery joined the battlefield, the sword and shield soldiers in the front row took on more of a "resistance line" role of protecting the back row and counter-charging the place.

Under such circumstances, after several days of discussion between Lu Su and a group of generals who actually led the troops, a brand new "refueling" tactic was developed.

As we all know, in naval engagements, there is a very important concept called engagement width.

In human terms, it is how many echelons can enter the battle quickly and output their own firepower to the enemy in the first time they enter the battle.

And when this concept is extended to land warfare, the concept of engagement width—or the width of the battlefield is still valid.

When the width of the battlefield is limited, it is only necessary to ensure that the artillery in the back row is fully spread out, and then fill the front row with swords and shields.

Chapter 34 Battlefield Scale and Engagement Width

You must know that under the limitations of the existing technological level and productivity, the scale of the battlefield in China generally ranges from 1000 to thousands of people.

Only when the Three Heroes of the Yellow Turban fought Lu Zhi and Huangfusong in Julu a few years ago, or when the Han Dynasty launched a punitive war against foreign invaders, would they invest tens of thousands of troops at one time.

And now that there is no foreign war, even if the coalition forces of the [-]th Route princes discuss Dong together in the future, they will only gather hundreds of thousands of troops.

As described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, among the Eighteenth Route Guandong princes, such as Sun Jian, Tao Qian, Gongsun Zan and others, most of them brought soldiers ranging from 3 to [-] to participate in the war.

In contrast, some little-known small forces, who can support thousands of soldiers to participate in this war, can already be regarded as small princes along the way.

Don't you see, when Liu Bei was only temporarily in charge of commanding thousands of soldiers after Gongsun Zan left, his status jumped directly from an ordinary follower to the point where he could enter the tent and chat with Tao Qian, Kong Rong and others.

It can be seen from this that large-scale battles involving tens of thousands or even millions of people at one time like the one in the novel are not common in the history of the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but there were only three times.

In 200 AD, the Battle of Guandu started.Cao Cao's 11 soldiers resisted [-] Yuan's army and won a great victory, successfully unifying the vast land north of the Yellow River.

In 208 AD, the Battle of Chibi started.Sun Quan and Liu Bei's coalition forces of more than [-] men fought against Cao's army of more than [-] at the Chibikou of the Yangtze River, and the situation of the three kingdoms was initially formed.

In 221 AD, the Battle of Yiling started.Liu Bei united Wuxishui barbarians and Sun Quan and was defeated after the Yiling War. The Shu Han completely retreated to Yizhou and lost the capital to compete with Cao and Wu in the Central Plains.

The three battles were already the largest battles in the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty.In contrast, some well-known battles such as the Battle of Jiangxia, the Battle of Yanzhou, the Battle of Wancheng, etc., mostly only invested thousands to tens of thousands of troops, and there were no such battles in the long history. Such a resounding reputation.

All in all, in 189 A.D., every prince in the entire Huaxia region is counted as one, and those who can spend tens of thousands of people at one time are already strong like Sun Jian.

For someone like Zhang Yan who has [-] soldiers and wants to continue to expand the army, I am afraid that apart from the three major frontier armies in the north, the whole of China will not be able to find much.

Under such circumstances, it is almost certain that Lujiang will hardly participate in any large-scale battles with more than 10 people in the next ten years, and once the scale of the battlefield is limited, then through simple calculations, two It is clear at a glance how wide the engagement between the armies is.

Take the experience when Zhang Yan led troops to attack Taiyuan and Hedong, which were occupied by Baibo Huangjin, as an example. Although Zhang Yan's main battles were on siege battles, he was not without encounters or chases. hit.

In order to ensure that the thickness of their formation will not be scattered by the enemy, in almost all battles, the commander will subconsciously arrange his formation into a rectangle or square, so that it can be thick enough to prevent it from being easily cut. Chop off, mince.

Assuming that the maximum size of the battlefield in the future is about 5 people, then in the case of ensuring that the formation is dense enough, there is one person in three steps, and the width of the battlefield for the entire army is only about 50 people. ...

But what about the artillery equipment rate under Zhang Yan's hands?

The Lujiang Bingma Command Department has more than [-] staff, has five artillery battalions, and has fifty artillery pieces.

A full fifty!

Even if these artillery units are arranged in a staggered arrangement of two hundred front and back, fifty artillery pieces can be a cannon every ten meters in a combat width of two 300 meters!

It is almost certain that under the current battlefield width limit, even if Zhang Yan's artillery battalion is equipped with one artillery piece per hundred people, the total number of fifty artillery pieces can fully meet the needs of a battlefield of tens of thousands of people.

Even in the future when the feudal lords unite to challenge Dong, everyone will form a battle in front of Hulao Pass, which is nothing more than a battle of this level.

Now that the existing artillery is enough to fill the front line, Zhang Yan only needs to continue to fill the front line with swords and shields after the start of the battle, so as to ensure that his front line will not be easily broken, and he will be able to benefit from the battle between the two armies. defeated.

Just like the lineup that specializes in "protecting the platoon", the sword and shield players in the front row are responsible for resisting the opponent's striker, while in places where the enemy is densely populated, the artillery in the back row can output aggressively.

Once Lu Su proposed this method of combat, it was quickly recognized by everyone including Zhang Yan.

You know, this is only the case of the artillery configuration of one hundred men per cannon, and it is far from reaching the firepower density that a normal thousand-man artillery battalion should have.

In the future, if the scale of China's battlefield becomes larger and the breadth of operations deepens, Zhang Yan will not need to recruit an additional artillery team. He only needs to increase the deployment rate of artillery on the basis of the existing artillery battalion.

From 50 people per cannon to 20 people per cannon, 5000 people per cannon or even ten people per cannon, when the artillery battalion under Zhang Yan's artillery holding rate reaches the limit, the existing artillery of [-] people can support a battle. The top battle of the Battle of Chibi level.

Under the influence of ears and eyes, these soldiers who were previously responsible for transporting ammunition, cleaning the barrel, and cooperating with the gunner to ignite are also more familiar with artillery, and the training difficulty is much less than that of recruits.

So far, under Lu Su's suggestion, the entire Lujiang Third Army and Horse Command Division is such a legion that is solely responsible for the resistance line. The whole is composed of twenty battalions of swords and shields. Recruitment and training are underway.

Perhaps such a pure infantry is far inferior to the second infantry commander with artillery, that is, the rebellious army commander, when fighting alone, but with the cooperation of Lujiang's first army commander, it can be used. Out of the number four is not weaker than the strength of the latter out.

What's even more exaggerated is that even so, the cost of setting up [-] sword and shield fighters is less than half of that of Dispute Army Masi, and the time required for training is terribly short.

From the perspective of combat effectiveness and suitable battlefield conditions, the Lujiang Bingmasi, who has both the ability to attack fortified artillery and the mobility of cavalry, is undoubtedly a sharp weapon for offense, and it will also be the real main force of Lujiang during the future princes' quest for Dong.

Compared with the Lujiang Bingma Division, the Rebelling Bingma Division does not have a cavalry unit, so its maneuverability in field battles is not outstanding, and even heavy artillery will hinder the battlefield mobility of this army.

What is suitable for this army is actually based on the defense of strongholds. Therefore, when Zhang Yan leads a group of people waiting to go north in the future, Ma Si, the rebellious soldier, will be temporarily transferred from the east to Wancheng for defense. During Zhang Yan's departure, Shanyue, who was already ready to move, attacked Lujiang.

Chapter 35 The New Army Division

Zhang Yanke still remembered that after he sent troops to destroy Shanyue in Qianshan, Mi Fang brought him the news that Shanyue in Danyang area was gathering, and maybe one day they would go west and invade the people of Lujiang.

But what's embarrassing is that Shanyue's assembly took more than half a year, from the fifth year of Zhongping to the sixth year of Zhongping, not to mention, Zu Lang even recruited a second army in Zhang Yan, that is, the rebel army After that, there was no news from the company, as if the previous eagerness didn't exist.

However, Zhang Yan will not take this kind of thing lightly just because the other party disappears. During the period when he leaves Lujiang in the future, Lujiang's defense work must be carried out normally.

As for the Lujiang Third Army Command...

Unlike the two big brothers, one can rush and the other can defend, as the younger brother, his biggest feature or advantage may be that he is cheap.

Some people may think, then why not simply merge the two armies into an army of 32 people with 4 steps, three cavalry and five artillery pieces?

In fact, in the final analysis, just like the scale of the battlefield, this is also the limitation caused by the current level of technology and productivity in China.

Whether it is Cao Cao, Sun Quan, Yuan Shao, etc., they naturally understand that 1 people cannot beat 10, and 100 people cannot beat [-] million.

However, with the current level of technology, if 10 people are gathered together in a large camp, the logistics consumed every day can directly drag all these soldiers to death.

In addition, the weight of military uniforms such as artillery is much greater than ordinary equipment, so if you want to prevent soldiers from being demoralized due to insufficient supplies, an army of 3 to [-] people like the current one is already the limit that Lujiang can support up.

Of course, it doesn't mean that the third military commander really has no chance of rising, and can only exist as a vassal of the first military commander.When the latter army has more battlefield experience and Zhang Yan's educational resources are a little more abundant, this army can be reorganized like his two predecessors and become a strong army that can stand on its own.

In fact, this is something that can’t be helped. After all, when Zhang Yan first took over Lujiang, it was still a typical densely populated agricultural city.

To put it in human terms, Lujiang has a large population, but its productivity is very low, and its education level is even at the middle and lower levels of the entire Eastern Han Dynasty.

Under such circumstances, it is almost inevitable to use the number of people to make up for the lack of weapons and equipment, and to take a "quantity" route of enlisting a large number of troops.

But now, after more than a year of development, Lujiang's population is still dense, and its productivity has also been greatly developed. However, there is still no action on the matter of education.