Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 548 Solving the Bandits 1
The fight in Wuhan was very enjoyable, but after returning home, Yang Menglong let Liu Ziyan and Cheng Qi scold him severely, and even Zaji Chongweng and Shi Tianbao were also scolded.On the surface, Yang Menglong was so humiliated that he couldn't even raise his head, but in his heart he still didn't think so. A woman has long hair and short knowledge. Isn't it just a fight, so it's worth the fuss.

But this fight was not in vain. After that, the Cao Gang became more honest in this area, and did not dare to bully the market like before. Yang Menglong was very pleased!

After the fight is over, there is still work to be done.

After four centuries, it is not without reason that Wuhan can develop into the largest city in Central China.It is located in the center of China, in the eastern part of the Jianghan Plain, surrounded by thousands of miles of fertile fields, where the Yangtze River and the Han River meet, and the shipping is extremely convenient. It can be said that the essence of the entire Jianghan Plain lies here.People in Wuhan can live very well only by rice and fish and shrimp in rivers and lakes. Now, thanks to the great development of Nanyang, they have opened up the European market. It is foreseeable that shipping will be unprecedentedly developed.To the west are timber from Bashu and phosphate rock from Yichang, to the north are salt and iron from Nanyang, and to the east are European merchant ships traveling upstream. As long as there is no trouble, the great development of Wuhan can be expected. After only a few months in Wuhan, the common people feel that their lives are much better than before.This kind of good is not only the fact that the rebels have distributed the fields and food to them, but also the employment opportunities have increased significantly, and the market prices have remained stable. As long as they work hard, they can earn money, buy the daily necessities they need, and earn There are many more people who can pull a few feet of cloth or buy a can of sugar to make their wives and children happy.In Yang Menglong's plan, he intends to build Wuhan into the largest cargo and passenger transfer station and inland river port in inland China, as well as a light and heavy industrial base. The future of this city is very bright.

In fact, there are already signs of that.Almost every day, you can see European merchant ships carrying a large amount of phosphate rock, guano, sulfur, saltpetre, various non-ferrous metal ores and even wood, going upstream from the Yangtze River, while Nanyang’s cargo ships are coming downstream from the Han River. A large amount of tea, steel, glass, grain-intensive machinery and other products were brought in, and sailboats loaded with phosphate fertilizers and phosphate rocks from Yichang also went down the river, bringing precious fertilizers to farmers in the Jianghan Plain... …The shadows of sails shuttle back and forth on the Yangtze River waterway, and it is extremely lively. If it continues to develop like this, it will be difficult for Wuhan not to become rich.

Yang Menglong wandered around Wuhan, Jingzhou, Xiangyang and other cities, having a great time, his subordinates were not so lucky.Needless to say, civil servants in the Heluo area, it’s almost winter. Every year when winter approaches, a large number of refugees must flock to the Heluo area to survive. They must prepare a large number of tents, warm clothes, food, and coal early, otherwise they will definitely Will be scrambled.The military commander was not easy either. Han Peng continued to lead the army to confront the rogues in the Funiu Mountains, sending back several boats of rogues who surrendered almost every day.He has to face up to 10,000+ rogues, and the few thousand people under his command can't be eaten at all. Of course, the Heluo New Army's defense line made of concrete fortifications and barbed wire can't move the rogues, everyone can only waste and Han Peng became more and more impatient.These damned rogues have been with him for more than a year. Because of them, he lost the opportunity to go to Shandong to counter the rebellion; because of them, he lost the opportunity to go north to reinforce Lushun and participate in that epic battle!Damn it, how long do you bastards want to harm me?It won't work if I don't give you some color to see!

It's a pity that Yang Menglong didn't seem to be in a hurry to deal with these rogues, he just asked him to keep an eye on them and not let them enter the Nanyang Basin.So Han Peng could only continue to stare at the rogues, as long as the rogues did not attack, he would ignore them.

Xue Siming is also very busy, busy recruiting and training recruits.In order to deal with the Huguang rebels, the imperial court gave the Heluo New Army more than 2 soldiers. That is to say, the Heluo New Army will more than double its size at once.The expansion of the army is not just a matter of recruiting soldiers and issuing uniforms and weapons. There are too many things to do, such as camp arrangement, division of defense zones, recruit training, officer promotion, formulation of regulations, and purge of military discipline. A relatively complete staff system was established, otherwise Xue Siming would have to collapse.After all the busy work, the soldiers finally recruited enough. The Shaanxi Lengwa selected from among the refugees in Shaanxi, the Sichuan Wazi who ran from Sichuan, the wolf soldiers from ethnic minorities who ran from Huguang, and the local youths of Nanyang... …The miscellaneous number of soldiers is overwhelming, and all of them are seventeen or eighteen years old, young and energetic. If you get together, you will have a fight every three days, and if you don’t pay attention, a group fight will break out. It’s really a headache. ah!Fortunately, there was Qi Hu, and this old man was able to deal with those troublemakers, so Xue Siming was able to free up his hands to promote the reform of the army.

The core of the military reform is to change all cold weapons to hot weapons.In the past, the Heluo New Army used crossbows as their main long-range combat weapon, but now they have changed to muskets.There are many obstacles to this reform, and many veterans have a lot of opinions on this. According to their point of view, muskets are unreliable and prone to failure. If the enemy rushes to the front, it will basically be a one-sided massacre... What?Have a bayonet?What a joke, what can that one-foot-long bayonet do!In short, everyone didn't believe that the bayonet phalanx could withstand the rolling iron cavalry. It was a challenge for everyone to eliminate the pikemen, crossbowmen, and crossbowmen at once, leaving only the musketeers.Of course, Xue Siming had no way to convince everyone, so he adopted a compromise method. First, he changed the outfits of the archers. Based on the [-] archers of the Heluo New Army, he first compiled a musket battalion, and waited for the musket battalion to shoot. Once it becomes famous, everyone accepts it, and if it is promoted by the whole army, the twisted melon will not be sweet. There is no way around it.

The production capacity of the Heluo New Army's military system is quite astonishing. In just one month, [-] brand-new front-loading rifles were delivered to Xue Siming, and the Wuyang Military Factory also produced [-] rifles. , It took only one month for the three thousand archers to complete the change.The Tianxiong Army sent a regiment of officers to teach them experience. Under the command of these experienced officers, three thousand musketeers underwent strict formation and shooting training.These trainings are nothing to the musketeers. They have practiced most of the things, but the weapons in their hands have been replaced with muskets.

On the training ground, gunshots continued all day long. Following the officer’s command, the musketeers pulled the trigger again and again, and the bullets rained like rain. The terrifying power caused the troops who had not yet changed their outfits to look at each other and murmured in their hearts: It seems that the musketeer’s lethality The force is more than a little stronger than the formation-breaking crossbow. Maybe it can really restrain the cavalry who built slaves?

There is no free lunch in the world. The Tianxiong Army sent not only the officer corps, but also a large group of gunners. They will conduct artillery training under the guidance of the Heluo New Army, and master the use and maintenance skills of the rear-loading rifled guns.Didn't the Tianxiong Army order 85 [-]mm howitzers and [-] rocket launchers? These are all solid black technologies, and they won't work without a lot of training.Of course, the artillery of the Heluo New Army is also half a barrel of water, well, let's study and ponder together.

At the same time, the military industry also improved the rocket launcher.In the Battle of Lushun, the Heluo New Army put sixteen rocket launchers into the battlefield, causing heavy damage to Houjin with overwhelming shooting, and made great achievements, but Yang Menglong was very dissatisfied with the power of the rocket launchers.In his opinion, he fired so many rocket shells in that battle, but the damage to Hou Jin was far lower than expected. No, it needs to be improved!When encountering such a cheating guy, those technicians could only resign themselves to their fate, and tried every means to improve the warhead of the rocket, increased the charge, and stuffed a lot of discordant things like steel balls into it, so as to Increase the killing density.The most notable improvement, of course, was the replacement of the collodion in the warhead with a more lethal explosive.This kind of explosive was accidentally produced when the chemical laboratory was dealing with tar. After experiments, it was found that the yellow powder would explode violently when it was hit, and it would also ignite a big fire. Its high explosive and flammable characteristics combined with The astonishing firepower density of the rocket launcher is simply a perfect match!

The name of this cheating explosive is "picric acid".It was originally intended to be used as a dye for bleaching and dyeing fabrics, but the lunatics in the chemical laboratory have a good habit of trying every means to see if the product of each experiment can be fried, whether it is powerful or not, so picric acid is not As in history, it was used as a dye for 150 years after it was discovered. It was not used in the military until a hard-working worker smashed the dye bucket with a hammer and caused a big explosion.As for the contact between picric acid and copper, it is easy to form highly sensitive copper picric acid... It's so easy to handle. Apply a layer of wax to the inside of the shell to prevent direct contact between the explosive and the metal!

After the first batch of new shells were delivered, the technicians from the military factory yelled at the artillerymen to bring in two rocket launchers, load them with new shells, ignite them, and aim at a hill.Under the horrified gaze of dozens of officers, there was a hair-raising shriek from the gun barrel, and fire dragons rushed out of it, clawing their teeth and claws at the hill three kilometers away.Dazzling explosion spots suddenly rose from the front of the hill, followed by an impenetrable and thunderous explosion, the flames soared into the sky, and the grass and trees were engulfed by the fire. The horrible scene like purgatory made all the officers tremble. Horrified... What would the consequences be if he was bombarded with such a density?I can't even imagine it!
Xue Siming murmured, "Scary..."

Qi Hu said: "Even an iron-clad army will completely collapse under such a fierce blow!"

Lei Shisheng, who led the team to guide the training of the Heluo New Army musketeers, turned pale. He must be glad that the Tianxiong Army is not the enemy of the Heluo New Army, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous!

Of course, what is even more fortunate is that the Tianxiong Army will soon be able to buy such an incomparably powerful weapon from the Heluo New Army!
Zhong Ning ran over on horseback to see if there were any living things on the hill, and came back quickly, threw a half-burnt hare in front of everyone, pointed to the wound on the hare, and said, "Steel balls hit the hare." Come out, two holes! One for the head, one for the crotch!"

Everyone looked at the wound on the hare and took a deep breath.A small rabbit was hit by two steel balls. The density of damage is abnormal. If more than a dozen rockets fired at the same time, would the enemy still survive?Cao Jun smiled wryly: "With such artillery, don't fight any more battles. Any more fights will be just a one-sided massacre!"

Xu Gong said: "Using this kind of artillery to directly cover the enemy's phalanx is no different from Zhuge Liang's burning of the rattan armor army."

Zu Dale said fiercely: "This effect is what I want! I can't wait to have a hundred or dozens of these cannons right away, blowing up Jiannu to ashes!"

It seems that General Zu Er's resentment towards Jiannu is not as deep as usual!
(End of this chapter)