Newspaper, there is the latest pond report.” The soldier at the gate submitted the latest pond report to Zhu Pingan.
Zhu Pingan opened the pond report and browsed through it, this pond report recorded a number of Japanese incidents, in the second two-thirds of the pond report, he found the news of the Shangyu Japanese pirates, yesterday, this group of Japanese pirates robbed the Shexian County of Huizhou from the Jixi County of Huizhou, and after looting two villages, they marched sharply all night long, and raided into Jingde County of Ningguo Prefecture. The newspaper also recorded that Cai Yaozuo, the official of Jingde County, gathered more than 1,100 soldiers and horses, bought a coffin from a coffin shop, and said, “This official has been benefited by the imperial court for generations, and has been supported by the elders and fathers of Jingde County for generations, so I can’t take it as a repayment, but now that the Japanese invaders have violated the border and killed my elders and fathers, Cai will vow to exterminate the Japanese invaders, and if I succeed in my endeavour, the coffin will be full of the Japanese invaders’ skulls, and I will take the heads of the Japanese invaders with me. If I succeed, this coffin will be full of Japanese heads, so that I can offer them to the souls of the people in heaven; if I fail and die on the battlefield, I would be grateful if you would carry me back in the coffin.” After saying this, the people carried the coffin all the way and swore to go out of the city to exterminate the Japanese invaders.
The pond newspaper only recorded that Cai Dianshi swore to go out of the city, and when it was issued, Cai Dianshi had not yet fought with the Japanese invaders.
The newspaper was optimistic about Cai Denshi’s fight against the Japanese. It analysed that the reason why those counties failed to fight against the Japanese was because they did not have enough troops, and all of them had three to five hundred people to fight against the Japanese, and now there were only less than one hundred and twenty people left in the group of the Japanese, while Cai Denshi had assembled more than one thousand and one hundred soldiers, which was ten times more than that of the Japanese, and in addition, Cai Denshi was skilful in bowing and horse riding and he was a martial arts general of a family, and he was also determined to go out to the city with his coffin. The so-called “mournful army will always win”, and Cai Dianshi will be able to achieve success in this battle.
I hope that Cai Dianshi will be able to achieve success …….
Zhu Pingan closed the pond newspaper and read silently, but in his heart, he was sweating for Cai Dianshi.
There was nothing else!
This group of Japanese invaders was too strong.
If not for the elite troops, the ordinary soldiers and guards are no match for this group of Japanese invaders.
Strength Advantage …… General strength advantage is not enough to eliminate this group of Japanese pirates, Shaoxing Prefecture before and after the collection of more than 2,000 troops to fight against the Japanese can not be successful, but instead of losing soldiers and generals; although now the Japanese pirates have only more than 110 soldiers, but the Japanese pirates originally only 150 people, the loss is not much, and the big waves of sand, the rest of the Japanese pirates are elite in the elite, each one of them is experienced in hundreds of battles, Cai Dianshi’s 1,100-odd soldiers are not sufficient to establish enough against the Japanese pirates, and the Japanese pirates are not enough. not enough to establish a sufficient advantage over the Japanese pirates.
Therefore, Zhu Pingan was somewhat worried for Cai Dianshi.
“Bang, bang, bang ……”
On the Peach Blossom Set School Ground, the Zhejian Army had already begun live-fire drills, with a cloud of smoke and the pungent smell of gunpowder filling the air.
One of the directions of Zhu Pingan’s practice for the Zhejian army was firearms.
If crossbows and arrows were a major revolution in ancient warfare, then firearms were a subversive revolution in warfare.
The replacement of cold weapons by hot weapons was a historical inevitability, and Zhu Pingan decided to bring this step forward.
Zhu Pingan has a clear perception of himself, his understanding and experience of cold war, relative to this cold war era, does not account for much advantage, relative to the famous generals of this era, such as Qi Jiguang, Yu Da Thu, etc., he is in fact far from being able to compare to them, but if you say that the hot war, that Qi Jiguang, Yu Da Thu, and they, and even not exaggeratedly say that this era, there is no one who can compare to their own! This is the advantage of hundreds of years of experience. Therefore, whether it is to comply with the development of the times or to develop the strengths and avoid the weaknesses, Zhu Pingan will certainly advance the Zhejiang army towards the road of firearms.
Although the firearms of this era were still rough and immature, they still held a huge advantage over cold weapons, it was just that the people of this era did not have enough understanding and application of firearms.
Firstly, the time cost. Cultivate a qualified cavalryman, no two years or so, can’t be cultivated; Cultivate a qualified melee veteran, relatively easy, but also have to need a year and a half of time; Cultivate a qualified long-range archery soldier, easier than cultivate melee veteran, but also have to be three or five months; Cultivate a qualified cannon soldier, the cost of time is relatively low, one or two months of time can be done.
Secondly, the cost of soldiers. Cold weapons era, relative to the hot weapons era, the quality of the source of higher requirements, strong body and other requirements are very high, after all, the cold weapons era of gas is the foundation of the war power, if you are weak, small strength, that wield the big sword and spear weakness, not open the longbow, then you are a liability. However, in the age of hot weapons, you just need to be able to hold a gun, that’s enough.
Also, the cost of range. Cold war, wielding swords and spears, not a few rounds of panting, pulling the bow and arrow relative range of some strong, but in ancient times, even shooting eight arrows is qualified archers, even shooting twelve arrows is the elite archers, in general, an archer in a battle that lasts for a number of hours to shoot fifty arrows is almost the limit. But the cannon, it is much less effort, filling gunpowder is almost no effort, pull the trigger is also no effort, as long as the gunpowder is sufficient, the gun does not blow up, theoretically he can be unlimited range.
Therefore, the focus of Zhu Pingan’s drilling of the Zhejian army is firearms.
However, it is a pity that the cannons and guns of this era are really too rough, the cannons are still fire rope guns, too backward, Zhu Pingan, although he is a liberal arts student majoring in ancient Chinese literature, unlike the science students who will build guns and cannons, but he has not eaten pork and seen pigs running, after all, he is from the modern era, and has hundreds of years of historical experience, and he still has some ideas for improving firearms of this era, or at least he can provide some ideas.
For example, using flint instead of fire rope, such as adding rifling to the barrel to improve shooting distance and accuracy, and so on.
There was a famous saying, “Genius is one per cent inspiration, plus ninety-nine per cent sweat, but that one per cent inspiration is the most important, even more important than that ninety-nine per cent sweat.”
Although he himself does not know how to install the flint, not to mention how to carve the rifling in the barrel, but he can provide this epoch-making idea now, through the able craftsmen, a thousand times the test, will always be able to successfully produce it.
Of course, there are also ideas that can be realised without the need for able craftsmen.
For example, one of the great epoch-making techniques to increase the loading speed of a fire-rope gun – the grease-paper powder pack. The gunpowder and cartridges will be wrapped in greaseproof paper, and when loading the gun, the end of the paper can be used by tearing it open with the mouth, which can be used to load the gun easily and quickly, avoiding the soldiers’ shooting malfunctions and accidents on the fierce battlefields due to the nervousness, swiftness, and other factors such as loading too much or too little launching gunpowder. This technique seemed simple and inconspicuous, but according to the historical development, it needed to be invented until around the 17th century.
However, it had been invented ahead of time by Zhu Pingan right now. Zhu Pingan also remembered this technique after he found out two days ago that the Zhejiang Army was slow in loading gunpowder, and there were often cases where loading too much or too little led to accidents.
Now the Zhejian army is using oil paper gunpowder packs to train their cannons, and the speed has more than doubled.
This technique was classified by Zhu Pingan as a top secret of the Zhejian army and was strictly forbidden to be leaked to the enemy.
Of course, Zhu Pingan also did not cherish, this invention skills recorded in the secret fold, reported to the Jiajing Emperor. It was just that the Ming army was not paying enough attention to firearms at the moment, and his own suggestion would not necessarily attract enough attention. However, it is believed that as the Zhejian army becomes an army, and as the Zhejian army builds up its reputation, this situation will surely change.
