Zi Hou, how much does this cotton armour cost? How long does it take to make a set of such cotton armour?”
After testing the cotton armour, Zhang Jing called Zhu Pingan to him and asked him in detail.
Zhu Pingan knew that Zhang Jing was impressed by the outstanding defensive performance of the cotton armour, this was a good thing, if he could take this opportunity to promote the Manchu cotton armour to the Ming army, there would be a significant increase in the fighting strength of the Ming army.
Although the rate of armour is not the decisive element of the army’s combat effectiveness, but undeniably, the higher the rate of armour, the more the army can have a chance of winning.
Historically, the armour rate of the Ming army was not high due to various reasons, although in modern times many people have concluded through various arguments that the armour rate of the Ming army reached about 90%, but it is not accurate. To the history of the famous battle of pine brocade, for example, after the war, Huang taiji ministry of army counting Ming army corpses, found that the dead armour rate of less than one-third.
With the financial strength of the Ming, the popularity of cotton armour in the official army was not a problem, and the rate of armour draping was close to one hundred percent of the Ming army, or at least the lower limit would not be too low.
This is a good opportunity for the butterfly effect, Zhu Pingan naturally will not let go, and strongly recommended to Zhang Jing: “Back to the Governor, the production of a pair of cotton armour needs eight pounds of cotton, twenty pounds of iron and eight pounds of copper, weighing a total of about thirty-six pounds, the cost of about a quarter of the iron armour. I Zhejian army production of cotton armour, divided into helmet, body armour, shoulders, armour sleeves, front gear, left gear, armour skirt, heart mirror eight parts, ten processes, each process can be started at the same time, mass production of cotton armour, the more manpower, the greater the production, from cotton to cotton armour, if the weather is good, a few days will be enough, the time-consuming than the iron armour is a lot lower, suitable for short-term large-scale mounting.”
“Oh, save time, save labour and save money, not bad, not bad ……” Zhang Jing couldn’t help but nod after hearing this.
The cost of a set of Zhejun cotton armour was only a quarter of that of iron armour, and the process was only ten procedures, which could be made in a few days; whereas for iron armour, it was expensive, not to mention the fact that the process also required a thousand hammers and refining was complicated, and it was time-consuming and laborious, and it could not be mass-produced; in contrast, the cotton armour’s advantage was too great.
“Although the cotton armour is good, but encounter rainy days how to do, I Jiangnan rainy ah, once it rains, cotton armour wet, heavy not to mention, wet soldiers sick how to do, and wet easy to mould ……”. An official voiced.
“Fetch water.”
Zhu Pingan smiled faintly and caused several large buckets of water to be fetched.
“Use a ladle to splash the water onto the cotton armour, a few more ladles per pair of cotton armour ……” Zhu Pingan instructed the generals.
The generals acted according to the order, without any compromise at all, splashing the water onto the cotton armour, each pair of cotton armour was splashed with six or seven scoops, more scoops than a downpour.
In full view of everyone, as soon as the water was poured onto the cotton armour, it flowed down as if it had been poured onto linoleum.
“Lords, please look.” Zhu Pingan invited Zhang Jing and the rest of the crowd to come forward and inspect the cotton armour.
“Surprisingly waterproof?” The crowd checked the cotton armour and found that it was barely wet, their mouths opened wide in disbelief.
“This is the cotton armour developed by our Zhejiang army, swords are harmless, bows and arrows can be prevented, rain is impervious, bushy black hair does not rot, and bird cannons cannot injure. If the battle is fierce and the cotton armour is damaged by sharp weapons or firearms, you only need to replace the broken part. If the cape is broken, replace the cape, if the armour sleeve is broken, replace the armour sleeve ……”
Zhu Pingan continued to recommend it to Zhang Jing and the others.
“Not bad, cotton armour is promising, how many skilled craftsmen do you have in the Zhejiang army to make cotton armour?” Zhang Jing asked.
“Most of the generals in the equipment battalion of my Zhejiang army are skilled in making cotton armour, in addition the cotton armour process is simple, a blacksmith can be skilled in the cotton armour making process after a few days of training.” Zhu Pingan returned.
After hearing this, Zhang Jing nodded, “Turn around, I will organise a group of blacksmiths to come to your battalion to learn the cotton armour making method, you are not allowed to hide anything.”
“Don’t worry Governor, our army will never hide anything, we will definitely teach you everything.” Zhu Pingan assured.
“Very well.” Zhang Jing nodded, the cotton armour was much more valuable than the pigs raised in the camp just now, with this harvest, even if the Zhejian army relied on firearms to go astray, this tour was not a wasted trip.
Well, take a look at the Zhejian army firearms drills, correct Zhu Pingan’s wrong ideas, and lead the Zhejian army onto the right path.
Think of it as a reward for the Zhejiang Army’s farming and cotton armour.
Thus, Zhang Jing said to Zhu Pingan, “Zi Hou, you guys go on with your drills, let’s see how your army drills firearms.”
“As you command.”
Zhu Pingan arched his hand to receive the order and instructed the Zhejian army to continue their drills.
“My lord, please sit on the stage and watch.” Zhu Pingan guided Zhang Jing and the others to sit on the temporarily built high platform.
Zhang Jing and the others sat on the chairs on the high platform to watch the Zhejiang army drill.
In the crowd’s line of sight, a battalion of Zhejiang Army soldiers was displayed on the school field, the battalion commander raised his saber and waved it with great force, twenty soldiers came out of the battalion, and each of them carried a new style of bowl-mouth cannon-style small artillery piece on their shoulders.
Said is a bowl mouth cannon, in fact, with the bowl mouth of the cannon is very different, the body of the cannon than the bowl mouth of the cannon slender some, the body of the cannon has five iron hoops, looks a bit of the feeling of the Franco-Chinese artillery, but more than the Franco-Chinese artillery is much more compact, much simpler.
It is estimated that each small cannon is about twenty to thirty kilograms, and can be carried by one person.
In the front of the cannon there are two tiger legs like bracket, the bracket is not fixed dead, but also can do a certain angle activities, the general carrying the small artillery out, put the small artillery on the ground, adjust the bracket, so that the artillery slanting up to point to the sky.
After adjusting the angle, the general took out a large oil-paper gunpowder packet from his waist and poured it into the mouth of the cannon by biting it open with his mouth; the gunpowder packet was black gunpowder mixed with small stones, and then a solid stone bullet was stuffed in and compacted.
The generals loaded quickly, obviously well trained.
“Fire!” A captain shouted out, and the twenty gunners ignited the fuses almost simultaneously.
Instantly, “Bang Bang Bang ……” There was a loud sound of a landslide.
The twenty artillery guns fired almost simultaneously, accompanied by a burst of fire and smoke, large and small stone bombs flew in unison, blackening the ground about two hundred metres in front of them, the ground was cratered by the artillery bombardment, the twenty obviously large craters surrounded by densely-packed small craters covering the surrounding area of nearly a hundred metres in a square circle, bombarding the ground as if it were the surface of the moon.
Watching on the platform, Zhang Jing and others can not help but eyes shrink, Zhejun this artillery is small, but the power is great, artillery range than the Bowkou Singijeon far more than the Franco-Chinese artillery, and Zhejun artillery size stone bombs flying, a bombing a large number of people, the killing power of a great deal of power.
If this cannon into the Japanese group, a cannon will have to die a large number of ……
Without waiting for Zhang Jing and the others to recover from the power of the Zhejun’s small artillery, they only saw the Zhejun’s generals begin to skillfully load the ammunition again, and then with a command, another cannon was fired, and the interval between the two cannons was only a few breaths of time.
Without waiting for Zhang Jing and the others to come back to their senses, they saw that this battalion of Zhejiang soldiers started charging forward just after the second cannon blast.
In one breath, they rushed more than a hundred metres and stopped about fifty metres away from where the cannonballs had landed.
Then, Zhang Jing and the others saw the front three rows of Zhejiang soldiers, the first row crouched down, the second row bent down, and the third row stood up straight, skilfully flat-ended the cannons, pulling the triggers to fire, and a neat “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Then, these three platoons retreated from the two sides to the end of the camp, and skilfully began to load the cannons. The fourth platoon, fifth platoon, and sixth platoon came forward, and just like the previous ones, one platoon crouched down, one platoon stooped down, one platoon stood up straight, and similarly flat-ended the cannons and fired forward.
In this rotation, after the fifth, sixth and seventh platoons finished firing, the first three platoons also quickly loaded the gunpowder, and after a few breaths, once again went forward to fire.
This rotation, almost no pause in one breath shot several rounds of …….
Zhang Jing, Hu Zongxian and others on the platform could not help but stare at this scene with their eyes and mouths wide open in shock, unable to return to their senses for a long time.
