Chapter 1,687: Artillery and infantry coordination, brave formation appears
"Zi Hou, how much does this cotton armor cost? How long does it take to make a set of these cotton armor?"
After Zhang Jing finished testing the cotton armor, he called Zhu Pingan over and asked Zhu Pingan in detail.
Zhu Ping'an knew that Zhang Jing was impressed by the excellent defensive performance of the cotton armor. This was a good thing. If we could take this opportunity to promote the Qing Dynasty cotton armor to the Ming Dynasty official army, there would be a significant increase in the combat effectiveness of the Ming Dynasty official army. become.
Although the armor coverage rate is not a decisive factor in an army's combat effectiveness, it is undeniable that the higher the armor coverage rate, the better the army's chance of winning.
Historically, the Ming Army's armor coverage rate was actually not high due to various reasons. Although many people in modern times have concluded through various arguments that the Ming Army's armor coverage rate was about 90%, this is not accurate. It is famous in history. Take the Battle of Songjin as an example. After the war, the Qing troops under Huang Taiji counted the corpses of the Ming troops and found that less than one-third of the deceased were wearing armor.
With the financial resources of the Ming Dynasty, it is not a problem for the army to popularize cotton armor. The armor armor rate of the Ming army is close to 100%, at least the lower limit will not be too low.
This was a good opportunity for the butterfly effect. Naturally, Zhu Ping'an would not let it go. He strongly recommended to Zhang Jing: "Go back to the governor, making a pair of cotton armor requires eight pounds of cotton, twenty pounds of iron and eight pounds of copper. The total weight is It weighs about thirty-six kilograms, and the cost is about a quarter of iron armor. Our Zhejiang army makes cotton armor, which is divided into eight categories: helmet, body armor, cape, arm sleeves, front guard, left guard, armor skirt, and goggles Parts, ten processes, each process can be started at the same time, mass production of cotton armor, the more people, the greater the output, from cotton to cotton armor, a few days is enough if the weather is good, the time is much lower than that of iron armor , suitable for short-term large-scale installation.”
"Oh, it saves time, effort and money, yes, yes." After hearing this, Zhang Jing couldn't help but nodded.
The cost of a set of Zhejiang Army cotton armor is only a quarter of that of iron armor, and the process only requires ten steps, which can be completed in a few days; while iron armor, not to mention the price, also requires a lot of hard work and is very complicated. It is also time-consuming and labor-intensive and cannot be mass-produced; in comparison, cotton armor has great advantages.
"Although the cotton armor is good, what should I do when it rains? It rains a lot in the south of the Yangtze River. Once it rains, the cotton armor will be soaked, let alone serious. What should the wet soldiers do if they get sick? Moreover, it is easy to get moldy when wet." The official spoke out.
"Bring water."
Zhu Ping'an smiled slightly and asked someone to fetch several large buckets of water.
"Use a ladle to pour water on the cotton armor, and pour a few more ladles on each pair of cotton armor." Zhu Ping'an ordered the soldiers.
The soldiers followed the orders without compromise at all, pouring water on their cotton armors. Six or seven ladles of water were poured on each pair of cotton armors, which was more pouring than the pouring rain.
In full view of everyone, as soon as the water was poured onto the cotton armor, it flowed down as if it had been poured onto linoleum.
"My lords, please take a look." Zhu Pingan asked Zhang Jing and others to come forward to inspect the cotton armor.
"It's actually waterproof?" Everyone looked at the cotton armor and found that the cotton armor was barely wet. They opened their mouths in disbelief.
"This is the cotton armor developed by our Zhejiang Army. It is invulnerable to swords, can protect against bows and arrows, is impermeable to rain, is not rotten by mold, and cannot be damaged by blunderbuss. If the battle is fierce and the cotton armor is damaged by sharp weapons or firearms, just
Just replace the broken part. If the shawl is broken, replace the shawl, and if the arm sleeve is broken, replace the arm sleeve."
Zhu Pingan continued to recommend it to Zhang Jing and others.
"Yes, cotton armor is very promising. How many skilled craftsmen do you have in the Zhejiang Army to make cotton armor?" Zhang Jing asked.
"Most of the soldiers in our Zhejiang Army Equipment Battalion are proficient in making cotton armor. In addition, the craft of cotton armor is simple. A blacksmith can master the craftsmanship of cotton armor after a few days of training." Zhu Pingan replied.
After hearing this, Zhang Jing nodded, "I will organize a group of blacksmiths to come to your camp to learn how to make cotton armor later. You are not allowed to hide your secrets."
"Don't worry, Governor-General, our army will never hide anything for anything, and will definitely give it to everyone." Zhu Ping'an assured.
"Very good." Zhang Jing nodded. The cotton armor was much more valuable than the pigs raised in the camp just now. With this harvest, even if the Zhejiang Army went astray by relying heavily on firearms, this inspection was worthwhile.
.
Well, let's take a look at the Zhejiang Army's firearms drill to correct Zhu Pingan's wrong thinking and lead the Zhejiang Army on the right path.
Just think of it as a reward for the Zhejiang Army's breeding of cotton armor.
So, Zhang Jing said to Zhu Ping'an, "Zi Hou, you continue to practice. Let us see how your army practices firearms."
"As commanded."
Zhu Pingan accepted the order and ordered the Zhejiang army to continue training.
"Sir, please sit on the stage and watch." Zhu Pingan led Zhang Jing and others to sit on the temporary high platform.
Zhang Jing and others sat on chairs on the high platform to watch the Zhejiang army's drill.
In front of everyone, soldiers from a battalion of the Zhejiang Army were displayed on the school grounds. The battalion commander raised his saber and waved it vigorously. Twenty soldiers came out of the battalion, each carrying a novel small bowl-mouth blunderbuss on their shoulders.
artillery.
It is said to be a bowl-mouth blunderbuss, but it is actually very different from a bowl-mouth blunderbuss. The gun body is slightly longer and slender than the bowl-mouth blunderbuss. There are five iron hoops on the gun body. It looks a bit like a Franco-style gun, but it is smaller than a Franco-style gun.
Artillery is much smaller and simpler.
According to visual inspection, each small artillery weighs about twenty or thirty pounds, and can be carried by one person.
There are two tiger-leg-like brackets at the front end of the gun port. The brackets are not fixed and can move at a certain angle. After the soldiers came out with the small artillery, they put the small artillery on the ground and adjusted the brackets so that the cannon pointed upwards.
Sky.
After adjusting the angle, the soldier took out a large oil-paper gunpowder bag from his waist, bit it open with his mouth and poured it into the muzzle. The gunpowder bag contained black powder mixed with small stones, and then stuffed a solid stone bullet into it and compacted it.
The soldiers reloaded quickly and were obviously well-trained.
"Fire!" a corps commander shouted, and twenty gunners lit the fuses almost simultaneously.
In an instant, there was a loud "bang bang bang" sound of landslides and ground cracking.
Twenty artillery pieces fired almost at the same time, accompanied by a burst of fire and smoke, large and small stone bombs flew together, and the ground was filled with blackness. The ground about two hundred meters ahead was filled with craters from the shelling, and there were densely packed small craters around the twenty obviously large craters.
Covering a radius of nearly 100 meters, the ground being bombarded looked like the surface of the moon.
Zhang Jing and others who were watching from the high platform couldn't help but shrink their eyes. The artillery of the Zhejiang Army was small, but it was very powerful. The range of the artillery was much longer than that of a bowl-mouth blunderbuss, and it did not give in to the Franco machine gun.
Moreover, the Zhejiang army's artillery fired large and small stones and bullets, covering a large area with one blast, which was extremely lethal.
If this cannon were fired into a group of Japanese pirates, a large number of them would be killed with one shot.
Before Zhang Jing and others could recover from the power of the Zhejiang Army's small artillery, they saw the Zhejiang Army soldiers skillfully loading ammunition again, and then gave an order and fired another shot. The interval between the two shots was only a few breaths.
time.
Before Zhang Jing and others could recover, they saw the soldiers of the Zhejiang Army's battalion begin to charge forward just after the second cannon blast.
It rushed more than a hundred meters in one breath and stopped about fifty meters away from the impact point of the shell.
Then, Zhang Jing and others saw the three front rows of Zhejiang soldiers. The first row squatted, the second row bent down, and the third row stood up straight. They were skilled in using flat-ended fire blunderbuss and pulled the trigger to fire. There was a neat burst of
"Bang bang bang" sounded.
Then, the three rows of soldiers retreated from both sides to the end of the camp, and began to load ammunition skillfully. The soldiers from the original fourth row, fifth row, and sixth row came forward, just like before, one row squatted down, and the other row bent down.
Standing straight in a row, they also fired forward with their flat-ended fireguns.
In this rotation, after the fifth, sixth and seventh rows finished shooting, the first three rows of soldiers quickly loaded their gunpowder, and after taking a few breaths, they stepped forward to fire again.
Taking turns like this, I shot several rounds in one go with almost no pause.
Zhang Jing, Hu Zongxian and others on the high platform couldn't help but widened their eyes and opened their mouths. They looked at this scene in shock and could not recover for a long time.