Chapter 531: The Son of Heaven Tours the Camp in the Suburbs of Beijing
In this case, the laborers involved in road construction this time will naturally become people with road construction experience. It is certain that the Ming Dynasty will definitely build a large number of roads in the future, so this first batch of experienced road construction laborers can rely on their own experience
Promote the construction of roads in various places.
This time, the court spent less than half a month to raise 30,000 young people. During this half-month, the court also made complete preparations for the repair of Beijing-Tianjin Road.
Whether it is road planning, various tools needed to build roads, or even the required cement, they have all been allocated in advance. It can be said that they are just waiting for the young people recruited to be in place.
According to Chinese customs, for such a big project as building a road, it is natural to choose an auspicious day and then break ground.
The Beijing-Tianjin Road is being repaired here in a vigorous manner, and Li Huan's previous report to the emperor to recruit an army of 200,000 has also begun.
According to what the emperor said, one hundred thousand soldiers and horses needed to be recruited in the first year, so the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion sent a large number of officials to the front and posted recruitment notices everywhere.
It is said that good men should not be soldiers, especially the existence of the military household system, which almost makes people avoid recruiting soldiers. Not to mention that once they are recruited into the army, they will die on the battlefield. The key is that even if they die fighting for the country, the court will
Even pensions may not be distributed there, which makes recruiting soldiers very difficult.
But that was in the past, but it is different now. The imperial court's current finances can be said to be extremely abundant. After determining the amount of recruitment, the cabinet allocated the generals' salaries almost immediately.
The white money is just there, and there are still twelve taels of Anjia silver that are shining brightly, so the recruitment of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion is progressing extremely smoothly.
Li Huan even sent members of the Jin Yiwei to keep an eye on the officials who were recruiting in various places, both covertly and covertly, to ensure that these officials would not deceive the superiors and conceal the money of the soldiers.
After killing several officials who dared to reach out, seeing the heads of these officials, the remaining officials became much more at ease, and no one dared to take advantage of the money.
A huge school ground outside the capital is being repaired. This school ground covers a very large area and can accommodate a hundred thousand troops.
There are schools like this in the eastern suburbs of the capital and one in the western suburbs. Li Huan is currently inspecting the final touches of the school grounds in the eastern suburbs.
A large amount of cement was used in the renovation of this school ground, which can be said to give people a refreshing feeling.
Honorable men and generals from the Fifth Army Governor's Office, such as Zhang Lun and Zhu Fu, also followed Li Huan to inspect the school ground in front of them. Many people came here for the first time, so when they saw this huge school ground, their eyes were filled with emotion.
Full of surprise.
Zhu Fu stroked his beard and sighed: "This school ground is really the only one I have ever seen in my life. Qin Guogong is really good at it."
Not only Zhu Fu, but everyone else also had expressions of admiration on their faces.
Li Huan chuckled and said: "Gong Chengguo praised it ridiculously. It's just that he used some cement."
When mentioning cement, Zhu Fu's eyes flashed and he said: "That cement is really a good thing. It can be used to build city walls. The simple bastion before was integrated into one, and there was a garrison of soldiers and horses stationed in it, which was enough to withstand the enemy.
Ten times the enemy, if all the city gates in the border areas of the Ming Dynasty were repaired with cement, how could the Tatars on the grassland cross the Great Wall and enter the Central Plains."
Li Huan smiled slightly and shook his head and said: "Why didn't the old prince say that if we use these cements to build a few big cities on the grassland and then suppress them with a large army, for thousands of years, the northern grasslands will
The hidden dangers will no longer exist!”
Everyone paused when they heard this, and the eyes of many generals shone with strange gleams. For example, Xu Ying even clapped her hands and praised: "Okay, okay, what the Duke of Qin said is true. In the past, I thought on the grassland.
Building a city is not only due to the lack of various resources needed to build a city, but also to build a city that takes a long time. But now that we have artifacts like cement, as long as we have enough manpower, we can build a majestic city in a short time.
, In that case, the grassland will be firmly in the hands of our Ming Dynasty. As the Duke of Qin said, from now on, our Ming Dynasty will no longer have the trouble of the Tatars in the north."
While he was talking, a distinguished noble couldn't help but said to Li Huan: "Why don't you, Duke of Qin, write to your majesty to ask for your permission to build a city on the grassland?"
Li Huan said calmly: "It is not difficult to build a city on the grassland. The key is to defeat the Tatars first. Otherwise, the Tatars are still strong. Even if we want to build a city on the grassland,
The Tatars are not fools, how could they sit back and watch us build a city in their heartland."
After hearing what Li Huan said, everyone nodded in agreement.
Xu Ying looked like she was gearing up and said, "I really want to lead the army to attack the grassland immediately."
Seeing Xu Ying's appearance, everyone couldn't help laughing. Li Huan even laughed and said: "No rush, no rush, as long as we train elite soldiers, sooner or later we can conquer the northern grasslands."
As he spoke, Li Huan looked at the crowd with a serious look and said: "Tomorrow, the eastern suburbs school field will be delivered, and the first batch of recruited soldiers will also be stationed at the school field. Li will urge the Ministry of War and the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion to provide the training needs
, but I hope you can train a truly elite force for the imperial court."
More than a dozen young generals who had stood out in several battles, such as Xu Ying and Chen Ang, all patted their chests and promised Li Huan that they would never disappoint the imperial court's expectations and train an elite army for the imperial court.
On November 19, the tenth year of Zhengde, accompanied by hundreds of officials, the emperor drove out of the imperial city and walked on the spacious and extremely smooth road straight out of the city gate.
At this time, both sides of the spacious road were surrounded by densely packed black people, except for the soldiers from the Beijing camp who maintained order.
Previously, the imperial court recruited a large number of young men to build the Beijing-Tianjin Road. As soon as the extremely novel cement came out, it immediately attracted the attention of countless people.
On weekdays, a large number of people come to watch. Every day they see the extremely hard road extending at a very fast speed as if it is growing. Many people are stunned to see it.
If there were not patrol personnel patrolling twelve hours a day, those curious people would have been unable to resist running onto the road to take a closer look.
Now that the Beijing-Tianjin Road, which stretches for more than 100 miles, has been officially connected, it required more than 30,000 manpower and took one month and thirteen days. This speed is definitely very fast.
As the emperor, Zhu Houzhao slowly walked down the imperial road and stepped on the smooth road. At a glance, the flat road with a width of four feet stretched all the way into the distance, with no end in sight.
Looking at the flat road, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but admired: "Okay, what a wide road. With this road, from now on, it will be possible to reach the capital directly from Tianjin Wei in less than an hour."
Yang Yiqing, the newly promoted cabinet minister who was promoted to the cabinet not long ago, stroked his beard and said: "Your Majesty, if we hurry up, it won't even take an hour. Even those heavy carriages transporting goods between Beijing and Tianjin can't move at the same speed.
It can be improved by a factor of two.”
Zhu Houzhao couldn't help laughing when he heard this. He glanced at many officials who saw this cement road for the first time. These officials were looking at the cement road under their feet with great curiosity. Their reactions were the same as when they first saw it.
The first time I was led by Li Huan, I saw that the cement road was the same.
After laughing, Zhu Houzhao's expression straightened, his eyes fell on the cabinet and Li Huan and others and said: "Dear gentlemen, now that the Beijing-Tianjin Road is connected, it is enough to see that this cement road is our Ming Dynasty's magic weapon to connect the four directions to control the country.
The first step must be to find a way to connect the capital and the nine border areas. I have to ensure that even in distant Gansu and Liaodong towns, once the imperial court sends troops, reinforcements must arrive within half a month."
Wang Yangming and others looked at each other, bowed to the emperor and said, "I will accept the order!"
At the school grounds in the eastern suburbs, Zhu Houzhao, dressed in military uniform, was patrolling the school grounds, accompanied by nobles and generals such as Li Huan and Zhang Lun.
In the distance, one can see the military formations being drilled in an orderly manner under the leadership of their respective battalion officers. The shouts of killing echoed through the sky, making people's blood boil with excitement.
Suddenly, there was a roar in the distance, like thunder. The horses under Li Huan and others were already accustomed to this roar. Otherwise, if there was a sudden explosion, all the horses would have been frightened.
Already.
Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but his eyes lit up when he heard the roaring sound. Looking around, he saw a puff of gunpowder smoke filling a military formation in the distance. It turned out that several battalions of cannon soldiers were training there.
Zhu Houzhao took the lead and rushed forward, followed closely by Li Huan and others. When they got closer, they saw groups of soldiers holding long spears in their hands and aiming ahead. They lined up in several rows. Whenever a battalion officer gave an order,
The soldiers in the front row opened fire decisively, and then pushed back from both sides. The second row stepped forward to replace the previous first row.
Several rows of soldiers were going back and forth one after another, and the roar was continuous, directly creating a dense area of fire and bullets. Even if you were in ignorance, seeing such a situation, you can imagine that if anyone dares to attack the fire gun array head-on, only
I'm afraid I'll hit my head and bleed.
Upon seeing this, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but clapped his hands and praised: "Okay, okay, this fire gun army formation is an elite one!"
On the other hand, Zhu Fu's eyes fell on the firecrackers in the hands of the soldiers. As a veteran who had served several generations of emperors and was in charge of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion all year round, Zhu Fu could also say that he was concerned about the situation of firearms in the capital camp.
Quite understanding.
Zhu Fu still knew how powerful the firearms in the army were. At this moment, looking at the rows of firecrackers in front of him, the lead bullets erupted from the firecrackers were far more powerful than the firecrackers he had remembered. He couldn't help but feel surprised.
color.
Zhu Fu subconsciously turned his gaze to Li Huan, who was following the emperor. He seemed to have noticed Zhu Fu's gaze. Li Huan chuckled and said, "Does Duke Cheng Guo have something to say?"
Several people also looked at Zhu Fu, and Zhu Fu pointed to the fire guns in the hands of the soldiers and said: "If I remember correctly, the power of my great fire gun is far inferior to the firearms in the hands of these soldiers.
ah."
Zhu Fu said with a smile: "Is it possible that the War Bureau under the Ministry of Industry has developed some powerful firecrackers?"
Zhu Houzhao looked at Li Huan, knowing that all affairs of the new army were actually arranged by Li Huan, so the obviously powerful firearms in the hands of these soldiers were naturally inseparable from Li Huan.
Li Huan smiled and explained: "What Duke Cheng Guo said is true. The War Bureau did indeed develop new firearms. It was just because the general improved the steelmaking technology that the steel produced by our Ming Dynasty had better performance."
Far more than before, in this case, forging the fire cannon will naturally greatly increase the power of the fire cannon."
While speaking, Li Huan stretched out his hand and saw a battalion officer quickly handing a blunderbuss to Li Huan, and Li Huan presented it to the emperor and said: "Your Majesty, please look, this is my Ming Dynasty general."
The new firecracker newly developed by the director has at least doubled its power compared to previous firecrackers in terms of range, wear resistance, and power."
Zhu Houzhao's eyes couldn't help but light up.
The Ming Dynasty relied on a large number of firearms to drive the decadent Mongolian Yuan Dynasty out of the Central Plains. It can be said that the proportion of firearms in the Ming Dynasty army has always been quite large. If the power of firearms increases sharply, it means that the Ming Dynasty
The strength of the army skyrocketed accordingly.
This can be seen just by watching the scenes of these gunmen in training shooting.
Zhang Lun and other noble generals had excited faces. They didn't know that the increase in the power of firearms meant that the strength of the army had soared.
The surge in military strength is the guarantee for their honor, wealth, and future military exploits.
After all, as long as the strength of the army increases greatly, it will be difficult for them to defeat them on the battlefield in the future, and military merit is the foundation of their noble generals.
As long as they have military merit, they will still have enough qualifications and confidence to compete with those civil servants in the court.
I heard Zhang Lun say with some excitement: "Your Majesty, I think that if we install these firecrackers in large quantities, as long as we have enough firecrackers arrayed, even if the Tatars on the grassland invade again, our Ming Dynasty can do it."
Crush him to death."
Zhu Houzhao cast his eyes on Li Huan, and Li Huan naturally understood the meaning, and said immediately: "Your Majesty, don't worry. In half a year at most, the Fire Gun Camp alone can be expanded to as many as ten."
Everyone's eyes suddenly lit up when they heard this. According to the standards of the Daming Firearms Battalion, there are about five thousand people in total including gunmen, artillery, and cavalry.
And Li Huan said that ten battalions could be deployed in half a year. This is an army of 50,000 that is almost purely firearms. Thinking of this, all the nobles and generals who know something about the Ming Dynasty's soldiers and horses are shocked and confused.
A look of confidence.
Shenji Camp, one of the three major camps of the Ming Dynasty, is purely firearms-based, and the entire Shenji Camp only has more than 5,000 people.
There are many firearms in the Ming army, but only one battalion of pure firearms is the Shenji camp. Now according to Li Huan's wishes, if the Ming Dynasty is willing, the Ming Dynasty can produce ten Shenji battalions in half a year, far exceeding the previous ones.
A purely firearms-based battalion of battalion strength came out.