The ruins were cleared very quickly, and all the ruins at Hefei's place had been cleared. Xue Yong came to Wu Shigong and asked for instructions: How should Hefei's people be arranged?
In fact, He Fei and the others have not trained for a few days in the military training of the Military and Horse Division, and now, the building of Wu Shigong's gambling house has also been built by craftsmen from the Ministry of Works. It will take some time to wait for completion. Shopkeeper Zheng
He was also very dedicated and watched the construction site every day. So for a while, the gambling house guards had no errands at all.
Wu Shigong thought about it and decided to train them well. He asked Xue Yong: Is there any place where these people can be trained? Xue Yong replied to Wu Shigong: There is a place in Xue Mansion. Outside the capital, there is a Zhuangzi who specializes in training Xue Mansion.
Guards. But what is the content of training these people?
Wu Shigong showed the military training plan he had drawn up to Xue Yong. After Xue Yong saw it, he had nothing to say about physical training, but he raised objections to queue training. Xue Yong said: The content of training soldiers in the Ming Dynasty was basically
They were all on horseback and dismounted, and there were few who were training the formation of soldiers.
But Wu Shigong remembered that in modern times, except for military parades, although he could not see the use of queue training in other places, queue training was always the most important thing in the army, whether it was training recruits or in military training for university entrance.
Important subjects are used for training. Since such emphasis is placed on it, it must have a significant role. Wu Shigong couldn't understand the reason, so he stubbornly told Xue Yong that queue training must be a focus and should account for half of the daily training time.
.
At other times, in addition to the fixed time physical training, just go to the training and get off the horse immediately as Xue Yong said. Regarding his uncle’s arrangement, Xue Yong could only express his obedience. Moreover, Xue Yong said that he would find two qualified people from the Beijing camp.
An experienced veteran is in charge of this military training.
However, Xue Yong told Wu Shigong that he had already asked among the gambling house guards. None of the people in the group could ride a horse. This surprised Wu Shigong. Are there Mongolians who can't ride a horse? Wu Shigong didn't know.
Mongolian descendants, like himself, are all fake Mongolians. After so many years of Chineseization, the Mongolian blood in them has been diluted to the point where even Han Li cannot refine it using the method of refining true spirit blood (see for details)
"The Story of a Mortal Cultivating Immortality").
In addition, in the Ming Dynasty, not to mention owning horses, but even raising horses was a big expense. If you wanted to raise a good horse, in addition to feeding grass every day, you also had to feed concentrate feed. You even had to add eggs to the concentrate feed.
How can people from poor families like He Fei get access to horses? Anyway, Wu Shigong told Xue Yong to hire an equestrian instructor for these people. They must be able to ride horses.
Xue Yong also asked Wu Shigong for instructions on what kind of protective weapons should be equipped with these people. Xue Yong told Wu Shigong that in fact, there were weapons in Xue Mansion, but they could not be assigned to He Fei's people because the guards of each Hou Mansion
There is a quota for the number. If there are too many guards carrying weapons in the Xungui family, the emperor will be worried.
But Wu Shigong recruited people like He Fei this time in the name of protecting Wu Shigong's property - gambling house guards. This argument is barely justified. But these guards must not be equipped with weapons. They can only be equipped with some wooden sticks.
What.
So Wu Shigong asked Xue Yong: "Can these gambling house guards be equipped with daggers?"
Xue Yong replied: "With some self-defense daggers, that's fine."
Wu Shigong was about to take advantage of the loophole, so he thought of making a dagger with a longer back handle and a hollow at the end of the back handle. In that case, if the dagger was inserted into a wooden stick, wouldn't it be a spear?
But such a special dagger required special craftsmanship. So Wu Shigong asked Xue Yong: Did he know any blacksmith with better skills?
Xue Yong really knew him. The blacksmith he knew was a blacksmith in Jingying, and his craftsmanship was among the best in Jingying. Moreover, this blacksmith also had a tight-knit tone. Wu Shigong decided that he was the one.
In the next few days, Wu Shigong found some free time and followed Xue Yong to the blacksmith's workshop in Jingying. The blacksmith looked about forty years old and his skin was tanned.
Xue Yong introduced Wu Shigong: "Uncle, this is Master Yang."
The blacksmith immediately kowtowed and said, "Little Yang Goudan pays homage to your lord."
Yang Goudan? This name has a strong rustic flavor. Wu Shigong didn't care what kind of egg it was, and asked Yang Goudan, "Can you make any knife?"
Yang Goudan was very confident. He patted his chest and said, "It can be as big as the Qinglong Yanyue Knife or as small as a nail clipper. As long as it's a knife, there's absolutely no problem."
Wu Shigong admired Yang Goudan's confidence very much. He told Yang Goudan the requirements and characteristics of the dagger he wanted to make. Unexpectedly, after Yang Goudan listened to Wu Shigong's idea, he also proposed it on the basis of Wu Shigong's.
He gave me some suggestions for improvement. He is indeed an expert.
Xue Yong on the side joked: "Master Yang's craftsmanship is really impressive."
Wu Shigong became more interested. As a person with a strong violent factor, Wu Shigong then asked Yang Goudan: "Then do you know how to use a musket?"
Yang Goudan thought for a while and said to Wu Shigong: "What you are asking about is the fire gun. I have one here. Let me show it to you first." Yang Goudan took out a fire gun from the back of the workshop.
Passed it to Wu Shigong.
Wu Shigong held the firecracker and was startled by its appearance.
That fire gun was taller than Wu Shigong, who was more than 1.8 meters tall. The barrel was very thin, almost the same thickness as the gun that Wu Shigong played with in his previous life. How powerful could this gun be? Wu Shigong asked: "This
Fireguns can also be used to kill birds, right?"
Unexpectedly, Yang Goudan replied proudly: "My lord is wise. This fire gun is called a bird gun." Yang Goudan felt very proud indeed. Because in the Ming Dynasty, there were no seamless steel pipes or lathes. Damn it.
Being able to make such a thin iron pipe by hand really requires some real skill.
Wu Shigong didn't care about Yang Goudan's pride. He asked Yang Goudan for his request for a gun. Wu Shigong drew on paper the appearance of the smoothbore shotgun he had played with in his previous life, and asked Yang Goudan
Said: "Can you make a firecracker like this?"
Yang Goudan looked at the pattern on the paper and asked Wu Shigong strangely: "Sir, do you want me to make such a simple fire gun?" For Yang Goudan, if he can make thin iron pipes, why not make thick ones?
What's the problem with the iron pipe?
Wu Shigong thought to himself: It's good if you have confidence. So Wu Shigong reached a deal with Yang Goudan. They made one hundred fifty daggers and one hundred fifty sabers. Although the sabers could not be carried by the gambling house guards for the time being, they were prepared.
There is nothing wrong with it.
In addition, Wu Shigong ordered five long fire blunderbuss and ten hand blunderbuss. The total was a round number, a total of 3,500 taels of silver. However, Wu Shigong told Yang Goudan to make one of the fire blunderbuss and hand blunderbuss first.
He came to take a look, and if there was anything wrong, he would modify and finalize it and then let Yang Goudan make it.
After leaving the blacksmith workshop, Wu Shigong thought to himself: The firearms of the Ming Dynasty do not seem to be as backward as imagined.
Wu Shigong was right. In the late Ming Dynasty, the small and medium-sized firearms in the Ming Dynasty's army were indeed not lagging behind those in Europe. They were just lagging behind in terms of cannons, but not by much. But why in modern times, China's
Are firearms lagging so far behind?
This mainly comes from two aspects:
The first reason is that the later Manchu and Qing governments did not pay much attention to firearms.
First of all, the eunuchs and officials who supervised the manufacture of firearms in the Ming Dynasty squeezed the craftsmen who made firearms very hard, and almost treated these craftsmen as slaves. In addition, because these eunuchs and officials embezzled the materials for making firearms, resulting in
It turns out that the quality of firearms manufactured in the Ming Dynasty was very low, resulting in phenomena such as explosive chambers often occurring when using firearms;
Secondly, the eunuchs and officials who managed the arsenal in the Ming Dynasty did not distribute the weapons and firearms they managed to the generals who used them. Instead, they asked these generals to purchase them in disguised form through bribery. And we already know that the Ming Dynasty
The military pay already includes the cost of purchasing weapons, so in order to save some money, these generals are unwilling to "purchase" these expensive firearms;
Finally: the Ming Dynasty’s army was poorly trained. When they saw the Manchu and Qing troops, they would often panic and fire outside the range of their firearms. They also used inferior firearms that were not powerful enough, resulting in firearms that were basically useless to the Manchu and Qing troops.
What a threat.
When the Manchu and Qing troops faced the blow of firearms, they saw that the role of firearms was almost negligible. Therefore, the role of firearms was seriously underestimated. How could they pay attention to firearms in the future?
The second reason is that different historical environmental backgrounds lead to different emphasis on firearms.
Let’s look at Europe first. Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Europe has entered a period of frequent wars. Therefore, the use of firearms, a brand-new weapon, has produced a revolutionary military change.
The Swiss phalanx, which was born out of cold weapons, created the famous Spanish phalanx that combined hot and cold weapons. With the improvement of firearms use tactics and the improvement of firearm quality, gradually, in these phalanxes, cold weapons were completely
It disappeared and became a phalanx, all using muskets. That is to say, in the war films we watched depicting this era, the soldiers lined up in a phalanx, holding muskets and rushing forward in goose steps to the rhythm of drums.
Many people, including the author when I was a child, thought these soldiers were stupid. Wouldn't they bend down and hide and seek to avoid bullets? In fact, there is a reason. At that time, this tactic resulted in the least casualties. We
Remember, in war, there is no joke. All standard actions taken by soldiers are paid for with countless blood.
In order to deepen everyone's impression of this point, here is another example: During World War II, the Japanese soldiers unloaded bullets when fighting bayonets for the spirit of bushido. What is ridiculous is that even now, there are still many works that ridicule those
The stupidity of the Japanese devils. Let us think about it, a nation that can despicably launch the "September 18th" and shameless surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. How could he unload the bullet when fighting the bayonet for the sake of bushido spirit? Do this.
The purpose is definitely to reduce one's own casualties (interested friends can check this information).
As the phalanx tactics of pure muskets matured, Napoleon creatively used artillery as a firearm, and then swept across the European continent. Under this background, the research and development of firearms received the greatest attention in Europe.
What about China? After the Manchu Qing government established the Qing Dynasty, except for a few rebellions at the founding of the country, the domestic politics were very stable before the Opium War, which gave no impetus to the development of firearms.
In the use of firearms, there is another very important issue, which is the firearm phalanx. The "three-stage shooting" we often see in works is only a small aspect of the use of firearm phalanx. But it is far from the whole story.
In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, there was already a genius general who adopted the prototype of the firearm formation, that is Qi Jiguang. It was such a prototype that allowed Qi Jiguang to achieve the victory of annihilating thousands of Japanese pirates (all with heads) in the anti-Japanese war.
, his brilliant record with less than ten casualties. In fact, this prototype is only separated from the European firearms phalanx.
Then why didn't future generals inherit and develop?
We can see the reason from "Sun Tzu's Art of War". The "Sun Tzu's Art of War" that we see now makes people feel like the catalog and general outline of a book on the art of war. With Sun Tzu's character of being such a good teacher, how could he not know how to train?
, how to march, how to set up camp and how to form formations in battle are written into "The Art of War"?
And not only "Sun Tzu's Art of War", but all subsequent art of war books by various art of war masters do not contain this content. The main reason is that rulers of various dynasties and generations have destroyed or collected these contents in their art of war books.
Don't let others see it to prevent them from rebelling.
However, Qi Jiguang's book on the art of war miraculously survived. However, due to the above reasons, it could not be circulated outside during the Ming Dynasty at that time. In addition, the military generals of the Ming Dynasty were basically illiterate, so they could not read.
There is no talk of inheritance and development.
And today, in Wu Shigong's arrangement for Xue Yong, he insisted on the formation training of the gambling house guards, which is exactly the basic training of the firearms phalanx. This can only show that Wu Shigong finally got a golden finger.