Chapter 148: Don't seek to kill the enemy, but seek to scare people
Making weapons such as muskets and cold weapons, as well as farm tools, iron pots and other daily necessities and production necessities requires the use of a large amount of iron. Huangzhushan itself cannot produce iron, so it can only secretly purchase iron materials from outside.
to produce, but the scale of procurement has never been large.
After all, Zhengtai County itself is not a major iron-producing county, and iron these days is inherently a high-priced material. Otherwise, there would be no situation where one household would only have an iron pot and a kitchen knife.
In the past, when Huang Zhushan purchased iron from outside, he would secretly find some merchants in the name of making farm tools, iron pots and other daily life and production tools.
However, nowadays, there are so many weapons that need to be built, and the amount of iron required is not a small amount. Let’s not talk about how much it costs to purchase so much iron. The most important thing is that it cannot be purchased.
Li Xuan thought, try outsourcing first. After all, there will always be some businessmen who are not afraid of death and dare to make deals with these bandits in Huangzhushan in order to make money. How did so many bandit dens in the mountains become so dirty?
Not looking for those unscrupulous businessmen.
Even if a sufficient amount of iron cannot be purchased by then, Li Xuan plans to melt some unused iron tools in Huangzhu Mountain to make weapons.
For example, the messy weapons that were replaced before have varying quality and different styles. They no longer meet the requirements of the Tang Dynasty King's uniform standard weapons. At present, they can only be kept in warehouses to serve as strategic weapons.
Reserve in case of unforeseen circumstances.
When there is not enough iron, these weapons will be melted down to make muskets, various cold weapons, and armor.
If it's still not enough, then the only solution is to use the old method: go out and grab it!
After all, Huang Zhushan, a group of people from the Tang Dynasty, were themselves bandits, plundering villages, and traveling as businessmen was their old trade. Even if they changed careers and rebelled, they could not lose their old trade.
After the establishment of the New Army was determined, everyone began to compete for the positions of major New Army generals.
In this new organization, Li Xuan abolished the two separate designations of the Standing Army and the Guards of the Tang Dynasty, and instead adopted a completely new organization.
Each team uses a unified numerical designation, from the first to the ninth team. In order to distinguish the attributes of each team's arms, the names of the arms are added after the numbers to distinguish them.
Each of the above-mentioned teams is directly under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. The Privy Council established three new departments: the Operations Department, the Ordnance Department, and the Logistics Department. At the same time, the power of the War Department's ordnance supply and logistics supply was abolished.
However, Li Xuan still personally commands the Privy Council and does not set up any deputy positions such as deputy privy council. In other words, Li Xuan will personally command the eight combat troops and does not need any deputies.
Abolition of the standing army and the Guards, and placing each team directly under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, was Li Xuan's core plan to further consolidate military power.
Gathering military power and suppressing Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren and others were the core policies of Li Xuan's several military reforms in the past six months. The original standing army was established, and the five front, left, right and center armies were established in order to divide the power of Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren. Later, these five
The merging of armies into one army was also intended to weaken Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren.
Now that the standing army has been directly eliminated, it is also to further weaken the military power of Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren.
As for the withdrawal of the Guards, it was also to limit the recent expansion of Wang Shanxu. The Guards had been in the limelight recently, and Wang Shanxu had the momentum to surpass Fang Dongquan and become the number one military leader in the Tang Dynasty. For his own life
For his own sake, Li Xuan decisively imposed restrictions.
He was not like waiting until Wang Shanxu became Fang Dongquan half a year ago, and his increased power was enough to affect the trend of the entire Tang Dynasty, and even threaten the life safety of his emperor.
This time, he directly gathered the new army under the direct jurisdiction of the Privy Council. While Li Xuan was gathering military power, it was impossible to kick out Fang Dongquan, Wang Shanxu and the others.
He just wants to limit their power and has no intention of abandoning them. On the contrary, he will continue to reuse them in some aspects.
For example, the actual captains of each brigade will continue to use these people.
The captain of the first musket team is Wang Shanxu, the captain of the second musket team is Bai Yunqi, the captain of the third spear team is Fang Dongquan, the captain of the fourth spear team is Huang Xueren, the captain of the fifth spear team is Cai Erhu, and the captain of the fourth spear team is Cai Erhu.
The captain of the Six Blade Shield Team is Butcher Chen.
The captains of the 7th Archery Corps, the 8th Baggage Corps, and the 9th Cavalry Corps, as well as the vice-captains of each corps, are also the confidants of these people.
However, among the various ministers of the Privy Council, these generals are not used, but are prepared to be directly selected from middle and low-ranking military attachés.
Moreover, Li Xuan also set a rigid condition, that is, if you want to hold the positions of doctor, member, outsider, principal, etc. in the Privy Council, you must be able to read and write.
You are not required to be able to write a beautiful article, but you must be able to read and write.
This is also to stimulate or even force those warriors to read and read on their own!
As early as last year, Li Xuan tried to set up literacy classes to cultivate his own scholars, and let Liu Bagou, Wang Wenhua, and Qian Mengjiu, the only three scholars in the Tang Dynasty, take turns teaching, which can be regarded as an achievement.
It has achieved certain results, but most of the people who come to study are originally from the civil service system, but there are not many people from the military who come to study.
This time, Li Xuan was determined to turn these illiterate people into semi-literate people!
People who can't read in the future can't expect to be able to command an army in the Tang Dynasty in this life. If they die, they will just be a captain.
After some reforms in the military system, Li Xuan was satisfied to put aside these "military and political affairs", and then turned his attention in other directions with satisfaction.
Military training already has a complete set of plans. As long as the people below don't mess around and train step by step, there won't be any problems.
As for government affairs, it was even simpler. Just trivial matters could be dealt with casually at court meetings every day, so he didn't waste much energy at all.
Recently, he has divided his main time in half, one half for the harem and the other half for researching small inventions.
On the second night after returning to Huangzhushan, Li Xuan executed Zhu'er on the spot. In the following nights, Dong Yunyun and Zhu'er's master and servant played indescribable games with Li Xuan every night.
game.
So much so that Li Xuan was walking a little unsteadily in those days, and then Liu Bagou gave him a round-about reminder: He said he was still young, so don't die in a woman's belly.
But Empress Dowager Bai also found him and said in front of Li Xuan that Dong Yunyun, the queen, only ate rice but could not lay eggs. From the end of last year to now, she had occupied Li Xuan every day for so long, but she could not lay an egg.
Finally, he said to Li Xuan in a serious tone, "Don't go to Dong Yunyun's place every day. You have another wife, Mrs. Ye. That girl has big breasts and a big butt, so you have to spend the night there."
These words made Li Xuan remember that there was another Ye family here!
When Ye first entered the palace last year, he was quite surprised by her at first, but he was soon stunned by Dong Yunyun's active devotion. For a long time, he only had Dong Yunyun and Zhu in his mind.
The pair of master and servant, Er, had long forgotten about Mr. Ye.
For an ordinary woman, even if she is a little prettier, the combination of a lady like Dong Yunyun and a naughty maid like Zhu Er is very attractive!
Even if the factors of identity are not considered, the reason why Ye can't compare with the master and servant Dong Yunyun and Zhu'er is not because Li Xuan doesn't like her, let alone because she is not beautiful, but because she is weak and weak.
only one person!
How can it be better to fly alone than to fly together?
In addition, Ye did not live in the same big house with Li Xuan, Dong Yunyun and the others, but was close to Queen Mother Bai. Li Xuan, like Dong Yunyun, would never come to Queen Mother Bai to seek trouble when nothing happened.
.
Calculating the time like this, he really hasn't seen Mr. Ye for some time!
Now that his mother, Empress Dowager Bai, was talking about it, Li Xuan figured that if he went to Ye's house a few times during this period and found an opportunity to eat her, he couldn't let a delicate beauty guard the empty boudoir alone. That would be his own sin.
That's big.
Li Xuan didn't pay much attention to the things in the harem, which were neither annoying nor too much. After finishing the reform of the military system in the past two days, he turned his attention to research and inventions.
Among them, the most important research inventions are naturally weapons such as flintlock muskets and artillery.
Li Xuan's current dream is to build a flintlock gun. He originally thought that after newly 'inviting' more than thirty craftsmen, he could hope to solve the spring steel problem, but after asking around, he was surprised that no one was there.
Knowing how to make spring steel can only give them time to continue research and strive to produce spring steel as soon as possible.
As for artillery, this thing is quite simple. Li Xuan doesn't understand the artillery of later generations, but he knows about ancient artillery. Isn't it just an enlarged version of a matchlock gun? How difficult can it be? I didn't do it before because I couldn't find it.
There is enough copper material. I have looted a lot of copper material during previous raids, including several large bells from several temples. Although the copper material obtained is not much, it is enough to build a cannon of several hundred kilograms.
So let people try it.
As for what kind of artillery they can produce, it depends on their character. Anyway, Li Xuan didn't give them specific performance limits. He just drew them the most basic drawings of the front-loading smoothbore cannon. As for the details,
Don't count on the design.
Li Xuan could remember that this artillery was loaded from the muzzle. It would be nice to have a big tube. Who knows what the internal design of those front-loading smoothbore cannons was like.
Anyway, Li Xuan didn't expect them to be able to produce very good artillery. He would just be able to fire out the shells by then. He didn't insist on whether they could hit the enemy.
This cannon is not meant to kill the enemy, but to scare people!
The reason why the requirements were so low was because he couldn't really expect these blacksmiths to transform into master-level craftsmen in a matter of seconds and create some magic weapon after looking at the drawings on those pages of paper.
If all this was possible, Li Xuan would have become an immortal long ago, and he would still be a shitty emperor!