By the way, although the Tatars are very good at fighting and have been almost landless since the Western Expedition, their invincibility is only limited to the plains. If they are in mountainous terrain, their mobility advantage will be lost, although their combat effectiveness is still the same.
It's powerful, but if the defenders take advantage of the mountainous terrain and organize a large number of troops to defend tightly, they can still block it.
In the Persian region, northwest India, and the Ottoman West Asia and Eastern Europe, the reason why they were not conquered by the Tatars was because of terrain problems. At the same time, there was a regional power in these directions with sufficient troops.
This news is good news for Xu Zhenchuan, who worked hard to come to Europe, but it is not good news for many countries in Central Europe.
Because we can't fight in the Balkan Peninsula, and the Tatars don't like that poor place. What they like is the plains.
So what will the Tatars do next?
They will increase their attacks on Central Europe!
The first ones to bear the brunt are naturally the remaining forces of Poland and Lithuania, as well as the Holy Roman Empire behind Poland and Lithuania!
The main force of the Eastern Expeditionary Forces previously sent to Poland and Lithuania was actually troops sent by the Habsburg family, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire. Troops sent by France, Spain and other countries were actually relatively small in number.
Therefore, the Ottoman Empire blocked the Tatars' advance into the Balkans. This was not good news, or even very bad news, for many European countries.
The Spanish side has realized that another branch of their family, the Austrian Habsburg family, may be in trouble.
Now Spain is also ruled by the Habsburg family. Although the families have been separated for a long time, they still belong to the same family.
More importantly, once the Tatars destroyed Lithuania and entered the Holy Roman Empire, it would be very difficult to unite against the Tatars in the chaotic interior of the Holy Roman Empire.
If the Austrian side is finished, the Spaniards do not think that France will be able to withstand the Tatar attack in the future.
If France is also doomed, it will be Spain's turn.
Although they are still far away from the Tatars, the Spanish, Portuguese and France all have a strong sense of crisis.
This is really due to the huge impact of the Mongols' Western Expeditions back then, and the combat effectiveness and aggressiveness displayed by the Tatars this time was no less than or even worse than the Mongols back then.
It's always good to prepare early.
How to prepare, of course it is an armed army!
In this way, ordnance from the Tang Dynasty is particularly easy to sell!
For a period of time, Xu Zhenchuan felt that he had become an arms dealer, and everyone who came to his door was asking to buy arms.
The Spanish, Portuguese, French, Germans, Italians, Ottoman Empire, Swedes and all kinds of other messy European dukes, marquises and other various lords.
Almost all the lords in Europe came to try to buy weapons!
But since business is coming, and the empire originally intended to support European countries in their fight against the Tatars, they will not refuse anyone who comes.
As long as you have money, then accept orders!
This made the arms dealers of the Tang Dynasty quite happy. These Europeans are quite cute!
However, although there are many arms trades in overseas markets such as Europe and the profits are high, compared to the three major domestic arms companies, sales and profits in overseas markets are also important, but they are far less important than the domestic market.
The various ordnance exported by the three major domestic arms companies have been exported for ten years and have never been updated. Even if there are new models occasionally, they are improvements made to save costs, but in terms of performance, they have never been updated.
Once and for all, there is never any improvement!
It can be seen that the three major arms companies basically do not pay much attention to the research and development of export-oriented weapons. Of course, this is also related to the strict restrictions of the Imperial Import and Export Committee. The Imperial Import and Export Committee directly limits the performance of various export weapons.
and types.
For example, for muskets, only smoothbore matchlocks can be exported, but flintlock guns cannot be sold.
Plate armor, only light plate armor can be exported.
Therefore, there is basically no need for research and development of export-type weapons, but weapons equipped by domestic troops require continuous research and development.
Especially the competition for the new generation rifles of the army and navy has been very fierce in recent years!
The Imperial Army has long felt that the existing flintlock muskets are unusable. The current five-year-old flintlock muskets of the empire, whether they are rifle models, cavalry models, or naval models, all have the disadvantage of insufficient power.
However, the powerful 8-year-old 18mm flintlock gun is too heavy.
The Army has always mixed the two in the past, and is also preparing to find a solution.
Starting last year, the Army finally decided to upgrade its rifles. This time the new guns were not developed by the Royal Institute of Technology.
It was designed by a design team affiliated with Jiangnan Arms Company.
This gun uses a shorter barrel and a new steel tube as the barrel, which not only ensures a caliber of 18 mm, but also controls the weight of the rifle.
The whole gun weighs 4.4 kilograms, has a caliber of 18 millimeters, and a total length of 1.52 meters. It is still a smoothbore gun, with a bayonet and a scale. The ammunition has not changed. It still has custom-made paper shells for combat.
When shooting, you can simply tear the gunpowder packet into pieces for convenient loading, and the effective range can reach one hundred meters!
The many performance standards here are actually not important. What is important is the diameter of 18 mm and the weight of 4.4 kilograms!
This makes the gun have huge power. No matter how thick the plate armor is, one shot can still make a hole in it, and the weight is not too heavy.
After this new gun was fired and underwent early testing, it was quickly identified as a new generation standard rifle by the Army, numbered Type 26 rifle.
And it has been extended to cavalry type, naval type, etc.
According to the army and navy's replacement plan, all previous muskets are to be replaced with Type 26 rifles. This demand is huge.
In the short term, at least 500,000 to 600,000 are needed, and in the medium term, at least one million are needed.
Although Jiangnan Arms Company has already snatched the first bite of such a huge cake, even if the other two arms companies can only authorize production, they still have to produce to grab the cake.
Compared with the domestic military's orders for millions of rifles in the medium term, overseas orders for tens of thousands of matchlock guns are nothing.
If rifles are just cheap goods, then other heavy weapons have caused more competition among the three major arms companies.
Especially the artillery item!
It is no secret that the military is dissatisfied with the existing front-loading smoothbore cannon. Even ordinary civilians know that the military now dreams of a new type of artillery.
To be more precise, it is a breech-loading rifled gun!
Whatever artillery the military wants is open to the public. As long as you can get it, whether it is the army or the navy, your desk will be flooded with orders immediately!
However, countless breech-loading rifled gun designs were brought out one by one, only to be rejected one by one in the end!
Now the military is not easy to fool. If it is not a mature and stable design, they simply don’t want it!
The battleship Hebei was built a few years ago, which caused the military a big loss. Now they are very cautious.
Therefore, the military now dreams of new artillery, but it is not possible to get a large order from the military just by taking an unstable test model.
Although the artillery still continued to use the obsolete front-loading smoothbore cannon, the military operations of the Tang Dynasty would not stop because of the lag in the development of artillery.
In the autumn and October of the 27th year of Xuanping, the Northwest Railway was officially opened to traffic.
As a result, many weapons from the Central Plains and even Jiangnan, South China and North China can be transported by train from the starting point of the Northwest Railway, which is Zhengzhou in Kaifeng Prefecture, all the way west, and finally reach Jiayuguan.
The Northwest Railway had just opened to traffic, and the military couldn't wait to transport a large amount of various materials and troops to Gansu Province by train.
In the first two months after the entire line was opened to traffic, 90% of the trains from Zhengzhou to Gansu were military trains, while ordinary passenger and civilian freight trains accounted for only 10%.
As countless supplies were transported to the northwest, it was also announced that the expansion of the Tang Empire in the northwest was about to begin.
And this will also be the empire's largest military operation in the past ten years, surpassing the previous Indian Ocean Campaign.
Seeing that the empire was about to launch a large-scale western expedition, the army was full of joy, and many army generals walked lightly.
The Western Expedition must be a one-man show for the Army.
And such a large-scale Western Expedition will bring huge military exploits, and military exploits represent promotion and title.
Many army generals were eagerly waiting for the Western Expedition a few years ago, just to gain military merit during the Western Expedition and then win a title. Those with titles also tried to move up a level in exchange for better fiefdoms.
Even if they are unable to go into battle, each one of them still goes around soliciting favors, just to send his children and grandchildren, especially the heirs to the title, to the battlefield to gain military exploits.
Since the Holy Emperor decided to enfeoff nobles overseas, more than a thousand nobles have obtained fiefdoms overseas.
The fiefdoms of these nobles are basically around Beihai Province, Luzon Province, Banten Province, Malacca State and Australia. A few more are canonized in North America and India.
Basically, nobles above the viscount level have obtained overseas fiefdoms!
The large-scale overseas enfeoffment made the generals almost crazy in their pursuit of military glory!
Many people hope to establish military merit, obtain a title, and then gain overseas fiefdoms.
Even nobles who have already obtained a fiefdom hope to make meritorious deeds in exchange for a better or larger fiefdom.
Nowadays, the mentality of many generals in the army and even the military aristocrats in the country is like that on the eve of a carnival night.
Some excited, some nervous, but most of all looking forward to it!