Chapter 610: The Great Leap Forward in Ordnance Production
When the Tang Dynasty King's Division launched a full-scale attack on the Huguang Ming Army, the Ming Army generals in various places, including Zhang Yue in the rear, did not know that the puppet Tang rebel army on the opposite side had launched a large-scale attack that affected the entire Huguang area.
A full-scale attack on all fronts.
They all thought that they were the only ones to be attacked by the puppet Tang rebels on a large scale, and they were all doing the same thing, which was to ask for help from Zhang Yue in the rear.
Of course, limited by the communication speed of this era, Zhang Yue did not know at this time that the troops on the front line had suffered an unprecedented large-scale attack.
Not to mention Zhang Yue, even Li Xuan, who personally ordered the troops to launch a general offensive, did not know how the frontline troops were doing at this time. He issued the order half a month ago.
"I wonder how the First Army is doing?" On the evening of November 28, Li Xuan stood in front of the window of his office and looked north. In the north, tens of thousands of soldiers carried him into the Qinhuai River.
Their hopes and ambitions are in a bloody battle.
"It will succeed. It should be possible. I have been preparing for this day for several months. I am so well prepared that there is absolutely no reason to fail!" Li Xuan convinced himself.
In order to launch a large-scale attack on Huguang, Li Xuan reorganized tens of thousands of troops, and in order to reorganize these tens of thousands of troops, Li Xuan put in huge efforts and efforts.
Li Xuan was personally involved in many matters, personally reviewed the recruit training plans of each unit, and also personally visited the recruit training camp outside Zhaoqing many times.
At the recent graduation ceremonies of the regular classes of the martial arts school, he personally attended and personally awarded military ranks and silver-plated command swords to the officers with the best graduation scores.
As for the graduates of the Royal Academy, because the number was smaller, he personally awarded each graduate a military rank and a gold-plated command sword.
The command sword given by Li Xuan himself is a rare honor among military officers because it is only awarded to those with superior performance and is relatively rare.
The outside world often calls the outstanding graduates of the Martial Arts School the Silver Sword Group, while the outstanding graduates of the Royal Academy are called the Golden Sword Group.
During the process of reorganizing the various units, Li Xuan met with all the officers above the regimental commander level in batches over several months in the name of asking them to return to Beijing to report on their duties, and personally listened to their opinions on training, operations, and command.
Difficulties and suggestions. At the same time, Li Xuan will encourage them to continue working hard and not to have psychological pressure or the like.
In addition to the dedicated efforts of personnel, Li Xuan was also personally involved in armaments, and repeatedly ordered the major arsenals under the Ministry of Industry not only to ensure quality, but also to increase production.
Because the output of Wuzhou Arsenal has been unable to increase, Li Xuan has replaced two supervisors of Wuzhou Arsenal in the past six months, and even the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Industry was scolded by him.
Li Xuan almost put a knife on the neck of the Ministry of Industry official, and then forced the Tang Dynasty's military production to continue to hit new peaks!
At the beginning of the second year of Xuanping, there were only three arsenals used by the Tang Dynasty, namely the Liuzhou arsenal, the Wuzhou arsenal, and the Zhaoqing arsenal. They were all in the trial production stage, and the output was very small. Together, they were not even as good as those in Xingquan Prefecture last year.
The workshop's peak output.
In June, several arsenals began to enter the formal production stage, and preparations for the construction of the Foshan arsenal began.
By August, when the Royal Division of the Tang Dynasty began to reorganize its troops and prepare to train division-level troops, several arsenals and several small workshops in the entire Tang Dynasty combined could produce no more than 800 muskets per month.
The output last month only met the gun requirements of a musketeer regiment.
As for artillery, there are even fewer. The monthly output of five-jin artillery is only more than 20 pieces, and the monthly output of seven-jin artillery is less than ten. As for the two-jin and three-jin shotguns, there are more, with a monthly output of several dozen.
Door.
But on the eve of the official launch of the Huguang Campaign by the Tang Dynasty, that is, now, the combined ordnance output of the Tang Dynasty's major arsenals and small workshops has reached a monthly output of 1,200 muskets and more than 30 five-pound artillery pieces.
There are more than ten seven-pound cannons, and nearly a hundred two-pound and three-pound iron shotguns.
It is precisely because the output of the arsenals under the Ministry of Industry has been greatly increased that all infantry divisions, mixed regiments, and temporary regiments can be fully staffed.
After more than half a year of hard work, countless military expenditures, and extreme cases of exhaustion among the workers in the factories affiliated to the Ministry of Industry, the army departments of the King's Division of the Tang Dynasty finally reached full strength.
The musketeers in the musketry regiment, the musketeers in the baggage regiment, the grenadiers, and the cavalry can all be equipped with a musket. At the same time, each division will also receive about 20% of the equipment.
Backup gun.
At the same time, in order to equip each army with enough riding horses, artillery, and draft horses required by the baggage troops, the Tang Dynasty plundered almost all the horses in Guizhou and Guangdong and Guangxi, regardless of whether they were Mongolian horses or Southwest horses.
Horses, whether they are horses in horse farms or private horses, whether they are riding horses or draft horses, are all forcibly requisitioned.
At the same time, a strict ban on horse racing was issued, requiring several southwestern horse racing farms in Guizhou to give priority to supplying the official needs of the Tang Dynasty. Of course, the official would pay according to the market price.
At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Tang Dynasty also made great efforts to open an official horse farm in Guizhou to breed horses.
However, even if almost all the horses in Guizhou and Guangdong and Guangxi were plundered, the Tang Dynasty King still could not get enough horses, especially horses for riding.
Therefore, among the current cavalry battalions of the King's Division of the Tang Dynasty, only the First Cavalry Battalion, which belongs directly to the First Infantry Division, is truly full, with 400 cavalry under its jurisdiction, while the other cavalry battalions only have 200 cavalry battalions.
Or three hundred cavalry.
The previous extreme shortage of artillery has now been greatly alleviated. At least the artillery battalions assigned to each infantry division can be equipped with a full complement of twenty-four artillery pieces, and the battalion artillery teams of each infantry regiment can also have six shotguns.
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Moreover, they are all five-pound and seven-pound field artillery, and two-pound and three-pound shotguns. In some artillery battalions, because there are not enough seven-pound cannons, they are temporarily replaced by three-pound shotguns. However, in terms of quantity,
But it's absolutely fully made up.
The artillery captured from the Ming army that used to be mixed with equipment has been withdrawn from various field armies. Most of them were moved to the top of the city as city defense artillery, or moved to the river defense fortress as river defense artillery.
On the other hand, there are some Franco machine guns and general cannons that are of decent quality and fairly powerful, but they have been put into use on various armed merchant ships by the navy in a waste-waste mentality.
In the Battle of Qiongzhou, the Second Fleet was almost completely wiped out, and the loss of artillery was quite heartbreaking for the Navy. Since the artillery supply in the second half of this year prioritizes meeting the needs of the Army, even if the Navy has military expenditures, it still has
It was impossible to purchase enough artillery from various arsenals, so although the quality and power of the artillery captured from the Ming army were somewhat inferior, they were still better than nothing.
This situation has also led to the navy wanting to set up its own artillery factory. In addition to the problem of production distribution, more importantly, there is a huge difference between naval guns and army guns.
For example, the artillery used by the army attaches great importance to weight because it needs to maintain mobility. It does not have too strict requirements for range and power. However, for the navy, they do not care about the weight of the artillery, but they do.
Requires range and power.
This means that the army's artillery is developing towards lighter weight, while the navy's artillery is developing towards heavy weight.
In terms of current artillery technology, the nine-pound field gun equipped by the Army is basically the limit. No matter how large the caliber field gun is, the Army's artillery unit will be cursed because it cannot maneuver at all.
As for the navy, the nine-pound cannon is only a medium-caliber artillery. The navy is building a third-class frigate with a hull. Although its main gun is tentatively equipped with a nine-pound cannon, in fact it does not mean that it cannot be equipped with a larger caliber artillery.
, but because there is simply no artillery of larger caliber.
As for the third-class cruiser that the Navy has just completed the design and has begun laying the keel, the largest caliber main gun used in the design is the 14-pound cannon (18 pounds), and the 9-pound cannon (12 pounds) is just a secondary main gun.
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The several existing arsenals are currently focusing on building cannons for the army. Only the Foshan Arsenal is focusing on cannon manufacturing and is now starting to trial-manufacture the nine-pound cannon. However, mass production may not occur until next year.
, as for the larger 14-pound cannon that is to be used as the main gun of the third-class cruiser, there is no plan for research and development and production yet.
The Navy is planning to purchase 14-pound heavy artillery from foreigners to equip it first.
But we can't always outsource it. All these foreigners are vampires. Seeing that the Ming Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty were outsourcing ordnance on a large scale, the price of these guns is getting higher day by day. Now five hundred taels of silver is already
We can no longer buy nine kilograms of artillery. Those foreigners have already raised the price to 800 taels of silver, and this is still a futures contract. It will take several months before they can deliver it.
If you want to purchase ready-made self-defense firepower on their armed merchant ships, don't expect it if you don't have a thousand taels of silver.
Therefore, the Navy soon sent a report on preparing to build a naval arsenal to Li Xuan, but Li Xuan directly rejected it after reading it. What a joke, the Navy actually wants to open its own arsenal. This is impossible.
thing.
The navy should just take care of its own training and operations, and don't get involved in ordnance production. Li Xuan didn't want to see a large group of workers and managers with naval ranks working in the factory in the future.
This kind of irresponsible behavior must be resolutely put an end to, otherwise, within a few years, there will be actors with the rank of generals appearing in the royal divisions of the Tang Dynasty!