Chapter nine hundred and sixty-eight, the land of Longxing has changed greatly
Although their supervisors could use trenches and fortresses to resist stubbornly, but when the puppet Tang rebels also dug trenches and then fought their way through the trenches, they didn't have many ways to intercept them!
Cannonballs? They are useless. Most of them will only leave a trace on the ground!
Bullets are also of little use!
The most effective thing is the grenade!
It is a pity that the Ming army has never been equipped with many things like hand grenades, because these things require too much gunpowder!
Unlike the Tang Army, the Ming Army could continuously obtain large amounts of sulfur, saltpeter and other materials from overseas. As long as they had money, they could have an almost unlimited supply of gunpowder.
But here in the Ming Army, even if you have money, you can’t buy it!
Saltpeter is pretty good, but the key sulfur is difficult to obtain in large quantities!
Therefore, the gunpowder in the hands of the Ming army was still relatively precious. It was used as a musket. The propellant of the artillery was not enough, so the excess was used to make grenades on a large scale.
The same is true for heavy-duty short-barreled howitzers!
The heavy short-barreled howitzer actually has no technical content. The craftsmen under Zhang Yue are not just for nothing. They can even make a nine-pound bronze cannon, let alone something as stupid as the heavy short-barreled howitzer.
The artillery shell has no technical content. It is just a hollow iron shell with gunpowder inside. It is basically just a large hand grenade!
But Du Biao only built a few tentatively, and now they are placed in Hanyang!
Then it stopped!
Why?
Can't afford it!
The 48-pound howitzer, as you can tell from its name, requires a large amount of gunpowder, a lot of propellant, and a lot of charges for the shells. Once this kind of artillery is fired, it is equivalent to throwing away a large piece of silver.
Therefore, it’s not that the Ming army can’t build these big guys, it’s because they can’t afford them!
However, the Army of the Tang Dynasty did not have such scruples. Their military expenditures were much higher than those of the Ming Army. Although they dare not say that they were fully used, they could still ensure the ammunition consumption of the front-line combat troops.
What's more, the industrial production adopted by the Tang Dynasty also made the cost of their various ordnance much lower than that of the Ming Army!
For example, artillery, now, a cast-iron artillery piece from the Tang Dynasty is very cheap!
The ex-factory price of a five-pound field cannon is just over two hundred taels. A two-pound shotgun is even cheaper, costing only sixty taels. A three-pound shotgun costs about eighty taels!
Bronze artillery is more expensive, but the current main nine-pound bronze field cannon costs just over five hundred taels!
The cost of various artillery pieces of the Ming army will basically increase by 50% or even double on this basis!
In fact, the price of the artillery itself is not expensive, because simply compared with the price of the equipment, the price of many equipment is not cheap. For example, the soldiers of the assault battalion of the Datang Army are equipped with full-body plate armor forged from steel.
The whole set costs forty taels of silver!
As for military horses, take Mongolian horses as an example.
The price of a second-class draft horse, Tuoma, or an ordinary officer's riding horse is about fifteen taels of silver.
The draft horses used by the artillery have higher requirements for horses, and the basic price needs to be twenty taels of silver.
The riding horses used by the cavalry have the highest requirements and are also the most expensive, basically costing more than twenty-five taels of silver.
As for the Central Asian horses of the First Lancer Regiment, the value cannot be measured specifically, because in order to arm the First Lancer Regiment, the Tang Army spent more than 50,000 taels of silver on the introduction of Central Asian horses. On average, each horse
It requires more than one hundred taels of silver, but in fact, even if these Central Asian horses are taller and stronger, their actual value is definitely not worth it, but there is no way, who made the Tang Dynasty not have these tall horses, they can only travel thousands of miles from
When introduced to the Western Regions, the price needs to be very normal.
The stainless steel waist knives equipped by the assault battalion soldiers cost two taels of silver each, and the ordinary waist knives of lower quality worn by ordinary soldiers also cost one tael of silver.
A cavalry sword used by cavalry is more expensive. The blade, blade and even the handle are made of fine steel. Such a cavalry sword costs more than three taels of silver!
And this is the cost of industrial production in the Tang Dynasty. If it were placed in the Ming Dynasty, let alone whether they could equip so many weapons made of pure steel. Even if they could, the price would not be a few taels of silver.
, at least several times!
The price of a flintlock gun is now around five taels of silver!
Although many of the above-mentioned equipment only cost a few taels or dozens of taels of silver, they may seem very small, but they are actually not cheap.
However, although the prices of these equipment are no longer cheap, they are still cheap compared to various consumption!
For example, for artillery, in order for a nine-pound field gun to operate on the battlefield, it needs to be equipped with at least twelve horses, a dozen artillerymen, and a large amount of ammunition.
The maintenance cost and combat cost of the artillery are higher than the cost of the artillery itself!
So after doing this calculation, you will know why the cost of firearms troops is so much higher than that of cold weapons troops!
It’s not that the weapons are expensive, it’s that they are expensive to use!
To maintain an artillery regiment, it is impossible to do it without tens of thousands of taels of silver in a year. However, during combat, an artillery regiment can easily shoot out shells worth tens of thousands of taels of silver!
This is tens of thousands of taels of silver, not just a few taels of silver. This shows how much the firearms force spends!
These days, in many factories under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises of the Tang Dynasty, workers only get about one tael of silver for a month's hard work, while farmers work hard for a year doing farm work and scrimping, but in the end they can't save much.
One tael of silver.
At this time, the poor want to save money to buy an acre of land for a few taels of silver, and they want the whole family to live frugally and put in many years of hard work, without any accidents happening along the way!
Otherwise, why do you think the farmers under the Tang Dynasty, especially those with no land or little land, supported the Tang Dynasty so much, because the Tang Dynasty issued a "rent-to-purchase order" allowing them to purchase government officials.
Land, and the current year's land rent will be used as installment payment.
Why are so many children from poor families eager to join the army? Every time the local recruitment station starts the one-year recruitment process, countless children from poor families will enthusiastically sign up!
Why? On the one hand, good treatment is good, and on the other hand, joining the army can divide the fields!
Today, the Tang Dynasty has issued military merit fields to more than 80,000 soldiers. These soldiers have all met the conditions, including serving for many years and performing outstandingly.
And everyone knows that the policy of joining the army to divide land cannot continue forever, because people join the army every year, and the official land will eventually be divided.
If you want to divide the fields, you can only follow the dragon in the early stage!
In fact, the Tang Dynasty did this. The soldiers who divided their fields did so in the name of Conglong, rather than according to a specific system.
Every year, Li Xuan issued a special decree to allocate fields to qualified soldiers, and gave special gifts in the name of rewarding Conglong's meritorious officials!
And after the country is unified, will this kind of gift continue? It’s unlikely!
However, they didn't know that Li Xuan planned to continue this policy. However, the land allocated for the military industry in the future would no longer be domestic land, because it must have been allocated long ago. He planned to distribute it abroad.
Acquire land to serve as military exploits.
Southeast Asia has a lot of fertile soil!
There is countless land in the north and Central Asia, even if it is a bit barren, but the area is large and the quantity is sufficient, it may only be given a few acres in the mainland, but in Siberia and other ghost places, Li Xuan dares to directly give hundreds or even thousands of acres
!
Then there are Australia, America, Africa, and India. There is a lot of unclaimed land in the world!
At least Li Xuan feels that before taking over the world, he should not worry about not having land to distribute to the soldiers!
But Li Xuan didn't say it, and he hasn't started doing it yet. Outsiders don't know, but now many people are thinking that the Tang Dynasty is about to completely unify China, and they want to win the merit of being a dragon and gain military merit.
, there is only one last chance left,
Therefore, during the recruitment in the autumn of the sixth year of Xuanping, the proportion of young adults who signed up to join the army in almost the entire area under the Tang Dynasty was far higher than in previous years, and also exceeded the recruitment in the spring of the sixth year of Xuanping.
The land of Longxing in the Tang Dynasty, Zhengtai County of Xingquan Prefecture, this remote county with a population of less than 100,000, had more than 8,000 soldiers, more than half of whom served in the Guards.
This ratio is quite terrifying, because it means that almost every young man in the family is serving in the military!
In recent years, the first choice of almost all young people who have grown up is to join the army!
Of course, there are different ways to join the army. Children of landlords and gentry families usually apply for martial arts school or naval academy. Their goal is naturally to become an officer.
As for ordinary children, they directly sign up to join the army!
The same situation also occurs in several other counties in Xingquan Prefecture!
Because in addition to the various original preferential treatment for joining the army, as the land of Longxing, Xingquan Mansion, local children have additional preferential treatment when they join the army. This preferential treatment does not refer to other aspects, but refers to that once they join the army, and
If individuals are willing, they can serve in the Guards!
And the treatment of the Guards is much better than that of the Army and Navy!
Of course, the main reason is that almost all of the senior military generals of the Tang Dynasty are from Xingquan Mansion!
At present, all generals at the rank of lieutenant general in the military, such as Hao Bainian, Li Chunjing, Fang Xitong, Chen Keqiao, Lei Wan, and Bao Yifen of the navy, are all from Xingquan Prefecture.
, without any exception!
And this also gives the children of Xingquan Mansion an advantage that others do not have when joining the army!
What advantages?
Because they and these senior generals are all related, even if they are not close relatives, they can definitely be related to distant relatives. Even if they are not distant relatives, you can always find relationships such as in-laws, fellow townsmen, and even the same village by looking for relationships.