Some of the Ningxia soldiers in the fierce tiger army stole horses and set fire to them in early August, causing a small mutiny. But as fierce as a tiger and lightning means, he immediately captured the first hundred evil people and beheaded them, and soon put down the mutiny. Although there was a small turmoil, he did what he said, and when his illness was completely cured, he immediately pulled his army north in mid-August.

Zhao Dangshi expected that the fierce tiger would arrive in Yicheng County, Xiangyang Prefecture in three days, so he rushed from Fanhe City to Xiangyang Mansion in advance to make preliminary preparations. It just so happened that there was another achievement in the firearms workshop, and He Dahua kept his promise at the shooting range at the end of July and presented to Zhao Dangshi the booklet compiled by himself based on what he had seen and heard in the Western military struggle.

The booklet is very thin, but in Zhao Dangshi's opinion, the content is all acupuncture. In short, Ho Dahua's proposal is mainly divided into two parts.

First, it is necessary to thoroughly standardize the armament of the armed forces.

This is the work that Zhao Dangshi and Xu Hui and others have been promoting in the early stage, compared with other Ming armies, Zhao Ying has always attached importance to the unified firearms system. Since having northern Chu as the foundation, after several years of development, Zhao Ying has steadily begun to open up the entire link of agricultural and commercial internal affairs, arms manufacturing, and assembly of troops by means of opening up commercial canals, garrisoning troops and fields, and establishing instrument workshops, and has basically been able to achieve self-sufficiency. However, this did not mean that the Zhao Ying, who did not need to rely on the imperial court to manufacture and supply armor and gunpowder, could only rely on the wishes and preferences of military generals and craftsmen to make all kinds of weapons at will.

Soldiers have not much more expensive weapons to master, and today's exercise of the three-eyed gun and tomorrow's use of the thunderbolt gun are not the same, and this will do more harm than good to the improvement of the army's combat effectiveness. Moreover, the requirements for the proportion of gunpowder and projectiles between guns are also different, and the addition of one more standard equipment means that there is an additional special production line at the source, which is a waste of manpower and material resources. It is necessary to select the best one among the various types of guns, whether from the perspective of improving the efficiency of soldier training or saving costs.

Through comparison, Zhao Dangshi believed that the bird gun was the best, so he issued a military order to eliminate the three-eyed gun, the thunderbolt gun, the spear and other guns to specialize in bird guns. This coincides with He Dahua's view, and he also feels that in today's Ming army, the bird gun is relatively balanced in terms of operation, rate of fire, range, and power, and is suitable for large-scale equipment.

The military order for the unified use of bird guns has been issued for a long time, but the implementation of each battalion and unit has different results. As one of the initiators, Xu Hui's pro-command Xiaojie Camp is naturally the most well implemented, and the gunners in the camp completely use bird guns, and the proficiency in bird gun operation is also the highest. In comparison, the other battalion heads have more or less not carried out to the end, and the old elite of the Zhao battalion such as the Wuqi Battalion and the Qihun Battalion are acceptable, such as the Changhong Third Battalion and the recently established National Security Battalion and other battalion heads are not so particular.

The officers of the Changhong Third Battalion and the National Security Battalion were either like Chen Weifu, Xu Qizuo, and Lu Zhenguo, who did not know how to use firearms, and did not know how to practice combat, or like Qin Jinxiao and Li Yanlang, who were good at archery and horse fighting, and despised the advantages of firearms, so they failed to pay attention to the popularization of bird guns. He Dahua felt that if this went on for a long time, the pull on the overall combat strength balance of Zhao Ying's army would only get bigger and bigger, and it was better not to raise an unreliable army.

Zhao Dangshi reminded him that he felt that the matter of pushing birds and collecting miscellaneous guns should be placed at a higher level, otherwise it would be difficult to see results. Therefore, the Unified Inspection Institute also intervened, and issued an order that "no matter what the proportion of firearms in the army is, if it is equipped with guns, it can only be birds", which was jointly supervised and implemented by the military and the two courts.

The military standard uses bird guns, and the guns use the newly developed No. 1 Hongyi cannon, No. 2 Hongyi cannon and Da Folang machine gun.

Soon after the shooting range, Zhao Dangshi doubled the number of guns in the firearms workshop as an incentive, and with the efforts of He Dahua and the Han craftsmen and Fulang machine gunners in the firearms workshop, the two types of gun trucks specially designed to carry the No. 2 Hongyi cannon and the big Buddha Lang machine gun as field artillery soon took shape.

For example, the gun carriage of the No. 2 Hongyi Cannon is made of beech wood, which is heavy, strong and impact-resistant. It is easy to bend under steam, can make shapes, and has good nail holding performance. Although the cost is relatively high, it is really not a luxury compared to the price of a cannon barrel.

The gun carriage has two wheels, about one zhang long and six feet wide, and on weekdays it connects the bridle and lead the bridle of the pack horse, and advances by the horse. When the destination is reached, after the horse and cart are separated, a short distance adjustment is carried out, and three people are pushed, and one person is required to take the helm. After the gun is loaded on it, and the wheels are slightly fixed with brake pads, the Hongyi cannon can adjust the pitch angle on the gun carriage and fire directly. Although the cushioning function of the gun carriage is quite good, as long as it is not an ultra-high frequency continuous fire, within the normal limit, the gunner will adjust it in time, and it will not collapse or tip over the gun carriage itself.

With the artillery car, it is possible for the large No. 2 Hongyi gun to be flexible and mobile in field battles, and then cooperate with the big Buddha Lang machine gun that is also mounted on the gun carriage, and the firepower of the Zhao Ying field battle will inevitably be greatly improved.

In addition to firearms equipment, the unified system of cold weapons is also a top priority.

Or take Xu Hui's Xiaojie battalion as an example, except for eighty percent of the gunners in the battalion, the remaining twenty percent are pikemen. The Ming Dynasty standard spear is divided into two kinds of long and short, Xu Hui followed the use of a long spear, one zhang six feet long, compared with the ash wood spear used by the white pole soldiers in central Sichuan and even eight or nine feet long, the length can only be said to be decent.

But He Dahua thinks that one zhang and six feet is too long. He pointed out that the spear is inherently "an inch long and an inch strong", but that is only in the environment of hand-to-hand combat with cold weapons on both sides, and the Xiaojie battalion is mainly composed of guns, and the spears that are only used for defense are too long, which is not conducive to maneuvering and changing formations. He suggested that the spear used for the defense of the Zhao battalion should be changed to one zhang, because on the whole, whether it was the Ming army or the Liukou who captured the official arsenal and equipped their own rogues, the line guns, or armor-piercing guns, that were the most threatening to the guns in their army, were all nine feet long. One zhang to nine feet is enough to deal with most of the battle situation.

Talking about spears, He Dahua also analyzed the cavalry equipment of the Zhao battalion. He visited the Feijie Left Battalion and the Feijie Right Battalion stationed in Xiangyang Fucheng, and admitted that the cavalry of the Zhao Battalion was brave and fearless, and was a qualified soldier. But he also saw that the average level of the cavalry of the Zhao Battalion, which had a huge number of sources, was outstanding, but it was not satisfactory to focus on the soldiers one by one.

It is obvious that not every cavalryman is adept at using poleguns on horseback, and most are adept at hand-to-hand combat. However, the stakeholder at this point is the instructor envoy, he did not expand too much, but on the basis of the current equipment, he proposed that all cavalry in the Zhao battalion should be heavily armoured, and weapons such as bows and crossbows should be abandoned, and all weapons such as crossbows and short guns should be abandoned, and all those who cannot ride guns should also be equipped with broad-bladed sabers suitable for fighting. Light armor is long-range, and should only be seen on the Ranger Scouts used by scouts.

As for the Che Camp Formation, he hated it and strongly opposed it. He made it clear that chariot battalions could not normally be fought in field battles in dispersed marching columns, and that it would take time to convert into tightly knit battle formations to block cavalry infiltration. But before they could finish their formation, they could be taken advantage of by the cavalry that had quickly entered the battle in the form of marching troops. Under the general trend of Zhao Ying's overall speed-up, this old tactic of cocooning and binding itself must not be touched again.

In addition, focusing on mobility, he felt that Zhao Dangshi's move to match infantry with horses was far-sighted. With horse-drawn artillery, the sluggishness of artillery would be greatly improved, and from this point of view, it would be wise to maintain at least a relative balance between infantry, cavalry, and artillery.

Generally speaking, He Dahua's views on the development of Zhao Ying's military armament are very close to Zhao Dangshi's original conception, so many of Zhao Dangshi's previous efforts are just in line with He Dahua's promotion of Zhao Ying's military reform, avoiding the additional consumption of time and money.

Second, all branches of the armed forces should attach importance to coordination in combat.

For a long time, the tactics of the Zhao battalion were based on the old tactics of the Ming army and made small improvements, which were not enough and incomplete in the eyes of He Dahua. For example, after observing Xu Hui's battle against the invading Zhang Xianzhong's bandits in the field battle of Yunyang Mansion, he found that the soldiers of the Zhao battalion were very "reckless and reckless" in their use of artillery. Nine times out of ten, all the artillery was put in the front line, and the scene looked grandiose and bluffing, but before the gun carriages with heavy barrels were produced, the firepower of these small field guns was not enough to crush the enemy troops charging head-on, and there was no professional gunner to operate, and the accuracy was even more pitiful. Think about it, where can the number of artillery pieces be compared with the birds? The Bird Gun can compensate for the lack of accuracy with dense fire, and the use of artillery in this way is really a terrible thing.

The current arms of the Zhao battalion are divided into larger divisions, and it is obvious that they are infantry and cavalry, and then subdivided, and the importance of artillery in field battles after having artillery carriages is bound to rise, and from the infantry to the infantry and artillery are only in the morning and evening. Since the relationship between infantry and artillery is so close, it is all the more necessary to cooperate with each other. Otherwise, after several rounds of artillery bombardment like the current one, the infantry will come up one after another, and it seems that the artillery will cooperate in front of and behind, but in fact it will be completely alienated, and if we want to give full play to the superiority of artillery in field battles, we cannot "engage in wheel warfare." He strongly demanded that the Zhao battalion assign field artillery to the establishment below the post level and arrange it evenly, instead of directly subordinate to a battalion and deploy it together in battle. Of course, he did not object to a certain proportion of artillery directly under the command of the battalion level in order to form a local firepower advantage over specific targets in the shortest possible time, but he insisted that both the team level and the sentinel level must have their own artillery.

Therefore, the concept of the battle has also become to first suppress the fire of each team and each post with the artillery of the battalion, and then the infantry to advance in an orderly manner, and at the same time, the artillery of each team and each post cannot be separated, and it is necessary to advance synchronously, and continue to provide fire support for the infantry in the process. In other words, he advocated strengthening the combat effectiveness of smaller combat units, so that smaller units could be used to strengthen the whole. This is bound to pose a great challenge to the command and communication ability of Zhao Ying's superiors and subordinates, but this is not within the scope of He Dahua's consideration.

Steps and artillery should be coordinated, this is the first step. If the first step is already in place, then the next second step is the coordinated operation between the infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Under this theory, cavalry should not be used only to fight fires on the spot and run around, as is the case now, but must dare to break away from the infantry and charge alone. Charging also requires choosing a better chance to charge, prioritizing attacking the flanks of enemy cavalry or stationary enemy cavalry. And try to keep a dense and neat formation when charging. It is usually arranged on the flanks or in the center of the hollow phalanx, waiting for the opportunity to move. Overall, He Dahua's main requirements for the cavalry of Zhao Ying were mainly white-knuckle combat and impact.

Zhao Dangshi attached great importance to He Dahua's suggestions, but even if they were good words, they could not be implemented in a day, so he thanked He Dahua and asked him to focus on the work of developing guns in the firearms workshop.

"Dad, Li Zhongjun sent someone."

Zhao Dangshi was still thinking about the development of Zhao Ying's army in the future, and Zhao Yuanheng, who was dressed in a strong suit and full of energy, stepped into the hall to report it. He is the Li Laiheng who Li Zicheng gave to Zhao Dangshi during the Laojun Iron Dome Meeting. Since he recognized Zhao Dangshi as his father-in-law, he changed his name, and the camp was called "Big Young Master", and "Second Young Master" was Zhao Dangshi's other righteous son, Zhao Yuanzai.

Zhao Yuanheng is only sixteen years old, but he is old and serious, and he is effective in doing things, Zhao Dangshi values him very much, and often takes him with him to exercise. At this time, he had just sent He Dahua away, but he brought the news of "Li Zhongjun". "Li Zhongjun" is Li Yanlang, an officer in the left battalion of Changhong, who is now sitting in Yunyang Mansion with Xu Hui, and suddenly sent someone to do something?