Chapter 193: Flintlock pistol, City Division
After half a year of busyness, Chen Xian's army expansion was finally completed, but it will take longer to train these expanded troops to restore their combat effectiveness.
After the expansion of the army, the infantry under Chen Xian's command increased from the original six regiments to twenty-four regiments, and these twenty-four regiments formed eight brigades, with a total number of nearly 100,000 people!
Chen Xian transferred six elite regiments from these 20 regiments and made no arrangements for the time being, while the remaining 18 regiments formed six infantry brigades.
These six infantry brigades were stationed in the eastern plains of Yidu, the eastern parts of Surabaya and Fengfu counties, and the southern plains of Linyi, relying on the castle complex to form three defensive lines in the north, west, and south.
In addition to leaving a light cavalry battalion for each infantry brigade for reconnaissance purposes, Chen Xian transferred almost all the cavalry back to the Mizhou military camp.
After two years of successive expansion, the number of cavalry battalions under Chen Xian's command has now increased to 16, including eight horse infantry battalions riding mules and horses, four assault cavalry battalions, and four light cavalry battalions.
In this expansion, Chen Xian converted all eight horse infantry battalions into regular cavalry, and after several years of training, these horse infantry had no problem in riding, and it was relatively easy to transform them into assault cavalry and light cavalry.
After that, after Chen Xian reorganized the previous infantry, the remaining six infantry regiments were directly transformed into six horse infantry regiments!
Horse infantry regiments are no longer organized according to cavalry, but according to infantry.
Chen Xian transferred a number of outstanding officers and soldiers from the original horse infantry and assigned them to the newly established six horse infantry regiments as officers and instructors.
Even if Chen Xian had already occupied most of Shandong, it would be difficult for him to scrape together the tens of thousands of mules and horses needed by the six horse infantry regiments, unless he did not even care about the livestock needs of the agricultural company under his command, which was of course impossible.
Therefore, although the establishment of these six infantry regiments has become horse infantry, in fact, the number of mules and horses is less than 8,000, and it is a little reluctant to divide into six infantry regiments, even three people and one mount, but fortunately, if they only take turns to train, it is barely enough.
According to Chen Xian's memory, he still had a few years of buffer time, and he had to get enough mules and horses in these few years.
In order to get enough mules and horses for this group of horse infantry, Chen Xian adopted a three-pronged approach.
First, he promulgated a series of subsidy policies to encourage agricultural cooperatives, farmers, merchants, etc...... Keep more mules and horses.
Second, merchants were encouraged to buy mules and horses from abroad to sell to them at high prices.
Third, expand the scale of the horse farm.
In order to raise horses, Chen Xian even enclosed a large area of dozens of square kilometers in the west of Mizhou City into a horse farm, and relocated all the forts in this place to grow grass and raise horses.
These two horse infantry brigades, eight assault cavalry battalions, and four light cavalry battalions are the mobile forces that Chen Xian planned to live in.
When the horse infantry was increased to the size of six regiments, the pressure on the quartermaster to supply so many revolver muskets was too great.
The revolver musket is precise, expensive, has a high failure rate, and has a low rate of successful firing, and it is more troublesome to serve one revolver musket than to serve five arquebuses.
Chen Xian was fed up with this kind of high-cost and low-quality weapon, so by expanding the scale of the horse infantry this time, Chen Xian made the decision to completely reequip the cavalry with flintlock pistols.
If you can produce more complex revolver muskets, then there is no problem at all in the production of flintlock pistols, Chen Xian has already perfected the production process of flintlock pistols in his experimental factory, and trained a group of mature workers, after he dispersed these workers to various arsenals, the arsenals around the country quickly came up with finished products, and the mass production of flintlock pistols was rapidly launched.
With a flintlock pistol, Chen Xian simply took out all the paper-shell fixed bullets, fixed shells, and granular gunpowder technology at one time.
In recent years, Chen Xian has also figured out that the mode of modern warfare has been moving closer to the mode of modern warfare, and the war is more about logistics and supply, if the enemy only learns how to make guns and cannons, but does not learn his production system, in a large-scale war, it will be difficult to rely on the blacksmith's hammer and his hydraulic factory to compete, and in the end it will be ugly.
If one day the Mongol really threw down his bow and arrows and picked up the musket, he would not have time to rejoice.
He planned to wait until he had finished refitting the cavalry with flintlock pistols, and then proceed with the refitting of the infantry.
Although he was ready to change his flintlock pistol, Chen Xian did not intend to eliminate the Morris phalanx immediately.
On the one hand, the tactical transition from the Morris phalanx to the line was too large, and the army needed a process of adaptation.
In addition, the battlefield environment of the era of line tactics is very different from this era, how to use line tactics to deal with a powerful pure cavalry army, Chen Xian's heart has no answer, line tactics are more mainly used to deal with the infantry who also use muskets, when facing cavalry, flintlock pismen also need to form a phalanx to fight, in the Napoleonic era, there are also many examples of flintlock pistol phalanxes that were defeated by shock cavalry.
Chen Xian didn't need to deal with flintlock infantry anyway, so should he keep a pike-fired phalanx that was more aimed at cavalry?
Anyway, the Morris phalanx currently in use has performed well in the previous war, so why not continue to keep this tactic, anyway, the flintlock pistol and the Morris phalanx not only do not conflict, but also have a bonus effect.
Chen Xian finally decided to keep the Morris phalanx for the time being, and finally let the battlefield test it, and then improve the tactics through battlefield experience, instead of imagining it here now and patting his head to decide.
After all, he is now wearing shoes, and he can no longer do as he did when he was barefoot.
After more than half a year of tossing, Chen Xian turned the Great Plain west of Mizhou City into a large barracks and a large horse farm.
While Chen Xian was busy in Mizhou, his merchant fleet finally arrived at the mouth of the Yongjiang River after more than two months of sea voyages.
In the Song Dynasty, the income of the city occupied a considerable proportion of the imperial court's financial revenue.
It is said that in the Southern Song Dynasty, the income of the market alone was as high as four or five million.
In the early period of the Southern Song Dynasty, there were two Zhejiang Road, Fujian Road, and Guangnan East Road, and three roads were set up to lift the city, and the chief was called the city of lifting.
In the second year of the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial court dismissed the two Zhejiang cities.
It's not that the two Zhejiang cities are not important, on the contrary, because he is too important.
As we all know, the two Zhejiang provinces are the most core and most prosperous areas of the Southern Song Dynasty, and there are the most important port ports in the Southern Song Dynasty.
In the two Zhejiang regions, there are Hangzhou City, Mingzhou (Ningbo) City, Huating (later Shanghai Songjiang area) City, these three large markets.
After the dismissal of the two Zhejiang cities, the local governors were directly responsible for leading the two Zhejiang cities.
The caravan sent by Chen Xian was targeted by one of the largest markets in the Southern Song Dynasty, Mingzhou City.
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