The arms trade has always been the largest input in Jiangbei, and it can even be said that for Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Huangyan's arms exports, not only support Jiangbei's military industry, but also its profits are enough to maintain the redress of the loyal and righteous army, so the foreign arms trade has always been valued by people.

However, rather than selling old weapons to Zheng Chenggong or Zhang Huangyan in exchange for supplies such as silver and grain, Zhu Mingzhong preferred to transport old weapons to the rebels in the north who insisted on resisting.

Even until now, there are still rebels in the Taihang Mountains and other places in the north, which is indeed beyond Zhu Mingzhong's expectations, originally he thought that the north should have been quiet, and the resistance should have been extinguished by the Manchus, but who would have thought that there are still resistance forces in the Taihang Mountain, Mount Tai and other places in the north.

They were small in scale, often regarded as bandits by the Manchus, hidden deep in the mountains, although they competed with the regular Manchu army, but they insisted on not shaving their hair, and always insisted on opposing the Qing Dynasty, and regarded the Ming Dynasty as orthodox. For the past six months, the Department has been in contact with them and has confirmed their command through their appointments, and of course, after this confirmation, they need to be assisted, and one of the ways to provide support to those resistance forces such as food, food, weapons and weapons has become one of the ways of assistance. Old-fashioned grenades and flintlock guns are excellent supplies. Although the number is limited, they can always be of some help. Of course, the most important thing is that once the Northern Expedition is in the future, those local anti-Qing rebels will become the guides of the Loyal Army, leading the way for the Loyal Army and assisting the Loyal Army in combat. They can even occupy nearby states and counties, thus acting as the vanguard of the Loyal Army, taking control of the territory before anyone else. Northern expedition! Although in the past year Jiangbei has not fought large-scale battles and has not even had any "conflicts" with the Manchus, in fact, Jiangbei has been preparing for the Northern Expedition.

According to Zhu Mingzhong's plan, when the strength of the Loyal and Righteous Army reaches 200,000 next year, and two-thirds of the veterans are the backbone, the Northern Expedition can be carried out.

After all, in addition to the Northern Expedition, at least 50,000 to 60,000 people are needed to stay in Jiangbei, and after the Northern Expedition, the same number of troops need to be stationed in the Xinguangfu area, and with the current Zhongyi Army, there is no ability to carry out the Northern Expedition while protecting Jiangbei and stabilizing the Xinguangfu.

However, even if the Northern Expedition is not carried out at the moment, it does not mean that preparations will not be made, and these preparations are not limited to the production of munitions, the production of military supplies such as uniforms is also extremely important, and the refitting of the army next year is also a planned thing. Of course, it is also a step of regularization, although in the past, the Loyal and Righteous Army also had standard military uniforms and equipment, but it was not unified, and now the equipment on Li Fugui's body is the first step in the standardization of the Loyal and Righteous Army. Of course, compared with the equipment designed by Zhu Mingzhong with a pat on the head and drawing on the experience of later generations, these equipment are now closer to the needs of the army. When Wang Deyun explained the equipment on the soldiers' bodies, the soldiers had already turned around at this time, and carried a canvas backpack on his back, which was the basic carrying tool for soldiers to carry individual equipment in the field. In the early days, the backpacks of the loyal and righteous army were made of cowhide, and the reason why cowhide was chosen was because the leather was waterproof. However, due to the high price of cowhide and the difficulty of processing it, the backpack material formulated this year was made of oil-soaked canvas.

“…… The standard materials in the backpack are 1 set of shirts and trousers, 2 pairs of foot wraps, 1 raincoat for 2 days of rations, and 1 military blanket, but because the current sewing processing capacity is limited, the raincoat needs to wait until the year before it can be sewn......"

Originally, the loyal army did not have raincoats, and they were used to shelter from the wind and rain, either hats or umbrellas, and umbrellas could certainly keep out the rain, but they needed to hold guns in both hands to fight. Therefore, whenever it rains, you can see loyal officers and soldiers with hats everywhere. The reason why the hats became the first choice of fighters was that they were the most commonly used rain gear by Chinese farmers, and they were cheap and easy to buy.

This kind of thing is a hat that has a very bad rainproof effect, and is used for daily light rain at most. Once you encounter moderate rain, especially windy moderate rain, relying on a hat is useless, and the front heart to the back will be soaked instantly.

And soldiers who march continuously in the rain without rain gear are very prone to illness. In addition, the medical level of this era is limited, and once you get sick, even a severe cold can kill you. Even if they can save their lives, it is inevitable that a large number of soldiers will be attrition after the rain, so the lack of rain gear in the army will greatly affect the combat capability of the army.

Because of this, the production of raincoats has become a priority, and before the raincoats were made, the Loyal Volunteers had already issued waterproof canvases, and this 5-foot-long square tarpaulin could be used as a tent for 1, 2 and up to 38 people. Now when it rains, the soldiers can only use waterproof canvas and hats to protect themselves from the rain.

The reason for this couldn't be simpler – it can't be sewn!

"Sewing ......"

Thinking about these two words, who would have thought that in this era, such a seemingly simple two words have become the biggest problem with the shortage of military uniforms, not that Zhu Mingzhong is unwilling to provide military uniforms with good performance, but that the backward productive forces cannot provide these materials.

Just like now, between the military uniform and the raincoat, you can only choose the military uniform first, as for the raincoat, it can only be put aside temporarily, and the soldiers can only use a waterproof canvas to make up first, after all, the waterproof canvas is just a piece of oilcloth plus four copper nails at the four corners and more than a dozen tie ropes.

"The research and development of this sewing machine must be accelerated......"

Thinking so in his heart, Zhu Mingzhong once again thought of the sewing machine in the laboratory, all along, he was not satisfied with the original manual production of military uniforms, he never gave up the idea of "inventing" the sewing machine in the past, in the past six months, he has been trying to copy the sewing machine invented by Elias Howe in this era, although he has successfully designed the two-thread interlocking sewing method he used, and copied a series of structures that are essential for modern sewing machines, For example, the needle eye and automatic feeding device installed at the tip of the needle, but because he did not know much about the sewing machine, the sewing machine he developed now still seems very rough and cannot meet the needs of sewing at all. In the future, after the sewing machine is put into practical use, the constraints of backward productive forces on the production of military clothing can be fundamentally solved.

"In order to avoid further workload, we chose the inner pocket of the trousers for the military uniform pocket, and only the right hand side is sewn with a fitted pocket......"

When Wang Deyun pointed to the pocket sewn out of the soldier's right trouser leg to explain, Zhu Mingzhong just smiled helplessly, the military uniform has no pockets, which is the characteristic of the old military uniform of the Loyal and Righteous Army. The reason for this feature is to simplify the sewing of military uniforms as much as possible.

The style of the military uniform of the Loyal Volunteers borrowed from the Western-style military uniforms of the late 19th century, and was not as ornate as the military uniforms of the 17th or 18th centuries, and the overall lines were simple and fluent. However, due to the limited production level of this era, it was necessary to reduce the number of sewing processes as much as possible, and there were no pockets for either the jacket or pants, and the letters and money carried by the soldiers could only be packed into the satchel. Although it is a little inconvenient, it does minimize the process and reduce the production cost. But the fighters had to choose to sew their own pockets for convenience, and now the new uniform has an extra pocket, which can be regarded as a "backward force" at the grassroots level.

"In the final analysis, the productive forces are still too backward...... lamenting the limitations of the times, Zhu Mingzhong never thought in the past that under the constraints of backward productive forces, he could only be so simple because of the ugliness.

Productivity...... Looking at the seemingly quite powerful warrior in front of him, he saw that the armed belt around his waist was made of cowhide and a Y-shaped strap made of cowhide that was somewhat similar to the later German army, but it can be clearly seen that the belt edge is very thick, and it can be said that the production process is also extremely backward.

The backwardness of production technology and productivity. "I really don't know how someone else would solve this problem."

Thinking that he is now trapped in backward productive forces, Zhu Mingzhong naturally has a headache, but history has not given him any inspiration.

After a whole day of work, when Zhu Mingzhong left the public house again, when he came to the door, he was a little surprised to find that it had snowed outside, and the snow outside was not big, but it had just fallen, and there was no snow even on the ground.

"It's snowing......"

Although the weather had already cooled down, the arrival of winter snow still made Zhu Mingzhong really feel the arrival of winter, the winter of the 17th century not only came very early, but also very long.

And what does the arrival of winter mean?

After all, even the Qing army will try to avoid fighting in winter, the army of this era, marching and fighting are often limited by the weather, marching and fighting in summer, infectious diseases are easy to epidemic, as for winter, when the weather is cold and freezing, sleeping in the open will also lead to the attrition of the troops, so the troops marching and fighting are often concentrated in spring and autumn. However, because spring ploughing is required in spring, if spring ploughing is delayed because of the war, then the harvest of the year will be delayed, so all major battles will be chosen after the autumn harvest. Zhang Huangyan also entered Huguang after the autumn.

Thinking that now with the arrival of winter, the situation has been relatively relaxed, Zhu Mingzhong looked at the guards who were on duty in the mansion, and naturally thought of the nearly 100,000 newly recruited soldiers in the barracks this year.

"This year's New Year, I'm afraid it's the first Spring Festival they spend outside!"

Talking to himself, a thought couldn't help but appear in Zhu Mingzhong's mind.

"Perhaps, let them go home and see ......" —————————————————————————

The story is wonderful and is continuing, and please support us! Ask for support and recommendations...... Welcome everyone to join the "Daming Iron Bone" reader exchange group: 150536833 discuss together