However, in the casting process, some impurities need to be removed, and the iron will be partially lost, and in the end, only more than 80 can be built, plus the original rifle, it has exceeded 220.

It just so happened that Ma Youshui was going to train the second batch of soldiers, and the number of soldiers trained this time was more than the two general flags.

The printing and dyeing factory also sent the pattern of camouflage uniforms, Li Zicheng selected the most pleasing one from the five pieces of fabric, he cut half of it as a sample, and the other half was brought back by the guys from the printing and dyeing factory to expand the number of printing and dyeing.

In mid-July, the three-month training of the whole army officially ended, Li Zicheng originally wanted to go to various places to inspect it, but he gave up after thinking about it, but he made certain adjustments to the garrisons in various places, so that there were more mobile troops in Xining City, and he could no longer think of the Triangle City when he asked for help, except for Liu Yunshui, there were almost no troops in Xining City that could be reinforced.

The biggest adjustment is the Triangle City, Liu Yunshui, who originally replaced Zhou Bin's troops stationed in the Triangle City, is the most elite cavalry in Xining, and it is too wasteful to let the cavalry defend the city.

The defense of Triangle City was handed over to Li Jibu, who originally guarded Nanchuan County, and Li Jibu would be in charge of both Nanchuan County and Triangle City after expanding the army by 200 troops.

It is logical that the Triangle City and Nanchuan County, which respectively guard the east and west sides of the West Sea, are now handed over to Li Ji, but the Triangle City goes deep into the northeast corner of the West Sea, and Nanchuan County is far away in the southwest of the West Sea, and it is still nearly 100 miles away from the West Coast, which is too far away from the Triangle City, which is not conducive to the connection between the two.

The only way to solve this problem is to rely on the West Sea.

The members of the West Sea Fishing Team were originally soldiers, but after being eliminated by the new Xining Army, they were forced to come to the West Sea area to fish and herd sheep.

The West Sea Army, which Li Zicheng planned to form, was walking on two legs, speeding up its formation day and night.

One leg is the craftsmen represented by Cao Jian, they have begun to build warships on the west coast, according to the return of Li Zicheng's own soldiers, they have built the simplest shack on the west coast, using the most primitive dock, according to the suggestions and drawings provided by Tang Ruowang, are building warships day and night, Cao Jian may be atoning for his sins, but the craftsmen who followed him to the West Sea are afraid that they will also suffer.

Li Zicheng does not want to affect his health because of his work, in case of "death from overwork", it is also a loss for Weili, after all, the craftsmen in Xining are still very expensive, but they can only wait until the first warship succeeds, and then they have the opportunity to improve their living and living conditions, and what they can do now is only to let the fishing team provide them with some fresh fish to supplement their nutrition nearby.

The other leg is the original fishing captain Zhou Kun, who was ordered to recruit 100 sailors as the chief flag officer of the navy, and has used small boats to train in the West Sea, and is familiar with the nature of the ship and the nature of the water, which is the most important task for them at this stage.

Li Zicheng originally just built a warship, while training soldiers, while testing warships, now it seems that one is not enough at all, no matter what the performance of this kind of warship, even if it is used as a transport ship, at least three must be built, so that during the maintenance period, there are two warships in the West Sea.

Whether it is a soldier or a warship, now I am afraid that the store is not worthy of the title of a naval army, Li Zicheng is not worried, from scratch, there must always be a process, in fact, he has neither the energy nor the silver to form a real naval army.

Although the Xining Navy could not be compared with the European navy of the same era, their opponents were only the Mongols and Tibetans who had not yet heard of the Water Army, in Li Zicheng's vision, through the Xining Water Army, the garrisons on the east and west sides of the West Sea were connected, and when necessary, the Navy could also log in to fight, in case the war was unfavorable, at least the soldiers and civilians in the city could escape by boat, and for the Mongols on horseback, the West Sea was a hurdle that they could never cross.

According to this assumption, the defense in the southwest direction of the West Sea, if it continues to stay in Nanchuan County, it will be too conservative, and it is too far from the triangle city on the northeast coast, Nanchuan County is the original Fuqiang Fort, which was used to deter the local people, and has no function of garrisoning the West Sea.

Now that the Xining Army has entered the Xihai region, the defense line must be moved westward, at least to advance to the area of the Riyue Pass, hold the "Tangbo Ancient Road", and then build several beacon towers to the south of the Xihai Sea to connect to the West Sea.

In the north of Xining, there is no obvious change, Qin Danian's 300 households are the only 100 households with only six general banners, his main task is to garrison Beichuan County, Weiyuan County, for the Mongolian Maili cadres along the Datong River, temporarily take a defensive position, when it is impossible to completely eradicate Maili cadres, it is best not to provoke him.

Even if the Maili cadres can be completely wiped out, there are Bayar of the Mongolian Chahar Department waiting behind, and the current Maili cadres happen to be the buffer zone between the Xining Army and Bayar, in the border of the Ming Dynasty, the tribes of the Mongols are like grass in spring, "wildfires can't be burned, and the spring breeze blows and grows."

In the southeast, since the east was basically a border wall to defend against the Mongols, the 700th household of Song Wen was mainly tasked with defending Liangzhou Wei north of the watershed.

With such a layout, although the three directions are relatively weak, there are four hundred households in Xining City, including the first, second, fifth, and sixth#, with more than 2,000 soldiers.

Li Zicheng is also forced to do this, the first and second hundred households are cavalry hundred, mainly cavalry, it is impossible to be stationed in a certain direction for a long time and lose their mobility, in the center of Xining, on the contrary, they can give full play to their greatest advantages, once there is a danger in a certain direction, the cavalry can rush to reinforcements as quickly as possible.

Ma Youshui's 600th household is training rifles in Xining City, and now almost eight general banners have completed their initial shooting training, and they are entering a critical period and must be stationed in Xining, while Zhou Bin's 500th household will be the next 100 households to fully train rifles, and they must also stay in Xining.

Li Zicheng designated Zhou Binbu as the second hundred households to train rifles, as long as it was because Zhou Binbu did not fall because he had endured a tragic battle in the Triangle City, from officers to soldiers, they had completed a sublimation of their lives, and the 500th households now cherish their fame in this battle.

Although a large number of recruits were recruited, the framework of the veterans was still there, and most of them were promoted to officers, so the combat effectiveness of the army did not seriously decline due to a large number of casualties, on the contrary, the morale of the soldiers was very high.

Li Zicheng doesn't have to worry that this army will fall, as long as the veterans are still there, the confidence of the army is there, and his headache is that there are not enough rifles for the soldiers to train.

In the eyes of the soldiers, in addition to envy, they are still envious, they use Xining rifles, and in their own hands, they are still traditional knives and guns, in fact, there are very few long weapons such as spears, and most of them are short blades such as waist knives.

In the Triangle City War, Zhou Bin's subordinates suffered a lot in the battle of the Mongols because of the lack of long weapons, although the 500th households were greatly expanded, but the blades were not fundamentally improved, in a word, because of the lack of pig iron, they could only use the short blades that Weili had originally stocked.

Li Zicheng felt the anxiety in the hearts of the 500 officers and soldiers, he gritted his teeth, and selected two general flags from the soldiers with horses, took off their Mingguang armor, melted them into iron, and made Xining rifles, plus Mu Qingshan's pig iron collected sporadically from other provinces during this period of time, and created more than 100 rifles.

The Xining Army had more than 330 rifles, and Li Zicheng reconfigured these rifles.

The 600th household has a water department, and the two general banners of Tang Zhengtao and Qian Desheng, who were the first to be stripped of their armor, were officially equipped with Xining rifles and began to conduct tactical training; There are still more than 100 soldiers in the Ma Youshui Department who have not undergone shooting drills, leaving more than 100 rifles behind for them to continue shooting training.

The 500th Zhou Bin Division has preliminarily completed the three-month training, but there are many new recruits in the unit, so the two general flags have been temporarily allowed to conduct shooting training, and the rest of the soldiers, according to the specific conditions of the training, will continue the original training for one month.

Li Zicheng estimated that in one month's time, the shooting training of the two general flags that originally trained rifles should be almost complete, and more than 100 rifles can be trained under the two general flags.

The shooting training has been going on for several months, and there is no shortage of instructors, but Li Zicheng does not care, but what he cares about is the current situation when the outside world finds that there is no Xining Army, especially the 600th Tang Zhengtao and Qian Desheng units that have been issued rifles.

Tactical training is completely different from the original shooting training, in addition to allowing soldiers to learn to use, maintain, and simply repair rifles, the main purpose of shooting training is to improve the accuracy of shooting, as long as they hit the target, according to the current situation of the Xining rifle, the soldiers mainly carry out 100 steps, 200 steps, 400 steps shooting training.

Due to the urgency of time, the shooting level of a small number of soldiers may not meet the requirements for the time being, Li Zicheng did not expel these soldiers from the army, but let them continue to strengthen their training, "diligence can make up for shortcomings", as long as the time is in place, the vast majority of them can still become qualified gunners.

The next tactical training is different, the Xining rifle is a single shot, after each shot, you have to reload the bullet, this gap, is equivalent to the butterfly feathering period, the gunners who shoot have no self-protection ability, need to get the support of their peers.

Later history books describe this tactic from Western Europe very clearly, and named it "three-stage" shooting, that is, the gunners are divided into three rows, the first row of gunners shoots, while they are loaded, give way to the second row of gunners, the second row of gunners complete the next shot, and then the third row of gunners shoots.

When the third row of gunners has finished firing, the first row of gunners should have finished reloading and start the next round of shooting, and the cycle repeats itself, so that the rifle does not stop firing.

The "three-stage" shooting is generally a salvo, which can make up for the lack of accuracy of individual shooting, but requires soldiers to load ammunition at a basically consistent speed, which requires strict drills.

According to the state of training, the time of reloading will be set in the future, if this requirement can be met, it is like a product produced on the assembly line, even if a soldier temporarily joins other armies, he can also integrate into the group to complete the salvo, otherwise, if he really does not meet the requirements, he can only retire, or transfer to other arms, such as fishing teams, sheep herding teams, etc.

Li Zicheng didn't teach in person, he just explained the essentials to Ma Youshui, and then left the training ground, only to return to the back office, before he had time to go home, Ren Erxi, the pro-soldier small flag officer, stepped forward to report: "My lord, Wu Ermao just sent back the message!" ”