Chapter 607: The Age of Firearms

Although the Su Chamber of Commerce has become the second largest Chamber of Commerce in the Xia Dynasty by mastering the core technology, the coverage of the Su Chamber of Commerce is also not small, only a little worse than the Long Chamber of Commerce.

It stands to reason that the Su Chamber of Commerce that has mastered the core technology does not need to cover such a wide range, but a large part of the shadow guards created by Su Yan rely on the Su Chamber of Commerce to collect intelligence, and the shadow guards need to monitor all areas of the Xia Dynasty, even remote areas, so that the Su Chamber of Commerce spends a lot of money to establish branches in most areas of the Xia Dynasty.

Fortunately, the Su Chamber of Commerce has mastered the core technology and can earn a lot of money through these core technologies every year, while Su Yan does not have many places to use money, mainly for the research and development of new technologies, paying salaries to subordinate employees (including shadow guards), and maintaining local branches, even so, he will accumulate a lot of money every year.

The rest of the money is divided into three parts, part of which was used for charity, part of which was put by Su Yan into the Su family's money bank affiliated to the Su Chamber of Commerce, and the last part of the money will be invested, either to buy real estate, or to invest in other chambers of commerce and commercial houses.

There are several nouns here, money bank, chamber of commerce, and commercial house.

The Xia Dynasty's money village is the modern bank, which is a place to manage money, and the reason why there is a "bank" in modern times is mainly the status of silver in history, and in the Xia Dynasty, in addition to the initial use of gold, silver and copper to issue some currency, and then directly switch to paper money, as well as small denomination metal currency made of ferroalloy.

Many money banks issue some gold and silver commemorative coins every year, attracting many people to buy, but the commemorative coins can not enter the market circulation, mainly the collection value, as well as the value of gold and silver itself, with gold and silver as decorations is the habit of all people from top to bottom in the Xia Dynasty, and there is almost no market for expensive diamonds in the Xia Dynasty in modern times.

By the way, there were so many countries in the Xia Dynasty, but there was only one money bank that could issue currency, that is, the Xia Dynasty Central Money Bank, whose headquarters was located in the capital of the Xia Kingdom, and four other branches were located in the capitals of the other four kingdoms.

The Xia Dynasty's Central Qian Zhuang was a semi-independent/independent organization in various countries, and the five kingdoms governed the Qian Zhuang together, and Su Yan could also govern the Qian Zhuang in the name of the Xia Emperor.

The Xia Dynasty Central Bank had more powers, minting currency, issuing currency, supervising other banks, formulating currency rules, and providing loans to state-level customers (refer to the central bank), in addition, the Xia Dynasty Central Bank could not issue currency at will, and needed to carefully investigate the market and issue currency according to the market's demand for money, and there could be no disruption to the market.

The central money bank can not open deposits, loans and other projects for individuals and even chambers of commerce, this is the opportunity for other money banks, many large money banks are relying on the establishment of large chambers of commerce, and there are also many businessmen and magnates united to establish money banks, and even a county, a town of money banks, but small money banks are always difficult to survive, it is very easy to go bankrupt and go bankrupt, and the people of the Xia Dynasty believe in medium-sized large money banks.

The Long's Chamber of Commerce has Long's Money, and the Su's Chamber of Commerce also has Su's Money, relying on the strong Chamber of Commerce, the scale of the two banks can be ranked in the top few.

The Xia Dynasty's money bank was a modern bank, while the Xia Dynasty's chamber of commerce and commercial banks were modern groups and companies, respectively, and the commercial banks often represented enterprises that only operated one industry, while the chamber of commerce was a large enterprise that operated multiple industries or owned multiple commercial banks.

The average monthly income of workers in Xia Guozhong's factory is eighty-two yuan, and the total assets of the Long Chamber of Commerce, which employs more than one million, and the Su Chamber of Commerce, which employs hundreds of thousands, are more than 10 billion, and the two chambers of commerce are really rich countries, and their annual income is even higher than the financial income of many principalities.

The Long Chamber of Commerce is the Long Chamber of Commerce that belongs to King Xia, not the Dragon Chamber of Commerce that belongs to the Xia Kingdom, for example, King Xia has a large number of properties all over the country, and these properties are actually managed by the Long Chamber of Commerce.

The Xia government itself will not open any commercial chambers of commerce, the financial income of the Xia country mainly comes from various taxes, according to the chamber of commerce and the level of personal income to pay taxes, the higher the income, the more taxes need to be paid, no one can be an exception, including the children of the Long family, the Long Chamber of Commerce, in this case, the financial income of the Xia government is relatively high, to meet the operation of the Xia government, and to make the welfare of the people continue to improve.

Even if the Xia government has a fiscal deficit, Xia Wang, the ruler of Xia Guo, will use the funds of the Long Chamber of Commerce to subsidize Xia Guo to a certain extent, but the Long Chamber of Commerce is Xia Wang's own industry, and most of the time there is no need to subsidize Xia Guo, more often it is to take out funds to build public buildings, or use funds to help difficult groups, mainly to enhance the prestige of Xia Wang.

……

Su Yan and Su Zi's carriage left the palace and did not drive directly to Su Yan's mansion in the northeastern district of Zhongjing City, but to the east district called "East Market" by the residents of Zhongjing City.

Trample! Trample! Trample!

A group of soldiers with neat steps staggered past the carriage, Su Yan glanced at it inadvertently, and the weapons and equipment on the soldiers made Su Yan feel a lot of emotion.

In the era of the Snake Tribe, the weapons and equipment used by the warriors of the Snake Tribe were stone spears, stone axes, short spears, and stones, without any defensive armor, but the animal skins worn on their bodies had a certain defensive ability.

In the era of the Dragon Tribe, the weapons and equipment of the Dragon Tribe warriors were improved, such as copper spears, copper knives, copper axes, copper swords, bows and arrows, rattan shields, rattan armor, and copper shields.

Compared with the era of the snake tribe, the weapons and equipment of the dragon tribe era are really improved for a whole generation, the sharp copper weapons can easily pierce the enemy's rattan shield and rattan armor, and there are strong bows that can shoot the enemy from a long distance, it is the advantage of the bow and arrow that makes the dragon tribe pay a relatively small price of casualties in every war.

In the Xia Kingdom era, the weapons and equipment used by the warriors of the early Xia Kingdom were no different from those used in the Dragon Tribe era, at most, the rattan armor turned into leather armor.

As steel production continues to increase and the performance of steel continues to improve, copper weapons are replaced by iron weapons, mainly because iron weapons are lighter than copper weapons in the same volume, which is all too important.

The Xia Dynasty almost reached the peak of the cold weapon era, relying on these cold weapons, the Xia Dynasty army conquered all regions of the earth, constantly expanding its territory, relying only on these cold weapons, the Xia Dynasty will occupy most of the area, even if the Xia Dynasty did not enter the age of firearms, relying on those cold weapons, the Xia Dynasty can still occupy most of the earth.

At the peak of cold weapons, the Su Chamber of Commerce began to study various firearms under Su Yan's orders, and arquebuses, artillery, and grenades appeared.

After the performance of various firearms stabilized, Su Yan "invited" the Xia King and the bigwigs of the military department to watch the firearm test, and finally the artillery and grenades were recognized by everyone, and it didn't take long to equip the Xia army in batches, but the arquebus was abandoned.

Su Yan is not surprised by this result, the biggest contributor to the Xia Dynasty's ability to occupy most of the earth is those strong bows and crossbows, even if the enemy has bows and arrows, the range and power of their bows and arrows are far inferior to the strong bows and crossbows of the Xia Kingdom, and the Xia Dynasty only hopes to destroy one enemy after another at a small price.

Bow and long-range attack weapons, arquebuses are also long-range attack weapons, the advantage of arquebuses is that they can shoot continuously, and crossbows require the archer to constantly pull the bowstring, which consumes a lot of physical strength, and the frequency of archery will continue to decrease with the increase in the number of archery shots in battle, and finally you have to rest your arms to continue to draw the bow and shoot arrows.

Compared with its advantages, the arquebus has too many disadvantages, the range of the arquebus does not have many advantages compared to the longbow, and more importantly, the accuracy of the arquebus as a smoothbore gun is too poor, and when you fire a shot forward, the projectile does not know where it will fly, and you need to pay attention to the weather factors when using the arquebus, and the arquebus cannot even be used in rainy weather.

There are so many shortcomings of the arquebus, how to let the soldiers of the Xia Kingdom use it, although the arquebus is simple to use, but the Xia State has a complete archer training system, almost as many archers as you want, you can produce as many archers as you want, and with the countries established by the children of the Long clan appearing on all sides of the Xia Kingdom, the Xia Kingdom itself no longer needs to maintain too many troops.

As soon as the arquebus and the bow and crossbow were compared, the bigwigs of the Xia State Military Department decided to continue to use the bow and crossbow, Su Yan understood the determination of the arquebus, and did not force the Xia State to equip the arquebus as the Xia Emperor.

The other two kinds of firearms, artillery and grenades are welcomed by the bigwigs of the military department, the artillery has a long range and great power, although the initial artillery rate of fire is relatively low, but the range is far enough to make up for this shortcoming, the weight of the artillery is a little heavy, but there are enough war horses in the Xia Kingdom, the track and cement roads extend in all directions, and the artillery can also be placed on the warship.

The throwing distance of the grenade is not very far, but the power of the grenade is not small, if a team of soldiers each throws a grenade, the scene can be imagined, very amazing.

After King Xia and the bigwigs of the Xia State Military Department decided to purchase artillery and grenades to equip the troops, Su Yan sold the grenade technology with relatively small profits to the Long Chamber of Commerce, and the Su Chamber of Commerce personally manufactured artillery with larger profits.

When the first batch of artillery and grenades were installed in the Xia army, the major war colleges in the Xia country also opened corresponding courses, the grenade-related courses were relatively simple, and the artillery-related courses were more complicated, and the war colleges needed to train a large number of artillery professionals for the Xia army.

Another point that needs to be said is that Su Yan in the Xia Dynasty paid the most attention to the Xia State, and the Xia State was the legitimate heir of the Xia Dynasty.

It is not necessary that the military strength of the Xia Kingdom can crush all the other countries, but the military strength of the Xia Kingdom can compete with the other four kingdoms to join forces, and in the case of incomparable military scale, they can only find ways in terms of weapons and equipment, and the gap between firearms and cold weapons is an era.

Therefore, all kinds of new equipment appeared in the Xia Dynasty were the first to equip the Xia army, the next generation of products were equipped to the other four kingdoms, and some equipment was given to the countries under the kingdom.

In fact, when the Xia Dynasty had occupied most of the earth, the size of the Xia army, and the size of the armies of other countries was also shrinking, and only a few rulers of the country were worried about civil unrest, so they maintained an army of sufficient size.

In a short period of time, the countries established by the children of the Long clan will not fight each other, because it does not make much sense, everyone is the children of the Long clan, everyone is a member of the Xia Dynasty, they have a common culture, use a common language, use the same currency, and the populations of various countries are constantly communicating.

It's just that with the passage of time, there is a high probability of a civil war in the Xia Dynasty in the future.

The military factory of the Su Chamber of Commerce has been researching various firearms, muskets and artillery are the focus, and they are constantly updated, and the frequency of grenade replacement is relatively low, after all, the technology of grenades is too simple.

The artillery series continues to expand, according to different caliber (power), range, weight divided into a variety of artillery, some suitable for placement in naval warships, some suitable for field/warfare, some suitable for fixed battery use, Xia Guo's military department will purchase all kinds of artillery according to their own needs.

When the musket had a major technical reform for the first time, it evolved from arquebuses to flintlock muskets, and the Xia State Military Department finally purchased a batch of flintlock pistols for trial use.

The first flintlock gun with stable performance is still a smoothbore gun, and the disadvantages are still slow rate of fire and low accuracy, but the influence of weather factors has been greatly reduced, and firing projectiles has become very simple, so the Xia National Military Department purchased a batch of flintlock pistols to try to use.

The military factory under the Su Chamber of Commerce not only produces two types of flintlock pistols, one long and one short, but the short flintlock pistol has a relatively short range.

Su Yan named the two flintlock pistols, rifle and pistol, respectively.

The real large-scale purchase of muskets by the Xia National Military Department was when the flintlock pistol with a barrel engraved into the rifle appeared, the most important thing compared with the rifled gun and the smoothbore gun was that the shooting accuracy was greatly increased, and the range of the rifled gun was much longer than the range of the bow and arrow, in this case, the musket was already suitable for large-scale installation, and the disadvantages of slow rate of fire had been covered up by other advantages of the musket.

In the 173rd year of the Xia calendar, that is, this year, the Xia army has already entered the age of firearms from the age of cold weapons, except for the cavalry troops, all other troops have been equipped with muskets, artillery, and grenades.

After many simulated exercises of the Xia Army, in most cases, a well-trained firearms unit can defeat ten times the number of cold weapons troops (not counting cavalry), and at a long distance, the artillery and muskets of the firearms troops can defeat the cold weapons troops, which is already a new type of war for the Xia army.

The Xia army entered the age of firearms, and the other four kingdoms also entered the age of firearms, but the firearms equipped by the armies of the four kingdoms were worse than those of the Xia army, after all, the most advanced firearms were to be equipped with the Xia army first, and there was already a patent law in the Xia Dynasty, and all countries were part of the Xia Dynasty.

The armies of other principalities and princes also followed the kingdom's army to advance into the era of firearms, but countries in remote and backward areas still used cold weapons, and those countries did not have much money to replace their armies with firearms. ()

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