The revolution began first and foremost with the military. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Because this is an area that Zhu Jinglun personally controls, and it is also the cornerstone of the country's stability, other changes may encounter setbacks, once they encounter the resistance of the diehards, the worst result is the collapse of order, the world is in chaos, and then military force will be the last choice to solve the problem.

To put it mildly, Zhu Jinglun wants to grasp the means to ensure that the regime does not collapse when he is regarded as a faint king.

After the Franco-Prussian War, a large number of officers who had studied in Europe began to return home.

These officers all went to Europe in 1866, and the first group of people even caught up with the Austro-Prussian War, but only a small group of people, they were a group of officers who went to fight the front station, and most of the officers went to the army when Zhu Jinglun withdrew from Beiqi after he ascended the throne, and they did not catch up with this war, but at that time Europe was generally talking about this war, and they learned about this war from various military papers and readings that were constantly published.

Before the Austro-Prussian War, the military circles were generally not optimistic about Prussia, because compared with the Austrian Empire, Prussia was at an absolute disadvantage in terms of population and military strength.

Prussia had a population of only eight million, compared to more than twenty million under the Austrian Empire, and the gap in the number of reservists on both sides was huge. Moreover, Prussia was the challenger at that time, and most of the states in the German Confederation supported Austria, especially the largest states, such as the Kingdom of Bavaria, which sided with Austria.

With inferior potential to Austria and the lack of support from its neighbors, Prussia not only had to fight head-on with a strong opponent, but also had to face attacks from other states, and had to fight on three fronts, no one was optimistic about Prussia.

Even the leader of the workers' movement, Archbishop Engelsn, believed that Prussia would be defeated.

But no one saw the change of the Prussian army under the auspices of Mao Qi, the adoption of the general staff system, and Mao Qi's ability to use the Prussian railway and telegraph system.

As a result, although Prussia fought on multiple fronts, at the beginning of the war, it had to divide its forces to destroy Austria's allies Hanover, Hesse and Saxony and other countries that were completely different from Prussia. It then marched south to attack Frankfurt, then to Baden and Württemberg, and finally to the decisive battle with Austria.

Mao Qi's bold division of troops made people criticize him for not knowing how to brave soldiers, and no one was optimistic about Prussia.

But as a result, before Austria gathered superior forces, Mao Qi not only swept away Austria's allies, but also used the advantage of the railway to complete the assembly ahead of Austria during the decisive battle, and as a result, Prussia had superior forces in the decisive battle.

This use of railways has become a hot topic of discussion in Europe, and everyone has rediscovered the military value of this means of transportation.

Another reason is the new Prussian weapon, this time the Prussian army shines is not the sophisticated Krupp cannon, but the Dleiser rear-loading rifled rifle, in the war, the Austrian army generally used front-loading rifles, the loading speed is slow, not at all as good as the rear-loading rifle with fixed bullets, as a result of the war in the Austrian fired one bullet time, the Prussians fired three rounds, under this firepower advantage, Austria's defeat is obvious.

As for another episode of the war, Italy, the greatest ally that Bismarck had tried to woo, led by their king himself, enthusiastically launched an attack on the Austrians, only to be defeated in a single battle, which was of no value until the end of the war.

Many of the young officers of the Ming Dynasty participated in the whole war, of course, they were observers, although they had previously interned in the armies of France and Prussia, but after the outbreak of the war, they were all arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to go to the war zone as military attachés to observe the war, and watch the war with the British, Russian and other national military officers.

After the end of the war, these officers were greatly shocked, and new concepts and methods of warfare could not be learned from books.

Before the war, the Ming officers in France were generally optimistic about France, and the Prussian officers were a little more low-key, but they also thought that the Prussian army could not be underestimated.

Everyone can accept the victory of Prussia, and it is normal for European countries to win and I win you, but no one expected that Prussia would win like this, and the officers in Prussia could not imagine that Prussia would win so easily, and the officers in France could not imagine that France would lose so badly.

After they returned to China, Zhu Jinglun met with them in batches and listened to their experiences and ideas on studying in Europe.

"In any case, the French are very enthusiastic, charge into battle, and are very brave."

In the end, the officers who stayed in France could only cover up the French in this way.

"The Germans were well planned and their victory was justified."

The officers in Germany decided that the victory of the German coalition was not a fluke.

"Then do you think our army is stronger or weaker than the two countries?"

Zhu Jinglun asked them again.

On the contrary, the two sides agreed on this.

"Brave is not as good as France, calm is not as good as Germany, only can endure hard fighting."

They believed that the Ming army was inferior to the French in passion, and could not charge with such enthusiasm as the French, and certainly would not flee with despair like the French. It is believed that the Daming army is inferior to the Germans in terms of seriousness and order, although it can obey orders, but it is too clever to act in strict accordance with the rules like the Germans. But they recognized the endurance of their own troops in the face of adversity, and in adverse circumstances, the Chinese were more able to withstand enormous pressure, and after paying heavy casualties, as long as the officers did not take the lead in escaping, they could hold on to one soldier at a time.

In short, the armies of various countries have their own characteristics, and they are also related to the national character of each country, which obviously corresponds to the romance of the French, the seriousness of the Germans and the hardship and hard work of the Chinese.

But this is not the answer, what Zhu Jinglun asked was: "Which is stronger and which is weaker?" ”

Under pressure, they reluctantly replied: "I'm afraid it's not as good as Germany and France, the Western army is well-organized, and even France is slightly better than our country." The point is that their mobilization system, which we do not have at all now. ”

The second thing that shocked these officers about Western countries was that they were all small countries, but once they went to war, they could equip a huge number of troops. In the war between Prussia and Austria, more than 600,000 troops were formed in just two or three months, but the population of the Ming Dynasty far exceeded that of these countries, but it was difficult to achieve 500,000 troops.

"And the power of weapons, rifled rifles and breech-loading cannons, has been proven."

The role of weapons cannot be underestimated, can millet plus rifles defeat aircraft artillery, can they defeat missiles?

The officers summed up the armament of Germany and France, and a few years before the war, as Prussia defeated Denmark and Austria one after another and became the hegemon of the German region, in fact, both countries began to prepare, France had already regarded Prussia as the greatest threat, and Prussia also regarded France as the biggest obstacle to unification.

However, the difference is that in the last few years, Prussia spent most of its military spending on the replacement of the Krupp rear-loading cannons, while France spent a lot of money on the reloading rifles of the army. The main consideration of France was that in the Austro-Prussian war a few years earlier, Prussia's breech-loading rifles shone brightly, believing that their front-loading rifled rifles were outdated.

As a result, in this war, the French did overwhelm the Prussians with their rifles, but they were defeated by the Krupp cannons.

Therefore, in terms of weapons, in fact, the two countries are half a pound and eight taels, and France really loses, but it still loses under mobilization and operational command.

After the officers summed up, they all believed that the army of the Ming Dynasty must also undergo reform, which is not only the feeling they care, but also the mainstream military thinking in Europe now, Prussia is like a barbarian, completely disrupting the inherent military concept in Europe, so that all countries think that it is on the verge of change.

The Ming officers summed up five points, military education, mobilization system, general staff system, means of transportation, and innovation of weapons and equipment.

In terms of military education, in fact, there is no fundamental difference between Prussia and France, and it can even be said that the military education of the whole of Europe is communicated with each other, and the latest military ideas emerge in an endless stream, and everyone can receive them, and the key is to find the correct one from the military ideas of different categories, after all, there are many theories, and no one can say whether they are really useful or not.

But the French are not bad in education, but the French had a very bad idea before the war: anti-intellectual!

The French are exuberant, but they always seem to be unable to escape an irrational obsession, which leads them to put too much emphasis on the spirit and ignore the existence of the intellect. Officers who lead troops are often repulsive about matters they do not understand. Including Napoleon, the greatest emperor of France, also made such a mistake back then, when France was generally equipped with hot air balloons and had special balloon soldiers.

However, Napoleon decided that balloons were of no use in guiding artillery, and as a result, he ordered the cancellation of the balloonists. As a result, when he was finally defeated at Waterloo, the main reason was that he did not notice that the Prussian army was approaching, and devoted all his forces to the decisive battle with Wellington, and if there were balloonists at that time, it would have been easy to spot the Prussian army moving on the plains.

Before the Franco-Prussian War, the French army was led by such an anti-intellectual group, and Marshal MacMahon repeatedly declared that if he found the name of any officer on the cover of a book, he would immediately remove that officer from the list of promotions. Napoleon III tried to encourage the military to be studious, but was met with widespread opposition.

The French Army maintained the traditions of the revolutionary era, and most of the officers were from the ranks and their level of knowledge was at best literate. This is too big a gap compared to the Prussian army, where ordinary soldiers have basically completed compulsory education.

The Ming officer believes that this situation also exists in the Ming Dynasty, and a few years ago, Hou Jin thought that he was a big boss and was complacent.

But this is only a minority, the Chinese are not anti-intellectual in history, but too much to advocate intelligence, which is related to the perennial control of the literati in the discourse, in the context of literati culture, the martial artist is not even a compliment.

Therefore, anti-intellectualism has no market in the Ming army, but the education of the Ming is too backward, resulting in the knowledge level of the officers not even comparable to that of France.

The officers suggested that military academies at all levels should be created, a variety of military periodicals should be issued, and military personnel should be encouraged to study and write.