As the saying goes, when the cannon goes off, the gold is ten thousand taels, and this is not about making money, but about spending money.

In the army of the era of cold weapons, it was manpower, numbers, and well-trained soldiers who fought wars, and equipping him with a knife, a bow, and a spear could make him play a role on the battlefield.

However, in the era of muskets and artillery, it was not only necessary to rely on these, but also to require a larger amount of gunpowder and projectiles, and a large number of muskets and artillery that could be used easily without injuring themselves.

Because of this, the first town of the Guards Army, which was pulled up in December of the first year of Chongzhen, is now full of more than 16,000 people, and it was not until the middle of May of the second year of Chongzhen that it was truly fully equipped.

And the meaning of Qi is that all the battalion heads of the first town of the Guards Army did not realize all the equipment of hot and cold weapons until May this year, whether it is Chongzhen's flintlock musket, or the Zhangba spear equipped with a one-foot-eight inch stainless steel armor cone, or the water-rolled fine iron plate armor, it is only at this time that everyone really has a share.

The meaning of full strength refers to the new arms in the first town of the Guards, that is, the grenadier battalion directly under the Chinese Army that appeared due to the finalized mass production of grenades and incendiary bombs in the Arsenal.

In December of the first year of Chongzhen, after the first town of the Guards left Zhuozhou, the recruitment and training of new army soldiers in the training camp of the Zhuozhou New Army never stopped.

After Emperor Chongzhen inspected the gun factory of the Arsenal, the matter of replenishing a grenadier battalion in the first town of the Guards was put on the agenda.

The mining camp located in Baiye City was close to the water, and the grenadiers were quickly produced, but the first town of the Guards could not recruit and train on its own, and the soldiers they needed could only be selected and supplemented from the training camp of the new army in Zhuozhou.

From the first town of the Guards to the military aircraft department to apply to the military aircraft department, to the military aircraft department to report to the Chongzhen Emperor for approval, and then the military aircraft department will send the training needs of the grenadier battalion to the Zhuozhou New Army training battalion, and then the Zhuozhou battalion will ask for training, and finally the military aircraft department will send personnel to the first town of the Guards Army to assess and receive.

This process, even if it is a special case, takes three or four months to complete.

It is because of this that the first town of the Guards Army, which was formed at the end of last year, was not really fully equipped until mid-May this year.

It was also at this time that the 5,000 flintlock musketeers in the first town of the Guards were all given their own Chongzhen front-loading flintlock muskets.

Why is the production efficiency of the Armament Institute so low, or why did the two gun factories of the Armament Institute take so long to produce such a small flintlock pistol?!

It is not that the production efficiency of the Armament Institute is low, nor is it that the output of the two gun factories of the Armament Institute is too low.

It is because from July of the first year of Chongzhen, since the production of Chongzhen's first-type front-loading flintlock smoothbore gun was finalized, to the middle of May of Chongzhen's second year, it was only 11 months to be full.

After August of the first year of Chongzhen, due to the improvement of the barrel production process, Chongzhen's monthly output reached an average of about 900 rods per month, and in nearly a year, the craftsmen of the gun factory were encouraged by high salaries, and made persistent efforts to perform extraordinarily, but only made a total of more than 11,000 rods.

Compared to such a yield, the place where equipment needs to be equipped is a bottomless pit.

As the emperor's pro-army brocade guard, do you need it?

Do you need the Tiance Guard of the Imperial Guard?

Do you need the forbidden Yulin Guard of the Gongwei Palace?

Do the three battalions of the Beijing Division need to defend the Beijing Division?

In addition, a part of Dongjiang Town, a part of Liaodong Town, a part of Yuan Chonghuan's trilateral governor's jurisdiction, and the Baiyecheng Mining Camp that received a large number of equipment because of the first moon near the water, as well as the Yingzhou Town Shoufu and the Rehe Town Shoufu.

Of course, we must also take into account the needs of the Shanxi front and the needs of the Yunnan-Guizhou front.

In addition, there is also the Cao Battalion organized and trained by Yuan Keli, and the Tianxiong Battalion organized and trained by Lu Xiangsheng, where is there not much equipment?

It is precisely because there are so many places that need to be equipped with new muskets that many people are staring at the Chongzhen front-loading flintlock smoothbore guns produced by the Armament Institute every month.

Although the power to approve the distribution of equipment is now in the hands of the Chongzhen Emperor himself, only a part of it can finally fall into the hands of the new army in the first town of the Guards.

It's not that Emperor Chongzhen doesn't pay attention to the first town of the Guards, but the places that are more needed will always appear in front of Emperor Chongzhen at the right time.

In the final analysis, it is still insufficient production capacity, and the output is not enough.

Bi Maokang, Sun Yuanhua and others were dissatisfied with the output of the two gun factories in the Arsenal, and often blamed themselves for affecting the real formation of the first town of the Guards, and the delay in the formation of the second army.

But for Emperor Chongzhen, since the establishment of the Armament Institute for more than a year, the output of Chongzhen's front-loading flintlock smoothbore guns has reached more than 11,000 shots, and he is already very satisfied.

After all, this was in the twenties of the seventeenth century, and now this Emperor Chongzhen, although he is a traveler, but with his own knowledge, he cannot change the basic production capacity of this era.

The barrel can be mass-produced with reference to the iron mold casting method that surpassed the knowledge of this era, and the basic quality of the barrel produced is better than that of the forged barrel.

However, the mass production of iron mold casting does not mean that the inner wall of the barrel cast in batches can be used directly.

In fact, of course, this is not the case.

The barrel of the batch cast still needs to be sharpened repeatedly using a tool steel drill bit.

Only through repeated polishing can the inner wall of the barrel be polished smooth to the extent that it can be used as a smoothbore gun, otherwise the risk of the musket blowing up is still unavoidable.

It is precisely because the manufacture of Chongzhen's musket barrel still requires a lot of pure manual work, so the relatively limited output of qualified and usable barrels has always restricted the output of muskets in the two gun factories.

Even if the Armament Institute has now adopted the production management of division of labor and cooperation and assembly operation in accordance with the guidance of Emperor Chongzhen, the number of basic pipes of the barrel is not a problem, but because the link of polishing the inner wall of the barrel is essential, it still cannot solve the problem of mass production of qualified barrels.

The second batch of recruits recruited for the training of the Second Town of the Guards Army has been concentrated in the Zhuozhou Training Camp for a total of three months.

However, due to the lack of sufficient new muskets and standard standard ordnance equipment, the most basic physical fitness and queue training has only been completed in the Zhuozhou battalion, and there is no way to formally form an army, and there is no way to formally organize the second town of the Guards.

If it weren't for the fact that the production and control of flintlock muskets were too important to the imperial court, Emperor Chongzhen would have agreed to Rodriguez's request to open a "Rodriguez Musket Factory" in Tongzhou.

However, even though the new muskets, gunpowder and other ordnance materials were so scarce, when Li Xin sent someone to find Niu Juming with a letter, and then Niu Juming passed through the Military Aircraft Department and submitted a document to Emperor Chongzhen on the morning of 11 July, applying for a priority supply of a batch of muskets, muskets, and new military ordnance equipment and materials, Emperor Chongzhen still insisted on approving all the flintlock muskets and half of the artillery newly manufactured by the Armament Institute in June to Li Xin and the newly formed army under his command in Lushun Town.

As for the reason behind it, it is to prepare that when Huang Taiji leads his army west to conquer Chahar, or detours through Mongolia to the south to attack the Great Wall fortresses on the first line of Xuanfu and Jizhen, Li Xin's troops have the ability to give a powerful blow to the two white flags of Jianyu through the direction of Lushun Town Shoufu.

Huang Taiji hoped to paralyze the Ming monarchs and ministers by pretending to negotiate peace, and then led the army westward, first conquering Har, and then going south to attack the Ming Great Wall, but Emperor Chongzhen was not a fool, and he was hypocritically engaged in discussions and negotiations with Jianyu, of course, he also had his own calculations.

If it is said that when the Chongzhen Emperor just crossed over, what he was most worried about was that Huang Taiji led the Jianyu and Mongolian coalition troops to break through the north of the border wall of Jizhen in October of the second year of Chongzhen, then after a year of careful preparation, what Emperor Chongzhen is most worried about now is because of the previous changes, especially the increase in the strength of Dongjiang Town, so that Huang Taiji does not dare to come again.

Because for more than a year, Emperor Chongzhen has put in so much effort, the purpose is to make full preparations for the invasion of Jianyu, and when the time comes, he will give Huang Taiji a painful lesson that he will never dare to set foot in the land of Gyeonggi again.

But if it was because of some previous changes that Huang Taiji didn't dare to invade again, wouldn't all the preparations he had made before be in vain?