In the attack on Yuncheng, the master Zhang Shaotang thought of a lot of ways to restrain the security army's firearms, although did not achieve the final victory, but also made Hong Chengchou see a glimmer of hope, the use of muskets and artillery after the official army in Yuncheng for the first time to attack the position of the security army, and finally if it was not defeated by the bayonet charge of the security army, it is really possible to achieve victory, which is much more advanced than the previous can only be passively beaten. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 So in the Battle of Yuncheng, although almost all the artillery, muskets and other firearms of the official army were lost to the security army, Hong Chengchou still did not give up the idea of developing firearms troops.

Now all the firearms units under Hong Chengchou are managed by his master Zhang Shaotang. After the battle of Yuncheng, Hong Chengchou found that this master had read the four books and five classics very well, and he looked like an old pedant, and it was definitely not good to go into battle to kill the enemy. But willing to think, accept new things quickly, not bound by old ideas, he has not participated in the army's cold weapons battle, the first time he saw on the battlefield is the power of security weapons, the official army was unilaterally slaughtered by the security army left a deep impression on him. After the war, Zhang Shaotang has been studying the use of firearms in war, and proposed many strategies to Hong Chengchou to deal with firearms, and he came to the final conclusion that the best way to defeat the security army that uses firearms is to use firearms in the official army.

Zhang Shaotang's idea was deeply appreciated by Hong Chengchou, so the artillery battalion and firearms battalion that were set up in Yuncheng were still retained and handed over to Zhang Shaotang for training. After Zhang Shaotang took over, he found that this was an extremely difficult job, in the battle of Yuncheng, the officers and soldiers were defeated not only lost artillery and other equipment, but also most of the soldiers who controlled the firearms were killed and wounded, plus those who escaped, there were not many soldiers left who could use firearms in the firearms battalion, in order to repay Hong Chengchou's trust, Zhang Shaotang moved his bedding to the firearms battalion, a scholar with a reputation for making a name for himself ate and lived with those stupid soldiers, and studied how to use firearms to win in battle every day.

Hong Chengchou wanted to see how the old gentleman's work was progressing this time.

Looking at Zhang Shaotang who came to greet him, Hong Chengchou couldn't help but feel a little sad, Zhang Shaotang standing in front of him had long since lost his previous elegant appearance, the whole person was black and thin, and the long shirt on his body was changed into a short dress.

"Sir, it's hard work." This sentence came from Hong Chengchou's heart, and there was no hint of hypocrisy.

"It's nothing, if I can share the worries of the Governor, my hard work is nothing, you see if I'm more energetic than before." Zhang Shaotang didn't care about himself, these days he organized soldiers to train in the sun, although he just moved his mouth to watch from the side, it was a completely different experience from reading in the study before. Physically tired and mentally better.

Walking in the firearms camp, Hong Chengchou was very satisfied with the serious appearance of the soldiers in the battalion when they trained, this must be because he didn't dare to be lazy because of the arrival of the governor, but the soldiers of the other officers and soldiers did not have the appearance of soldiers even if they wanted to be nervous.

The two came to Zhang Shaotang's big tent where he rested on weekdays, and a soldier served tea, Hong Chengchou motioned to Zhang Shaotang to sit down and chat with him, he was also very hard as a governor, because Hong Chengchou has always been strict with his subordinates, there is no one who can chat on weekdays. The staff relationship between Zhang Shaotang and him made it easy for the two to say a few words.

"Is there any difficulty in the training of the soldiers?" Even chatting about Hong Chengchou is inseparable from the affairs of the army, this army is the foundation of Hong Chengchou, and he is stepping into the position of the governor of the three sides by leading the troops to exterminate the thieves.

"There are a lot of problems here, mainly the lack of silver." Zhang Shaotang heard Hong Chengchou's inquiry and took the opportunity to talk about his difficulties. It is true that the training of firearms battalions encountered a lot of difficulties, and most of these difficulties were related to silver. In order to maintain the training intensity of the troops, it is necessary to feed the soldiers, and to increase the enthusiasm of the soldiers for training, it is necessary to increase their salaries.

This question of silver became the eternal theme of the Ming army, the emperor lacked silver, the ministers lacked silver, and the soldiers even less silver. Hong Chengchou has no way to do this. I had no choice but to say helplessly: "I will find a way to deal with the matter of silver, if it doesn't work, I will write a recital and let the saint allocate more food." ”

Hearing Hong Chengchou say that he wanted to ask the emperor for food, Zhang Shaotang understood that there was basically no hope for this silver matter. As a staff member, he knew how difficult it would be to deduct a few taels of silver from Emperor Chongzhen's hands, so he no longer mentioned the matter of silver, but changed the topic and said: "At present, the firearms battalion is very short of all kinds of firearms and gunpowder, and the gunpowder and damaged firearms consumed in daily training urgently need to be replenished. ”

"I immediately sent an official letter asking the court to send more firearms and gunpowder. The training of the firearms battalion cannot be stopped, and it is necessary to train a firearms unit that is about the same level as the thief security army, so that we can also use this force to fight other thieves, and at the same time find out the shortcomings of the firearms force, so that we can defeat the security army in the future. "The muskets and artillery of the security army have hit Hong Chengchou too hard, and he no longer has the luxury of being able to defeat the security army with a firearms battalion, he just wants to find the shortcomings of firearms, and then use a large number of other troops to defeat the security army.

"You'd better not let the court bring firearms and gunpowder." Zhang Shaotang frowned and said something that surprised Hong Chengchou.

"Why?" said that there was a lack of firearms and gunpowder and he was not allowed to ask the court for it, which is a bit strange for Master Zhang's words today.

"It's useless to bring in weapons made by the court. Through the training of the past few days, I found that the quality of the firearms made by the court is very poor, taking the musket as an example, five or six of the ten guns shipped in cannot be used, and most of the guns that can be used will explode after a few shots, which makes the soldiers who shoot can not aim at ease, and always panic to keep the guns as far away from themselves as possible, no matter where the target is, it is good to fire the gun. The same is true for other firearms, and artillery and other firearms often have explosions and injuries, injuring several soldiers. The gunpowder transported was mixed with all kinds of sundries, and the power was insufficient, and only a little smoke was lit to listen to the sound, and the same amount of medicine was used, and the distance of the bullets fired was different. "The Ming Dynasty set up an ordnance bureau, a war bureau and a gunpowder bureau to produce various weapons and equipment for local troops. There is nothing wrong with this system of bringing together the best craftsmen from all over the country. But the biggest skill of Ming Dynasty officials was to play a very advanced system into bad play, and then loudly denounce that it must be a problem of the system.

The system of weapons production is fine, but there is a big problem with its management. The silver allocated by the emperor for the production of weapons was stripped layer by layer by the officials who were the managers, and not much was really used on the production of weapons and craftsmen, and the generals went to the weapons bureau and other yamen to receive weapons, and did not use silver to bribe, let alone receive high-quality weapons.

"What then?" Hong Chengchou is also at a loss, there is a lack of firearms here, and the ones produced by the court cannot be used.

"We can start our own arsenal to produce firearms and gunpowder." What Zhang Shaotang mainly wants to say to Hong Chengchou today is this matter.

"Arsenal? What is Arsenal? "Hong Chengchou has never heard of the word arsenal. (To be continued.) )