On the sixth day of April, Lin Zhe went to the Guards training ground in the southern suburbs of Nanjing, and accompanied Lin Zhe to a large number of senior military generals, not only army generals, but also navy generals.

Because the selection of the army's new rifle is also related to the navy's rifle selection.

The Royal Navy of the Chinese Empire has not only warships, but also a large number of guns, in addition to the sailors' self-defense guns and other light weapons, the main group of people who use light weapons within the navy is the marines.

Benefiting from the Empire's overseas expansion in recent years, the Imperial Navy has formed a number of marines in order to adapt to the tasks of landing operations and overseas colony maintenance.

Most of these marines exist in the form of battalions, and although there are no higher-level divisions, brigades, and other organizations, the total strength of the marines in the navy is not small.

By 1872, the navy had a total of eight battalions of marines, as well as a number of guard battalions and companies, and the total number of marines was about 10,000.

The 10,000-strong Marine Corps is mainly deployed in major naval bases, with Hawaii, Japan, and Vietnam being the main areas, as well as major naval bases in China.

Among them, there are more than two battalions of Marines stationed at Yokosuka Military Port in Japan alone, one battalion in Hawaii, one battalion in Port Paradise, and two battalions in Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.

The navy has a lot of land combat forces, and naturally it also needs rifles and artillery and other land weapons, and the scale of the marine forces is relatively small, so it has always been what guns the army uses, and what the navy uses.

So this time, although it was a new rifle test for the Army, the Navy also joined in. The army uses that, and the navy follows suit.

The Emperor himself inspected the new weapons. Naturally, it was impossible for the army to come out with only those few candidate rifles, and they also took the opportunity to come up with several new weapons for demonstration.

The first to start was the Army's newest 120-millimeter 15-year-old field gun. This artillery is a heavy artillery piece that the Army has only finalized this year and has begun to enter service in small quantities.

Although the Royal Arms Company failed in the bidding for medium-caliber divisional artillery, large-caliber artillery has always been their advantage, so after the bidding for divisional artillery failed, they tried their courage and even spent a lot of money to introduce some advanced technology to the German Krupp company.

Finally, this 15-year-old 120-mm field gun was developed, which had a caliber of 120 mm and a barrel length of 23 times the caliber. The firing range reached eight thousand three hundred meters.

It was the longest-range of the Empire's field artillery, and its range even exceeded the 150 mm rear-loading siege guns in service in the sixties.

At present, this artillery is only in the stage of experimental service, and the army has only five or six guns in its hands, and an artillery battalion has just been formed.

Now the six heavy cannons have been placed on the training ground steadily, from the viewing platform, Lin Zhe took the pure gold single-way telescope to look over, only to see the six 120 mm heavy artillery in the telescope like the ancient generals, majestic towering on the battlefield. The muzzle of the gun was pointed into the distance.

At this time, a lieutenant general came over and reported that it was ready and that the artillery drill could begin at any time.

Lin Zhe nodded!

Then the command to start the drill was passed on!

Lin Zhe continued to watch with the telescope, in his sight. The officers and soldiers around the six heavy guns had already begun to move, skillfully reloading, and then shooting.

As the muzzle of the heavy cannon freed up clouds of fire and smoke at the same time. There was also a loud rumbling sound.

When a large-caliber heavy cannon is fired, its sound is very loud. Moreover, the artillery of this era did not have measures to silence or extinguish flames, so when the artillery fired. The momentum is huge.

After the rumbling noise, and after waiting for a few seconds, I saw several white smoke columns rising from a low hill opposite, which were the smoke columns after the explosion of black powder shells.

Seeing that these shells accurately fell into the predetermined area, several relevant exercise leaders next to them were also relieved, this drill was attended by His Majesty in person, and the pressure on them was very great.

First of all, they can't fake, Your Majesty is the founding emperor who personally led his troops to fight, if you play with empty shells, and then directly detonate in the target area as a shell landing point, Your Majesty can find it with his eyes closed, and the sound of live ammunition firing and empty shells can be easily discovered by experienced soldiers.

In addition, if this is practiced with live ammunition, it involves the problem of rate of fire and accuracy, although the training ground will not really let this gun hit the limit range of eight thousand meters, but two or three thousand meters are still available.

However, the distance is closer, and the range of the target area demarcated is smaller, so there is still a relatively big test to hit accurately.

But this is not difficult for them, they have been conducting data analysis since a few days ago, the artillery is deployed in that position, and the elevation angle of how many degrees it is used has been tried and tested, in order to make the most perfect drill today.

Strictly speaking, they are cheating.

However, even if Lin Zhe could guess some cats, he didn't say anything, but showed a very satisfied expression, everyone is not easy, as a superior, it is also necessary to understand the difficulties of his subordinates.

After the 120-mm field guns, there are several other guns of the military that have not yet been finalized and are still being tested, including 90-mm field guns and 150-mm new howitzers.

In addition, the 14-year-old field artillery and mountain artillery, which began large-scale service in the military last year and are currently equipped with several artillery regiments, also came to join in the excitement and also conducted test firing.

More than 20 pieces of artillery of this size were tested one after another, and the rumbling sound of the cannon sounded intermittently for more than an hour.

After the sound of the artillery subsided, Lin Zhe met with the officers and representatives of the soldiers who presided over the artillery exercise, and the commander of the artillery exercise was an army colonel.

This man was somewhat younger than the other colonels of the contemporary Imperial Army. It is estimated that he is only in his thirties, which is very rare in the Imperial Army.

After more than ten years of finalization. At present, there is a certain standard system for the promotion of officers in the navy and army of the empire, generally speaking. Being able to be promoted to a major before the age of thirty is basically a young officer who is very seen by the top.

And if you are promoted to colonel before the age of forty, then you are basically the seed of a future general, and if you stay up for a few more years, you can basically hope to be promoted to a major general before the age of fifty.

However, this is talking about ordinary excellent officers, in any system, there will always be some geniuses or people with special backgrounds, but even so, colonels in their thirties are still very rare.

A general who was able to be received by Lin Zhe on this occasion. Otherwise, there are so many artillery officers in the army, how could he compete for the opportunity to command the battlefield artillery exercises and finally get Lin Zhe to meet them.

The young colonel who came in first saluted the military salute, and then reported to his home: "Minister Nie Shicheng knocks to see the emperor!" ”

This prostration, naturally, is not a real bowing, and the empire has long abolished the kneeling ceremony for many years, except for large-scale ceremonies such as enthronement. The kneeling ceremony was abolished, and the formal etiquette was replaced by a bowing ceremony, but this bowing ceremony was also limited to the emperor and the prince and other members of the royal family, and ordinary officials did not need to bow or any other ceremony.

Knocking is just a verbal salutation. It's the same as saying 'kneel playing' on the excerpt.

When Lin Zhe heard the name, he didn't feel anything at first, but just smiled as usual. Then he was about to compliment him as is customary, but he quickly remembered something from the depths of his memory. Then he asked, "Nie Shicheng?" Oh, a few years into service? ”

Nie Shicheng listened to Lin Zhe's words that seemed to be asking rhetorically. At the moment, he was also a little stunned, this is different from the occasion said by those etiquette officials in the palace affairs department, according to the normal situation, this should be his self-protection of the door, His Majesty symbolically praised two sentences, and then he had to stand aside according to the rules, so as to end the audience.

But what he didn't expect was that His Majesty took the initiative to ask him, and although he was a little puzzled at this time, he still replied respectfully: "Back to Your Majesty, the minister is in the army for four years!" ”

Xuanwu four years, that is, in 1861, Lin Zhe did not expect that Nie Shicheng, a historical celebrity, would be mixed under his hands more than ten years ago.

This world is a bit chaotic, this modern famous general who resisted stubbornly with his own strength when the Eight-Nation Coalition invaded China, and finally died in his own country, was under his own hands in 1861, which made Lin Zhe sigh a little.

Maybe you can still find Yuan Shikai in the future?

If Yuan Shikai also ran to join the army under his hands, would this old Yuan play rebellion? Or if you find him in the future, you will cut him directly?

For a time, Lin Zhe fell into confusion about history.

This made the accompanying secretary of the secretariat and several military bigwigs next to him a little surprised, what's going on? How do you start to be in a daze after seeing someone!

Nie Shicheng also couldn't understand why he had attracted His Majesty's attention or was in a daze......

Although he Nie Shicheng was promoted to colonel at the age of thirty-five, which is considered excellent among many colonel-level officers, if you consider that he joined the army in 1861, then this time is not short.

Nie Shicheng joined the army in 1861 and became an artilleryman, and soon accumulated combat merits and was promoted to sergeant, and in 1863 he was recommended to enter the crash course of the Army Military Academy, which is a crash course specifically for ordinary soldiers, and the duration of study is only one year.

After graduating from the crash course artillery section in 1864, he was awarded the rank of second lieutenant in the army, and continued to serve in the artillery unit, and because of his long service in the Siberian region in the sixties, he naturally had many more opportunities to accumulate military exploits than other officers, and soon rose all the way up to lieutenant colonel.

In 1871, at the age of thirty-five, he was promoted to colonel, and this year he was transferred to the artillery regiment of the 3rd Guards Division, that is, the 3rd Guards Artillery Regiment, as a regimental commander.

In this exercise, the main training tasks were undertaken by the Third Guards Division, and the commander of his artillery regiment was also responsible for the artillery drill.

That's why I have a chance to meet the emperor!

Just when Nie Shicheng was wondering, Lin Zhe also woke up from the short-term chaos. (To be continued.) )