Mulan martial arts field, imperial tent. Dozens of thick candles have already been lit, and a royal brazier is placed in the center to dispel the cold air on the grassland in mid-autumn.

Most people's hearts at the moment are indeed wow cool and cool, I thought that the red-clothed cannon was considered an "artifact", but it was so laborious to deal with a star-shaped castle, if the barbarians from all directions learned this star castle, where was the military power of the Qing Dynasty?

Looking at the silent ministers at the bottom of the stairs, Fu Lin was in a happy mood, glanced at Yue Le, who was also stealing fun, and then said, "Everyone Aiqing, why don't you speak?" Haha, I see that this star castle is indeed useful! ”

"Your Majesty, the old minister also thinks that this star castle has already been passed in Europa, which is enough to prove its power." According to the emperor's instructions, John Tang sat in the position of the head and spoke.

"Huang Ama, Erchen also thinks that this star castle is built of stone, which is naturally stronger than the square city of the civil structure, plus this edge and corner sticking out, it is indeed difficult for ordinary cannon pills to work!" Hongyi also strikes while the iron is hot!

"Okay, do you have any objections?" FLM solicited opinions extensively.

"The ministers (minions) have no objections."

"Kadahun, the Ministry of War can take the drawing style from Tang Lao Mafa and regulate it in detail with the Ministry of Industry. I thought that I could try it out in Ulan-Ude on the coast of the North Sea, and if it worked, I could implement a remote fortress! ”

"Minion Command!" In the past two days, Kadahun has become a sweet spot in the eyes of everyone in Jiuqing and the Six Divisions, and he himself is secretly glad that he has followed the boss behind the scenes!

"Huang Ama, Erchen still has a question!" Hongyi said loudly below.

"Oh, what else do I have to ask of Dorobelle?" Fu Lin nodded approvingly.

"Erchen thinks that since all the countries of Europa have already adopted this Star Fort, what if the barbarians invade our land of China, and then build a Star Fort to hinder the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty? In addition, the new arquebus has also been popularized in Western countries, and it is even more necessary to guard against it. Hongyi's face was full of doubts, but he said the biggest worry in their hearts to the ministers.

"This ...... Everyone, what should Xuan Ye do when he asks? Fu Lin was also a little surprised, and secretly admired Xiao Xuanye's precautions.

"Tang Lao Marfa, can you tell me?" Yue Lebi respectfully bowed to John Tang.

"This ...... This star castle is indeed rampant in Europa nowadays, and there is no easy way to attack it......" John Tang's fair face instantly turned red.

Looking at Tang Ruowang's embarrassment, everyone was secretly surprised in their hearts, even the initiator of the Star Castle had no way to crack it, so there was no one to answer the question of the second elder brother.

Hongyi waited for John Tang to be embarrassed, although he didn't say that "if he is not of my race, his heart will be different", but at the moment, as a faithful priest of the Church of Jesus, he can't drip if he is too smooth. The method of cracking this Star Castle has actually been carefully figured out since Hongyi handed over the sketch to Lao Tang a few months ago.

"Huang Ama, although the sons have no good strategy, they also have some thoughts, I don't know if they can throw bricks and lead jade?" Hony kicks off.

"Okay, come on!" Fulin is very uplifted, his son is really giving himself a long face!

"Huh! Erchen thinks that the power of Star Castle lies in the weakness of the current cannon pellets. Although the power of the red-coated cannon and the mortar cannon is huge, they can shoot directly, and their cannon pellets are only mainly iron pellets, and they rarely bloom and explode! Erchen thought that if he could shoot the cannon pellets high and cross the city head and even the city walls, and ensure that each bullet would bloom, and the iron projectiles would shatter countless and fly, they could kill and injure a large number of soldiers defending the city and quickly shake the morale of their troops. Moreover, if the cannon pellet can catch fire and explode after hitting the city wall, its power is naturally incomparable to that of an iron pellet impact! And with this cannon and this shell, it is easy to attack the shotgunners in the trenches. As for the musket, the first thing is to popularize it in the Qing Dynasty and form a good method for use before the battle as soon as possible, such as the 'three-stage strike [1]' method of the former Ming Bird Gun, which can be improved and relied on the advantages of the new musket to be successful! Hongyi suddenly laid out the artillery tactics and individual musket tactics of the hot weapon era, and at the same time put forward a solution to the dilemma of today's "siege of Xingbao" and yesterday's "trench + shotgunner" model, but overestimated the general level of understanding of people in the early Qing Dynasty.

"......" Everyone was silent, because the vast majority of people did not understand.

"Erchen is willing to command the firearms battalion, and ask the Ministry of Engineering and the Ministry of War to send skilled craftsmen, referring to the ingenuity of the 'flowering bullet' of the previous Ming Dynasty, so that the projectile will emit countless fragments when it explodes, such as the pomegranate has many seeds, it is 'grenade' and 'howitzer'. The son is willing to ask for a decree that such a magic cannon will be developed within a few years! ”

Hongyi swore and stood tall. The so-called "grenade", also called "high-explosive bomb", is the most common artillery shell, mostly filled with high explosives and detonators ~ tubes in a steel shell. After the explosive is detonated by the detonator ~ tube, the exploded shell turns into many high-heat sharp shrapnel scattered at high speed. Shrapnel is the main cause of casualties. In the first Shijie battle, nearly 70% of infantry casualties were caused by fragments from the explosion of artillery shells.

"This? ......" Fulin looked at Yue Le, and saw that he was also confused, and it was really not good for him to make an abrupt decision.

"Your Majesty, the old minister has also heard of this kind of magic cannon in Europa, and the old minister is willing to help Lord Belle give it a try!" Tang Ruowang hurriedly stood up this time, walked to Xuan Ye's side, and knelt down to play. When Wang Yuele of Anjun asked just now, he couldn't give a strategy to break the enemy, firstly, because he was indeed not very proficient enough in the most advanced military jishu in Europe at that time, and he had never heard of the "howitzer" mentioned by Hongyi. Second, as a Jesuit priest, he is still a Westerner after all, if the Eastern Central Empire is ahead of Europa everywhere, his position must be declining, how can he continue to play the role of an emperor at that time? But now the little Belle Ye actually said eight or nine inseparable, once again drawing John Tong back to reality, that is, everything that the messenger of God has done is reasonable, and he must follow the same trend in order to realize God's intentions and be a good servant of Jesus!

"Since this is the case, according to what Dorobelle Xuanye said, the Ministry of War will work with the Ministry of Industry to develop grenades and howitzers! Dorobelle Xuanye and Qintian Supervisor Zheng Tang Ruowang also led the firearms battalion and left and right the presidential ministers. ”

"Your Ministers obey!"

"Good! And the new arquebus must also be imitated and improved as soon as possible, and I must have all the sophisticated firearms in the world! The firearms battalion can also undertake this matter as a whole, and the Ministry of War will recently come up with a feasible charter! ”

Hongyi and Tang Ruowang, the new ministers of the firearms battalion, hurriedly received the order, and everyone also agreed.

"Oh, by the way, these things are also included in the jurisdiction of the 'secret bureau' of the Ministry of War, and they must not be leaked at home and abroad!" Fulin is indeed good at admonishment, yesterday Hongyi just mentioned this confidential matter, as the emperor can actually learn and use it, and now it is a lot of points in Hongyi's heart! After all, even in the afterlife, secrecy is a top priority, and you can't slack off!

In fact, howitzers have appeared in Europe in the 17th century, its trajectory is more curved, the projectile angle is very large, close to the vertical Xiangxia fall, so the shrapnel can be evenly fired in all directions, the power is huge. It's just that at this moment, mankind has not really invented a modern grenade that can be used as artillery fire. The original grenade was first made by the Chinese around 1000 AD, when the typical design of the grenade was to fill a hollow metal container with gunpowder. The soldier simply lights the fuel rope and throws the grenade as quickly as possible. At the time, grenades weren't very useful in combat mode, and their simple design made them extremely dangerous. It was not until the 18th century that this weapon was gradually abandoned. By the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans had also learned to make grenades and greatly increased their power, and it was during the same period in China that the Ming Dynasty began to use a firearm called "flowering bombs".

Hongyi did not force the development of practical grenades, howitzers, trigger-fire arquebuses, and even more advanced tinder arquebuses [the forerunner of flintlock pistols] overnight. Appeared in Europe in the late 16th century, with fire or short arquebuses instead of long arquebuses, which were only lit when the gun was fired, so as not to expose the target at night with a long firing rig, geared muskets [with a reed wheel firing device, the original designer thought that the gun could replace the arquebus, but because it was expensive and not popular, the royal family and nobles were very much in favor of the use of this gun at that time, and the recorded users included German, French and Italian cavalry], as well as later rifles, all kinds of flintlock pistols [ Flintlock firing device: originally invented by the French in the 17th century. The fire rope was abandoned and the flint on the hammer was used to strike to produce sparks that ignited the gunpowder, marking the end of the era of purely mechanical ignition. The flint firing device includes: flint firing device (flint firing device), impact firing device (thunder ~ tube musket, hammer firing gun), central ignition firing device (also known as firing pin gun, Dresser needle plunger). Ammunition is loaded from the rear end of the barrel, and the needle fires)], and even the Ferguson-style rifle! (Needless to say!) A more important and long-term reflection is to establish and reserve a group of experts and talents in the field of modern firearms manufacturing for the Chinese nation as soon as possible through Hongyi's efforts.

Of course, the additional product of this motion is that Xiao Xuanye, who is more than one and five months old, has a serious official position for the first time - the Minister of the Left President of the Qing Firearms Battalion!

You must know that the earliest firearms battalion in the official history was in the thirtieth year of Kangxi (1691). Select the soldiers of the Eight Banners of Manchuria and Mongolia who practice firearms, and form another battalion. There are two kinds of battalion soldiers, shotgun guards and artillery armor, rated Manchuria and Mongolia under each leader of six shotgun guards, one artillery armor, divided into two battalions inside and outside, and in the city is the internal firearms battalion, divided into two battalions of guns and artillery. Outside the city is the Outer Firearms Battalion, which specializes in shotguns. The second battalion inside and outside has a total of more than 5,200 shotgun guards (including 120 guards from the military academy, Lan Lingchang, and captains, and 16 with pen posts), 880 artillery armor, and 1,650 nurturing soldiers (with supplementary shotgun guards), and the total number of three types of soldiers is more than 7,800 people. The internal and external firearms battalions conduct regular training, and in addition to guns and cannons, they also practice foot archery, mounted archery, and other skills. The commander of the firearms battalion is a minister of the president of the palm seal, and several presidential ministers, who are generally appointed by the princes, the ministers of the guard (Zheng Yi Pin), the Metropolitan Commander (Zheng Yi Pin), the Forward Commander (Zheng Yi Pin), the Commander of the Guardian Army (Zheng Er Pin), and the Deputy Metropolitan Tong (from the Second Rank). In other words, once he concurrently holds this position, Xiao Xuanye not only has a knighthood-Dorobelle, but also has an official position equivalent to no less than the second rank, and at this time, the Minister of the Interior is only from the first rank. The point is that this "adult", who is equivalent to Congyipin, is just a one-and-a-half-year-old child!

Once again, history has undergone an intriguing change......

[1] The triple strike was an arquebus tactic that emerged in the 16th century to compensate for the slow rate of musket fire when muskets could not be fired continuously. There have been records of three dansan strikes in both the Ming Kingdom and Japan. This method of firing was a fast, sustained and effective method of firing when the burst firearm was not invented. According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", Mu Ying, a general who pacified the south (Yunnan) in the early Ming Dynasty, first used firearms to deal with rebels, elephants and other beasts, and felt that the gunpowder loading speed was too slow and improved a tactical shooting method. [1] Specifically, a group of three men fired at the front of the group, then retreated to the rear of the line to concentrate on reloading, and the second soldier stepped forward to fire. Three people alternate reloading and firing, tripling the efficiency of arquebuses that would otherwise take a minute or more to shoot at a time! Approximate European semi-maneuver tactics. At that time, although the arquebus was more powerful than the bow and crossbow, after the musket was shot, it had to go through the gunpowder, put in the lead pellet (at that time, the real bullet did not come out, and some countries even used stones everywhere), pull out the strip from under the barrel, ram the lead shot and gunpowder, and aim at the enemy while lighting the arquebus, and occasionally clean the gun hole after shooting, (if you use a flintlock pistol, in addition to aiming, you can almost save this time) so it takes about a minute to put a shot, (the flintlock pistol is half a minute, and the skilled one only needs about 15 seconds, And it can be used in rainy weather) and the enemy who fights at close range after the shot will charge (especially the cavalry), and the musketeers will suffer great losses. Therefore, the Western countries came up with a method of warfare, the musket team is divided into three rows, the first row shoots after the second row shoots, the second row shoots after the second row shoots, the first row and the third row switch positions, and the rear is loaded with gunpowder, etc., after the second row shoots, the third row shoots, the second row exchanges positions with the first row at the beginning, replenishes ammunition, and the third row shoots after the first row shoots, so that the time between cycles will be greatly shortened. In the early days, arquebusiers used this method to continuously demoralize the enemy, and to frighten the horses of the enemy's cavalry, which was feared by the feudal knights in the Middle Ages. By the time of the advent of the flintlock pistol, due to its adaptability to various weather conditions (it can be used in rain or snow) and the speed and convenience of reloading (the flintlock pistol can eliminate the ignition procedure, reducing the probability of firing failure and shortening the firing time), the flintlock pistol with the three-stage combat method can effectively disrupt the enemy's formation and cause a large number of casualties to the enemy. Therefore, the musket also gradually became the protagonist in the military arena, accelerating the demise of the feudal shili in Western Europe.