In terms of the casting technology currently in the hands of the Crossing Public, it will not be too much of a problem to directly get on the 24-pound front-loading cannon. However, even if a 24-pounder cannon was cast now, it would be useless for the seagoing ships in urgent need of artillery equipment, and neither of the two captured sailing ships in Port Victory had a displacement of more than 150 tons, and even a 12-pounder front-loading gun could not be placed on board. And if the 24-pounder guns were deployed as shore defense guns to Shengli Harbor and Yulin Point, then they would face the problem of insufficient gunners.

A 24-pounder front-loading gun would have to have at least six gunners to operate the cannon, which weighs more than two tons. And if the shore defense artillery is really to be arranged, it will obviously not be such a small number of one or two, then the military police department will have to face a dilemma: either to pull all the members of the military police department to practice the artillery, or let these cannons be placed in the fortifications to scare people.

The 24-pounder was immediately rejected in the discussion, and the 12-pounder that could not be equipped on existing ships was quickly rejected, and the test was eventually downgraded to a 6-pounder gun. As for the relevant technology of cannon casting, the Military Police Department has long prepared a lot of information, what iron mold casting cannon method, what inner mold water irrigation cooling method, are far ahead of the current era of technology.

Under the leadership of Liu Xingli, the Ministry of Metallurgy immediately began to design the process flow on the spot, while the Ministry of Industry and the Military Police Department quickly completed the drawing design in the noisy and shouting, in fact, there is nothing special to design, and there are many 6-pounder guns that have actually been equipped in the army in history, and finally one of the French cannons that appeared on the European battlefield in the 19th century was selected as the blueprint.

"Now let's talk about the formation and tactics of artillery. After deciding on the design plan, Tao Donglai didn't even have time to take a sip of water, and immediately led to the next topic. This meeting has been going on for almost three hours, and if you continue to grind it off, you won't want to sleep tonight.

"In the near future, our artillery and artillery will be very limited, is it a bit too early to discuss the issue of establishment?" Ning Qi, who was in charge of manpower, was very sensitive to any excuse for the military police department to occupy a large number of people, and immediately questioned it. In order to form an artillery unit, it is necessary to have a group of people take off work for artillery training, and these people are likely to gradually degenerate into professional soldiers. With the current number of people in the Crossing Crowd of less than 500 people, Ning Qi was very skeptical that this population base could afford to support many troops.

"Sweden has begun to organize regimental artillery at this time, and the French set up a full-time artillery regiment in the 70s of the 17th century.

"If we can have the same population as Sweden and France now, I don't mind if the military police department has an artillery regiment, you can form an artillery division. But the problem is that now we don't even have enough people to go up the mountain and cut down trees!" Ning Qi also immediately refuted Yan Chujie's so-called argument without hesitation.

Yan Chujie immediately became like a deflated ball, he really couldn't refute Ning Qi's statement, population is now the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of the cross-section, whether it is organizing production or preparing a professional army, it has to be constrained by the shortage of population.

"Let's talk about tactics. Seeing that this road was impassable, Tao Donglai had to bypass this big pit first, and instead lead the topic to a more professional part. Sure enough, when it came to artillery tactics, a large group of civilian bureaucrats, including Ning Qi, basically couldn't interject, and almost all of the people who participated in the discussion were people from the Military Police Department, and occasionally a few military fans from other departments would express their opinions.

As for the tactics of early artillery, whether it is an offensive and defensive battle or a field battle, an offensive war or a defensive war, later generations have already summed up a large number of standardized tactics based on countless actual combat examples, and what the military and police department needs to do now is to copy some of them in combination with its own actual situation. The military police department even prepared a large stack of schematic diagrams of the layout of the positions and hung them on the whiteboard for explanation. Military houses are naturally full of interest and participation, while those who are not interested in military affairs are dozing off.

The meeting lasted until more than one o'clock in the middle of the night, and it was not until the Ministry of Metallurgy came up with the preliminary process that Tao Donglai announced the dismissal. Of course, the matter is not finished and finished, and early tomorrow morning, the personnel of the relevant departments will be gathered in the metallurgical workshop to participate in the actual research and development and manufacturing of artillery. When everyone yawned and dispersed one after another, Tao Donglai greeted him loudly: "Lao Yan, Ning Qi, you two stay for a while, I have something to say." ”

The two looked at each other and sat back in their seats.

"About the artillery establishment, I thought about it again just now, and Ning Qi is right, we are indeed a little in a hurry. As soon as Tao Donglai came up, he first softened Ning Qi.

Ning Qi nodded and said: "Lao Tao, you can figure it out, it's not that I deliberately want to card your military police department, but the actual situation is like this now, your military police department transferred ten people to be artillerymen, and there are ten less laborers on my side." Ten laborers can cut down at least 50 big trees a day, mine four or five tons of ore, build a fairly reliable ship-shaped house, and open up 20 acres of wasteland...... Lao Tao, now our population is too small, and we can't afford to raise too many soldiers!"

"I admit that what you said is correct, but ......" Tao Donglai changed his words and said, "Now that we have begun to think about equipping artillery, the plan to recruit indigenous troops must be implemented." ”

"Are you going around in a circle and back to the topic just now?" Ning Qi couldn't help but be stunned when he heard this.

"Let me explain. Yan Chujie was obviously a little dissatisfied with the loss of the previous debate for a while, and immediately grabbed the conversation and said: "You answer me a question first, how many migrant workers are there on the territory we are currently controlling?"

Ning Qi thought for a moment and replied: "If you include the two newly established communes and labor camps, there should be more than 700 people who have been working on our construction site for a long time, and there are at least one to two hundred scattered people who are mainly working for a day or two. ”

"Have you calculated the growth rate of the number of migrant workers?" Yan Chujie continued to ask.

Ning Qi nodded and said, "Now there are at least twenty or thirty new arrivals every day, and sometimes there will be fifty or sixty people a day. ”

"In other words, the number of outsiders under our rule will soon exceed 1,000. Yan Chujie sighed and said: "I think you should also know very well how many people in our military police department are available for a total of eighty-three people, and more than half of them wear multiple hats like Lao Tao, and they usually work in other departments." After deducting the daily patrol teams stationed at the salt works, Yulin outposts, labor camps, and daily patrols at sea, how many people do you think we can use to ensure the vigilance and garrison of the two bases and maintain the security of the construction site and the migrant workers' station?"

"Well...... Ning Qi was really asked by Yan Chujie now.

As the head of human resources, Ning Qi is also very clear about the staffing of the Military Police Department, it is indeed as Yan Chujie said, most of the demobilized soldiers with skills are stuffed into the department that can give full play to their expertise part-time, and there are not many people who really stay in the Military Police Department as a standing military and police force, even the North American Gang, which was the main force of the military in the early stage, has recently begun to have signs of having to be disbanded because of the work distribution of members, so that the Military Police Department cannot even guarantee the standing patrol force at sea, let alone maintain daily law and order。

"I think you also know that there have been several disputes in the migrant workers' station recently, and on two occasions if our military and police department had not received the news and dispatched them in time, it was likely to have directly turned into large-scale armed fights. If there is really some bloody case, I think everyone does not want to see this kind of consequence. Yan Chujie said in a very sincere tone: "In order to maintain the excellent situation of stability and unity, our military police department now needs to expand its strength. ”

"Now there are more than 100 hard laborers in the labor camp, and our guards are very limited, so we can only arrange four people a day. Tao Donglai also helped: "You must know that the environment we are in now is far less stable than that of future generations, and a few police officers can manage tens of thousands of people." We've been here for a month, and we've had two fights, and this is not the time when everyone can sit down and play negotiation skills calmly. ”

Ning Qi shook his head helplessly and said, "Then what are you going to do?

As soon as Yan Chujie heard that he was relieved, he immediately nodded again and again: "Yes, yes, of course! Old Tao, isn't the plan in your hands? Hurry up and tell Ning Qi." ”

The expansion plan of the Military Police Department is actually very simple, that is, to recruit a group of healthy, honest and obedient young people from among the indigenous people who are currently crossing the territory of the public control, and to train them as the prototype of the future naturalized civilian army. In terms of establishment, it can be temporarily integrated with the military and police, serving as a force to maintain public order in peacetime and as an auxiliary unit in wartime. At present, the members who have joined the two communes will definitely be the focus of recruitment because they have been registered and are relatively reliable.

"Then how many people are you going to recruit?" Ning Qi knew that there was indeed no reason to stop the Military Police Department in this matter, so he simply opened up and asked to understand.

"According to the military establishment of later generations, the establishment of a company is not too much, right?" Tao Donglai asked tentatively.

Ning Qi calculated in his heart, a squad of ten people, a platoon of three squads, a company of three platoons, plus the company commander, cooking squad, signal corps, etc., this company has more than 100 people, and immediately shook his head and said: "The two communes add up to less than 300 people, and you have to recruit more than 100 people in one breath, do you plan to leave labor for the commune?"

"We can change the recruitment policy a little more, the commune recruits a part, and then recruits a part of the society!" Tao Donglai was extremely flexible, seeing that Ning Qi's tone was not very firm, he also took the initiative to make a small concession at the moment.