"Your Majesty, I was a little presumptuous just now, please forgive me."
As soon as she returned to the palace, the red lady also calmed down. She felt that what she just said in the main hall was a bit treasonous. She was afraid that the little emperor would be angry, so she hurriedly knelt down to apologize.
"My concubine, please get up. The words my concubine scolded Shi Kefa just now are actually what I want to say. It's just that as the emperor, I am inconvenient to say some words."
Zhu Cixiang quickly helped her up with a smile. He also wanted to point his finger at Shi Kefa and those civil servants and curse them.
But after being the emperor for more than a year, he also understood a lot. He knew that it was best for the emperor to try his best to hide his joy and keep everyone from guessing his thoughts.
"My dear concubine, after I leave, the hundreds of thousands of troops in the north will be handed over to you. Each town only needs to complete its reorganization. Training matters are not urgent for the time being.
The 300,000 troops of the Fifth Army have been reorganized according to the new organization. The next step is to send the trainees to be responsible for training, as well as to award titles to middle and low-level generals and ordinary soldiers. Concubine Ai must personally supervise these things."
Zhu Cihong asked her to sit next to him and began to give instructions again.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty. I will definitely supervise the awarding and training of the troops, but I don't know what the equipment of each army is like now?" The red lady nodded, and then asked again.
"The new army needs to have a new look. Most of the new military uniforms and armor have been made, and the weapons, bows and crossbows should be almost finished. In other words, the firearms may have to wait for another two or three months."
Zhu Cixiang explained that the new swords, shields, long guns, short spears and crossbows have been built and can be replaced immediately. These weapons have been strictly inspected and the swords and guns are all made of fine steel.
The new military uniforms are mainly red, with five pieces of trousers and cotton-padded jackets, including outerwear and underwear. Many modern elements have been added, so they are very convenient to wear.
There are six types of armor.
One type is worn by logistics troops, pikemen, archers, and firearms soldiers. It only has an iron helmet, a cotton armor vest, a breast protector inlaid on the front and rear, plus two leather wrist guards and two leg guards.
Six parts in total.
Although it is simple and flexible to wear, its protective power is the lowest.
One type is worn by sword and shield soldiers. In addition to the above six components, it also has an armor skirt and a shoulder guard. The vest and armor skirt are also studded with copper nails. The protective power is much stronger. Compared with the armor of the Eight Banners,
Not much different.
One type is worn by cavalry. In addition to the helmet, vest, skirt, leggings and wrist guards, they are all made of leather. However, the vest is made of two layers of cowhide with a layer of compacted cotton sandwiched in the middle. There are two goggles on the front and rear, plus
Bronze nails, large and small, can stop Tatar bows and arrows within fifty steps. The arrows can only penetrate an inch of the flesh and cannot damage the internal organs.
The leather armor of the cavalry is also the most expensive. If it hadn't been for mutual trade with the Tumote tribe, it would really be unaffordable.
The other two types are mainly iron armors, and one is black three-point armor, which has strong defensive power but is cumbersome to wear, and is worn by captain-level officers.
One type is high-grade fish scale armor, mainly silver-white, which has the strongest protective power and is the most complicated to wear. It is also very troublesome to make. It is mainly worn by general-level officers.
The last kind is made of pure gold, with a majestic and domineering style. The helmets on the front and back shoulders are engraved with golden dragons. It is the exclusive armor of the emperor and generalissimo.
At present, the three-common armor and fish-scale armor of the captains and generals have been completed, and the leather armor of the cavalry has also been completed. Only the two types of cotton armor for ordinary soldiers still have a big gap.
In order to redress the entire army, Zhu Cihong recruited nearly 100,000 craftsmen from Datong and Shandong in Xuanfu and incorporated them into the Ordnance Supervision. Therefore, the entire Ordnance Supervision now has 250,000 craftsmen of various types, half of whom are in the Imperial Army.
City, half of which is in the industrial zone in the west of the city.
"Your Majesty, are all the cavalry horses ready?" The red lady looked surprised. She didn't expect that Your Majesty was so fully prepared and almost all the equipment was ready.
"Haha, over the past year or so, we have traded a total of 50,000 war horses with the Tumut Department, so we only need a lot more war horses."
Zhu Cixi said with a smile.
The red lady also smiled slightly: "No wonder Your Majesty is so accommodating to Sister Duo'er." After saying this, she straightened her face and asked: "Your Majesty, the other concubines are all sure of it, but I don't know much about firearms!"
"Let's go, let's take my concubine to see the new firecrackers and artillery first."
Immediately, Zhu Cihong took him to the firearms manufacturing bureau in the imperial city.
On the school field.
Zhu Cihong took a brand-new flintlock gun and demonstrated it to the red lady himself. He first took out the fixed bullet wrapped in oil paper, bit it open with his mouth, poured some gunpowder on the medicine pool, and then poured out all the remaining gunpowder and lead bullets.
Put it into the barrel of the gun and stuff it with the greased paper.
Then he took out the thin iron wire stabbing bar from the gun body, inserted it into the barrel and stabbed it a few times. Finally, he reset the sabering bar, held the blunderbuss flat, put the butt of the gun on his shoulder, aimed at the target fifty steps away, and pulled the trigger.
There was a bang, a burst of white smoke rose around Zhu Cixiang, and the muzzle flashed.
"Your Majesty, this fire gun can be loaded so quickly without the use of a match rope. It is really a sharp weapon." The red lady looked at Zhu Cixiang's series of actions and was amazed.
"My dear wife, I don't know. This uses the principle of flint to make fire. The gunpowder and lead shot are sealed in oil paper shells in advance, so it is very convenient. If you are a skilled soldier, you can do it twice as fast as I did just now.
And as long as the flint doesn’t get wet and water doesn’t get into the muzzle, even a little drizzle won’t be a problem.”
Zhu Cixiang explained to her while holding the gun.
With the craftsmanship and craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty blacksmiths, it was really easy to create a fire blunderbuss fired by Sui Shi.
It's just that the spring of the trigger is a bit difficult, but it can be solved by knocking out a thin steel wire and using a winch.
It's just that the thin steel wires knocked out are somewhat uneven and rounded, so they are easy to break after being used for a long time, and the spring's expansion and contraction strength is also poor.
But it is enough to solve the problem of resetting the trigger. At worst, it will be replaced if it breaks. As for the structure of the entire firing device, that is not a problem.
More than 2,000 years ago during the Qin Dynasty, the crossbow trigger was invented. This mechanism was really very simple for ancient Chinese craftsmen.
In the past, it was not that the Ming Dynasty could not build advanced fire guns, but that the money was stolen and the craftsmen lived like animals. If they could build qualified fire guns, then there was something wrong.
For this Suifa gun, Zhu Cixiang's only contribution was to increase the rear sight from one to two and a modern gun stock, which increased the stability of shooting and greatly improved the accuracy of shooting.
"Your Majesty, you have not... not hit the target!" A eunuch trotted over and reported carefully.
Zhu Cixiang didn't care. He smiled bitterly at Lady Red and said, "The power and range of this fire blunderbuss are enough, but the accuracy is too poor. You can only rely on luck. But on the battlefield, this accuracy is enough."
"Your Majesty is right. If thousands of these muskets are fired at the same time, the lethality will definitely be much greater than the same number of bows and arrows."
The red lady nodded and didn't care about the accuracy. After speaking, she said eagerly: "Your Majesty, let me take a shot too."
"good!"
Zhu Cixiang handed her the blunderbuss and gave her instructions, but she also missed the target after fifty steps.
Zhu Cixi also knew that if he wanted to improve accuracy, he could only rifling the barrel and change the round projectile into a tapered shape.
With today's technology, it is really difficult to carve rifling into a small barrel, probably even more difficult than building a steam engine.
So for now, he only plans to figure out how to carve rifling into the barrel.
Assembling a bayonet on a fire gun is also not a simple matter. For the time being, Zhu Cixiang only asked the craftsmen to figure it out while equipping the fire gun soldiers with a short sword for self-defense.
As a modern man, Zhu Cixiang naturally attached great importance to the development of firearms, but he was not in a hurry.
Because as long as they train well, the Han army of this era can sweep the world with only cold weapons.
Zhu Cixi firmly believed in this.
After trying out the fire cannon, the two went to the larger school grounds to test the artillery. This time, neither of them took action in person, but just watched the craftsmen's operations.
In addition to being equipped with new Suifa muskets, the firearms battalion will also be equipped with two furlong machine guns, one weighing one thousand kilograms and the other weighing four hundred kilograms.
The former mainly fires solid bullets, while the latter fires shot shells. Zhu Cixiang really looked down on the artillery of this era. Not only was it weak in power, it also had a slow rate of fire and a short range, so its role in field battles was very limited.
Only this kind of French cannon that was loaded from the back could barely catch his eye. Regardless of the lethality and range, at least the rate of fire was acceptable.
For these two artillery pieces, he just asked the craftsmen to make an iron frame, and changed the four wheels to two. It was also very large, fully one meter high, and covered with iron sheets to increase its off-road capabilities.
Therefore, both types of artillery only need to be pulled by a mule. The latter's 400-pound cannon can be dragged by three or four people. No matter how small or large it is, there is no need.
Zhu Cixiang had never even thought about the red-coated cannon. It would be just fine to install it on a ship.