"...the army is called a battalion, and is under the command of a battalion officer. After entering the field and firing cannons, the soldiers only obey the orders. From the moment the cannon is fired, they will control the conch horn, and everyone will stand up, thousands of
Hundreds of soldiers move uniformly. The main camp looks at the color of the military flag when it is erected, which camp is waiting. In which direction they point, they also point in their own direction. According to the direction of the camp flag, the three troops gather together, with one flag on each route and three team leaders.
Parallel, the three units are three parallel roads. The central army is in the middle. Walking to the teaching field, the middle road listens to the sound of the conch trumpet. Everyone stands at attention, blows the turn horn, turns upward, the battalion officers give the order, blows the conch trumpet, and everyone stands at their feet.
Sit down and rest, the flag bearer raises the flag as if a thief is coming, raises the conch trumpet and sounds the gong, the soldiers stand up, marching hundreds of people as if they were one person, facing the enemy, each holding a gun, arranged in a line, with the middle in the middle, the left in the left, and the right
The troops are on the right, one team of each team is in front, the second team is behind, which is the second stack. The flags and drums are in the middle, the golden drums are beating and the drums are stopped, and the conch trumpets are played. Each team is in a row, and each team is separated by one foot.
, each one is one foot in the middle, the golden sound is heard, the conch whistle stops, the officers each give orders, sit down and take a rest."
This is the situation of the infantry drill of the Chinese Army recorded in the report sent by Yuan Chonghuan to the Ministry of War in the capital. At the end of this "intelligence report", he wrote: "Looking at the behavior of the Kou army, there is a strong legacy of Qi Shaobao, and most of the evidence comes from
"Records of Military Training" also..."
Zhang Ye said in a secret report within the Jinyiwei: "The pirate army has strict military discipline, and the tactics of the troops are very strict..."
The first battalion initially conducted a queue change drill, which opened the eyes of Xu Guangqi, Sheng Yihong and other civil servants. However, in the eyes of Zhang Ye, who came from a family of military generals, and Yuan Chonghuan, who thought he "knew soldiers", this battalion of Chinese troops was indeed an elite and strong force.
soldiers, but given time, under the premise of strict military discipline and strict selection of soldiers, some troops in the Ming army will be able to drill to this extent. Moreover, they believe that this troop must have been specially selected to demonstrate formation change drills. The Chinese Army
It is impossible for all troops to be like this.
Subsequently, the battalion of the Fourth Division of the Chinese Army practiced infantry confrontation, using flintlock muskets to fire "paper bullets" for live-fire exercises.
Xu Guangqi and other civil servants were stunned by this ruthless tactic of lining up to kill. The two groups of Chinese troops walked towards each other, stood at attention and fired at each other. At the same time, they approached each other step by step. The soldiers in the front row were "killed", and the soldiers in the back row immediately replaced the front row and fired.
Position, continue to stand at attention and shoot, both sides shoot at each other, without evasion, regard death as home, and will not stop fighting. In the mind of the imperial envoy of the Ming Dynasty, this kind of fighting method cannot exist in the world.
In fact, this tactic of queuing to kill is rarely used by the Chinese army on the domestic battlefield because they cannot meet corresponding opponents: no Ming army troops can start a musket exchange with them. This is not only about weapon technology.
There are also many factors such as troop organization and tactical training. The most important thing is that the Ming army simply lacks the tactical thinking method suitable for firearms warfare due to its backward technology.
"Everyone obeys orders. They are as important as life. If you die, you will die. Don't dare to disobey orders... This is a first-class strong army, but this kind of warfare is stupid and rigid. How many people in this world can really regard death as death?"
If there is a battle formation, can the soldiers really fight like this?" Sheng Yihong said while shaking his head.
Yuan Chonghuan worked in the Ministry of War and had heard some legends about the Chinese army: "Not necessarily. It is said that this pirate fought with the Greeks on Luzon Island, and this was how he fought."
Before the imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty had time to recover from their shock, the battle on the playground was over, and both sides were basically dead. When the soldiers reorganized, Guo Huaiyi explained the exercise: "This battle simulates two technologies. Troops with similar tactics simply use musketry to decide the outcome. Such a scene should not happen on the actual battlefield."
Zhang Ye and Zhou Xiang, who had experienced battles in battle, were very interested in the Chinese army's flintlock muskets and couldn't wait to ask Guo Huaiyi to take a look at these muskets.
Guo Huai glanced sideways at Luo Quanxiu, who was standing aside, and then at Zeng Yue. Seeing that both of them nodded indifferently, he immediately called a soldier and asked him to hand the flintlock musket in his hand to Jin Yiwei Qianhu Zhang Ye.
Zhang Ye and Zhou Xiang almost rushed towards the flintlock musket to take a look at it. However, Guo Huai let them fumble with the gun body for a while and then took the gun away. Zhang Ye looked at the gun almost reluctantly. Flintlock musket, knowing that the other party will never give him the gun, otherwise he will definitely ask for it.
"It can be fired once in more than ten breaths, and the reloading speed is twice as fast as the muskets from the Capital Firearms Camp. No, at least three times." Zhou Xiang whispered to Zhang Ye: "I saw their bullets The projectiles are packaged together with the propellant, and the firing seems to be more stable than the new automatic Firebird blunderbuss made by the firearms camp,"
Zhang Ye also whispered: "It would be best to get a gun like this..."
Zhou Xiang shook his head: "The self-made firebird guns from the Capital Firearms Camp are copied from their guns. But, you know the level of the craftsmen in the Capital. Pulling the trigger five times out of ten times is amazing."
"How do you know this? Oh, by the way, your brother-in-law is from the Jingshi Firearms Camp. There is no way. It is said that the craftsmanship is so sophisticated that no one in the world can surpass the Taiwanese pirates."
…
During lunch, the imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty were shocked by the food of the Chinese soldiers. At this time, the people of the Ming Dynasty generally had two meals a day, and only during the busy farming season they had three meals a day. Among the Ming army, The generals will only let their servants and private soldiers have enough to eat and drink, and the rest of the soldiers will be half-fed.
But the Chinese soldiers here all have the same food standard as the servants of the Ming army generals and private soldiers, and the standard can only be high or not low. Not to mention three meals a day, there must be one meal with meat every day, and each person eats one meal every two days. With only one egg, this meal is of a standard that even the average petty official in the capital cannot reach.
Moreover, soldiers in the Chinese Army pay attention to discipline and efficiency when eating: all soldiers sit down without moving or making a sound. Only when the officers give the order "start", do they take the chopsticks and start eating together. When the officers finish eating, they give the order to stand at attention. Regardless of whether the soldiers have finished their portion of the meal, they must stop immediately and stand at attention.
Therefore, the imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty were very depressed and had a lunch with these soldiers. As a result, no one had enough to eat.
In the afternoon, the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 4th Division of the Chinese Army began normal training.
At this time, Zhang Ye, who originally thought that providing such a meal every day was too wasteful, had to admit: according to the training level of the Chinese army, such a meal must be provided, otherwise people will simply not be able to bear it.
The regular training content of the Chinese Army focuses on four major items: weapons training, physical fitness training, garrison training, and field training. Generally, training is divided into sentinel units, including running, shooting, and obstacle running, followed by shooting, bombing, and soil work. At the end of the training, everyone ran ten laps around the playground, covering a total of about twenty miles, before the day's training ended.
Whether they were civil servants like Xu Guangqi and Sheng Yihong, or military attachés like Zhang Ye and Zhou Xiang, they were all intimidated by the amount of training, especially when Guo Huaiyi introduced: Such training must be carried out every day, for ten days. One day during a holiday, Zhang Ye and Zhou Xiang both took a deep breath. They probably wouldn't be able to endure such training for even a day.
"No wonder their food is so good. Otherwise, how could they train like this every day?"
"Excuse me, if it's windy or rainy, do you still have to train?" Zhou Xiang couldn't help but ask.
Guo Huai raised his eyebrows, obviously surprised that Zhou Xiang asked such a question: "Of course, if the weather is bad, we shouldn't fight. We sweat more in peacetime and bleed less in war. This is why we The shipowner king said: We train soldiers just to fight well in the battlefield. Besides, training soldiers to exhaustion every day can also make them less likely to go out and cause trouble. Are you right?"
Zhang Ye and Zhou Xiang laughed bitterly when they heard this. They discussed it privately and felt that if the Ming army soldiers drilled like this, they could also train a strong army. However, they must first ensure the logistics supply and keep the soldiers well fed. , for today's Ming army, they had to completely overthrow and start over and reform the entire system, so the two had no choice but to look up to the sky and sigh, with no choice.
In the evening, the visitors, several senior officers and Zeng Yue had dinner together in the large canteen, accompanied by a whole battalion of Chinese soldiers. Luo Quanxiu ate the dinner very quickly. After he finished his dinner, all the soldiers had to Eat it immediately.
At this dinner, the envoys of the Ming Dynasty were not full.
In the evening, before Xu Guangqi and others left the military camp, they discovered another thing that surprised them.
Groups of soldiers were sitting in the canteen, divided into several classes, and were taking literacy and arithmetic classes under the lighting of torches and oil lamps.
The teachers were some non-commissioned officers and officers of the Chinese Army, all of whom were very young. All the soldiers of the Chinese Army were actually literate, which shocked Xu Guangqi and others: You must know that in the Ming Army, some senior officers at the rank of general soldier were illiterate or semi-literate. All memorials to the imperial court had to be written by staff.
"Does one have to be literate to be a soldier?" Zhou Xiang couldn't help it anymore and asked Guo Huai: "What's the use of asking them to do arithmetic?"
Guo Huaiyi forcibly concealed his disdain and said with a sneer: "Every soldier has the potential to become a general. Our army requires officers at all levels to write reports in person, and orders must be recorded in written form. At the same time, we The military disciplines and regulations of the army are printed and distributed to every soldier. How can they abide by disciplines if they are illiterate? As for learning arithmetic, the truth is very simple: if you face the enemy, you can clearly calculate the numbers in your hands. The range of the musket, or the ability to quickly calculate the number of enemies, will make it easier to win the battle, right?"
Zhou Xiang grinned bitterly: "According to your standards, I, a veteran of more than ten years, cannot be considered a soldier at all."
When the imperial envoys of the Ming Dynasty left the military camp, groups of Chinese soldiers sang songs and ended their cultural studies and left the canteen. Their voices were loud and powerful, and they were full of confidence.