1840Indian rebirth

(The previous article has been slightly adjusted)

"Yes, Chief." Du Tiao said, "In addition to the one in the tower, we also found a cannon in a room, but it was somewhat damaged."

The so-called cannon is actually a long-barreled cannon, and the original meaning of its name is "pipe" in Latin.

Of course, later on, the meaning of cannon became gradually broader, or the distinction between cannon and howitzer became gradually blurred.

The artillery in front of the horse sentry can be regarded as a standard long barrel, and the barrel is quite slender compared to other artillery.

The gun body is made of brass and has some Cyrillic letters on it.

"Is this...Russian?" He didn't understand Russian, but he had seen these strange letters.

Alone view: "This brass cannon does come from Russia, but no one in the castle seems to know where it came from in the first place. Anyway, Sartre bought it from a captain in South America."

He added: "Maybe it has something to do with Fort Ross to the west, that's the only reason I can think of."

Ma Shao nodded.

Fort Ross is the southernmost Russian settlement in North America, located one or two hundred kilometers west of Sacramento, close to the coast.

The horse whistle touched the brass barrel of the cannon.

For him, these trophies from Sutter's Fort were the first artillery pieces he mastered.

He has always wanted to equip his troops with artillery, but it was difficult to achieve it.

Buying directly is bound to be difficult.

No matter how bad the government management of this era was, it would not even care about the sale of artillery.

Therefore, as an Indian, if he wants to equip artillery, the more suitable way seems to be to make it himself.

It sounds feasible. As a person from the future, Ma Shao is also a physics teacher and keyboard strategist. At least he should be able to make a flying thunder cannon or a "heartless cannon".

But after all, he did not do the so-called "unconscionable artillery".

Because he knew that the performance of this ultra-simple artillery was actually not very reliable, and was far from as miraculous as some rumors said.

The operation is cumbersome, the conditions of use are limited, and the accuracy and range are poor... Not to mention these, more importantly, the safety of heartless guns is also a big problem.

In real history, due to the extremely limited range and the problems of the artillery itself, the operator of the mine gun was always in a dangerous environment, but it was just better than risking his life to blow up the bunker.

Moreover, this thing is mainly used for siege. The strategy that Apache should implement now is undoubtedly a defensive strategy, at least there is no need for siege.

So after some consideration, Ma Shao decided not to build cannons for the time being, but to accumulate more foundation in industrial technology.

But this doesn't mean that he doesn't want to have some artillery as soon as possible. In fact, he is planning to buy it from Mexico or Europe.

Needless to say in Europe, since the United States began to seek independence, the British have often supported the Indians in order to cause trouble for the Americans.

When the Anglo-American War was fought, the British even produced a trading rifle specifically for the Indians.

This rifle has undergone many simplifications and improvements. Its structure is simple, its price is low, and its output is huge. It has effectively promoted the popularity of firearms among Indians. It can be said that it is well-intentioned.

To this day, this youthful version of the British rifle is one of the most common firearms among Indians.

Ma Shao believed that it would not be difficult to obtain some arms support as long as the British could draw attention to him and his tribe.

Then there are the Mexicans.

After Mexico's defeat, it will retreat to Central America, basically no longer intersecting with the Apache's territory.

If there is no intersection, there will naturally be no conflict. There is no need for Mexicans and Apaches to be hostile to each other as they were in the past.

The Mexicans, who had just experienced a defeat, definitely hated the United States more than the British, and there was a great chance of getting artillery from them.

Ma Shao had some plans in mind for this. In fact, this was what he needed to do after his trip to California.

He observed the cannon in front of him for a while, and then turned his attention to the few white prisoners next to him.

"How many of you are artillerymen?" the horse whistle asked.

The captive soldiers lowered their heads: "Yes."

Ma Shao: "I think you should already know the punishment you will face."

"As John Sartre's accomplice, you will face at least five years of reform through labor."

"If you don't quite understand the meaning of reform through labor, it can also be understood as 'imprisonment'. In short, you have no freedom."

After a pause, Ma Shao changed the topic: "However, Apache pays attention to convincing people with reason and virtue."

"Our goal is not to punish anyone, at least not just this, we also hope that the world can become a better place."

"So...if you can change your past and make some contributions, you will receive corresponding rewards, such as gold coins, and reduced sentences."

A captured artilleryman hesitated: "What do we need to do?"

Ma Shao: "You just need to teach my soldiers the skills of artillery."

Artillery requires knowledge of mathematics and physics, but only mathematics and physics are undoubtedly theoretical knowledge.

Therefore, if you want to train a group of qualified artillery, you will definitely not be able to do it by yourself.

He needs professional artillery.

And he knows very well that teaching work cannot be done by force, but largely depends on the attitude of the teaching staff.

The profession of teacher can be extremely sacred, or it can be extremely depraved.

Whether you teach people or destroy them, it all happens in a single thought.

Therefore, in addition to some necessary mandatory measures, Mashao also needs to provide generous rewards as incentives, and of course there is a competition mechanism.

This is artillery, and the teacher's intentions are crucial.

One prisoner couldn't hide his disdain and said in a tone as normal as possible but still a little bit weird: "First of all - you have to be literate."

Most white people are illiterate, and the spread of education in the United States only happened after the Civil War and the Electricity Revolution.

The vast majority of Indian tribes do not even have their own written language, and are naturally illiterate.

The Indians these artillerymen living in California come into contact with every day are basically the most primitive and backward group. They do not believe that the Indians are qualified to learn artillery knowledge.

Even as prisoners, they maintained such arrogance.

The horse whistle smiled nonchalantly and pointed at the Apache soldiers around him: "Everyone of them can read."

"In terms of English and Spanish, they are indeed not very familiar with it, but in terms of mathematical language, you may not be as good as some of them."

The captured artillerymen obviously didn't believe it, but they didn't say anything.

The horse whistle only said: "As long as you are willing to serve as artillery instructors, you can be exempted from hard labor and receive a salary. Twenty dollars per month."

"Twenty dollars?" This number made the artillery prisoners' eyes light up.

Generally speaking, the income of soldiers is not high, and as a private armed force in California, their income is even less.

Even they can hardly be considered professional soldiers. Even if they are, they have served in the regular army before. For example, these artillerymen have served in the regular army.

But after becoming Sartre's personal armies, most of these soldiers worked part-time in other jobs and at least kept a few serfs.

Horse Whistle: "Yes, twenty dollars, and they are real twenty dollars, gold and silver coins, not bank notes."

"In addition, based on your training results, you can also get at least one year of reduced sentence and be freed in advance."

"You can also refuse, as long as you are willing to perform heavy manual labor, receive a meager salary, and have fewer opportunities for sentence reduction like most prisoners."

The prisoner asked: "Do other prisoners also get wages?"

"Yes, but most people's monthly salary is only three dollars and they need to work about fourteen hours a day." Ma Shao said.

"And the artillery instructor not only gets a salary of twenty dollars, but his working hours don't exceed ten hours."

"Twenty dollars and three dollars, fourteen hours and ten hours. Those of you who are proficient in mathematics should be able to understand the difference between the two."

Finally, the horse whistle said again: "Okay, I'll give you some time to think about it."

"In addition, during this period, you can also discuss some mathematics and physics problems with my subordinates to see if they are the illiterate you imagined."