Dominate the Country

Turn your attention back to Chen Ming, who is already on his way back to Nanjing.

Intelligence agencies, not just the Military Intelligence Bureau, sent the current progress of the "new weapons" equipment of European countries.

Just as Chen Ming thought before, in order to ensure military capabilities, all European countries have invested in a major replacement. Because of the linear increase in the cost of new rifles and weapons, the number of armies in various countries has now fallen back after the rapid expansion in the early days of the French Revolution.

A very obvious example - Russia.

The number of Russian army is absolutely incomparable in Europe because they have a large number of people. After the end of the Sixth Russo-Turkish War, according to the Military Intelligence Bureau, the Russians prepared a million-scale military expansion plan, and the crazy momentum was unparalleled. But now the number of Russian troops has dropped from 750,000 at its peak four years ago to less than 500,000 today. And the cavalry units of more than 100,000 have not decreased at all. In other words, the number of Russia's traditional infantry units, those gray animals, has been reduced by half.

No matter how bad the brains of St. Petersburg are, they know how powerless their soldiers, who are unqualified in everything except bravery, are when they fight against the army equipped with the current Minié rifles with inferior flintlock rifles.

Even if they are just animals, these people can create value if they stay in Russia. And if they die in vain on the battlefield, it will be a huge harm to the whole of Russia.

Although the difficulty in producing new weapons has caused European countries to stop their military expansion mode, they have also realized the importance of reserve forces.

Take the French for example. When the revolution broke out and the first anti-French coalition army rushed in, the French, who had only 200,000 troops before the war, exploded and created an army twice or three times the size of this.

Those self-defense forces with high revolutionary will used their endless numbers and high revolutionary fighting spirit to resist foreign interference in the early stages of the revolution, protect the revolutionary achievements in the bud, and let the Paris government after the revolution pass the most dangerous stage.

When the French reached their peak in 1795, it was said that the French Revolutionary Guard had as many as one million soldiers.

Austria also had more than 400,000 soldiers at its peak, and their standing army was similar to that of the French.

And Prussia. After Frederick II died, the Kingdom of Prussia, whose military strength began to decline, had a population of only 8.5 million [including the population of Poland], but could mobilize an army of more than 300,000 at any time.

Europeans fully realized the importance of reserves in the ten years of war. The 300,000-man reduction of the Russian army was the transfer of active soldiers to reserves.

There is no way. There are too many powerful countries in Europe. It is not like China, which has no rivals around. If it is purely from the perspective of military strength, China should not have announced the Minié rifle.

Because China's military pressure is too small, the countries around it are too small, and China's enemies are too weak. Smoothbore muskets plus horizontal formation tactics, volleys, even if they are learned from the West, plus China's deep accumulation of artillery power, are enough to form a comprehensive advantage. Whether it is for Asia or Europe.

The range and accuracy of infantry firepower are not the urgent needs of Chen Han's army.

It should be clear that a rifled gun is much more expensive than a smoothbore gun, and it is limited by the bottleneck of metallurgical technology. They are not useful by themselves. Even today's manufacturing process, whether it is forging barrel technology or rifling technology, all took Chen Han's ordnance system countless efforts and a lot of money to climb to the current level step by step.

But even so, the life of a rifled gun is far less than that of a smoothbore gun.

This is not the difference in the era of cast iron barrels with a service life of only 200 or 300 rounds, but a qualitative gap. Even if a rifled gun has a life of 1,000 rounds, it is still worse than a smoothbore gun.

With China's huge population advantage and strong material support, the army really wants to improve the rate of fire. If Chen Ming hadn't invented a weapon like rockets, and only relied on volleys to kill, Chen Han's army could wait for ten or twenty years, and China could still dominate the world with smoothbore guns.

It all comes down to Europe. In order to make Europe as chaotic as in the original time and space history, and to find a weapon that can well counterbalance rockets for Napoleon, many officers used skirmishers + muzzle-loading rifles to deal with rockets, but the latter's rate of fire was too poor, and the concealment effect of the muzzle-loading era was always a tragedy.

So Chen Ming was also "forced" to reveal the Minié rifle.

The environment in Europe is completely different from that in Asia. Chen Ming must admit that the industrial level of European countries in this era is far superior to that of Asia. Every country here, even as small as the Netherlands, has a systematic modern industrial system. Once the muzzle-loading rifle and Minié bullet technology spreads, it will inevitably become the goal of all parties' efforts. This makes all countries have the need to comprehensively change their infantry firepower, and this pressure does not exist in China in the East.

However, rifled guns and Minié bullets are only hardware changes, and the innovation of combat weapons must also be reflected in the combat methods. But Chen Ming himself is not a far-sighted military strategist. In his previous life, he was a novice. In terms of the software of combat methods, China has been on the road for several years, but it is still in the stage of change.

Relying on the superficial knowledge that Chen Ming had in his previous life as a rookie, it is obviously incompetent to deal with the current reform of a country's army.

Fortunately, Chen Ming had a staff department. When Europeans were still making great strides in the horizontal formation tactics, China's army quietly entered the era of skirmisher + column tactics. The systematic summary of countless elites in the staff department brought great changes to Chen Han's national defense army.

However, all the previous "experiences" were obtained in secret exercises, and the actual combat is still to be discussed.

Fortunately, Chen Ming made rockets early, so that the national defense army went from weak to strong, and then to the period of national tripartite, there were few large numbers of troops arranged in large horizontal square formations like a chessboard, fighting upright and stupidly. The stigma of being shot by volleys only left a layer of black skin on the Chinese army. The transformation of Chinese soldiers was very easy, and they consciously transformed under the guidance of "theory". Unlike the French, who were the most capable fighters in Europe at this time, their transformation was completely passive and unconscious.

Of course, this does not mean that the combat effectiveness of skirmisher + column tactics is so awesome. If the officers are not good at commanding, they will definitely fail.

It is just that under the power of today's weapons, column + skirmisher tactics are more flexible. It is also more suitable for organizing those troops that are not well trained and have a large number of people to exert their due combat effectiveness. At the same time, it is also more adaptable to complex and changing battlefields.

In the Napoleonic era in the original time and space history, the reason why the French infantry was able to carry forward the column tactics was that they were not as good as the professional armies of neighboring countries in terms of the quality of their soldiers.

In the era of smoothbore guns, in the era without rockets, in the ideal hypothetical battlefield environment, although the horizontal column was rigid, it could organize firepower most effectively and maximize firepower. At the same time, the superior training quality of professional soldiers also represents a kind of "elite culture". This combat mode can quickly distinguish which unit is the ridiculous mob.

Now, the coordinated tactics of skirmishers - enhanced rifle shooters, and column soldiers are no longer forced on European countries by the "facts of war" in history.

——Why is the army an absolutely conservative group?

That's because the "tradition" that the army adheres to is the experience they have summed up with countless blood, victories and failures. They will not change unless they are beaten to a pulp or defeated again and again. It is the more direct weapon innovation that forces the military leaders of Western countries to abandon everything in the past.

Clausewitz lived during the Napoleonic Wars, and his "On War" was later called the founding work of modern Western military science. But in this era, can Clausewitz still write "On War" that represents the founding work of modern Western military science? God bless him not to be shot through the head by the Minié bullets fired by the French in the war.

Just as Chen Ming was riding the imperial ship and returning to Nanjing along the Yangtze River, a memorial urgently delivered by North America was also delivered to him.

The Sino-Spanish Treaty, also known as the Havana Treaty in later generations, was signed in the first month of the 25th year of the Chengtian period of the lunar calendar. From the perspective of the treaty itself, this is a model friendly treaty between the two countries, and it is also a symbol of the end of the war between China and Spain.

Apart from the many official words of friendship between the two countries, the core of the treaty has only three points. First, China and Spain cease fire and live in peace. Second, both sides designate trade and commerce places and maintain trade exchanges supervised by the government. Third, it confirms the principle of management by Spanish descendants. China must allow Spanish descendants to withdraw from Mexico, the Isthmus of Central America and other places within one year after the armistice.

Spain did not make compensation, and did not even cede the land of Colombia, but they ceded the whole of Chile, including the entire Atacama Desert and the central and southern regions of Chile. There is also the Falkland Islands, the Malvinas Islands located on the Patagonian continental shelf in the southeast corner of the South American continent.

This is China's first step into the east coast of South America.

The Spaniards were reluctant at first. But the situation is stronger than people. China gave up the land of Colombia, and it seemed natural to make territorial claims on the Falkland Islands. As for Chile, the big duck itself failed to hold on, so they can't blame others.

The Malvinas Islands, also known as the Falkland Islands, are located on the Patagonian continental shelf in the South Atlantic. The entire archipelago includes Soledad Island, Great Malvina Island and 776 small islands, with a total area of ​​more than 10,000 square kilometers.

French navigator Bougainville first established a settlement on East Falkland Island in 1764. The British then settled in West Falkland Island, but were expelled by the Spanish in 1770, and the Spanish bought all the property rights of the French settlement around 1767. After threatening war, Britain restored its outpost on West Falkland Island in 1771, and withdrew from the island for economic reasons in 1774, but did not give up its claim to sovereignty. Spain's settlement on East Falkland Island (Soledad Island) has been maintained to this day, and now all of them belong to China. Except for West Falkland Island!

Chen Ming looked at the memorial in front of him with a satisfied smile on his face. Did you talk well? The only flaw is the West Falkland Island. Chen Ming can almost predict that after the British know about the Sino-Spanish Armistice Agreement, they will definitely return to the West Falkland Island. It is like a nail fixed on the Falkland Islands, right under China's nose.

But no matter what, this time China can enter the east coast of America on a large scale - and set foot in the Atlantic Ocean.