Rise From the Humble

After Zhu Pingan finished speaking, the scene was quiet for a while, but soon someone asked Zhu Pingan a question:

"Master Zhu, the Yongji Formation has not yet been tested by the fire of war, and we still don't know its actual quality. In addition, even if it is as Master Zhu said, the Yongji Formation is the military formation that can best utilize the power of firearms, but it cannot be fired over a long distance. Fire, what should I do if we are in close combat? Use a fire blunderbuss as a fire stick to hit the enemy? At most, the enemy will be smashed into a bag, and it has no lethality. "

The man's words trailed behind, and many officials nodded, speaking one word at a time.

"Yeah, even if the Zhejiang Army is proficient in operating firearms, it doesn't matter if it takes five breaths to fire one bullet. From a distance of fifty meters, it only takes about ten breaths for the enemy to charge. As long as there are enough enemies, you With a maximum of three waves of bullets, the enemy will be able to rush into the formation. Japanese pirates are fierce and brave, but they are not afraid of death. As long as there are enough Japanese pirates, they will be able to rush into your army's formation."

"Once the Japanese pirates rush into the formation, you Zhejiang troops are lining up with firearms in hand. To the Japanese pirates who are rushing into the formation, it is no different from inserting a bid to sell their heads. They are just lining up to commit suicide."

"Your army relies so much on firearms. Once the troops come into contact, it will be a disaster and you will suffer heavy losses."

"So, as I said before, although firearms are powerful and must be taken seriously, they cannot be relied on like your army. If all the firearms are in the army, it will be an unbearable disaster in a close encounter."

Everyone was talking about it, and they all said that the Zhejiang army relied heavily on firearms in the wrong direction, and that it would be a disaster once the troops came into contact with each other.

Zhang Jing put out his hand to stop everyone's argument, turned to look at Zhu Ping'an, and asked calmly, "Zi Hou, what everyone said makes sense. It all depends on how firearms are used in hand-to-hand combat. How did you consider it?"

When everyone heard this, they couldn't help but shook their heads.

How can you deal with hand-to-hand combat with only firearms?! This is simply impossible. How can Zhu Pingan think about it?

In their view, they are all in close combat, and the enemy will definitely not give you time to reload gunpowder. The fire gun in your hand is just a burning stick, which has no lethality. If you encounter an enemy holding a Japanese sword, you are seeking death. Some put the fire musket soldiers under the protection of spear soldiers, shield sword soldiers, etc. When the soldiers are in close combat, the cold weapons are on top.

But in this case, wouldn’t it be the same as other military camps?! Other military camps also have a mixture of firearms and cold weapons. Firearms are used in a limited manner. The proportion of firearms is at most 40%. At least 60% of cold weapons are required to protect the firearms and compete with them. The enemy is in close combat. In the final analysis, cold weapons are the protagonist on the battlefield.

So, this is unsolvable!

Admit your mistake, Zhu Ping'an! If you turn back early, you can still go ashore! If you don't do it, the battlefield will be over!

This is the common sentiment of everyone.

"Sir, to solve this problem, I will start from two aspects. On the one hand, we will continue to increase the power of firearms, increase the number of artillery pieces, increase the number of artillery sub-guns, increase the number of fire-gun sub-guns, load the sub-gun ammunition in advance, and improve the artillery and The reloading efficiency of the fire blunderbuss allows the use of firearms to maximize the damage to the enemy."

Zhu Pingan replied slowly.

Now the Zhejiang Army only has twenty new portable artillery pieces. During the Zhejiang Army's drills, several battalions take turns using the artillery pieces.

It's not that Zhu Pingan doesn't want to increase the number of artillery quickly, but the Zhejiang Army only has Zhang Hong, a specialized artillery craftsman. Liu Jin has only participated in the artillery body casting. In essence, he is still a cold weapon craftsman and can only help Zhang Hong; These twenty artillery pieces were the result of Zhang Hong, Liu Jin, and their apprentices working hard day and night. They were forged based on the use of cannons such as bowl-mouth guns.

These twenty artillery pieces have already used up all the old artillery pieces such as bowl-kou blunderbuss, and they will have to start from scratch.

It's all handmade, hammered and hammered repeatedly. After the barrel is formed, you need to use a drill to smooth the inside of the barrel.

It took Liu Jin and the others more than ten days to cast two small cannons into prototypes. According to Liu Jin, it will take at least five days before these two small artillery can be tested in the field.

Of course, as Liu Jin and the others become more proficient and their apprentices master more skills, their efficiency will also improve.

These new cannons were improved by Liu Jin using the artillery doubling technology taught by Zhu Ping'an. In terms of appearance, the barrel is slender than the bowl-mouth blunderbuss, and the gun wall is also thinner than the bowl-mouth blunderbuss; in terms of effect, Look, the range, shooting accuracy and power of these new artillery are more than double that of the bowl-mouth blunderbuss; moreover, due to the addition of iron hoops on the cannon body, the number of artillery explosions has also been reduced a lot, although it still cannot be eliminated. .

In fact, Liu Jin and the others used the first batch of artillery to forge twenty-two artillery pieces. One artillery exploded during the test, and another artillery barrel overheated and exploded during the drill due to frequent firing.

Fortunately, the explosion of the two artillery guns only caused minor injuries to three soldiers and did not cause serious consequences.

Compared with artillery and fire blunderbuss, the forging of blunderbuss is much less difficult, and cold weapon craftsmen can assist in the forging.

The Zhejiang Army currently has more than a hundred artillery guns in reserve, and hundreds of fire guns have also been forged.

Zhu Ping'an prepared to forge at least two hundred artillery guns; for fire guns, each soldier would have at least two fire guns.

The gunpowder can be loaded in advance. Replacing the gunpowder is much faster than loading gunpowder on site, and the efficiency can be more than doubled. Compared with loading gunpowder on site, if you replace the musket, you can fire at least one or two more rounds before a close encounter.

In this way, the enemy will have to withstand one or two more rounds of firepower, just like reaping wheat, harvesting the enemy one or two more rounds.

This is definitely a big horror. In the age of cold weapons, the general army collapsed after reducing its strength by one or two. In the face of this kind of firepower from the Zhejiang Army, it is inevitable that the enemy will reduce its strength by 10% or 20%. It is estimated that most of the enemy will collapse before a close encounter.

However, everyone will not be able to see this until they have truly seen the lethality of queuing to kill tactics.

"This is treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. Even if you have a musket, you still can't prevent the Japanese pirates from rushing over and engaging in hand-to-hand combat."

"Indeed, even if you change the musket and fire one more time, the enemy will still be able to charge over if they pay a higher price."

After Zhu Pingan finished speaking, someone shook his head and rejected Zhu Pingan's solution in this aspect.

"What's the second aspect?"

Zhang Jing looked at Zhu Pingan expressionlessly. Zhu Pingan's first aspect did not satisfy him.

"The second aspect is to add a bayonet to the fire gun. When fighting at hand-to-hand combat, use the bayonet." Zhu Ping'an replied with his hand in hand.

"Attaching a bayonet to a firegun? Using a bayonet?!"

"What is a bayonet?"

"How do you add a bayonet to a blunderbuss? Is it stuffed into the blunderbuss tube? If you add a bayonet to the blunderbuss tube, how do you still fire it?"

"Adding a bayonet to a fire blunderbuss is turning the fire blunderbuss into a spear? Firearms and cold weapons are combined into one? Mr. Zhu is really unconstrained and ingenious."

Everyone was shocked when they heard this.