Warrior in Turbulent Han Dynasty

Guo Shao received a report from the Hedong Branch of the Bing Cao Division, and the reinforcements from Shi, Fen, Xian, Xin and other places in the Northern Han Dynasty successively arrived at the north bank of Fenzhou in Jinyang City, and the Liao army returned north. At this time, there were frequent wars in Liaozhou, and the headquarters of the Hedong branch had been secretly set up in Xingzhou in the east. Although it was farther from the border of the Northern Han Dynasty, it was also safer.

After reading the report, he turned to Jingniang and said, "In the name of Bing Cao Division, you order the Hedong Division, and if you have any news about the domestic military situation in the Northern Han Dynasty, directly copy a copy to Fu Zhaoxu Camp."

Jing Niang took Po Yu over and cupped her fists to bow.

Guo Shao read another memorial of Zan Jurun, the military supervisor, and immediately touched his abdomen and said, "It's time to move around."

In the past two days, Guo Shaocai suddenly discovered that the muscles on his stomach were hard to feel, but some soft flesh had grown, and he felt a little depressed. He was only twenty-four years old, but he felt that he might gain weight if he continued like this! If you sit and work all day, and live a good life and eat well, it is inevitable to gain fat; even people with more muscle in the past, the easier it is to gain weight. This is the reason why many athletes are easy to gain weight after retiring. Martial artisans in this era don't care about growing fat, but Guo Shao himself doesn't like getting fat. He has gained weight in the past few months, and he always feels that no matter what he does, he is not as relaxed and flexible as before.

He decided to go out of the palace and take a look at the workshop city by the Bianshui River.

The itinerary was decided temporarily, there were soldiers and horsemen guarding them, and the gate to exit the imperial city was also chosen at will, and then they went straight out of the city without stopping. With this kind of random route and random time selected temporarily, it is difficult for even an assassin to seize the opportunity... Moreover, with the level of spies in this era, even if there are spies, they will be under the supervision of the Imperial City Department's Internal Affairs Bureau and get news of the emperor's travels. Guo Shao thinks it is unlikely.

This time there was no emperor's ceremonial guard at all, and Guo Shao actually didn't like the ostentation. Sometimes he was still impatient, and felt that it was a waste of time to pretend to be slow. He put on a pair of plate armor, the joint part is a refined chain mail, this armor is very heavy, more than sixty catties; but Guo Shao still got on the horse straight away, showing very vigorous.

A group of armored cavalry left the city from Xihua Gate, and then walked southward on Yujie.

Get out of Tokyo City, and then go south for half an hour, a group of buildings by the Bianshui River is the workshop area. At this time, the workshop has been expanded into a small city, and the scale is getting bigger, but unlike ordinary cities, there are no civilians living in this city, and even fences and patrols are set up within the radius to prevent civilians from approaching.

Even firearms manufacturing workshops were established here. There are separate workshop areas, garrison areas, craftsman living areas, a school field for experimenting with military weapons, and arable land for growing vegetables... Every day from the Bianshui River, people called by the military supervisory officials will enter the city from Bianshui Shangshui. This place is like an industrial zone without machines, because Guo Shao holds the power of the country's resources, it is not difficult to create such a city.

Before Guo Shao entered the city, he heard the sound of cannons. He heard that some people from the left side of the Huben army were training firearms in the school grounds, so he led his guards and officials straight to the workshop city school grounds. On the open ground of the school grounds, the sound of crackling guns was heard, and gunpowder smoke billowed all around. Hundreds of people were queuing up for training there.

At that time, the only slight improvement of the "Long Xiao Cannon" was that the barrel was lengthened after it was found that it would not explode, and hundreds of doors have been cast! In addition, a cannon lug was made. This cannon lug is not used for aiming, but to mark the height (if the middle is raised at a specific position, the inclination of the muzzle can be adjusted, thereby adjusting the firing range.)

The structure of this kind of gun is very simple. The gun body is a thick|short barrel of thick-walled pig iron, and a small hole is drilled at the bottom (to put the lead wire); then there are wooden bases and wooden stakes to fix the gun body, etc. The technical content of casting is not high, and craftsmen who can cast bells can cast cannons, that is, they must pay attention to eliminating and recasting some trachomas that are too large and too rough; because the barrel of the barrel is thick and short, the caliber is large, and the airtightness is not good, so even if the wall of the pig iron pipe is not smooth and fine, it will not explode.

It is not the casting link that limits the efficiency of casting Longxiao cannons, but that they are too heavy and require a lot of raw materials, and the speed of transporting iron materials cannot keep up, which limits the scale.

There is also a square formation of a hundred people nearby, standing there in three rows, with a flag embroidered with a tiger beside it, and there are words on it: Shenhuodu.

Zan Jurun said at the side: "The Military Weapons Superintendent has contacted Li Chuyun, the general of the Dianqian Division, and asked the Dianqian Division to send people to train and take over the firearms. Li Chuyun came here in person, and after seeing the power and usage of the firearms, he sent these people. Most of them are soldiers recruited by the Dianqian Division this year, and they don't know how to bow horses..."

"Anyway, it's useless to be able to shoot arrows with firearms." Guo Shao said casually. So he immediately went to watch, and Zan Jurun advised Guo Shao to stay away from fifty steps, for fear of accidental injury... because the effective range of this kind of firecracker is only forty steps, and the damage to armored people is even only twenty steps.

There are hundreds of people in one group, divided into three rows. It can be seen that their tactics are three-stage strikes and salvos in turn. This is a tactic that Guo Shao used when he used crossbows before he had any firearms. The organizational system of Yidu has also changed according to the tactics. There are only three teams in Yidu, and each of the ten generals manages more than 30 people (the original team had more than 20 people).

Those soldiers all wore four pieces of plate armor: helmet, shoulder armor, breastplate, and arm armor. Because these parts are things that can be forged in batches in the armor workshop, it saves manpower compared to chain mail. Except for the vital parts, the protection of other places is only leather armor.

There were still many small bamboo tubes tied with ropes hanging on their bodies. At this time, a general on the side raised his hand and shouted: "First step! Check the cupping pot."

All the soldiers pulled out an iron can from their waist pockets, and the iron can was wrapped with a damp cloth; they pulled off the wooden lid with holes to look at the charcoal inside. When some were extinguished, they quickly raised their hands to signal, and the first lieutenant general and ten generals hurried over with a ceramic container, held charcoal with tongs, and replaced the soldiers with red-hot charcoal.

Then the general yelled: "The second step! Load the ammunition!" Everyone tore a bamboo tube from the string of bamboo tubes hanging obliquely on their bodies, and then hurriedly pulled out the straw paper blocking the mouth of the bamboo tube, and poured all the gunpowder into it from the thick and short bronze muzzle; the bamboo tube was not thrown away, but stuffed into the cloth bag at the waist. Conveniently, he took out a lead pellet wrapped in straw paper or rags from the cloth bag, and stuffed it in through the muzzle.

"The third step! Use a wooden stick." The soldiers pulled out a wooden stick from their waists, stabbed the lead pellets wrapped in paper, and pressed them carefully. These steps were designed by Guo Shao instructing the Armament Supervisor. They made some changes according to the actual situation, but Guo Shao knew why they did it...the lead shot wrapped in paper is relatively large and requires a wooden strip to poke in; but it can be filled relatively tightly at the bottom of the firecracker, and neither the gunpowder nor the projectile will be poured out easily.

"Do the fourth step in the first row!" Everyone took out the lead wire and stuffed it into the small hole at the back.

At this moment, the general giving orders drew out his waist knife and shouted: "Get ready!"

At this time, the scene was very strange. Thirty or so people in the first row held up the mace-like bronze sticks at waist level. There is a wooden handle behind the "mace stick". Everyone clamps the wooden handle with the right elbow, and holds the top of the wooden handle with the palm of the right hand upwards to stabilize the firecracker.

Then he pulled out the cupping jar in his waist pocket with his left hand and bit the stopper open with his teeth. In his left hand, he holds a pot containing coals of fire.

The military commander looked at it, pointed at the target in front of him with his knife, and shouted, "Let it go!"

More than 30 people lit the fuse with the charcoal in the cupping pot, and there was a "cracking" sound, and a row of white gunpowder smoke filled the air.

The military commander didn't care whether he hit or missed, and shouted directly: "Change team! Go from the first row to the last, remember to stuff the cupping cans first, don't go off! The second row is ready!"

When the three rows were finished, the generals shouted: "Kill!" Everyone carried bronze blunderbuss like maces, and followed the generals with knives shouting and rushed forward.

After Guo Shao watched it, his face was cloudy and cloudy, and he couldn't tell what it was like in his heart. No wonder Li Chuyun sent some recruits and miscellaneous soldiers over after seeing it. This musket seems to be quite difficult to use.

It looks very troublesome, but it is not completely useless. At least people who don't know any martial arts can be used as long-range arms as long as they are well trained. At least they can hit 20 steps and 40 steps. I haven't seen a long spear that is tens of meters long... There is another advantage.

But it is conceivable that this kind of soldiers will have very poor combat effectiveness when they are approached by cavalry, or even if infantry fight hand to hand... The mace is an antique weapon that has long been eliminated by the war, and it is not very easy to use.

Guo Shao didn't want to equip too many "fire | gun" soldiers for a while, so he used all his troops for actual combat exercises.

!!