While Lu Jiude was walking around the capital with Japanese businessmen, Zhu Youzhen was presiding over a joint meeting of the General Staff Headquarters, the General Logistics Department, and the Ordnance Supervision Department in the Wuying Palace.

Zhu Youzhen took the logistics improvement plan drawn up by Mao Yuanyi and said: "The officers of the logistics department should not sit in the office and pat their heads to draw up a logistics supply plan.

A week's supply of food and vegetables was scheduled, but there was a surplus of food, but only four days of vegetables. Mentougou is the place where coal is produced, but in the plan of the logistics department, the coal needed by the troops will be transferred from the capital.

The biggest problem with the confusion in the logistics plan is that most of the officials in these logistics departments are recruited from trading houses and children's schools, and they may be familiar with numerical calculations, but they do not know much about marching operations. ”

Mao Yuanyi, who was temporarily in charge of the general logistics department, was quite embarrassed by Chongzhen's criticism, and he immediately complained to the emperor: "Back to Your Majesty, the problems exposed in the field training of the first training battalion this time are mainly due to the lack of thoroughness in the plan drawn up by the ministers, and the lack of clear explanations by the ministers to the officials in charge of logistics and supply, so this kind of omission will occur. ”

Sun Chengzong also defended Mao Yuanyi: "Your Majesty, the most important fault of the 15% reduction in this field training is that the military attache who led the team did not strictly implement the health regulations and let the sergeants drink raw water directly after training. ”

After Zhu Youzhen finished listening, he continued to say calmly: "Isn't the purpose of setting up the General Staff Department and the Logistics Department to avoid this kind of non-combat attrition? If the General Staff and Logistics did not foresee this happening, then what is the point of us creating the General Staff and Logistics Department? ”

Sun Chengzong was suddenly dumbfounded, and Mao Yuanyi's face became quite ugly. Only then did Zhu Youzhen say: "I ask that both the officials of the logistics department and the ordnance supervision must also participate in field marching training. Only after experiencing that environment first-hand will they know what kind of rations are needed for the field march.

In addition, the Ordnance Superintendent should not only develop weapons and equipment, but also develop non-combat equipment to ensure the combat effectiveness of soldiers.

For example, a water bottle that can be carried by a soldier, a stove that can be used with unlimited fuel during a field march, a portable tent, a rain poncho, a cotton blanket to keep warm when sleeping at night..."

After listening to Chongzhen's request, Sun Yuanhua, who was in charge of the ordnance superintendent, couldn't help but say: "Your Majesty, now that the treasury is empty, the funds allocated by the household department to the ordnance superintendent are just a drop in the bucket, and the main source of funds for the ordnance superintendent still comes from the inner treasury.

The minister thought that at such a moment, it was better to ensure the funds for the production of weapons first. After a detailed analysis of the existing Furang machine guns, tiger squat cannons, and red-coated cannons in the arsenal of the capital, the minister and the Academy of Sciences conducted a detailed analysis.

Everyone agrees that the main reason why the redcoat cannon is so powerful is that it has excellent breath-holding performance. The reason why the Furlong cannon and the Tiger squat cannon are not powerful is that the breath-holding performance is not good; Second, the process is rough, resulting in the artillery charge being far lower than the standard charge.

In addition, cannons of the same caliber, different barrel lengths, shell weights, and * loading weights will affect the destructive ability of the shells.

Therefore, the minister believed that the artillery used by the new army should not be equipped with Furlong machine guns and tiger squat guns, but should be modeled on the style of red-coat cannons, shorten the length of the barrel, reduce the thickness of the wall, so as to reduce the weight of the cannon body, and can be used for marching operations in the field.

The minister heard that the fleet returning from Japan in the palace this time brought back tens of thousands of catties of copper, and the minister asked His Majesty to allocate a part to the ordnance supervisor so that he could try to cast the little red cannon. ”

For Sun Yuanhua every time he held a meeting, he could persistently lead the topic to the casting cannon, and Chongzhen also felt a little helpless.

He had to ask Sun Yuanhua: "The test of these cannons has only been two months, has the ordnance superintendent really figured out the principle of artillery firing?" I still think that it is not good to understand the principles of mathematics and physics of artillery shooting first, and reserve the technology of iron smelting and cast iron, and then conduct trial production of artillery? ”

Sun Yuanhua suddenly said a little anxiously: "After two months of experiments and explorations, the minister thought that he had a deep understanding of the firing principle of the existing artillery.

What we need now is to verify the truth of the principles of artillery firing that we have summarized from the experiments, and if we cannot make artillery to verify it, won't these two months of research be wasted?

In addition, the use of wrought iron cast guns can greatly reduce the cost, but I think that the problem of whether the casting technology is feasible is now should be solved, not the problem of the cost of casting guns. ”

Zhu Youzhen was silent for a while, Xu Xinsu came back with 35,000 catties of copper this time, and the other 5 Japanese ships also brought 50,000 catties of copper as ballast. After thinking for a while, he finally said: "I will allocate 25,000 catties of copper to the ordnance superintendent, but the ordnance superintendent will first make a batch of kettles for the use of the new army and the Beijing camp. The kettle should not only be able to hold water, but also have the function of boiling water in the field.

The remaining copper is then used to cast cannons. However, I explained that this is only a trial production, so mass production is not allowed until the gun is finalized. In addition, the method of casting the cannon with an iron mold was tested. ”

Sun Yuanhua subconsciously wanted to object, if these copper materials were used to make kettles, the remaining copper materials would not be able to cast a few cannons.

However, he quickly shut his mouth, because he quickly thought that 25,000 catties of copper was already a lot of money, and there was probably a limit to wanting the emperor to increase some more. It's better to go back and find a way to save some materials on the kettle, and then look forward to the next time you come back from Japan, you will have another batch.

After solving Sun Yuanhua's trouble, Chongzhen quickly turned the topic back to the issue of logistics supply and the marching arrangement of the General Staff.

This meeting was twice as long as in the past, and under Chongzhen's continuous provocation, the General Staff Headquarters and the Logistics Department had to withdraw the revised field march plan and said that they would take it back and redraw it.

After the meeting ended, Yuan Chonghuan, who walked out of the Wuying Palace, couldn't help but complain to Sun Chengzong: "Teacher, Your Majesty has asked too much for the details of the army.

According to His Majesty's request, the new army plus the Beijing camp is less than 20,000 people, but the cost is almost three times that of the past.

Treat these sergeants so favorably, and don't even want to let them suffer a little, will they really be able to go to the battlefield to fight when the time comes? ”

Sun Chengzong pinched his beard and became a little suspicious, but Mao Yuanyi immediately defended the emperor's approach and said: "In the past, the soldiers of the Beijing camp had a drill on the 5th, and they were already complaining. However, although there are some complaints about the daily drills of the New Army and the Beijing Camp, no one dares to resist the order, which shows that there is still some effect. ”

Yuan Chonghuan immediately replied disappreciatively: "Except for the two emperors of my Taizu and Chengzu, Shenwu Tianzhong, and the combat power between the soldiers and horses under his command is the same.

In modern times, the Ming army was quite considerable during drills, but as soon as it entered the battlefield, it became a silver-like pewter spearhead, which was completely unusable. I still think that Your Majesty's method of training troops is still on paper after all. ”

Mao Yuanyi was angry, and couldn't help but say dissatisfiedly: "Then according to Ziru, how should this soldier be trained?" ”

Yuan Chonghuan didn't care about Mao Yuanyi's dissatisfaction at all, he looked at Sun Chengzong and said: "In my opinion, killing the enemy on this battlefield depends on courage and courage.

As the so-called will be the courage of an army, the first thing to train is to choose generals, today I am a strong and powerful general in the nine sides, this generation of martial artists have been passed down from generation to generation, and there are powerful people in the house of Kong Wu Ding thought to be minions.

If the imperial court uses high-ranking officials to win the hearts of these warriors, and then rewards them with gold and silver, then this generation of warriors will inevitably serve His Majesty on the battlefield.

Secondly, to kill the enemy in this battle array, you must have courage, how can the farmers recruited by His Majesty be compared to the brave and powerful rangers in the market.

These farmers usually see these market rangers on the street and still fight in two ways, let them face the more ferocious Liaodong Jiannu, I have always been a little uneasy. ”

Yuan Chonghuan's words made Mao Yuanyi speechless. Although Qi Jiguang said that the recruitment of soldiers was based on honest farmers, since Qi Jiguang, who has trained the second Qi family army.

In the first battle of the Hunhe River, after the Qi family army led by Qi Jin was annihilated by Jiannu, no one trained a strong army according to the training minutes.

When Mao Yuanyi drew up the training regulations, he used to draw on a large number of training minutes, and although the weather of the Beijing camp and the new army changed day by day, as long as this army had not been on the battlefield, he did not dare to say that such training could withstand the construction of slaves.

After Sun Chengzong thought for a long time, he said to the two: "Let's take a look, at the end of next month, didn't Your Majesty say that an actual combat exercise will be conducted?" If the exercise is unsatisfactory, the old man will ask His Majesty to correct it. ”

Hearing that Sun Chengzong also seemed to hesitate, Yuan Chonghuan's heart was much more relaxed, although he was given the post of chief of staff of the Gyeonggi Governor's Office and obtained the command of the Jingying troops.

But he soon discovered that although the chief of staff appeared to be similar to the one he had served before, the nature of the two was very different.

The chief of staff is a military attache and a civilian, and the military is a civilian official, which means that he, the chief of staff, is subject to military law, but the military is not subject to military law.

He can also participate in direct military operations, but he can also not participate, and he has credit for the victory of the military plan, but he has no responsibility for the failure.

The chief of staff, on the other hand, has to take care of all trivial matters, from training to operations, and draw up plans according to the orders of the military commander.

This is really very different from the situation Yuan Chonghuan thought at the beginning, as the chief of staff, if he wants to install a few of his own people in the Beijing camp, he will be constrained by his colleagues, which is really too boring.

Yuan Chonghuan, who once led the army alone on the Ningyuan front, naturally couldn't stand the restrictions on his daily actions being restricted by the new military system, so he desperately hoped that he could reunite the separate military administration and military orders, and return to the previous tradition of civilian officials governing generals, rather than governing the army. In this way, he can counsel the military aircraft, but he does not have to be bound by these military trivialities all day long.