Outside Wuchang City, on the southeast bank of the Yangtze River, more than 6,000 new troops of the Green Battalion hurriedly lined up under the shouts of the officers, and the 5,000 infantry lined up into 50 neat infantry squares, each with a three-pounder cannon in front of them; Another 1,000 artillery units were arranged into six-pounder artillery squadrons, twelve-pounder artillery detachments, and thirty-two-pounder mortar artillery detachments, depending on the size of the artillery. Around the school grounds, green military flags hunted in the wind, and the Qing soldiers on the tower beat drums and hammers and blew horns.

The "famous generals" of the Qing army, Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao, stood on the platform of the generals, Zhou Peigong stood aside, and Zhang Changgeng sat on the Taishi chair in the middle, looking at the new army proudly.

The new army was born more than 200 years earlier than in history, but this new army is still very different from the later new army in real history, this new army is not the new army in real history completely controlled by the powerful warlords of the Han people, but by the magnates of the Eight Banners. Although the new army was run by Zhou Peigong, the actual control was in the hands of Aobai, and even Zhang Changgeng had no control over this army.

Zhou Peigong's official was sealed by Aobai, which was used as a tax for military expenses, and the grain and grass of the new army were all specially levied after Aobai's consent, so this army was actually regarded as Aobai's army.

The artillery of the new army has a large number of very advanced field artillery, most of which are Western-style artillery imitated by Xue Fengzuo and Mei Wending's master and apprentice. He not only succeeded in copying field artillery, but also created mortars and flowering shells.

However, Xue Fengzuo did not really master the technology of iron mold casting cannons, although he suspected that the Ming army was likely to use iron mold cannons to quickly manufacture a large number of artillery, but he did not know how to solve the problem of white barrels of iron cannons produced by iron mold casting cannons, and used iron molds to try to cast several cannons, but the quality was not up to par.

In fact, the solution to this problem is very simple, as long as a thermal box is added around the blast furnace room, and the heat radiated by the furnace temperature is used to prevent the barrel in the iron mold from cooling down too quickly. But Xue Fengzuo still didn't think of this step, so his iron mold casting cannon method failed, and he could only use the traditional clay mold casting cannon method.

Although the infantry of the new army was still an army with alternating hot and cold weapons, the degree of firearms was quite high, and of the 5,000 infantry, except for 1,000 pikemen and 1,000 sword and shield men, the remaining 3,000 were musketeers. The musketeers used the latest flintlock muskets, and each musketeer was additionally equipped with a waist knife for melee combat.

This flintlock is not an old-fashioned revolver, but a newest French dog-lock flintlock flintlock pistol. This type of gun is a new type of musket purchased by Ao Bai at a high price in Macao, and then successfully imitated by Xue Fengzuo and Mei Wending's master and apprentice, and has begun mass production.

Xue Fengzuo and Mei Wending even wanted to imitate rifled guns. Some time ago, a Qing soldier picked up a peculiar barrel and handed it over to Zhou Peigong.

This broken barrel is the barrel left by a fallen Ming soldier who did not collect the sharpshooter at night. It was a soldier of the Yongxin Battalion of the Ming Army in Jinggangshan, who ran out of ammunition after shooting and killing many Qing soldiers in a row, so he smashed the rifled gun, detonated the Guojia bottle on his body, and died with two Qing soldiers.

Although the gun was smashed, the barrel and parts were picked up by the Qing soldiers.

"This is a peculiar self-generated firebolt with a bumpy inside of the barrel, and with this long projectile, the projectile can rotate when fired, which increases the hit rate. No wonder the thieves' firecrackers are so far and so accurate. Xue Fengzuo reached out and touched the barrel of the gun, and found the mystery of this gun.

There were long projectiles dug up from the bodies of the fallen Qing soldiers before, Xue Fengzuo felt very curious, and he also imitated this kind of long bullets, but after this kind of bullet was fired from the muzzle of the smoothbore gun, the bullet rolled in the air, and the accuracy was not as good as the spherical bullet.

When Xue Fengzuo saw this barrel, he understood how the Ming army increased the hit rate of the long projectile.

Zhou Peigong was overjoyed when he heard Xue Fengzuo say this: "If Mr. Xue can successfully imitate this kind of self-generated fire, my imperial court can add an invincible weapon!" ”

Xue Fengzuo carefully observed the barrel of the gun, and after looking at it for a long time, he shook his head helplessly: "This kind of self-generated fire gun must be extremely difficult to build, and there are not even many thieves in their hands." If it was easy to build, the thieves would have had one a long time ago! However, you can try it and see if you can succeed. ”

In the end, Xue Fengzuo and Mei Wending worked hard to only imitate the qualified products of the two rifled guns, and the others were scrap.

Because Xue Fengzuo didn't know how this rifled gun was drawn out, he and his student Mei Wending adopted the conventional method of building a barrel: first take a piece of wrought iron, carve rifling on the iron, and then forge it into a barrel. The barrel of a rifled gun was created in this way, because in the process of building, the rifling suffered internal injuries. After the barrel is made, either the rifling has been damaged, or a few bullets have not been fired, and the rifling is smoothed.

As a result, the master and apprentice took a large group of craftsmen and spent a lot of manpower and material resources to build 300 barrels, and finally only got two finished products, and the rest were all unusable waste products.

Due to the lack of mastery of the method of using lathes to draw rifling, the cost of imitation rifled guns by the Qing army was too high, and in the end Zhou Peigong had to give up the idea of making rifled guns. Xue Fengzuo spent a lot of manpower and material resources to build the two rifled guns, and in the end they could only be given to Ao Bai and Yue Le as shotguns to play.

Besides, after Ao Bai and Yue Le got these two rifled guns, they found that the range was extremely long and the accuracy was very high. Ao Bai can't put this gun down, and he also hopes that Xue Fengzuo can build more. But when asked about the process of making guns, Ao Bai had to give up the idea of making a large number of such guns.

"To build this kind of firearm, which consumes a lot of manpower and material resources and is so difficult to build, it is better to build more ordinary self-generated firearms. If you want to shoot accurately from a distance, replace it with a sharpshooter. Ao Bai said to Zhou Peigong.

In order to enhance the combat effectiveness of the new army, Ao Bai also asked his guards to personally help the new army train a group of sharpshooters to suppress the opponent from a distance.

However, the Qing army failed to master the technology of compound bows, and it was difficult to train archers, so in a few years, it was impossible to train an ordinary peasant into a sharpshooter with a hundred paces, and in the end, the number of archers in the new army was not much, and only a few people with archery talent could become archers.

On the platform, Zhang Changgeng stood up and nodded to Zhao Liangdong: "It's time to start the drill!" ”

Zhao Liangdong stood on the edge of the platform, opened his voice and shouted: "The drill begins!" ”

Accompanied by the shouts of the grassroots officers of the Green Battalion New Army, the infantry formations lined up in a neat formation and began to walk in formation. At first, the Qing soldiers still walked in a decent manner, but after walking a dozen steps, the team began to have a little confusion. The Green Battalion New Army had to stop. The officers shouted, and the whips in their hands whipped them, and once again gathered the somewhat disorganized ranks in order, and then marched forward in formation.

"Every time I come to see you, I go through this kind of queue training. Is it useful to walk neatly and go to the battlefield? Zhang Changgeng asked puzzled.

Zhou Peigong replied with a bow: "Master Huitai, at the beginning, the students didn't know very well what this kind of queue training was, but they just heard some generals who came back from Jiangnan say that thieves have sharp firearms. Later, after Ao Xiangye invited Taixi instructors from Xiangshanao, the students understood the mystery of this kind of queue training. ”

"Tell me about it." Zhang Changgeng nodded.

Zhou Peigong replied: "Lord Zhangtai, although this firearm is powerful, the rate of fire is too slow and the accuracy is poor. If there is no neat formation and orders, each soldier will fire his own guns, and it will be difficult for the projectiles to hit the opponent. Only when you are arranged in a neat formation can you exert maximum power. ”

"I see!" Zhang Changgeng nodded.

More than a dozen Portuguese, Spanish, and English instructors who were invited at a high price stood at the edge of the ranks of Qing army recruits, looking at these Qing soldiers in training, and a Spanish instructor showed a trace of disdain in his eyes: "The ancient civilization in the East, after being occupied by these barbarians, has begun to fail. ”

The English instructor said: "The new army trained by the Tatars seems to be like that, but these peasants can't even walk the most basic queue!" ”

Recalling the meeting of the recruit training queue for the Green Battalion New Army, several foreign instructors felt that it was really a headache at that time, most of them couldn't even distinguish between left and right, and they had said it many times, and when turning right or left, there were always people who turned in the wrong direction and made big jokes.

After a period of training, the level of the new army has improved a lot, but it can only be neatly arranged in a fixed state, and as long as the army is in a row, after walking a few steps, its original form will be revealed.

Although Zhou Peigong was very satisfied with this army, and even Aobai, who had come to inspect many times during the period, these foreign instructors were still not satisfied.

"Mr. Zhou, your army has very advanced weapons, but an army cannot win a war as long as it has advanced weapons. Your army also needs to be strengthened! Take this most basic queue training as an example, your soldiers can't walk more than ten meters, and the team will be deformed! If you start a war like this, you will suffer a great loss. After the drill, the Spanish instructor Carvo went to find Zhou Peigong.

"Mr. Carvo, how do you train to be truly satisfying?" Zhou Peigong asked.

"Training needs to be more rigorous! Whip more often when necessary! Only the most demanding training can train this army of yours into a truly invincible elite force! Cavo said.

Zhou Peigong nodded: "Okay, you are the instructor we invited, everything will be done according to what you say!" ”

At this time, a soldier came in and reported: "Lord Qiqi! Guangxi's first-class Asnihafan, the grandson of Heshuo and the eldest princess Kong Sizhen of Heshuo are here, and General Ma Xiong, the governor of Guangxi, is also here! (To be continued.) )