Xu Zhi beckoned Han Xin out of the Chinese army's big tent, and as soon as he came out, he asked with a smile: "See?" ”

"See." Han Xin knew what Xu Zhi was talking about, but he was slightly puzzled: "Are they already able to go to the battlefield?" ”

"The training period is three months, and the firearms unit should be able to fight in three months, and this time it is brought over to check the results of the training, which is what Your Majesty meant." Xu Zhi didn't need to explain it specifically, but he still explained: "Many generals and colonels are watching, wanting to see if the firearms soldiers can really become an army within three months." If the three-month training cycle does not allow firearms to become an army......"

It is no secret that some high-ranking generals have appeared in firearms, and they actually do not have a good opinion of firearms, all because building a firearms army is far more expensive than building an ordinary army. In addition, the firearms units have not yet been tested in actual combat, and no matter how outstanding the firearms units are in the exercises, some people still think that they are just a unit that appears to be very dynamic in combat and is more of a performance than a combat use.

"It's not artillery that they reject, and no one who has seen artillery fired will reject artillery." The smile on Xu Zhi's face was a little playful, the corners of his mouth hooked, and he said with a smile: "They reject the flintlock pikemen, thinking that they are just some people who line up and take turns to release clouds of smoke...... Miscellaneous soldiers? ”

Han Xin asked, "Why?" ”

"A flintlock pistol can't pierce heavy armor." Xu Zhi said that there were several exercises, and he briefly picked some and said: "In several exercises, the opponent of the flintlock musket will arrange the heavy infantry with shields in front, use the strong defense of the heavy infantry with shields to slowly approach, wait to advance to a certain distance, and the light troops will cover and kill, and the flintlock musketeers will be difficult to parry once there is a close combat." ”

Yes, flintlock pistols are not as powerful as modern firearms. Even the bullets fired by modern rifles are not easy to penetrate the steel plates, the armor on the Imperial heavy infantry is iron armor, the vital position of the armor is steel plates, their shield is an iron shield, the metal projectile is still difficult to penetrate, and the lead bullet fired by the flintlock pistol is even more difficult to penetrate.

"When it comes to drills. Didn't match the cavalry? Han Xin asked a key question.

"It's no surprise that the flintlock pikemen had a harder time winning with the cavalry, and without the cavalry, they only won two battles, which was a miserable victory." Xu Zhi had a kind of pride on his face, that was a general from the cavalry, a kind of pride in the cavalry as the king of the battlefield. He looked at Han Xin and said, "The emergence of every new class of troops will always be ostracized, just like when cavalry first appeared, many traditional infantry generals did not trust the combat effectiveness of cavalry. I said it. Do you understand? ”

Han Xin fully understood that it was the conservative thinking of some conservatives, who did not understand the flintlock musketeers, and the flintlock musketeers did not perform satisfactorily in many exercises, and then they developed a rejection mentality. That kind of rejection is probably the feeling that since the existing troops are not backward, why should they still study the flintlock musketeers, which are extremely expensive and extremely dependent on logistics.

"Your Majesty wants to use the facts to tell those old-fashioned generals, but he can't come forward directly. Once under the command of His Majesty. We all know that no one would dare to fight them on any occasion. Xu Zhi looked at Han Xin quite seriously, and said in a relatively serious tone: "Taiwei suggests to Your Majesty." This time, in addition to the 80,000 cavalry who will accompany you, there should be a school of firearms. ”

The current Tai Lieutenant is no longer Kuaitong, he is the supreme commander of the Southern Expeditionary Corps, Luo Shao, who was transferred to the Japanese Islands as the governor after stepping down from his position as Tai Lieutenant.

Luo Shao was a third-class marquis of one of the seven marquis of the empire, and he had been commanding the Southern Expeditionary Corps to fight in the southwest, opening up an incomparably vast territory for the empire. Military merits were evaluated, and as a third-class marquis, no one had any opinions.

Taiwei is the first military attache in the empire, but I have to tell the truth, Taiwei does not have much real power in the empire, and compared with the commander of the Zhonglang General who is a legion, his status has only become honorable and his status has become higher, but Taiwei is more like the chief of staff of later generations. There is no real power to directly command an army.

"Five thousand people in one school? Three thousand five hundred flintlock musketeers and one thousand fifteen hundred artillerymen? The formation of the firearms unit is still 3,500 flintlock musketeers with 50 guns of different calibers? ”

"Thirty one hundred and four mm guns, twenty one hundred and fifteen mm guns, all infantry guns."

In fact, it was a nine-pounder gun and a twelve-pounder gun, a nine-pounder gun needed six people to operate, a twelve-pounder gun needed ten people to operate, and in addition to the 380 artillerymen who operated the artillery, the other 1,120 people were logistical. These 1,120 men were responsible for transporting not only artillery pellets, but also gunpowder and rifle pellets for flintlock musketeers.

"There are no auxiliaries in the firearms unit, so is there a unit to match with them?"

"Two thousand-man foot soldiers, a colonel's cavalry."

"I understand that the Wehrmacht will not be matched, and it needs to be rationally deployed by the envoys."

"That's it."

The members of the escort team of the envoy regiment are from the forbidden army, and the formation is 2,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, Han Xin can think that there will be such a configuration, that is, before departure, the center has decided that the firearms unit will be transferred over for actual combat experiments, and the escort team of the envoy regiment will make such an arrangement.

Xu Zhi walked in front, looking like he was walking towards a certain place purposefully, and the facts proved to be a targeted approach.

"Open."

"No!"

It was not for Han Xin to open it, but to come to a tent that was specially arranged in an open place, and after entering, Xu Zhi pointed to a large pile of neatly placed boxes, and asked the accompanying soldiers to carefully carry one down, and then open it.

The wooden box was long in shape, and the planks were fastened with rivets, and when the planks were pried open, a pile of straw was revealed, and in the gaps of the straw you could see something like a stick.

"Your Majesty calls this the 'wooden-handled grenade', with a total length of twenty-two centimeters, a wooden handle structure of seventeen centimeters, and a device of five centimeters in the front section. See? The body of this thing is rounded, and the wooden handle is easy to grip. At one end of the wooden handle, a twist will unscrew a cap......"

Xu Zhi picked up a wooden-handled grenade and unscrewed the lid, a white line hung down, and he put on a throwing pose.

"Pull down the line, and the nitrate and sulfur inside the wooden handle will burn, igniting the gunpowder fuse. So the back end of the wooden handle will smoke. The process from pulling the wire to the fuse burning to the grenade's explosive device is about seven to nine seconds, and once the grenade is smoking, the grenade needs to be thrown, and then it will 'boom' and the metal part of the front end will explode. Shoot projectiles in all directions. ”

Han Xin was not stupid, he imagined the internal structure of the wooden-handled grenade in his mind, and could understand that the wooden handle was actually a hollow structure, with a pull-type ignition device inside, and then a gunpowder fuse connected to the explosive structure in the front section.

The use of nitrate and sulfur to create frictional fires is part of the knowledge of chemistry, and Han Shin has lived in the Imperial Palace, and he has seen matches rub against fires more than once, and he is not incomprehensible that a little pull can ignite something.

What is in fact? The appearance of finished matches was much earlier than military gunpowder, if Han Xin was not mistaken. Miyagi used matches four or five years ago, and within a year or two of that, Nanling was the first to popularize matches, and then spread to all parts of the country, and now only in extremely remote places is still using fire folds and fire sickles (i.e., flintstones) to make fires.

Xu Zhi pointed to the boxes in the tent: "Each box contains fifty wooden-handled grenades, a total of one hundred boxes." I'll arrange for ten veterans, and you have to prepare for it, and within five days, your five hundred people will be familiar with this new weapon. ”

Han Xin nodded heavily. He said: "I will pick out soldiers with good arm strength. ”

"Yes." Xu Zhi smiled and said, "Your Majesty calls the class that throws grenades grenadiers. His Majesty said that there is also a grenadier in the West. But they use rubber bands to shake the stones. The Grenadier is an ancient class, and it's up to us to reinvent and shake up the world! ”

Han Xin wanted to know why the grenadiers were specifically divided, and he believed that as long as they learned how to use grenades, anyone could use this new weapon, and it seemed that there was no need to allocate a new type of troops.

"Any new weapon appears. It always takes a group of pioneers to figure out how to use them, summarize a set of experiences, and then carry out comprehensive popularization. Xu Zhi seemed to be able to see what Han Xin was thinking, and continued: "And you will be the first officer to command the flintlock pikemen and grenadiers. You have a lot of responsibility. ”

Han Xin felt a kind of pressure, he took a deep breath, and said heavily: "I will, I will use facts to prove that new weapons and new tactics are the trend of the future, and I will not disappoint Your Majesty!" ”

"Good!" Xu Zhi instructed his soldiers to put the wooden-handled grenades back in the box and re-nail the rivets, and as he walked out of the tent, he said: "Remember, don't put anything related to gunpowder, their storage points are too close to the camp, and the No. 3 gunpowder workshop is a lesson from the past. Also, don't let the gunpowder get wet, as if the gunpowder is no longer usable, the firearms will be scrapped. ”

Han Xin was in a trance, when the accident occurred in the No. 3 gunpowder workshop on the south bank of the Yangtze River, he was not in Nanling, but he heard a description from someone later, saying that in the loud rumbling sound that shook the sky, Nanling could feel the obvious vibration. Afterwards, he also went to the south bank to take a look, and the huge potholes at the scene of the accident were very shocking, and you can imagine how powerful the explosion was at that time.

"You can go back." Xu Zhi paused, turned to look at Han Xin, who was still thinking, and said, "Select five hundred people to come over as soon as possible, they only have five days." ”

Han Xin originally wanted to ask if he wanted to send someone to move the box containing the wooden-handled grenades, and he also wanted to ask if he would let the firearms soldiers of the school move the barracks. Now he didn't have to ask, it was obvious that the wehrmacht grenades and firearms would not leave the Wehrmacht camp until they set out.

Woye is not Xu Zhi's last stop, the reason why he came to Woye is probably to bring new weapons and firearms soldiers over, and he wants to hand them over to Han Xin.

The main camp of the Wehrmacht in the Hetao was in Shuofang, which is a plain on the edge of the Sha Gobi and close to the Yellow River, located on the south bank of the Yellow River.

That desert has a modern name called Wuliangsuhai, but it is not named now, and as far back as 208 B.C., its area is far less than that of later generations.

There are five legions stationed in the main camp of Shuofang, namely three cavalry regiments and one mixed regiment, plus the corresponding auxiliaries, second-line troops, and civilian soldiers, and the entire Shuofang has about 400,000 people.

"The city is being built over there, it will be built on the north bank of the Yellow River, and Tunpu will also be built on the south bank, and then a floating bridge will be built to connect the two sides of the river."

"Hmm."

"In addition to Shuofang's side, a city will also be established near Yunzhong County, and the official name of that seat is Jiuyuan."

"Hmm."

"Cloud ......City will also be built over there in Cloud County, what are you thinking?"

Han Xin looked up at Yu Fanjun, picked up the booklet he was reading and handed it over.

"What's that?" Yu Fanjun flipped through the pages and saw the words and patterns written in charcoal: "Code of Operations, Band-based Shooting Plan......

That booklet was not written by Han Xin, it was a textbook given by Lu Zhe to Han Xin, and it contained some knowledge about the command of firearms soldiers. It is also because of Lu Zhe's handwriting that he writes with charcoal, and realistic drawings will also appear. That's because Lu Zhe is not used to using brushes, let alone using brushes to paint.

"Your Majesty?" Although Yu Fanjun was asking, his tone was very sure. His eyes were fixed on the booklet, and his breathing was a little short: "Your Majesty's handwritten military book!?" ”

Can it be considered a book of war? I guess it counts. The booklet doesn't mention any other classes, but it just writes about the array of flintlock pikemen, and then lists some tactics, which look very easy to understand with illustrations.

"Well, it was given by the master. You should also take a look. Han Xin could see that Yu Fanjun was very excited, and he also understood why Yu Fanjun was so excited: "Next, we will add a school of firearms to our escort team, and you, as the deputy commander of the escort team, need to understand the relevant knowledge." ”

"Firearms?" Yu Fanjun heard some news more or less, and said in surprise: "Is it the newly trained musketeers ordered by His Majesty?" ”

"It's the musketeers. We'll be adding new classes to our itinerary, and it's uncertain whether they'll follow us to the far Mediterranean or just reach Usun. Han Xin preferred to follow only to the Wusun territory, he knew too well the need for logistics for firearms troops, compared to the cold weapons troops as long as there was enough food to fight, once the firearms troops did not have gunpowder and projectiles, they would lose their combat capability.

Yu Fanjun's eyes never left the booklet, and he didn't speak again, engrossed in the study of new knowledge. (To be continued.) )