The strength of Lanfang is not just the navy. The army's muskets are as sharp as the artillery. The old Spanish and Portuguese can fight, and the new Dutch and British can also fight!
This is the message Zhao Xuening wants to convey to everyone.
Therefore, in order to stand, Zhao Xuening chose to pull the two representatives of the colonists, Cornley and Marek, and let them stand beside him to watch today's complete military parade with them.
"What I invited you to watch just now is only a small part of today's military parade. As for the overall part, I still hope that you can watch it in its entirety."
The two nodded together and expressed that they were looking forward to today's full military parade.
So, at 10:10 in the morning, accompanied by a rumble of drums, a series of eight gunshots were fired from the west side of everyone's field of vision. Each gunshot was extremely loud and the sound of the cannons was so rumbling that everyone started to rush out. He leaned out from the railing to see what was going on over there.
They don't have to be in such a hurry, because the troops under review have already started to move forward.
According to the pre-arrangement, the first batch of troops to be reviewed was Lanfang's musketry infantry.
The total number of the musketry infantry parade was 1,000. The soldiers held Lanfang type flintlock rifles and wore yellow-green Lanfang standard military uniforms, helmets and hats, carrying marching backpacks, and Lanfang standard military boots.
At the front of the team were a mounted officer and two mounted flag-bearers, while at the front of the foot team were five flag-bearers. The remaining musketeers were arranged into five teams, lined up neatly, and marched in neat steps. , step by step towards the White House.
From the perspective of the people upstairs, what can be seen is that the formation of this army is very orderly, and the pace is also very orderly. Under the command of the officers, they step steadily to the drums of the flag and drum soldiers, with both hands The legs fall together very neatly.
When the army marched to the front of the view of Zhao Xuening and others, following the order from the leading horseback officer, the soldiers who were originally looking ahead turned their heads, looked at Zhao Xuening upstairs, stopped advancing, and changed to Standing still, they uniformly raised the muskets they just carried on their shoulders with both hands in a military salute.
"Fight for Lan Fang and the President!"
The mounted officer roared at the top of his lungs.
"Fight for Lan Fang and the President!"
A thousand soldiers under review roared together. The sound was powerful and shocking. A large number of female relatives and a few male guests upstairs were shocked by this. They couldn't help but take a few steps back. A small exclamation sounded from the tower. .
Zhao Xuening glanced at the performance of this group of people and raised the corners of his mouth slightly.
Afterwards, the army looked back, put their muskets on their shoulders again, resumed their previous pace, and headed towards the main entrance of the training ground. This was the end of this army's review.
What laymen see is neatness and momentum, but when it comes to true experts, they can see many things that shock them.
For example, Marek and Julian, who had military experience, saw from the actions of this army that the training of Lanfang's army was perfect and the soldiers were elite.
Such an army that can march and perform actions in such a complete formation will become an elite force that can command and control orders on the battlefield.
Such an elite force will burst out with huge combat effectiveness on the battlefield. Commanding such an army will be what any ambitious officer hopes for.
If Lanfang's army has such a level of training, then it is not difficult to imagine why Zhao Xuening has been able to rise rapidly and build this foundation in these eight years.
Marek could see that, and thinking about the previous drill of the musketeers, he could tell that Lanfang's army was by no means a grassroots team, but a serious regular army, no less inferior to any powerful European army. .
Combined with the news that Zhao Xuening had hired retired officers from the European Army to help him, he knew that Zhao Xuening had definitely adopted the training methods of the European Army and summarized some of his own things, making the training level of Lanfang Army unrivaled in the spice sea.
In this sea area, even the two major forces of the Netherlands and the British East India Company, or counting the forces of Spain and Portugal, there are very few armies that can perform so well.
Firstly, they are far away from their homeland, and secondly, everyone comes here mainly to make money, and most of the indigenous people are still in a primitive, slave society, with very limited combat capabilities. There is no need to train elite soldiers at all. They can crush them with superior firearms and reduce the dimensionality of the attack.
How hard is training?
How can drinking, eating meat and robbing women be such a pleasure?
Therefore, many of the European armed forces who come here cannot guarantee perfect training and discipline. They are basically developing in the direction of bandits and pirates. Their elite level is difficult to compare with those of the local armies that compete with powerful European armies on a daily basis.
In such an environment, Zhao Xuening seemed to be a natural alternative, discovering the secret of the training and organization of Europe's powerful armies.
There is currently no information showing that Zhao Xuening has received a complete European military education, and there is no evidence to support the underlying logic behind his actions.
But he seemed to understand everything. He understood the foundation of a strong European army without any teacher. Through clever plunder and direct annexation, he got everything he needed, and then almost completely restored the sea area. Created a powerful European army.
He has his own arsenal and production system, can produce his own weapons, train his own soldiers, and is willing to spend huge military expenditures to maintain this strong army, even without caring about his own personal enjoyment.
Marek took a deep breath. He felt that the young man standing next to him gradually became a little scary and made him feel afraid.
He wanted to take a look at Zhao Xuening's current expression, but found that he could no longer maintain the courage to even glance at him.
But this is just the beginning.
The next thing to appear was Lan Fang's cavalry.
Although horses are relatively rare in this sea area, even if they exist, they are not very good horses. Most of them can only be used to carry supplies and artillery.
However, Zhao Xuening still obtained some war horses at relatively high prices through trade with the British and Spanish, maintained a cavalry team of 500 people, equipped them with sabers and lances, and trained their equestrian skills, making them become a cavalry force. An armed force that can fight.
This time, they also participated in the military parade collectively. Under the leadership of officers, a cavalry team of 500 people marched neatly. The soldiers raised their sabers, looked at Zhao Xuening, and shouted "Fight for Lan Fang and the President" as they walked away Past the White House.
Both Cornley and Marek were surprised by the fact that Zhao Xuening was able to establish and maintain a cavalry.
With the development of firearms, the importance of cavalry is constantly declining. The current war situation in European countries is developing in a direction that is not conducive to the development of cavalry. Countries have successively proposed reducing cavalry and focusing on guns. proposition.
Having said that, cavalry can still play its due role on the battlefield, and the rapid assault effect of cavalry is still irreplaceable. Therefore, although cavalry costs a lot, as long as conditions permit, the European powers will still maintain a considerable number of cavalry.
Despite this, as a noble arm, the cost of maintaining cavalry is much higher than that of maintaining musketeers. Basically, only strong and rich countries can afford it. As a small maritime country, Lanfang can maintain a cavalry, which is really interesting.
What appeared next was Lanfang's main battle force artillery.
When Zhao Xuening reorganized the army for the first time during the Lanfang Company period, he absorbed European military theories and divided artillery into four major categories according to their uses, namely field artillery, light field artillery, siege artillery and coastal artillery. Divided into three major categories, namely cannons, howitzers and mortars.
He pursued scientific classification methods and theories, and established the Lanfang Artillery School by introducing technicians and artillery instructors, translated European artillery-related works into Chinese, and introduced artillery schools to teach students, which enabled Lanfang's artillery to develop from It was very professional from the beginning.
In the artillery school, students, teachers and artillery craftsmen live and study together.
They need to learn the latest European artillery theory in a timely manner, such as shell trajectories, integrate what they have learned into practice, and then use the results obtained from practice to feed back the theory, and in this way feed it back to the army.
Therefore, from the march of artillery to the layout of artillery positions, from the firing angle and the amount of gunpowder fired, a series of factors that can improve the combat effectiveness of artillery have been studied by artillery schools, and artillerymen are using more and more measurement tools. The level of specialization continues to increase.
It is very interesting for a group of artillerymen to study the trajectory of artillery shells there, so sometimes Zhao Xuening, who is good at mathematics, will join them and calculate and study with them.
The combat effectiveness of artillery will really be linked to the development and research of these basic disciplines.
Therefore, Lanfang's artillery unit has a very strong combat effectiveness. It has made great achievements in both naval battles and land battles, and it has not fallen behind even against the Spanish's veteran gunners.
Through research on Dutch artillery and British artillery, after Albert joined, the Ministry of Industry developed the Lanfang Type 1 artillery based on the Dutch and British artillery, including cannon, howitzer and mortar. type.
The cannon can be regarded as a traditional attack artillery. It has the longest barrel, the heaviest body, large caliber, heavy shell weight, and the smoothest ballistic trajectory. It mainly fires live ammunition.
The barrel of the howitzer is slightly shorter than that of the cannon, and the barrel is slightly lighter. As a result, the muzzle of the howitzer is raised, and the ballistic trajectory is higher, allowing it to hit higher and farther targets.
The mortar is an early mortar. It has a short barrel, light weight, the largest caliber, and the highest ballistic trajectory. It can hit opponents behind obstacles and mainly fires explosive shells.
These three types of artillery have corresponding styles in Lanfang, collectively called Lanfang Type 1. Lanfang also has different artillery units that specialize in using these three types of artillery.
They usually study artillery theory in the artillery school, strengthen their mathematical foundation, and refine the technology of firing artillery more accurately and faster. During wartime, they go with the army and are the main force of Lanfang that Zhao Xuening invested a lot of money to bring up.
There are also three artillery teams undergoing review this time, namely the cannon team, the howitzer team and the mortar team.
