After inspecting Xinjin City, Ouyang Xuan rushed to the navy brigade headquarters with a dark face. After listening to General Huang Dagen's briefing on the recent naval brigade situation, his anger finally broke out. Everyone had never seen Ouyang Xuan get so angry before, and they all remained silent. Because it was a closed-door meeting, Ouyang Xuan harshly criticized Shui Junqing and Huang Dagen without hesitation.
The reason why Ouyang Xuan lost his temper was that he only saw the navy fishing along the way, and only a few navy ships on guard. Even some sentry guards couldn't bear their loneliness and went to fish in the river. It would be fine if it was a second-line force or militia, but this was an elite force of the Perak Army. Even Liao Niluo, the deputy brigade commander of the navy, actually left his post without permission just for the sake of good taste. "The best in work comes from diligence and the waste from play." During this period, the water is shallow and the river is narrow, which is a good time to practice light boat tactics. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed that this was the elite of the Thunderbolt Army.
What made Ouyang Xuan angry was the inability of the navy brigade to implement the requirements. In order to cope with the rapidly expanding Mongolian navy, the military and political conference clearly requested that in addition to building more light boats, the shipyards also required the navy brigade to speed up ship modification and tactical drills. Ouyang Xuan had brought Li Shuang and Li San'er here to coordinate and deal with the weapons and equipment of the light boat. On the way, Li Saner complained that the naval personnel were not interested in the equipment of the boat and did not cooperate well with the designers of the arsenal. They were more interested in heavy ships and heavy artillery. Ouyang Xuan saw with his own eyes that Xia Dagen was the only one in the queue to renovate the boat. When asked about the status of the navy brigade's boat renovation, Huang Dagen groaned, knowing that the situation was not optimistic.
The main reason for the above situation is that the Perak Army is filled with arrogance and arrogance, especially the Navy Brigade, who believe that with firearms, especially cannons, they can be invincible. In fact, the reason why the Perak Army performed outstandingly was mainly because it was fighting defensive warfare, and its targets were mostly new annexes with low morale. With the current strength of the Perak Army, it is impossible to fight against the Mongolian Army in a field battle. Not to mention that the number of the Mongolian army far exceeds that of the Perak Army. Even in a field battle with the same strength, the Perak Army will not have an advantage. This is evidenced by the fact that the cavalry battalion of the field brigade was suppressed by the Mongolian cavalry of similar strength in Guankou Village a few days ago. Moreover, the Mongolian army is very good at learning. In the Battle of Jiading, they not only learned new uses of Zhentian Lei, but also developed a new weapon, Fentian Lei. Although the quality of its firearms is not good, it can offset many of the advantages of the Thunderbolt Army. If they continue to rely on their huge financial resources and military strength, the Perak Army will gradually fall into a disadvantage in the confrontation.
Take the most eye-catching achievement of the Pili Army and Navy - the raid on Chengdu. The reason for this remarkable achievement was that all the Mongolian sailors in Chengdu were on the shore at that time, and most of the ships were transport ships filled with food. They were also attacked by Pili. The army raided and captured it. In the battles of Hengyuan Fort, Sandu Shui and Guankou Village, the Mongolian army had no navy at all and no countermeasures. They could only watch helplessly being beaten on the shore. In fact, the Pili Army's navy does not have the strength to crush the enemy. On his way to Diaoyu City, Ouyang Xuan was attacked by water bandits on the border of Xuzhou and even captured Ouyang Xuan's boat. Although the water bandits were finally repelled, they were still surrounded by dangers.
Ouyang Xuan knew very well that on the surface battlefield, artillery warships had advantages over cold weapons, but there was no absolute advantage. The Hunan Navy of Zeng Guofan, a famous official in the late Qing Dynasty, was equipped with new foreign guns and cannons. However, the Hunan Army's large artillery warships were completely defeated by Shi Dakai's light boats. Even Zeng Guofan was forced to commit suicide by diving into the water. Although firearms are extremely powerful, it is never the weapon that determines the outcome of a war. It also includes factors such as weather, terrain, morale, and tactics. In the final analysis, people are the key to the outcome of a war.
Although the navy currently trained by Liu Heima is mainly small boats, it is also equipped with primitive firearms, posing a serious threat to the Pili Army navy. The firearms equipped by the Mongolian army's ships are mainly incendiary firearms, such as fire-starters, British fire-fighters, rockets, etc. There are also fire-breathing tubular weapons, and there are even a small number of iron artillery imitated from the Perak Army. In fact, both the Mongolian Army and the Song Army already had iron artillery. Although due to poor cannon-casting technology, both range and lethality were far inferior to that of the Thunderbolt Army, but as long as there were enough, the combat effectiveness was equally terrifying. When he was in Diaoyu City, Zhang Jue once mentioned that Jingzhou was one of the centers of firearms manufacturing for the Song Army, and one or two thousand iron artillery pieces could be produced in a month. The area and population controlled by the Mongolian army are far superior to those of the Song army. If mass production is carried out, the output will be astonishing.
Of course, Ouyang Xuan is not afraid of the Mongolian army imitating grenades, or even the Mongolian army imitating iron cannons. The Pili Army cannot be copied in terms of scientific research, talent training, industrial system, management system, etc. "A tiger cannot be compared to a dog." It is possible to imitate some weapons based on the Mongolians' strict hierarchical slavery system, but without system support, it will never be possible. It is impossible to continuously promote technological innovation and continuous progress like the Thunderbolt Army. However, reforming into a system like the Perak Army was unacceptable to the Mongolian military nobles.
"Strong winds arise from the end of the green apple." Arrogance and arrogance will not only lead to failure, but will also slowly evolve into self-centeredness over the common people. Ouyang Xuan is extremely vigilant about these bad signs. Therefore, he decided to use the Navy Army as a negative example and focus on rectifying the style within the Perak Army - including the military, government affairs system, and factory and mine management personnel. For this reason, he proposed: Huang Dagen failed to implement the decree effectively and was not strict in running the army, so he was suspended from the post of navy brigade commander, and the navy brigade commander was replaced by Le Quan'an; Liao Niluo's discipline was lax, so he was suspended from the post of deputy brigade commander and battalion commander; Xia Dagen was replaced by The platoon leader was promoted to company commander….
Mid-level and high-level official positions like Huang Dagen and Liao Nilu need to be approved at the joint military and political meeting in Perak. Xia Dagen's appointment as company commander only requires Ouyang Xuan to issue a certificate of appointment. In view of Ouyang Xuan's huge personal prestige, the Military and Political Joint Conference passed the proposal to suspend the two men without objection, and even Huang Dagen himself voted in favor. This decision shocked the Pili Army management system and promoted the subsequent rectification of style. In the eyes of everyone, Huang Dagen and Liao Nilu are both distinguished generals, especially the former, who is not only a veteran of the Perak Army, but also one of Ouyang Xuan's most trusted people. Even he was punished, which truly embodies the prohibitions and prohibitions of the Perak Army. Uniform style of conduct.
Ouyang Xuan started the disciplinary style from the navy brigade, not only because the navy was so arrogant, but also because the navy would face major challenges and may suffer disastrous defeats in the future. When he heard that when the Mongolian troops in Guankou Village attacked the checkpoint, the clay pots they threw could stick to the stones and burn, and were indestructible when exposed to water, he subconsciously thought of another weapon - Greek fire. Byzantium used this weapon that could burn on the water to burn countless ships of invading Arab, Ottoman and other hostile forces, and established an empire that stood firm for thousands of years. Although the Greek fire formula is top secret and cannot be known by outsiders, Ouyang Xuan judged that it is definitely made of petroleum as the main ingredient, which is similar to gasoline that is extremely flammable. Judging from the interrogation of Mongolian craftsmen, the Mongolian army has used petroleum to make weapons. If used in conjunction with the water warfare weapon in the "Martial Arts Summary" - the fierce fire oil tank, it will definitely be the enemy of the Perak Army's gunboats. To deal with the Mongolian navy clippers equipped with petroleum weapons, in addition to using a large number of light and fast boats to prevent them from approaching the gunboats, the only way to deal with them is to also equip a large number of fire warships.
