Chapter 051
"What good news!"
"Ning Haijun defended the good news sent by Cheng Shijie, and they won another victory."
"good!"
Sun Yuanhua also knew that it was useless to be angry anymore, so he could only prepare to clean up the mess. Now Emperor Chongzhen, it can be said that the Ming Dynasty actually has no cards left to play.
A huge country, a Ming Dynasty with a nominal army of 2.8 million, actually has no troops to use. It is really pitiful, sad, deplorable, and even more ridiculous.
Sun Yuanhua received the victory report from Xu Dacheng. He first read it ten lines at a time, and then read it line by line. Before he finished, he finished reading it, and then read it word by word, three times in a row. He felt a long sigh of relief. Take a breath.
Normally, Sun Yuanhua would not take a second look at Cheng Shijie's good news.
Don't look at it as an army, even an ordinary county magistrate can behead more than 200 level thugs. However, Sun Yuanhua knew that this bandit was different from the bandits.
In Sun Yuanhua's notebook, there are records of bandits large and small in Shandong. These bandits were all sacrificial knives left by Sun Yuanhua to his Denglai New Army.
In May of the third year of Chongzhen's reign, he was recommended as governor of Denglai by his teacher Xu Guangqi and Liang Tingdong, then Minister of War. In June, he officially took up the post as deputy envoy to Shandong (fourth grade). After more than three months, he gradually took control of the governor's yamen.
Starting from August of the third year of Chongzhen, he tried every means to raise funds and recruited a foreign legion composed of twenty-seven officers from various European countries. He also recruited craftsmen to build muskets and artillery, and formally trained Denglai. New Army.
Since the Denglai New Army was formally established in November, it has been training for ten months. Because the education level of the soldiers in the unit is too low, especially the artillery has not been fully deployed.
Unexpectedly, the situation in Liaodong changed so quickly. Zu Dashou, a fool, unexpectedly attacked Dalinghe City without sufficient preparation. The status of Dalinghe City was too important. Huang Taiji would never sit back and watch him build the city, so , it is inevitable for Jiannu to attack him.
For his own strategy, he must lead the Denglai New Army to support Dalinghe while Zu Dashou is still insisting. But the problem is that once he leaves Shandong, the numerous bandits in Shandong will cause harm to the place.
According to the report of Ning Haijun garrison Cheng Shijie, the bandits in Zhen Sanshan were causing trouble, so Ning Haijun sent troops to annihilate them. The battle lasted for two days, beheading 203 people, and captured 239 people under Zhen Sanshan, and rescued those who had been robbed by the bandits. There were more than 120 women and some weapons were seized.
Zhen Sanshan is one of the bandits recorded by Sun Yuanhua. In Sun Yuanhua's eyes, Zhen Sanshan's strength is "6", while Qin Wu's strength is "7". Although there are not many people in Zhen Sanshan, they are top-notch elites. , the most outstanding robbery in Zhensanshan was the robbery of Zhang Keda, the commander-in-chief of the right army.
You must know that although Zhang Keda is a hereditary official of Qianhu, the left guard of Nanjing Yulin, he is even more so. In the 29th year of Wanli, he became a Jinshi.
Zhang Keda is not a drunkard, but he has great military exploits. He fought against Japanese pirates along the coast of Zhejiang, and was promoted to guerrilla and general.
Later, he followed the commander-in-chief Wang Minghe to put down the rebellion of Yang Yinglong, the chieftain of Guizhou in southwest China. He defeated the invading Japanese pirates many times and was promoted to deputy commander-in-chief. In the first year of Chongzhen, he was promoted to the rank of commander-in-chief and stationed in Shandong. On his way to his post with his two hundred servants and cavalry, he was ambushed by Zhensanshan. Zhang Ke was struck by an arrow and fell from his horse. Forty-seven horses and several weapons under his command were robbed by Zhensanshancang.
It can be said that Zhen Sanshan is one of the stronger bandits in Shandong. Although he only has four or five hundred men, bandits with thousands of troops generally dare not provoke him.
Sun Yuanhua determined at the first moment that Cheng Shijie did not lie about his military exploits. Falsification is an art. For example, Guan Ningjun, who only beheaded dozens of heads, could be said to have killed thousands of people, but because of the slave-building During the retreat, all the corpses and wounded were carried away, so not many heads were captured.
If it is to kill good people and take merit, and there are more than 2,000 people in the Yinning Navy, then it is not the beheading of level 203, but it may be beheading of level 2,300, or even level 5,000, or level 6,000, it is possible.
No matter how bad the army is, it will become brutal when it kills refugees and farmers, and neither refugees nor farmers have the slightest ability to resist in front of the army.
Cheng Shijie dared to list these data, accurate to single digits. This just shows that he really has valuable information and is not afraid of investigation. What's more, Cheng Shijie captured Huanzhen Sanshan alive, and the bandit leader is still alive, so he is not afraid of investigation. .
After Sun Yuanhua read this good news, he found that Ning Haijun had actually annihilated Zhen Sanshan with zero casualties, and he felt really comfortable.
"Congratulations, Lord Futai, for gaining a strong army!"
Sun Yuanhua knew very well that his political ally, the Minister of War, Liang Tingdong, had been forced to resign. The current Minister of War, Xiong Mingyu, was transferred from Nanjing. Sun Yuanhua did not have a close relationship with him, and this Xiong Mingyu was also a civil servant who did not know how to fight. Observe his words and actions, and once he destroys the only army outside the pass, he can only mobilize this army under his command.
Even if Sun Yuanhua requested the Lining Navy from the court, Sun Yuanhua's support for Cheng Shijie was only verbal. At this special time, Sun Yuanhua had to pay attention to this army.
"Dacheng!"
"The job is here!"
"Get ready, let's go to Ning Haijun to have a look!"
"Prepare?"
"right!"
Sun Yuanhua sighed and said: "Since the founding of Ning Haijun, Ben Xian has neither provided food, nor money, nor equipment. However, Ning Haijun's officers have sacrificed their lives, and Cheng Shijie has devoted himself to destroying the Sanshan headquarters in one battle. However, Ning Haijun has They are too weak and need to give them some support!”
"Master Futai means..."
"Deploy eight Folang machine artillery pieces from Geng Zhongming's command, sixty muskets from Zhang Tao's command, and one hundred armors from Denglai's new army!"
Sun Yuanhua felt that with these equipment, Ning Haijun's combat effectiveness would be improved.
Especially the Folang machine gun, also known as the sub-gun, each gun is equipped with seven sub-guns, which is rear-loading. If you are well-trained, it only takes one hundred and forty seconds to fire seven sub-guns per gun. On average, One cannonball can be fired every twenty seconds. The fast rate of fire is the advantage of the Franco machine gun. The power of this gun is also quite good, covering the entire deep company at a distance of three hundred meters.
Although Cheng Shijie can deal with cold weapons such as swords, guns and armor, he has no way to deal with artillery and firecrackers. He has all the famous cannon-casting craftsmen in Shandong. Not to mention Shandong, even in the entire Ming Dynasty, he is the most powerful In terms of his cannon casting skills, he ranked second, while no one dared to rank first.
Other people's Franco machine guns only have three sub-systems, and their air tightness is extremely poor. The fire rate of the Franco machine guns is also low. However, Sun Yuanhua made slight changes to the Fo Lang machine gun. The scope of the change is indeed not that big. Even the musket, which can also be regarded as a cannonball, has been increased from three to seven, which greatly increases the continuous firepower. In addition, a wedge mechanism is added to the tail of the gun, and the sub-gun is stuffed into the barrel through the wedge mechanism, thus avoiding air leakage.
After this improvement, the effective range of the Franco machine gun increased from the original 300 to 500 meters to more than 1,300 meters. Of course, since the barrel is smoothbore, the accuracy has not improved much.
As a technocrat, in Sun Yuanhua's eyes, adding equipment is equivalent to improving combat effectiveness. However, there are many factors that determine combat effectiveness. He only trained the Denglai New Army's combat skills, but did not teach the Denglai New Army why. And fight, why fight.
As a result, during the Wuqiao Mutiny, Sun Yuanhua spent a lot of effort to build the Denglai New Army, which directly took advantage of Kong Youde.
Just as Sun Yuanhua was preparing to inspect Ning Haijun, Cheng Shijie was leading officers above Ning Haijun to criticize and self-criticize.
"This time, the general is not prepared enough!"
Cheng Shijie looked at the officers and said: "General, I really didn't expect that this day would change so quickly! Because I didn't expect it and was not prepared, forty-three soldiers suffered varying degrees of frostbite."
The weather in the late Ming Dynasty was completely different from that of later generations. In later generations, Shandong was a place with four distinct seasons, cold in winter, warm in spring, hot in summer, and cool in autumn. But the problem is that there is no autumn now. We go from summer to winter in one step.
"Master Guard, the weather is abnormal and there is a sudden blizzard. No one expected it. I don't blame Master Guard..."
"If you're wrong, you're wrong. You must not be perfunctory!"
Cheng Shijie looked at the officers and said: "Our Ning Haijun is too slow to form an army, especially the senior officers. According to the establishment of our Ning Haijun, there are twelve people in a team, and four teams plus the forcing team are one sentry. Five sentry posts As one division, in addition to the two commander-in-chiefs Shen Mingyu and Chang Yu who have already been appointed, this garrison should have 20 division commanders-in-chief. The other three commander-in-chiefs have not been appointed because they are not capable enough to serve as hundred commanders. The general or the general, Youdao, is an incompetent general who will exhaust the three armies. An incompetent officer will cause more serious harm than the enemy. If we want to make progress, we can only face the problems around us and face our own shortcomings. and shortcomings, instead of being arrogant and complacent, thinking every day, if I get in, I will be better than so and so! The most difficult thing for people is to recognize themselves!"
Under the leadership of Cheng Shijie, the officers began to reflect on their mistakes and shortcomings.
Finally, Cheng Shijie made a concluding speech: "The formation of our Ning Haijun army is too slow. Since the founding of the army, the troops have not conducted skill training. This garrison believes that training cannot produce good soldiers, let alone good soldiers." An army can be without good weapons, adequate supplies, or hard armor, but it can never be without courage and perseverance."
Cheng Shijie felt the urgency of time. He had no time to follow the plan step by step, so he could only take extraordinary measures.
Cheng Shijie pointed to the huge map on the table and said: "In our Ninghai Prefecture, in addition to Zhensanshan, there are also Zhuanlinbao, Xiaoliguang, Caoshangfei, Zhenshanhu, Mao Shiwan, Xiaobailong, and Xiashan. Twenty-three groups of bandits including Hu, Shan Baozi, Ding Tianliang, and Gun King Li.
"No, this is best!"
Cheng Shijie said: "As a soldier, your duty is to protect your home and country. Only by eliminating these bandits can we protect ourselves. Spring plowing will begin next year. None of you want these bandits to come down the mountain to attack during our spring plowing. Now I am ordering that we would rather The navy's military training has officially begun!"
