Zhu Cixiang's army was dispatched as quickly as he said at the court meeting. The war situation in the north seemed to be extremely critical, and Zhu Cihong and Chongzhen could no longer afford to stay in Nanjing for one more day. The day after the meeting, Emperor Chongzhen, at the urging of Zhu Cixiang, left the imperial city of Nanjing with his ten beloved concubines, and under the banner of his personal conquest, he crossed the river and headed north... five miles north!
right! That’s five miles!
Zhu Cixiang and Emperor Chongzhen boarded a centipede ship together at Longjiangguan Pier in Nanjing. They arrived at Jiangbei Pier. After landing, they rode horses and walked north for five miles before arriving at the destination of Emperor Chongzhen's personal expedition - Jiangbei Camp.
The so-called Jiangbei Camp is actually a large fortress. It is located in Jiangpu County under Yingtian Prefecture, across the river from Nanjing City. The castle is only five miles away from the dock on the north bank of the Yangtze River—all within the fire coverage of the Hongyi cannon!
This bastion was built on the order of Zhu Cixiang after the Nanjing Eunuch Rebellion. It is also the standard of a simple bastion. Not counting the eight protruding gun platforms, the perimeter of the city reaches 3,000 steps. The city wall is made of logs, soil and sandbags. The outer wall is also sloped and is about one foot or two feet high. The space inside is very large, about a little over a square kilometer. It was divided into five areas: the palace city, the school field, the barracks, the warehouse, and the official residence.
Long before Zhu Cixiang arrived to protect Emperor Chongzhen, the 15 regiments of model troops and 10 ordinary infantry regiments that were not "modelized" originally stationed in Nanjing City had quietly crossed the river and stationed themselves in the Jiangbei Camp.
In other words, there were as many as 60,000 soldiers and horses waiting for Chongzhen, Zhu Cixiang and his son at Jiangbei Camp, filling the entire Jiangbei Camp...
When Zhu Cixiang and Chongzhen arrived outside the Jiangbei camp under the protection of a small number of guards and Jingjun, the 60,000-strong army had already formed a regiment square formation, waiting for review.
"Emperor Gao, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, is reincarnated...invincible!"
"Emperor Gao, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, is reincarnated...invincible!"
Deafening slogans rang out from the Jiangbei camp to the banks of the Yangtze River.
There were dozens of naval warships and thousands of sailors on the riverside pier. The warships were all moored at the shore, and the anchor chains were lowered. The sailors lined up on the side of the ship. When they heard the cheers, they all opened their arms. Throat, long live the mountain.
Emperor Chongzhen, who arrived with Zhu Cixiang, was also stunned by the army in front of him.
He carefully looked at the soldiers who were lined up along the wide Pukou official road. One team after another, one row after another, they all showed a majestic lineup.
The team is extremely organized! Look at a line horizontally, look at a line vertically, look at it diagonally...it's still a straight line!
"997" and the last elimination method seemed to be effective. Under the crazy urging of the officers, the array, march and discipline of the infantry of the New Army finally passed the test!
Formation, marching and discipline are the main training subjects for the infantry of the new army to overcome difficulties - Zhu Cixiang certainly knew that personal bravery would play an increasingly smaller role in future wars. No matter how many warriors there are in Manchuria, they are still a pile of rotten meat in front of a turtle-dove-footed firegun.
In the next two hundred years, infantry mainly relied on equipment (flintlocks, rifled guns), discipline and formation, as well as coordination with artillery and cavalry to defeat the enemy.
Therefore, in the past year, the focus of training for the new army to overcome difficulties has always been discipline, formation and physical fitness.
As for combat skills, of course they need to be practiced, but the proportion is not high, and there is a strong emphasis on specialization-that is, soldiers must be proficient in the combat skills of their respective arms, and they do not need to be omnipotent.
Zhu Cixiang has been racking his brains over the past year on how to equip the hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the new army to overcome difficulties with suitable equipment.
He knew very well that an important reason for the decline of the Ming army's combat effectiveness was the poor level of equipment!
Among the officers and soldiers in the late Ming Dynasty, except for a few servants who had good armor and a few handy weapons, most of the soldiers had at most bad armor and a few crudely made weapons. It can't compare with the Eight Banners Han Army, let alone the more well-equipped Eight Banners Real Manchuria.
The main reason for the inferior weapons and equipment of the Ming army was, of course, lack of money.
Secondly, the military-industrial system of the Ming army was completely decayed. After Zhu Cixi, the Prince of Fujun, took full power, even the completely decayed military industry system no longer existed.
Whether it was the Ordnance Bureau under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry, the Military War Bureau under the jurisdiction of the inner government, or the military industry run by each border town (theoretically there is also military industry in the Wei Institute), they did not follow the move south as a whole, and only a few craftsmen followed. ——This is a natural thing. The craftsmen have not gained any benefits, so why should they follow Zhu Cihong? The "Yi Cong craftsmen" Zhu Cixiang brought to Nanjing were all from Tianjin Wei La. They were willing to follow because they had suffered enough from the bandits in the two Tianjin Wei battles.
Relying on these craftsmen, Zhu Cixi could only barely support the Nanjing Artillery Manufacturing Bureau and the Nanjing Fire Gun Bureau. However, these two bureaus are small in scale, have limited output, and have very single products. It is simply not enough to support an army of hundreds of thousands.
As a last resort, Zhu Cixiang had no choice but to adopt an ordnance procurement model that was considered crazy by later generations - contract procurement!
That is to say, the Generalissimo's Office formulates the specifications of the equipment required by each arm, and then issues them (drawings, specifications and production methods) to the commanders of each regiment and battalion, and then sends the required funds to them, and they Purchase on your own.
At the same time, the regiment leaders and battalion commanders who received the funds must also be responsible for the quality of the equipment!
The preparation of equipment has also been included in the assessment subjects for the elimination of the last place!
Of course, not all procurement will be decentralized. For example, equipment such as gunpowder, artillery, and gunpowder that are not in large supply near Nanjing will be purchased by the Generalissimo's Office - the procurement is carried out through the top ten imperial merchants and Portuguese businessman Lopez, and the Generalissimo's Office will report to They solicit bids and then sign procurement contracts with various requirements.
However, the Generalissimo's Office is not responsible for acceptance. The acceptance of firearms, artillery, and gunpowder is still the responsibility of the regimental and battalion officers who use them. The Generalissimo's Mansion will send people to inspect the relevant regiments and camps, and the results of the inspection will also be included in the final elimination assessment...
Among all the equipment that has been delegated purchasing power, the most important one is armor.
For the procurement of armor, the Generalissimo's Office has set three specifications. One is spliced half-body plate armor - this kind of plate armor is also called lath armor, which is made by riveting strips of iron together to look like plate armor. No one in Europe has done this for a long time. They have hydraulic forging hammers that can easily break out a whole piece of armor.
But here in East Asia, people don't have this condition, so they can only make do with lath armor. This kind of lath armor was common in the late Warring States Period in Japan next door.
The specifications of the spliced half-body plate armor proposed by Zhu Cixi's Generalissimo's Mansion are much stronger than the Japanese plate armor.
This is because there was Foshan, an oriental iron-smelting center in the 17th century, in the Ming Dynasty, which could mass-produce strips of iron used to splice plate armor!
The blacksmiths here in Nanzhili only need to rivet these strips of iron together to make the main part of the half-body plate armor.
The second type of armor specification is the spliced breastplate, which is half spliced half-body plate armor, with only the front part and no back part. Such "cutting corners" is not to save money, but to reduce weight.
Spliced breastplates are for light cavalry. A pair of breastplate, an eight-petal iron hat, a pair of arm armor, and a pair of spliced slatted skirt armor constitute the armor of the Ming army's light cavalry, with a total weight of only a dozen kilograms.
The third type of armor specification is cloth-covered iron armor, in which iron pieces are riveted to the inside of the armor. From the outside, it looks like a piece of armor covered with iron nails on the buttocks. This is the armor most commonly used by the Ming army. Its protective capabilities are not weaker than spliced half plate armor. The price is actually about the same. The disadvantage is that it is heavier... It is just that it is easier to get iron sheets in the southeast area, but it is not easy to get iron laths. , so Zhu Cixi also included cloth-covered armor in the armor specifications.
As for what kind of armor to buy, except for the light cavalry battalion, you can decide by yourself.
