Xie Xun, the platoon leader of the third platoon of the second company of the first battalion of the Ming Dynasty Marines, also held the musket in his hand tightly. He was using a Hongxing seven-year-old flintlock. By the standards of the 17th century, the flintlock gun in his hand was considered a quite exquisite weapon - although Emperor Zhu wanted a standardized mass-produced musket, there were no steam engines, no industrial chambering machines, and no available The equipment for extruding steel is not even steel in the real sense... The so-called standardization is just a so-so concept.
Therefore, it can be said that no two of the Hongxing Seven Year Styles delivered to the Ming Army are almost the same. If you observe carefully, you can always see their differences with the naked eye.
But this does not mean that one or two thousand fine guns cannot be selected from the tens of thousands of flintlock guns delivered every year!
The level of craftsmen who build these guns varies (even if it is an assembly line, it is still manual work), and the products produced are of course good and bad. The Munitions Department of the Ming Army had specialized gun inspectors who would select two thousand fine pieces from tens of thousands of flintlock rifles and distribute them to elite soldiers such as marines, black gun mule soldiers, and snipers.
In addition, these elite gunmen who have undergone rigorous training and selection will also receive special "silk bullets", which are lead bullets wrapped in silk to reduce the gap between the lead bullet and the barrel and reduce air leakage. Thereby achieving the purpose of increasing the effective range.
Different from the blindly mythical close-range shooting and bayonet combat in later generations on the Internet, all armies that use muskets in the world now will try their best to make the muskets in the hands of their soldiers shoot farther and more accurately. Even if most soldiers cannot do these two things due to training and equipment, they must try their best to ensure that a small number of soldiers can kill people with muskets from a long distance.
This is the origin of the sniper, hunter or skirmisher!
The training time and equipment cost of a sniper are much lower than training and equipping a Manchu Batulu... So if you want to rely on the Batulus to shoot to defeat a fusilier unit, It was basically a dream, and even if such a thing existed, it must be extremely rare.
And Xie Xun is a platoon leader of the Marines who is versatile in sniping and bayonet combat. Although he is only a platoon leader, he has the military pay and the corresponding official title (general flag rank) that can only be obtained by ordinary company commanders, and he also has the "gram" "Difficult" title - this means a "guaranteed" and a family fortune.
The so-called guarantee means that as long as he does not violate military laws and is dismissed from the military, he can get a guaranteed treatment of being reduced to idle by up to three ranks or to the lowest rank of captain.
A piece of family property is a land grant equal to the rank of captain. Because land is limited, the Ming army's land grant standards are becoming more and more strict. Only officers and soldiers with the title of "Overcoming Difficulties" can receive the land grant. field. And only when you retire from the army can you get the full land grant. Before decommissioning, the land must be transferred down three levels or to the lowest share.
However, while land granting is getting tighter and tighter, military pay and bonuses are more generous than in the past.
The treatment for Emperor Zhu as a soldier is still very satisfying!
There was a soft bang, and the bottom of Xie Xun's sampan hit the beach of Sakurajima.
Before the sampan could stop, Xie Xun was the first to jump out of the boat. Standing in the cold water that almost reached his buttocks, he took a deep breath and shouted: "Everyone, skirmish formation, step up." bayonet!"
The bullets have already been loaded, and they are always loaded with silk-wrapped bullets. They are very tight. Marines can use them to hit targets a hundred steps away! The bayonet must be installed after disembarking from the ship, otherwise it is easy to accidentally injure one's companions on the bumpy sampan. The skirmisher formation was to guard against artillery that could fire shotguns ambushed in the woods near the beach.
In addition, the marines, all composed of elite soldiers, do not need to fire volleys. Their free fire can also cause great damage to the enemy.
Seeing that all his subordinates had jumped from the boat into the water and formed a loose formation of skirmishers. Each soldier's musket was equipped with a bayonet. Xie Xun put a wooden whistle into his mouth and pressed it with all his strength. Blow.
The piercing whistle is an order, an order to move forward!
Xixiang's big head was sticking out of the trench, watching the "Eight-Nation Allied Forces" coming off the sampan form a loose formation, and he couldn't help but laugh out loud: "Haha, they are indeed a group of farmers from the Ming Dynasty. ah!"
Of course he knew that the main force of the so-called Eight-Nation Alliance Army was still the Ming Army, and the Ming Army's army was actually a group of peasants hired with money - they had no idea what the honor of a samurai was, they just worked hard for money.
Looking at their formation now, you can tell that they will not work hard even after taking the money, they are just a mob!
"It's really a mob..."
"It's so vulnerable!"
"It's a pity that cavalry can't be used on the mudflats, otherwise the battle will be over in one fell swoop!"
"Hahaha, the time has come for me to wait for the samurai to perform meritorious deeds!"
Saigo Takahiro is the leader of the group, and he is in charge of more than twenty villagers of the Satsuma Domain. They were all thinking the same thing as Saigo just now, but now they all relaxed and started talking in a hurry.
It looks pretty shabby...
"Baga!" An Ashugaru named Kanfu yelled and cursed, "Don't make any noise!"
This "Ganfu" is a member of Shimazu Shimazu's Ganfu family. He has a low status and is only a mid-level feudal lord. He is now the ashigaru head of the Sashu New Army.
The so-called Sashu New Army is the European-style new army organized by the Satsuma Domain under the guidance of Spanish military advisors. It uses the latest Spanish phalanx formation method - the Spanish phalanx is also constantly improving, and now the latest composition is also similar to Morris The square formation is similar. The number of people in a company (Ashigaru team) is 250, and it is composed of ten Ashigaru teams of 25 people. Five of the groups were musketry groups, and the remainder were pike groups.
And Saigo Takahiro is the leader of the first musket group.
"Musket groups, load the ammunition and light the match ropes!" Ganfu Ashigaru shouted again.
"Load ammunition..."
Xixiang also shouted, and at the same time he began to reload quickly. After loading the bullets, there was another shout: "Light the match at both ends!"
"The match rope is lit!"
His men shouted back.
"Check the match rope, check the saber..." Saigo continued to order. All the soldiers of the Satsuma New Army retained their samurai swords, so Saigo and the others would use samurai swords instead of bayonets in close combat. In addition, all of them have arrays, trunks and grass folds.
At this time Gansuke Ashgaru also issued a new order: "All musketry groups come out of the trenches...Five rows of horizontal formations! Saigo!"
"Yes!" Xixiang responded loudly.
"You are in the front row!" Ganfu said, "Remember, if the enemy comes within 30 steps, fire a volley!"
"Hai!" Saigo responded loudly, and then shouted with all his strength, "Sashu warriors, set off...form the team!"
Following the shouts, directly in front of the beach where the Ming army landed, in a section of woods about 3 miles wide, rows of warriors holding muskets and carrying samurai swords suddenly rushed out in a very neat formation. army.
Their morale seemed very high, they were moving very fast, and their formation was maintained well. At first glance, they looked like elite Japanese soldiers.
"Quick, quick, quick..." Xie Xun saw a large number of samurai musketeers pouring out of the woods ahead, and urged his men to move forward, "Don't fire, rush to the beach first, don't stay in the water... ..."
It's not convenient to reload when you're in the water, and you can't shoot while kneeling.
Therefore, the Ming army marines who jumped into the sea from the ship did not fire anymore, and all moved forward with their heads covered.
Their current mission is to seize the beachhead!
After charging for a while with his head covered, Xie Xun heard the rumble of artillery behind him. It should be the bombardment cannons on the big bird ships responsible for providing fire support.
The wooden shells were fired one by one, drawing an arc in the air, and then fell suddenly, falling behind Saigo Takahiro and others. Some of them exploded immediately, sending fragments flying in all directions and filling the air with gunpowder smoke!
But Saigo Takahiro didn't look back. As he moved forward, he was looking ahead with all his concentration. When he saw the peasant soldiers of the Ming Dynasty rushing toward him in chaos, he was simply sending himself to death!
When the two sides were still fifty or sixty steps away, the peasants and soldiers had already stopped and began to raise their muskets...
Fire from that far away? How is it possible to hit it?
As Xixiang thought about it, he saw sporadic fire and smoke coming out in front of him, and then he was hit hard by something unknown in the chest!
