The king of Han was a little confused.
He was a little confused as to what King Qi was planning.
Since the morning meeting of "Asking King Qi about the Seven Deadly Sins", King Qi went to Songlu Mountain on the outskirts of Beijing and began to train his two royal guards.
God!
I'm here thinking about how to overthrow you, but you should respond. What's going to happen if you just crawl into the mountain?
This was something that King Han couldn't handle, but he didn't care so much about what stupidity King Qi was making now. He had other things to do - seize power!
Since Chen Jin, the censor of the right capital, was beheaded by Zhu Gaojie in the Fengtian Palace in April of the 11th year of Yongle, all the censors on the left and right of the capital procuratorate were empty and leaderless. So the emperor promoted Liu Guan, a princeling, to be the censor of Zuodu. After Liu Guan took office, he was fierce enough and risked his life to suppress the Han Dynasty Party in the Metropolitan Procuratorate.
Now that Zheng Zhichang has been promoted to censor of the right capital, the King of Han wants to regain the power in the Metropolitan Procuratorate. Today's party struggle has become a struggle between the King of Han and the prince, and the battlefield is the Metropolitan Procuratorate.
Zheng Zhichang suddenly became the representative figure of the King of Han's party. The King of Han pinned all his hopes on this person and wanted to use this person to suppress the power of the Crown Prince and King Qi. It is naturally impossible for Zheng Zhichang to be the censor of the right capital. The King of Han was courageous enough to use all the Han King's party members in the court to revolve around Zheng Zhichang. Whenever he encountered the princelings and the Qi King's party, he directly asked Zheng Zhichang to lead the officials to impeach him, and then Try your best to suppress the opponent.
In just one month, the Hanwang Party had already eliminated more than a dozen middle-level officials from the princeling party, as well as two honorary relatives who belonged to the Qiwang Party.
Above the court, blood flowed like a river.
…
Suburbs of Beijing, Songlu Mountain.
"Your Majesty, are my marksmanship accurate?"
"What do you think?"
"I think it's pretty accurate."
"What the hell are you saying? Are all your ancestors genetically blind for eight generations?"
"My lord, can you respect me a little? It's really hurtful to talk like this."
"Are you sure that all your ancestors for eight generations have been genetically blind?"
"..."
Zhu Gaojie was so angry that his liver ached. He tricked two hundred brand-new muskets from the Arsenal Department of the Ministry of War and equipped them with his two guards in Songlu Mountain. However, he was greatly disappointed - the weapons were fine, but the people were. .
It's not easy to get these two hundred muskets from the Arsenal Department. The Arsenal Department is recognized as one of the four biggest losers in the Sixth Department. The four major departments are: the Literary Selection Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Examination Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Martial Arts Selection Department of the Ministry of War, and the Treasury Selection Department of the Ministry of War.
Working as an errand in these four departments, you work less and get more. Now all these four departments are controlled by the prince. Zhu Gaojie opened up various channels and coaxed and deceived to get two hundred muskets.
The fire gate gun evolved from the sudden fire gun of the Southern Song Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty had a straight barrel structure, and there was no internal rifling design. It was a smooth bore structure. The fire gun of the Ming Dynasty began to be improved, and the straight barrel front chamber was changed from the barrel mouth to the medicine chamber. The enlarged shape and further optimized design have achieved a more reasonable structure.
Through these optimizations, the development of fire cannons made a qualitative leap in the Ming Dynasty, and fire cannons for various purposes were derived, such as hand cannons for individual soldiers, large bowl mouth cannons, small mouth cannons, and three-eyed cannons for city defense and water warfare. Guns and so on.
On the other side of the world, in Europe, after acquiring muskets and black powder, iron muskets also appeared in Italy at almost the same period.
The design ideas of the Ming Dynasty and European fire gate guns are almost the same, and when used, two people are generally required to operate them, respectively responsible for aiming and ignition.
However, in combat and under the general concept of cavalry combat at that time, the fire portal gun had problems such as low hit rate, troublesome operation, and low firing efficiency. However, compared to other countries in the world at the same time, Ming Dynasty firearms were undoubtedly quite advanced.
After the Manchu cavalry entered the Central Plains at the end of the Ming Dynasty, for more than two hundred years, the development of firearms still retained the technology of the Ming Dynasty, without any progress or even showing signs of regression.
Therefore, while Europe was upgrading and optimizing matchlock guns and developing more advanced weapons, China still stagnated or even closed itself off until the Qing Dynasty was knocked open by more advanced foreign guns and cannons, leaving behind a history of humiliation that lasted nearly a century in modern times. .
…
Zhu Gaojie knew that his two palace guards were useless, but what he didn't expect was that these two guards were even more useless than he imagined.
Nine out of ten shots missed the target, and the one that hit was purely a matter of luck.
"Stop it!"
Zhu Gaojie waved his hand, his face was ashen, "Chirong, put away all the muskets!"
What a bunch of trash, letting these royal guards use their muskets is a waste!
Chirong directed the people to take the muskets back to the warehouse, came over and asked, "Your Majesty, why don't you forget about it."
He didn't say it outright, but he showed his disappointment.
To this day, there are no more brave palace guards like those in the Hongwu Dynasty. During the Hongwu Dynasty, the vassal kings guarded the Xu border guards, all of whom were elites who had walked out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood on the battlefield. When Zhu Di raised his troops, the eight hundred guards of the Yan Palace defeated this country. During the Yongle Dynasty, the prince's guard was continuously weakened. The main reason was that the emperor was afraid of the prince, because he himself was the emperor when the prince rebelled.
The guards of Prince Qi's Mansion are all cobbled together by his mother's drunkards. These people may not know how to kill the enemy in battle, but they are definitely good at coveting military pay and enjoying themselves. This is not an army, they are clearly just thugs!
Zhu Gaojie was able to gain a foothold in the court by relying on the support of his relatives and his prestige in the army, but the guards of Prince Qi's Mansion were all useless trash!
If this spreads out, Prince Qi's Mansion will become a joke in the entire capital!
"Last year, the Northern Expedition was rushed. Although I accompanied him, I did not bring any guards. But when the emperor thinks about the Northern Expedition again, am I going to go to war with these embarrassing wastes?" Zhu Gaojie said in a deep voice, "I am now a military commander. The military representatives supported by the honorary knights cannot hide these royal guards for a lifetime. No matter what, I must train these royal guards into elites!"
Zhu Gaojie's eyes were sharp: "These palace guards are not lacking in equipment, let alone muskets. Even if the king equips them with the best armor, the best horses, and the best weapons, they still lose the battle! "
Indeed, how could the equipment of the guards of Prince Qi's Mansion be any worse?
This is completely a mental fester. These people no longer think of themselves as soldiers. If their status as royal guards is cancelled, they will dare to find someone in the valley to fall into trouble!
Zhu Gaojie took a deep breath and said fiercely: "Chirong, lead them in formation!"
"How do you want to practice, Your Majesty?" Chirong asked.
Each army has its own training method. The three thousand battalions led by Chi Rong, the most elite troops in the Ming Dynasty, only need to give a shout, and the soldiers will quickly assemble.
Now if he is asked to lead such an "iron trash army", Chi Rong will not be able to deal with it.
Is this still worth practicing?
Zhu Gaojie said categorically: "Twenty people are in a team, and a hundred people are in a group. There is no need to practice anything else, just let them play goose steps."
Chirong was a little confused: "What is the goose step?"
…
Zhu Gaojie explained it to Chi Rong for a long time, and then demonstrated it in person, and Chi Rong suddenly understood.
Although he didn't know what the use of the goose step was, since it was the prince's order, Chirong began to instruct the training soldiers to start practicing.
At the beginning, the soldiers were kicked to pieces and became a mess. They didn't take it seriously and just complained that their prince was looking for trouble.
Seeing this scene, Zhu Gaojie waved Chi Rong to stop training and walked to the front of the soldiers expressionlessly.
He was too lazy to talk nonsense and shouted loudly: "Everyone, please listen carefully here!"
"You may think that the king is asking you to engage in useless training now, and I don't care. I only tell you one thing. Those who fail to be trained will be expelled from the ranks of the royal guards. Where did they come from? Where did they get out? Go back! The guards of Prince Qi’s Mansion don’t have to worry about not being able to recruit troops!”
As soon as the words fell, the military camp became quiet for an instant.
The guards in Prince Qi's Mansion are much more well-paid than those in the ordinary local army, and no one wants to leave. How much is the monthly salary for the royal guards, and how much is the monthly salary for the local army?
For these rotten people, threats are far more practical than reasoning.
The sergeants obeyed the orders honestly and practiced going forward. After they calmed down, they looked more presentable.
There is no threshold for going forward. They were just unwilling to do it before. But with Zhu Gaojie's threat, they became more serious. After all, no one was willing to give up the prestigious position of palace guard.
…
The scorching sun was high in the blue sky, and the sergeants shouted the slogan "one, two, one," and trained in circles around the camp. The heels of their shoes landed on the ground, making a squeaking sound.
Chirong sat next to Zhu Gaojie and asked in confusion: "Your Majesty, what's the use of letting them goose? These losers are rotten to the bones."
"It is precisely because they are rotten to the core that we have to start with the most basic training to transform them." Zhu Gaojie said lightly, "Kicking goose is not to train their bodies, but to beat their military souls."
The goose step was originally used by the Prussian army in military parades in the early 19th century. Later, it was imitated in the armies of many countries, but the specific postures were different, and they were generally divided into German, British, Soviet and other types.
In his article "Army" in 1857, Mr. Engels analyzed the reasons for the victory and defeat of the Austro-Prussian War and pointed out that "the main reason why the Prussian army was able to defeat the Austrian army was that the Prussian army had an orderly formation, a vigorous pace, and a brave attack. Gathered quickly.”
The seemingly useless goose step allowed the rotten sergeants of the palace guards to unconsciously rectify military discipline. This was the beginning and the most important step in shaping the military soul.
An army without military discipline is just garbage after all.
Chi Rong smiled: "Can these people have military souls?"
"I will let them have it. It's just a matter of time. Anyway, I have been very free in the past two years. It is not a loss to change to a top-level army in two years." Zhu Gaojie said.
(End of chapter)
