The staff committee of the General Staff Council agreed with the key points raised by Su Yonglin.
And they further believed that more sufficient supplies should be immediately prepared for the Navy, and the Navy should be drawn out to make emergency adjustments before the war to prepare for war needs.
Su Yonglin accepted them all, and then ordered the entire Jiaolong Army to gather for war drills. At the same time, he ordered the Privy Council to prepare sufficient logistical support for the Jiaolong Army.
Especially the main battle firearm, the rocket fired by the bed crossbow. This powerful firearm that exceeded the expectations of the Song Army should be one of the important relies for the Ming Navy to gain the upper hand in the war.
After the navy's problems were settled, Su Yonglin began to arrange the army's actions.
From a geographical point of view, the Henan Corps under Zhang Yuejing is of course the most suitable to perform this task.
After they won the Battle of Guanzhong, they returned to Henan to continue garrisoning, and Guanzhong was handed over to Su Haisheng and the Qilu Corps for garrison.
At present, they are directly bordering the Jinghu War Zone and Huainan War Zone of the Southern Song Dynasty. There is no problem in dispatching a force to participate in this war. It can be regarded as being mobilized nearby, and they will definitely be very happy.
An army of 30,000 people may not be enough to carry out this task, so additional troops are needed.
Su Yonglin decided to dispatch 20,000 elite cavalry from Zhongdu to go south to cooperate with an army of the Henan Corps to fight.
After capturing the Central Plains, Yanyun and Grassland Racecourses, the Ming army completely threw off the Southern Song Dynasty in terms of cavalry. It swept away the huge disadvantages of the two Song Dynasties in cavalry and established an extremely powerful cavalry force.
Through the catalysis of war, the current number of cavalry available to the Ming army has exceeded 50,000, and they are basically one man and two horses, full of power, and possess considerable tactical level.
The number of horses owned by Yanshan Racecourse and the Liaodong Racecourse under construction has exceeded 800,000. Su Yonglin plans to expand the number to more than one million in five years, and establish a standing elite cavalry force of 100,000 people to gallop across the country. The northern frontier of the empire.
In addition to the 100,000 elite cavalry, Su Yonglin also plans to vigorously expand the professional skills of the Ming army soldiers.
He planned to strive for the Ming army to reach a point where everyone can ride a horse. In the end, excellent war horses will be directly used as weapons of war, and ordinary horses, mules, donkeys and the like will be used as transportation tools, so as to establish an all-mule-horse army and improve Army mobility.
Professional cavalry naturally requires professional training, but it is not too difficult for ordinary soldiers to just ride on horseback.
The Ming army in his plan will become a highly specialized, motorized and powerful army, with a tactical level that is far beyond the reach of any army in this era.
Of course, this is all a story for later.
But for now, the Ming army still has a cavalry force that is far beyond the Song army.
If the Southern Song Dynasty could still compete with the Ming army in terms of navy, Su Yonglin had the confidence to directly penetrate the Southern Song Dynasty in terms of cavalry.
These 50,000 people plus the navy's 13,000 troops, with an elite force of 63,000 troops to perform this task, are generally sufficient for the strategic purposes of the Ming army.
Subsequently, Su Yonglin discussed with the General Staff Council which troops should be recruited for combat.
After some discussion, the top brass of the Ming army unanimously decided to recruit the Youyi Army of Zhou Zhi, who had the most combat experience in the Henan Corps. Zhou Zhi would be the commander-in-chief for this battle, and he was ordered to command an army of 50,000 to launch an attack on the Jianghuai War Zone of the Southern Song Dynasty.
The order was quickly finalized and sent to the relevant departments for preparation as quickly as possible.
The cavalry in the Zhongdu Forbidden Army, the Youyi Army under the Henan Corps, and the Navy's Jiaolong Army need to work together to complete this military mission.
After everything was arranged, Su Yonglin took the time to visit the Firearms Department of the Ordnance Bureau of the Ministry of Industry to inspect the current research and development of gunpowder weapons in the Ming Dynasty.
Earlier, he had handed over the drawings of the tubular firearms to the firearms craftsmen, hoping that they would follow suit and build a successful artillery piece as soon as possible. Even an artillery piece that could only fire solid bullets would be extremely difficult for the current war model. major revolutionary changes.
Not to mention the army, equipping the navy with artillery capable of bombardment will basically put an end to the era of gang warfare.
Su Yonglin was busy with war and survival before, and was not very interested in firearms research and development. Apart from providing money and materials, he had no involvement in the development of firearms.
After occupying Zhongdu and basically stabilizing the situation, he allocated some energy to the research and development of firearms. At that time, he learned that the craftsmen had already experienced four failures.
It’s not that the craftsmen are not good at their craftsmanship. They used their ingenuity and technical skills to quickly create a tube-shaped firearm with an iron handle. The huge gun body, which is about three meters long, does look very powerful.
Then the craftsmen began to test the firing of iron bullets.
Fortunately, they remembered Su Yonglin's warning to stay away from the test site and find a bunker during the experiment, otherwise Su Yonglin wouldn't be able to wait until today to collect the corpses for these craftsmen.
To put it simply, it was three tragic failures without any surprise.
The first batch of five iron cannons exploded five times in a row. The blast was so complete that the sound was like thunder. The broken iron pieces even shattered a wooden observation tower, which scared everyone.
A piece of iron directly rubbed against the scalp of Qiu Yuan, the head of the firearms department, and flew over. Qiu Yuan was so frightened that his heart almost jumped out of his chest.
The explosive power of the gunpowder after Su Yonglin's transformation was greatly enhanced. The gunpowder craftsmen continued to improve the explosive performance of the gunpowder, but the iron cannon could not withstand such a powerful force and directly broke apart.
The first experiment declared a complete failure.
The craftsmen learned their lesson and knew that the iron they smelted was not strong enough, so they worked hard and used their iron-smelting technology to the extreme. They worked in shifts for several days and nights to smelt iron and cast the gun body, and soon created the second batch of five-gun cannons. door cannon, followed by trials.
Unsurprisingly, there were five consecutive explosions. The explosion was so thorough that it chilled most of the craftsmen's hearts.
They began to reflect on what was going on, what went wrong, how to improve their technology in casting iron cannons and how to improve the strength of iron. A group of veteran blacksmiths thought hard day and night, and even called blacksmiths from other departments to study together. .
After sufficient demonstration, they started the third operation, cast five iron cannons again, and continued testing.
It was still fried five times in a row, but it was less broken than the last time.
The craftsmen looked at the dilapidated test site and cried without tears.
They collectively frowned and thought about it.
Suddenly, Qiu Yuan, the head of the Firearms Department, remembered that Su Yonglin had told them that if iron didn't work, try using copper.
So at his suggestion, the Firearms Department seconded a group of copper and coppersmiths to assist the Firearms Department in casting. Because copper was relatively expensive, two doors were cast to test the effect.
Not to mention, the copper cannon made of copper was successfully fired, and the spherical iron bullet successfully hit the mountain where the test site was located, smashing a crater and coming out. It seemed to have a good effect.
The craftsmen were so excited that they hugged each other to celebrate, feeling that they had finally fulfilled their promise to Su Yonglin.
But at this time, Qiu Yuan raised a question.
"Copper is precious. It's used to make money. If we really have to use it to make cannon, it will be used by the infantry and the navy. If there are hundreds or thousands of guns without foundation, how much copper will be used? How much copper will we use? Is there any copper that can be used to make money?"
Craftsmen, you look at me and I look at you, but say nothing.
And they really don't know much about economic issues. They only care about technology and determine the feasibility of new gunpowder weapons from a technical level.
However, Qiu Yuan felt that such a report would definitely not be approved and would inevitably trigger some economic criticism. The Ministry of Finance would definitely not agree, so he still asked the craftsmen to try using iron.
The craftsmen tried hard to persuade Qiu Yuan, saying that the iron cannon was not good enough. They tried it three times and all of them exploded. When the iron cannon was taken out, the enemy had not been killed yet. They killed one of their own people first. What does this mean?
It's not that Qiu Yuan didn't know the key here, he just felt that the cost of casting the cannon with copper was too high, and it might be difficult for the Ming Dynasty to afford it given the current financial situation.
"I know it's not enough to just use iron, but I can't stand the use of copper. The court will definitely not agree to large-scale use of copper to cast cannons. Iron must be used."
When the two parties were arguing, a craftsman had a sudden idea.
"If you can't just use copper, why not try to use copper and iron together to cast the gun body? What do you think?"
Everyone on the spot looked at the craftsman with strange eyes, making him feel uncomfortable.
But I have to say that this is a brand new idea. Qiu Yuan thought about this proposal and felt that he had found a delicate balance between the effectiveness of firearms and the government's finances.
So he allowed the craftsmen to experiment.
The stall where Su Yonglin came to was when the Firearms Department decided to try to jointly cast the gun body with copper and iron. As for how to combine, they also found a preliminary direction-iron core copper body.
This is related to a physical property, that is, the melting point of copper is much lower than the melting point of iron.
The craftsmen do not know that this is a physical property, but they have experience, and long-term work has allowed them to master these experiences. With these experiences, they can find the correct method.
Although their efforts are still in progress at this time, they don't know when such a cannon will be completed.
When Su Yonglin came to see it, the cannon-casting work was still in progress.
