Gao Pragmatic's plan for the reform of the Ming Army was "step-by-step" like other reform plans. The main idea was to first ensure the advantage of light weapons firepower, and then consider heavy firepower.
Of course, this idea is not a decision made on the head, but based on the problems that have arisen in history.
The power of heavy artillery such as the Hongyi Cannon was indeed huge in this era, but in the historical Ming-Jin wars, their effect on the Ming side was actually very limited.
If the Hongyi cannon is used in field battles, it is heavy and heavy, inconvenient to transport, and the damage is concentrated in a small area. It cannot play a big role in the face of flexible cavalry; if it is used to defend a city, its real effect is not actually The killing efficiency lies in boosting morale. If the morale of the Ming army does not collapse as it did in history and has been beaten to the point where they dare not take the lead, then even without this cannon, it can actually hold on.
And if Houjin adopts a long-term siege strategy, then even the Hongyi cannon will be useless. Although in this case, it will actually return to the ultra-low efficiency of sieges in the cold weapon era, but as long as it can be won, it can still be proved The Hongyi cannon itself is of little significance for defending the city.
Historically, Zu Dashou defended Daling River and Jinzhou, besieged the city twice, and finally surrendered. He only gave a large number of well-made Hongyi cannons to Hou Jin in vain.
There is a record of this in the history of Chinese firearms: “The heavily-armed Ming army from Zu Dashou’s tribe, which had been besieged in the Daling River for nearly a hundred days, surrendered in Kaicheng in October of the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631) because the food in the city was exhausted. Dashou was defeated and fled to Jinzhou. According to a report from the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty on November 19th of that year, there were 3,500 artillery pieces of various types such as red barbarian artillery, prisoner-killing artillery, and general artillery in the city, as well as various military guns, miscellaneous firearms, A large amount of gunpowder and projectiles were all owned by the Hou Jin Army."
Yes, you read that right, that’s 3,500 artillery pieces of various types!
Even for modern warfare, this is a quite large number. As a result, due to the idea of containing an isolated city implemented by Yuan Chonghuan, Sun Chengzong and others, which is the so-called stupid suicide strategy of "relying on a strong city and using cannons", such a huge scale The artillery cluster was given to Hou Jin for nothing!
These cannons were of little significance for defending the city, but once they fell into the hands of Hou Jin, they became the most powerful helper in breaking the city. The Ming Dynasty was equivalent to spending a lot of money to manufacture and give them to Hou Jin. The sharpest weapon in your city.
Well, it is true that there is Kaishen Logistics behind us and Yuan Yuan in front of us.
During the Battle of Songjin during the Chongzhen period, Jinzhou was besieged. The Ming Dynasty had to let Hong Chengchou take all his belongings: an army of 130,000 to aid Jinzhou, but was besieged by Hou Jin to rescue Jinzhou. The siege of Jinzhou was not solved, and these ten The last tens of thousands of mobile troops and field groups were actually besieged in Songshan.
When attacking Tashan in the final stage of the Battle of Songjin, Prince Jierhalang and Dorobele Duduo, princes of Heshuo Zheng in the Qing Dynasty, ordered the Qing army to line up red barbarian artillery in the west of Tashan City. On the eighth day of April, Hong Yi artillery was used to blast the city wall. The next day, the city wall was blown open by more than 20 feet. The Qing army's infantry and cavalry swarmed in and wiped out more than 7,000 Ming troops from three battalions in the city. At dawn on April 21, the Qing army bombarded Xingshan City with Hongyi artillery, destroying 25 feet of the city wall, and the Ming army surrendered in Kaicheng.
So you see, facts have proven that heavy artillery is so unreliable in doing these things. The so-called cannons fight mosquitoes, and that's nothing more than that.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic always insisted that the most needed weapons for the Ming Dynasty to fight the cavalry in the north were not the heavy and difficult-to-transport Hongyi cannons, but mines, grenades, and various types of infantry muskets with fast firing rates and large areas of damage. , there are also single-stage multi-shot rockets with Ming characteristics and various flexible and mobile light artillery.
These firearms have always been the strengths of Ming Dynasty firearms, and some are even far ahead of the West at the same time. If the Ming Dynasty, with limited financial resources, could maximize the power of these local firearms and continuously improve and innovate, then it would be the biggest threat to Hou Jin.
Even if we don’t improve the advanced muskets that we are pragmatically striving for, we will just further improve mines, thief-killing grenades (hand grenades), and various flamethrowers to increase their power and ease of use, equip troops on a large scale, and strengthen border defense. , strengthening the individual combat capabilities is enough to make the Houjin cavalry unable to eat, but it is much more practical than heavy artillery.
Under difficult conditions and crude equipment, Mao Wenlong's mere skill in using landmines had already caused heavy damage to Hou Jin, causing him to complain endlessly. If this type of weapon is fully strengthened and widely used, it is conceivable that Houjin will have no chance to jump around.
What is the most artillery piece equipped by Qi Jiguang to the Qi family army in history? The Tiger Crouching Cannon is a light artillery, not a heavy artillery like the Hongyi Cannon.
Therefore, only the one that suits you is the best. Greed for the big and the fierce, that is the guiding ideology of naval artillery. How can the army copy this operation?
Having said that, we have to improve the second stage of pragmatic development of artillery: army heavy artillery and naval heavy artillery.
Of course, high pragmatism for things like heavy artillery does not mean that they will not be developed, but that they will only become the main development direction after light artillery is enough to form a crushing advantage in at least the Greater East Asia (which can also be called the Greater China sphere of influence).
And even so, the highly pragmatic heavy artillery development plan did not allocate too heavy a share to the army's heavy artillery, because there was not much demand in this area - he could not think of any strong city fortress within the Greater China sphere of influence that contained Hongyi artillery. It can't be taken down, let alone the improved Hongyi cannon of the Ming Dynasty.
In his plan, heavy artillery was mainly deployed in two directions:
The first is naval ship-borne heavy artillery, which is the only way for the development of the navy. Especially in a few years, Western colonists will set off a craze for Eastern colonization. At that time, once the two navies come into battle, they will not only compete with ships, sailors, and commanders, but also the power and effectiveness of heavy artillery. Therefore, naval ship-borne heavy artillery We must keep up with the development of China and must not fall behind, otherwise we will suffer big losses.
The second is coastal defense fortress heavy artillery, which is one of the key weapons for the development of coastal defense. Why was Lushun Military Port praised as a natural naval "holy port" by some military fans in history? The reason is that the terrain advantage of Laohwei in Lushunkou is too great. After the fortress artillery is built in Laohwei and Jinshan Mountain, the fortress artillery firepower on the east and west sides can completely block the entry and exit of Lushun Military Port. Even if the own fleet is at a disadvantage and cannot leave the port to fight, but As long as both sides of Tiger Tail are blocked, the enemy ships in the outer sea can only be dumbfounded and look at the harbor and sigh.
The performance of the Japanese army in history also proves this point, especially during the Russo-Japanese War. Under the premise that the Russian army was unlucky and unlucky, the Japanese army fought around a Lushun military port that was cut off from foreign aid for nearly a whole year.
The premise for all this is the fortress artillery position.
