After the Fourth Division captured the Jiangbei area of Yingtianfu, which was Jiangpu City across the Yangtze River from Jinling City, it took advantage of the situation to capture Liuhe, which was almost abandoned by the Ming army.
As a result, the Ming army was initially completely expelled from the Ming army on the north bank of the Yangtze River in Jinling City. There was no need to worry about the Ming army setting up heavy artillery directly on the edge of the Yangtze River, directly bombarding the Yangtze River in the Jinling City area, and even directly praised the bombardment of Jinling. City.
Well, when the Ming army was on the north bank of the Yangtze River, they would secretly set up artillery to bombard the Yangtze River outside Jinling City. The actual damage was not much, but it was extremely insulting.
Now that the Fourth Division has successfully captured the Jiangpu area on the north bank of the Yangtze River, it can better ensure the strategic security of Jinling City. To this end, the Chu Empire has also set up a Xinjiang defense fort in the north of the Yangtze River, at the Yuejiang Tower on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Opposite the fort, four fourteen-pound heavy cannons and eight nine-pound heavy cannons were deployed.
In this way, there will be a fort on the north and south banks of the Yangtze River in the east of Jinling City, collectively known as the Jinling East Fort. The entire Jinling East Fort is deployed with ten 14-pound heavy cannons and 22 artillery pieces of various types from 5 to 10 kilograms.
A total of thirty-two heavy guns.
In order to ensure the safety of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and prevent the Ming Dynasty navy from threatening the safety of Jinling City along the river, the Chu Empire not only built river defense forts in Jinling City, but also built river defense forts in Qishan, Zhenjiang Prefecture, Jiangyin, Changzhou Prefecture, and Wusong, Songjiang Prefecture. Forts were built in these three places.
Although the Jiangfang Fort in Zhenjiang Prefecture was built not long ago, it formed combat effectiveness very quickly. Just a few days after the Chu Army captured Zhenjiang, the Chu Army had already built a simple fort here and deployed more than ten troops. Subsequently, a batch of more than 20 artillery pieces were specially deployed to reinforce the area. At present, the Zhenjiang Fort has a total of more than 30 artillery pieces.
The firepower density is no worse than that of Jinling Fort, but these forts still exist as field artillery positions for the time being, and their defensive capabilities are slightly worse.
Jiangyin Fort in Changzhou Prefecture, because the river is narrow and the terrain is relatively good, it is more suitable for building a large river defense fortress.
Therefore, here the Chu army not only wanted to build a large river defense fort, but also built a large fortress for ground attack, and even planned to open a naval base behind Jiangyin.
This is a large comprehensive fortress that can simultaneously attack the river, resist ground attacks, and garrison naval warships.
In the minds of the senior officials of the Da Chu Empire, the importance of Jiangyin Fort was even greater than that of Zhenjiang East Fort and even Jinling East Fort.
This place is the best strategic location to blockade the Yangtze River and prevent enemy warships from moving up the river.
Therefore, the design scale of Jiangyin Fort is very large. It is expected to build hundreds of gun emplacements, and most of them will be heavy artillery emplacements.
Even many gun positions are designed and built according to the 18-pound heavy artillery and even the 24-pound heavy artillery that are still under development.
It's just that the entire project will be very large, and the Chu Empire's heavy artillery production capacity is currently limited. It is estimated that even in this tense war period, it will take at least one year.
Therefore, for the time being, Jiangyin Fort is the same as Zhenjiang Fort. It is said to be a fort, but in fact it is a field artillery position...
There are quite a few artillery pieces, more than forty in total. This is mainly due to the Navy's efforts and the use of some of the artillery pieces for the fort.
Finally, there is the Wusong Fort in Songjiang Prefecture. This fort is a bit special because it is not actually used to block the Yangtze River.
This place is already the estuary of the Yangtze River. The entire estuary is tens of kilometers wide. Even if we only count Wusong Fort to Chongming Island opposite, it is more than ten kilometers wide.
In terms of the effective range of contemporary artillery, it is simply impossible to block such a wide river surface.
This Wusong Fort was actually used to blockade the Huangpu River in Songjiang Prefecture, preventing enemy warships from entering the hinterland of Songjiang Prefecture along the Huangpu River, and then along the water network deep into the hinterland of Jiangnan.
For this reason, the Great Chu Empire built the Wusong Fort here, and like the Jiangyin Fort, also built a garrison fortress, garrisoning thousands of troops.
The Fourth Infantry Regiment of the First Division, the core main force of the Da Chu Empire Army, is stationed here.
The above-mentioned four large-scale river defense forts in Jinling City, Zhenjiang, Jiangyin, and Wusong are the efforts made by the Chu army in recent months to build Yangtze River defense.
For this reason, the Chu Empire spent a lot of manpower and material resources.
The manpower is okay. Everything is lacking these days, except for people. When the Chu Empire marched eastward, it captured a large number of prisoners of war, some of whom were selected and reorganized into garrison soldiers, but most of them were incorporated into various Various settlement camps and construction camps.
And because there is not much wasteland in the Jiangnan area that can be cultivated and developed, and there are many places that need construction, such as palaces, major forts, barracks, etc., many of them have been incorporated into construction camps.
In addition to these construction camps directly controlled by the military, there are actually a large number of young and strong civilians available among the people who are hungry and come to work as long as they are given a mouthful of food.
For example, of the more than 10,000 workers building the Wusong Fort, half were young men employed locally.
And the wages were very low, three meals a day, two dry meals and one porridge...and then it was gone!
As for extra wages, don't expect it.
However, there are still a lot of people coming to work!
Especially during the slack season, these young men and women come to work not to make money, but simply to eat and reduce the burden of food rations on their families.
The Da Chu Empire not only did this when building forts on the Wusong River, but also carried out other large-scale projects in other places. It would recruit idle young people in the countryside to carry out construction on a large scale during slack seasons. On the one hand, it was to reduce labor costs. On the other hand, it is also to fill the stomachs of young people during the slack period by doing odd jobs, so as to save some food rations for the family.
Even on weekdays, there will be some young people who can't survive to work.
Because labor costs are very low, when the Chu Empire built the four major forts, they did not spend much money on labor. However, it was a little more troublesome to supply these workers with food. This trouble did not mean that there was no food, but that it was more troublesome to transport food. .
As far as food is concerned, this is not a problem for the Chu Empire, which controls the important grain-producing areas in the Yangtze River Basin.
Since the occupation of northern Chu, the Chu Empire officials have never been short of food.
Chubei, Chunan, Jiangxi, northern and central Jiangxi, Jiangnan, and northern Zhejiang.
Take a look at the places occupied by the Chu Empire. Every one of them is a land of plenty and plenty in the traditional sense.
It's just that these grains are scattered all over the place. The Dachu Empire uses taxation to let the people transport the taxed grains to the tax office in the town.
The local tax office will hand over the collected grain to the Finance Department on the spot and put it under the jurisdiction of the national treasury, and record it at a discount based on the official grain purchase price.
This is why when the Dachu Empire levied agricultural taxes, they levied physical taxes, but when statistics were collected, they were calculated in silver taels.
The grain included in the financial departments of various regions will be separated from other materials included in the national treasury and handed over to the Grain Reserves Department for storage or sale or for salary distribution.
After a large amount of food is concentrated in various counties, part of it will be sold locally to supply the local non-agricultural population.
Others will be transported to places where food is scarce, such as prefectures and provincial capitals with a larger non-agricultural population, but these are normal business practices.
Others will be reserved in official warehouses in various places to serve as strategic reserve grains to meet emergency food needs for famines or other needs, and these grains will be replaced with new grains every year in accordance with regulations.
Finally, there are some parts that are more convenient to transport, especially places close to the Yangtze River. The grain in these places is often concentrated in warehouses at docks along the river, and then further shipped to various places, whether it is used as military grain, food relief, or It is supplied to cities in other provinces and so on.
There is a complete set of processes from grain collection to transportation management by the Grain Storage Department.
However, even so, the transportation cost of food is not small, especially in places where river transportation is not convenient, there is simply no way to transport food on a large scale.
The cost is too high!
Fortunately, after the Chu Empire advanced eastward, it obtained a large amount of local food in the Jiangnan region. At the same time, the water network in the Jiangnan region is very good. Even if it is difficult to use the Yangtze River Basin in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it can still be connected through other water networks, especially the Jiangnan Canal. There are many cities in the south of the Yangtze River, and the Jiangnan Canal can pass through the East Zhejiang Canal and continue to extend eastward, connecting all the way to Ningbo.
If we also include the many large and small streams and lakes connected to the canal, it can basically cover most of the south of the Yangtze River.
Through shipping, the Chu Empire was not only able to quickly mobilize ammunition and troops to various places in the south of the Yangtze River and even to the Zhejiang region, but it was also able to use the Jiangnan water network to collect a lot of money and food in the south of the Yangtze River.
And this is why the Chu Empire built large-scale forts in Wusong, Jiangyin, and Zhenjiang.
The Wusong Fort was built to prevent the Ming Dynasty Navy from entering the Huangpu River and further damaging the Jiangnan water network and transportation network.
Jiangyin Fort and Zhenjiang Fort, they can guard the Yangtze River, and then block the Ming Dynasty Navy from continuing to break into the Zhenjiang area unscrupulously, and then destroy the life of the Yangtze River-Jiangnan Canal of the Great Chu Empire Transportation lines.
For the Ming Dynasty, Zhenjiang was an important node in water transportation, because after the grain was collected in Zhenjiang through the Jiangnan Canal, it then passed through the Yangtze River to Yangzhou on the north bank and entered the Hangzhou section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal.
Similarly, for the Chu Empire that occupied the south of the Yangtze River and began to penetrate into Zhejiang, Zhenjiang was also a transportation artery and a strategic node.
A large amount of materials, especially weapons and ammunition, will arrive in Zhenjiang via the Yangtze River, and then be distributed from here through the Jiangnan Canal to various places in the south of the Yangtze River and even Zhejiang.
Similarly, a large amount of money and grain will be collected into Zhenjiang through the Jiangnan Water Network-Jiangnan Canal, and then transported back to Jinling City or other places through the Yangtze River.
Zhenjiang, for today's Chu Empire, is a strategically important place that cannot be missed.
For this reason, the Chu Empire built a fort in Zhenjiang and deployed thousands of troops here.
If it is purely for Jiangyin defense, it is actually more suitable on the Jiangyin side. The reason why forts are still built in Zhejiang is because Yangzhou opposite Zhenjiang is still under the control of the Ming army, and the Ming army on the Yangzhou side still has naval forces. .
If we don't build a fort, the navy of the Ming Army will come and hang out in three days, and there will be no water transportation in Zhenjiang.
The above-mentioned four river defense forts are considered a big project even for the Chu Empire. This does not mean that the infrastructure is difficult to build, even if the plan includes river defense forts, important defenses, and naval bases, all three in one. Jiangyin Fortress.
Even though the civil engineering project is huge, the actual cost will not be too high. If we work harder, it will probably be completed within the next year.
But the real problem is not here, but the artillery above.
Generally speaking, the artillery in these Jiang defense forts is naturally all long-barreled heavy artillery.
A nine-pound cannon is too small. It is best to use a fourteen-pound or even eighteen-pound, twenty-four-pound and other heavy cannon.
However, the production of these heavy cannons is limited!
To be honest, before the Eastward Campaign and even before the capture of Jinling City, neither the military nor the Ministry of Industry of the Great Chu Empire paid much attention to the research, development and production of large-caliber long-barreled cannons.
Because the total artillery production capacity of Hantian Arsenal and Xiangyang Arsenal was limited. At that time, the arsenals affiliated to the Ministry of Industry even manufactured very few nine-pound naval guns and fourteen-pound naval guns used by the navy. Most of their production capacity was Used to produce two-and-a-half-pound, five-pound, and nine-pound field guns.
Before the launch of the Eastward Campaign, there were only four fourteen-pound heavy artillery produced in the entire Chu Empire!
Moreover, these four fourteen-pound naval guns were originally intended for use on large battleships scheduled by the Navy. However, later the large battleships disappeared, and the army's need to attack fortresses in the Eastward Campaign was so these four fourteen-pound naval guns were installed. It was mounted on a field gun mount and was used by the army as a heavy siege artillery on the spot.
Later, he was pulled down and used as a heavy artillery for Jiang defense on the Yuejianglou fort.
After capturing Jinling City, facing the situation where the Ming navy could attack at any time and the navy was not powerful enough, the Chu Empire felt deeply embarrassed for the first time with Jiang Wufang.
After the Battle of Jinling, Luo Zhixue personally issued an order requesting the Ministry of Industry to accelerate the development and production of large-caliber long-barreled artillery.
In this way, the Dachu Empire began large-scale research and development and production of heavy artillery.
The nine-pound naval gun production line and the fourteen-pound naval gun production line at the Hantian Arsenal were separately divided, and a heavy artillery factory was established to distinguish them from the original artillery factory.
In the future, Hantian Artillery Factory will focus on the research, development and production of various field artillery.
The heavy artillery factory will specialize in the research and development and production of various types of artillery for fortresses and battleships.
The reason why they are specially separated is that apart from the fact that they are both artillery, they are very different in other aspects, and even have many conflicting performance requirements for artillery.
For example, the artillery used in the Jiangfang Fort is naturally a cannon that can shoot farther and be more powerful. As for the weight and maneuverability, these can be basically ignored!
This is in conflict with the fact that the Army's field artillery attaches great importance to maneuverability and sacrifices power and range for this purpose.
In order not to interfere with each other, and as the artillery factory became larger and larger and its management became more and more bloated, the Ministry of Industry simply divided the artillery factory under Hantian Arsenal into two, setting up Hantian Artillery Factory and Hantian Heavy Duty Factory respectively. Artillery factory.
However, the above two factories are still directly under the jurisdiction of Hantian Arsenal to facilitate the coordination of various resources.
After several months of hard work, Hantian Heavy Artillery Factory finally produced its results. It not only greatly increased the production capacity of nine-pound cannons and fourteen-pound cannons, but also manufactured four eighteen-pound cannons.
Now, the transport ship transporting these four 18-pound cannons has arrived at the Jinling City Pier and is waiting for the cooperation of the navy escort ship. After the navy escort ship arrives, the transport ship will continue south to Zhenjiang and wait.
Waiting for a suitable safe time to avoid the Ming Navy that was still active in the waters east of Zhenjiang, transport these four cannons to the Jiangyin Fortress.
While the transport ship was anchored at the Jinling City dock, Luo Zhixue also took the time to take a look.
After all, this is the most powerful cannon built by the Chu Empire and even in the history of China. When the first prototype of the cannon was produced for test firing, Luo Zhixue was unable to go there in person because the distance was too far. Saw it.
Now, it would be good to take a look at the dock.
As for the lowly people, after learning that Luo Zhixue was going to the dock to check out the batch of heavy artillery shipped to Jiangyin Fort, and became very interested in the eighteen-pound cannon among them.
It turned out that they organized people overnight to hoist an 18-pound artillery gun off the ship, and then pulled it to the open space next to the dock, hoping to give Luo Zhi a test firing performance...
Obviously, this must have been done by relevant officials from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Ordnance. They just wanted Luo Zhixue to be rewarded with a generous reward after seeing the test firing...
Luo Zhixue didn't say much about their little thoughts.
Although he did not plan to watch the test firing at first, he only went to the ship to take a look at the real thing. In addition to satisfying his own curiosity, it was more to show that he attached great importance to heavy artillery and let the civil and military officials below also pay attention to it.
After all, in the future, Jiang defense and warships will be inseparable from these heavy artillery.
But since my subordinates have pulled out all the artillery, let's take a look at the test firing.
When they arrived at the open space next to the dock on the outskirts of the eastern city, the military had surrounded and sealed off the entire area.
When Luo Zhixue arrives here, it is expected that the artillery participating in the test firing will be not only one 18-pound heavy cannon, but also a 14-pound heavy cannon and two nine-pound heavy cannon.
In addition, the army also temporarily brought in several nine-pound and five-pound field guns and some mortars to make up the number.
