Luo Zhixue did not object to the officials below increasing the type and quantity of test-fired artillery.
Although he knew very well that they did this purely to attract their own attention, and then get their own praise, and ultimately to get promoted and make a fortune.
But this reflects a very good phenomenon.
That is the officials of the Ministry of Industry and the Military Ordnance Department. Whether they are military generals or civilian officials, they attach great importance to military technology and hope to gain promotion and wealth through military technology.
It's better than thinking about writing eight-legged essays and poems all day long to get promoted and make a fortune.
This also proves that Luo Zhixue has initially created a trend of attaching importance to the development of technology in the civil and military officialdom of the Great Chu Empire through his continuous emphasis and promotion of officials who have made achievements in the field of technology.
This is a good thing!
It was even what Luo Zhixue had been pursuing so hard before.
The strength of an empire requires not only soft power such as culture and economy, but also hard military power.
And where does military strength come from? In addition to human factors, money and food, another important factor is weapons and equipment.
Although war depends on people, people also need tools.
No matter how brave you are with swords and spears, you can't defeat the enemy with machine guns and artillery.
War, after all, is to kill as many enemies as possible while reducing your own casualties. If you die less and the enemy dies more, then you will naturally win.
Weapons and equipment are tools used by soldiers to protect themselves and kill the enemy.
In addition, the rise of the Chu Empire was too short, and the overall quality of the soldiers and officers was actually relatively limited. There were not many soldiers and middle and low-level officers who had fought for many years, had extremely rich war experience, and were used to seeing life and death.
The military quality of the mid-level and senior generals is actually very limited. At least so far, Luo Zhixue has not found anyone under him who embodies the style of a famous general.
There are only a few senior generals who have excellent military qualities, can carry out various surprise attacks, rush attacks, and have relatively flexible minds. They are all surrendered generals of the Ming army, such as He Renlong, Chen Yongfu and others.
As for the senior generals of the direct line trained by the Chu army themselves, all of them are mediocre. Even if they can lead troops to fight in a mediocre way, they are actually quite reluctant.
You must know that the staff system of the Da Chu Empire was originally designed to solve the problem of the tactical ability of senior generals and their poor coordination ability, so a group of staff officers were arranged to go over and check for deficiencies.
The staff system of the Dachu Empire is not complicated at all, it can even be said to be simple.
That is, one person's ability is limited and it is difficult to take into account all aspects, so a staff team composed of multiple people or even dozens of people is used. Different people are arranged in the staff team to be responsible for different affairs.
In specific operations, especially large-scale battles, it does not mean that senior generals can fight however they want at the first thought. Instead, they will formulate various complex and even cumbersome combat plans in advance, and conduct various operations according to different situations. Develop different backup plans.
Just like the previous eastward campaign, the general staff formulated more than a dozen strategic plans to deal with different situations.
And under each large scheme, there are dozens of different detailed schemes.
For example, when attacking Jiujiang City, what if we can't capture it for a long time, what if we capture it successfully, what if we capture it in advance, what if the casualties are too high, etc... The huge staff team at the General Staff Department prepared almost every enemy before the war. All conceivable possibilities are listed, and then corresponding response plans are formulated based on these possibilities.
Before the Eastward Campaign, the General Staff prepared dozens of large plans and hundreds of small plans, with enough documents to fill an entire room.
However, only a very small part of these tactical plans were ultimately used.
But you can't say that this is a wasted effort, because the huge number of options means that no matter what happens, there will be a corresponding plan to prevent the frontline troops from being confused.
After all, during the Eastward Campaign, senior generals above the division commanders strictly followed the strategic plans formulated by the staff, and never acted without authorization once.
The same is true when it comes to troops at the brigade, regiment, battalion and other levels.
Each main division of the Chu Army has a staff team. This staff team has as many as 20 or 30 people. The types are divided into: combat staff, logistics staff, transportation staff, communications staff, intelligence staff, etc.
Division-level staff teams develop detailed tactical plans, which are then handed over to subordinate units for execution.
In this way, although the officers of the subordinate units are not very good at personal abilities, they still have no problem executing the established plan step by step.
And these ultimately led to the Da Chu Empire Army appearing to be very dull when fighting.
Watching the Da Chu Empire Army fight is very boring, because they rarely make long-distance raids, and rarely engage in surprise attacks. Most of the time, they advance step by step. When they encounter a city, they don't do anything imaginary, they just go straight. storm.
Even the strong attack routine is very low-level...
First, build fortifications to prevent enemy forces from sneaking into the city. Then dig the fortifications and slowly approach them. After the fortifications are completed, use artillery to conduct intensive bombardment, and at the same time dig a tunnel for blasting and so on.
When the artillery force completely suppresses the enemy at the city head, or when the engineering force successfully blasts it, then the infantry force will launch a charge.
And the charge will always be a cookie-cutter commando, with double armored sword, shield and spearmen as the core, supplemented by musketeers/grenadiers, and will also carry a few two-hundred-pound guns used for close range direct fire. Short gun.
Even the Ming army was very familiar with the Chu army's siege routines, because the Chu army used the same set of tactics every time they attacked the city.
But... such a set of inflexible tactics with no sense of war art at all caused the Ming army on the opposite side to retreat steadily, losing all the way from Huguang to Jiangnan.
And this further strengthened Luo Zhixue's idea of fighting in vain.
It is to compete with the enemy's troops, guns, and logistics, and crush them with absolute superiority along the way.
Because the military quality of the middle and senior generals of the Great Chu Empire may be average, but the economic strength and industrial strength of the Great Chu Empire are strong enough.
The Great Chu Empire, which has occupied all the areas on the south bank of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and also occupied a northern Chu and part of the Jiangbei area, is equivalent to controlling most of the population and food production in the Huaxia region.
At the same time, the Chu Empire also had a preliminary industrial system that had developed on its own. Well, although this industrial system was still at the stage of water power and primitive mechanical equipment, strictly speaking, it was no different from the handicraft industry of these days.
But the primitive industrial system of the Da Chu Empire was large enough!
Just one Hantian Arsenal has nearly 100,000 workers.
This does not include other surrounding factories in the Daye area that provide various supporting facilities for the Hantian Arsenal. If we do include them, the number would be at least 150,000, which is several times more than the original population of Daye County. .
In the Hantianfu Daye Industrial Base alone, there are more than 150,000 workers working directly or indirectly for the military industry.
In addition, the Chu Empire also had the Xiangyang Arsenal, the Changsha Arsenal, and the Taipingfu Arsenal under construction.
Surrounding these three arsenals, there is also a complete set of supporting factories.
All these added up, the Chu Empire's various ordnance production capacity reached a level unimaginable by an ordinary feudal country.
Among them, the iron production capacity alone has reached more than 40,000 tons in a large iron smelting plant. In the late Ming Dynasty, according to unreliable data, the national iron production capacity was only about 40,000 to 50,000 tons.
A large iron smelting plant was enough to rival the iron production capacity of the entire late Ming Dynasty.
In addition to the large iron smelting plants, the Dachu Empire also successively established a number of medium and small-scale iron plants in other places with iron ore or places where charcoal is convenient for transportation, such as Xiangyang Iron Plant and Changsha Iron Plant. Wait, these forest types can add up to several thousand tons.
Not to mention, the Chu Empire is currently planning to build a new large-scale iron smelting plant in Dangtu County, Taiping Prefecture, to develop and smelt the iron ore in Ma'anshan, Dangtu County. A large iron smelting plant that is no weaker than a large smelting iron plant.
In a few years, it is very possible that the Dachu Empire's iron production capacity will exceed 100,000 tons.
Even the steel production capacity is very large. Although the technology is still the old-fashioned steel frying and other techniques, a large amount of water power is used, and if the technology is not good, the scale is increased. The production capacity is increased simply by increasing the scale. The steel production capacity of the Dachu Empire is also It is very considerable and more than enough to meet military needs.
Steel is the foundation of a country's industry. The production capacity of steel can basically reflect its industrial strength.
The industrial strength of the Da Chu Empire was undoubtedly able to defeat the Ming Dynasty and even any country in the contemporary era.
It's not because the Chu Empire's technology is so advanced, it's simply because the Chu Empire controls a large enough population, money and food, and the demand is large enough to have the confidence to simply increase the scale and increase production capacity.
In terms of money, food, and industrial strength, even though the Great Chu Empire was only newly established two years ago, its comprehensive national strength is actually enough to defeat the Ming Dynasty or the Eastern Diaspora, or even any country or force in East Asia.
Such comprehensive national strength gave Luo Zhixue enough confidence to continue to implement the strategy of promotion.
In this kind of flat push strategy, weapons naturally become very important.
And when Luo Zhixue saw the row of artillery pieces of different sizes and sizes on the riverside, he couldn't help but smile.
The subsequent artillery test firing did not disappoint Luo Zhixue. The lowly ministers were all human beings, so it was naturally impossible for Luo Zhixue to make any mistakes in the test firing when he was about to inspect it in person.
The artillery is carefully selected and maintained, and the gun crew members are all selected from the elite artillery crew. Even the propellant and shells used are carefully selected and of the highest quality.
Under such circumstances, the entire test firing was successfully completed. After watching the test firing, Luo Zhixue gave a small speech on the spot, once again emphasizing the importance of the national defense industry, and rewarding some of the craftsmen who had contributed to the research and development of the artillery.
Ordinary rewards are nothing. Dai Xinhan, the chief engineer of the key Hantian Heavy Artillery Factory, was awarded the title of 'Viscount'.
"The Romance of Fairy Wood"
This shocked my jaw!
People knew that Luo Zhixue valued technology, but they didn't expect that he would attach so much importance to it that he would grant a noble title to a mere craftsman!
