Flintlock muskets are actually now available in military equipment in Europe. Even in the 1920s, Sweden began to use flintlock muskets on a large scale. However, the technology of flintlock muskets at that time was not very good and the firing rate was relatively low.
The Swedes used this early flintlock gun purely because they lacked excellent matchlocks and matchlocks in the country. They were forced to use early flintlock guns... and they did not engage in line combat at that time, and they did not have bayonets. This thing, so the early flintlock gun actually had no advantages over the matchlock gun, but had a lot of disadvantages.
Therefore, after the 1930s, after the Swedes solved the problem of the source of matchlocks, they did not hesitate to abandon the early flintlocks originally equipped. Most of the musketeers re-equipped with matchlocks, leaving only a few special units. Still in use.
However, after entering the 1940s, technology continued to advance, and today European countries have begun to use flintlock muskets on a large scale. At the end of the Thirty Years' War, the armies of many European countries were equipped with flintlock muskets, but they were still not fully equipped with flintlock muskets. Replaces the matchlock gun.
In Europe during this period, flintlocks and matchlocks were mixed and could not be completely unified. The main reason was that the Europeans' craftsmanship was flawed, and the firing rate of the flintlocks produced was still relatively low.
At the same time, bayonets and line tactics were not introduced on a large scale, which had a greater impact on the popularization of flintlock equipment.
Bayonets and line tactics are the key to demonstrating the advantages of the flintlock gun. Without these two things, the flintlock gun is actually not as useful as the matchlock gun.
During this period, Europeans still used flintlocks as matchlocks and continued to mix them with spearmen. However, the number of spearmen has been greatly reduced. From one to one in the 1920s, it has developed Now it's two to one or even three to one.
As a Zhungeer who communicates frequently with the outside world, has direct contact with Russia, and has received support from Russia, they naturally obtained flintlock guns through some channels, not to mention some flintlock guns equipped by Europeans with low firing rates. Even the two-year-old flintlock guns equipped by the Chu army, they actually obtained a small amount through some underground channels.
In fact, they also tried to imitate the Chu army's flintlock gun, but they couldn't imitate it... Some other detailed improvements could be made, such as the windproof cover, bayonet, ruler, and butt. These things can actually be imitated. Copy it like this.
Back then, the Ming army and the Dongji people could copy the matchlock guns of the Chu army. Now it is not surprising that Zhungeer copied the flintlock guns of the Chu army.
But there's one thing they can't copy, and that's the bullet!
In fact, the biggest difference between the Dachu Empire's flintlock guns and European flintlock guns is the bolt, and the biggest difference in the bolt is the bullet.
The Da Chu Empire used short bullets, while the bolts on the flintlock guns of European countries used long bullets...
Why are there one long and one short... because of the material problem.
The Da Chu Empire spent huge sums of money and used countless manpower and material resources to develop bullets specially for flintlock guns that were tougher, allowing relatively short bullets to be used as firing power and generating enough sparks to ignite the gunpowder.
As for their European counterparts, there is obviously no country or large enterprise that has spent huge sums of money and convened technical personnel to develop better springs, so they can only use springs with poorer performance in order to ensure the strength of the springs as much as possible. , their elastics tend to be longer.
Just such a small gadget difference directly led to a huge performance gap between the Dachu Empire and European flintlock guns, with a relatively large difference in firing rates.
This also led to the Chu army daring to fully equip flintlock muskets, while their European counterparts could only hesitate and hesitate, and did not have the courage to fully equip flintlock muskets.
This is true for the European armies, let alone Zhungeer. It is even more impossible for them to solve the technical problems of flintlock guns. It is simply impossible for them to fully equip flintlock guns on the same scale as the Dachu Empire.
If they really deployed immature flintlock muskets on a large scale, they would not directly use matchlocks when fighting.
This... is also the reason why the Manchu and Qing dynasties did not equip flintlock guns on a large scale in history. It's not that they didn't want to, and they are not stupid. Even if the Han Dynasty is not used by the Green Camp, it can be used by the Eight Banners...
The reason why it is not used is actually very simple. The technology is too poor and the flintlock gun made is not easy to use.
This was reflected in the Qing-Burma War and the Zhungeer Counter-Rebellion War. The Qing army actually tried to use flintlock guns on the front line several times. However, the performance was too poor and the actual combat performance was even worse. The front-line generals would rather use matchlock guns than use them. Flintlock gun!
The Qing army actually knew that flintlock guns were useful, but they couldn't do anything with them... Coupled with the advantages of artillery or cavalry, and the huge Chinese population behind them, they could fight with matchlock guns. win.
Once the war is over... Now that the war is over, why bother with a flintlock gun for free? Wouldn’t it be nice to go home and sleep with your little wife?
As a result, the development and replacement of flintlock guns was delayed time and time again...
Then accidentally, several decades passed, and he was raped by an old British teacher during the First Opium War.
This is also a common problem in the bureaucracy of feudal dynasties: muddle along.
If you don't get beaten, you won't even think about improving your weapons and equipment in advance. When the war starts, oh my god, you will remember to update your weapons and equipment, and it's already too late.
And with the continuous advancement of technology, advanced weapons and equipment cannot be developed in a short period of time, so they fall behind step by step.
————
The Dachu Empire was ambitious, so it never fell behind in weapons research and development. Even after the domestic unification war ended and the East was annihilated, domestic weapon research and development still did not stop.
The Thirteen Years Type flintlock gun was successfully developed and put into service. This is the result of many years of continuous research and development.
In addition to the 13-year-old flintlock, the defense industry of the Great Chu Empire has also continued to introduce a series of new weapons and equipped the military in these years.
The core of it is artillery.
The artillery technology of the Chu army was actually not very good in the early days. Although the casting technology of the field guns used a lot of mechanical production, it was essentially not much different from the previous technology.
The real innovation is the successful development and use of grenades. The grenades using wooden holders and wooden fuses have become the Chu army's big killer. They began to be used during the Unification War. Now they have become an indispensable weapon for the Chu army. The important thing missing is the bullet weight.
In terms of artillery production technology, especially in chemistry, certain breakthroughs have been made, which has also led to certain breakthroughs in Chu Army's material technology and processing technology.
They are also bronze artillery, but the performance of the bronze artillery produced by the Chu Army has been greatly improved compared to the past, mainly due to the progress in bronze materials and the huge progress in the technology of processing the artillery.
Because bronze is essentially a copper alloy, and copper alloys with different proportions have relatively large differences in performance. Based on years of repeated tests, the researchers of the Dachu Empire have now developed bronze alloys with greatly improved performance. The magnitude exceeds that of older bronze alloys.
At the same time, the continued prominence of high-strength ferroalloy materials has also led to greater progress in mechanical equipment, which has enabled large-scale mechanical equipment to process artillery to achieve higher efficiency and higher processing accuracy.
The final manifestation of these is that the bronze artillery newly developed and produced by the Chu Army is already much better in performance than the bronze artillery during the Domestic Unification War. It has excellent maximum range, terminal kinetic energy, shooting accuracy and weight. progress.
The most typical one is the 12-year-old 115mm field gun that Chengshun successfully developed in 12 years and began to equip the army.
This is also the first newly installed artillery piece after the Chu Empire military carried out a comprehensive reform of artillery models and changed the classification of artillery from shell weight to caliber.
Due to the large-scale equipment and use of grenades, it has become complicated and unintuitive to continue to use shell weight as the standard to distinguish artillery types. For example, the 18-pound howitzer actually fires a howitzer that does not weigh 18 pounds...
Even if it is a solid cannonball, its weight will be different due to changes in materials.
Therefore, in the early years, there was a saying within the Chu army that artillery was divided by caliber. Twelve years after Chengshun, they began to use new numbers on newly developed artillery, and changed the old artillery to new numbers.
However, due to issues of habit, many people still use how many kilograms of artillery verbally.
However, in official documents, the division method of year + caliber + type has now begun to be used.
The 12-year-old 115mm field gun is the first new type of artillery with a new serial number. It is positioned as the main artillery of the division and is used to replace a large number of old nine-pound field guns. Well, the nine-pound field guns are also 115mm caliber. , both actually belong to the same type of artillery.
The 12-year-old 115mm field gun uses a new bronze alloy material for the barrel, and a higher-strength, lower-weight iron-carbon alloy gun frame. Well, it is actually steel.
In terms of barrel processing, a new type of hydrodynamic large-scale shuttle is used to process the inner wall, making the inner wall smoother and more precise.
Coupled with specially produced high-precision artillery shells, the sealing performance will be better, the kinetic energy will be more sufficient, the range will be longer, the power will be greater, and the accuracy will be higher.
The most important thing is that because the new materials have better performance, they can be lighter while ensuring the same range and power.
So just looking at the surface, there is not much difference between the 12-year-old 115mm field gun and the early production and service Jiujin field gun. They both have a gun mount and a gun barrel. However, the actual performance gap is large, and they are not two items. The performance gap of one item, but the performance gap of all aspects.
Also produced and equipped with new materials and new processes are the 12-year-old 90mm field gun and the 12-year-old 65mm field gun. These two kinds of artillery are equivalent to the previous five-pound field gun and two-pound field gun. Semi-field gun.
The above three types are also the current main field artillery of the Chu army.
There are also howitzers, the 13-year-old 115mm light howitzer and the 13-year-old 150 light howitzer, which also use new materials and new processes. These two howitzers are the main howitzers of the Chu Army Division and focus on lightweight design.
It can be said that starting in the twelfth year of Chengshun, the Chu army began to use a series of new bronze artillery. After all, breakthroughs in materials and process technology could be quickly applied to all bronze artillery.
In addition to these conventional division artillery, the Chu army also has many heavy artillery that have also adopted these new technologies.
Including the independent heavy artillery force using the 14-year-old 130mm cannon, the 14-year-old 170mm howitzer, and the 14-year-old 200mm howitzer. These artillery are generally not used in field battles, but are mainly used for sieges. After all, they are relatively heavy.
However, the new bronze craftsmanship and technology are mainly applicable to the Army. After all, bronze artillery is more expensive, and the Army's artillery pursues lightweight. At the same time, a larger number of Army artillery are also small and medium-caliber artillery, which does not use much material, so they are used Bronze cannon.
For the Army, before steel cannons appear and are used on a large scale, bronze artillery is the best solution, except that it is expensive and has no disadvantages.
As for the navy, they are gradually using iron-cast artillery, mainly of the caliber of naval artillery. They use a lot of materials. If they all use copper cannons, the cost will be too expensive.
In addition, the naval guns used by the navy do not pursue lightweighting, so it is acceptable to use heavier iron cannons.
Therefore, today the naval artillery of the Dachu Empire is still mainly iron-cast artillery.
The iron-cast artillery of the Da Chu Empire has also made great progress in technology. It uses better iron materials for casting, with fewer impurities, and can cast better barrels, and a large hydrodynamic boring machine performs on the inner wall. processing.
In terms of performance, it can already beat the clay cannons that were equipped by the Chu army many years ago.
The advancement of materials and processing technology has enabled the Great Chu Empire to develop almost by leaps and bounds in its guns.
This is not only true for guns and cannons, but also for cold weapons.
Such as armor!
Armor actually requires higher performance of materials. After all, armor has strict weight restrictions. How to obtain better protection capabilities within a limited weight is quite a test of the material level.
The Chu army's progress in materials has led to the Chu Empire's armor being upgraded several times, from the earliest cloth armor made of ordinary iron sheets, to the first generation of plate armor, to the current new generation of plate armor. Protective performance has come a long way.
The plate armor used on a large scale by the Chu army today is mainly the light plate armor used by musketeers. This thing is actually very thin, but because it is made of relatively high-strength materials, almost medium-carbon steel, its protective capabilities are quite excellent. It is easy to resist various cold weapons or bows and arrows.
As for bullets... they are all light plate armor, and they still expect to be able to withstand bullets. The armor equipped by the Chu army to the infantry has never been aimed at resisting bullets. That is too unrealistic.
If the opponent uses muskets on a large scale and does not have cold weapons such as bows and arrows, the Chu army's infantry will usually just throw down their armor and line up with muskets to fire volleys without using armor at all.
"The Romance of Fairy Wood"
The breastplate used by the cavalry, because it is thick enough, can resist bullets at medium and long distances, but it cannot stop bullets at close range.
In other words, the plate armor of the Da Chu Empire was not only equipped by itself, but also became an important weapon for export together with the matchlock gun, bringing huge overseas trade profits to the Da Chu Empire every year.
A set of heavy infantry full-body plate armor costing only more than 20 Chu Yuan, the export FOB price was directly over 100 Chu Yuan. As for those trading companies that transported this set of plate armor to overseas markets for sale, the price would be several times higher.
To put it bluntly, the plate armor currently produced by the Dachu Empire basically represents the highest level of armor. Even if it is produced with second-class materials and is specially designed for export, its performance far exceeds that of armor from other countries. In addition to being more expensive, , no shortcomings...
If you think it’s expensive, you can buy cheaper half-body armor or even breastplate. A breastplate is enough for ordinary infantry. Those full-body armors are for elite heavy infantry or knights. You can use them for ordinary soldiers. , isn’t that stupid!
The advancement of technology has made the weapons and equipment of the Chu Empire Army range from guns and cannons to armor, to cold weapons such as sabers, bayonets, individual waist knives, and to some auxiliary supplies such as shovels, kettles, tents and even military rations such as All kinds of messy cans and so on.
All have made great progress. Today's army of the Chu Empire is completely different in terms of equipment compared to ten years ago.
And these are the foundation for the Chu Empire's external expansion.
Dealing with Zhun Geer is no exception.
Luo Zhixue, who was in Jinling City, listened in detail to various reports from the army, navy and cabinet, and finally made up his mind that the chaos in the northwest could not continue, and Zhungeer had to vote for it!
It's not that the Yarkand Khanate was originally a vassal state in the name of the empire. His younger brother was killed by Zhungeer. Not to mention the loss of face, the empire's top officials never cared much about the name of a vassal state.
Many indigenous countries wanted to come over and beg to become vassal states of the empire, but the empire still refused. For example...the Ryukyu Kingdom, they wanted the empire to canonize them...but the Dachu Empire was more straightforward and directly sent troops to land. The Ryukyu Kingdom threw the Ryukyu Kingdom family into the sea, and then established the Ryukyu Mansion on the Ryukyu Islands... which became an overseas territory of the Dachu Empire.
In this regard, Fuso pretended not to see it... and actively announced that it would give up its suzerainty over the Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1608, the Fuso people also forced the Ryukyu Kingdom to surrender and pay tribute. The previous Ming Dynasty also entrusted the Ryukyu Kingdom with canonization.
Therefore, the Ryukyu Kingdom was in a very special two-subordinate state for the first thirty years.
However, after the Chu army directly landed and took control of the Ryukyu Kingdom, this state naturally ended. As for the Fuso people... they didn't even dare to talk nonsense.
It can also be seen from this that the Dachu Empire actually has no great interest in the nominal vassal states. If it can be annexed directly, it will be annexed directly. If it cannot annex them all, it will cede the land first, and then set up a puppet state to facilitate subsequent annexations. , This is how the Chu Empire played in Southeast Asia.
The previous relationship between the Yarkand Khanate and the Great Chu Empire was a nominal vassal-state relationship. It was said to be a vassal-state relationship, but in fact it was mutual use.
The empire needs them to contain and stop Junger from advancing eastward, and the Yarkand Khanate needs the empire's support to survive.
So the emperor and his ministers don’t care whether they have face or not.
The most important thing is that Luo Zhixue cannot just watch them annex the Yarkand Khanate and digest the fruits of victory peacefully.
In addition to the areas controlled by Zhungeer during their previous conquests in the north and south, plus some other forces that they conquered and merged in, the territory controlled by Zhungeer today is already very large.
After digesting the Yarkand Khanate's territory, it will pose a practical threat to the Chu Empire.
There won't be any problems on the Jiayuguan side. There are the Great Wall and the fortress on the side. No matter how brave Zhungeer was, he wouldn't dare to take the initiative to fight from this direction.
But Monan Mongolia and Mobei Mongolia may be threatened. They are grasslands, Gobi and other terrains, but there are no city checkpoints to garrison troops for defense.
Once the Jungar people launch an invasion against Mongolia in Monan and Mobei, the situation will become complicated.
Both sides can only fight with cavalry. The battle line is too long and there are too many unexpected factors.
In order to avoid this situation, Luo Zhixue decided to send troops to the Western Regions, not to mention other things, but to bring the battlefield to the Western Regions, the area of the Yarkand Khanate.
In this way, the Chu Empire's superior arms such as infantry and artillery can play a greater role.
It was Luo Zhixue's idea to send troops to the Western Regions and proactively choose battlefields that were beneficial to his own side. However, Luo Zhixue did not want to directly send hundreds of thousands of troops to destroy Zhungeer.
It's not that it can't be done, but mobilizing too many troops for an expedition will cost too much and consume a lot of money and food, which will seriously affect the development of domestic agriculture, industry and commerce!
The internal development of the empire is now at a critical period and cannot be disturbed by external wars, especially wars that cost money.
Therefore, not too many troops will be mobilized for this war, and the troops of the First Army will mainly be used on the front line. As for how far the battle can be fought, it depends on the ability of the soldiers of the First Army.
If they can reach Kazakhstan in one go and destroy Zhungeer, Luo Zhixue will definitely give them a generous reward.
If we can't defeat him, as long as we don't lose Jiayuguan and don't lose a lot of troops and generals, then it doesn't matter to Luo Zhixue.
In short, we just fight first... as far as we can with limited logistical support.
Anyway, it is impossible for Luo Zhixue to postpone the rapid development of the country just for the sake of Zhungeer.
After Luo Zhixue made his decision, the civil servants were naturally satisfied. They didn't care whether they fought or not, as long as they didn't spend extra military money.
As long as military expenditures don't go over budget, they won't bother to care about whatever the bastards in the military do.
The Navy has no objections either. As long as the proportion of military expenditures is not adjusted, the Navy will naturally have no objections either.
The Army... responded with a grimace.
This should not be done, as the opportunity to win military glory from the war will be gone, and the so-called westward strategy will naturally be gone;
Yes, most of the war expenses have to be paid by the army itself. Jinling is desperate and will give an extra few million as temporary war expenses.
There is no other way. The Army can only once again use the slogan of hard work and self-reliance to save military expenses in all aspects and the expenses of the northwest war.
As for you talking about disarmament to save military expenses, you are kidding, the army will not disarmament until it is killed.
Not only is there no disarmament, but this year the Army is also expanding its ranks to a total of three first-class divisions, the 28th, 29th, and 30th Divisions. These three divisions are prepared to be used in Southeast Asia and even the Indian Peninsula in the future. used for expansion.
Against such a backdrop, the First Army also received combat orders to conduct counterattacks and avenge the Yarkand Khanate.
The cloud of war once again hangs over the Western Region!
