1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2030
Bayano received relatively high courtesy after arriving in the Qing Dynasty. On the night of landing, he was received by a certain figure who was said to be a member of the royal family, and then he was arranged to show the colonial authorities to a group of Qing army generals the next day. Send us the performance of this batch of weapons.Obviously, the other side also values ​​this cross-border cooperation very much, and is eager to confirm the effectiveness of this military assistance.

The weapons brought by Bayano are naturally far superior to the current level of equipment of the Qing army. The power that can be exerted in the hands of a veteran who has served in the army for many years and has actual combat experience is not even inferior to the individual weapons of the Haihan army. How many.Of course, to train someone who has never used a musket to his level of proficiency is certainly not a one-time achievement.

However, the generals of the Qing army who have seen Bayano's demonstration are quite optimistic about the prospects. They generally believe that as long as a large number of such weapons are installed in the army, it is only a matter of time before they defeat Haihan.Even if the weapon performance is still insufficient compared with the Haihan army, the Qing army can completely bridge this gap by virtue of its superiority in strength.As for how much money it would cost to form and maintain a well-organized firearms unit, these generals did not have a corresponding concept. That was something that Huang Taiji had to worry about, and they couldn't control that much.

Generals of the Qing army who were not familiar with firearms did not understand the market, but Bayano was a professional, and he knew how much such an investment would be. The Qing State wanted to install new weapons in the army on a large scale, but it might not be able to afford to form a musket force subsequent military expenditures.Moreover, he did not think that the Philippine colony could provide the Qing with a sufficient amount of weapons and equipment. After all, the military manufacturing capabilities of the colonial authorities had been greatly reduced after the war, and it was still difficult to meet the needs of their own reorganized armed forces, let alone foreign aid.

The Qing Dynasty really wanted to directly obtain the technology of making guns and artillery, so that the Spaniards could help build an arsenal in Liaodong.But the problem is that the colonial authorities do not intend to provide all these housekeeping skills to the partners, otherwise they will learn the technology away, and they will no longer need to rely on themselves to provide weapons in the future, and the cooperative relationship will naturally not be established.

Unable to provide a large number of weapons requested by the Qing army, and unable to transfer relevant manufacturing technology to the Qing State, this attitude made the enthusiasm of the Qing army generals for this cooperation project quickly faded a lot.So for a period of time after Bayano arrived in Liaodong, this so-called military cooperation project was actually training dozens of young men with aristocratic backgrounds to make their resumes appear richer.It wasn't until some time ago that the Musketeers participated in an operation in the name of actual combat training that they finally regained the attention of the top Qing army.

In this operation, the musketeer team under the personal command of Bayano successfully ambushed a cavalry patrol of the Haihan Army, killed and injured double-digit enemies during the battle, and seized more than a dozen Haihan Army standard rifles, and even captured a few alive.It was rare for the Qing army to achieve such a result in a small-scale operation in the history of previous battles.

How to deal with the Haihan cavalry equipped with muskets in the wild has always been a headache for the Qing army.If you use infantry to encircle and suppress, you will be slowly killed by the opponent using kite flying tactics without any suspense. Using cavalry can keep up, but if you get closer, you will become a living target for the opponent.The tactics of ambush were used before, but the number of troops participating in the ambush was too small to defeat the opponent, and the number of troops was too large to expose their whereabouts, so the effect was not ideal.

But the musketeers seem to have solved the problems that plagued the Qing army well. Although there are not many people, their firepower output is far stronger than that of the archers.Moreover, the team led by Bayano is equipped with muskets he brought from the Philippines, and its performance is far better than that of the musketeers of the Qing army and the Han army banner.Coupled with the more advanced tactics brought by Bayano and the on-the-spot command based on actual combat experience, the combat effectiveness of this team naturally impressed the generals of the Qing army.

After learning about the record, Huang Taiji greatly appreciated the performance of Bayano and the Musketeers, and immediately rewarded Bayano.In addition to cattle and sheep, money and land, Bayano also got an official position of "Ba Ya La Jia La Zhang Jing".Of course, this official position is not a position of real power, and Huang Taiji does not plan to actually assign a team of Ba Yala soldiers to command him, after all, it is just an honorary position.

However, Bayano was quite satisfied with this reward. These in-kind rewards bestowed by the King of the Qing Dynasty had already exceeded his entire income during his previous stay in the Philippines.It seems that although Liaodong is a place of bitter cold, the employer is quite bold, and this move is much more generous than that of Aragones.

He can earn a lot of money, and he can also attack the Haihan people, the old enemies of the Spanish colonial authorities, and his employer treats him very politely, almost responding to his needs. For Bayano, this job is indeed a rare and comfortable environment in recent years.As for the risks, Bayano wasn't too worried. He already had combat experience in the European battlefield, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he was used to life and death.Apart from being a soldier and fighting, he has no other skills, so he has long been mentally prepared for the shroud in horse leather.

Being able to achieve results so quickly also made Bayano start to re-evaluate the military strength comparison in this region.He knew that the musketeers he had trained were not outstanding, but the opponents did not seem to be as strong as expected. Compared with the Haihan army that attacked Manila, their combat effectiveness seemed to be much worse. The war in this area finds a real chance of defeating the Hai Han.

Of course, if he wants to defeat the Haihan people who are said to have stationed thousands of armed forces in the south with the help of the troops under him now, it must be nothing more than a fantasy, and it is impossible for the Haihan people to send out small patrols all the time. Let the Qing army lay an ambush.Once they entered the confrontation on the frontal battlefield, his subordinates would not be able to fight head-on with the Haihan army, and they might be wiped out by the regiment after a battle.

If you want to continue to win the war, the only way is to expand the army.Bayano believes that it is still impossible for the Qing army to defeat the Haihan army only with the cold weapons such as knives and bows currently equipped, even if it has a clear advantage in military strength.Therefore, he took the initiative to make suggestions to the Qing army while the iron was hot, hoping that the Qing army would increase its efforts in the construction of the Musketeers and expand the size of the Musketeers as soon as possible.

But even if the high-level Qing army agreed to his proposal, many things were still powerless, such as the supply of weapons and equipment, which was no longer a problem that the Qing army and him could solve.They can only hope that the Philippine colonial authorities can bring in more weapons, so that it is possible to arm more Qing troops.

What Bayano can do now is to arrange basic formation training for those reserve musketeers who have no weapons available for the time being, so that they can master the most basic combat formation transformation and marching.In this way, after the Qing army has obtained enough weapons one day, it will be able to have actual combat capabilities in a very short period of time.

At the same time, the Qing army was actually trying to solve the problem of the long acquisition cycle of weapons.According to the statement given by the intermediary, the Spaniards can provide at most [-] to [-] muskets and about ten large-caliber artillery to the Qing every year, regardless of the price. This quantity is really difficult to meet the combat needs of the Qing army. .

The Spaniards refused to teach weapon manufacturing technology, so they could only rely on themselves.In the Qing army, there were also gunsmiths who defected to the Ming army and took refuge here. They disassembled the firearms of the Spaniards and Haihan people into parts one by one, and then copied them by hand.As for the cannon casting technology involved in the cannon is too complicated, it is not something that can be imitated according to the sample.

But even if the appearance can be successfully imitated, it is unlikely to reach the same level of performance, because the craftsmen cannot know what methods have been used to process the materials of these rifles, and what processing methods are used, so they can only simply imitate the appearance.In particular, the standard rifles equipped by the Haihan Army have a more complex processing process than outsiders imagined, and many mechanical processing methods have been used to achieve standardized production. However, the production efficiency of manual craftsmen cannot achieve large-scale production. It is also difficult to pose a real threat to the Haihan Army.

Bayano also personally tried the musket imitated by the craftsman. After all, the performance of this counterfeit product was still a lot worse, and the killing distance was far inferior to his own musket.If you want to use this kind of musket to fight against the Haihan army on the battlefield, it is actually not much better than fighting with a sword and bow.

Of course, these poor-quality counterfeit goods are not completely useless, and it is also suitable for the newly selected reserve musketeers to familiarize themselves with the operation of weapons.In fact, Sun Bing has observed these days that among the musketeers training at the foot of the mountain, some of them use this kind of imitation muskets for training, and they can't tell the difference between local and Spanish muskets from a distance. Sun Bing was totally unaware of the strong deceptiveness.

Another point that caused Sun Bing to misjudge is that Bayano’s active arrangement for the musketeers’ winter training was not to arrange for this team to go out to carry out combat missions in the future, but to hope that they could be as fast as possible in a short period of time. Train the reserve team in many places, and then select some soldiers with outstanding qualities from the reserve team to replace those idiots who don't distinguish between left and right in this team.

But this kind of survival of the fittest is not so easy, because the first batch of soldiers selected into this musketeer team almost all have certain backgrounds, and they were all trained by the Qing government as commanders who would understand firearms warfare in the future. In the interests of many dignitaries and even the royal family, it is not easy for Bayano to change without obviously violating military discipline and regulations, and he needs to face great external resistance.

Bayano's replacement plan didn't go smoothly. As an outsider who knew nothing about the Qing Dynasty, he didn't know exactly who the soldiers under him were from and what powerful background they had, but after he proposed this plan, he suffered against everyone's objections.Even the generals of the Qing army who had treated him as guests categorically rejected his plan.It was only later that he learned that the general had a son and a nephew who were among the first to be selected into the team, but they didn't usually reveal this relationship.

"Our warriors should die on the battlefield, not be eliminated because of insufficient training. If they are not capable enough, then you should try your best to teach them how to fight and how to defeat the Haihan people. We spent a lot of money to invite you here from a far away place. Please remember this, and don't mention any plans to change people!"

The response of the Qing army general is still clearly recorded in Bayano's mind. After thinking about it carefully, and putting aside the consideration of personal interests, he also had to admit that the other party's statement was actually somewhat reasonable. Qianli came to this cold place with the purpose of teaching these barbarians how to fight the Haihan people.As for defeating the Haihan people, he really couldn't teach this. After all, in the history of fighting against Haihan in the past, Spain had never won a real victory.

Stubborn savage!Every time Bayano thinks about this verse, he can't help cursing secretly in his heart.He admitted that what the other party said made sense, but he really didn't want those rat shits in the team who didn't have the qualifications to continue to hang around here.All he can do now is to arrange more intensive training to slowly increase the lower limit of the team's combat effectiveness.

But in recent days, Bayano feels that the state of command training is not ideal, and he always feels that someone is watching his every move.He thought it might be that some generals of the Qing army were secretly observing the training situation of the Musketeers. Although this was a reasonable move, it made him feel a little uncomfortable.So Bayano is planning to take the team a little farther away from the camp for a marching training close to actual combat.

It's just that Bayano never imagined that although his intuition was correct, it was not the generals of the Qing army who were observing secretly, but his enemies.Moreover, the patience of this opponent is so frightening that he actually stayed in the ice and snow for almost a month, just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Sun Bing couldn't predict when a suitable opportunity would appear, and perhaps there would be no such opportunity throughout the winter, but he still arranged his preparations for the war every day as always, and stayed at the observation point for at least half a day.However, he has not yet come up with an idea on how to capture the foreign instructor alive.

One morning in mid-January, Sun Bing arrived at the observation point as usual.He knew that he would have to wait for about two hours before seeing the firearms team out for training, so he still had enough time to take a nap and let his men stare at the Qing army camp down the mountain first.

But today the Musketeers showed up earlier than usual, and it was rare for all members to go out on horseback. After Sun Bing noticed this, he immediately realized that this might be an opportunity for war.

(End of this chapter)