1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 64 Artillery ([-])

In terms of the casting technology currently mastered by Chuanzhong, it is not too much of a problem to directly mount a 24-pound front-mounted cannon.However, even if a 24-pound cannon is cast now, it is useless for ships that are in urgent need of artillery equipment - the two captured sailboats in Victory Harbor did not have a displacement of more than 150 tons, and even 12-pound front-mounted guns did not. The law is arranged on the boat.And if the 24-pounder guns are deployed as coastal defense guns in Victory Port and Yulin Corner, then they will face the problem of insufficient gunners.

A 24-pounder muzzle-loading gun required at least six gunners to operate the cannon, which weighed more than two tons.And if you really want to arrange coastal defense artillery, obviously it will not be such a small number as one or two. At that time, the military and police department will have to face a dilemma-why should all members of the military and police department be pulled to practice exercises Cannons, or let these cannons be placed in the fortifications to scare people.

The 24-pounder was immediately rejected in the discussion, and the 12-pounder, which could not be equipped on existing ships, was quickly rejected, and the test product was eventually downgraded to a 6-pounder.As for the related technology of casting guns, the Military and Police Department has prepared a lot of materials for a long time. The iron mold casting gun method and the inner mold water cooling method are all far ahead of the technology of this era.

Under the leadership of Liu Xingli, the Ministry of Metallurgy immediately began to design the technological process on the spot, while the Ministry of Industry and the Military and Police Department quickly completed the drawing design in the midst of clamor—in fact, there was nothing special to design. Historically, it was actually used in the military. There are a lot of 6-pounder guns equipped, and finally one of the French cannons that appeared on the European battlefields in the 19th century was selected as a blueprint.

"Let's talk about the formation and tactics of artillery." After deciding on the design plan, Tao Donglai didn't even have time to take a sip of water, and immediately led to the next topic.This meeting has been going on for almost three hours, and if you continue to linger, everyone will not want to sleep tonight.

"Our artillery and artillery will be very limited in the near future. Is it too early to discuss the issue of staffing?" Ning Qi, who is in charge of manpower, is very sensitive to any excuses for the military and police department to occupy a large number of people, and immediately raised doubts.To establish an artillery unit, it is necessary to let a group of people go out of production for artillery training, and these people are likely to gradually transform into professional soldiers.With the current crossing population of less than 500 people, Ning Qi doubts how many troops this population base can support.

"Sweden has already started to organize first-level artillery regiments at this time, while the French have established a full-time artillery regiment in the 17s. As leaders of the times, we must be ahead of the times!" Yan Chujie took no time to replace Tao. Donglai supplements the circumstantial evidence.

"If we can have the same population as Sweden and France now, I don't mind if the military and police department forms an artillery regiment. You can set up an artillery division. But the problem is that we don't even have enough people to go up the mountain to chop down trees!" Ning Qi He also immediately refuted Yan Chujie's so-called arguments without hesitation.

Yan Chujie immediately became like a deflated ball. He really couldn't refute Ning Qi's statement that population was now the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of Transcendence. Whether it was organizing production or preparing a professional army, it had to be constrained by the shortage of population.

"Let's talk about tactics." Seeing that this road was not working, Tao Donglai had to bypass this big pit first, and turned the topic to a more professional part.Sure enough, when it comes to artillery tactics, a large group of civilian bureaucrats, including Ning Qi, are basically speechless. Almost all the people participating in the discussion are from the military and police department. Occasionally, a few military fans from other departments will express their opinions. .

Regarding the tactics of the early artillery, whether it was city offensive or defensive warfare or field warfare, offensive warfare or defensive warfare, later generations have long summed up a large number of standardized tactics based on countless actual combat examples, and what the Military Police Department needs to do now is to combine its own actual situation. , just copy part of it and implement it.The Military and Police Department even prepared a large stack of schematic diagrams for the layout of the positions and hung them on the whiteboard for explanation.The military mansions are naturally full of interest and participation is extremely high, while those who are not interested in the military simply fall asleep.

The meeting continued until more than one o'clock in the middle of the night, and Tao Donglai announced the end of the meeting after the Ministry of Metallurgy came up with the preliminary technological process.Of course, things are not finished. Early tomorrow morning, the personnel of the relevant departments will gather in the metallurgical workshop to participate in the actual R&D and manufacturing of artillery.When everyone yawned and dispersed one after another, Tao Donglai said hello: "Lao Yan, Ning Qi, you two stay for a while, I have something to say."

The two looked at each other and sat down again.

"I just thought about the formation of the artillery, and Ning Qi is right, we are indeed a little too hasty." Tao Donglai first came up to Ning Qi's softness.

Ning Qi nodded and said, "Old Tao, if you can figure it out, this is not my intention to block your military and police department, but the actual situation now, your military and police department has sent ten people to be artillerymen, my side is here. Only ten less laborers. What can ten laborers do? Ten laborers can cut down at least fifty trees a day, mine four or five tons of ore, build a fairly reliable boat-shaped house, and open up [-] acres of wasteland... ...Old Tao, now our population is too small to support too many soldiers!"

"I admit, what you said is correct, but..." Tao Donglai changed the topic and said, "Now that we have begun to consider equipping artillery, the plan to recruit indigenous troops must be implemented."

"Are you going back to the topic just now?" Ning Qi said in surprise.

"Let me explain." Yan Chujie was obviously a little unconvinced after losing the previous debate for a while, so he grabbed the conversation and said, "You answer me a question first, how many migrant workers are there currently on the site we control? "

Ning Qi thought for a while and replied: "If you include the two newly established communes and labor camps, there should be more than [-] people working on our construction site for a long time, and there are at least one to two hundred scattered workers. A day or two of short-term labor is the main thing.”

"Have you calculated the growth rate of the number of migrant workers?" Yan Chujie continued to ask.

Ning Qi nodded and said, "Now there are at least 30 newcomers every day, and sometimes 60 people a day."

"In other words, the number of foreign personnel under our administration will soon exceed a thousand." Yan Chujie sighed, "I think you should also be very clear about how many people are available in our military and police department - the military and police department has a total of 83 people. more than half of them, like Lao Tao, hold multiple positions and work in other departments. After deducting the daily resident teams in the salt field, Yulin outpost, labor camps and daily patrols to the sea, do you think we still have How many people can be used to ensure the security of the two bases and maintain the security of the construction site and the migrant workers' residence?"

"Well..." Ning Qi was really stopped by Yan Chujie.

As the human resources supervisor, Ning Qi is also very aware of the staffing of the military and police department. It is indeed as Yan Chujie said, most of the soldiers who are skilled in their careers are put into the departments where they can use their expertise, and they really stay in the military. In fact, there are not many people in the police department as a standing military police force. Even the North American Gang, which was the main force in the military in the early stage, has recently begun to have signs of disbanding due to the problem of members' work distribution. Even standing cruising forces at sea cannot be guaranteed, let alone the maintenance of day-to-day law and order.

"I think you also know that there have been several disputes in the migrant worker's station recently. If we hadn't been dispatched in time by our military and police department, it might have turned into a large-scale armed fight. What's going to happen? I don't think everyone wants to see the consequences of a bloody case." Yan Chujie said in a very sincere tone: "In order to maintain the good situation of stability and unity, our military and police department now needs to expand its strength."

"Now there are more than 100 hard laborers in the labor camp, and our guards are very limited. We can only arrange four people every day. Once something goes wrong, four people and four guns may not be able to control the situation." Tao Donglai also chimed in: " You have to know that the environment we live in now is far from being as stable as later generations. A few police officers can control tens of thousands of people. We have been here for a month, and two battles broke out. This is not where everyone can sit down and negotiate calmly. In the era of technology, if you say you want to start a fight, you can start a fight, and you can't always organize defense forces in an emergency every time."

Ning Qi shook his head helplessly and said, "Then what are you going to do? Are there any plans?"

Yan Chujie was relieved when he heard him, and immediately nodded again and again: "Yes, yes, of course! Lao Tao, isn't the plan in your hands? Tell Ning Qi quickly."

The military and police department’s expansion plan is actually very simple. It recruits a group of healthy, obedient, and clean-minded young people from the indigenous people who are currently on the territory controlled by the Transmigration Group to train as the prototype of the future naturalized civilian army.The organization can be temporarily based on the integration of the military and the police, and it can be used as a public security force in peacetime, and as a subordinate force in wartime.The members who have joined the two communes at present are relatively reliable because they have all undergone identity registration, and will definitely be the focus of recruitment.

"Then how many people are you going to recruit?" Ning Qi knew that there was no reason to stop the Military Police Department, so he simply opened up and asked.

"According to the military establishment of later generations, it is not too much to start with a company's establishment?" Tao Donglai asked tentatively.

Ning Qi calculated in his mind that there are ten people in a squad, three squads in one row, and three platoons in a company, plus the company commander, cooking squad, communication corps, etc., there are more than 100 people in this company. Shaking his head immediately, he said, "The combined number of people in the two communes is less than 100 people. You are going to recruit more than [-] people in one breath. Are you planning to leave labor for the commune?"

"We can make some changes to the recruiting policy. The commune recruits some, and then recruits some for the society!" Tao Donglai was extremely flexible. Seeing that Ning Qi's tone was not very firm, he also took the initiative to make small concessions.

(End of this chapter)