The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 197 The Role of Chariots

Zhu Cihong has always been impatient to do whatever he thinks of. Thinking of building a chariot to fight against the Tartar cavalry, he immediately summoned all the carpenters and blacksmiths in the general.

spinning machine.Zhu Cihong didn't understand looms, but he had his own ideas about chariots.

Zhu Cihong naturally looked down on traditional chariots. The chariot he wanted to build must have the advantages of flexible steering, strong off-road ability, and fast speed.

But when Zhu Cihong finished his request, all the carpenters and blacksmiths had heads as big as a bucket, and their faces showed embarrassment.

Because if you want to turn flexibly and meet Zhu Cihong's requirements, you must only use a single-horse drawn chariot and a two-wheeled chariot.

But this kind of chariot puts a lot of burden on the horse, it can't run fast at all, it can't run very far, and it can't carry a load.

After all, there are only two wheels, which means that part of the power of the chariot will be on the shoulders of the horse.

Although the four wheels can reduce the burden on the horse, the steering and flexibility are not up to the requirements.

For a while, all the craftsmen were scratching their heads.

But such a difficult problem of having both the fish and the bear's paw is rare for the ancients, but not for the modern people like Zhu Cihong.

Two-wheeled war horses are too heavy to bear, and four-wheeled steering can't work, so use three wheels.

Two large load-bearing wheels in the front and a small steering wheel in the back can perfectly solve this problem.

And for the stability of the chariot, the axle is directly cast with wrought iron. Although there is no bearing to reduce the friction during rotation, the principle of bicycle axle connection can be used. A groove is made in the connection beforehand, and then iron balls are put in. Apply oil again, and the effect of the bearing is the same.

Compared with this era, two objects are directly rubbing against each other. I don't know how much friction will be reduced, and the speed of the chariot will also be greatly increased.

Under Zhu Cihong's personal guidance, it only took ten days to build a strange three-wheeled chariot.

I saw that the front two wheels of this chariot were very huge, almost as tall as a person, a lot higher than the body.

The steering wheel at the back is smaller than the wheels of ordinary carriages. It is a full two meters away from the body. It is connected by two pieces of wood. The connection is very flexible and can move left and right, just like a walking tractor.

The chariot only needs to be pulled by a horse, and the front is driven by a horse. The position is relatively low, and the position of the rear compartment is high.

It can accommodate up to two people, one holding a halberd and one operating the crossbow on the chariot, and there is a crossbow on the front and back of the chariot, which can shoot forward, left, and backward, respectively. More than riding a bow.

At this moment in the wilderness, Hong Niangzi and a group of generals looked at the chariot very curiously, after all they had never seen a chariot with three wheels before.

The craftsmen were very nervous, but Zhu Cihong was looking forward to it, because it can be said that this chariot was designed by him.

"Qizuo Your Majesty, the chariot has been inspected and the driver is ready, you can test the car at any time, please order from Your Majesty!"

"Then let's start, first try how fast the speed is, then try the steering and load respectively, and finally try the off-road ability."

Zhu Cihong waved his hand and said, although it is a wooden wheel and has no springs, he doesn't know how fast it can run, and whether the wheels will fall apart if it goes too fast, but with those two big wheels alone, at least the off-road ability will definitely not be bad.

Immediately, an experienced driver drove the chariot to move, the speed became faster and faster, and finally galloped on the flat official road, more than twice as fast as the ordinary carriage, and almost approached the cavalry. speed up.

This really shocked Hong Niangzi and all the generals.

Because although the chariot is not big, only the axles are made of iron, and the total weight is still no more than four or five hundred catties. How can you not be surprised that a horse can pull such a heavy chariot so fast and so easily?
But Zhu Cihong frowned slightly, a little dissatisfied. This speed was much worse than he expected, at most thirty to forty kilometers per hour, which was a bit worse than the sixty to seventy kilometers when the cavalry was galloping.

The chariot rushed out for more than ten miles in one breath, and the horse began to struggle and slowed down. Then another horse was replaced, and a series of operations such as steering were carried out during the high-speed gallop.

Finally, two fully armed soldiers were carried, and they went directly out of Zhangjiakou to the grassland for field experiments.

"The steering and cross-country capabilities are sufficient, but the speed is not satisfactory, especially after carrying two soldiers, the gap with the cavalry is too obvious."

Zhu Cilang sighed, obviously dissatisfied.

His plan is to build three chariots, one is a light chariot, pulled by a single horse, capable of long-distance raids, flexible steering, strong cross-country ability, and a speed similar to that of a war horse, which is specially responsible for roundabout pursuits.

The second type is a heavy chariot, which is similar in style to the first light chariot, except that the chariot is equipped with some knives, and the whole body needs to be reinforced. It is pulled by two horses, and the horses are also armored, which is specially used for short-distance charges.

The third type is the transport chariot, with four wheels and four horses drawn by horses, which can transport not only grain, grass and weapons, but also infantry and firearms soldiers.

The combination of these three chariots, coupled with cavalry, can create a fast-moving force, which is not afraid of a large group of cavalry when encountering Tartars.

It can not only charge forward, but also maintain high-speed driving, and can also defend in place, without fear of cavalry at all. As for the cavalry that cannot catch up with the opponent, from a military point of view, this is not important.

Because as long as the team can march without fear of the harassment and impact of the Tartar cavalry, it is enough.

However, after the Han army entered the grassland to fight, they often lost in this point. They did not fear the cavalry when defending in place, but once the army moved, they had to form an formation if they wanted to protect themselves. The speed was like a snail.

If the speed is fast, it is doomed to be unable to maintain the formation, unable to take care of both the head and the tail, and there is no time to prepare for the cavalry's surprise attack, so in the end, no matter how many troops there are, no matter how strong the combat power is, they will inevitably be exhausted by the cavalry.

Because the nomadic tribes would not fight head-on with the Han infantry, they would generally choose to lure the enemy to go deeper. However, if the Han wanted to defeat the nomadic tribes, the first consideration was not whether to fight or not to win the opponent, but how to find the opponent's main force.

If you can't find the main force of the opponent, you will find the garrison of the opponent's tribe, and finally force it to fight. It can be said that the Han infantry fighting nomadic tribes on the grassland is naturally in a disadvantaged and passive position.

Without a certain number of cavalry, don't even think about going north to conquer the grassland, otherwise, no matter how many soldiers and horses go, it will be death.

In the early Han Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty, the Han army and the Tang army were not insignificant, but facing the Huns and Turkic cavalry, they could only choose to make peace and stabilize each other first.

It is because the war in the Central Plains has just ended, the horses are exhausted, and no matter how powerful the infantry is, they have nowhere to use them and cannot take the initiative to conquer the grassland.

As for defense, the cost of thousands of miles of border is too high, not to mention that it may not be able to defend. After all, fortifying everywhere means not fortifying everywhere.

It wasn't until the Tang and Han armies recuperated for decades that they again bred a large number of war horses and trained a large number of cavalry before they dared to take the initiative to attack, and finally wiped out the Huns and Turks.

But Zhu Cihong couldn't wait more than ten or twenty years to train cavalry. Although he has no shortage of horses now, and it should be almost the same in three to five years, he still feels that the time is too long.

Although there are Tumed cavalry, compared with the Turks and the Huns, today's Jiannu is much stronger, because the cavalry is not terrible, and the infantry is not terrible, but the cooperation between the two is the most terrible.

The current Jiannu is a combination of cavalry and infantry, which can attack and defend, fight and retreat, firmly grasp the initiative on the battlefield, and win half of the battle before fighting.

With the addition of [-] cavalry from Tumed's department, although there are also [-] cavalry, which can also be called a combination of infantry and cavalry, the cavalry from Tumed's department cannot be fully trusted, and their own cavalry is not strong enough to deal with the Huns. It's okay with the Turks, but it's risky to deal with Jiannu.

That's why Zhu Cihong wanted to build a chariot. His purpose was not to compare speed with Jiannu's cavalry and chase and fight each other.

Instead, when the army was marching, the chariots marched on both sides to guard at the same time, and the Tartar cavalry would go up to them when they attacked, allowing the infantry time to assemble and form.

If the Tazi cavalry choose to harass the outside, they can ignore it and continue marching.

Otherwise, the Tartar cavalry would still be charging dozens of miles away, and the army would have to jump around for a while, stop and prepare for battle, and they would not even think about marching if they came twice a day.

And if the opponent's cavalry came in turns, twice a day, the army would not go anywhere.

"Your Majesty, is this speed still slow? If you want to speed it up, you can only add another horse."

Seeing that Zhu Cihong was still not satisfied, the red lady was a little surprised. In her opinion, this kind of three-wheeled chariot took into account speed and flexible steering, and it was already perfect.

"Two horses are heavy chariots, and light chariots can only be pulled by one horse, otherwise the flexibility will be reduced."

Zhu Cilang waved his hand. In addition to speed, flexibility is equally important for light tanks. Otherwise, it would be better to just build heavy tanks.

"Then what should we do? Isn't this just asking the horse to run and refusing to feed the horse?"

The red lady said with a headache. Obviously, in her mind, if she wanted the carriage to run faster, she could only increase the number of horses to share the load.

"How about this, reduce the three people to two. After all, bows and crossbows are mainly used when chasing, and long halberds are used when charging. One person is enough to operate, and the canopy and three side guards are all replaced with Weaving it with rattan can save some weight.”

Zhu Cihong stroked his chin, looked at the huge canopy made of solid wood, and said slowly.

The main function of this canopy is to prevent arrows, and it is completely unnecessary to build a huge canopy with solid wood.

Of course, he also knows that even if one person is reduced and rattan is used to weave the canopy guard, the weight will be reduced by at most one or two hundred catties, and the speed that can be improved is also limited.

The real way to greatly increase the speed is to work hard on the wheels. After all, the wooden wheels are too unreliable. If they are replaced with rubber tires, the speed will definitely soar a lot, and the shock absorption effect will also be greatly improved.

Although Naihe rubber has been spread to Asia by Europeans, it may not be possible to obtain large quantities in a short period of time.

So for the time being, we can only reduce the weight of the tank.

(End of this chapter)