The wind rises at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 215
I met Zuo Guangxian during the campaign in Guan Nei, and we met several times.

And Zu Dabi was in Liaodong outside the pass, and in the seventh year of Chongzhen, the Hou Jin army destroyed the entrance of the Great Wall and invaded Datong.

At that time, Cao Wenzhao led the troops out of the city to fight the Houjin soldiers, and Zu Dabi was also in Datong at that time, and they also led the troops out together, so Chen Wang still has an impression.

"I've seen Zongbing Zuo, Zongbing Zu."

Chen Wang, Cao Wenzhao, and He Renlong finished the salute, stepped forward a little, and bowed again with fists clasped.

Although I don't know why Zuo Guangxian and Zu Dabi came with Cao Wenzhao, but the etiquette is always in place.

"I remember."

Zuo Guangxian also clasped his fists in return, but Zu Dabi grinned and laughed.

"When I was in Datong."

When Zu Dabi laughed, the gentle temperament on his body disappeared in an instant, and the peaceful look disappeared.

There was a fierce light in his eyes, and he looked eager to fight, as if he was eager to try.

"It's a great honor for Zongbing Zu to remember his dismissal."

Chen Wang originally thought that Zu Dabi didn't know him, after all he was just a servant at that time.

"Twenty teams went out of the city, fifteen teams returned to the city, and fourteen teams didn't make any achievements at all, and all of them were wounded."

"Only the first team brought back hundreds of people and the thirteenth-level head when they came back. You are the leader of the team. How could I not remember it?"

After Hou Jin entered the bandits, they scattered and looted, so Cao Wenzhao and Zu Dabi also made countermeasures, sending Jingqi and servants out of the city to kill the scattered Hou Jin soldiers.

However, most of the cavalry sent out returned without success. When only one cavalry came back, it saved more than a hundred people, and even took the heads of [-] post-golden soldiers, which caused a stir in the city. sensation.

Zu Dabi was familiar with Chen Wang's name at first, but he couldn't remember where he saw it.

Now when I saw Chen Wang, I immediately recalled what happened in Datong.

Zuo Guangxian's eyes flickered, and the way he looked at Chen Wang couldn't help but also changed slightly.

After all, the Jiannu in the north and the rogues in the pass are completely different things. The combat power of the two is very different, not the same.

When he met Chen Wang, they were basically in Hong Chengchou's military tent. The deepest memory was when Chen Wang met Hong Chengchou for the first time.

Chen Wangxian, Li Yangchun and Lin Shengquan had their heads in front of the tent, they were unstoppable.

At that time, I only heard that Chen Wang trained soldiers very well, and he did everything Qi Jun wanted.

Zuo Guangxian also saw the cavalry who came with Chen Wang at that time, those cavalry were indeed more aggressive than the cavalry of the Shaanxi Army, and their fierceness was more obvious.

After a brief exchange of greetings, Chen Wang followed Cao Wenzhao and got on the horse again, and then walked all the way to the side of the camp, and at the same time figured out why Zuo Guangxian and Zu Dabi followed.

The capital is in a hurry, and there is only one day left in the time limit for gathering troops in Tongguan, and the camp will go north the next day.

When he led the troops here, the military meeting had just ended, and several people were together, so they came with Cao Wenzhao.

For the deeper reasons, Chen Wang also guessed a little bit.

This time the Qing army entered, and they did not receive any rewards at night. The Qing army gathered more than [-] troops and swept south along the gap in the Great Wall.

The combat power of the Qing army was far superior to that of the rogue bandits, and there was absolutely no chance of winning in a single battle against the brigade. Even if they joined forces to fight against the enemy, the chances of winning were slim.

This is the time when sincere cooperation is needed. No one wants to be stabbed by an ally behind him during a battle.

Cao Wenzhao, He Renlong, Zuo Guangxian, and Zu Dabi are all commanders-in-chief, and the relationship between the four is not bad.

Cao Wenzhao is modest, sociable, and good at fighting, so there are many people who make friends with him.

Cao Wenzhao, He Renlong, Zuo Guangxian, and Zu Dabi are all old acquaintances.

He and He Renlong and Zuo Guang first met when they were suppressing bandits in Shaanxi, and Zu Dabi had known each other since they were in Liaodong.

The reason why the four of them are together now is that they agreed to attack and defend each other.

Soon the conversation between the few people also completely confirmed the thoughts in Chen Wang's mind.

This time, the main force of the northern aid to the capital was the soldiers from the three towns of Yansui, Guyuan, and Ningxia.

The topics discussed by Cao Wenzhao and others were all about how to deal with the Qing army, and they had already begun to assign tasks to each other.

Zuo Guang first raised his eyes to the front, looking at a group of soldiers on the official road not far away who were engrossed in marching.

"I've heard that Vice General Chen is good at training troops, but I haven't seen him all this time. Seeing him today is indeed true."

When everyone saw Zuo Guangxian's eyes on the official way, their attention was distracted.

Zuo Guangxian's eyes flicked from side to side, and there were basically no ordinary people who could serve as the commander-in-chief of a town in the nine border towns, so his eyes were naturally vicious.

On the road, a group of soldiers of the Hanzhong Army who were entering the barracks lined up neatly and walked in coordination.

Dozens of hundreds of people walked almost in unison, with solemn military appearances and fierce murderous aura.

Zu Dabi looked at the group of Hanzhong soldiers who were marching, and a trace of displeasure flashed in the depths of his eyes.

Chen Wang is not an unknown person in Shaanxi today, basically as long as the officers and soldiers in Shaanxi know that Hong Chengchou gave Chen Wang comments.

Chen Wangchu became famous for being good at training troops, and he adopted Qi Jun's military training methods.

Qi Jun is the southern army, and the conflict between the northern and southern armies has always existed, and it reached its maximum during the Wanli period.

Although the contradictions have been eliminated a lot, there are still remnants.

Zu Dabi was naturally quite uncomfortable, but he just frowned slightly and didn't say anything else.

Although Chen Wang used the method of Southern soldiers in his training, Chen Wang was born in Liaodong, and he was Cao Wenzhao's confidant, and his family's cavalry were all Liao cavalry.

"These soldiers under your command carry bird guns on their backs?"

At the beginning, Cao Wenzhao's attention was not on the marching soldiers on the official road, because Zuo Guangxian's actions only noticed the difference.

He saw that many soldiers under Chen Wang's command seemed to be carrying something on their backs, like blunderbusses.

But the bird gun is generally carried obliquely on the shoulder, not behind the back.

Moreover, the strange gun was longer than ordinary bird guns, and its appearance was quite strange.

"Reporting to the general, what they carry on their backs is the newly-made blunderbuss of the Hanzhongwei Military Bureau, named 'Sea Oath', which is a fire blunderbuss improved from the bird blunderbuss."

"Improve?"

Cao Wenzhao looked curiously at the strange-looking firecrackers on the backs of those soldiers.

He knew a lot about Hanzhongwei. Now that Chen Wang had removed his position as the deputy commander of the guard, he was still the commander of Hanzhongwei.

According to common sense, as the deputy commander in chief, Chen Wang should be awarded the official position of the governor's mansion no matter what. A small commander of the guards is too low for the deputy commander in chief.

However, this matter was acquiesced by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting.

Hanzhong Mansion has a special geographical location, and it was still King Rui's vassal. At that time, Hanzhong Mansion was surrounded by wolves, and they took extraordinary actions at an extraordinary time, which led to Chen Wang's rectification of Hanzhong Wei.

Chen Wang was also very measured. He only allocated part of the jurisdiction of Hanzhongwei, and recruited refugees to rebuild the two thousand households that were destroyed in the north. Both Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting knew about these things.

It is not a secret that the Hanzhong Wei Military Bureau is also under the control of Chen Wang.

Chen Wang winked at Hu Zhili who was following him, and explained.

"Except for most of the cavalry under the last general's command, most of them are fine cavalry from Liaodong, the rest of the soldiers are basically recruited from refugees, most of whom are from Hanzhong and Qingyang."

"There are quite a few people who can ride horses, but not many who can make bows and crossbows."

"If we train from scratch, I'm afraid it will take at least a year and a half of hard work to be able to barely get on the battlefield, so most of the infantry in the army are equipped with firecrackers."

Archers are difficult to train, and a qualified infantry archer must at least go through years of training before they can be effective on the battlefield.

This is not the case with firecrackers. To learn how to reload and change the medicine, you only need to practice for less than half a month before you can be quite proficient in the method of drawing and releasing.

Firecrackers are no different than bows and arrows, as long as you hold the trigger and aim at the enemy through the rear sight and crosshairs.

Gunners who have been trained for several months can play a considerable role on the battlefield.

While Chen Wang was explaining, Hu Zhili came out with understanding, and called out a soldier with a firecracker from the queue to come out.

"These firecrackers were all produced by the Hanzhongwei Military Weapons Bureau. The firecrackers of the Ministry of Industry were really unusable, so after the last general took over the Military Weapons Bureau, he began to rectify it."

"The materials for these firecrackers are still sufficient now, and you can find craftsmen according to the inscriptions on the weapons, and they will basically not explode."

Cao Wenzhao's first feeling after receiving the oath gun was that it was heavy, much heavier than ordinary bird guns, and there was an extra butt, and it seemed to be much more beautiful.

Cao Wenzhao was not surprised that Chen Wang popularized bird guns on a large scale in the army.

He has read "Ji Xiao's New Book" and "Records of Military Training", and knows Qi Jiguang's evaluation and admiration for the bird gun.

But the blame is that he didn't see the place where the fire rope was placed on this bird gun.

"The sea oath gun does not use a match, but uses the self-igniting fire gun method, which uses flint to ignite."

"Self-generated firecracker?"

Cao Wenzhao's mind turned, he was familiar with it, but he couldn't remember where he heard it.

But he understood the flint getting angry, and not only did he understand it, he even knew the benefits of abandoning matchlock and using flint.

"If you use flint to start the fire, the shooting speed should be much faster than the matchlock."

The oath blunderbuss was passed to He Renlong, Zuo Guangxian and Zu Dabi.

Several of them are general soldiers, and their understanding of these weapons is not much worse than that of ordinary craftsmen. Although the frontier army is mainly equipped with three-eyed guns, there are not a few people who use bird guns.

Using flint ignition instead of matchlock ignition will undoubtedly save a lot of reload time.

"This gun should be popularized in the whole army."

Cao Wenzhao's face was solemn, and in a short time, he had already made a decision in his heart.

He felt that if the firecrackers triggered by the matchlock in the general were all replaced with flint-ignited firecrackers, the combat power would definitely be greatly improved.

"General Rong Rong."

Chen Wang moved slightly and said.

"Although flint ignition is more advanced than matchlock, the ignition rate is not high, only [-]% today."

The actual anger rate was over [-]%, but Chen Wang naturally wanted to lower it.

"Also, even if this gun is popularized in the whole army, I'm afraid not many people will use it..."

Chen Wang didn't finish his words, but Cao Wenzhao already understood the meaning.

Not many people dare to use the bird guns produced by the Ministry of Industry and the military bureaus of various places, and they have to pick and choose after they are brought in. Even so, the bombing rate is still not low.

Many gun soldiers in the army were disfigured and injured because of this.

"I was impulsive."

Cao Wenzhao was a little helpless, he knew that Chen Wang was telling the truth.

Bird guns are indeed sharp, but most of the guns produced by the Ministry of Industry and Military Appliances cut corners and materials, and the quality is worrying. No one dares to use them.

This sea oath gun was made, but it ended up the same as the bird gun.

"I have already submitted this blunderbuss to the governor and the military sect. The Hanzhongwei Weapons Bureau will make a batch of each other blunderbusses every month and send them to the Xi'an mansion. The general and several general soldiers can request for dispatch. It shouldn't be difficult to get some guns with the identities of several general soldiers."

Chen Wang did not intend to hide the matter of the sea oath gun, because as long as it is used, it is impossible to hide it. It is better to simply report its existence to Sun Chuanting and Hong Chengchou, so that they will be less suspicious.

"Let's not talk about the blunderbuss for now. I saw a lot of cannons pulled into the camp. You cannons..."

Cao Wenzhao put down the oath gun in his hand, handed it back to Chen Gong, and continued to ask.

During the conversation, after every one or two rounds, you can see a small cannon being dragged by two horses passing by, and a cannon with a larger barrel can be seen behind it, being dragged by four horses. forward.

Cao Wenzhao knew that those cannon mounts were invented by Chen Wang in the early years, but those cannons were not seen by Chen Wangyou when he was in Lueyang.

Apart from the Franji and Tiger Crouching cannons in Chen Wang's army back then, there were only eight bronze cannons left.

Cao Wenzhao knew the origin of the eight bronze guns, but the artillery in Chen Wang's army did not know where they came from.

"It's also a product of the Military Weapons Bureau. There are craftsmen who can make cannons in the Hanzhongwei Military Weapons Bureau. The general knew me. After suffering from artillery losses in Qiutou Town, he has been tinkering with artillery, so he asked people to make artillery .”

Regarding the large-scale casting of cannons, Chen Wang did not report all of them. There are some things that should be said, and some things that should not be said. Now Chen Wang has a sense of proportion.

"Some of these guns are newly cast, and some are captured."

The artillery in the army is basically camouflaged and painted on the outside, and it is said to be iron cannons to the outside world.

After repeated consideration, Chen Wang brought a total of twenty bronze three-jin cannons and four five-jin cannons, totaling 24 pieces.

The three-jin cannon weighs about 470 jin, and the five-jin cannon weighs about 750 jin.

This kind of weight is not considered heavy. Many of the copper hair sticks in the army were over a thousand catties.

Therefore, more than 20 artillery pieces are not too eye-catching, but Cao Wenzhao still noticed them keenly.

Tiger crouching guns are not very effective against the Qing army equipped with heavy armor, and they are relatively small, basically only three in each round.

The Fran cannon has not been supplemented much, so Chen Wang simply canceled all of them later.

Reducing the types of weapons in the army will help ease the pressure on logistics.

"You have come from a long way, let's go to rest today, and we will have a good get together tomorrow."

Cao Wenzhao didn't pay too much attention to the issue of artillery, but changed the topic. Now is not the time to talk about these things.

"This time, the journey to the north is thousands of miles away. The journey is difficult and difficult. Fighting Jiannu is different from fighting rogues. You have fought against Jiannu for many years, so you should know how powerful they are."

"The war situation in the north is deteriorating. Jiannu had already entered the capital a few days ago, but did not attack the city, but continued to head south..."

"This time, the slave-building army will probably go deeper. The governor has an order to move out of the camp and head north early in the morning."

(End of this chapter)