The wind rises at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 445 Jingnan Town

"What is the quality of the plate armor produced by the Hanzhong Town Arms Bureau now?"

Chen Wang pondered for a moment and asked.

The current situation is turbulent and there are too many matters that require his decision-making. He has not personally taken care of the Ordnance Bureau for some time.

"At the beginning of July, Mr. Bo sent a message saying that the Armory Bureau can now produce plate armor."

Hu Zhili was standing below, and upon hearing this he immediately bowed in reply.

There are no insurmountable barriers to plate armor technology.

Chen Wang traded a lot of European craftsmen from Zheng Zhilong. Although these red-haired craftsmen could not speak the language, they had superb skills.

During this period, there were not many simple people who could sail across the ocean in pursuit of wealth.

Under Bo Jue's coordination, the Military Equipment Bureau of Hanzhong Town is now able to mass-produce plate armor to a certain extent.

"According to the instructions of the general town, the town's Arms Bureau has begun to transform production and focus on making plate armor breastplates."

Now, the number of soldiers under Chen Wang's command has exceeded 200,000.

If we were to equip all of them with a full set of plate armor, it would undoubtedly be an impossible task.

This is impossible in Europe, where plate armor technology is quite mature.

In today's Europe, only some minor nobles, as well as great nobles and their followers can equip a full set of plate armor.

The protracted Thirty Years' War and the revolution in firearms have brought about earth-shaking changes on the European battlefield.

In the later stages of the Thirty Years' War, the amount and protection of plate armor continued to decrease.

The biggest reasons are the increasing lethality of firearms and the fact that a full set of plate armor is too expensive.

Chen Wang knew very well the advantages and disadvantages of plate armor, so he only ordered the production of breastplate.

"The shape of the breastplate is based on the blueprint drawn by the general town, and the thickness is about one and a half centimeters."

Ten inches is one foot, tenth of an inch.

One inch is approximately 3.3 centimeters, and half a centimeter is approximately 2 millimeters.

Nowadays, the thickness of the Ming armor plates mainly produced in Hanzhong Town is about two millimeters. Although this breastplate is slightly thinner, it is forged as a whole, and its dome-shaped shape can better disperse and absorb external impact force, and it also has certain puncture and impact resistance.
"If it's the Mongolian cavalry's soft bow, it won't be able to penetrate the armor even at close range." Hu Zhili said confidently, "If it's the Jiannu's heavy bow, it can still penetrate the armor within thirty steps."

Hu Zhili paused, and added: "The sea oath guns used by our army can penetrate armor within sixty steps. The bird guns used by other camps and towns, if they are not charged enough, will have difficulty penetrating the breastplate even at close range. But if they are charged enough, they can still penetrate the armor at a distance of twenty to thirty steps."

The protective power of the plate breastplate produced by the Hanzhong Town Armory is not bad now and can be used in actual combat.

"If all the craftsmen producing Ming armor were to be deployed to make plate breastplates, how many pieces could be produced in a month?"

Chen Wang asked after thinking for a moment.

"Since the beginning of this year, the Hanzhong Military Equipment Bureau has been able to produce 650 pieces of Ming armor per month."

Hu Zhili thought for a moment and replied.

"If we switch to the most basic plate breastplate, we can produce at least 3,500 pieces a month based on the working hours alone. As the craftsmen become more skilled, this number should be able to increase by 500 pieces."

The 650 pieces of Ming armor mentioned by Hu Zhili here refer to the helmet, breastplate and skirt armor.

The regular soldiers under Hanzhong Town now wear Ming helmets, Ming armor, and skirt armor, and their arms are still bound with the Ming army's standard iron armbands.

Nowadays, the commonly used iron arm restraints have been assigned to the Henan Military Equipment Bureau for production.

"Four thousand leaders..."

Chen Wang repeated the number in a low voice, narrowing his eyes slightly.

This output can be said to be very impressive, 4,000 collars a month, which means 48,000 collars a year.

But compared with the growing army under his command, this number seems so insignificant.

Currently, he has three battalions of 13,000 soldiers directly under his command, and 100% of them are armored.

Except for the artillery and musketeers, who accounted for about half of the total number of infantry and wore light armor such as chain mail, the rest of the infantry wore a full set of Ming armor.

The Guards Cavalry Battalion was equipped with a full set of Ming armor, and there were a total of 8,000 sets of Ming armor in the division.

The situation of the Second Division under Hu Zhili's command was even more tense - although the 20,000 men were also 100% armored, there were only 5,000 Ming armors, mainly concentrated in the cavalry and elite vanguard infantry.

The rest of the ordinary soldiers wore cloth armor, while the musketeers were unarmored.

At present, the ratio of musketeers to melee soldiers in the military composition of Hanzhong Town has reached almost 64.

Six gunners and four melee soldiers.

All melee soldiers in Hanzhong Town are now fully armored.

However, the armor rate of soldiers in Henan, Huguang and Shandong was still insufficient.

But the good thing is that the production of Haishi gun is very high.

The annual output has reached 22,000 rods.

Chen Wang's plan for the reorganization of the army was to change the ratio of melee soldiers to musketeers in all battalions and towns to a one-to-one ratio.

If it was the previous bird gun, with half of the soldiers being gunners, it would naturally not work.

But now the technology of the Haishi gun is improving year by year, and its power and range have been improved accordingly, so this can naturally be done.

If the produced Seasworn Gun can be fully equipped with bayonets, then even all personnel can use the Seasworn Gun, directly moving the line infantry tactics that matured in Europe in the 18th century to the present.

However, there are still certain technical barriers to the problem of gun bayonets, and it will take time and accumulation of technology to break through.

At present, the three towns of Shandong, Huguang and Henan are all undergoing reorganization. The Haishi guns accumulated in Hanzhong Town are barely used to reorganize the original troops of the three towns.

The population of Shandong Town is over 12,000, that of Henan Town is over 39,000, and that of Huguang Town is over 18,000.

Melee soldiers and musketeers each accounted for 35,000 people.

The armor rate of melee soldiers is about 80%, and there is still a gap of 7,000 pieces of armor.

After the reorganization of the Left, Meng and West armies, the new army had a total of 72,000 people. Their weapons had not been replaced and many pieces of armor did not even meet the qualified standards.

In other words, the troops and weapons under Zuo Liangyu were slightly better, but only slightly better.

The three towns also need to replace their weapons.

According to Hanzhong Town's current production of Haishi guns, it will take another year and a half to completely replace them.

As for armor, that's a bit of a long way off.

"We are now strong enough in the South Country. All the armor produced by the Armory Bureau should be supplied to the six major Xuanwei Offices first."

After thinking for a long time, Chen Wang finally made a decision.

Things have their priorities. The situation in Sichuan is unstable and war is imminent.

The equipment of the frontline troops must be given priority. As for the South Country.
We can wait a little longer.

"What is the current situation of the three military equipment bureaus in Henan, Huguang, and Nanzhili?"

Chen Wang made a decision and continued to ask.

Although the Hanzhong Town Armory Bureau had expanded several times, it was still a bit difficult to rely on just one Armory Bureau to supply the entire force.

The development of the military equipment bureaus in the other three locations must also be put on the agenda.

"The Henan Military Equipment Bureau has relocated its site. The water flow in the area is stable, and a number of hydraulic facilities have been built. The Haishi gun has begun production, and the monthly output of Haishi guns has reached 3,000."

"After all the facilities are built, according to the plan, the output of Henan Military Equipment Bureau can reach the output of Hanzhong Town Military Equipment Bureau, with an annual output of 20,000 rods."

Henan is the heartland of the Central Plains. There are a large number of skilled craftsmen in Henan. The number of craftsmen gathered here is even greater than the number of craftsmen in Hanzhong Town after several expansions.

Henan is also rich in mineral resources. Ores can be collected directly on site for production, which can effectively save costs.

"According to the previous instructions of the general, all the weapon craftsmen of the Huguang Arsenal were transferred to Hanzhong Town, leaving only the armor craftsmen." The Huguang Arsenal was the former Yunyang Arsenal.

After the capture of Wuchang, the name of the Yunyang Arsenal was changed to the Huguang Arsenal.

The number of people in the Huguang Arsenal was not large, and its size was only one-fourth that of Hanzhong Town.

"If the Huguang Military Equipment Bureau switched to making plate breastplates, the monthly output could reach a thousand pieces."

"As for the Nanzhili Military Equipment Bureau..."

Hu Zhili paused and said.

"Nanzhili has a dense network of rivers, which is very conducive to the construction of water conservancy projects, but there are not many craftsmen. When the Wanmin Army occupied Nanzhili, they searched everywhere and brought all the craftsmen they could find to Nanjing."

"We have integrated some Shandong craftsmen, and now the number of people is similar to that of the Huguang Arsenal."

"Fortunately, there are many craftsmen in the areas controlled by the Western Army of Wuchang, Luzhou, and Anqing. If we count all the craftsmen in this area, the scale should be able to reach half the level of the current Hanzhong Town Military Equipment Bureau."

"However, due to the geographical location of Nanzhili, the Central Military Department discussed and decided not to leak our military technology, so we did not build water conservancy projects. We used hydraulic processing and still relied on craftsmen's manual labor, so we could not produce too many armors and weapons."

"Currently, I am mainly responsible for the maintenance of armor and the production of ordinary weapons..."

Hu Zhili's arrangement can be said to be relatively safe.

“Don’t worry too much.”

Chen Wang waved his hand and interrupted Hu Zhili's words.

"It doesn't matter. Now that I've decided to let go, I'll let go of everything."

The arrangements made by the Central Military Department are very safe, but in many cases, safe is not the best.

Under such urgent circumstances of rapid expansion, the current army of 200,000 is simply not enough, and new troops need to be continuously recruited.

If the Military Equipment Bureau of Nanzhili does not release the production authority, it will be difficult to complete the replacement of equipment for the current troops.

The fall of the Ming Dynasty was inevitable.

Time is now extremely tight and the situation is changing faster than expected.

The news from the capital yesterday once again emerged in Chen Wang’s mind—Chongzhen began to levy military pay on nobles and relatives and to collect food and fodder.

The signal couldn't be more obvious.

It also allowed Chen Wang to confirm it completely.

Chongzhen really couldn't hold on any longer.

This day is nearly two years earlier than in history.

"clear."

Hu Zhili responded to the order efficiently, without any hesitation in this regard.

"If we recruit local people to build the Arsenal now, it is expected that the Nanzhili Arsenal will be able to start its transformation by the end of this year."

"December……"

Chen Wang narrowed his eyes slightly.

The most scarce thing for him now is time.

But time waits for no one, and in many cases, it is impossible to be fully prepared.

Chen Wang's eyes swept across the map. The only gratifying thing was that, judging from the current situation, among all the forces, the military strength he possessed was still the strongest.

But all this is far from enough...

The Wanmin Army, the Chuang Army, the Khoshut Khanate, the various chieftains in the southwest, and the Qing Dynasty in the north are all threats that will be faced in the future.

Occupying the heartland of the Central Plains would allow them to obtain a large amount of fertile land, mineral resources, and human resources.

But there are also disadvantages.

Being in a place with four wars, it is often inevitable to be caught in a situation of fighting on two or even three fronts.

After absorbing the troops from the Left, Meng and Xi armies, Chen Wang can now control approximately 226,000 troops.

Including the 72,000 people from the six major Xuanwei Offices, the total army is almost 300,000.

An army of three hundred thousand may sound like a lot.

More than 30% of them are elite soldiers, and the rest are basically veterans who have experienced battles.

Their power far exceeds that of any current party.

Even the Qing Dynasty, which was dominating the northern border, could only look on with fascination.

Although the Qing army won the Battle of Songjin, it was a pyrrhic victory.

But now there is a very bad possibility.

Li Zicheng did not occupy the Central Plains and Guanzhong at the same time as in history, but still marched into Shanxi along the old historical route.

The Li Zicheng in this time and space line did not rely on his own army to conquer the world.

Instead, he was chased by the Ming army all the way and fled into the gathering place of the chieftains.

Li Zicheng did not have the courage and ambition as he did in history.

Prior to this, Li Zicheng had unclear disputes with the Qiang chieftain of Songpan Wei, and had close relations with Qinghai Mongolia, also known as the Khoshut Khanate.

Many of Li Zicheng's soldiers were from the Mongolian and Qiang ethnic groups.

According to rumors in the northwest, Li Zicheng will soon marry the princess of the Khoshut Khanate, the daughter of Gushri Khan.

The intelligence sent by the Intelligence Department of the Snow Region also indirectly confirmed this matter.

Gushri Khan sent a cavalry of more than 2,000 people, carrying a large number of vehicles, to leave the capital and enter the territory of Qinghai.

In this case, the worst possible scenario is that Li Zicheng would unite with the Khoshut Khanate.

The Khoshut Khanate was a vassal of the Qing Dynasty, and the two countries were in an alliance relationship.

If these three parties unite at the same time, the situation on the battlefield may change.

Li Yan seems to be kind and righteous, but in fact he has a heart of iron. He will never let go of this opportunity to make trouble.

Thinking of this, Chen Wang also calmed down.

"Order."

Chen Wang's thoughts turned, and he soon made a decision.

"Appoint Chen Ming as the garrison commander-in-chief of Henan Town, Zhou Yumao as the garrison commander-in-chief of Huguang Town, and Gao Jie as the garrison commander-in-chief of Shandong Town."

"Shandong Town will add an additional division, with Hui Dengxiang as the division commander."

Chen Wang has always been directly in charge of the troops of the three towns.

However, as time went by and power grew, direct control became too demanding.

By establishing a military chief in each town and giving orders directly to the military chief, a lot of energy can be saved.

Chen Wang's eyes wandered across the map and finally landed on the location of Nanzhili.

The Nanzhili troops had already been wiped out in the battle of Fengyang, and even the
"The Military Affairs Department shall dispatch conscription officers to Nanzhili to manage unemployed canal workers on both sides of the canal and recruit new soldiers."

"Add Jingnan Town, set up six divisions, and train 72,000 soldiers."

"Transfer Chen Gong to be the garrison commander of Jingnan Town!"

(End of this chapter)