Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Because the White Spear Soldiers and the Beijing Camp had just engaged in close combat and their strength has not yet recovered.

So the southwestern soldiers who went into battle this time were a group of 1,000 people led by General Xu Chengming.

The Imperial Camp was still the Four Guards Camp led by Huang Degong, and the recent exercise with the Patrol Camp did not consume much physical energy.

However, the Imperial Camp was slightly more favored in terms of the rules. They were responsible for the defense that they often trained, while Xu Chengming led a thousand men to attack.

Before the drill, there was a weapons demonstration and a rest for the soldiers of the Fourth Guard Battalion.

Yang Sichang, the deputy chief of the General Staff who presided over the exercise, said:
"The rules of firearms drills are to use blank cartridges made of sawdust instead of live ammunition."

"For bows and arrows, remove the arrowheads and wrap them in cloth."

"Based on the damage effect of being able to break armor and kill people, a coefficient is calculated for longer distances, and the hit rate is increased for closer distances to determine the lethality index."

"Use the damage model developed by the General Staff to determine the casualties of the exercise."

The exercise rules were introduced to Xu Chengming and Huang Degong, and they both said they understood.

Then Yang Sichang ordered people to bring dozens of sets of armor, which were made according to Liu Xingzuo's description.

The armor of the Jianlu originally originated from the Ming Dynasty, with only slight changes.

Based on Liu Xingzuo's description and the captured armor, the Equipment Research Institute quickly copied the Jianlu armor.

A batch was even sent to Korea for use by Liu Xingzuo, who was now training a Niulu Jurchen army modeled after the Eight Banners of the Jianlu.

A piece of pork was placed inside the armor. As long as it could penetrate the armor and go three inches into the flesh, it would be enough to kill a person.

Xu Chengming personally practiced archery and compared the heavy muskets, light muskets and other firearms used by the Four Guards Battalion to determine the lethality of various weapons.

(The power of the Qing bow is close to that of the longbow, with a lethality index of 36. The soft bow was popular in the Ming Dynasty, with a lethality index of around 20, which is comparable to the 17th century smoothbore musket in the late Ming Dynasty)
Then came the contest between the two armies. The Imperial Camp first used a large number of light artillery to bombard the enemy. This type of Lu cannon, which was derived from the Portuguese cannon, not only had a fast firing rate, but also had a greater range and lethality than before.

The southwestern soldiers lost a lot of soldiers before they even got close to the imperial camp.

Xu Chengming withdrew some of the soldiers with weaker combat capabilities from the field according to the damage assessed by the General Staff.

After finally reaching about 300 meters, the imperial camp's artillery switched to firing shotgun shells, and the muskets also began firing arrow-shaped bullets.

Xu Chengming had a gloomy face and could only continue to withdraw the "injured and dead" soldiers and order the soldiers to continue charging.

Because they didn't actually see any dead bodies, the southwestern soldiers were filled with anger and quickly rushed to a place a hundred meters away from the imperial camp.

At this distance, the bows and arrows in their hands were enough to counterattack, and casualties finally began to occur in the imperial camp.

However, the firepower of the imperial camp was also stronger. Not only were the cannons firing, but all the muskets also began to fire in salvos under the orders of the officers.

After three rounds of salvos, according to the damage model developed by the General Staff, only a few soldiers from the southwest could rush to the front of the imperial camp thirty meters.

And this is not the end. When the distance reaches about 30 meters, the grenadiers of the imperial camp will take out grenades, while others will use crossbows and revolver muskets, raising the firepower density to a higher level.

Until the General Staff determined that all the soldiers in the southwest were "dead", Xu Chengming still couldn't believe it:

The elite soldiers under his command were not even able to engage in close combat and were wiped out outside the defense line.

However, he had just approved the lethality index and damage model, so he naturally had no way to deny it.

He could only apologize in front of the emperor with a gloomy face.

Zhu Youjian did not blame him because he knew that the traditional cold weapon army would inevitably suffer a great loss when facing the new army equipped with firearms.

Especially the Imperial Camp troops, which he had spent a lot of money to build with the latest weapons and equipment. It was understandable that the southwestern soldiers could not defeat them.

So he comforted Xu Chengming:

"The exercise is not an actual battle. In tomorrow's attack and defense of the bastion, I hope to see the performance of the soldiers from the southwest."

"In the future, the southwestern soldiers who will join Changping Town will also be equipped with firearms. Remember to train the soldiers well."

Xu Chengming remained silent, determined to show his real ability in tomorrow's bastion attack and defense exercise.

Otherwise, he would be laughed at by the officers and soldiers who knew about it, and even the general of Changping might lose his position.

In fact, how many people dared to laugh at him?
Qin Liangyu, who had just defeated the Beijing camp in an exercise, felt sympathetic towards Xu Chengming's experience.

As someone who also came from the southwest, she knew how elite the thousand men led by Xu Chengming were.

If the same number of white-pole soldiers met them, they would not dare to guarantee victory.

Such an army was judged to be annihilated before it even engaged in close combat with the imperial camp.

When her white-flag soldiers encountered the imperial camp, their fate was not much better.

This made her feel even more in awe of the Ming court, and she decided to ask the court for firearms to improve the combat effectiveness of the White Spear Soldiers.

It can be said that Zhu Youjian used this exercise to completely shatter the doubts about the use of firearms and determined that the Ming Dynasty's equipment would have to transition to the era of firearms.

Even though some people doubted whether the new army could perform so perfectly on the battlefield, they no longer had any doubts about the power of firearms.

Previous armor-penetrating tests have fully demonstrated the power of firearms.

The determination of the lethality index and damage model gave them a refreshing feeling.

Many civil servants even thought about this point: why did the emperor set up civilian officers and encouraged educated scholars to join the army?
It is true that the knowledge requirements in the era of firearms are far greater than those in the era of cold weapons.

The current situation of civilian officials controlling the military will become more stable with the advent of the age of firearms.

Military generals who have no cultural knowledge and do not understand firearms will quickly be eliminated in the era of firearms.

Therefore, the ministers of the imperial court were all in favor of the use of firearms.

They don't want to see the generals have a chance to turn things around.

With this in mind, everyone saw the reconnaissance battalion of the Imperial Camp Warrior Battalion conducting close combat exercises with another group of meritorious soldiers from the southwest.

The result this time was also very obvious. The warriors from the martial arts competition easily defeated the soldiers from the southwest. After all, these people were warriors who could fight ten or even a hundred people at once. After the rigorous training in the Imperial Camp, they had become qualified soldiers.

With mutual cooperation, they are far superior to ordinary soldiers.

This made the soldiers in the southwest completely convinced of the Imperial Camp.

They are inferior to the enemy in both long-range and close combat. The Imperial Camp is indeed an army directly under the emperor.
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After the drill ended that day, Zhu Youjian summoned ministers including Yuan Keli, Xu Guangqi, Yang Sichang, and Zhu Xieyuan to discuss their experiences.

Zhang Yongan and Gu Yanwu, as talents he valued, attended the meeting as representatives of grassroots officers.

Zhu Youjian was the first to say:

"What do you think is the key to the Imperial Camp's victory in the exercise?"

“Everyone talks about their experience.”

Gu Yanwu had the lowest status among those present, so the emperor asked him to speak first.

He was not afraid of the stage, and said according to his own experience:

"I think the most important thing is weapons. The firearms of the imperial camp are far superior to those of other armies."

"If they are all equipped with firearms, even if the Imperial Camp can win, the losses will not be small."

Zhang Yongan then said:
"The weapons of the Patrol Battalion are similar to those of the Imperial Battalion." "It's just that the manpower is a little lacking, and further training is needed."

"I believe that the key to the victory of the Imperial Camp is training, and strict requirements must be set during training."

"Just like the slogan of the patrol camp says: Sweat more in peacetime, bleed less in war."

Xu Guangqi said the same thing, believing that the patrol battalion's future training should be more rigorous.

Other ministers also spoke freely, covering almost every aspect from selecting and training soldiers to weapons and equipment.

After discussing this, they finally discovered the horror of the Imperial Camp.

That is the army of the Imperial Camp, which has almost no shortcomings.

Apart from the lack of actual combat experience, the Imperial Camp is now undoubtedly the most elite army in the Ming Dynasty.

This has also been proven in history. It is said that "of the 100,000 troops in the capital, only 6,000 of them can be used in the Yongwei Battalion." In the battles with the refugee army and the Jianlu, the Yongwei Battalion played an important role until it was almost completely destroyed.

After Zhu Youjian adopted new training methods, this army became more elite and completed the transition to firearms.

This is also Zhu Youjian's biggest source of confidence now -

Even if all other armies were destroyed, he was confident that he could regain the empire with the help of the imperial camp and the guards loyal to him.

Of course, we haven't reached that point yet.

Zhu Youjian hoped that his ministers could train more elite troops in the same way as the Imperial Camp.

However, the ministers generally believed that it was impossible, because the fighting power of the Imperial Camp was caused by many factors. Other troops could not learn from it at all, and the Patrol Camp was the best place to learn from it:

"Although the Patrol Battalion is slightly inferior to the Imperial Battalion, it can also be called a strong army."

"I think if we want to train a new army with firearms, we should imitate the patrol camp."

Yuan Keli's view is shared by many people.

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly and said:
"So what do you think is the most important thing to learn?"

Yuan Keli wanted to say it was training, but the emperor obviously did not comment on this.

Finally, after thinking for a while, he said to the emperor who seemed to be confident:

"I don't know, please tell me, Your Majesty!"

Zhu Youjian took the lead and said to his ministers:
"I think the most important thing to learn is teamwork."

"The reason why the Imperial Camp is so powerful and the White Spear Soldiers are so elite is because the officers and soldiers have a sense of teamwork."

"They won't fight over credit, nor will they hold each other back."

"So although they are both elite troops, their combined combat power is stronger than that of ordinary troops."

"For example, the soldiers in the Warrior Battalion all believe that they are now much better than before when working with their comrades."

Then he pointed at Li Banghua and said:

"Aren't the soldiers of the Beijing Camp strong? They are all elite soldiers selected from tens of thousands of Beijing troops."

"Why didn't they beat the white-pole soldiers? Because they have no team concept."

"From now on, each battalion will select about a thousand soldiers as elite troops, intensively train them during normal times, and use them in critical situations."

"Their status is equivalent to that of the retainers of the border army generals, used to break the deadlock."

"They will be treated better than ordinary soldiers, as an assault brigade, or as the elite vanguard."

This was the solution proposed by Zhu Youjian after an in-depth study of the current military system of the Ming Dynasty.

The household servant system is not entirely useless. It was developed on the basis of the battalion system after the collapse of the Ming Dynasty's garrison system.

The retainers were not privately owned by the generals. During the Jiajing and Wanli periods, they had become official troops recognized by the court. The court had a formal policy to give retainers more generous treatment and incorporate them into the Ming military system.

Even after reforming the military system in the future, Zhu Youjian would not be able to completely abolish this policy. He would only change the family servants into personal soldiers or guards, and impose stricter restrictions on the number of them.

In the past, the tasks of the servants on the battlefield would naturally be handed over to the elite troops.

In the future, the Ming army's fighting method is that the first-class battalion will be the main force to fight the opponent, and the second-class battalion will follow. When the situation of the war is about to turn around, the vanguard army will be selected as the most elite army to be responsible for the final decision.

Each type of soldier has his own mission and works together as a team.

Most of the ministers present were well versed in military affairs and knew the current mainstream tactics of the Ming Dynasty.

They all expressed their support for the emperor's proposal to build an elite army similar to household servants.

Civil officials were particularly supportive of this, as they did not want to see military generals having an army dependent on them.

Even many civil servants said that the elite army should be trained like the new army of the patrol camp and trained to become an army equipped with firearms.

When it comes to this, Zhu Youjian has something to say. He elaborated on his understanding of the firearms army:
"Compared to the old army, the new army of firearms has a more obvious level of firepower."

"Take this exercise for example. The Imperial Camp starts firing artillery from 1,000 meters, uses arrow-shaped shells at 300 meters, uses a volley of shells from the entire army at 100 meters, and uses grenades and continuous fire at 30 meters."

"The firepower levels are clear and matched reasonably, which is also the key to victory."

"If there is a stronger artillery, the Imperial Camp can strike the enemy from 3,000 or 5,000 meters away."

"You will see this when we defend the city tomorrow."

The city is guarded by red cannons, which are very heavy long-range artillery. Their power is far greater than that of the light cannons used by the imperial camp today.

This made the ministers even more shocked, and they realized that today's imperial camp was not yet complete.

They attach more importance to the new firearms army and look forward to tomorrow's bastion attack and defense drill.

After these ministers left, Zhu Youjian left behind Xu Guangqi, Yang Sichang, Zhang Yongan, Gu Yanwu and other scholars, and assigned them a task, which was to summarize their own views as a guide for building the army.

At the same time, the differences between the new army and the old army were also pointed out, using the square formation to contrast the mandarin duck formation and other military formations.

These people have their own insights on this and have written many articles.

It was later summarized by Zhu Youjian and compiled into a book using more straightforward words.

The name of this book is "Victory of Space and Teamwork". It uses various cases to illustrate the importance of battlefield space, firepower level and teamwork, and serves as a guide book for the construction of firearms armies.

Why is the Mandarin Duck Formation so powerful? Why did Qi Jiguang switch to the chariot formation in the north? Why is the hollow square formation better than the solid square formation? Why is the bastion better than the square fortress?

This book explains all of this and even summarizes the formula for combat effectiveness.

The lethality index and damage model have also been further optimized to make the exercises more precise.

Many people began to realize that war is a science, and the role of mathematics in war is far greater than before.

Zhu Youjian also took the opportunity to establish the Academy of Military Science as another branch of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

The status of science in the Ming Dynasty is getting higher and higher. (End of this chapter)