Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1600 Life in the military camp!

Seeing Jingren's puzzled look, Ye Mingsheng touched his head and explained:
"Jingren, our gunners all measure distance with their naked eyes and make judgments based on their experience. Even though we are several miles away, it is already very good that the artillery fire can achieve such an effect!"

"With the current artillery accuracy and range-finding level, it is basically impossible to destroy all these targets with one round of artillery fire. It will take at least two or three rounds of artillery fire!"

At this point, Ye Mingsheng couldn't help but continue:

"If the artillery is to exert sufficient power, it must do well in three aspects!"

"The first point is the performance of the artillery itself. The quality must be good. Otherwise, your artillery will explode before it hits anyone else, and harm your own people!"

"The second point is maintenance and repair. If you only have a good artillery, it won't work if you don't maintain it properly. You need to maintain the artillery, oil it when it needs to be oiled, and cover it with a quilt or a rainproof oilcloth. These are all very particular!"

"In addition to artillery maintenance, repair is also a very important part. In high-intensity combat, artillery is prone to various faults. This cannon, especially a heavy one, costs hundreds of taels of silver, or even thousands of taels of silver. It is impossible to just throw it away if it breaks. Our Daqian army is not that rich, and we don't have that much luxury..."

"Unless absolutely necessary, we will not allow the cannon to be abandoned or blown up to prevent the enemy from using it!"

"If you don't maintain it properly, the cannon will easily develop various problems and won't be able to exert its power. If you can't repair it properly, this cannon worth hundreds or thousands of taels of silver will be useless!

"So in response to this situation, our artillery department has also opened a special maintenance course, requiring every gunner to learn how to maintain and repair artillery to keep the artillery combat-ready. In addition, a special person will conduct assessments to see if you have learned enough!"

"The third point is the gunner who controls the artillery!"

At this point, Ye Mingsheng couldn't help but ask Jingren:
"Jingren, do you know what the most critical factor is in training excellent gunners?"

Jingren immediately showed hesitation, and seeing this, Ye Mingsheng encouraged him:
"Jingren, just guess whatever you want. It doesn't matter if you guess wrong!"

Hearing his father say this, Jingren felt a little relieved. After thinking for a while, he said:
“Is it because the eyes can see far?”

Ye Mingsheng smiled and said:

"A pair of clairvoyance can indeed help the gunner to better measure distance and aim, but how far can a pair of naked eyes see? And there are only a very small number of people who have clairvoyance!"

Jingren asked curiously:
"So what is the most important factor in becoming a good gunner?"

Ye Mingsheng said seriously, word by word:

"Nothing else! Just four words! Live-fire training!"

"Under the current conditions, there is no shortcut to training a qualified gunner. The only way is to feed him with shells..."

"Jingren, you have to know that theoretical knowledge is theoretical knowledge, and practical operation is practical operation. No matter how well the artillery instructor teaches, when you get to the actual firing stage, you still need a process of gradual exploration before you can combine theoretical knowledge with practical operation!"

"According to our Daqian Army's training experience, if you want to train a qualified gunner, you have to let him fire at least 50 rounds. For those with poor comprehension ability, 70 or 80 rounds is normal, and there are many who can only pass the test after firing 100 rounds!"

Hearing Ye Mingsheng say this, Chief of Staff Zhao Han also echoed:
"Your Majesty is right. When we were fighting the Luoan Imperial Guards and the Zhennan Army, they were all curious about why our Daqian cannons were so fast and accurate. The reason for this is that our Daqian cannons are better than theirs, and the second reason is that the gunners fired more shells!"

"If you want to be a good gunner, it's not enough to have a coach teach you the techniques of artillery fire, how to measure distance, and how to adjust the angle. As the saying goes, a master can only lead you to the door, but it's up to you to practice. It's not enough to just learn without practice!"

“Why are the gunners of the Zhennan Army and the Luoan Imperial Guard not as accurate as the soldiers of the Daqian Army? To a large extent, it is because their gunners may only be able to fire less than 20 shells a year. If you can only fire 20 shells, you may not even fully understand the performance of the gun, so how can you be accurate?”

After hearing everyone's explanation, Jingren listened with great interest and nodded repeatedly, as if he was treating all these things as stories.

Ye Mingsheng then changed the subject and said:

"Jingren, think about this: why can the gunners of the Zhennan Army and Luoan Imperial Army only fire 20 rounds of artillery shells? Is it because they don't want to? Or are Xu Zhaojie and Shangguan Hongyuan stingy and unwilling to let these gunners train with live ammunition?"

Facing his father's question, Jingren didn't know how to answer, but instinctively felt that the answer to his father's question was no, so he shook his head. Seeing this, Ye Mingsheng smiled and continued:

"This raises the question of industrial capacity!"

"Shangguan Hongyuan, Xu Zhaojie's subordinates have poor industrial capabilities. Their arsenal can only produce hundreds of shells a day at most, and the shells they produce are of poor quality. During transportation, some shells were unusable due to bumps, damp weather, and other reasons!"

"So for them, artillery shells are very precious, especially those transported to the front line, so they are naturally reluctant to let the gunners conduct too much actual combat training!"

"And our Daqian's industrial capacity is stronger than theirs. Our arsenal is fully operational and can produce hundreds of shells every day. Moreover, the quality of our shells is better than theirs. Although some shells may become unusable due to bumps during transportation and weather changes, the probability is much lower than theirs..."

"So the Daqian army, which has a sufficient supply of artillery shells, can use artillery to suppress them unscrupulously and provide firepower support for our soldiers!" "In the face of absolute firepower suppression, Shangguan Hongyuan, Xu Zhaojie, even if Han Xin or Zhuge Kongming is possessed, I can kill him with three, five, or ten times the amount of artillery shells!"

Speaking of this, Ye Mingsheng also spoke with some emotion:

"Jingren, this is only one aspect of industrial capacity in war. In the future wars, industrial capacity will become more and more important, especially in those large-scale battles, where your industrial capacity will be the key!"

"One of the important reasons why Daqian was able to conquer the world is that we encourage the development of industry and commerce. We respect talents, innovation and technology. This is the core competitiveness of Daqian!"

"And it is this kind of encouragement and respect that ultimately made Daqian what it is today! In the days ahead, we must stay true to our original aspirations and continue to develop industry and commerce unwaveringly. We must make the development of our country through industry and commerce our basic national policy, and make our industry and commerce grow bigger and stronger and bear fruit!"

Although it was still difficult to fully understand his father's words, seeing his father so serious, the young Jingren silently memorized the four words "develop the country through industry and commerce" in his heart!

After chatting about all this, time passed unknowingly and it was afternoon. Originally, Ye Mingsheng planned to go there that day, but seeing Jingren was so interested in the military camp, Ye Mingsheng made a temporary decision to take Jingren to stay in the military camp for one night to feel the atmosphere of the military camp and go back tomorrow morning...
In order to better create an amiable image of himself as an emperor in the minds of ordinary soldiers, Ye Mingsheng refused the separate meal during dinner and ate from the same pot with Jingren and other senior officials and ordinary soldiers.

These ordinary soldiers were relatively naive and did not understand what a political show was. Seeing the emperor eating from the same big pot, they were all very moved and shouted "Long live the emperor".

Although it was a big pot meal, there were extra meals today because of Ye Mingsheng's arrival. Dinner was pork, cabbage stewed with vermicelli, tomatoes and eggs. In addition, each person was given some pickles. The rice was changed from steamed corn bread to white rice. The food can be said to have been comprehensively improved.

Looking at this familiar yet unfamiliar big pot of rice, Ye Mingsheng still felt very touched. After putting the food into his mouth, Ye Mingsheng felt even deeper. If he could eat pork, cabbage stewed with vermicelli, tomatoes, eggs, and white rice in the army before, he would definitely eat a lot and eat at least two bowls of rice!
But now in the palace, Ye Mingsheng's taste has been spoiled by those top chefs, so those delicious dishes from the past are not so delicious in Ye Mingsheng's mouth, and even taste a bit like chewing wax!

Although he didn't feel as good as before, Ye Mingsheng still ate his food. While eating, Ye Mingsheng didn't forget to look at Jingren beside him...
Jingren was originally looking forward to the big pot meal in the army, but when he really ate it and tasted what it tasted like, the expression on his face fell. However, when he saw Ye Mingsheng eating with big mouthfuls, he didn't say anything and started eating too.

Although Ye Mingsheng didn't say anything when he saw this, he was still quite satisfied in his heart!

Ye Mingsheng knew very well that it was easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. Due to his busy official duties and the fact that he had many wives, concubines and children, Ye Mingsheng was unable to take care of them on a daily basis. For example, An Miaoyi was the one who educated Jingren for more than 90% of his time!
Although An Miaoyi has high academic expectations for Jingren, she is still very good to Jingren in life. She strives for excellence in food, clothing, entertainment, housing, etc., and his living standard is very good!
Therefore, Jingren, who was soaked in a honey pot, is actually a bit picky in life, and his requirements for food are also relatively high!
Therefore, Ye Mingsheng never expected that Jingren would be able to dress simply and live like ordinary people.

Let alone Jingren, even Ye Mingsheng, who climbed up from the lower levels of the army, couldn't do it now because he was eating from the same big pot every day. As the saying goes, it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but it is difficult to go from extravagance to frugality!

So Ye Mingsheng’s requirement for Jingren is to be like his mother An Miaoyi!
It’s okay to eat and drink normally, and it doesn’t matter if you buy this or that, but in this ZZ activity, you must have a certain level of ZZ literacy, just like your mother An Miaoyi, who spent the first cup of tea holding hands with the widow of a fallen soldier and was so moved that her eyes were filled with tears, and the next cup of tea she wanted to wash her hands until they were broken!

So now Jingren obviously doesn't want to eat but is able to force himself to eat it, Ye Mingsheng is already very satisfied. Ye Mingsheng has never had too high demands on Jingren···········
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the next day, early morning

As usual, Murong Xinyun came to her sister Murong Qingwu's yard. After entering the room with familiarity, Murong Xinyun saw her cousin sitting on the sofa, looking at some papers very seriously.

Although Murong Xinyun was curious when she saw this, she did not disturb her sister, but sat quietly aside.

After half a cup of tea, Murong Qingwu put down the papers, and Murong Xinyun asked:
"Sister, what are you looking at? Why are you concentrating so intently?"

When Murong Xinyun asked this, Murong Qingwu did not hide anything and immediately said:

"This is the content of His Majesty's speech at the Liangzhen camp yesterday!"

"What's the content of the speech?" Murong Xinyun seemed a little surprised when she heard the answer.

Murong Qingwu nodded and said:
"Your Majesty is a relatively special monarch. He likes to explain his political philosophy in public, talk about his ideas, what he wants to do, and what he expects from the court, the people, and the army!"

"Moreover, your Majesty's speeches are not the same old official jargon. Your Majesty's speeches are basically impromptu and the content of the speeches is not long, but the content is often very important and has a far-reaching impact on the court."

"There is a special bookcase in my library, which is used to store the contents of His Majesty's speeches. You can take a look at it when you have time, Xinyun!"
Murong Xinyun nodded slightly, then looked at the speech manuscript beside the table and said:

"Sister, what is the message of His Majesty's speech yesterday?"

Upon hearing this, Murong Qingwu looked at the speech she had just read, then nodded and said:

"Very valuable! Your Majesty is sending out an important ZZ signal!"

Upon hearing this, Murong Xinyun immediately became interested, and the look she gave the speech script changed slightly.

Seeing this, Murong Qingwu also understood her sister's intention. Although Murong Xinyun did not speak, she took the speech manuscript and handed it to Murong Xinyun and said:

"Xinyun, let me show you this speech! Let's see if your sense of smell is sharp and whether you can understand His Majesty's ZZ signals..."

(End of this chapter)