Southern Ming: A boy soldier at the beginning, supporting the world

Chapter 74 Assessment
On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the day of the grand drill, the whole town should have been organized to conduct joint battle formation training. However, because the soldiers had just joined the army, the joint battle formation training was cancelled and replaced by an assessment of martial arts.

Flags fluttered on the parade ground. Danchu, accompanied by Yu Houji, walked leisurely and inspected the various camps. He first came to the First Infantry Battalion. The battalion commander, Wei Guosong, had a full beard, was tall and mighty, and was a valiant warrior.

The infantry battalion commander is in charge of three infantry squads and a battalion headquarters. The battalion headquarters is in charge of a cavalry post, a musket post, and an artillery post. The musket post is mainly equipped with a matchlock gun, and the artillery post is mainly equipped with two types of light artillery: the tiger squat gun and the sub-mother gun.

The infantry team was organized into three infantry sentries according to the distance of the attack, as well as a cavalry squad (which also served as flag bearers) and a fireman squad.

The first sentry had thirty musketeers, equipped with thirty muskets. The second sentry had twenty archers, mainly equipped with a bow and arrow and a waist knife, and ten rattan shield soldiers, each equipped with a rattan shield, a javelin and a waist knife. The third sentry had thirty spearmen, mainly equipped with spears.

Fire guns mainly include three-barreled guns and single-barreled guns, which are actually a kind of matchlock gun.

During the Ming Dynasty, three-barreled guns and single-barreled guns were the main light firearms of the Ming army. The reason for this was that three-barreled guns and single-barreled guns were cheap and reliable, and their actual combat effects were not much different from those of the matchlock guns imported from Europe.

The reason why Europe replaced the matchlock gun with the arquebus was that the European matchlock gun was of poor quality and had to be ignited with an open flame. The matchlock gun of the Ming Dynasty had already been ignited with a wick, and could be aimed and fired with both hands. The three-barreled gun could fire three bullets at the same time, and its firing rate was much faster than the matchlock gun.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the reliability of the matchlock gun had gradually improved, and the barrel had become longer and the wall thicker, thereby increasing its accuracy and power, and its advantages gradually became apparent.

Yong'an Town had just expanded its army and did not have the financial resources to manufacture and equip matchlock guns. Three-barreled guns and single-barreled guns were cheap and easy to operate, and were obviously more suitable than matchlock guns.

Wei Guosong came over. He was more senior than Danchu and had been the captain of the old battalion together with Danchu. He complained to Danchu in person:

"Captain, our battalion's weapons have not yet been fully equipped. We are still short of 26 horn bows, eight sets of rattan armor, and 14 matchlock rifles. Without weapons, we can't carry out training. We must hurry up and get the weapons."

Yu Houji answered on his behalf: "Okay, Lao Wei, your first battalion is doing well. The third battalion and the guard camp are more seriously short of weapons. Horn bows and rattan armor are complicated to make, time-consuming, and not easy to purchase."

Danchu comforted him, "By March or April, we will be able to have all the equipment. Let's go and see how the training goes."

The army issued a "Military Training Minutes", which was reviewed by Danchu himself and detailed the training and assessment standards for each branch of the military.

At this moment, the three infantry teams of the first battalion had been disbanded, with different weapons divided and each team taking their own exams.

First we came to the archery training ground. According to the "Military Training Manual", the distance was set at fifty steps, the target was five feet high and one and a half feet wide, and hitting two out of three arrows was considered excellent.

For reference, Qi Jiguang wrote "Jixiao Xinshu", which stipulates that "in archery competition, the official ruler is eighty steps away, the handle is six feet high and two feet wide, and two arrows out of every three hit the target. "

Compared with Qi Jiguang, Cen Danchu even lowered the range and accuracy requirements of the bow and arrow.

Qi Jiguang was active from the late Jiajing period to the early Wanli period. The Ming Dynasty was still strong enough to equip Qi's army with good bows such as the large-tipped bow.

The infantry bows equipped by the Yong'an Army were lacquered bows, which were low in cost. They were made of bamboo strips for the bow body, wrapped with glue, and then tightly wrapped with silk. The surface was painted, and the bowstrings were mostly made of twisted brown hemp, so they were not afraid of moisture. However, the bow power was small and the range was short, so it was not considered a good bow.

A good bow is very expensive, and "stem, horn, tendon, glue, silk, and lacquer" are indispensable. The Kaiyuan bows commonly used by the Ming Dynasty border troops and the Manchu bows commonly used by the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty require materials such as silk, ox horns, tendons, animal glue, and fish intestines. The cost is even higher than that of a matchlock gun, and the production process is far more complicated and time-consuming than that of a matchlock gun. In particular, bowstrings are often made of tendons. Cattle are important means of production, and it is impossible to kill cattle for tendons on a regular basis. Although the big-tip bow is good, the Yong'an Army simply cannot afford it.

Danchu became the general, in charge of the troops of a town, and thoroughly understood a truth: we must seek truth from facts in everything and cannot think about problems without considering the reality. For the army, the most sophisticated weapons are not necessarily the best. In many cases, the reliability, cost and durability of weapons are more important.

The archers' exam results were not satisfactory. In the first exam, among the more than 100 archers in the battalion, only one person scored excellent with three arrows hitting the target, 18 scored good with two arrows hitting the target, 31 scored qualified with one arrow hitting the target, and more than half scored poor with one arrow missing the target.

Seeing this, Wei Guosong scolded the archers: "What the hell are you training for! Anyone who misses the target will be punished by being hit with a military stick five times."

Yu Houji advised: "Most of them are new recruits, and this is their first assessment. The results are already beyond our expectations."

The rattan shield soldiers trained with the archers, setting up targets thirty steps away and practicing throwing javelins. Their performance was even worse than that of the archers, which was unbearable to watch.

This is the nature of cold weapons! Without long-term training, it is impossible to achieve the desired effect.

Danchu didn't comment and turned to watch the musketeers training.

The lacquer bows of the Yong'an Army were weak in power and short in range, and were clearly at a disadvantage when fighting the enemy. In battle, the effective range of the lacquer bows was roughly thirty steps. The lacquer bows could only use light arrows, which could not penetrate armor at a distance of thirty steps.

In comparison, the effective range of the Manchu bow can reach sixty steps. Equipped with heavy arrows, it can break heavy armor within thirty steps. Its lethality is comparable to that of an ordinary matchlock gun, but its firing rate and reliability are far superior.

The three-barreled gun can penetrate armor within thirty steps and deal with unarmored targets within fifty steps. Beyond fifty steps, its lethality is very limited.

The single-barreled gun is similar to the three-barreled gun, but it is more powerful and more accurate, with an effective range of up to 80 steps. However, the single-barreled gun has a slow firing rate and poor actual combat effectiveness.

The effective range of the musket is 60 steps, and that of the heavy musket is 100 steps. It has a good armor-piercing effect, but its rate of fire is too slow and requires concentrated use.

The Eight Banners of Manchuria were heavily armored, equipped with large bows, and had equally powerful firearms. They could be considered the most elite cavalry in Asia today.

How to defeat the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty? Danchu pondered for a long time and gradually came up with the answer: what can conquer the barbarians is technology. What can fight the Eight Banners of the Manchus is firearms.

As long as there is iron ore and skilled craftsmen, firearms can be mass-produced. Firearms do not require high physical strength and weapons. New soldiers can use firearms proficiently after simple training. It is much simpler than bows and arrows.

For infantry, the most ideal firearm is the matchlock gun. However, the matchlock gun is relatively complicated to manufacture and is not as convenient as the three-barreled gun. For now, you can equip the three-barreled gun first as a transition. When the production of matchlock guns increases, you can equip them in large quantities.

Anyway, the Qing army in Lingnan is mainly composed of Han army and Green Camp. The Manchu soldiers cannot stand the heat and have not entered Lingnan yet.

(End of this chapter)