The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 629 The Eighth Corps
March 18th, the second year of Guangde.

Nanjing, Longjiang Pass.

The spring rain is scattered, the water ripples are vast, gulls and herons fly together, dolphins and fish swim and disappear, sails come and go, and the mountains and rivers are reflected in the sky.

Sun Chuanting, with his hair and beard all white, stood at Longjiang Pass, trying his best to look into the distance with his dim old eyes.

The river was densely covered with the masts of warships. Rows of soldiers from the Eighth Corps, dressed in black uniforms, lined up to board the ships. The artillery made a squeaking sound as it was transported onto the sampans.

From the southern outskirts of Shitou City, just an arrow's throw away from Longjiang Pass, the crisp sounds of firing from Type 36 rifles were heard, and the faint shouts of soldiers could be heard. A faint smell of gunpowder drifted in the air. The new recruits of the First Corps were conducting live-fire drills, which were carried out once every three days.

This scene made Sun Baigu, who had retired for many years, feel as if he had returned to a familiar battlefield. He stroked his beard, nodded and smiled:
"Okay, okay, with a strong army and powerful horses, we will definitely sweep across Japan this time. My Great Qi is mighty..."

Sun Shirui, who was supporting him, quickly corrected him after hearing this: "Dad, you are getting old and confused. This is not a navy battleship, it's just a troop transport ship. They are not going to fight Japan, but to Jiangnan to quell the rebellion."

Sun Chuanting laughed dryly, scratched his gray hair, and nodded repeatedly to his son:

"Misheng, seeing so many warships, my mind is dizzy. It reminds me of the time when the retired emperor fought against the Japanese pirates. It happened so many years ago. I am old and useless now."

"Dad, General Zhao is still waiting. Let's go now while there are fewer people around and check on the Fushun."

"Yes, yes, help me over there and go meet Zhao Xilong. I don't know when we'll meet again."

Sun Shirui supported his father and walked tremblingly towards the troop transport ship Fushun docked on the shore.

It was a light warship with 88 long guns on its sides and two 58-jin super-short heavy guns on the front mast.

Although the Fushun was just a troop transport ship and not the main battleship of the Qi army, it also had great military achievements.

Last August, in the Liaonan Sea Battle that determined the fate of the Imperial Navy, the Da Qi Fleet resolutely rammed the pirate battleship that was ten times its size in a column.

The Fushun took the lead and opened fire first.

Two short heavy guns of astonishing power fired grapeshot.

An enemy ship, which was unlucky and blocked the way of the Fushun, had two masts broken and lost 97 pirates instantly, rendering it incapable of combat on the spot.

~~~~
Sun Chuanting came to the troop transport ship and looked up at the mast and deck above his head. The shore was bustling with people, and auxiliary soldiers were pulling war horses onto the ship.

He stretched out his old, withered hand toward the battleship named after the city he had already managed, his fingers trembling slightly.

Zhao Lujiao dismissed his attendants and rushed forward. Before Sun Chuanting could see him clearly, he knelt on one knee, clasped his hands together and said:
"This humble general pays respect to Lord Sun. I am wearing armor, so it is inconvenient for me to kneel down. I beg Lord Sun to forgive me!"

Sun Chuanting's wrinkled old face smiled like a cracked walnut.

"Hurry up and don't let my subordinates see me. I'm no longer the Prime Minister."

Just as Sun Shirui was about to salute, Zhao Lujiao stood by and consciously supported Sun Chuanting.

Sun Chuanting pointed at Sun Shirui who was standing next to him, breathing slightly:
"I just heard from Mi Sheng that the Eighth Corps has been transferred to Nanjing. I wanted to catch up with you, but I knew you were busy with military affairs and hadn't come. I didn't expect you to leave so soon."

Zhao Lujiao quickly explained, "Lord, this time when we went to Jiangnan to quell the rebellion, the retired emperor didn't want to make a big fuss, so no one came to practice. Few of his former colleagues came either."

Sun Chuanting nodded. "The young emperor lacks authority and authority, so if the retired emperor is to handle his affairs, he certainly can't be too ostentatious. There are only a few old men left in Kaiyuan, and even fewer who followed him to Nanjing. Prime Minister Qiao is seriously ill now, and I don't know if he can make it through the year. Mao Yuanyi and Wang Huazhen are also not in good health... If Shaobao Yuan were still alive, the position of Prime Minister would definitely be his."

Yuan Chonghuan was a good friend of Sun Chuanting during his lifetime, and the two had a close relationship.

Zhao Lujiao was reminded of his old boss when he saw the object, and the scene of his old boss's tragic death in Japan emerged in his mind again.

"Xilong, don't show mercy when you go to Jiangnan this time. Those wealthy and powerful people are more vicious and more difficult to deal with than the Japanese pirates and the Jiannu."

Zhao Lujiao clasped his hands together and said, "I will definitely fulfill my mission!"

Sun Chuanting signaled his close friend's subordinates to come closer.

"The Emperor's ambition is to conquer Japan. Within five years, the army will conquer Japan. Jiangsu and Zhejiang will then become one of the bases for the eastern expedition."

"We must ensure the safety of the southeast and prepare for the future storage of food and fodder for the army. We must also exterminate all the rebels to prevent them from colluding with the Japanese pirates and causing endless harm. Neither of these two things can be wrong. Otherwise, your fate will be the same as mine. Remember, remember..."

Zhao Lujiao didn't expect there was this layer. He was grateful and thanked Sun Chuanting again.

At this time, the low and mournful sound of cymbals and gongs came from the deck of the Fushun. The fleet had been loaded and was ready to weigh anchor.

Sun Chuanting said goodbye with tears in his eyes: "Go."

Zhao Lujiao looked at the old man's white hair, his eyes reddened slightly: "Take care, Mr.

After saying that, he stepped onto the sampan and boarded the deck of the Fushun.

One after another, the troop transport ships raised their sails and slowly sailed out of Longjiang Pass.

Zhao Lujiao stood at the bow of the boat, braving the biting cold wind, gazing at the lonely figure on the shore, until Sun Chuanting's figure turned into a small black dot and disappeared in the merging of water and sky.

~~~~
The first and second battalions of the Eighth Corps, with 3,000 infantry, cavalry, and artillery, set out from Nanjing, advancing day and night towards Taicang Prefecture by both land and water routes.

The transportation routes of Da Qi were mainly divided into waterways (including inland rivers and sea transportation) and land routes.

Liu Zhaosun was well aware of the importance of smooth transportation, so long before he became emperor, he paid great attention to the repair of post roads and the replenishment of military stations.

In the first month of the first year of the Wuding reign, an order was issued to "add water and horse stations, delivery offices, and express delivery shops"①. On the 1st day of the ninth month, another order was issued to "change the former Ming post stations into stations"②.

Infrastructure work such as expanding post roads and setting up military stations was carried out on a large scale as Qi continued to expand.

Whenever the Qi army conquered a place, they would build roads and set up stations on the spot.

In June of the first year of Wuding, Pu Gang occupied Linqing; Bumbutai led the Khorchin to surrender, and then "established Kaiping Guard (governed in the east of Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia), and set up eight military stations: in the east, the four stations of Liangting, Shen'a, Saifeng, and Huangya connected to Daning (that is, Daning Dusi, governed in the west of Ningcheng, Inner Mongolia); in the west, the four stations of Huanchuan, Weilu, Ming'an, and Xining connected to Dushi (that is, Dushikou, Hebei)"③.

In the third year of Taichu, Deng Changxiong pacified Shanxi, "reformed the former Ming post stations, built roads, each ten feet wide, and set up a military station every sixty miles"④.

The Great Qi pacified the vast areas of Shanxi, Shaanxi (eastern part), Mongolia, Shandong, Henan, Jiangxi, Huguang, Suzhou and Hangzhou, and Liaodong, and carried out drastic reforms on the former Ming post stations.

Convert the post station into a military station, use combat soldiers to make full use of the post soldiers, and give them more military value.

More than 5,000 military depots, large and small, stretched across the country like dense veins. These depots and highways formed a nationwide transportation network centered in Shenyang and Nanjing.

In the 18th year of Guangde, the dredging of the Grand Canal was successful, sea transport and shipping coexisted, sea transport flourished unprecedentedly, and water stations on both sides of the river and the sea were greatly developed.

According to historical records, “Water and horse stations were everywhere”⑤, and the Great Qi Dynasty had a prosperous situation with land, water and sea connections.

This was thanks to the paving of cement roads, the improvement of war horses, the shock absorption technology of carriages and the gradual use of steam power.

Imperial transportation reached its fastest speed in more than a thousand years.

In previous dynasties, the post road could only travel a maximum of 500 miles in a day and night.

The peak speed of delivering official documents in the Great Qi Dynasty could reach 1000 miles in a day and night ( years after Guangde).

When Emperor Wu of Qi was conquering Malacca, he sent cavalry from Nanjing to the Indochina Peninsula. The journey was more than 7,000 miles, and it took only eleven days via the Great Dao.

In order to suppress the rebellion of the Mughal Empire, Emperor Xuanzong of Qi marched his troops to Delhi, a distance of more than 8000 miles (across the Himalayas), and the Southwestern Corps took only days to travel.

Because the empire's transportation was too developed, by the late reign of Liu Kan (1680s), there were 20 horses in the capital of Da Qi, and each horse produced about kilograms of horse manure every day, which amounted to tons of horse manure a year.

The urban pollution caused by horses was far more serious than the later smog.

Horse manure not only smells bad and is unpleasant to the eye, it also harbors flies, parasites, and infectious diseases. It's also common for horses to die in the streets from overwork.

Therefore, in the later period of Emperor Wu's reign, steam locomotives replaced horse-drawn carriages, which was not only a technological trend but also an inevitable requirement for urban sanitation.

~~~~~
"What kind of people are these in Taicang Prefecture? They are so bold."

"They are all dead."

Li Wenbiao, the chief instructor of the Eighth Corps, accompanied Zhao to Taicang.

In early March, the Eighth Corps arrived in Nanjing and rested outside the city for half a month. Instead of receiving the order to attack Japan by sea, they were told to go to Jiangnan to quell the rebellion.

Everyone was very angry.

The backbone of the Eighth Corps was the 8,000 veterans of the headquarters who withdrew from Japan that year.

In the first year of Wuding, many families of the soldiers who went on the Eastern Expedition died in Kyushu at the hands of the Shogun.

Their commander, Yuan Chonghuan, the most trusted man by the retired emperor, chose to die together with the evil monk in order to protect them.

Revenge on Japan has become the only reason for these veterans to exist.

On the deck of the Tieling troop transport ship, veteran Zhou Tiedong was carefully wiping his Type 36 rifle, while some new recruits who were not used to riding on a ship were lying on the side of the ship and vomiting violently.

Zhou Tiedong looked towards the east, his eyes full of hatred.

The Type 1853 rifle is similar to the British Enfield rifle and is a representative work of the Minié rifle.

The projectile length is the length of the entire ammunition, with the propellant filled inside the cavity.

It is said that this invention was made by a craftsman from Sichuan in the workshop who was inspired by the blowgun used by the chieftain of western Sichuan.

The Thunder Master submitted the invention to the Imperial Firearms Special Committee, which rejected it for a time. The reasons they gave were:

"Spherical is the only projectile shape used for military purposes."

Before this, muzzle-loading rifles fired spherical projectiles, and their shooting accuracy was very poor, so a dense array was needed to compensate for the lack of accuracy of firearms.

Although the Type 29 rifle has rifling, soldiers in actual combat need to first use the loading rod to stuff the bullet into the barrel, and then try their best to embed it into the rifling. The whole process is tedious and complicated, and full of dangers. Once the softer lead bullet changes, it will affect the shooting accuracy.

This rifle was considered useless by various corps and was quickly abandoned.

Until the Sanliu style appeared.

It uses an oval projectile with a deep, small blind hole at the bottom and a conical cast iron metal plug on the outside.

This oval-shaped projectile is easy to load, and when fired, the gunpowder gases push the cast iron metal plug forward into the blind hole, causing the projectile to expand and embed itself into the rifling.

The Type 36 quickly passed the tests of the workshop and the firearms committee.

This rifle has a caliber of 17.83mm, a barrel length of 990mm, four rifling grooves, and a twist rate of 1:78.

The barrel is fixed to the full-length walnut stock by three bolts. The stock base is made of brass and has a total length of 1397mm.

It is equipped with a vertical frame rear sight, with a range of 823 meters and an effective killing range of over 500 meters (a miracle in this era).
The barley-shaped front sight is equipped with a bayonet mount. It is equipped with a 432mm long triangular bayonet sleeve, which is fixed by the bayonet on the front sight and the bayonet sleeve and locked by a spring lock.

The projectiles and propellant of the Type 36 ammunition were packed in a double-lidded leather ammunition box with a tinned lining and hung on a black cowhide strap.

In actual combat, the musketeer would take a cartridge from the ammunition box, bite open the back with his teeth, and pour a penny of gunpowder into the barrel. He would then turn the cartridge over, insert the projectile from the other end, along with the outer cartridge, into the muzzle, tear off the exposed cartridge, and use a loading rod to load it into the bottom of the barrel.

By the second year of Guangde, Shenyang and arsenals across the country had produced a total of approximately 50,000 Type 36 rifles.

In the subsequent suppression of the Jiangnan rebellion and the bloody battle against Japan, the Type 36 and its improved version, the Type 38, would make the empire's enemies understand what true despair is.

Notes:

① "Qi Hui Yao" Volume 75 quoted "Da Zheng Ji".

② "Qi Hui Yao" Volume 75 quoted "Da Zheng Ji".

③ "Qi Hui Yao" Volume 75 quotes "Ji Yao". According to "Ji Yao" Volume 18, it says: A military station was set up in the st year of Guangde. The two statements are different.

④ "History of Qi·Biographies of Tusi".

⑤ "Qi Hui Yao" Volume 75 quoted "Zhao Dai Dian Ze".

(End of this chapter)