nanming man

Chapter 389
At the end of October, Nanyang Mansion entered the city, and more than [-] elite troops were stationed in the wilderness outside the city.

Looking around, one after another military tents spread out, banners and flags fluttered in the camp, and shouts of killing were heard all day long.

At this time, the soldiers of the Wei army lined up on the school field held a knife in one hand and a shield in the other. Under the supervision of the general, they slashed several times in a row.

On the other side of the school field, the musketeers lifted their guns skillfully and shot, the pikemen thrust hard, and the horses galloped back and forth, charging high slopes and jumping trenches. The training of the soldiers of each battalion was very intense.

After taking down Yiling, Gao Yihuan left 3 troops to guard various parts of Huguang, while nearly [-] troops were gathered in southern Henan.

Of the 7 troops, 4 were divided into various dangerous passes, and the [-] elite were concentrated in Nanyang to step up training and observe changes in time.

After Gao Yihuan set off from Jingzhou, he rushed to Nanyang within a few days. While supervising the training of soldiers, while waiting for news from Guanzhong, he inspected the newly built weapon workshop in Nanyang.

Now with the expansion of Gao Yihuan's territory, Runing is no longer suitable as the center of Wei Wujun.

Compared with Runing, Nanyang is located in a basin, surrounded by mountains, easy to defend but difficult to attack.

In addition, the Nanyang Basin has a lot of fertile land, the surrounding mountains are rich in mines and products, and it is connected to Huguang, so it is more suitable than Runing as Gao Yihuan's old nest.

For this reason, Gao Yihuan set up the newly built firearms workshop and some other weapon workshops in Nanyang and Xiangyang.

At present, there are many workshops in Runing, Nanyang, and Xiangyang, and depending on the location and the way to obtain resources, the distribution of workshops will also be different.

Because Xiangyang is close to the Ming Dynasty and the Han River is connected to the Yangtze River, it is convenient to obtain materials such as cotton cloth and refined iron from the south. Therefore, many workshops for armor, quilts, military shoes, and banners have been built.

Runing also made guns and guns again, but no more craftsmen were added, and a large part of the production capacity was transferred to Nanyang.

There are many mountains around Nanyang Mansion, Tongbai mountain area, there are various minerals such as gold, silver, copper, iron, etc. At present, except for gold and silver minerals are too low to be mined, copper and iron have a certain output.

There are mines in Nanyang, and coal in Pingdingshan. Setting up a workshop in Nanyang also facilitates transportation and reduces the transportation cost of raw materials.

Previously, due to lack of resources, Gao Yihuan mainly cast firecrackers and iron cannons.

Now after the craftsmen found a copper mine in the Tongbai Mountains, Gao Yihuan used the captured green battalion soldiers during the First World War in Ruzhou to mine, and then sent craftsmen into the mountain for smelting, and then used mules and horses to transport the copper ingots out of the mountain, gradually accumulating some copper ingots. copper ingots.

The cannon Gao Yihuan built in Nanyang was not the iron cannon made by Runing, but a lighter bronze cannon.

The Qing army began to use Zhentianlei, which surprised Gao Yihuan and felt a lot of pressure, so soon after he arrived in Nanyang, he led a group of people to the workshop for inspection.

Now that the Qing army has a vast territory and a large population, Gao Yihuan must give full play to his advantages in equipment in order to offset part of the advantages of the Qing army.

At this time, a group of people rode away from the camp and galloped to the Cannon Factory in Wollongong. A few rows of red brick houses were seen from a long distance away, and there were several huge blast furnaces standing tall, billowing thick smoke. .

At the end of October, the weather had turned cold. Gao Yihuan saw the chimney, and he galloped all the way without being guided.

He rode first, followed by dozens of riders, and followed closely behind. After a while, everyone arrived at the cannon casting workshop with towering chimneys.

Although this workshop was built less than a year ago, its scale is much larger than that of Runing's.

The entire workshop covers an area of ​​nearly a thousand acres, including refining and refining copper and iron, casting artillery, manufacturing shells, a shooting range for testing artillery, and a gunpowder workshop.

Gao Yihuan divided the craftsmen into grades. Starting from the apprenticeship, the treatment was different for every level up. This inspired the enthusiasm of the craftsmen, so that he had many experienced craftsmen in three years.

It was under this kind of encouragement that Gao Yihuan's team of craftsmen had expanded to more than [-] people, and there were more than [-] apprentices.

Now this workshop in Nanyang has more than 200 craftsmen and more than 1000 apprentices.Although there is still a shortage of personnel in the workshop, it does not take much time to recruit people, and there is no problem.

Gao Yihuan and his party reined in their horses outside Zhubaofang, while Chen Huiting and several master craftsmen were already waiting outside.

"Humble post, see the commander in chief!" Chen Huiting led the small officials and master craftsmen in the workshop to salute respectfully.

Gao Yihuan jumped off the horse, threw the whip to the guards, and said with a smile: "This commander came to see how the workshop is going, and learn about the newly made bronze cannon."

"Reporting to Commander-in-Chief, the workshop has already produced three sample cannons according to the Commander-in-Chief's request. Recently, the craftsmen have repeatedly tested and found that the effect is not bad." Chen Huiting extended his hand to invite Gao Yihuan to enter the workshop, and reported.

Gao Yihuan nodded slightly, and smiled expectantly: "Go to the shooting range, pull it out and show it to me!"

Gao Yihuan went straight to the topic, and under the guidance of Chen Huiting, he came to a very spacious artillery testing site.

At this time, not long after Gao Yihuan and others arrived, the three craftsmen each pulled a healthy horse, and each dragged a slender cannon behind the horses.

These cannons are not as thick as the red cannons, and they are shorter in length, only about seven feet. The frame is between the two wheels and is dragged forward by the horse.

Just looking at the appearance, Gao Yihuan's eyes lit up, a bit like the field copper cannon he wanted, but he didn't know how far it could hit.

"Hey, how much does this cannon cost?" Zhao Daxian was a little stunned when he saw it.

Chen Huiting said: "Marshal, this cannon was cast according to Marshal's request. It took a total of three experiments before it was successfully cast."

Gao Yihuan didn't know much about the technology of casting cannons, but the appearance was somewhat reflected, so he drew an outline for their reference. The appearance he didn't want to make was really as he imagined.

At this time, everyone's eyes were attracted by this horse-drawn artillery. Not to mention the range, but in terms of transportation, it was excellent and convenient enough to keep up with the speed of the army.

Gao Yihuan waited for the three cannons to stop, stepped forward to touch the cannon body, and said without any nonsense, "Come on! Hurry up and fire two cannons, let me take a look."

This kind of artillery fires solid ammunition, and its function is to strike the enemy from a long distance, so the requirements for the range are very high.

Now, the artillery looks pretty good in appearance, but I don’t know if it can hit far. If the range is not much better than the Franc machine, then this kind of artillery is meaningless...

(End of this chapter)