Griffin Commander in the Late Ming Dynasty

"Ahem, well... Engineer Sun, thank you for your hard work. Could you tell us about the paper tube gunpowder?"

"Oh oh oh, please follow me..."

The so-called paper tube fixed gunpowder is a major invention in the history of the development of muskets. It is a method of wrapping a certain proportion of gunpowder and lead bullets in a long paper tube.

When reloading gunpowder, you just need to bite open the paper tube, pour some into the firing port, and stuff the rest into the muzzle. You can also stuff a small piece of animal fur to ensure the tightness of the filling.

This gunpowder technology not only improves the shooting power, but also reduces the loading steps and speeds up the shooting frequency.

It looks very simple, but it is of great significance in practical application.

Looking at the small paper tube in his hand, Jiang Han was very satisfied.

Afterwards, Jiang Han inspected the confiscated cannons. It turned out that the quality of these cannons made by the Ming Dynasty itself was quite good.

The manufacturing technology of the Red Cannon was very good. At that time, even Spain and Portugal would import cannons from the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty had long ago demonstrated the magical power of our great China. They bought a batch of artillery from Portugal, touched them, and found that the imitations they made were better than the originals. They are worthy of being the ancestor of the rabbit family.

On the contrary, the quality of the self-cast artillery in the late Qing Dynasty was extremely poor and they would explode at any time. The main reason was the fault of Emperor Qianlong, the idiot son of Emperor Yongzi.

Not only did the silly boy love stamping and had poor aesthetic taste, he was also illiterate. When he was compiling the Siku Quanshu, he burned all of the Ming Dynasty's artillery design albums. A total of 150,000 books were burned, and more than 170 plates were destroyed. He also destroyed a large number of Ming Dynasty archives, especially the archives of the Ministry of War during the Chongzhen period. Not a single one was left. He also systematically tampered with the remaining books and archives.

It is true that even Yongzi's spirit in heaven can be resurrected.

I've been so poor lately, I'll try to update more, woo woo woo, there should be two more chapters tonight... probably group Yi Liu 8 two ① 7 wife Yi Liu

Volume 204: Chapter Chapter : Still Too Full

In the city of Yangzhou, canals were dredged in various places, large water wheels were built by a large number of prisoners, and irrigation wells were dug. Although it consumed a huge amount of manpower, the problem of water diversion and irrigation in Yangzhou was basically not difficult.

Today, Jiang Han has to play the role of a fake-smiling boy again, responsible for opening the spring ploughing ceremony. He is not interested in giving speeches at all, so he simply leaves it to Wang Dang. The first thing he said when he came on stage was four words: Well, spring ploughing begins!

Spring ploughing is a big event and the people are very excited about it. There are loud gongs and drums, firecrackers, red flags waving, crowds of people, playing various instruments and singing... Let's forget about the last one.

On a makeshift altar, Wang Dang, together with the heads of various departments, divided the boxes to offer sacrifices to the heavens and the earth, praying for a good harvest in the new year.

After a long while, Jiang Han, the highest-ranking officer, personally held the plow and walked around the field twice, which triggered unanimous applause from the surrounding people. The ceremony was finally completed.

The volunteers stopped training and returned to their hometowns to help their families with work. Even those soldiers who were doing hard labor, if they had family members in the city, they would go to help their families. If they didn't have any, they would help others. If there was really no one to hire them, they would continue to work as laborers.

Jiang Han's policy was quite relaxed. In addition to every household receiving a cow, some farm tools and seeds, each household could also receive two stone of grain per month, which would be distributed until the autumn harvest, so that the grain could be used for the households' daily household expenses.

The people were all very excited. They were given land, cattle, farming tools, and food. This was a good thing that they could never have dreamed of when the government was still in power.

Ah, Master Wang, please come slower. It’s better to wait until my son gets married before you come and yell at him!

Most of these people were tenants, who usually farmed the land and paid rent to the landlords. The grain they grew throughout the year was not enough to cover the rent. When they first saw Jiang Han talking about dividing the land, they hesitated. After all, he was a rebel, and as citizens of the Ming Dynasty, they would not take anything from the rebel even if they died outside or jumped off here.

But, but the land and the food smell so good, and before I knew it, I was standing in the queue. Daming, woooo, I will love you later!

Originally, many people were skeptical, but as the settlers continued to spread the word, only rent was collected and all other taxes were exempted. With such a good thing, who would go to farm for the landlords and be exploited?

Within a month after the start of spring plowing, the flow of people in Yangzhou city increased sharply, and a large number of refugees began to migrate towards Yangzhou. Especially in the square, a large number of residents lined up and crowded together every day, wanting to share a piece of land.

"What should I do? What should I do..."

Wang Dang anxiously circled in front of Jiang Han.

"What's wrong, Brother Wang? Why are you so anxious?"

Jiang Han sat in the rocking chair, feeling very comfortable. It felt good to delegate things. It was so nice to be a hands-off boss!

"How can you be so leisurely? This is not your fault. You promised to divide the land among the people, but now more and more people are coming to Yangzhou, and there won't be enough land to go around!"

Wang Dang got angry when he saw Jiang Han like this.

"What's the big deal? Aren't there still a lot of wasteland around Yangzhou? We can just organize the people to reclaim it."

"It's not enough, my brother Jiang! When people from other places heard that they could get land here, they all ran here, not caring that this is the territory of the rebels. There are tens of thousands more people on the list these days!"

"Don't be anxious. We did say we would divide the land, but we didn't say we would do it right away. Register the people first. There are millions of acres of land around Yangzhou Prefecture that have never been cultivated. Why don't we turn these lands into civilian farmland and distribute them to them so they can cultivate them? Also, those lands that the landlords don't have for growing crops can be confiscated and distributed. The better military lands can be distributed to the families of the volunteers. It's not a big deal."

"You have touched the lifeblood of those gentry, aren't you afraid that they will harm you?"

Wang Dang was speechless when he saw Jiang Han dividing up other people's land so casually. He went against the landlords and gentry in such a high-profile manner for the sake of the people. Brother Jiang, he really was... I was crying.

"Don't be too careless. Those people won't give up so easily."

From the perspective of the Ming Dynasty, Brother Jiang is a traitor, but from the perspective of the people, he is such a good person... Wang Dang sincerely does not want such a person to die in obscurity.

"Don't worry, there is no one in this world who dares to assassinate me."

Jiang Han waved his hands, continued to lie in the rocking chair and began to rock, singing softly: "What's the name of my father's father..."

That night, at midnight, Jiang Han sat on the ground dejectedly, his hair disheveled, his eyes dull, and he muttered, "I'm so stupid, really... I just knew that ordinary people wouldn't be stupid enough to send an assassin to kill me, but I didn't expect that the other party was not an ordinary person."

"The last time I encountered such a speechless thing was last time."

"I shouldn't have boasted like that. Now that I'm in such a tough situation, how much hand cream do I need to use?"

416 rolled his eyes helplessly: "Can we stop telling jokes, Commander!"

She was wondering why it hadn't rained in the past two days. It turned out that Jiang Han had left her speechless.

The house was quiet, but outside it was bustling with commotion. A large number of men in black were fighting with the humanoids. No, they were being beaten unilaterally. The humanoids were like Valkyries standing in front of the new ASS, and every move they made would cause screams.

It hurts, it hurts so much. I was going to have a good sleep, but these bastards are doing this in the middle of the night. They don’t have to go to work! Oh, they work the night shift, so it’s okay.

Even more hateful! Damn, you guys don’t need to sleep, why don’t you let him sleep? He was sleeping so soundly with his sweet wife in his arms, and suddenly he was scared by the assassin! Damn, do you guys look for assassins by group? ?

Such a large group of people came here to visit the tourist attractions?

The sound of fighting lasted for a while and then disappeared. When the door was opened, the humanoids were all yawning and preparing to go back to the house.

"What a lack of public morality..."

"That's right..."

Jiang Han sighed, knowing that he would not be able to sleep well tonight: "Send someone to collect the bodies, and check where these people are from."

The trembling servants looked at the corpses all over the ground, swallowed their saliva quietly, and left tremblingly. A moment later, the whole Yangzhou city became lively again.

Jiang Han was assassinated. This was a big deal. Volunteers throughout the city began to impose martial law. Many managers rushed into Jiang Han's mansion. They were relieved when they saw Jiang Han lying on a recliner with his eyes closed and a gloomy face.

"Sir, you..."

"I'm fine... As you can see, I was just disturbed in the middle of the night so I'm in a bad mood."

Seeing Jiang Han like this, the managers all breathed a sigh of relief and even had the mood to joke. It seemed that the gentleman was really fine.

"Sir, the autopsy report is out."

"The cause of death was an autopsy?"

"Yes, no..." The young messenger obviously didn't expect Jiang Han to say this all of a sudden. He was confused for a moment and then quickly reacted: "Based on the physical condition of these assassins, it is difficult to determine their specific affiliation. They have characteristics of various industries, but many of them have thick calluses on their hands and certain callus marks on their shoulders. They are most likely guards."

"Okay, got it. Thank you for your hard work. Go down first."

Jiang Han rubbed his brows as he watched the messenger retreat. The managers nearby came up to him worriedly, "The guards are actually involved in this matter. We can't be careless..."

"I don't know who is behind this..."

Everyone was talking at once. Jiang Han rubbed his brow for a while and gritted his teeth: "This bunch of unruly people..."

"gentlemen?"

"They still have the energy to work the night shift and play assassination after playing the ash for eight hours a day. It seems that they are eating too much and working too little. Cut the food quota in half and extend the working hours to twelve hours!"

My dear, it seems that the workload I gave you is not enough. You still have the mind to do these trivial things, you little bastard, I will kill you!

"Sir, how should we investigate the murderer behind this..."

"Investigating what?"

Jiang Han raised his glasses and said, "We can easily figure out who did this. Is there any need for an investigation? Send volunteers to confiscate the fields of all the remaining wealthy families in the city tomorrow."

Investigation, evidence? Do I need that? Since you have chosen to take action, you should bear the consequences of failure. I don't care whether it was Mr. Zhang or Mr. Ma's idea. In my eyes, treating everyone equally is the best.

Volume 205: Chapter Chapter : The Removal of the Left Five Battalions and Zhang Xianzhong

"kill!"

In the camp outside Yangzhou city, thousands of militiamen are training.

Since taking root in Yangzhou, Jiang Han's fairness and the fact that the volunteers were completely different from the soldiers they had seen before have attracted many young people to join. On the one hand, they can support their families. The notice of the Volunteer Army's recruitment is posted there, and people have been specially notified to the people. The treatment is very generous. As long as you can join, you can basically guarantee that your whole family will not have to worry about food and clothing. Moreover, if you sacrifice, the Volunteer Army will be responsible for the support of your family. It is a sure win. On the other hand, the Volunteer Army has a future, and who would not want to work for a reliable leader?

In recent days, the threshold of the Volunteer Army Recruiting Office has been trampled by people. After reporting this to Jiang Han, he waved his hand and simply set up a militia reserve force.

The reserve militia is somewhat similar to the Ming Dynasty's garrison soldiers. Their main responsibility is to carry out some garrison production work and undergo military training on a regular basis. If there are those who want to join the Volunteer Army, they will also be selected regularly. This not only solves the problem of logistics support, but also allows for the screening of members who want to join the Volunteer Army to avoid situations where undercover agents from other places sneak in.

The purity of the team is quite important.

"Keep your lower body steady! Keep the muzzle straight! Power comes from the ground! Kill!"

A general was teaching the militiamen how to move. Each of them held a spear in his hand and made salted fish thrusts at the straw man in front of them.

At present, the military factories in Yangzhou have not yet completed the research on the production process of flintlock guns. What can be used now are some standard firearms of the Ming army. To be honest, no one dares to use these guns because they explode at any time. After testing by the military factories, it was found that at least half of them were defective products.

By the time the battle breaks out, the enemy won’t be killed yet, and half of our own people will be dead first. In addition, the production of ammunition is difficult. Even the volunteers are currently equipped with relatively few muskets, and the only ones they get are some reliable products that are relatively high quality and have been refined.

The militia’s training naturally focuses on swords and guns.

While they were training, a group of people came to the edge of the playground and waved to the general in the field.

"Captain Wang, you're looking for me?"

The general stepped forward hurriedly. There were not many volunteers at the moment. Apart from Jiang Han, the highest officer was the brigade commander. The regiment commander was already the highest-ranking person under the brigade commander. Such people definitely did not come here just to hang out.

"Sir, please come to the military camp before you go to wipe out the bandits, so I came to inform you in advance. You should hurry up and line up, because they will be here soon."

"Sir is coming?"

The general was suddenly startled, and after exchanging a few simple polite words with Captain Wang, he quickly ordered to stop the training and assemble immediately.

Jiang Han is now preparing to go to the military camp. He has just come out from the Ministry of Military Industry. His schedule has been very full these days. Before everything in Yangzhou starts to get on track, he must do a good job of field investigation.

The most important things in the military industry are coal and iron.

The mineral resources in the Southern Zhili region are very rich. Suzhou is rich in coal, and Huainan is rich in iron ore, with huge reserves.

The current iron production center of the Ming Dynasty is Daye, Hubei. Foshan in Guangdong was also a famous iron smelting center. Now the annual iron production of the Ming Dynasty is as high as tens of millions of kilograms, most of which is in the south, Lingnan and southwest regions.

The iron in Huguang accounts for one third of the Ming Dynasty, but Daye is a little far from Yangzhou. If you want to take it, you must pass through Nanjing. So for now, Jiang Han can only obtain the iron through trade.

The Ming Dynasty was now able to use coke to smelt iron. Pig iron could be directly burned into wrought iron after high-temperature calcination. To smelt iron, a large amount of coke was needed, with the ratio being almost one to one. That is, one ton of coke could produce one ton of pig iron. According to the current prices in the Ming Dynasty, each ton of coke cost as much as ten taels of silver. Coal was cheaper, but not much cheaper, and still cost several taels.

Military factories must use good coal for iron smelting, otherwise the quality of the weapons produced will be problematic. One ton of pig iron costs more than twenty taels, plus the price of coke, the cost of building an army is quite high.

If you want to make 10,000 muskets, you can use five pounds of wrought iron to refine one pound of molten iron to make fine iron. One musket will require about seven pounds of fine iron. For 10,000 muskets, the amount of wrought iron required will be nearly 400,000 pounds.

What's more, this is just the cost of the muskets. Add in the horses, armor, and artillery, the expenses are even more staggering. Add in the food and fodder and the wages of each volunteer, and Jiang Han feels the pain of having only 10,000 troops.

But the army is indispensable. There are only more than 300 humanoids at most. Although each of them is the incarnation of the God of War and the Dragon King, the disadvantage in numbers is sometimes decisive in the frontal battlefield. Although the super individuals can come and go freely and have extremely strong combat effectiveness, they lack the ability to coordinate the overall situation. After all, they are unable to cope with the workload and the humanoids will not be able to handle it.

An army is a must. If you want the army to be powerful, you must build a complete military-industrial system. Jiang Han's idea is to establish a series of light and heavy industrial systems including military factories, machinery factories, clothing factories, iron factories, coal factories, etc., so that he will have extremely solid logistics to fight against these monsters.

At the same time, Jiang Han also had a solution to the lack of talent system in the military field: to set up a military academy.

Currently, the senior generals of the Volunteer Army are a bunch of peasants like Li Yunlong and Kong Jie. They do not have the spirit of Li Yunlong to fight Ping'an County. They rely entirely on human leaders to fight, and their combat concepts are all copied from the Ming army next door. This is not acceptable.

Therefore, Jiang Han specially established an Army Officers School to train new war command talents, but he was troubled for a long time over whether the school should be called East Point Military Academy or Hongpu Military Academy.

However, based on the advice to pay as little tribute as possible, Jiang Han finally decided on the name of the school: Xinhuo Military Academy.

May the Chinese nation never perish and the flame of their legacy burn forever.

Military academy students will be selected from the volunteer army, aged 16-25, only required to be able to read and write, and have a basic understanding of liberal arts and science, regardless of their background or family circumstances. One hundred people will be admitted in the first phase.

The military academy adopts a fully closed education and full military management. On the one hand, it can be used to rectify discipline and on the other hand, it is to ensure that the tactical education of the humanoids will not be leaked. The main contents studied by students include: basic tactics, applied tactics, drawing and cartography, ballistics, military system, trenches and fortifications, field service, infantry drill manual, and some basic cultural subjects.

In the future, this school will provide the Volunteer Army with a steady stream of military talent, allowing the Volunteer Army to always be one step ahead of those wild boars in high-level tactical concepts!

In the large parade ground, there were spears everywhere and the militiamen were standing in neat rows. Although they were only wearing a layer of leather armor and cotton jackets, they were very spirited.

Thousands of militiamen and volunteers stood in neat rows on the parade ground, waiting for the arrival of the master.

The military discipline of the Volunteer Army is very strict, even the militia is the same. When Jiang Han is not there, if anyone dares to whisper, they will be dragged out and beaten with a military stick immediately.

Soon, Jiang Han arrived.

Looking at the volunteers and militiamen in front of him looking at him with burning eyes, they had simple looks. After more than two months of sufficient food supply, most of them had basically gotten rid of the sunken cheeks, sallow complexion, and hunger and cold look, and they were full of energy.

"Thank you for your hard work, soldiers."