Chapter 41 41 battle achievements
"Guns? Impossible."
When Wei Guangde heard his father asking him, he shook his head and said without thinking.
Just kidding, although I have never been in the military, there is an explosion of information in later generations. I have seen many things on TV or the Internet, and I know a lot of news.
To put an end to the cavalry, it was the emergence of machine guns. Only with continuous firepower could it be possible to suppress the cavalry charge.
If you want to defeat a cavalry charge with a fire blunderbuss, the other cavalry must be so stupid that you can hit the muzzle of the gun to do it. It doesn't matter whether you hit it in three stages or in five stages.
Wei Guangde knew this, and had seen it in later movies and TV shows. The Western "queue to shoot" tactic, in which the two warring parties shot at each other from a distance of hundreds or even dozens of meters, and the battlefield was filled with smoke for a while.
But what impressed Wei Guangde the most was the drummers in the square formation. The soldiers attacked in unison to the rhythm of the drums, very neatly.
"Dad, if you just talk about what to do if you encounter Tatars, what kind of trouble have you encountered? We haven't arranged for you to go to the north. The Tatars have withdrawn from the Great Wall."
Wei Guangde was puzzled. Two days ago, when his father and uncle were discussing how the infantry could defeat the cavalry charge, he just said it casually, but he didn't expect to bring it up again tonight.
Wei Meng and Wu Zhankui didn't talk about the cause and effect before, because they were afraid that the little guys would be worried.
Although it was known in the Ming Empire that the emperor was going to launch a northern expedition to retaliate against the Tatars, after all, it was only spread among high-level circles in the capital and did not spread among the people in the market, let alone Jiangxi.
Nanjing only knew about this matter because it had to arrange food and supplies for the Northern Expeditionary Army, and because of the intricate relationship between the two capitals, it was only known about this matter. The spread was relatively narrow and did not spread.
"Will the Tatars come again this year?"
Wu Dong seemed to be enlightened and suddenly enlightened, and asked his father loudly.
Hearing what he said, Wei Guangde and Wei Wencai also looked at Wei Meng with worried expressions.
"It's not what you think."
Wu Zhankui was looked at by his son for a while and felt very uncomfortable.
"Uncle, what is that?"
Wei Wencai also asked hurriedly at this time.
He knew his father's character, but he didn't want to talk about it. There was no point in asking. He could only try to find out the information from his uncle.
"Okay, I'll tell you, but you can't tell it outside, let alone your mother, you understand?"
Wu Zhankui looked at his son and nephew and only thought about it for a moment before speaking.
After seeing the three young men nodding in agreement, he looked at his brother-in-law and slowly told the news that the emperor was going to conquer the north this year to take revenge on the Tatars.
"Your Majesty wants an army to march north to the grasslands?"
Wu Zhankui hadn't even finished speaking. Wu Dong, Wei Wencai, and Wei Guangde were all shocked by the news.
Everyone can attack the capital, but your emperor has to send a large army to the north to regain his face.
Well, it’s time to get a little practical.
The battlefield is on the grassland.
If we rely on infantry to enter the grassland, can we catch up with other people's horses?
Everyone in the room knew about Tumu Fort. Even though it was far away from the northern grasslands, tens of thousands of veterans from the Beijing camp had their bones buried in a foreign land. It made people shudder to think about it.
Those were all veterans with battle experience, but they all fell into it.
The soldiers the emperor wants to send now will certainly not be more powerful than those soldiers.
No matter how surprised others were, Wei Guangde was really searching his mind to recall the articles he had read back then, but he could not recall any plot of the Ming Dynasty's military expedition to the north in the middle and late period.
It seems that after Tumu Fortress, the Ming Empire's army basically lost the ability to enter the grassland. Especially after the Hetao area was abandoned, the Ming Army lacked war horses.
Don't ask Wei Guangde how he knew the Loop had been abandoned, but he had such an impression. I don't know which emperor did it or why.
I can’t remember the Ming army’s northern expedition, so what should I do now?
After Wei Guangde recalled this paragraph for a long time and didn't think of it, he roughly sorted out the current situation in his mind. In fact, there were only two possibilities.
First, it was not carried out in the end, everything was just planned, and then it was stillborn, so Wei Guangde in later generations never saw this history that never happened.
Wei Guangde also felt from the bottom of his heart that this possibility was actually the greatest.
The only remaining possibility is that the Northern Expedition was carried out, but the army may not have achieved any results, so there will be less reports in later generations. It is highly unlikely that it was another big defeat, otherwise it would be impossible not to mention this matter in those historical articles.
There are two possibilities. It seems that participating in this Northern Expedition is not very dangerous.
However, relatively speaking, the danger of the latter is still there. There are no large armies fighting between the two sides, but it does not mean that small contact battles will not occur, and there will still be battle losses.
Well, at this time, Wei Guangde used his own judgment to conduct subsequent analysis. Since no major frontal battle will break out, then in the face of a sneak attack and harassment by a small group of cavalry, there are no cannons and a large number of blunderbuss. As long as they are well-trained, It seems that the danger is not great, maybe he can still get some military exploits.
Thinking about that night, his parents were still discussing whether to pay to move his official position up a level. For military generals, military merit is naturally the best way to get promoted.
Thinking of this, Wei Guangde looked up at Father Wei, then at his uncle, and finally said: "Father, uncle, if this is the case, since we can't get the mother-and-son cannon to strengthen our combat power, if we can get a lot of Guns can also greatly increase combat effectiveness, but the prerequisite is that the soldiers can keep up with the training. This will consume a lot of money, food and medicine, can the guard station provide it?"
"Do you think guns are better than swords and guns?"
When Wu Zhankui heard his nephew's words, he hesitated for a while and then asked.
"Of course, my uncle will know what the bodies of those military households are like now.
Weapons such as swords and guns require good physical conditions and better military training to be effective.
According to what you said before, if the troops are to be sent out this year, they will definitely not have time to train, and even the time to recover their bodies may be tight. Under such circumstances, it seems more secure to train soldiers to use blunderbuss for long-range combat.
For firearms training, as long as the quality of the muskets is similar to the batch in our fort, and there is sufficient gunpowder and lead, you should be able to fight in a few months of training. "
Of course Wei Guangde would not tell his father and uncle that the battle might not be fought, or that it would not be a big fight.
However, if he thought about it, with a large number of muskets and well-trained soldiers, it would be no problem to repel the Xiaogu Tatar cavalry.
"Our Right Army Qianhu Station will deploy troops from two Hundred House Stations for training. There are more than a hundred muskets in the warehouse of the guard station. They are the same batch as the ones you have in hand. The quality should not be bad."
Wu Zhankui nodded slightly and said.
"That's no problem. We'll train more than a hundred gunners."
After hearing Wu Zhankui's words, Wei Guangde clapped his hands and said slightly excitedly.