Volume 4 is in the ascendant Chapter 472: New Army
Huang Zhong understood the essence of the use of the Qi Cannon, so naturally he also understood the same thing about the artillery - although the principles of the two cannons are completely different, in terms of the effects, they are carved from the same mold!
Moreover, with Huang Zhong's command ability, he mastered the essence of its use and was able to deduce it to the tactical level quickly.
Therefore, after Bai Tu got Lu Bu's confirmation, his eyes lit up - he originally thought that artillery still needed to be polished and experience summarized at the tactical level, but he didn't expect that there would be such a "shortcut"?
"You don't have to worry about the distribution of artillery. The Privy Councilor and I have discussed before that for this new 'artillery' army, we will use a new form. We will no longer directly distribute 'arms' to each army, but will form independent armies and train independently, and then form companies as units, and attach to other armies to carry out coordinated operations." At this time, Bai Tu stopped the generals from "stopping".
Bai Tu's words stunned the generals.
Originally, after this kind of "killer weapon" appeared, it would definitely be assigned to each army first with the elites and main forces, and then the army that obtained the artillery would select the appropriate soldiers and train specialized artillery.
But now Bai Tu obviously has a different opinion...
Bai Tu had indeed discussed this matter with Lu Bu before. In view of the special nature of artillery, Lu Bu also agreed with Bai Tu's plan to form an independent army!
Then Lu Bu also explained the meaning of the artillery being an independent army in a way that was easier for the generals to understand...
After the artillery begins to be mass-produced, the Privy Council will set up a special army to independently train artillery. It is expected that an artillery company will control six artillery pieces and have about twenty grassroots generals, plus Ji-zao soldiers, which is about 150 people.
Some of them are specially trained in the skills of operating and maintaining artillery, and other generals and soldiers must also be trained in simple operations. In addition, on the battlefield, they will be responsible for the transportation and protection of artillery...
In theory, all artillery units are independent armies, but in battle, artillery companies will be subordinate to other armies!
The more elite or responsible the army is, the greater the proportion of followers it can obtain.
In fact, the cooperation between engineers and ordinary troops had this tendency before - the engineering teams were not trained by the armies themselves, but when they were assigned certain tasks, there would be engineers trained by the Ministry of Industry to cooperate. For example, when the army was attacking a city, there would be an engineering team that was good at building wells attached...
Only in the case of artillery, this concept of an independent army will be clearer.
After all, artillery is different from Qi guns. It is more complicated to operate and requires a high level of proficiency!
Unqualified artillerymen will not only fail to fully utilize the artillery, but may also put themselves and their comrades in danger and reduce the life of the artillery.
To this end, the artillery will be trained independently. At the same time, the artillery generals must also learn to cooperate with other armies. The generals of other armies must also learn how to command and use artillery and give them correct instructions!
In fact, this is also the development idea of most armies in wars combining cold and hot weapons after the rise of modern artillery...
At the same time, except for a few people like Sun Ce who were not sensitive to this aspect, most of the other generals present also heard some other meanings from it.
Artillery "company"?
It seems that the new artillery corps will also be the first place for the military stratification and military position reform...
The separation of military positions and ranks is itself the reform direction that the State of Chu has been "spoiling" to its military leaders. Now some of the transfers, inspections and even reorganizations of the army are also intended to pave the way for this.
The military system has always been a big deal and normally cannot be changed lightly. However, on the one hand, the State of Chu was sufficiently tolerant, and on the other hand, the propaganda was in place, so there was not much resistance in the army.
For grassroots generals, they vaguely heard that after the separation of military positions and ranks, they could receive both a salary and a military pay, which even made them look forward to it.
As for high-ranking generals, they are a little worried that the new military system will have too strict connections between the upper and lower levels, causing them to lose the power to respond to emergencies on the spot.
The Privy Council is also compiling everyone's suggestions.
The current artillery corps will serve as a role model...
To be precise, it should be an artillery "division".
The current plan of the Chu State is to form an artillery division, which will be composed of three artillery brigades. Each brigade will be composed of three artillery regiments, each regiment will be composed of three battalions, and each battalion will be composed of three companies.
The actual number of each level depends on the situation and is not a fixed number. There will be about a hundred artillery companies. Usually, the most elite troops or troops with special missions will have one artillery company attached to each regiment, and ordinary front-line troops will have one artillery company attached to each brigade...
According to the "official spoilers" conveyed previously, in the "army, division, brigade, regiment, battalion and company" set, the company level has about a hundred people, which means that the regiment level normally has a thousand people and the brigade level has three thousand people. The artillery is considered a special force with a large number of people in the same organization.
After hearing that most front-line troops can only have one artillery company for every 3,000 men, and that a company only has about six guns, the generals' first reaction was to feel a little disappointed - they had originally wanted to "clean up the mess".
But which general who can stand here is not a veteran of the battlefield?
Soon, they all realized that although artillery was powerful, considering its limitations, the more the better.
Of course, three thousand men and six cannons still leave some people wanting more...
Even Bai Tu emphasized that each artillery company with six guns was still just one target !
It will actually take several years to achieve this goal...
Before this, the artillery division could only recruit slowly and train using training guns in rotation, and the trained artillery companies also had to line up and wait for actual installation - setting a small goal first, it would be considered good if every two companies had one training gun.
However, if an artillery company can really have six cannons, this deployment rate is not too high, but it is not low either...
In history without the white rabbit effect, from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, in the West far away from China, during the most dazzling era of the French Empire, the average French army had less than three cannons per thousand people - and this was under the leadership of the Emperor who relied heavily on artillery!
Of course, to some extent, this is also because the developed countries at that time had prominent population and military-civilian ratios.
Now, facing Huang Zhong's request, Bai Tu directly agreed and appointed Huang Zhong as the deputy commander of the artillery division.
However, seeing that the division commander was actually Bai Tu himself, we knew that in fact, the planning and training of the artillery army was handed over to Huang Zhong!
But Huang Zhong's current military rank is just a general of miscellaneous title...
According to previous "rumors", after the military rank system was reformed, generals who originally held honorary posts such as General of Chariots and Cavalry, General of Hussars, and Grand Marshal could be given the title of "Crown General"; the next is the Four Generals of Expeditions at the first level, corresponding to the "Second General"; the next is the Four Generals of Towns at the first level, corresponding to the "Third General"; and a group of generals with miscellaneous titles simply correspond to "Palace General"!
The last one among the generals, that is to say, this will be the minimum standard to be called a "general" in the future.
Moreover, considering the current momentum of the Chu State in training its troops, it is estimated that by then there will be only three or four armies and a dozen divisions in total.
It is somewhat of an exception to appoint a general directly as the division commander, and the artillery division is the top priority, directly under the Privy Council, without the "army" level to govern it, so it is naturally not suitable for exceptions. In addition, in order to reflect the importance of the artillery division, Bai Tu will take on the concurrent position first, and wait for an opportunity to promote Huang Zhong...
Since you are in charge of the artillery division, there will be plenty of opportunities to make meritorious contributions in the future!
After listening to the explanation of Privy Councilor Lu Bu, all the generals understood the concept of artillery division and began to greet Huang Zhong with smiles.
after all……
Just now in their eyes, Huang Zhong was the one who "robbed" the artillery, but now he was helping them train the artillery. It is even possible that Huang Zhong would have a certain say when artillery companies were assigned in the future, so naturally they had to "get close" to him - an old man in the army is like a treasure!
It doesn't matter how many artillery troops will be allocated in the future. The main thing is that everyone respects the elderly and is anxious to build the State of Chu. They all enthusiastically consult Huang Zhong whether they need to transfer people from their own families to the new army.
Huang Zhong just curled his lips at this...
The only one who was not in a hurry was Gan Ning, because he knew that the artillery division had nothing to do with the navy!
There will be special ship-borne guns on naval warships, and there is no need for artillery divisions to assign artillery and guns to them...
Moreover, the training of shipborne artillery is different from that of the army's artillery. Even the types of guns and shells required will be different. This is what Bai Tu had told him before.
He just needs to choose whether to use the firearm side or the true qi side!
No matter who is missing, the navy will not be missing...
As a low-key person, Gan Ning naturally looked down on everyone when everyone was complimenting Huang Zhong, with a humble look as if saying, "You are a bunch of wild dogs stealing food."
Those who discovered this and figured out the reason glared at him.
However, thinking about the performance of the navy and thinking that they really didn't have the ability to command the navy, many people even felt more terrified about floating on the sea for a few months than going in and out of the battlefield...
In other words, you can only feel angry in your heart and let it go, but you can't express your jealousy!
Huang Yueying was also smiling at this time, because Huang Zhong loaded the Qi Cannon, which meant that Huang Zhong was able to "master the essence of loading artillery", thus bringing the Qi Cannon research group back to life.
Although the budget was still greatly cut, a part of it was retained - because as artillery evolved in the future, the Qi cannon must at least be able to "ignore the cost" and make a Qi-side imitation specifically for Huang Zhong.
There is no need to consider mass production, just one will do.
After all, the nature of artillery is that it relies too much on external forces, unlike the energy source of the Qi Cannon, which is directly "Qi", so Huang Zhong cannot load this kind of weapon...
Because the requirement of "mass production" was omitted and only imitation was done without regard to cost, the difficulty of development was greatly reduced. In addition, there was no option of independent research and development, and the company was only responsible for imitating the effects of the artillery, so the development cost was naturally drastically reduced.
In terms of importance, it is only to enable Huang Zhong to be constantly "updated" and to assist Huang Zhong in better training artillery.
This part of the investment should actually be included in the artillery division's training expenses!
but……
For Huang Yueying, this at least meant that her hard work had paid off, and... this also left follow-up power for the Qi Cannon.
Maybe in the future, if the Qi machine itself makes some epoch-making progress, the Qi cannon will also be revitalized and replace the artillery of the same era...
