Volume 5: Overlord of the Sea Chapter 601: Imitation artillery?
Jia Xu finally recommended Lu Xun...
Lu Xun had returned to Jinling from Yizhou, which had completely become a part , and began to gradually get involved in the affairs of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
If nothing unexpected happens, Lu Su has been the Minister of Civil Affairs for a long time. After the war subsides, he will be replaced by Lu Xun. After all, the Minister of Civil Affairs has not had a new leader for a long time, and there should be a rotation.
And it is believed that within five to ten years, Yu Fan's position as Grand Secretary will be "transferred" to Lu Xun.
After all, Lu Xun was not only a confidant who had been with the King of Chu since he was fourteen years old and the first to praise the King of Chu for being able to block Xiang Yu's attack without any injury, but also, although he was a side branch, he was the true spokesperson of the Lu family and the successor of Lu Kang...
At present, Lu Xun is still in the stage of familiarizing himself with the government affairs of the court. There is no conflict of duty if he is assigned to Wancheng as a staff officer or in a military post.
Moreover, for Lu Xun, this is also an opportunity to exercise or demonstrate his abilities.
Yizhou's naturalization was very successful and his contributions were great, but after all, it was overseas, and today's Chu State is no longer a separatist force in Jiangdong. Some people may not be convinced based solely on Yizhou's contributions.
After all, although Lu Xun was an "old minister" during the period of being the governor of Yangzhou, his actual age was only twenty-six!
With Lu Xun's ability, I believe he will be able to perform well in Wancheng. Although Lu Xun has not been back for a long time, he and Zhang Xiu have one thing in common - they both have a good relationship with Lu Bu.
At the beginning, in order to test the young Lu Xun and when there was a lack of military advisors, Lu Bu humbled himself and listened to his orders. To Lu Bu, Zhang Xiu was even more of a junior in the martial arts world.
In this regard, Zhang Xiu and Lu Xun should be more compatible, and Zhang Xiu would not underestimate the seemingly weak Lu Xun.
Of course, for Jia Xu...proposing Lu Xun at this time was also considered as doing a favor for the Lu family.
Jia Xu had already considered it so carefully, so Bai Tu naturally had no reason to deny it.
"Your Majesty, you can consider moving Commander Huang's artillery division to Wangjing Road for training," Lu Su reminded at this time.
Wangjing Road, which is roughly the range from Xinye to Wancheng, is not only very close to Xuchang, but also has a "flat" location close to the Central Plains, making it very suitable for artillery advancement!
So the Chu State also began to prepare for a "three-front war". One of them was Zhao Yun and Fa Zheng, who were on guard against Longyou in Hanzhong and Xichuan in the other.
The second is that in Wangjing Road, Zhang Xiu and Lu Xun observed the situation in Guanzhong and Guandong, ready to send troops to the Central Plains at any time, with a large number of artillery reserves behind them;
Third, in the Nanpi area of Bohai County, not only is Lu Bu in charge, but there is also Cao Pi, a mascot with a "provocative" effect, so we need to guard against Cao Wei's counterattack...
As for Huainan, theoretically there was a possibility of active attack by the princes who assisted the Han Dynasty, especially the Marquis of Qi, so Taishi Ci was left to supervise military affairs, and Hao Zhao, who joined the State of Chu through the imperial examination four years ago, was responsible for the defense of Hefei!
I believe that even Liu Bei would not want to go to war with the State of Chu in Huainan.
After all, Huainan has the military city of Hefei and a well-developed water system, which not only means that coordinated operations between land and sea are required, but also means that it is more convenient for the State of Chu to transport artillery.
The current training location of the artillery division is in Huainan!
As for the navy, it has now returned to the Chu homeland - among them, 8,000 elite troops have not returned for several years!
Moreover, on the sea, the standing navy of Liaodong Port and Donglai Port is now enough to sweep away all enemies. After all, Cao Wei no longer has a regular fleet, whether in the court or the government.
"Well, let's send a message to General Huang now and start training in different areas after the New Year." Bai Tu also felt that he should be braver.
After all, the artillery division is training in Huainan , which is equivalent to focusing on defense, while being sent to Wangjing Road is more like a hidden assassin in offense!
Of course, in reality the artillery division will not attack alone, but if it sends troops out from Wancheng, because the artillery division is right behind them, they will definitely be able to add a large number of artillery companies to the army!
When it comes to artillery, Yu Fan's brows, which were often furrowed like WiFi signals, deepened by three points: "My lord, regarding artillery...are there going to be any restrictions in the future ?"
Everyone present here knows that Yu Fan said this not because he was "merciful" and couldn't bear to cause casualties with artillery, but because other princes... especially the Wei State's craftsmen camp, had a tendency to imitate artillery!
After all, artillery is different from Qi crossbow. If it is "only" artillery, it can still be imitated. After all, gunpowder is just an optimized formula that is difficult to develop and is kept secret to the point of being difficult to steal.
But it is nonsense to want to keep secret the gunpowder of "one nitrate, two sulfur and three charcoal"...
As for smelting technology , with the pioneering work of Chu State, Wei State also made some progress. Basically, the highest military industry level of Wei State could reach the level of private workshops in Chu State.
"There's no need. They are bound to imitate it, even if we don't use it. It's better to unify the world before they succeed!" Bai Tu was very confident.
In addition to confidence in himself, it is also confidence in the Ministry of Works and even the entire Chu State.
If it was "just" artillery, it would indeed be easier to imitate, but... not to mention that the artillery of Chu was no longer a "basic model", and was it really easy for Wei to produce artillery?
It is indeed not impossible to imitate a cannon that is a hundred years behind the times. However, it is not necessary to mention the "visible at a glance" demand for steel. Even the raw material for the cannon's brushes - pig bristles - is difficult for the Wei State to obtain!
Especially for crudely made gunpowder, the brush is more demanding, otherwise it will easily clog the barrel...
It may seem insignificant, but in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, pig bristles were used as a sign of bulk transactions to trade large quantities of arms with the great powers - after all, in modern times, the Chinese were the largest group of pig consumers, so naturally they had a lot of pig bristles.
However, for the current Chu State, pig bristles can be easily requisitioned, but for other princes... there are not so many people in the community who eat meat!
This is just one aspect. Other "invisible" needs, such as tung oil for maintaining crossbow and cannon barrels, and high-sugar, high-calorie, and high-fat compressed biscuits... permeate every aspect!
It can be said that the State of Chu has already dragged the rhythm of the war into a competition of national strength. It is useless to merely imitate some of the superficial technologies of the State of Chu.
After the artillery was fully put into use, everything except the core technology could not be kept completely confidential and would be imitated, which was also anticipated by Bai Tu and the Ministry of Industry.
However, Pang Tong has confidence in the research speed of the Ministry of Industry, and Bai Tu also has confidence in the production speed of Chu State...
The reason why Pang Tong has confidence in the "Ministry of Works" rather than in himself is because his current project is no longer about artillery, but about studying how to combine artillery with precision reporting!
The Chu State's partial science has not yet pointed out the radar, but the precision waves of the wireless precision report also have a certain positioning effect, so Pang Tong thought - how great it would be if the artillery shells could fly to the place where the corresponding precision waves are released?
In this way, as long as the strategist's mental strength reaches a certain level, he can use his brain to indicate the direction and target of the artillery shells...
