Chapter 41: The Flintlock

Want to go home and farm and write books?

Dream on—how could I ever let you get away with that?

But as for drilling troops in Tongzhou, Zhu Youxiao did think it was feasible.

Of course, drilling troops alone wouldn't be enough—he had to get his own hands in this, or else if those Donglin Faction types came stirring things up, what drilling would even get done?

As for the current Minister of War, Cui Jingrong—how to describe the man? Perfectly mediocre.

The key issue was that the court officials simply couldn't accomplish anything, and the reason was simple: the Donglin Faction was constantly jumping up and down.

Having seized control of the censorial officials, the Donglin Faction had been raising quite a ruckus these past years. Or rather, from this point on, all the way until the fall of the Ming, this situation never stopped.

The censors would savage the officials who actually did things, making it so that big actions brought big mistakes, small actions brought small mistakes, so they simply did nothing—and doing nothing at most earned them a censure for occupying their posts without doing their jobs.

In any case, as Zhu Youxiao saw it, the censorial system had to be reformed. It was precisely these self-proclaimed pure ones jumping up and down that had turned the Ming into such a mess.

Cui Jingrong was exactly that case—he basically dared not say anything, dared not do anything, and wouldn't even voice his opinion on Liaodong matters.

Of course, there was one crucial reason: Cui Jingrong was also a member of the Donglin Faction.

In the original course of history, Cui Jingrong was stripped of his post for shielding Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, and other famous "Six Gentlemen of Donglin," whereupon he resigned and returned to his hometown.

"The Donglin Faction really plays the game of brainwashing and moral coercion well." Zhu Youxiao sighed softly—political correctness was a real scourge!

Never mind this era—even in later ages, in certain so-called great democratic nations, look what extreme political correctness had wrought! Black people, transgender people—they were practically untouchable existences.

Zhu Youxiao thought it over—this needed changing.

Of course, for Zhu Youxiao, drilling the new army was the most critical thing at hand.

Without guns in hand, what use was talk? Even the Emperor's words were like farts—the greatest reason for regional loss of control was that the central authority had lost its prestige.

Where did the central authority's prestige come from?

The answer was equally simple: the central army could no longer fight. When your army can't fight, what authority do you have left?

"Chen Hong, summon Xu Guangqi to the capital." Zhu Youxiao didn't hesitate for a moment before directly summoning Xu Guangqi.

There was no way this man was going back to Tianjin to farm—now was the time for using people, so how could Xu Guangqi be let go?

Forget about returning to Tianjin—come on, come into my bowl. You want to drill troops, don't you? Perfect—come drill troops for me.

Having thought of Xu Guangqi, Zhu Youxiao naturally thought of another man, one named Bi Maokang.

Bi Maokang, courtesy name Menghou, sobriquet Dongjiao, from Shanglu in She County. A Ming dynasty official and weapons expert. He authored the Illustrated Treatise on Military Equipment, which catalogued various firearms and poison crossbows, combining text and illustrations to describe the manufacture, use, and power of military equipment. The book states: "What the barbarians fear most from China is its firearms." This book was banned and destroyed in the forty-sixth year of Qianlong.

This man was someone Zhu Youxiao needed even more—Bi Maokang, in his Illustrated Treatise on Military Equipment, was the first to introduce the flintlock (called in the book the "self-igniting fire musket").

He improved the matchlock ignition device of the bird gun into one using flint as the firing mechanism, thereby overcoming the weakness of matchlock ignition being vulnerable to wind and rain.

In the flintlock, a piece of flint was mounted on the firing mechanism; when fired, the shooter pulled the trigger, and the cock mounted on the trigger struck down against the flint, creating sparks through friction. The sparks fell into the powder chamber, igniting the gunpowder, which produced gas pressure that propelled the bullet out.

This gun could be fired by simply pulling the trigger repeatedly, striking the flint, thus simplifying the firing procedure and increasing the rate of fire.

The creation of the flintlock was a major improvement in individual firearms; its development and completion were roughly contemporaneous with Europe, yet in China it was not promptly promoted—only in the early Qing, during the Kangxi reign, was it used as the Emperor's personal hunting gun.

How could Zhu Youxiao possibly give up on the flintlock?

In Zhu Youxiao's view, his new army should just skip all that empty posturing and go straight for the cheat code!

Small cannons plus flintlocks, paired with Qi Jiguang's wagon-camp war chariots.

The principle of the wagon-camp chariots was simple: use the chariots to block enemy cavalry charges, to limit the speed of their horses.

Fighting in Liaodong, in Zhu Youxiao's view, cavalry was completely unnecessary—how big was Liaodong anyway? What need was there for cavalry to gallop back and forth?

Liaodong wasn't the steppe. As long as the wagon camps pushed forward, with cavalry serving as scouts and guarding the flanks, paired with volleys from the small cannons and flintlocks, could the Jurchen hold up against that?

Of course, this was only Zhu Youxiao's speculation.

Since it hadn't been tested in actual combat, he didn't know the effect, but Zhu Youxiao still felt this was the way to go.

The reason was simple: the old way had proven itself utterly useless. By all rights, men like Lu Xiangsheng, Zu Dashou, and the like were all famous generals, yet they simply couldn't win—Zhu Youxiao found it positively baffling.

Whatever—at worst the state would fall. Dying under Chongzhen's hand or dying under his own was all the same, so he might as well just charge in headfirst. That was that.

"Chen Hong, do you know Bi Maokang?" Zhu Youxiao looked at Chen Hong and asked.

"Your Majesty, Bi Maokang is the Vice Prefect of Shuntian Prefecture." Chen Hong watched Zhu Youxiao cautiously, terrified that his master might lose his temper.

Vice Prefect of Shuntian Prefecture?

Zhu Youxiao truly hadn't expected that—he was actually the Vice Prefect of Shuntian?

Shuntian Prefecture was easy to understand—it was the prefectural establishment set up in the capital (present-day Beijing). The Vice Prefect of Shuntian was the deputy to the Prefect of Shuntian.

"Summon him to the palace." Zhu Youxiao nodded. Summoning Xu Guangqi would still take some time, after all the man was in Tongzhou. Of course, Tongzhou wasn't that far either.

But comparatively, the Shuntian Prefecture yamen was much closer. Since Xu Guangqi couldn't come right away, why not summon Bi Maokang first!

Zhu Youxiao sat in his chair, still mulling over his troop-spamming plan in his mind.

Flintlock volley fire had one great advantage over cavalry: it was easy to mass-produce troops.

A good cavalryman was terribly hard to train—not only did he need superb horsemanship, but he also had to master archery and martial skills. But a flintlock soldier only needed to learn formation standing, loading bullets, and pulling the trigger.

Once industrial output kept up, the speed of troop production would absolutely be incomparable to cavalry.

What was the Ming's advantage?

The answer was simple: numbers.

If food supply kept up and military industrial output kept up, how many troops could the Ming churn out?

In Zhu Youxiao's view, churning out five million shouldn't be a problem, right?

Of course, he meant professional soldiers—five million professional soldiers equipped with cannons and flintlocks—where could they reach?

Zhu Youxiao felt they could reach to the ends of the earth.

"No money means no troops, no troops means no power, no power means no money—it's a vicious cycle!" Zhu Youxiao sighed softly: "No wonder the Ming emperors all had to use eunuchs to raise money! Without money, nothing gets done. Looks like I'll have to learn from the Han dynasty emperors!"