Chapter 817: Civil-to-Military Conversion

"Starting today, I shall be a feudal prince!"

"Someone, go call Liu Fu." Outside the study, Zhao Xu pondered for a moment.

Glancing inadvertently at the plumes of smoke drifting in the distance, he suddenly slapped his forehead.

He had almost forgotten an extremely important matter.

If handled correctly, perhaps the Prince's Personal Army and the Qin Army could attack Jian Pass and Zhongling Pass with Qin-series firearms.

This matter was the Civil-to-Military Conversion of industry during special times.

Temporarily halt the production of some civilian goods, and have all Workshops fully cooperate with the war effort to produce war materiel.

In this way, the army could obtain sufficient weapons and ammunition in a short amount of time.

At present, Britain, Frank, and the Ross people were inciting the Shizu Army and the Northern Di army to make trouble for him.

Combining this with contemporary experience, he hardly needed to think to know that they were certainly going to arm the Shizu and the Northern Di.

Moreover, according to the intelligence he possessed, Britain had a complete system for manufacturing firearms in Tianzhu.

This was a necessity for their control of Tianzhu.

After all, if they were attacked by the people of Tianzhu, it would be too late if they had to transport muskets and Artillery over from Britain.

Of course, this was not the most important thing.

The most important thing was whether the British factories in Tianzhu had copied the front-loading Rifled Muskets used by the Prince's Army.

If they had begun copying them and were prepared to proliferate these firearms, or even provide them to the Shizu and the Northern Di, then upgrading the firearms for the Prince's Army became even more urgent.

However, he believed that even if the British factories in Tianzhu could manufacture front-loading Rifled Muskets, due to the limitations of factory scale, it would be impossible to supply the Shizu and the Northern Di on a large scale in the short term.

Because Britain had a need to manufacture firearms in Tianzhu, but this demand would not be too great.

But one thing was obvious: the longer it dragged on, the larger the scale at which the Shizu Army, the Northern Di army, and the Westerner armies would be equipped with front-loading Rifled Muskets using Conical Bullets, which would be more disadvantageous for him.

Therefore, this was now an arms race.

Jian Pass and Zhongling Pass could be taken sooner,

or they could be taken later.

But the firearms of the Prince's Personal Army had to be upgraded in a short amount of time.

Otherwise, even if the Shizu and the Northern Di obtained thirty thousand muskets, relying on the steep mountain paths of Yizhou where one man can hold the pass against ten thousand, they could still cause greater casualties to the Prince's Army.

Yet for him, such superfluous casualties were unnecessary.

Since the Armaments Department had mastered the technology for rear-loading needle-fire rifles, why not let the soldiers take up Qin-series firearms, kill the enemy to their heart's content, and unify Jiangnan as soon as possible?

Now, he was becoming increasingly urgent about the goal of unifying the Great Song Dynasty.

After Britain, the Ross people and Frank had also successively intervened in the internal chaos of the Great Song Dynasty.

Jiangnan had become an unhealable wound on the body of the Great Song Dynasty; the enemy only needed to sprinkle salt on it to make the Great Song Dynasty suffer unbearable pain.

Thinking of this, he immediately ordered someone to send commands to Chang Wei and Ma Han.

He told them not to be in a hurry to attack Jian Pass and Zhongling Pass, but to organize the soldiers for training while in a standoff with the enemy.

The content of the training would naturally be the use of the Qin-series rifle and brand-new firing postures and tactics.

The Armaments Department had a dozen or so sample rifles that had been manufactured, which could be used for training.

In this way, as soon as the Qin-series rifles arrived, they could immediately be converted into combat power.

Before long, Liu Fu also arrived.

Zhao Xu told him about the matter of Civil-to-Military Conversion.

"Civil-to-Military Conversion?" This was the first time Liu Fu had heard this term.

Zhao Xu nodded, "This Civil-to-Military Conversion is an emergency measure, and also a drill. If a larger war breaks out in the future, the Great Song Dynasty will inevitably have to enter a whole-nation system to engage in arms production."

The birth of firearms made soldiers cheap and easy to obtain.

In the contemporary World War I and World War II, after the standing armies were exhausted, it was the turn of the Reserve Service, and if the reserves were not enough, all able-bodied young men of age were directly recruited.

Those among these young men who were lucky could receive formal training; those who were not so lucky were simply handed a gun and sent to the battlefield.

Now, he was only twenty years old, and the current world was at the technical level of the early-to-mid 19th century.

In this life, he could not guarantee that he would not experience one or two world-class wars here.

And in his view, these wars would inevitably unfold between the Western world, with Britain as its core, and the Eastern world, with the Great Song Dynasty as its core.

The Westerners had enjoyed the dividends of colonialism for hundreds of years and had enjoyed world hegemony for hundreds of years; for these hundreds of years, they had done whatever they pleased. Unless they were defeated thoroughly, they would certainly fight to the end.

In the contemporary World War I, Britain, in order to maintain its old order and suppress Germany, did not hesitate to fight this world war that killed tens of millions of people.

It is evident how crazy the Angsa were to maintain their status of enslaving the world.

And World War II was actually just a continuation of World War I, even more cruel than before.

It was precisely because of his judgment based on contemporary experience that he had the realization that the Great Song Dynasty must win a world-class war to grasp the right to speak.

He would treat this Civil-to-Military Conversion as a preliminary rehearsal.

Let the Imperial Court of the Great Song Dynasty experience it from top to bottom in advance, so as not to be in a panic when the time comes.

Then, he explained to Liu Fu in detail what Civil-to-Military Conversion was, and told him what needed to be done.

"So that's how it is." Liu Fu suddenly realized, "It's just that this way, the production of commercial goods will be delayed, but for now, we cannot worry about that."

Ever since Yan Wang ordered him and Chang Wei not to limit their gaze only to the Great Song Dynasty, he had been learning about countries outside the Great Song Dynasty during this period.

He gradually understood Yan Wang's foreign strategy and also understood that this world did not only have the wolf that was the Northern Di, but also many wolves more powerful than the Northern Di.

Realizing this, he woke up from the satisfaction of Yan Wang unifying Jiangbei, knowing deeply that for the Great Song Dynasty to be prosperous and peaceful, and for the people of the Great Song Dynasty to live and work in peace, they still had a long and dangerous road to travel.

Therefore, he would definitely support Yan Wang's decision.

Furthermore, Yan Wang had brought back a large amount of wealth from plundering Dongying during this period, and had also obtained the wealth of the Xie Family from the Battle of Jinling.

These two huge sums of wealth were enough for them to toss about.

Having settled this matter, Liu Fu returned to the office in Wuji Palace, summoned the Ministers of the Six Ministries, Yang He, the Head of the Mining Division, and other officials, and demanded that they fully shift to a wartime state from mining to manufacturing.

In particular, every Workshop must cooperate with the Armory to manufacture parts for the Qin-series Rifle, and the Steel Workshop must guarantee the supply of high-quality steel.

Furthermore, temporarily organize a group of craftsmen to participate in the production of paper-cased cartridges to ensure a sufficient quantity of ammunition.

"Originally, His Highness's order to the Armory was to deliver thirty thousand Qin-series Rifles within three months; now that one month has passed, there are two months left," Liu Fu said with a firm tone after briefing everyone, "but now, we must provide one hundred and twenty thousand Qin-series Rifles to the army within one month. This is a death order. From now on, the Workshops must treat one day as two, rotating in long shifts; people can rest, but the machines must not stop."

"Yes, Prime Minister."

Liu Fu's expression was solemn; officials like Zhu Tuo, Yang He, and Chen Ce could sense the urgency of this matter, and one by one, they could not help but become nervous.

Returning to their respective offices, they immediately organized the Civil-to-Military Conversion.

For a time, the entire Yanzhou was shrouded in an atmosphere of urgency.

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