Chapter 194: Military Industry, Military Academy

(Extra chapter for Alliance Leader JackieZXW)

Over the next few days, Taiping Prefecture was quite lively. Zhu Cilang took the opportunity to conduct a thorough purge of the Jianyang Guard in Taiping Prefecture, and in passing stripped the entire guard station from top to bottom.

Under Li Tingbiao's leadership, the Embroidered Uniform Guard carried out property confiscation and clan extermination against the thirteen military officers. Zhu Cilang had no interest in any of this—what he cared most about on this trip were the mines of Taiping Prefecture.

Taiping Prefecture was what later generations would call Ma'anshan. The iron ore output here was extremely high, and Zhu Cilang had long planned to establish a large-scale military factory here.

The Southern Zhili region was rich in mineral resources. Places like Suzhou within Fengyang Prefecture abounded in coal, while Huainan and other areas were rich in iron ore, with reserves so vast they were measured in hundreds of millions of tons.

The Great Ming's current iron production was centered mainly in Daye, Hubei. Foshan in Guangdong had also been a smelting center before this. At present, the Ming produced over ten million kilograms of iron annually, most of it in the south, the Lingnan region, or even the southwest.

Huguang's iron tax accounted for a third of the entire Great Ming's total. However, Daye was somewhat far from Fengyang and Nanjing, and establishing a military factory there would be disadvantageous for protection for the time being. Zhu Cilang could only place his plans in Taiping Prefecture, which was close to both Nanjing and Fengyang.

The Great Ming already used coke for iron smelting. Pig iron, after high-temperature calcination, became wrought iron directly. Smelting required enormous amounts of coke—roughly one ton of coke for every ton of pig iron. At current Ming prices, each ton of coke cost as much as ten taels of silver, while ordinary coal was cheaper, around a few taels.

The coal used for smelting in the military factory had to be of good quality; otherwise, the weapons produced would turn to garbage and affect the war effort.

Pig iron cost over twenty taels per ton. Adding the coke needed for smelting, the cost of forging armor, muskets, and cannons would be very high.

Zhu Cilang had once carefully calculated this account. If he wanted to forge one hundred thousand muskets—with five jin of wrought iron refined into one jin of refined iron liquid, and one musket requiring roughly seven jin of refined iron—one hundred thousand muskets would need nearly four million jin of wrought iron.

He also needed to forge armor and cannons. A suit of iron armor required over thirty jin of refined iron, while a single cannon required several thousand jin—the wrought iron needed was even greater.

These were only the material costs, not to mention the wages for workers and so forth. To equip an army of one hundred thousand, how much silver would that cost? And then there were provisions and soldiers' pay. If he later expanded his forces to two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, he truly dared not imagine how much silver he would spend in a single year.

But expansion was a necessity. In this world, even the Emperor—if he had no real army in hand—would be looked down upon wherever he went. Who would give a damn about him!

Upon learning that Taiping Prefecture had mines, Zhu Cilang rushed there impatiently to personally inspect the mine sites and the location for the military factory.

Taiping Prefecture sat right on the banks of the Yangtze River, where water-powered bellows and water-powered trip hammers could be used to forge weapons and equipment.

Water-powered bellows had existed as early as the Han Dynasty in our country. The invention of the water-powered bellows was a major technological innovation in the history of ancient Chinese metallurgy. It not only saved human and animal labor but also drove the development of smelting furnaces toward larger scales—a great feat in the history of mechanical engineering. This technology's invention and application came eleven hundred years earlier than in Europe.

After inspecting Taiping Prefecture for three days, Zhu Cilang selected the location for the military factory and named it the Jiangnan General Armaments Bureau. He appointed Wu Zhong as the seal-holding eunuch of the Jiangnan General Armaments Bureau, responsible for all construction and operations of the bureau. Wu Zhong had previously served as seal-holder of the Armory Bureau, so he was fairly experienced in this matter.

As for Sun Heding, Zhu Cilang appointed him chief engineer of the General Armaments Bureau and concurrently director of the research institute, responsible for all equipment management and research and development work. Research personnel—it was better for them to do what they were good at.

Zhu Cilang said to Wu Zhong: "The ironworks here are also your responsibility. If the roads are rough and transportation is inconvenient, you may allocate some silver to have the local yamen repair the roads. You may also recruit craftsmen. In a while, I will distribute the lands of Taiping Prefecture, and some of the newly recruited garrison settlers will be assigned near the ironworks. By then, you'll have enough hands to use!"

Seeing how meticulously he explained things, Wu Zhong understood the importance and said: "Young Master, this servant will do it earnestly!"

Zhu Cilang said: "Companion Wu, this General Armaments Bureau concerns the combat strength of my Tianwu Army. I entrust it to you—you must treat it with the utmost seriousness!"

Wu Zhong kowtowed and said: "Young Master, rest assured. Even if this servant must stake his life, I will manage the Armaments Bureau well for you!"

Zhu Cilang nodded and said: "Good. If you have any conditions or difficulties you cannot resolve, just speak up."

Wu Zhong did not stand on ceremony and began asking Zhu Cilang for silver. Although the Jiangnan General Armaments Bureau's factory site was built atop the Jianyang Guard's armaments bureau, the expenditures would certainly be considerable.

Zhu Cilang calculated carefully for a while and decided to give him one million taels of silver first, with subsequent allocations to be made as needed based on monthly expenditures.

After finishing his inspection of Taiping Prefecture, Zhu Cilang returned to Fengyang and began a comprehensive overhaul of the armaments bureaus of the Eight Guards of Fengyang.

The guard stations throughout Jiangnan already had existing armaments bureaus producing muskets and cannons. The rate of firearm adoption among the Great Ming's various regional armies was actually fairly high—it was just that the quality was atrocious.

Historically, from the Tianqi reign through the fall of the Ming, the entire country produced over one thousand red barbarian cannons in total.

Zhu Cilang planned to build several more large-scale military factories and military support plants on the foundation of the Eight Guards of Fengyang's armaments bureaus—such as equipment factories and clothing factories. Most importantly, he needed to establish ironworks and coal works.

Zhu Cilang even planned to establish a military officer academy to cultivate military talent.

After several days of careful planning, Zhu Cilang's plans began to be implemented one by one. On the sixteenth day of the fifth month, the Fengyang Armaments Bureau and Equipment Factory were established, and Qiu Zhizhong was appointed seal-holding eunuch of the Fengyang Armaments Bureau.

The army supervisor Lu Jiude was placed in charge of the construction and operation of Fengyang Prefecture's ironworks and coal works, while Liu Yuanbin managed the equipment factory and clothing factory. These eunuchs had little function in the army, so it was better for them to come out and take on these posts.

On the twentieth day of the fifth month, the Imperial Ming Army Officer Academy was established. As an important institution for cultivating officers, the Imperial Ming Military Academy had very high standards.

The requirements for entering the Imperial Ming Military Academy were: selection from the Tianwu Army of the robust and intelligent, aged 16–25, with only a rough grasp of reading and writing required; family background was unrestricted. The first class would enroll one hundred men.

The Imperial Ming Military Academy's management was extremely strict. The entire school was a heavily guarded military camp—it could even be compared to a prison.

Surrounding the academy was a wall ten meters high. On the walls, security was tight with sentry posts everywhere, and the gates conducted rigorous inspections. To leave through the gates, a cadet had to possess a pass specially approved by the academy's vice president or an instructor.

As for hoping for the president's special approval—that did not exist, because the president was concurrently held by the Crown Prince himself.

The Imperial Ming Military Academy held roll call three times daily—morning, noon, and evening—and conducted bed checks at night. At the slightest violation, the cadet and his squad leader would both be confined together as collective punishment.

If any cadet attempted to escape over the walls, once captured, he would be treated as a deserter and beheaded as a public example.

The subjects studied at the Imperial Ming Military Academy included: basic tactics, applied tactics, map tactics, strategy, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Master Guan's Art of War, field fortification, ballistics, military organization, field service, infantry drill regulations, as well as some arithmetic, geography, history, and so on.

Zhu Cilang dumped out all the tactics he had compiled over the years along with training methods from later generations. Many of these tactics were classic ones from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Whether in recruitment or in the subjects studied, the Imperial Ming Military Academy was basically modeled on the Tianjin Military Preparatory Academy of the late Qing—the first modern army academy in China, which produced countless famous generals and was the pioneer of all Chinese army officer academies.

On the day the Imperial Ming Military Academy was established, Zhu Cilang led all the officers of the Tianwu Army to attend the opening ceremony, shouting the academy motto in unison.

The purpose of the Tianwu Army was the motto of the Imperial Ming Military Academy. All cadets, upon enrollment, had to read the motto aloud in unison as an oath.

Uphold the Way of Heaven, follow the people's will; with arms pacify the realm, cleanse the world!

Love the common folk, strictly enforce military regulations; serve the country with utmost loyalty, charge forward with courage!

Fear not death, covet not wealth; orders must be obeyed without fail, sharing life and death with one heart!