Chapter 2188

If Huizhou salt merchants want to overwhelm their opponents in combat with their own strength, forming a musketeer team is probably the most direct and effective way. But before getting help from Haihan, they can only rely on extremely limited information to fight in the dark.

They are groping forward and trying to form a combat force equipped with muskets from scratch. With the military knowledge and personnel reserves they have, one can imagine the difficulty of doing so.

The opponent's situation was obviously better than theirs. The Hirado Domain of Japan provided them with muskets and related tactics originating from Spain, which was enough to give them the upper hand in this battle.

There must be knowledgeable people under the Huizhou salt merchants who know the problem, but they have not been able to find an effective solution. It was not until Haihan took action in Yangzhou last year that they discovered that the strong will have its own hands.

Following the principle that one thing brings down another, seeking apprenticeships from Haihan people to learn their skills has become a life-saving straw in the eyes of some Huizhou salt merchants.

Dai Chengrong is one of them. A few months ago, he discussed with Dai Yingfan, the third uncle in charge of the defense of the Dai family militia, whether it was possible to learn the tactics of the Haihan people through some channels. However, because the conditions were not mature at the time, and the Hui nationality

The opinions within the salt merchants were not unified, and they had not decided to seek Haihan's support, so such a plan could only be abandoned.

After a long wait, Dai Chengrong finally got the opportunity he expected. After discussions, the heads of the seven major families finally decided to seek cooperation and assistance from Haihan, which also included learning military skills from Haihan.

Originally, the candidate to "study abroad" in Zhoushan should be his third uncle Dai Yingfan, but because the environment for Huizhou salt merchants has become increasingly tight recently, Dai Yingda believed that the local area was facing greater risks, and it was still necessary for Dai Yingfan to stay in Yangzhou and take command, so temporarily

The candidate was changed to Dai Chengrong.

Young, with a professional foundation, and a core member of the next generation of the family, these labels on Dai Chengrong immediately made him the object of high hopes for the seven surnames. Can the Huizhou salt merchants establish a private group with strong combat effectiveness through Haihan's assistance?

Arming depends largely on the learning results of Dai Chengrong and his group after they went to Zhoushan.

Before setting off for Zhoushan, Dai Chengrong also hoped to get more information from Yuan Tao, especially about the training he would receive in Zhoushan. If he could make some targeted preparations before then, he thought he might

Able to achieve better results in just two to three months of training.

"Yesterday, Shopkeeper Ting Yuan mentioned that the training cycle is about a hundred days, can you tell me a little bit about what kind of training will be done during this period?"

When Yuan Tao heard Dai Chengrong's question, he smiled and responded: "Actually, it's all relatively simple content, mainly queues, physical fitness, tactics, shooting, marching and other major projects. Under each project, there are also

It is divided into several small events. For students like the young master who have a certain foundation, it shouldn't be too difficult to learn, but it will definitely make you very tired during the training, so you'd better be prepared to endure hardship."

Dai Chengrong saw that Yuan Tao was not shy about talking about this topic, so he continued to ask about the details of these training projects.

In fact, what the Haihan military prepared for them was basically the training subjects for new recruits in the first three months of joining the army. This was not a military secret. Yuan Tao picked out the parts he could talk about and gave a general explanation to Dai Chengrong.

The training methods of the Haihan Army are basically copied from the advanced methods brought by Zongcong across the centuries. Naturally, they are far ahead of this era. They are still quite different from the training methods of the Ming Army that Dai Chengrong learned from the guard instructors.

The difference. Just listening to Yuan Tao's simple description, Dai Chengrong felt that there were many new things that he had never been exposed to before.

However, although Haihan will provide Dai Chengrong and others with training content that is almost the same as that of new recruits, the training intensity and corresponding standards will not fully comply with the army's requirements. After all, this is not training for Haihan's own troops, and there is no need to perform the same training.

standards. Moreover, the training intensity of the Haihan Army far exceeded that of the armies of the same era. According to the standards of the army, I am afraid that most of the people sent by Yangzhou would complain that it was too much.

Of course, if there are individuals with outstanding talents among this group of people, the Haihan military will definitely take some special measures to provide individual training. Dai Yingda’s previous worries are not entirely unfounded. The Haihan military will not miss out on attracting talents.

opportunity, even if it comes from a salt merchant family.

The two of them got into a good conversation and unknowingly chatted for more than an hour. It was not until someone came to report that Dai Yingfan, who had just returned from Yangzhou City, came to ask to see Yuan Tao that they finally stopped talking.

Dai Yingfan's appearance is quite different from the kind-looking Dai Yingda. He is dark and strong, with thick eyebrows and curly beard, and his face has a sinister look. However, he was very polite after seeing Yuan Tao, and took the initiative to greet Yuan Tao from a distance.

: "Dai is disturbing shopkeeper Yuan!"

Yuan Tao cupped his hands and said in response: "You're welcome, I am discussing the defense of Dai Village with the young master. Boss Dai came just in time. I have many questions that I still need to ask!"

"Dai cannot afford to ask for advice. Shopkeeper Yuan should give you more advice!" Dai Yingfan's attitude was very humble, which was in obvious contrast to his appearance.

Yuan Tao led the Golden Shield men to Daijiazhuang. One of his tasks was to assist the salt merchant family in strengthening their defense, and even temporarily take over the command of the escort team to a certain extent. The person in charge of the defense in Daijiazhuang was Dai Yingfan.

, now that he is finally back, Yuan Tao can start doing business.

Dai Chengrong knew that the two of them were going to discuss business matters, so he took the initiative to resign. Dai Yingfan seemed to take this as a matter of course and did not try to keep him. Yuan Tao thought that the price was not small, and Dai Chengrong clearly wanted to follow Dai Yingfan from now on.

The person who took over the private armed forces of the Dai family still has to actively avoid the defense handover.

Of course, Daijiazhuang's defense methods are not just the two watchtowers that Yuan Tao saw when he first arrived here yesterday. In fact, before the watchtowers were built, Daijiazhuang already had some defensive measures that had been implemented for many years.

"Since the Wanli period, Daijiazhuang has had a self-organized militia, responsible for protecting the safety of the Dai family. However, in order to avoid trouble from the government, the size of the militia has only been maintained at about a hundred people. Later, the salt industry operated

Now that the situation has improved, I can take money from the government and donate to the government, so things are a little more relaxed."

"But looking back later, I realized that this was not necessarily a good thing. I imitated others and soon formed my own vigilante group. From that time on, business competition extended beyond the shopping malls, almost

Several lives are lost every year. In recent years, everyone has bought muskets, and they are more ruthless when fighting!"

"Last year, my opponent bought batches of muskets from outside and hired special personnel to train them. At that time, I knew something was wrong, but the countermeasures I could take were limited, and I continued to suffer losses in the battle. To be honest, if

If your country had not sent people to Yangzhou to take action and destroyed the opponent's musketeers later, I'm afraid we would have had to summon all available manpower to fight against the opponent."

Dai Yingfan led Yuan Tao around the village and gave him a general description of the situation in Daijiazhuang. Dai Yingfan's tone of description was very calm, but Yuan Tao could imagine that after so many years of fighting, the two camps must have long ago

It has become a feud. This kind of fight is not entirely driven by interests, but also caused by irresolvable hatred. Even if Haihan does not intervene, the two sides will definitely continue to fight until one of them is forced to withdraw from this place.

.

In order to survive, one party chose to join forces with the Hirado clan, and the other party was forced to find Haihan for cooperation. What was originally a social conflict within the Ming Dynasty gradually evolved into a wrestling field for external forces in the Ming Dynasty. This is probably Yangzhou

A situation that the ancestors of the salt merchants never expected.

However, Haihan has sent troops to eliminate the overseas reinforcements from Shanxi and Shaanxi salt merchants. It will be difficult to obtain ammunition replenishment from overseas in the short term. After receiving assistance from Haihan, the Huizhou salt merchants will spend at most a few more months.

This will greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of the armed organizations under his command. At that time, even if Haihan does not do it himself, there is a high probability that the Huizhou salt merchants will have the upper hand in the competition in the salt industry.

Yuan Tao has no intention of participating in the bloody competition of the salt merchant group, but he must protect the safety of this group of people before the Huizhou salt merchants improve enough self-protection capabilities, and cannot let them be killed by the ruthless methods of their opponents.

Get rid of it. The information Dai Yingfan can provide now is also very important to Yuan Tao.

"I heard that Shopkeeper Yuan specifically inquired about the fortifications outside Daijiazhuang yesterday. In fact, in addition to these two watchtowers, we have also deployed other means."

Walking to the watchtower at Zhuangkou, Dai Yingfan pointed to the houses on both sides of the watchtower and said: "Actually, the houses on the outermost edge of Zhuangzi were only built in the past one or two years, and not all of these houses are used to live in. Yuan

Shopkeeper, please follow me!"

After hearing what he said, Yuan Tao thought that there must be something fishy in these houses, so he followed him into one of the courtyards.

From the outside, this courtyard does not seem to be any different from other houses in the village, but after entering the courtyard, Yuan Tao sees that there is really something special here. The side facing the periphery looks like a house from the outside, but from the inside

, but there is a high wall disguised as a house, and there are even specially built stairs so that people inside can go up to a high place, and then remove the tiles disguised as roofs, and then they can attack the targets outside from the inside. This wall

There are four or five shooting positions. If there is a war outside, it will be easy to succeed in a sneak attack.

Judging from the reserved shooting positions, Yuan Tao judged that this should be a defense fortification specially designed for the use of muskets. However, for the muskets that Dai Chengrong had brought to the weapons depot to see earlier, he believed that those muskets with primitive craftsmanship should be used to achieve this purpose.

Accurate shooting is still quite difficult.

Of course, if this fortification is left to be guarded by Yuan Tao's men, the effect will definitely be different. When the opponent is unprepared, he can kill with high accuracy from a distance of at least thirty meters.

Then Dai Yingfan showed him the secret door in the yard, through which he could immediately move to the adjacent yard, which provided a more flexible personnel mobilization route for wartime defense.

If such fortifications were placed on a real battlefield, of course they would not be of much use. If the army encountered this situation, they would definitely use artillery to open the way and collapse the walls with structures before pushing them over. However, considering that Dai

The environment in which the village is located means that the most possible combat situations are limited to a hundred people. As long as this kind of special defense can cause casualties to the opponent, it has achieved its purpose.

"If the opponent attacks Daijiazhuang from the front, their attention will definitely be on the two towers, and such an attack from a hidden fortification will probably not be noticed immediately. Boss Dai, this design is thoughtful.

!" After Yuan Tao looked up and down, he also praised the design of this camouflage fortification.

But Dai Yingfan did not look happy because of Yuan Tao's praise. Instead, he smiled bitterly and said: "This is actually a last resort. Originally, I suggested building a trench outside Zhuangzi, and then adding a protective wall surrounding the entire Zhuangzi.

Complete the project at Zhuangkou and build a suspension bridge between the two watchtowers, so that the defense line is relatively complete. However, the owner of the family believes that large-scale construction will destroy the feng shui of Daijiazhuang and make Daijiazhuang look like a fortress.

The image of the home didn’t fit, so the original design could only remain on paper.”

Yuan Tao was dumbfounded when he heard this. The scene described by Dai Yingfan was no small project. Let alone how much money it would cost. With Daijiazhuang's local construction capabilities and relying on migrant workers to carry it on their shoulders and hands, it would be necessary to complete the defense project he mentioned.

It will take a year or two or even longer. After it is completed, Daijiazhuang will become Daijiabao, completely in a defensive posture, which will indeed affect the public image of the Dai family.

However, if it were to be built as described by Dai Yingfan, let alone the musketeers of the Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants, even if the local Ming army were to come over to attack this kind of fortress, it would not be easy to win it.

Yuan Tao couldn't help but ask: "Boss Dai is so familiar with this fortification. I wonder if he served in the military before?"

Dai Yingfan responded: "Dai did spend several years in the military in order to successfully obtain the position of Baihu in the early years."

Although the Dai family spent money to donate hundreds of official positions to Dai Yingfan, the management was relatively strict at that time. Dai Yingfan had to serve in the military to truly obtain this position. However, he was originally trained as a commander of his own militia since he was a child.

I was also very interested in the military, so I simply went to the army and stayed for a few years, becoming a genuine Ming army officer.

Yuan Tao smiled and said: "Then I should respectfully address you as Master Dai!"

Dai Yingfan waved his hand and said: "There is no need for Treasurer Yuan. Now that Dai is no longer in the army, this hundred households is just a false position and cannot be taken seriously!"
Chapter completed!