Chapter 44: The first battalion of soldiers demanded 180,000 taels of silver (2)

Now the price of a pound of pig iron in the Ming Dynasty was about silver and five cents.

According to Huang Laifu, he had to make three thousand swords and guns, and one thousand pairs of armor. According to the ordinary green cloth iron armor of the Ming Dynasty, each pair of iron was 50 kilograms and eight kilograms of iron. The amount of iron used for a thousand pairs of iron is at least 50,000 kilograms. The silver money used for buying iron alone would cost about 7,000 kilograms.

There are still thousands of swords and guns. Not to mention the best rubbing knives and red hobs, based on ordinary waist knives and long spears, a sword and gun is 10 to 15 kilograms of iron, and 3,000 swords and guns alone are 30,000 kilograms of iron. It costs 4,000 kilograms of silver to buy iron here.

Of course, it is more than that. Making iron armor, knife and gun requires a lot of cotton cloth, soft and cooked leather, cotton rope, red velvet ribbon, silk hanging thread, hot paint, tung oil and other things, and it requires a lot of money here.

If you have iron armor, you need to be equipped with a helmet, right? Iron armor cannot be equipped with a vermilion-red helmet, right? It is better to make leather armor. We can't afford the best pointed helmet, so we can make the eight-petal hat helmet that is more popular now.

How much iron does a helmet use? How much does a thousand helmet cost? And red shoulder tassels and red felt jackets that match the armor, which cost money.

It’s not the artificial monthly food required by craftsmen to make weapons and armor, and the weapons are consumed very quickly. They need to be replaced once a year or two years, and the armor often needs to be repaired, which is also very expensive.

If a pair of ordinary armor finally comes out, it will cost dozens of taels of silver, and a thousand pairs of armor will at least tens of thousands of taels of silver.

This is the premise that you can work smoothly with money and materials. Moreover, it takes a lot of time to make a war and gun. Fortunately, it will be better. If you want to make a thousand pairs of armor, it will take two years to achieve the fastest speed based on the number of military craftsmen in Wuzhai Fort...

With the explanations of Mr. Liu and Huang Ruzhen, you will be the one who speaks and I will be the one who speaks the other.

Huang Laifu's face turned from red to black, and from black to blue. The cost of raising soldiers is really too high. Just armor, swords and guns alone will have money and food. There are many other weapons and equipment. If you want to raise cavalry, it will cost you even more money.

Forget it, I won’t say that the military artillery camp in Jizhen like Qi Jiguang.

If there are three thousand ordinary soldiers and cavalry camps, they will be equipped with appropriate firearms, equipment, soldiers' land, food and salary, and horse buying expenses. I am afraid that it will cost 170,000 taels of silver a year.

If we were to come to the first battalion based on a military artillery battalion like Qi Jiguang, it would be far from enough to spend 180,000 taels of silver.

Where can I get so much money with my current family background? Huang Laifu pondered. It seems that he has to think of more ways to do money.

Speaking of firearms, Huang Laifu naturally knew the future role of firearms. He asked General Liu: "By the way, Lord Liu, about firearms. Can you build them like firearms?" He didn't ask about the artillery, and he knew that they could not be made without asking.

Mr. Liu said in a little embarrassedly: "Return to the master, the only way to be a low-level person is shallow. He can only repair some damaged bird guns. If he wants to make a long-handled musket, he will be powerless.

However, if the adults only want to build some copper-handled hand guns, they can do it."

Speaking of this, Mr. Liu said softly: "Do you want to build a large firearm? Our Wuzhai Fort is just a small thousand-household office. If you ask the military craftsmen to make these muskets, you are afraid that someone will gossip?"

The production of firearms in the Ming Dynasty has always been strictly restricted, except for military weapons. Except for the second bureau of military warfare, the military and military garrisons are not allowed to be built without any intention. If the border officials report to the court and the Ministry of Works report to the market, they can only be cast according to the number. If they are made privately, they will be impeached and have evil intentions.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to Jizhen, a major town in the north, it could build some advanced firearms. The other Dushiwei Institute could only produce some general firearms, such as hand guns. Even medium firearms such as bird guns.

Generally, only some prefectures and counties can be produced and paid as part of the tax.

In fact, there are many firearms in the Great Bright Firearm. Every year, the war situation will create a general, the second general, the third general, the four-eyed iron gun, the Fran machine iron gun, the ten-eyed copper gun, the wooden wing copper gun, the magic machine bronze gun, and the ten-eyed bronze gun.

This military battle is a place where the Ming Dynasty specializes in manufacturing various firearms. It is led by the Inner Administration Supervision Bureau. It has a member of the eunuch and manufactures dozens of military firearms every year.

There is also the Military Weapon Bureau managed by the Ministry of Works, which also builds some firearms such as long guns, guns, cannons, and bags every year. In addition, some conventional military weapons and military uniforms are also made, and 3,600 armor, waist knives and other weapons are made every year.

On the one hand, the strict restrictions are on the one hand, and on the other hand, excellent fire robots and humans are all in the military weapons bureau and military battle bureau. Even if Huang Laifu has a way to break this restriction, he still does not have such talent.

However, firearms are indeed very important. In addition to finding ways to get the production of firearms in Wuzhaibao approved by the court, or should I buy them from some prefectures and county garrisons first? However, Huang Laifu immediately gave up this idea.

In addition to military battles, the quality of firearms produced in various parts of the Ming Dynasty is worrying.

There were evil examples of the Qi family army back then. When the Japanese were destroyed, the local firearms of the Qi family army were all supplied scattered by some local prefectures and counties, and the quality of the firearms was extremely poor. The bird gun barrels made in various places were often at risk of explosion, which made soldiers worried and did not dare to hold the guns in both hands for precise aiming.

There are also some artillery, which often have different sizes of lead bullets and caliber sizes, and some artillery can't even ignite the fuse. Because of this situation, the use of firearms in the Qi family army is very limited.

As the past is learned, we must be wary of it. Huang Laifu does not want his soldiers to be bombed in the future.

There is no way to use firearms for the time being, so let’s use bows and arrows first. However, Liu Zongqi said that there are too many raw materials needed to build bows and arrows, and he cannot make them by himself. He suggested that Huang Laifu buy them from outside.

As for military uniforms, you can start making them with big girls and young wives in Wuzhai Fortress. Anyway, as long as you wear them warmly, it is fine or not. That is secondary.

Huang Ruzhen, deputy envoy of Cang, sighed and said, "It would be great if our Wuzhai Fort had a relationship in Beijing. Then the land in the ten treasurys of the inner palace are as numerous as cows. As long as the white silver and money is used, it will be as much as possible."

Huang Ruzhen is familiar with the brother-in-law of the magistrate of Kelan Prefecture. The brother-in-law is in Beijing at this time and knows a eunuch in Beijing. Sometimes when he returns to Kelan Prefecture, he will come to Wuzhai Fort and talk about this matter with Huang Ruzhen.

Huang Laifu and Liu Zongqi nodded together. The military uniforms of the Ming soldiers were generally handled by the Needle and Industrial Bureau and stored in the B-shaped library in the tenth warehouse of the inner palace. They contained a variety of military fat jackets, war shoes, military trousers, soldiers' fur hats and other items.

In the T-shaped library, countless tung oil, varnish, fishing line glue, amethyme, yellow and white hemp, ramie, yellow and cooked copper, cooked iron, sheepskin, feather and other materials are stored.

In the Wu library, countless military weapons such as armor, bows and arrows, waist knives, strings, bright strings, and scattered bags are stored.

Huang Laifu was also envious of the many materials in the ten trunks of the inner palace. If he moved them all to his Five Village Fortresses, that would be great.

He coughed and said to General Liu: "Okay, Lord Liu, you can make some armor, swords, guns, etc. first, as well as copper hand guns. You should also build them. You don't have to worry about money, grain, labor and materials, as well as materials. I will solve the problem.

However, you must ensure the quality of these made military weapons. The relevant rewards and punishments should be based on old rules.”

Mr. Liu bowed his hand and said respectfully: "I am humble and receive the order."

After taking over the job, he read the soldiers and checked the warehouse, Huang Laifu had a clear idea and could start his training plan. That night, he finalized some specific details in his training outline.

This outline of military training was written intermittently by Huang Laifu over the past few months. It was basically set according to Qi Jiguang's military training records. After the final determination tonight, it was finally decided.

According to the training outline, the most important point is that soldiers must be honest and willing to fight.

Qi Jiguang was also deeply taught this before. At that time, the soldiers he led were originally some soldiers from the garrison. They often ran away as soon as they went to the battlefield, leaving Qi Jiguang as a commander.

Finally, he found the Yiwu soldiers and trained to become the invincible Qi family army.

As the past is learned, we must beware. Huang Laifu does not want to be the only one who will rush forward after he goes to the battlefield in the future, and everyone else will run away.

Fortunately, Wuzhai Fort is a poor place, and there are still few soldiers. Moreover, since Huang Laifu appeared, everyone bid farewell to his previous life of being out of clothing and lived a good life of full food and warm clothes.

All of them are grateful for Huang Laifu's kindness and are willing to fight to the death for Huang Laifu.

However, the difficulty is that there are too few young and strong people in the Wuzhaibaoqi army, and most of them are old and weak. Even if these elderly and weak people have been raised for a few months, according to their physical conditions, they still cannot meet Huang Laifu's requirements.

According to Huang Laifu's plan, the more than 1,000 flag troops in Wuzhai Fort will be screened in the future, but only 300 people will be able to stay in the future. The others can only be sent to the farm to work.

Another point is that although there are fewer soldiers in the Wuzhai Fort Flag Army, there are probably more soldiers in the officers. According to the military parade performance of the day, the officers of the Hundred Houses and General Banners were afraid that they would be sloppy. These people must not be left behind.

How to deal with these people is a problem. Although these officers cannot stay in the army, they still need them in other places in Wuzhai Fort. Huang Laifu calculated for a long time and finally made plans.
Chapter completed!