Chapter 963: Inhumane Training and Ammunition Rationing

in the Trench While the new recruits of the Shen Ce Guard were discussing what the new muskets looked like, many people were busy in Hanyang City, 20 to 30 miles away from them.

It was already dark, but Luo Chong's guards were still busy loading carbide lamps. Countless military uniforms, military boots, quilts, mats, military caps, helmets and other military supplies were being loaded quickly. In addition, various firearms and ammunition produced by the small ammunition workshop in Hanyang City were also being checked and loaded at the checkpoint.

Another group of guards were checking the condition of horses and vehicles.

They were Luo Chong's guards. Although they did not have to fight, they were responsible for Luo Chong's daily food, clothing, housing, transportation, and personal safety. For example, every time Luo Chong went out, although he, the leader, had already slept at home, the guards had to make full preparations for the trip in advance.

This is necessary and should be done, because Luo Chong is the leader of the Han tribe. His personal safety is not only related to Luo Chong's own family, but also to the lives and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the Han tribe, and the future development of the tribe, so he can't be careless at all.

At Luo Chong's house, before going to bed, he went to visit Xiaodie and Zhan Ying in his pajamas and asked the maid to cook them a white fungus and lotus seed soup. The two are now in the countdown to delivery. According to the days, it will take at most ten days to give birth. Fortunately,

Luo Chong didn't go far this time. The military camp of the Shen Ce Guard is basically equivalent to the back mountain of Hanyang City. If he is fast, he can come back on the same day, and if he is slow, he can definitely come back within two days. Anyway, he will definitely catch up with the time when his wife gives birth to the second child.

After arranging who will take care of Xiao Luocheng and Xiao Luolan after he goes out, as well as Xiaodie and Zhan Ying's delivery, Luo Chong returned to his room to sleep.

The next morning at around five o'clock, he did not disturb anyone at home. After getting up, he ate the breakfast brought by the maid, and then immediately joined the guards outside the door, and escorted the convoy to the Shen Ce Guard camp in the back mountain.

The road was not far, and it was under the jurisdiction of the Han tribe, safe and flat. The team arrived at the camp in an hour. It was just around six o'clock when Luo Chong arrived.

At six o'clock in the camp, the recruits had already gotten up early. Everyone was running under the command of the instructors, and then went back to wash and tidy up their housework. When the convoy entered the camp, the group of recruits had already eaten breakfast.

The recruits were very excited to see Luo Chong leading a convoy into the camp, but they had no time to talk to the leader at this time. When they arrived at the door, Qu Bing personally received Luo Chong, and then ordered the instructors under his command to lead the recruits to distribute military uniforms, change clothes, and then assign some people to move the ammunition into the warehouse.

Luo Chong followed Qu Bing to the headquarters of the Shen Ce Guard, which was Qu Bing's tent.

"These new recruits are all here, right? How do you feel about them? Do you have the confidence to lead them out?"

In the tent of the Shen Ce Guard, Luo Chong temporarily sat in the main seat that should have belonged to Qu Bing, and asked him, the commander.

Hearing Luo Chong's question, Qu Bing smiled and replied.

"Hey, Chief, the new recruits you recruited this time are quite smart. Yesterday, when the weapons from Xingang County were just delivered and not unpacked, some of these new recruits guessed that they might be equipped with new firearms. When I heard it, I simply told them directly and told them that the chief will come to demonstrate the new weapons to them today."

"What about you? Do you have confidence in the training plan you have formulated? Can you train these new recruits before winter and bring them to the battlefield to win the battle?" Luo Chong asked again.

"I have confidence. In fact, although these new recruits recruited by the leader have little education, have never read books, have never been to school, and do not know many Chinese characters, they still have a good foundation as soldiers.

"These people have good eyesight and experience in archery. The firearms we developed are easy to operate, and the shooting principle is similar to that of bows and crossbows. They all have three-point and one-line, mountain-viewing-style mechanical sights, and are simpler to use than bows and crossbows. Not to mention the new recruits recruited according to this standard, even children who have never learned archery can quickly get started. It will be no problem to connect this group of people into an army that can fight. "Qubing analyzed to Luo Chong very confidently.

Although he did not participate in the research and development of firearms, he did participate in the principles and research and development of ammunition. Although he did not do it himself, he knew a lot, and Qubing had tried the gun himself and participated in the finalization and test firing of the firearms. He had a lot of experience in the use of firearms. It was really simple. It can almost be said that as long as you are not mentally retarded, you will be able to do it after watching it twice, so he is so confident.

Luo Chong nodded after listening to the boy's analysis, and then instructed him again.

"The Shen Ce Guard is an experimental force. It is the first army of our Han tribe equipped with pure firearms, and it is also the foundation of our Han tribe's firearms army. If the firearms army is to expand in the future, then the Shen Ce Guard will be the seed for expansion, so you must train every soldier of this force well.

"If we need to expand the army in the future, I hope that every soldier here can at least be a squad leader or deputy squad leader, and each person can lead five new soldiers. Then these two thousand people can instantly expand to more than 10,000 people. Do you understand what I mean?"

Qubing was very excited after hearing this. These two thousand musketeers were already an overwhelming force in this era. If the army was expanded to more than 10,000 people, the combat power would be unimaginably strong. As the first commander of the firearms army of the Han tribe, his future achievements will definitely not be low. After all, only he has the experience of commanding firearms, which is the most precious wealth.

"Yes, chief, I promise to complete the task." Qubing immediately stood up and knelt on one knee to perform a military salute.

Luo Chong nodded, waved his hand to signal him to sit down, and then continued.

"Soldier, you should practice well according to the training outline. Good shooters are made with ammunition, so you don't need to save ammunition deliberately, but you can't waste it too much. The limit I give you is that in the first stage, each person can destroy one rifle. Shotguns have a longer service life. You can make as many as you want. There will definitely be enough ammunition.

"The second stage of training mainly trains tactics. Of course, live-fire shooting cannot be left behind. The limit is still one rifle, but the second batch of rifles will be used before the winter expedition. You should calculate the time of loss yourself.

"Then the last change of equipment will be before the expedition. I will change your uniform. The third change of equipment will be the weapons you actually use for combat. At that time, the supply may be tight. Anyway, you should calculate it well. Fight when you should fight, and don't waste when you shouldn't fight."

"Yes, leader, I understand. Please rest assured, I will definitely not let down the many training ammunition given by the leader." Qubing said very happily.

Luo Chong nodded after listening, and it was also a relief.

The rifles produced by the Han tribe had a significantly lower service life because they did not have heat-resistant and wear-resistant alloy steel.

The service life of a modern rifle barrel is generally about 20,000 rounds of bullets, while the rifles of the Han tribe will show obvious wear on the rifling after firing 3,000 rounds of bullets, thus affecting the trajectory and accuracy. If they are really used in combat, they can only fire 4,000 to 5,000 rounds before the barrel is directly declared scrapped, and then they have to change guns.

A soldier is given a training quota of two rifles, which means that each of them has the opportunity to train with nearly 10,000 rounds of bullets.

The training cost of two rifles per person and 10,000 rounds of bullets is something that even some modern armies cannot match. The conditions of the Eighth Route Army back then were even more incomparable. Not to mention training, even in battle, each person only had five rounds of bullets, and they would charge with bayonets directly after firing.

There was not even a decent live-fire training. Imagine that when you really get to the battlefield, how many of those five bullets can hit the enemy with well-trained tactics? The real situation is that you fire a round of blanks, and the hit depends entirely on faith, and then you stuff your belly with sweet potatoes and fight with the meat-eating enemy with bayonets.

Miserable! These words are not enough to describe the tragic and heroic deeds of those national martyrs.

Luo Chong certainly would not let his soldiers perform such a tragedy. The Eighth Route Army was really poor and had no conditions, but the Han tribe was different. The Han tribe was now at its peak. They had money, food, and guns.

Under such circumstances, Luo Chong felt sorry for himself if he did not make them elite soldiers by using the strength of the entire tribe to support more than 2,000 soldiers.

Guns were nothing. If they were destroyed, they could just be rebuilt. If the bullets were gone, they could be reloaded, and it would not consume much resources. Let them shoot as much as they wanted, as long as they could practice good marksmanship.

After Luo Chong and Qu Bing finished talking about official business, they started talking about Qu Bing's family affairs, asking about his married life and when his wife would be able to have a child.

On the other side, the new recruits received their uniforms and were also excitedly changing into them.

The pine needle green military uniform, also known as dark green, makes the recruits feel particularly fresh when they wear this color of military uniform. They have seen crimson military uniforms before, but they are the first batch of green ones.

The style of military uniforms has not changed for the time being. This time, they are still spring and autumn military uniforms, long sleeves, long pants, tops with left and right cross collars, and loose pants. Each person also has a white sleeveless double-breasted vest, which is usually worn inside, and can also be worn directly outside as a waistcoat. The lower body has a pair of white boxer briefs, and all clothes are made of pure cotton.

In the past, the Han tribe may not have so much cotton cloth, but after two or three years of continuous promotion, the Han tribe now has sufficient cotton, and the cotton textile industry in the Han tribe has begun to replace the hemp textile industry on a large scale, but the planting area of ​​hemp fiber has not decreased at all, but now it is basically used in sacks and hemp ropes.

The green military uniform was made of pure cotton, and the military boots were khaki sheepskin lace-up short boots, made of the sheepskin of the Gazelle. This sheepskin is as tough as cowhide, but slightly thinner than cowhide, but stronger than ordinary sheepskin and goat skin, and is very suitable for leather boots.

In addition, each person also had a wide cowhide belt, a bullet box sewn from cowhide, a bayonet scabbard, a hunting knife scabbard, a plug-in bullet belt, a cowhide water bottle bag, and other things like document bags, map bags, telescope boxes, and compass boxes, which not everyone had.

After changing into the new military uniform and putting on the military cap with a peaked brim, everyone had a steel helmet, which was all of the same model, and could be adjusted to the appropriate head circumference according to the lining strap inside to adapt to different heads.

The portable kettle, lunch box, and dinner plate set made of bronze sheet stamping and welding is made in imitation of the Type 79 military kettle. The kettle is covered with a lunch box, and the bottom of the lunch box is covered with a dinner plate. The dinner plate can also be used as the lid of the lunch box. It is usually put together like a Russian nesting doll, and can be pulled apart and disassembled into three pieces when in use.

This thing is useless if you say it is useless, but it is also very useful, especially in the northern battlefield where they will go in the future. They don’t ask to cook their own meals on the battlefield, but at least they can boil some hot water to drink, get some pine leaves, pickled meat, etc., and they can also make a pot of broth. It doesn’t matter whether it tastes good or not. The key is to replenish some calories in the ice and snow. What is calories? Calories are combat power.

Moreover, this thing has another wonderful use, that is, to hold a pot of hot water and use it as a hot water bottle, so that the quilt at night will at least not be cold.

As for why bronze was chosen, it was because the Han tribe did not have nickel-chromium-iron alloy, which is the legendary stainless steel. Aluminum, which is a little worse, requires electrolytic refining, which the Han tribe cannot make at present, and aluminum is actually unhygienic when used for tableware.

Some people may think that bronze is a heavy metal and is worse than aluminum, but at this stage, it is the most suitable material for making kettles in the Han tribe, because bronze is less likely to rust than carbon steel.

As for whether there will be heavy metal poisoning, Luo Chong only has one sentence, those who talk about toxicity without considering the dosage are all hooligans, arsenic is highly toxic, but it can be used as medicine in small doses.

How much copper can you drink when you use a copper kettle to drink water? In modern hot pot restaurants, people use charcoal-burning copper pots to make hot pot every day, and few people have excessive heavy metals.

Besides, the bronze used by the Han tribe to make military kettles is mainly made of steel, copper, and a small amount of tin, and no toxic heavy metal substances such as lead are added, so there will be no harm.

The soldiers changed into new uniforms, new leather boots, new military caps, belts around their waists, bullet boxes, scabbards, water bottles and other items hung on the belts. The uniform clothing and uniform equipment suddenly transformed the previous "civilian workers' camp" into a proper military camp.

The recruits looked at their comrades who were dressed in the same way and giggled. Everyone seemed very happy. After all, they were wearing new clothes. And I heard that each person had two sets. However, due to the trouble of making them, the other set of uniforms for replacement had not been delivered yet.

The instructors were also very happy to see that this group of recruits had changed into uniform uniforms and finally looked like an army. So they immediately shouted to everyone who had changed their clothes.

"Assemble, all of you, line up and gather at the training ground. You will listen to the leader's speech, as well as the drill and explanation of the new weapons. Finally, you will receive the weapons. Shut up and listen carefully. The leader will not come here to give you lectures every day."

(End of this chapter)