Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 331 Generals Watching Video, Discussing Military Uniforms and Appearance [Subscription Request]

The next day.

After Liu Kuan delivered the tablet computer to the palace in the morning, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned several generals in the capital, including Xu Da, Tang He, Fu Youde, Li Wenzhong, Lan Yu, and 18 commanders of the emperor's personal army, to the Wuying Palace in the afternoon.

Today, the Ming Dynasty's "Imperial Guards" system is different from that in history.

Historically, when Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself King of Wu after defeating Chen Youliang, he established the Imperial Guard. At that time, the number of personnel was relatively small, with only one or two guards and horses, and they were affiliated with the Governor's Office.

Later, Zhu Yuanzhang continued to expand the size of the Shangzhi Qinjun in the process of concentrating and strengthening his actual military power. Before he ascended the throne, it had expanded to as many as 5600 guards, with people in each guard!
That is a scale of more than 100,000 people!

During the period from the first year to the fifteenth year of Hongwu, the yamen that commanded the Shangzhi Army kept changing its name and affiliation.

For example: the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guards, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guards, the Protectorate General of the Imperial Guards, the Imperial Guard Commander's Office - Zhu Yuanzhang actually liked to change the system and names.

Historically, it was not until the 15th year of Hongwu that the "Imperial Guards" system was basically established.

The Jinyiwei were separated out, and twelve guards were set up to protect the emperor's personal army. In fact, this was equivalent to streamlining the military strength of the emperor's personal army and turning more of the personal army into spies responsible for intelligence gathering.

When Zhu Yuanzhang made this change, he must have considered many things, and one of the important factors that influenced his decision was the Ming Dynasty's finances.

The financial situation of the Hongwu Dynasty in this time and space was much better than that in the original history. Therefore, in addition to setting up the four major intelligence agencies of Jinyiwei, Guangmingwei, Dongchang and Xichang, the military forces under Zhu Yuanzhang's direct control not only did not decrease much, but expanded to eighteen guards!

That is one hundred and eight thousand people!
Moreover, these eighteen imperial guards not only had land allocated to them like the garrison troops, but also received a subsidy of money and food (actually military pay), and also received a lot of various rewards (benefits) on a daily basis.

Therefore, these eighteen elite Ming troops were always firmly in the hands of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Emperor.

As for the personal soldiers of the generals in the Hongwu Dynasty, they were not like the family servants in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, but were from the emperor's personal army and local garrison troops.

Generally speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang would assign personal soldiers to generals who were granted the three levels of nobility, namely duke, marquis, and earl, when they left Beijing to take up posts or lead troops to war.

A duke has eight hundred, a marquis has five hundred, and an earl has only three hundred.

These personal soldiers from the imperial army not only play the role of protecting the general on the battlefield, but also actually play the role of monitoring, controlling and supervising the general.

For those generals who did not have titles, their personal soldiers were temporarily assigned from their places of post (weisuo).

A commander probably has about a hundred personal soldiers under his command, a thousand households has a general flag of personal soldiers under their command, and a hundred households has only a small flag of personal soldiers under their command.

As for the commander-in-chief, he is usually a general with a title, and his personal soldiers are naturally judged according to the standards of a general.

It was precisely because of the more than ten guards of his own army and the system of temporary personal soldiers that Zhu Yuanzhang was able to decide the life and death of founding generals such as Fu Youde and Feng Sheng with just one sentence, and to decide the life and death of civil and military ministers, local tyrants and gentry...
In the front hall of Wuying Palace, generals such as Xu Da and Fu Youde were waiting here.

Although they are all generals, they also have different levels and circles.

Xu Da, Tang He, Fu Youde, Li Wenzhong and Lan Yu, who was promoted to Duke of Liang for his merits, gathered in the inner part. They not only had seats, but also had tea and snacks prepared by the palace servants.

As for the eighteen commanders of the imperial army, they were standing in the hall waiting.

Tang He looked at Xu Da and said, "Brother Tiande (Xu Da's courtesy name), do you know why His Majesty has summoned us this time? The Northern Expedition has only just ended. Are you planning to launch another major war?"

Xu Da, who was six years younger than Tang He, shook his head when he heard this. "Brother, you've been staying in the capital and you can't guess the emperor's intentions, so how can I know?"

Tang He looked at Li Wenzhong again, "Duke Cao, you must know something, right?"

Although Li Wenzhong was seven years younger than Xu Da and thirteen years younger than Tang He, he was granted the title of Duke earlier than Tang He. In addition, he was Zhu Yuanzhang's nephew, so his status was even more honorable.

However, Li Wenzhong was quite polite to Tang He. He smiled bitterly and said, "I just came back from Dengzhou not long ago. How would I know?"

Tang He glanced at Fu Youde and Lan Yu again, and felt that they also didn't know, so he said to himself, "It seems that I can only find out when I see His Majesty."

The other four were curious, but Lan Yu was a little uneasy.

He didn't know whether Zhu Yuanzhang knew about what he had done in the Yuan court - he felt that it was probably not the case. If it was, Zhu Yuanzhang should not have made him the Duke of Liang.

Just as the generals were discussing this in low voice, a eunuch came in and shouted, "Your Majesty summons all the generals to the main hall for a meeting."

Xu Da and others immediately left the front hall and went to the main hall in order, and saluted Zhu Yuanzhang who was sitting on the dragon throne.

"See Your Majesty!"

"Be flat!"

After the ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang spoke directly, "I summoned you all to the palace today to discuss optimizing the process and etiquette of the military parade, so that our Ming army can be more majestic and powerful, and even achieve the effect of defeating the enemy without fighting."

Xu Da, Tang He and others were all surprised. They didn't expect that Zhu Yuanzhang would summon all the generals just for such a "small matter".

Unexpectedly, Zhu Yuanzhang continued, "I have a video about the military parade here, and I allow you to watch it for reference."

After saying that, Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand, and Li Gui brought two eunuchs and began to act like a show in the main hall of Wuying Palace.

This wooden shelf is specially made.

It was about two meters high and had a slot for a tablet computer, enough to ensure that the tablet computer could be clearly seen by standing generals such as Xu Da without any risk of it falling. The stand was made of mahogany and carved with dragons and phoenixes, which looked very extraordinary.

Li Gui stood on a stool, carefully placed the tablet on it, and touched the screen to play.

During this process, he was completely tense - this was the magic weapon that Uncle Technology brought to the Ming Dynasty from the future. If it was broken in his hands, even if he had a hundred heads, they would not be enough for Zhu Yuanzhang to chop off.

When Li Gui carefully got off the stool and moved it over, he found that Xu Da and other generals who remained calm in the face of mountains of corpses and seas of blood were now full of excitement and excitement.

It’s impossible not to be excited.

No matter whether it was Xu Da and other five generals who were granted the title of Duke, or more than a dozen commanders of the personal army, none of them had expected that they would be able to see the legendary artifact!

Xu Da and the other five dukes knew about the existence of tablet computers from various sources. They also knew that during every festival, especially the Chinese New Year, Zhu Yuanzhang would ask Liu Kuan to play videos and movies in the Dashan Hall for the royal family to watch together.

Although Xu Da, Tang He and others also wanted to watch it and even shamelessly begged for it, Zhu Yuanzhang's words "the content of the video and movie involves royal secrets" forced them to give up the idea of ​​watching it.

Now Zhu Yuanzhang made an exception and took out the tablet computer to show them something, which naturally made everyone excited.

As for the dozen or so commanders, they were even more shocked because they had almost just learned about the existence of tablet computers.

At this moment, I saw a sound coming from a strange flat plate, and there were lively little people in strange clothes inside. I felt like I had seen a miracle comparable to the descent of a fairy bridge!
Soon, these people put aside their distracting thoughts, tried to calm their minds, and focused on watching the video...

The video was set to play in an automatic loop, so Xu Da and others watched it for nearly an hour, more than a dozen times. Their necks and eyes were a little sore, so Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Li Gui to pause the video.

"Tell me, what do you think of this video?"

As the saying goes, it is difficult to change one's nature, but it is easy to change the country. Because Lan Yu was too excited and thrilled after watching the video, he put aside some of his worries and spoke before the other four dukes.

"Top-notch elite soldiers, Your Majesty! The ones in this video are all top-notch elite soldiers!" Lan Yu's face flushed. "If we had such an elite force, our Ming Dynasty would be able to crush anyone!"

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded slightly, then called Xu Da's name, "Xu Da, what do you think?"

Xu Da, however, was no longer as excited as he had been at first. Instead, he pondered and said, "Your Majesty, in fact, if we want to train an army that can be as united as the one in the military formations as shown in the video, our Ming Dynasty can also do it. The key is how much time, money and food it will take, and how many people we can train."

"That makes sense." Zhu Yuanzhang nodded again and asked, "Tang He, Fu Youde, Wen Zhong, you also say something."

Tang He said, "I think the reason why the military parade in this video is so beautiful is partly due to the uniforms - the uniforms in the video make the soldiers look more energetic."

"But I have one question...why aren't the soldiers in the video wearing armor?"

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said, "Did you see the muskets of those people in the video? Even if they are a hundred steps away, they can penetrate the Ming Guang armor."

"And then there are those truck-mounted artillery pieces in the video. A single shell can reach an area of ​​at least several dozen feet, shattering even rocks. There are even missiles that can target a building or a camp from a thousand miles away."

"Their weapons are completely different from ours, and their methods of warfare are also different. Swords and other weapons have been practically abandoned, so naturally, there's no need for soldiers to wear heavy armor."

After hearing these words, whether it was Xu Da and other dukes or more than a dozen commanders of the imperial army, they were all dumbfounded and shocked.

Lan Yu subconsciously wanted to ask, "Did these weapons really exist in later generations?", but when he thought that Zhu Yuanzhang did not say that the soldiers and weapons in the video were from later generations, he forced himself to hold back.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt secretly pleased when he saw the expressions of Xu Da and others.

In the past, he was always shocked by Liu Kuan's various things from later generations. Now it was finally his turn to shock others with things from later generations.

You know what, this feels really good.

Then he said bluntly, "But we're not showing this video to show you weapons from the future—those are too far away from us, and there's no point in imagining them."

"We hope you can train a group of elite troops like those of later generations, who can practice simple military formations in unison like in the video. Can you do it?"

After Lao Zhu asked the question, the others fell silent, thinking about how to answer, and even Lan Yu was no exception.

Only Li Wenzhong said without hesitation, "Your Majesty, since the weapons and uniforms of later generations are different from those of our Ming Dynasty, we certainly cannot just copy what is shown in the video."

"Also, if it's for a military parade, there's no need to have all the imperial guards participate in the training. I think we could select a group of elite soldiers from each of the imperial guards, totaling over 30,000 men. This would be easier to train, and wouldn't diminish the momentum due to a small number of men."

Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "Don't military uniforms need to be changed?"

Li Wenzhong said, "I believe that changing military uniforms is a major matter affecting the entire army and is very expensive, so it is best not to change them. The appearance of soldiers is most important in their spirit, and uniforms and armor are only secondary."

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned slightly. "We in the Ming Dynasty don't lack money to buy new clothes for our soldiers. So, we can have someone design a more concise and sophisticated set of military uniforms and supply them to the Eighteen Guards of the Imperial Guard first."

"If the soldiers are willing to accept it, we will then see how it goes and promote it to other garrisons in other places."

Although Li Wenzhong still felt that it was unnecessary, he did not want to make Zhu Yuanzhang angry over such a small matter, so he immediately responded "yes" with everyone else.

　First update.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)