Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 413 In the Army
ps: This week, the novel has been recommended for the first time since it was published more than two years ago. I hope everyone will vote for it! Thank you very much! (Two chapters in one)

The diplomatic and political confrontations between Britain and the United States were limited to the northern part of South America and did not have much impact on the Han country in South America.

On January 1, the 23nd day of the twelfth lunar month, the Han Kingdom entered the last few days of the year-end holiday. Companies, government agencies, and the military across the country were taking advantage of the last few days of the year to finish up their work for the year.

In Huaiyin Prefecture (Rosario), Weizhou, the base of the Second Regiment of the Sixth Division of the Han National Defense Army, Lu Rongting, who had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and commander of the Second Regiment of the Sixth Division, sat on a chair near the training ground of the camp. He took off his leather boots, which were stained with dust and sand, with both hands alternately, knocked them on the ground a few times, poured out the sand inside, put on his boots skillfully, tied his shoelaces, and then took the newspaper brought by the guard. He held the tea in one hand and the newspaper in the other, enjoying the rare leisure time between training.

Fuxing Daily and Youth Military Newspaper are government newspapers. Officers at the army colonel level and above receive a free newspaper provided by the Army Department every day to help young core officers understand national military and political affairs and broaden their knowledge horizons.

On the main page headline of the new issue of Fuxing Daily, preparation for a constitutional monarchy system is still the hottest topic recently. The education community, the intellectual community and ordinary people all show overwhelming support for Li Mingyuan's initiative to reform the political system and prepare for a constitutional monarchy system.

"Broadening the people's wisdom and granting citizens the right to participate in and discuss politics, the constitutional monarchy of the Han Dynasty is truly a benevolent government that has never been seen in China for 5,000 years. Your Majesty's achievements should surpass those of the ancient sages and saints."

"Soldiers, officials, teachers, farmers, and workers all have equal political rights. The political system reform of our Han Empire should be a model for the political system of the civilized world and the cornerstone of the empire's eternal foundation."…………

The implementation of constitutional monarchy means the transformation of the country from rule by man to rule by law, the improvement of the political status of the people, and the guarantee of security in the national economy, personal safety and other areas.

Under the constitutional monarchy system, the power of the monarch is restricted to a certain extent, and the lives of officials and ordinary people are guaranteed by law. The situation in the feudal society in the past where the emperor could decide people's fate with a single word will no longer happen.

It is true that Li Mingyuan is a wise and holy monarch in the eyes of all the citizens of the South American Han Kingdom, but no one can guarantee that the successor ruler of the empire will be as wise and people-loving as Li Mingyuan. After the implementation of the constitutional monarchy system, things are different. Even if the talents of future monarchs are slightly insufficient, under the protection of the national system, as long as the monarch controls the core military power, the power to appoint the prime minister, the power to supervise the government and other rights, the country will not go astray because of the monarch's mistakes, and the people will be able to feel a sense of mission and security as the main body of the country.

The new intellectuals and officials who received overseas education understood the benefits of constitutional monarchy, and the ordinary people and immigrants who lacked knowledge and literacy, after hearing the explanations of local officials, even if they still had only a vague understanding, believed that constitutional monarchy was another benevolent policy implemented by the emperor and habitually raised their hands to support it.

Like most young military officers, Lu Rongting paid some attention to politics, but his main interest was in the military field.

Put down the Fuxing Daily and pick up the Youth Military Newspaper, the official newspaper of the army and navy.
"The Han Empire and the Kingdom of Hawaii have established diplomatic relations at the ministerial level. Major Kuang Yongzhong, a young officer of the Imperial Navy, has gone to Hawaii to serve as a military attaché!"

Two lines of large black headlines appeared prominently in the newspaper headline area. Lu Rongting read along with the headlines and gradually understood the cause and effect of the matter.

As Western merchants flocked to the Hawaiian Islands, they brought with them infectious diseases such as cholera, mumps, influenza, smallpox, and measles, which killed about four-fifths of the indigenous people.
In 1778, when the first Western navigator, Captain James Cook, landed in Hawaii, there were more than 30 native Hawaiians on the island. By 1876, there were only more than 6 native Hawaiians left on the island.

The large number of deaths caused a serious labor shortage. In order to solve this problem, Hawaii began to import labor from overseas to work on plantations. Immigrants from China (1852), Japan (1868), Portugal (1878), and the United States came to the island.

The introduction of foreign laborers, especially Chinese and Japanese laborers, changed the population structure of the Hawaiian Islands. By the beginning of 1889, the total number of Chinese in Hawaii, including Sinicized native women and the offspring of Chinese and native women, reached 12, surpassing the local natives and becoming the largest population in the area. (The native Hawaiians are Polynesians, a transitional race between the yellow and white races. Dwayne Johnson is a Polynesian.)
After the Chinese, the second largest population group in Hawaii is the local indigenous people, with a number of about 5 people, and the third largest population group is the Japanese, with a number of about 3 people.

Chinese and Japanese are the main foreign ethnic groups in Hawaii, accounting for three-quarters of Hawaii's total population. After the Chinese and Japanese, Americans, who rank third in terms of foreign population, have only more than 2,000 missionaries, businessmen, and ordinary immigrants, and their population is far lower than that of the Chinese and Japanese.

Although the Americans were at a disadvantage in terms of the number of immigrants, they took advantage of being the first to enter the Hawaiian Islands and forced the King of Hawaii to sign an unequal treaty, which gave the U.S. government the power to establish a naval port in Hawaii and station a small number of Marines.

Pearl Harbor on Oahu, the main island of Hawaii, is home to a 100-man Marine Corps and a supply station that provides food, fruit and other basic supplies. The barracks station in Pearl Harbor is the core pillar of the U.S. government's political pressure on the Kingdom of Hawaii. In the past few years, with the support of the garrison, the U.S. Embassy in the Kingdom of Hawaii has suppressed the Han and Japanese governments and gained major control over Hawaii.
However, the situation in which the United States dominated the Kingdom of Hawaii changed due to the confrontation between Britain and the United States. In order to share diplomatic pressure and combat the expansion of the United States in the northern part of South America, the British government made a clear statement for the first time to support the interests of the Han Kingdom in the South Pacific region. Therefore, after obtaining British diplomatic support, the Han government was able to bypass the U.S. Embassy in the Kingdom of Hawaii and sign a formal proposal agreement with the Kingdom of Hawaii alone. The two sides established diplomatic relations at the ministerial level. The Kingdom of Hawaii gave the Han Kingdom and the United States equal political treatment and set aside a piece of land with an area of ​​about 480 acres near the Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island as a material supply port and Marine Corps camp for the Han Kingdom's South Pacific Squadron.

Hawaii placed the Chinese Marines' garrison camp near the American camp, which was not without the intention of checking and balancing each other.
However, the South American Han Kingdom lacks strength in the South Pacific region. Its core mission in entering the Hawaiian Islands is to curb the US annexation of Hawaii, so it does not care about the Hawaiian government's little tricks.

To celebrate the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Han and the Kingdom of Hawaii, the mainland government announced that it would dispatch a fleet consisting of a 2500-ton cruiser, a 1350-ton light cruiser, and three auxiliary ships, accompanied by the Han envoy Zhong Juncheng (who was born as a young student in the United States and mainly studied diplomacy during his stay in the United States.)
The Han Dynasty's military attaché to the Kingdom of Hawaii, Lieutenant Colonel Kuang Yongzhong, three platoons of Marines, embassy assistants, and a diplomatic team of more than 150 people paid a diplomatic visit to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

During the state visit, the Han fleet will stay in Hawaii for three months. After completing the state visit and comforting Chinese compatriots in Hawaii, the fleet will rush to Samoa, the capital of the Ishu Islands, where it will officially join the battle sequence of the South Pacific Squadron.

After reading the news that the navy was about to send a fleet to visit Hawaii, Lu Rongting felt a long-lost restlessness in his heart.

After the end of the Argentine War, the naval fleet gradually received new ironclad ships. The newly enlisted graduates of the local naval academy and the key officers who returned from studying abroad were able to go out to sea for training frequently, and increase their combat experience by attacking pirates active on the South Pacific-South China Sea route and the Atlantic-Africa route. Except for the troops stationed in the northern border areas, the combat units of the local army, which were able to conduct low-intensity field combat in occasional border military conflicts, could only cooperate with each other in a few units through simulation exercises to maintain their combat skills from deteriorating.

After all, simulation exercises and actual combat are not the same thing. Having not participated in actual combat operations for nearly ten years, not only the veterans are not used to it, but even Lu Rongting, the military commander, feels a little uncomfortable.

Lu Rongting was born in 1859. In early 1879, when the Argentine War broke out, he was only a 1889-year-old grassroots officer. Now, ten years have passed in the blink of an eye. His military rank has been promoted from captain to lieutenant colonel, and his position has also crossed the level of battalion-level officers. He was successfully promoted to the chief officer of a regiment, completing the transformation from a grassroots officer to a middle- and senior-level officer. The military expansion plan has kicked off. According to the military expansion schedule issued by the Ministry of the Army, before July 7, the Sixth Division of the National Defense Army will be the first batch of military expansion units to complete the expansion and replacement of the first-class division. At that time, his second regiment will also be expanded from a standard regiment of 2200 people to a large regiment of 3000 people.

"Next July, the Second Regiment's expansion will be completed, and my rank may be promoted from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel."

Lu Rongting took a sip of tea, stared at the epaulettes of his military rank on his shoulders, and talked to himself.

In peacetime, officers are promoted slowly, with a two-level promotion in 10 years being a normal phenomenon in the Han National Defense Forces. However, compared with the first ten years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, generals such as Luo Linshan, Zhao Yongzeng, and Wang Dashan not only held high positions at a young age, but also, because of their meritorious service to the emperor, each of them had the honor of a hereditary noble title.

The hereditary aristocracy of the Han Dynasty was a symbol of honor as well as status. Twenty-one years after the founding of the country, the total number of native hereditary aristocrats of the Han Dynasty was no more than fifty, and the number of non-hereditary aristocrats was more than forty.

The investiture ceremony at the end of 1879 was the largest hereditary title investiture ceremony in the history of the Han Dynasty. After that, although four people including Zhou Sheng and Lin Shenhe were successively awarded the hereditary baron title for their great achievements in different fields, during this period, two hereditary nobles who had been granted titles were deprived of their hereditary noble status due to violations of discipline, laws, corrupt lifestyles, etc.

The hereditary aristocratic status has great appeal to every young soldier, and Lu Rongting is no exception.

He was thirty years old at the time and there were already seven children in his family. The oldest was eight years old and was already in the second grade of primary school. The children were growing up slowly, which put pressure on Lu Rongting, who considered himself young. His military career lasted only a few decades. He missed the ten years before the Argentine War. In the ten years after 1889, he must seize the opportunity to make achievements and serve the country!

A strong sense of professionalism is the driving force that has motivated Lu Rongting to intensify the training of the troops for ten years. After drinking the remaining tea in one gulp and ending a short rest, Lu Rongting stood up and planned to continue to engage in intensive and fulfilling training to make adequate preparations for the possible wars in the next few years.

"Captain Shi, Captain Zhang, how is the training going today?"

Lu Rongting put on a simple Pingding military cap and came to the soldier training center and asked two young officers who were no more than twenty-five or twenty-six years old.

"The brothers' training is pretty good. They have performed well in infantry and artillery coordination tactics, skirmisher attack tactics, mine-clearing tactics, heavy machine gun defense and other tactical exercises. They are outstanding among the main regiments of the National Defense Force.
However, each battalion only had one Jianye 6-year-old heavy machine gun. A regiment had three battalions, plus a machine gun platoon directly under the regiment headquarters, for a total of only seven heavy machine guns. Compared with the previous regiments with more than ten Gatling hand-cranked machine guns, the number was reduced by more than half. The grassroots officers below had some opinions, thinking that the number of heavy machine guns was too small, and the company-level units below had no heavy firepower support, and their combat effectiveness would be seriously limited. "

Among the three infantry battalions under the Second Regiment, the commander of the First Battalion, Shi Jintang, and the commander of the Third Battalion, Zhang Yougong, both have studied abroad. Compared with the commander of the Second Battalion who grew up from the grassroots local army, they both attach more importance to the heavy firepower support of the grassroots infantry units.

"How does the firing rate and bullet range of the Jianye Type 6 heavy machine gun compare to the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun?"

"The Jianye 1000-year-old heavy machine gun has an effective range of 600 meters and a rate of fire of 2700 rounds per minute. When loaded with ordinary ammunition, it still has a certain lethality within a distance of meters.

The Gatling hand-cranked machine gun has an effective range of 800 meters and a firing rate of 170 rounds per minute.

The commander of the first battalion, Shi Jintang, replied.

"Yes, the effective range of the Jianye 6-year heavy machine gun exceeds that of the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun, the rate of fire is more than three times that of the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun, and the lethality is more than five times that of the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun."

Lu Rongting summarized the performance comparison between the Jianye Six-Year Heavy Machine Gun and the Gatling Machine Gun, and then explained: "The Jianye Six-Year Heavy Machine Gun has better firepower than the Gatling Machine Gun and is more suitable for front-line troops. This is also the reason why the local army eliminated the Gatling Machine Gun and replaced it with heavy machine guns. However, compared with the improvement of weapon performance, the manufacturing cost and ammunition consumption cost of the Jianye Six-Year Heavy Machine Gun far exceeds that of the Gatling Machine Gun."

Lu Rongting found a chair and sat down, and continued: "In Europe, a Maxim heavy machine gun costs 300 pounds, and the matching bullets cost 30 pounds.

The cost of the locally produced Jianye Type 1400 heavy machine gun is 200 Chinese yuan, equivalent to 25 pounds at the British exchange rate, and the cost of the supporting ammunition is pounds. Although the cost is cheaper than that of foreign purchases, it is difficult for the local government to afford the equipment rate of the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun given the current army expenditure.

"The Jianye Six-Year Heavy Machine Gun is really a good thing. It uses a tripod and the barrel is light. After the barrel is disassembled, two or three soldiers can carry the parts to move. Compared with the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun, which is heavy and bulky and needs to be carried by a carriage, the Jianye Six-Year Heavy Machine Gun is more suitable for position defense and rapid transfer. However, the ammunition consumption rate of heavy machine guns is terrifying and the combat cost is high. Otherwise, if heavy machine guns are popularized to company and platoon combat units, the comprehensive combat capability of the National Defense Army will be completely different from before."

The commander of the third battalion shook his head and said regretfully.

"The national economy is developing rapidly, and the technological level of local military enterprises is also improving. Perhaps in a few years, the production cost of heavy machine guns and ammunition will be reduced, and heavy machine guns will be popularized to basic combat units at the company and platoon levels."…………

(End of this chapter)