Chapter 2786: New Equipment (Part 1)

Since the launch of the Mainland Strategy, many Senate institutions had gradually relocated to Guangzhou. Some, though their headquarters remained in place, established branch offices in the city. Due to the sheer volume of business, however, these so-called branches grew larger by the day while the original headquarters shrank into something more resembling a rear office. Eventually, certain departments began relocating entirely.

The General Staff and the Department of Army were among the first central institutions to move to the mainland in their entirety. According to a decision made by the General Assembly at the end of 1635, central departments were to first establish offices in Guangzhou. Yet as military struggles intensified, both the General Staff and the Army completed their full relocation. After all, the Mainland Strategy's focus was on ground combat—having the General Staff and Ministry of Army stationed across the sea proved a significant hindrance to military operations.

When they first arrived on the mainland, conditions were severely limited. The General Staff and the Army crowded together, settling in the former Ming Army drill ground east of Guangzhou city, which they surrounded with fences. Apart from a few old buildings, most personnel worked out of pitched tents.

This field state persisted for nearly half a year. Since most Senators had been dispatched to reinforce frontline troops, working from tents was barely acceptable.

Naturally, no one could tolerate such crude conditions indefinitely. When the war entered a stalemate, Director Hong of Joint Logistics—known as Lianqin—set about acquiring land.

Outside Guangzhou's East Gate, near the Pearl River, he secured a parcel of land roughly in what would become the Dadao Road area in the modern era. There he built the new headquarters. This time, tents gave way to prefabricated houses. The original barbed wire and bamboo fencing was replaced by proper brick walls. Bastions were later added to these walls, followed by supporting barracks, trenches, and fortifications—transforming the compound into a military fortress guarding Guangzhou. The prefabricated structures inside were gradually rebuilt into permanent buildings. By early 1637, the site—temporarily dubbed "South China Headquarters"—had finally seen all its simple temporary structures demolished. Essential infrastructure was now in place: office buildings, wired telegraph, a dedicated wharf, dormitories, a water tower, coal storage yard, boiler room, and bathhouse. It had become the Army's largest stronghold in Guangzhou.

The General Staff and Department of Army had now relocated to Guangzhou completely. Following this, training bases previously established in Hong Kong also moved to the mainland one by one. Hong Kong's conditions still imposed too many limitations—water resources in particular were scarce. Concentrating too many large institutions there only caused them to interfere with each other's daily operations.

The Army and the General Staff were temporarily squeezed into an L-shaped, three-story building, but conditions had improved dramatically compared to before. Some Senators joked that if hostile saboteurs fired a rocket at this building, the Fubo Army would be instantly hemiplegic.

After major hostilities and bandit suppression campaigns drew to a temporary close, both the Fubo Army and the National Army entered a period of rest and reorganization. The workload of the General Staff and Department of Army grew relatively lighter, allowing them to focus more on troop development and training consolidation.

The army had demonstrated its status as the Senate's number one gold-swallowing beast through nearly two years of the Mainland Strategy and public security warfare. Naturally, this also exposed quite a few problems—problems that evolved into a major debate over whether the military system required reform and whether weapons should be upgraded.

These two topics were perennial favorites in the Senate, trotted out for discussion every year. The conclusion? None whatsoever.

As a certain Senator from the First Weapon Design Bureau once remarked with frustration: "The force of inertia always exceeds the desire for technological change." The statement was not wrong in itself, but the reason inertia ran so strong lay largely in the costs required for technological change versus the benefits it would bring.

Contrary to what Senators might assume, those who managed armies—whether the militaries of the Third World or the post-Cold War US Army "seeking defeat in solitude"—were fundamentally uninterested in "technological leadership." They cared far more about cost.

Of course, combat generals naturally wanted the most advanced weapons possible—preferably Zentraedi technology crushing Stone Age primitives. But weapons were essentially "waste" that produced nothing and only consumed resources. Army managers had to weigh the costs of maintenance and application.

In April 1637, spring had burst forth in Guangzhou. Various flowers and trees throughout the General Staff compound bloomed in vibrant competition, lending a touch of bright color to the grounds. Dongmen Chuiyu, Executive Secretary of the Fubo Army General Staff, was reading a letter in his office within the L-shaped building.

Though his title had never changed—always "Executive Secretary of General Staff"—and though he had never actually served as a unit commander or headed any major department, Dongmen Chuiyu's military rank had risen steadily. Were it not for his comparative modesty and insistence on refusing promotion, he could have worn the rank of Major General by now.

Despite remaining a Colonel, Dongmen Chuiyu was the most powerful Senator Officer in the Fubo Army—bar none.

True, by military rank and position, several Senator Major Generals and the Minister of Army himself technically outranked him. But controlling the daily affairs of the General Staff gave him power that far surpassed theirs.

At this moment in his office, Senator Dongmen was composing a reply.

The letter was an official communication from the Danzhou Industrial Zone Management Committee, concerning "Joint Logistics Arsenal No. 37."

Though called "Joint Logistics Arsenal No. N," Joint Logistics didn't actually manage or construct arsenals directly—that remained the purview of the industrial department. Thus, this matter still required negotiation via correspondence from the Industrial Zone Management Committee.

The incoming letter had not been written personally by any Senator. Such handwritten official letters were termed "Memoranda" in the General Office system and were considered the highest tier of correspondence. Instead, this letter bore the signature of the Committee Director's Secretary. Its subject: the establishment of Factory No. 37.

This matter has finally arrived, Dongmen Chuiyu thought as he received the letter.

The rifle had been designed in 1635 and finalized in 1637. The complications arose after finalization.

Once the weapon was finalized, the Weapon Design Bureau submitted a request for re-equipment. The Planning Academy naturally solicited opinions from relevant departments along with proposed re-equipment plans.

The new breech-loading rifle offered many advantages—this required no argumentation. Anyone could see it, let alone Senators who had long ago peeked at the answers in the back of history's textbook.

Accordingly, the General Staff had written a very detailed report. First, it highly affirmed the weapon's excellence: This is a revolutionary new rifle. After its adoption, the Army's existing tactical system will undergo complete transformation.

The problem lay precisely in that phrase: "tactical system complete transformation."

Weapons determine tactics, and tactics determine organization. Though the Minié rifle represented progress over the flintlock musket, it generally had not changed the rate of projectile delivery. Thus armies in 1860 still employed the same methods—lining up to exchange fire. The basic tactics used by Napoleon III's France, Austria, and Prussia at the start of the German Unification Wars remained the line and column formations of the muzzle-loading era, even though they already wielded breech-loading rifles.

If the Army carried out comprehensive re-equipment, it would mean the existing training regimens, organizational structures, and tactical systems would all become obsolete. The Army would require comprehensive retraining and reorganization. With the old tactical system dismantled and the new one not yet formed, the troops would enter a vulnerable state. For ordinary soldiers, the impact might be manageable—a few months of intensive training could adapt them to new weapons.

But for officers, it would be catastrophic.

Senator officers within the Army system had completely mastered linear tactics through years of practical exploration. The cultivation and education of officers and sergeants was conducted based on these tactical principles. Though no serious field battle had yet been fought, years of experience and exercise training had largely determined the organizational methods for large-scale engagements.

To redesign tactics meant the Army would directly lose its active field combat capability. Large-scale engagements could only adopt defense-and-counterattack tactics.

The present moment remained within the Mainland Strategy. Attacks from Ming armies, peasant forces, Manchus, or armed uprisings by local powers could occur at any time. The Army would maintain a long-term state of combat readiness, prepared to engage at a moment's notice. Large-scale alterations to the army's organizational structure and tactics would inevitably cause chaos.

The army was the fundamental guarantee of political power—it could not fall into disarray. Therefore, to avoid compromising the combat capability of existing troops, the ideal approach was to establish new units. These new troops would adopt new weapons and new training methods. The problem was that this approach would not only suddenly expand the army's size, but because the new rifle held absolute advantage over the Minié rifle, these new troops would require Senators in key positions.

Having Senators serve as battalion-level officers was, at present, essentially impossible.

Thus, Senator officers of the Army held entirely contradictory feelings toward comprehensive re-equipment—a mixture of love and loathing.

They naturally hoped for well-equipped troops, but they did not want everything they had built to be torn down and started over from scratch.

As for Joint Logistics' perspective, it was rather blunt.

Since the start of the Mainland War, as controlled areas expanded, the battle lines had grown ever longer, and army size would only continue to increase. The Type 1637 would place extremely heavy pressure on both logistics and industrial capacity simultaneously—especially regarding ammunition consumption and supply limits.

Comrade Thorpe pointed out in his report that under the new tactics, soldiers would operate in skirmisher formation, beyond the close control and command of officers. In complex terrain and intense combat, soldiers would tend toward preventive shooting at suspicious targets, seeking to eliminate more enemies before potential threats could launch attacks. This would objectively increase ammunition consumption.

Automatic weapons, interestingly, would not cause the same problem, because soldiers knew the weapon in hand could fire a large volume of ammunition in a very short time to strike down multiple targets.

With Minié rifles, soldiers knew there was only one bullet in the gun and reloading took time, so they would shoot more cautiously.

Switch to new rifles, and the growth in ammunition consumption would be unpredictably large.

Because inland areas remained in their original seventeenth-century state, transportation costs were extremely high. If new weapons were adopted with their massive ammunition consumption, the resulting logistics demands and costs would expand beyond imagination.

Under seventeenth-century transportation conditions, the ammunition consumption of muzzle-loading weapons matched the logistics ceiling.

Joint Logistics stated plainly: the weapons are excellent, but we can only supply what is most suitable. Advanced does not mean suitable. If the Type 1637 is to be fully equipped, a large quantity of transportation assets must be added—ships, carriages, livestock, and more.

The Navy's report was simple, merely stating that this gun was good and, if the length could be shortened, would serve as an excellent naval rifle. It emphasized pointedly that the Marines urgently needed to equip this new rifle.

(End of Chapter)