Chapter 964： Saltpetre is not enough? Go to Chile to dig!

Originally, Marin planned to transfer one legion from the three most powerful legions in the country to help Scotland. However, the plan could not keep up with the changes, and the pope also needed someone to attack Siena, and also needed to adjust about 15,000 people.

As a result, the troop strength that needs to be transferred has reached 25,000. But the locals can't have enough soldiers and horses to guard, otherwise, there are enemies to attack? Although Marin has trained more than 10,000 militiamen, the militia are, in the end, only militia and cannot replace the regular army.

Therefore, Malin thought about it and decided to revise the plan. He decided to hand over the mission of landing in Edinburgh to the Fourth Army of Saqqara currently stationed in Newcastle.

In line with Edward ’s task of attacking southern Scotland, Marin asked Sakala to find 10,000 strong men among the tens of thousands of refugees in Northumberland.

Anyway, England's attack on the Scottish border is actually a feint, and it doesn't need too many main battle troops. The Fifth Legion of Sivag was supposed to go with Edward's army. In addition, Edward will also come up with a pure English army of ten thousand people to act together. Counting a fake 10,000-man corps on Newcastle, the total army reached 30,000. Counting the people's prosperity, they will get fifty or sixty thousand people.

But after all, the real main battle force will become Siwag's Fifth Army. And that pure English legion of Edward will become an auxiliary force. As for the 10,000 fake army prepared by Newcastle, it was completely soy sauce, and was responsible for shouting "666" ...

In addition, Siwag ’s Fifth Army will not be fully dispatched. Because Edward was worried that London would have the opportunity to launch a rebellion. Therefore, 10,000 people of the Fifth Legion will leave 3,000 elites stationed in London to protect the safety of Edward's family. And this decision did save the life of Edward's family ...

In this way, the main attack is actually the 7,000 soldiers of the Fifth Legion, assisted by the 10,000 pure English legion, and Newcastle's 10,000 "cheerleaders."

If you are fighting against Scotland under normal circumstances, this is death, and it is easy to be defeated by Scottish elite.

But it is different now, because Scottish Elite has been captured or killed in the war of the previous year. Only the remaining 2,000 imperial guards are more powerful in Scotland. The others are all second-line troops or simply militiamen, and their combat effectiveness is weaker than that of the "Miscellaneous Army" put together by England. Moreover, the number will never exceed 10,000.

Moreover, the main task of the English army this time was to pretend to attract the main Scottish troops to defend, and to cover the Fourth Army ’s cross-sea operations. Therefore, they do not need to be too powerful, as long as the momentum is strong enough.

Under their cover, the Fourth Army of Saqqara could take the opportunity to board the ship from the port of Newcastle, land at the port near the Scottish capital Edinburgh, and then attack Edinburgh to capture the high-level Scottish core to end the war.

...

However, the Fourth Army of Saqqara seems to lack firearms. Because, what Marin valued at first was the long-range strike ability of the English archers in the Fourth Army.

However, the archer's long-range strike ability is useless in siege battles. Therefore, Marin will send 20 heavy artillery to the Fourth Army. This batch of heavy artillery is the latest infantry version of the Karen naval gun developed by Beihai State Foundry Factory, and it is a 32-pound artillery.

However, this infantry version of the Karen gun is a bit heavier than the genuine 19th-century British Karen gun. The original Karen naval gun is 32 pounds and weighs only 771.8 kg. The 32-pound Karen ship gun produced by the Beihai National Foundry Artillery Plant weighed one ton, which was nearly 230 kilograms heavier than the genuine Karen ship gun.

But there is no way. After all, the current technological level of Beihai is much worse than that of Britain in the 19th century. Moreover, it is already a miracle to be able to produce a 32-pound Karen gun. Because the current steel technology is too backward. That is to say, Marin made carbon steel, so that he could cast such a light heavy gun with medium and low carbon steel. If you change the mature iron, it is estimated that it needs two tons to be safe. Otherwise, it is easy to explode.

The 32-pound iron ball shell hit the city gate and the city wall with a considerable weight. The most important thing is that according to information, Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, was not replaced by the Iron Gate. If a 32-pound Karen gun is used for concentrated bombardment, the city gate can be broken.

No wonder, after all, Scotland is a backcountry in Europe, and many popular things take a long time to reach Scotland. Moreover, south of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is a large mountain hill, which constitutes a natural barrier against the British army. If the mountains in the south can't stop the British army, Edinburgh doesn't make much sense to replace the iron gate.

However, the Scots did not expect that the Marin goods actually thought of using a large-scale landing war to attack the Scottish capital.

If it is usual, Scotland will generally station thousands of main forces in the capital, but it is not afraid of Marin landing 10,000 troops. After all, the defender has a natural geographical advantage. But now, most of the main Scottish troops are captured, leaving only a few crooked dates, and most of them have to be sent to the south to defend England. In this way, there are certainly not many troops left in Edinburgh, and the combat effectiveness is limited. At this time, Marin suddenly sent 10,000 elite soldiers to engage in the landing battle, and it would be strange if the other party could stop it ...

The only problem is that this kind of large-caliber artillery, the consumption of gunpowder is extremely alarming. Under normal circumstances, the ratio of gunpowder gunpowder consumption to shell weight is 1 to 3. In other words, it takes about 10 pounds of gunpowder to fire a 32-pound iron ball shell. If there were 20 salvos, it would cost 200 pounds of gunpowder in a round. If you play a round of 100, you will need 20,000 pounds of gunpowder ... But now, European saltpeter is so scarce and expensive ... So, the heavy artillery ca n’t afford it ...

Fortunately, the Karen naval gun is a short-barrel artillery. The weight of the charge only needs to be 1/8 of the weight of the shell. The 20 Karen guns fired a round and consumed only 80 pounds of gunpowder. But this is also very expensive. It is estimated that it takes more than 100 rounds to break a heavy city gate, that is, it needs more than 8,000 pounds of gunpowder, which is definitely a big consumption.

For Marin, there is no shortage of warships or artillery in the North Sea. The only thing missing is that the gunpowder is mainly saltpeter.

The Army's consumption of gunpowder is still light, and naval naval guns are the real gunpowder consuming giants, and they are also monsters that consume gold. Today, the price of gunpowder in Europe is extremely high, reaching a high price of 1 shilling to 2 shillings. Even at the lowest 1 shilling, 8000 pounds of gunpowder costs 8,000 shillings and is worth 1600 gold coins.

If you switch to the navy, a ship with 20 naval guns and 50 warships with 1,000 naval guns will fire a round of good drops, and you will lose thousands of pounds or even thousands of pounds of gunpowder. If you fight for a day ... there are few monarchs in Europe that can stand up to bankruptcy ...

The saltpeter in India is cheap, but after Marin bought it twice, he not only bought out the stock there, but also attracted the attention of Spain and Portugal. Today, these two countries are also buying saltpetre in India. But it is a pity that the annual supply of saltpetre in India is only hundreds of tons ~ www.novelhall.com ~ Nowadays, it must be supplied to the three countries of the North Sea, Spain and Portugal. The national battleship was released to fight.

Of course, saltpetre from India is sufficient. Now that saltpetre is so easy to sell, the Indians will definitely increase production. But where can Marin wait?

Therefore, the best way is to find another way.

For Marin, two other sources of saltpeter were purchased from the Daming Empire, but this is full of uncertainty. After all, who knows whether Ming officials will one day be out of supply.

Therefore, the safest source is to develop Chile's saltpeter.

Although there is a lot of saltpetre in Chile, there is also a big trouble. Saltpetre is in the tropical desert in northern Chile. If you want to mine, you must go deep into the hot and dry tropical desert ...

However, Marin's subjects in the North Sea and those in England hardly adapted to the tropical desert climate. Therefore, this plan was temporarily stranded.

However, during this time when he was considering going to Senegal to acquire rhinoceros, Marin suddenly thought that the bearded men in North Africa seemed to adapt to the desert climate ...

After all, the bearded beasts of the Arab white robe in North Africa have always lived in arid and water-scarce desert areas, and have long been accustomed to that climate.

Therefore, Marin thought whether he could buy a batch of slaves adapted to the tropical desert climate from North Africa to mine saltpetre in Chile?

At the same time, Marin also plans to purchase a batch of "desert boat" camels from North Africa to transport saltpetre from the depths of the desert in northern Chile to coastal ports ...

To this end, Marin decided to send people to Egypt, contact the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt, buy a docile slave adapted to the desert climate, and a batch of camels for the development of saltpetre mines in the desert of northern Chile ... And, the faster this thing The better ...