Zhang Xiaoming first ordered his subordinates to take the rockets from the arsenal.

A moment later, a hardwood rail frame was presented to the group, on which were five slender cylinders with pointed ends rolled into iron sheets, and iron wings resembling arrow wings in the middle and tail.

When the families saw this thing, they all accused Zhang Xiaoming of "strange tricks and a waste of national funds." ”

Zhang Xiaoming didn't beep with them much, and personally lit the fuse at the tail of the rocket, and a burst of smoke erupted from the tail of the cylinder, flying into the distance with a piercing whistling sound.

There was a thunderbolt-like explosion on a sunny day, and the one-person-high mound of soil at the landing point was blown away, raising the dirt in the sky, Zhang Xiaoming looked back at the people who were so frightened that their faces turned pale.

"This is the Flying God Rocket made by the firearms workshop, which can fly three thousand steps away, whether it is a field wave battle or a siege war, it is a first-class sharp firearm, with this sharp weapon, the regent will sweep the world just around the corner. ”

"It's just a trick, one or two can do anything. ”

A person with a trilling voice in the crowd whispered, Zhang Xiaoming glanced at the person, recognized it as Xie An, the patriarch of the Xie clan, and smiled without speaking.

Zhang Xiaoming asked the treasurer to take out the account books and report the grain inventory.

The treasury official said that there were 200,000 stones of grain in the warehouse, which was enough for the soldiers and civilians of Luoyang to eat for three months based on half a catty of rice per person a day.

Zhang Xiaoming asked again: "How much grain did His Royal Highness the Crown Prince have when he recovers Luoyang?"

The treasurer thought for a while and said: "When Luoyang was recovered, the city was sacked by the two kings and the rebels, and the grain stored in the government was swept away, and there were no grains left. ”

Sima Shu next to him was very surprised when he heard this, and couldn't help asking, "Then how did the grain storage come from now?"

"Back to Your Highness, these grains are transported from Jianghuai. ”

Xie An couldn't hide himself, so he stood up and accused: "Nonsense, the grain production in Jiangnan is limited, and this year's taxes have not been escorted to Luoyang, where can there be so much grain?"

"Lord Shangshu took out the money and silver earned by the glaze factory, and sent people to Jiangnan to purchase at a high price. ”

After listening to the words of the treasurer, Wang Dun and Xie An glanced at each other, and they both showed a strong sense of jealousy, this person did not enrich his own pockets, and his ambition was not small.

Zhang Xiaoming personally served as a guide and took everyone to visit.

This time I visited the Ordnance Institute of the Ministry of Industry, which was originally a workshop under the Ministry of Industry that manufactured armor, bows, crossbows, knives and guns, but now it has become the largest organization under Sima Shu's power, with tens of thousands of craftsmen and unlimited power to allocate money and grain.

Moreover, the remuneration is rich, the master craftsmen of the ordnance institute have 500 catties of rice per month, which is higher than the income of the four-grade officials, and a group of idle redundant personnel heard that a group of lowly craftsmen have such a high salary, and they have long been unaccustomed to it, and today they just take advantage of this opportunity to take advantage of the opportunity to make trouble.

The armament is located at the foot of the mountain in the north of the city, and you can see the tall slender circular hollow brick tower from a distance, and there are thick black smoke rising from it day and night, reaching straight into the sky.

People in this era do not know the chimney, the rumor is that it is a giant alchemy furnace made by immortals, in fact, the building under the chimney is similar to the alchemy furnace, which is the steel mill designed and built by Zhang Xiaoming.

Sima Shu first inspected the armor crossbow workshop, which is a workshop under the Ordnance Institute, which produces the latest type of chain mail and assault guns.

Everyone was amazed when they saw the chain mail made of fine iron rings constantly being shipped out.

Chain mail is not a new thing, all the countries in the Western Regions can produce it, this kind of armor is flexible and lightweight, and can move with the body, but there is basically no defense against blunt weapon strikes such as axes and hammers, and the production is cumbersome, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the gains outweigh the losses.

Zhang Ziming has also watched a lot of palace fighting dramas, and he has already seen that today's inspection is not good, he smiled and groaned: "The chain mail in the Western Regions is usually four consecutive rings, and six consecutive rings are already a rare thing, but the chain mail produced by the crossbow workshop is eight consecutive rings. ”

There are people who know the goods nodding frequently, and the armor of this period mainly includes: sleeve armor, crotch armor and Mingguang armor.

The origin of the word "Meiguang armor" is said to be related to the round protection of the chest and back. Because most of this round protection is made of metals such as copper and iron, and the polished aurora resembles a mirror. Wearing the bright light armor on the battlefield will emit a dazzling "bright light" due to the sun's irradiation, hence the name.

There are many styles of this kind of armor, and they are different in complexity: some only add two round guards on the basis of the crotch, some are equipped with shoulder pads, knee pads, and complex several shoulder pads, and most of the body armor is long to the hips, and the waist is tied with a belt.

But after all, Mingguang armor is not as good as chain mail, and chain mail is also divided into three, six, nine, etc., the four rings are relatively sparse, the six links are much stronger, the dense and compact eight rings, it is the top grade in the chain mail, but the production is also more cumbersome, there are not many craftsmen who master this technology, even if it is a skilled craftsman to make a collar of eight chain mail, it takes a year, which is not counting the cost.

The raw material of chain mail is a small flat iron ring, these iron rings need to be heated, forged, twisted, and welded by craftsmen with iron wires one by one, and the workload can be imagined.

"Flashy. ”

Xie An whispered again.

Zhang Ziming smiled slightly, and said amazingly: "The crossbow workshop can produce 100 collars of chain mail every day. ”

Everyone looked at each other, unbelievable, if this was true, then at least tens of thousands of craftsmen would be needed, and they were the kind of experienced old craftsmen who had been immersed for decades, but the entire arsenal was just these people, and it was impossible for all of them to be used to produce armor.

Wang Dun's family, which has been in the army for generations, knows more about the Tao, and he concluded that Zhang Ziming was bragging.

"Zhang Shangshu, can you visit the workshop and see how the craftsmen make it? ”

Wang Dun sneered and made a request, he expected that Zhang Xiaoming would be deflated, so he made an excuse to refuse, but to his surprise, Zhang Xiaoming readily agreed.

The workshop that made chain mail was in a huge house made of red bricks, and a loud rumbling sound was heard from a long distance, and Zhang Xiaoming did not explain, leading everyone into the door and standing at the door to admire his masterpiece.

In the workshop, several steel machines are working under the drive of steam engines, and the billets made from the steelmaking furnace of the steelmaking plant next door enter the water tank wire drawing machine, where they are drawn into long steel wires, which are then cut into uniform sections by the lathe, stamped into flat steel rings, and linked into three-foot-wide steel cloth while hot, and the final link is handmade.

I saw rows of craftsmen, standing in front of a constantly flowing line (assembly line), each of whom was responsible for only a few processes, and made these steel cloths into chain mail tops step by step, the neckline and cuffs were wrapped in cotton cloth and lined with a layer of silk, which was so fast that it was jaw-dropping.

In the machine on the other side, an iron helmet is being produced on the assembly line, this is a stamped iron helmet, lined with cowhide, and a belt is used to tie the chin, and there is a stamped Jin character on the helmet, and the craftsman holds a brush dipped in red lacquer to color these Jin characters one by one.

Everyone was shocked by this scene, no need for labor, it all depends on the machine, is this an immortal law or a demon law!

Wang Dun and Xie An glanced at each other, knowing that today's plan was over, so they stopped talking and stopped making provocative remarks.

Everyone calculated in their hearts that one hundred collars a day, ten thousand collars in a hundred days, and the whole army could be replaced with chain mail in less than a year, and if the number of people in the workshop increased, then ......

Zhang Xiaoming took everyone to continue the visit, and demonstrated the treasure of the town shop of the Ordnance Institute, the general cannon of the town of the country, on the shooting range.

This is a cannon cast in bronze, using cavity wax injection technology, no bubble sand hole is formed during the casting process, the gun is polished and polished, the appearance is shiny and smooth, exquisite, it is simply a work of art.

In order to increase the persuasiveness, Zhang Xiaoming asked the sergeant to build a three-story low wall with sandbags in the distance as a target.

The artillerymen in the on-site exercise were selected from the forbidden army with big shoulders and round waists, and four gunners operated a large general's cannon.

There were two ears on the gun body, which were stuck in the grooves on both sides of the gun carriage, and the gun carriage was equipped with iron hoops and wooden wheels, which could be pushed by people to pull horses, and the soldiers pushed the gun carts to the school yard and began to build artillery positions.

I saw that the four of them first buried the hoe at the rear of the gun carriage in the soil, took out a wooden ruler and measured it decently, adjusted the height of the muzzle, and then used the red-hot steel drill to ignite the firing and medicine in the medicine room.

There was a deafening loud bang, and several elderly representatives of the family were so frightened that they sat down on the ground, only to see the muzzle of the cannon blazing, and one cannon was discharged.

A black line that could barely catch up with the naked eye flew into the distance in an arc, and in the blink of an eye, it landed on the earthen wall in the distance, blasting the low wall made of three layers of sandbags into the air, leaving everyone stunned.

Before everyone could recover from the shock, the second shot went off again.

The power of a shot is so powerful that it has shocked everyone, but they didn't expect it to be able to fire in bursts, this is simply an artifact.

Zhang Xiaoming looked at this group of soil strips with an expressionless face, this is just the simplest structure of the child, the rear of the cannon is movable, there are disassembled magazines, each magazine is a unified specification, equipped with an eight-pound spherical cast iron cannonball, and an optimized formula of launch and medicine wrapped in cloth.

As long as the magazine is supplied, the combat rate of fire can be as high as twenty rounds per minute. The officials were dumbfounded, speechless, and all showed a look of admiration and admiration.

Zhang Xiaoming was not satisfied, and decided to carry out this show to the end, and asked people to come up with a musket and talk eloquently.

"This weapon is called a musket, which is equivalent to a miniature version of the general cannon of Zhenguo, which can fire iron bullets, is simple to operate, and can be easily mastered by ordinary recruits after a month of training. ”

While speaking, Zhang Xiaoming beckoned a forbidden soldier to come over and demonstrate on the spot.