"Hey!" "Hah!" "Hey-ha!" ……

In a flat place outside Suzhou, the provisional capital of Anhui Province, a large group of regimental drills were training with shouting and drinking. It was hot, and these instructors were all wearing short coats and Chu Yong's costumes shouting loudly at the group of newly joined group exercises, "Stand up straight!" "Go fast!" If anyone fails to satisfy the officers, the officers will either be angry and scolded, or they will immediately rush forward with fists, kicks, and sticks.

This is not the only place for military training, and basic training such as queues and sticks has less requirements for the venue, and many people can gather on one piece of land. Musket training is an advanced course, and it is not possible for many people to train together. Hundreds of young men face to face to train stick marksmanship, that is called a dragon and a tiger. Hundreds of lads trained face-to-face against the ...... of arson, which was called cannibalism.

The musket training in Wei Ze's troops also began with the five-man team, and the same was true for the training in Suzhou, Anhui Province. Five people need to stay side by side while squatting, standing, reloading, etc., which requires a considerable amount of training.

Closer to the city wall, there is a training ground that seems to be more advanced, and the total number of Qing troops on this field is less than 1oo, which is not low. With Jiang Zhongyuan, the governor of Anhui, He Chun, the governor of Jiangnan, and the officials in charge of regimental training in Anhui all watched the two junior officers of the Qing army busy on the training ground.

Standing next to these two petty officers was Li Hongzhang, the editor of Wuyingdian. Li Hongzhang stared at the two junior officers of the Qing army fiddling with two muskets with anxiety on his face, and the uncontrollable anxiety seemed to put his entire net worth on the two muskets.

According to reason, Li Hongzhang, as a second-class jinshi, was awarded the compilation of the Hanlin Academy and the editing of the Wuying Palace, which should not have appeared here. The war disrupted for a while, and last year (1853), the Taiping army conquered Luzhou and captured Jiang Wenqing, the governor of Anhui. Xianfeng edict to the Ministry of Labor, Lu Xianji, went to Anhui to handle the regimental training and anti-suppression matters. He accompanied the waiter Lu Xianji to return to his hometown to run a group practice,

Without waiting for Lu Xianji, the left attendant of the Ministry of Works, to set up the regimental training in Anhui, Wei Ze continued to march north from Luzhou, and soon took control of a large area of land south of the Huai River. This was followed by the Northern Expedition of the Taiping Army, and the Qing army in the north was unable to take care of the Anhui area, and finally sent Jiang Zhongyuan to serve as the governor of Anhui. Jiang Zhongyuan himself was born in Chu Yong, and with him as the governor, the matter of forming a regimental training was naturally transferred to Jiang Zhongyuan's management.

Li Hongzhang's father, Li Wen'an, was a scholar in the same year as Zeng Guofan, and Li Wenan asked his son to worship Zeng Guofan as a teacher, and lived in Zeng Guofan's mansion in Beijing. At that time, Zeng Guofan's good friend Jiang Zhongyuan also lived with Zeng Guofan, and Li Hongzhang and Jiang Zhongyuan also became old acquaintances. Jiang Zhongyuan was originally born in Lian Chuyong, and Li Hongzhang went to Anhui to set up a group training, so he naturally became Jiang Zhongyuan's subordinate.

"Your Excellency, you're ready!" The older of the two Qing army junior officers finally said to Li Hongzhang.

Li Hongzhang's nervous expression did not disappear completely, and he whispered to the officer: "Wang Qinian, this official recommended you because he thinks you really have this ability, don't let this official lose face." ”

"Please rest assured that the villain does make flints. You've seen it, my lord. Wang Qinian also whispered to Li Hongzhang.

At this time, Li Hongzhang spoke to give himself courage. Since Wang Qinian was so confident, Li Hongzhang stepped back a little and let Wang Qinian and his younger brother Wang Qisheng demonstrate the flint gun.

Weeser's troops had powerful firearms, and the style of firearms was different from the muskets that were now commonly in vogue. The musket stirring device that Wang Qinian took out was a flint, and the butt of the musket was the kind that Wei Ze's troops were equipped with, or the style of muskets popular in Europe and the United States. The two brothers each picked up a musket, loaded it with gunpowder and bullets, put on the leaf springs, and pulled the trigger on the target in front of them.

With a "bang", the musket was excited. The eyes of the onlookers fell on the target, but they saw that the target ten paces away shook, and at least one of the two shots hit the target.

"One more shot!" Li Hongzhang said with relief. After listening to Li Hongzhang's order, Wang Qinian's brothers reloaded gunpowder and projectiles, and pulled the trigger again on the target. Both muskets were successful again.

Both shots were successful, and Li Hongzhang finally relieved himself. He stood up straight, and an expression appeared on his face that seemed to be an understatement, but in fact it was completely to show his understatement about things, "Jiang Gong, this musket has been made!" ”

Jiang Zhongyuan didn't look overjoyed, he stepped forward and took the musket in Wang Qinian's hand, and released a shot according to the process. Flint guns are not a treasure in China, and China has imported many beautiful flint guns from foreign countries over the years. If you want to imitate it, the flint gun is not particularly difficult to imitate.

And Jiangnan Admiral and Chun didn't look happy, he didn't even look at the flint gun and said: "Listen to this voice, it's not the same as the musket used by the Shu Yue bandits." Are you lying to us? ”

was scolded by He Chun like this, Wang Qinian was so frightened that he didn't dare to say anything. He met Wei Ze in Yongxing, when Wei Ze saved the life of Wang Qinian's younger brother Wang Qisheng, and Wang Qinian also contributed a lot to Wei Ze's modification of the flint gun. With a master craftsman like Wang Qinian, it is not difficult to learn the making of the basic flint device. Because he regarded Wei Ze's maggot healing technique as a head-lowering technique, Wang Qinian took his younger brother away. He originally looked down on Wei Ze and these traitors, his younger brother suffered such treatment, the more Wang Qinian thought about it, the more angry he became, and at that time, the Qing army was chasing the Taiping army, Wang Qinian and his younger brother became the Qing army half-actively, half-passively. followed the Qing army all the way from Hunan.

After the Battle of Changsha, Wang Qinian took his younger brother to join Jiang Zhongyuan's Chu Yong. He has never dared to reveal his affairs too much, after all, he was regarded as Diao Min in Guiyang Prefecture, and he also helped the famous Wei Ze do a lot of things. After seeing the flint gun, and then using the backward arquebus, Wang Qinian knew that he could not use this kind of thing to confront Wei Ze's troops equipped with flint guns. But in these years, the ability to make new muskets is something that will arouse the suspicion of many people, and Wang Qinian cannot find a reasonable explanation that he can make flint guns.

Until Emperor Xianfeng allowed Jiang Zhongyuan, the governor of Anhui, to establish the Huai Army, Li Hongzhang asked a master blacksmith in the army to make a new type of musket that could fight against the Shu Yue bandits. Wang Qinian and his younger brother responded to the list.

After creating a new gun, Wang Qinian was also uneasy in his heart. When it came to the unreasonable accusations of Jiangnan Admiral Hechun, Wang Qinian did not dare to make any justification.

Wang Qinian didn't dare to refute, but Li Hongzhang dared to refute directly, he said coldly: "Admiral Hechun, what we want is to make a new type of musket, and we didn't say that we want to make the kind of musket that binds the Cantonese bandits, what you say is inexplicable." ”

was refuted by Li Hongzhang, and Chun just snorted, but did not say anything again. As the general of the defeated army, He Chun finally broke through the encirclement of the Taiping army under the escort of his own soldiers and fled to Suzhou. The emperor had stripped him of the title of governor of Jiangnan and left him to wait in Suzhou. Although Jiang Zhongyuan vouched that He Chun would definitely have a chance to make a comeback, He Chun did not have much confidence in this.

When Jiang Zhongyuan went to Anhui to take up his post, he brought more than 2,000 Chu Yong, plus this more than 10,000 newly gathered group exercises, 14,500 people was not too small a force. However, He Chun was not optimistic about the combat effectiveness of these people at all, and He Chun had just experienced the annihilation of 12,000 people. If these more than 14,000 Huai troops are pulled out to fight against the Shu Yue bandits, I am afraid that the whole army will be annihilated.

He Chun personally faced the high fire of Wei Ze's troops, the kind of stormy firepower, and the terrifying fierce artillery fire of the Yue bandits, and He Chun didn't know how to resist at all. He very much agreed with Jiang Zhongyuan's idea of opening a new musket, so He Chun became even more picky about this flint.

Regardless of the dispute between Hechun and Li Hongzhang, Jiang Zhongyuan ordered: "Bring the bullets!" ”

Soon, several standard paper-shell bullets imitating Weizer's troops were taken. Jiang Zhongyuan followed the shooting method of Wei Ze's troops, first tore the tail of the paper bullet with his teeth, poured a little gunpowder into the fire pool, and then loaded the bullet into the chamber. This time, Jiang Zhongyuan fired five shots in a row before he ignited the granular gunpowder in the fire pool behind. However, the granular gunpowder in the fire pool did not burn violently after it was ignited, and it did not ignite the gunpowder in the chamber through the guò fire hole.

Jiang Zhongyuan put down this musket, loaded the other musket with ordinary gunpowder, and fired the musket after only one leaf spring. Throwing the musket in his hand to Wang Qinian, who was waiting beside him, Jiang Zhongyuan replied very regretfully: "The new gun is good, but it is still not the musket of the Cantonese bandits." ”

After listening to Jiang Zhongyuan's evaluation, Wang Qinian felt very unhappy for a while. He had dealt with Weser and worked as a blacksmith together, and knew that Weser was extremely good at cunning design. At Yongxing, many of Weeser's ideas were limited to conditions and could not be realized. Now that almost two years have passed, and the area of Wei Zekong is already so large that it is fully qualified to build more advanced muskets.

Even if he knew this, Wang Qinian still stole Wei Ze's flint gun, but when he heard the governor of Anhui so bluntly think that Wang Qinian was inferior to Wei Ze, Wang Qinian still had a strong sour breath in his heart.

Jiang Zhongyuan's attention was all on the musket, and he didn't notice the subtle changes in Wang Qinian at all. He said a little to himself, "This bullet is in our musket, and it works well." But it didn't shoot as fast as the muskets of the Cantonese bandits. The new musket was much faster, but it didn't need it. ”

Such a realistic choice not only made Jiang Zhongyuan feel difficult to choose, but the other Huai army generals were also in a dilemma. If they hadn't seen the weapons used by Weizer's troops, this flint gun would have been enough to make them rush to rejoice, but people would have to die more than people, and goods would have to be thrown. In comparison, what could have been happy became unhappy.

However, Jiang Zhongyuan is Jiang Zhongyuan after all, and he didn't worry about it for too long. Turning his head, Jiang Zhongyuan asked Wang Qinian, "How long does it take you to build such 3,000 muskets?" ”

"It's going to take more than three months." Wang Qinian replied.

"Three months ......, then you will first remember a nominal guerrilla. If three thousand muskets are brought out to me after three months, I will give you a real shortage! Jiang Zhongyuan threw Wang Qinian a big meatloaf.

Wang Qinian, who was overjoyed, immediately knelt down and saluted Jiang Zhongyuan, and he replied deeply: "Obey!" ”

After dealing with the matter, Jiang Zhongyuan took the not very happy He Chun and Li Hongzhang, who was very happy, back to the city. On the way, Jiang Zhongyuan said to the two: "We received news that the Shu Yue bandits have captured Hongze, and they are about to attack Huaiyin. It is said that the governor of Jiangsu has impeached me for arsoning with the enemy, but I don't know what the two of you think? ”

He Chun was silent, and Li Hongzhang immediately replied: "Jiang Gong, after the Shu Yue bandits captured Xuyi, you have already written to the governor of Jiangsu, telling him that the Shu Yue bandits will attack Hongze sooner or later. They didn't listen, but instead took a bite. As long as Jiang Gong writes an excerpt and explains the matter to the emperor. As for the attack on Jiangsu by the Yue bandits, I think it's a good thing for us. ”

After Li Hongzhang finished speaking, Jiang Zhongyuan hadn't said anything, and He Chun had already cast an extremely disgusted look at Li Hongzhang.

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