Near the east gate of Xinzheng County, there is a small courtyard, with blue bricks and black tiles, simple and unpretentious. Although the small courtyard is a system of three entrances and three rooms, the depth is limited, and it is not spacious enough.

A few rare bright colors in the whole small courtyard, is a few plum blossoms planted in the courtyard, at this time coincides with the wax moon, the plum blossoms bloom just right, the shadow is sparse and horizontal, and the dark fragrance floats. If there's a fly in the ointment, it's probably the lack of snow.

This small courtyard, called Plum Garden, belongs to Gao Cai, that is, the five uncles who are highly pragmatic.

Gao Cai, the word Deqing, the number Mei'an. Jiajing was born in March of the second year of Jiajing, and in the twenty-eighth year of Jiajing, he was the second place in the township examination. In other words, it is the second place in Henan, and it stands to reason that the results are very good.

It's a pity, this is his best result, after which he also went to the Jinshi exam three times, but all of them fell to Sun Shan, when he was not young, he did not dare to delay the time, so he was a candidate for vacancy, appointed as the governor of the capital, and was promoted to the former military governor's office experience, and was awarded the title of Fengzheng doctor.

The former military governor's office experienced that this official was actually in a rather embarrassing position.

First of all, it is a civilian officer. It stands to reason that civilian officials usually have a higher status, but the problem is that in the experience of this metropolitan governor's office, its immediate superiors are all military officials, and you can imagine how embarrassing it must be for a civilian official who obeys the orders of military generals in an era when the status of civil officials is much higher than that of military generals.

Secondly, the duty of this position is to "transfer the cashier", in short, to deal with all kinds of official documents. Since Yongle, the status of the Governor's Office of the Five Armies has been in a state of decline, and a large number of powers that originally belonged to the Governor's Office have been usurped by the Ministry of War.

In particular, the overlapping jurisdiction of the Ministry of War and the Governor's Office was basically decided by the Ministry of War, and the Governor's Office could not speak at all, and when it came to things, it could only transfer documents to the Ministry of War for approval.

Later, the Governor's Office barely had a little say in the management of military status, ordnance manufacturing and other aspects, and even the power of ordnance manufacturing had to be shared with the Inner Government and the Ministry of War.

Gao Cai is an official in such a department and in such a position, and it is obvious that he will not be very happy.

But Gao is an open-minded person, since it is a foregone conclusion that there is no bright career, it is better to develop a personal hobby, which is better than working hard or doing nothing.

Gao Caigao's hobby is the study of firearms. This hobby was developed after he arrived at the Governor's Palace: he was in charge of official documents and archives, and he sat in the public house every day with nothing to do, and could not read other books or do idle things, so he had to look through the archives to see if he could find something interesting.

After going back and forth, Gao Cai found that the development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was quite interesting, so he relied on his advantage of being able to consult any file and began to study it with taste.

The development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was built on the basis of the Song and Yuan dynasties, and in the war of reunification of the whole country by Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, he repeatedly "relied on firearms to win."

However, Gao Cai found that after entering the Ming Dynasty, the development of firearms was greatly accelerated. It has not only made a shocking breakthrough in quality, quantity and production technology, but also absorbed some foreign advanced technology, which has been widely used in actual combat, and has achieved remarkable results.

Gao Cai consulted the file and found that during the Northern Song Dynasty, there had been a scene of the simultaneous use of cold and hot weapons, but only some incendiary and explosive firearms were used in the attack and defense of the walled city, which had little impact on tactics.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the situation was different, the Mongols in the period of a powerful military empire entered the Central Plains, especially Genghis Khan's western expedition and two attacks on Japan, not only gave full play to the advantages of the nomadic cavalry, but also took the initiative to use the power of gunpowder and iron artillery to defeat the enemy in the siege battle.

From the perspective of the whole tactics, although the war of the Yuan Dynasty was still confined to the military mode of the past and was a typical war in the era of cold weapons, there have been obvious improvements in the application of firearms. Not only the use of explosive stone throwing machines, but also the manufacture of metal tubular firearms, thus causing a fundamental change in the army's armament and strategy and tactics.

Although Gao Cai does not have the advantage of being a highly pragmatic traverser, he also found in his research that the change and development of firearms is achieved through war. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Ming Dynasty has been in continuous border conflicts, which have provided a battlefield for the extensive use of firearms, and firearms have also been gradually improved and improved in wars again and again with the needs of war.

From the day Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, the conflict between the Ming Dynasty and the frontier "barbarians" has been continuous, from the many provocations of Wara Yexian to the civil changes; From the worries of the coastal pirates to the Qijia army's immortal tour breaking the siege, there are no firearms, and there are even more and more. In these wars, large and small, the superiority of firearms in the use and the role of firearms in decisive victories have gradually manifested themselves and have been recognized, valued, and accepted by the people.

Gao Cai also found that from the perspective of the equipment of the entire Ming army, the ratio of cold weapons to firearms is also changing, and firearms are increasingly replacing cold weapons. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Shenji Battalion established after the introduction of the Shenji gun became the first pure artillery unit of the Dynasty, which was not only used in the defense of the city and the fortified position, but also set up the Shenji Gun to increase the defense in ten border areas such as Kaiping, Huailai and Xuanfu since the Yongle period; Up to now, it is "100,000 Beijing troops, and firearms are almost sixth".

As a result, Gao Cai's interest increased greatly and he began to seriously study the firearm. No one knows the extent of Gao Cai's research, even if his third brother Gao Gong, he only knows that the fifth brother is quite interested in firearms, and after years of research, he doesn't know what he has learned.

What's even more regrettable is that Gao Cai's health is not very good, and in the middle of the third year of Longqing, he had to take the initiative to resign and return to his hometown. Of course, looking at this time node, you can know that there is actually an important reason for this: at that time, Gao Gong was forced to become a general, and some people impeached Gao Cai in order to please Xu Jie, saying that under his management, some guards were in chaos and there were many vacancies.

Well said, this is indeed true. But the question is, at this time, which guard is not like this?

Besides, the military registration of the guard station is chaotic, and there are many shortages in the number of compilations, is this caused by his experience in managing official documents and archives in a high-ranking area? If you have the ability, you can try the national census and see if those hereditary nobles want to fight with you!

Not to mention the Governor's Mansion, when the time comes, even the Ministry of War, and most of them even the Cabinet will not be able to hold it!

It's nothing more than the wall falling down and everyone pushing it - if the high arch falls, how can his brother be safe and sound? That is, Gao Zheng's cheap dad Gao Yu is lucky, he is an official in Fengyang, the capital of the capital, far away, no one is in Beijing, Xu Jie's people licking the dog didn't think of him for a while, otherwise he would have to eat impeachment.

Later, Gao Gong recovered, and after arriving in Beijing, Gao Cai also talked about the importance of firearms in a letter to his family, hoping that Gao Gong would not ignore it. This is even one of the reasons why Gao Pragmatic said that he wanted to meddle in the military production of firearms, but Gao Gong did not directly refuse.