Zheng Chenggong arrived at the appointment, and the army was stationed on Gulangyu Island. Zheng Chenggong came early, while continuing to train soldiers and horses, while intertwining with Zheng Cai and others, Zheng Cai and others were in charge of the grain and grass, but they also saved the inventory in South Australia.

Since the beginning of the army in Layue last year, Zheng Chenggong's department has expanded from more than 90 people to more than 1,000 people, and then to more than 3,000 soldiers and horses. However, the army is very expensive, just the natural color and folded color of the military salary, each soldier costs about 20 taels a year, just the soldiers of this army can reach 70,000 taels of silver in a year!

This does not take into account the needs and expenses of officers at all levels, staff members, and other people, as well as various materials, which is not enough for Zheng Chenggong, who has only one island in Nanao.

Now with the dispatch of troops, eating Zheng Cai and Zheng Lian, the financial situation of South Australia will be easier. It's just that if you want to use this corner of the place as a place to complete the great cause of resisting the Qing Dynasty, there are still many places to spend money, such as daily expenses, investment in sea trade, the new construction of Nanao Town, etc., etc., not to mention, even the armory workshop in Chen Kai's hand, which originally had only a dozen craftsmen, also went down more and more in the direction of eating big money.

"Put the shelves up, yes, that's it, fix it."

Chen Kai divided the workshop into a new factory and an old factory, the original old factory area continued to build weapons, and was newly incorporated into the land of the armory workshop, leveling the land, tamping the foundation, and soon began the construction of the house according to Chen Kai's planning drawings.

As far as Chen Kai's eyes could see, the first of the row of blacksmith shops that had begun to be built had already begun the beam loading process. It's just that the difference from the usual building of a house is that this time, two shelves were erected first, and there were crossbars, ropes, and a few disc-like things on the shelves, which at first glance seemed to be inlaid with ropes, and the other end of the rope was tied to the beams of the house.

"I shout to start, you start pulling, don't be too fast, don't be too slow, listen to my command."

The foreman who built the house shouted loudly, and some of the laborers who came to serve the conscription were holding on to the wooden poles, and some were pulling the ropes, and when the foreman's order was given, with the pulling of the laborers on both sides, the beams slowly detached themselves from the ground and moved upwards with a steady trend.

"Slow down on the left, you're too fast...... No, it's too slow, it's too slow, a little faster, a little more strength, to keep the balance of the girders. ”

The horizontal one is the beam, the vertical one is the column, and the girder is the main beam, which is the main weight of the roof of a house. Originally, there were always many people to get started together, and there was a famous general in the Song Dynasty who encountered the dilemma of not having enough manpower when building a house on the beam. But a famous general is a famous general after all, and there is always a way. He simply claimed that he could watch the play after the house was built, which attracted the help of those people who were interested in watching the white play, but he also got enough manpower and did not delay the matter.

However, at this moment, as the rope pulled, the disc above also continued to roll. The girders were slowly rising, but the force required to pull the ropes below was nearly half less than normal. If it was placed at that time, probably the breeder would no longer need to bother making up any jokes to watch.

"Why does this wooden pulley always make me feel that it is not very sturdy?"

The beam of the house is still rising, Chen Kai tilted his head, looking at the shelf, he recalled that it took a long time to dig out the pair of pulleys composed of movable pulleys and fixed pulleys from the depths of his mind, while being satisfied with the effect, he was used to seeing metal tools, but he always subconsciously questioned the sturdiness of wooden tools.

"Forget it, let's do it first, now the blacksmith's production capacity is still insufficient, and it is not enough to make weapons, so how can there be time to toss these."

After watching the construction of the new factory for a while, Chen Kai returned to the old factory. There was not much impact because of the construction, just a few carpenters were transferred to help, but with the arrival of the relevant people promised by Hong Xu, the old factory area that was not large became even more cramped.

Chen Kai returned to the old factory, and the craftsmen and handymen just nodded and continued their work. This behavior is very rude, but neither Chen Kai nor those supervisors expressed dissatisfaction, because this was what Chen Kai requested, and the reason was very simple, that is, the salute coming and going would affect the production efficiency.

The new blacksmith was obviously still a little uncomfortable, obviously wanted to put down his tools and salute, but halfway through his movements, he seemed to suddenly remember Chen Kai's order that Shangguan only nodded when he saw that the work was in progress, but he was very embarrassed, and he paused for a moment before returning to the rhythm of forging.

The new craftsmen, Chen Kai talked to them separately, and even let those original craftsmen show up to say, among them, Tang Quanyou was originally a blacksmith in the general town government, and he has a deep understanding of the oppression of officials, and the preaching effect is also very good. So far, there are four groups of twelve blacksmiths, fifteen carpenters, eight rattan and two archers, as well as a lacquer painter who paints weapons, all in the old factory area to create weapons according to Chen Kai's requirements. Of course, they can also enjoy those benefits, and they are free from the pain of exploitation.

The craftsmen promised by Hong Xu have basically arrived, all of them are recruited from the villages and towns of South Australia, and they have reached the limit of this occupied area, and even the villages and towns have completely devoid of blacksmiths, and probably only rattan craftsmen should have room to rise.

Four groups of blacksmiths crackled and pounded on the iron, leaving Tang Quanyou aside, the three groups of blacksmiths continued to build spears, and Tang Quanyou had already begun to build waist knives.

The sword and shield is a weapon combination that the infantry on the Chinese battlefield in this era is accustomed to breaking the formation and destroying the strong, with a shield in one hand to block the enemy's attack, and a knife in the other hand to chop, and the experienced sword and shield soldiers can break into the enemy formation between jumping and rolling, flashing and moving, and slash and slash at will. Infantry is different from cavalry and other clutch soldiers, no battle without formation, this is the iron law of soldiers, once the formation is destroyed, then the infantry will quickly become a plate of loose sand, in most cases, the victory or defeat is basically finalized.

The task of manufacturing the sword and shield was given by Zheng Chenggong, and it was also a readjustment of the unreasonable ratio of troops in this army. However, Chen Kai has been seizing the time to make up for the shortage in Nanao Town in the past few days, and it was only when the blacksmith recruited by Hong Xu from Longao Town entered the workshop that he transferred Tang Quanyou, who had the best skills among the blacksmiths, to make a waist knife, just as it was slowly accumulated.

Ming Dynasty waist knife, there are from the Tang Dynasty Yanling knife, there are the Song Dynasty system of the goose wing knife, there are absorbing the advantages of Mengyuan weapons and born of the lancet, there are more from Japan and all kinds of imitation knife, the most famous of which is the famous general Qi Jiguang designed Qi knife, is to absorb some of the advantages and characteristics of the knife, the local knife to improve.

Zheng Chenggong's subordinates, like the rest of the Ming army, were equipped with lancets. This knife begins to bend from the base of the blade, and the gentle curve is integrated along the blade, and the tip of the blade is wide, which strengthens the cutting force, and can be used by both infantry and cavalry.

"If you go back to join the army, this kind of lancet is three feet long and weighs less than two pounds, which is very light."

Lightweight, not only in the waist knife, rattan is actually not heavy. Since the new factory is still under construction and the old factory area is limited, the new rattan craftsmen have to be arranged under the corridor in the courtyard. Chen Kai walked around the old factory area and returned to the small courtyard, where the rattan craftsmen were still working hard to complete the day's work indicators.

When he entered the storeroom, he got up and saluted without the whiskers of the rats. Chen Kai casually picked up a rattan card and copied a waist knife. Carefully weighed, it is several times heavier than the waist knife, about six or seven pounds, but as a defensive weapon, it is much lighter than those wooden long cards and round shields wrapped in raw cowhide.

The rattan plaque in Chen Kai's hand is made of the rattan of jute rattan coiled into a disc, the center is arched, the eaves are high, and the diameter is between two feet and five to three feet. The weaving is so tightly knit that there are few gaps to speak of. It is said that only in this way can the rattan be able to withstand the beating of the enemy's weapons.

The rattan is soaked in tung oil, which is soft and tough, and very durable. Inside, there are two rattan rings connected to a horizontal wooden handle, which is used for elbow and handle. When Chen Kai first arrived, he had seen the drill of Qinding Town, and at this moment his left arm was put into the elbow guff and held the wooden handle connected to another ring. Holding a card in his left hand, if he is guarding, he is holding a knife in his right hand, ready to go, but he also has a bit of an appearance. It's just that if you really go into battle, you need to spend a lot of energy training in advance, and the molding speed is much worse than that of a spearman.

Put the knife into the sheath, put it back with the rattan card, and look at the weapons in the warehouse, and a sense of accomplishment arises spontaneously. However, when Chen Kai turned around and was about to return to the official room, a ridiculous thought suddenly appeared in his mind.

The weapons of the Ming army in this army, the gun is a lancet, the knife is a lancet, and it seems that the jute rattan used to make rattan can also be replaced with wicker. Chen Kai suddenly discovered that the army of the Ming Dynasty originally went to the battlefield with the willow leaf suit, which was very unfavorable to the emperor of Huode - the three-hundred-year-old Huode set all the willow leaf suits on fire and burned them into ashes, no wonder the quality of the weapons at the end of the Ming Dynasty was so low that even Houjin, which was still confined to a corner of Liaodong back then.