Listening to Min Yuanqi's reassuring words, Shen Yong hugged his fists and agreed, but his brows were tightly locked, at least from the outside, this craftsman boss was not very confident.

Min Yuanqi looked at the armor in front of him, and he was still quite satisfied in his heart.

The thickness should be three to four percent longer than that of ordinary armor, and the cold metal iron sheet is very textured.

It can even be said that it is not a small piece of iron, but like a piece of marijuana, densely interspersed together.

The hemp rope is also special, and there is also a trick to wearing and tying armor.

Minimize the amount of hemp rope that is exposed to the outside to avoid a large amount of nail leaves falling off after being struck by a knife.

The mahjong mat-like nail leaves are also as dense as possible, although they are not as layered as the iron scale armor, but there are not many gaps to be revealed.

Min Yuanqi called Shen Liang, who was waiting in the workshop first, and asked him to put on a collar and armor and be a model on the spot.

Shen Liang did not shirk, and with the help of Li Junsun and others, he soon put on the armor.

"Okay, what a majestic fighter!"

Even if Min Yuanqi's subordinates had a few collars of iron armor, when they saw Shen Liang in front of him, they couldn't help but light up, and even high-fived and laughed happily.

The people who followed were also smiling, especially Li Junsun and other martial artists were extremely happy.

The armor in front of him is also polished very brightly, with a hood, a neck, arm guards, heart guards, and shin guards, a majestic iron man appeared in front of everyone.

"...... a year later"

Min Yuanqi also felt a little fascinated.

Even according to the current plan, there will be 2,000 collars of armor in a year, or even more.

As long as there is a slight surplus of money, Min Yuanqi will definitely increase the employment of craftsmen, increase manpower, expand the scene, hoard wrought iron, fine iron and sugang, as long as it is needed to build weapons and armor, it will definitely be a priority to reserve and buy.

In fact, even in occupied and semi-occupied areas such as Henan and Shandong, economic activities and material exchanges have not completely stopped, and even some material transactions, such as salt, grain and other materials, are much more active than before.

Because the economy in the war zone was seriously damaged, it would take time to resume production, and for a long time, whether it was the gentry and landowners or the common people, the need to buy food and related materials would be much greater than usual.

It is believed that the supply and demand of the trade routes opened by the Zhu family to Henan and Shandong will increase greatly in a short period of time, and then it will depend on the progress of the war.

However, even if he is optimistic, Min Yuanqi feels that the armor rate within a year can only meet the needs of one battalion of soldiers.

All the people are wearing armor, and the iron man in front of him can't see the edge at a glance......

Min Yuanqi's eyes changed from bright to gloomy, and it was obvious that it was an unrealistic delusion for all the staff to assemble iron armor.

Even in Liaozhen during the heyday of the Ming army, the 100,000 troops on the books were actually enough to be armored, and most of them were cotton armor, that is, Li Chengliang's 8,000 Jiading cavalry.

Later, Liaozhen, which was supported by the power of the Ming Dynasty, received a military salary of three or four million a year, and the soldiers raised were the strongest in the hands of Wu Sangui, and there were more than 30,000 soldiers in battle.

And the heaviest of the Wu family is still Neiding, that is, the cavalry dominated by the iron cavalry battalion, and those cavalry are not all equipped with iron armor.

The iron armor produced by the Ming Dynasty in a year must be more than a few thousand leaders, but the "male soldiers" are two million, even if other towns don't give much armor, even if the nine sides are distributed, the generals hoard a batch, damage a batch, even if it is not allocated to the battalion cannon fodder, dozens of generals in each town, each has hundreds of thousands of Neiding and pro-army cavalry, and if you want everyone to have armor, you can only dream.

If Min Yuanqi is an ordinary general, he has two or three thousand elite soldiers in iron armor, with one or two thousand battalion soldiers who have passed by, and tens of thousands of miscellaneous fish cannon fodder.

Even if you can't defeat Wu Sangui and Sanshun Wang and other Ming army strong towns or rogue elites, it is enough to deal with the general Ming army and rogue bandits.

But if you want to defeat the Qing army, especially against the elite of the Manchurian Eight Banners, which is the strongest in this era, Min Yuanqi will definitely feel that it is not enough, far from enough.

"My lord, this is our new firecracker, and it is also a combined machine according to the requirements of adults, if you want to see the big turtledove, it will take about ten days to produce the finished product."

The iron man Shen Liang paced back and forth, looking looking forward to himself.

Shen Liang used to be a battalion soldier, but he didn't wear such good armor. He is not a family soldier, nor is he an elite cavalryman, and the iron armor is not his turn to wear.

But as soon as the fire gun was taken, Shen Liang hurriedly strode up, but the people around heard the sound of banging non-stop, and after a while, Shen Liang also stood beside Min Yuanqi.

Shen Yong had a solemn face, and handed the long gun in his hand to Min Yuanqi with an unusually respectful attitude.

Min Yuanqi's attitude is also quite serious, and the fire gun in front of him is the only one he can use in this era, and he feels that he is stronger and more suitable than the Qing army, and it is also the only chance to turn the tables.

Of course, it is not just the same as the firecracker, but the superposition of the firearm and the artillery.

If Min Yuanqi can grasp the national power, rule the new officials, reform the tax system, the military system, and the financial system, and even not control the entire territory of the Ming Dynasty, only the current Nanming will completely control him.

In three to five years at most, Min Yuanqi can create about 200,000 elites, and with 100,000 auxiliary troops, 300,000 people can resist and fight back the Qing army in the south.

If Min Yuanqi is given ten years to create a strong army of 500,000 people, most of the soldiers wear armor, go north by different roads, reach Beijing, and sweep Liaodong, it is not a difficult task.

But what he has now is only mastering the Thousand Households of the Cloud Ladder Pass, and even strictly speaking, it will take another month or two to fully master it.

The manpower and material resources that a thousand households can provide can't even support a battalion of soldiers, if it weren't for Min Yuanqi's own wealth, I'm afraid it would be impossible to even have the current situation.

He can only make the best use of the resources at hand as much as possible, and the combination gun in his hand is a sharp weapon ready to be used to deal with the enemy.

During the decades of war from the Ming to the Qing Dynasty, it was also a period of vigorous development of firearms in China, from the straight fire door without the fire gun, to the front sight of the door, not directly ignited and ignited, the use of curved gun support, can be aimed at the fire, with the dragon head and the fire rope ignition of the bird gun, is an important achievement in the development of firearms at that time.

After the bird, there are various firearms such as the combined machine gun, the turtledove gun, the big turtledove gun, and the Lumi gun. In terms of artillery, the Ming army developed from the tiger squat cannon to the big and small Buddha Lang machine, and then the cast Hongyi cannon.

Due to the corruption of the officials at the end of the dynasty, the firearms made in the later period of the Ming army, in addition to the artillery is a heavy weapon of the military state, the quality is better and better, and the quality of all kinds of firearms is uneven, and even the new guns cast in the Chongzhen period are far less than the strange things of Wanli and even the old guns of Jiajing.

The poor quality of the firearms, the lack of training of the guns, and the influence of natural conditions, such as in the battle of Sarhu, the sky was dark, cold and damp, and the Qing army's archery was not affected, and the Ming army could only use the fire to fire the firearms, but made itself a target for arrows, and even suffered a heavy defeat.

In this way, the Ming army became less and less heavy-fired, and the quality became worse and worse, and they were all issued to the battalion soldiers for cannon fodder, thus forming a vicious circle.

For a later generation, if you don't know the benefits of firearms at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty and make good use of them, you will be complacent, and even a little stupid.

Min Yuanqi is well aware of the benefits of firecrackers!

In the era of Qi Jiguang a few decades ago, its battalion had about 2,700 people, and there were more than 1,000 bird guns, accounting for about 40% of its entire battalion.

When Sun Chengzong rebuilt Liao Town, the firearms battalion was full of more than 1,000 birds, and there were also large and small artillery rations.

If the subsequent Ming army used well-made bird guns like the Qi family army and was strictly trained, it would naturally be able to sweep away the enemy army and be invincible.

The gun in Min Yuanqi's hand is five feet long, and the gun tube is three feet three feet long, weighing about seven pounds.

Divided into yin and yang machine, yang fire, yin open door, even if there is a strong wind, not afraid to blow away the gunpowder in the door, the whole bird gun, by the gun tube, the butt, the bolt part of the part.

Then it is composed of covers, hot wheels, yin machines, yang machines, switchboards, opening and closing waist hoops and other parts.

"It's easy to build parts." Shen Yongdao: "According to the method taught by the adults, each blacksmith and apprentice build parts separately, and use the assembly line method to make them, and each person is good at building whichever part is in charge." Save time by sizing with calipers to create the final assembly of the parts. Gun machine, gun pipe, gun support, are all built according to regulations, using high-grade wrought iron for the gun pipe, such a fire, I have been in Dengzhen for many years, and I have not seen a few such a cost. The one in the hands of the adults was only held by the Portuguese soldiers who went to the town back then, and it was even slightly inferior. ”

Min Yuanqi nodded and smiled, and he also recognized Shen Yong's words.

There is no shortage of good craftsmen in China, as long as they are slightly called to live like individuals, everyone will never be worse than the European ones.

In particular, the Ming Dynasty has built and used the fire gun for more than 100 years, and it has been imitated since the early stage of Jiajing, and later there are a few geniuses who have improved the design by themselves.

Even the self-made fire gun is also available, and Min Yuanqi was also handed over to Shen Yong for research, and after research, Min Yuanqi still gave up the plan of large-scale imitation.

At present, the technology of self-generated guns is immature, and the main problem is that the success rate of playing is too low.

The fire rope is burned and released, and the success rate is more than ninety percent.

Pull the trigger and rub the flint, burst out of sparks to ignite the gunpowder in the fire gate, and the success rate is less than 70%. Ten guns are released, and at least three to four guns are dumb fires, and this success rate is too low, which is really embarrassing.

If Min Yuanqi's period is sufficient, even if he is given another year, it is his choice without hesitation to build a self-generated fire gun.

But now Min Yuanqi has less than a year, this time from imitation to technical improvement, it is too nervous, it is fair to say that Shen Yong is a good military blacksmith, but he is two grades away from a master craftsman and a genius......

Now holding a fire gun with blue light, I feel the sophistication of the manufacturing process, a gun in my hand is made of a large amount of fine iron, ordinary crude iron is ten catties out of one pound of fine iron, the cost price of the whole gun is about six taels, this price is more expensive than the purchase price of four taels of birds, it is obvious that this gun in the hands of Min Yuanqi is much more sophisticated than the Ming army bird gun.