Ba Zhi looked at the Mongolian cavalry outside the city and asked Zhang Shixing: "How did Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty drive these invincible Mongolian cavalry out of the Central Plains?" Brother-in-law, do you know? ”

Ba Zhi's words woke up the dreamer, and Zhang Shixing slapped the city wall vigorously and said: "Yes, we will definitely be able to defeat these Mongolian cavalry with firearms." ”

Ba Zhi said with a worried face: "You are very right, but we can't do one ordinary sword in the Ryukyus, let alone firearms." ”

Zhang Shixing was full of confidence, patted his chest and said: "Big brother, you don't have to worry about this, it's on my brother and me." It is imperative that we defend Shuri Castle first, and do not let the people of Zhongshan Kingdom attack it. I heard that you used to go to the Ming Dynasty to pay tribute and exchange for a lot of iron tools, which came in handy. ”

Ba Zhi nodded and said, "I came back with a lot of iron weapons, some of which were built into weapons, and some of which were stored in Zuoshiki City, just in case of emergency." ”

Zhang Shixing said: "Then I will immediately rush to Zuofu City to build firearms." You're going to have to stick to it for a month or two. ”

Ba Zhi nodded and said, "Okay, I will definitely do it, and I hope you can make a firearm and return as soon as possible." ”

Zhang Shixing then returned to Zuoshiki City on horseback, gathered craftsmen, and began to cast cannons and firearms.

He had been in the Ming army for many years, and of course knew the process of making firearms.

Most of the artillery in the army of the Ming Dynasty was made by casting method.

If you want to cast a cannon, the first step is, of course, to make wood, clay and iron molds. Many tall fir trees grew on Ryukyu Island, and Zhang Shixing ordered people to saw, cut them, and dry them. He personally drew the length and circumference of the cannon body, and ordered the craftsman to make a cannon mold according to the pattern of the cannon body he had drawn. The two ends of the gun mold should leave a margin of more than one foot long, make a shaft head, add a handle to the shaft head, and then place the gun mold on the rotary frame in order to rotate the mud.

After the wooden cannon mold is made, the workers install the molds with the words "cannon lugs", "cannon hoops" and "flower heads", and use a fine sieve to sieve the coal ash, and evenly paint a layer on the cannon wood mold, so that it is easy to demold in the future.

After the coal ash is dry, then use the good glue yellow mud and the sieved fine sand, mix the two or eight phases, mix into mud, and shake the wool away, mix it into the mud, and make a "warp" after evenly. After the mud is adjusted, paste it on the gun mold, then turn the swivel stick, use a round mouth wooden swing board, dip it in water and wait for drying. After drying, apply the mud again according to the previous method. After the mud reaches a certain thickness, use a thick iron wire to wrap it from the head to the tail of the gun mold, and then apply the mud according to the method just now. When the thickness of the design is almost reached, the iron bar with the size of a finger is used to compare the length of the gun mold, the long one is used more, and the short one is used less, and it is evenly placed on the gun mold as a skeleton. Then, an iron hoop 1 inch wide and 5 minutes thick was used to evenly tie the iron bar from the head to the tail of the gun mold. Then put on the mud and swing evenly. After it is completely dry, the wooden mold is taken out and the charcoal fire is put into the clay mold, on the one hand, to burn the clay mold, and on the other hand, to burn the ear, hoop and flower head characters into ashes. After cooling, sweep out the ash and slag, place the bottom of the wooden mold, and then install the tail beads. Then put on the mud, after drying, take out the bottom of the wooden cannon mold, and then burn the tail beads with charcoal fire, after completely cooling, wait for the kiln casting.

At the same time, it was made of wrought iron into a mold, the length of which was equal to the length of the inner diameter of the gun, and the size was half of the inner diameter of the gun.

After that, it is time to place the gun mold and mold center. The gun mold weighs about 1,000 catties, and the gun core is also very bulky, so the craftsman should erect a wooden frame on the spot, install a pulley, rely on the help of these simple machinery, first put the gun mold, and then install the mold core in the gun mold, plug the lower mouth tightly, and pad it with dry soil around it.

The final step is to smelt molten iron. First use bricks to build a good stove, charcoal fire is vigorous, and then use a large fire to burn the iron into juice, and then gradually put three or five catties of thin iron pieces into the stove, and wait until the iron juice is all clear, such as oil and water, when the golden flowers and green flames rise on it, the iron juice will be drawn out, flow into the mold, and wait for the mold to be filled, even if the casting is completed.

Three days after the cannon was cast, the gun body was completely cooled, and the worker door first shook the mold core, and on the fifth day, the mold core was taken out; On the eighth day, the earth was dug up, the cannon was put down, the two ends were raised two feet high, the mud from the mold was removed, and the cannon body was cast.

After the gun body is cast, the muzzle is often uneven, and the worker will use a file to polish the muzzle neatly and smoothly.

Zhang Shixing came over to check the casting of the artillery, he didn't look at anything else, the first thing to see was whether the inside of the chamber was smooth, and the smooth inside of the chamber was a good cannon. Seeing that there were burrs and debris inside, he ordered the workers to insert a knife into the muzzle of the gun, and little by little the inside of the gun was extremely smooth.

Once everything is in place, the most critical step is to drill the firegate. Whether the position of the cannon is appropriate or not is related to the use of artillery. So Zhang Shixing personally went into battle, he checked the drawings, checked the size of the inner chamber, and used a pure steel rough drill near the bottom of the gun, dipped in grease, and it took three days of hard work to drill the fire door, which must be parallel to the bottom of the gun to be considered suitable.

After all the artillery barrels were processed, Zhang Shixing ordered this cannon to be mounted on a wooden gun carriage, and the onlookers of the Ryukyus were all amazed, saying that they could now push this artillery out to fight the enemy of Zhongshan State.

Zhang Shixing said with a smile: "Just having artillery, without gunpowder and shells, is also a bluffing guy, and it doesn't play much role." ”

So he summoned craftsmen to make gunpowder, fortunately, there is a lot of sulfur on the Ryukyu Island, and it is much more convenient to make gunpowder.

Zhang Shixing told the craftsmen that saltpeter accounted for about six parts, sulfur accounted for about two parts, and charcoal accounted for about two parts, and according to this ratio, the craftsmen finally made gunpowder.

After being busy for more than two months, Zhang Shixing finally made five artillery pieces, ten tiger squat cannons, fifty guns, thousands of pounds of gunpowder, and hundreds of projectiles. At this time, Ba Zhi also sent news from Shuri Castle, saying that the army of Nakayama Kingdom had been attacking the city in a hurry for several days, and he could not hold it anymore, so he was ordered to rush to Shuri Castle with firearms to support.

Zhang Shixing temporarily gathered 500 men from Zuoshiki Castle and his own 100 cavalry, and rushed to Shuri Castle with these firearms.

The group hurried and finally arrived at Shuri Castle before dark. Zhang Shixing ordered people to call the city, and after Ba Zhi heard it in the city, he ordered the soldiers to open the door, and suddenly he pointed to the distance and shouted: "Not good." ”

When Zhang Shixing heard the sound, he hurriedly looked back, only to see smoke and dust billowing in the distance, and a large group of Mongolian cavalry rushed over.

Zhang Shixing ordered his subordinates not to enter the city, immediately lined up the formation, set up the cannons, and cast them at the Mongolian cavalry, only to hear a loud rumbling sound, dozens of projectiles flew into the Mongolian cavalry formation, and killed more than a dozen people in an instant. However, due to inertia, the Mongolian cavalry still rushed to the city, and when Zhang Shixing's troops saw this, they began to panic and did not have time to reload the gunpowder projectiles. Zhang Shixing hurriedly ordered them to pick up the firecracker and fire at the Mongolian cavalry, bang bang a row of guns rang out, and more than a dozen Mongolian cavalry fell like fallen leaves, but the remaining cavalry was about to rush to the front, Zhang Shixing then remembered that the Ming army used the fire gun is a three-stage shooting, a row of people shoot, a row of people to prepare, a row of people to load, this can form a continuous rain of bullets, the maximum kill of the other party.

He only had fifty guns in his hand, which was too small to pose a threat to the thousands of Mongol cavalry, and because of the first actual battle, he forgot the three-stage method, and just fired a row of guns, which did not cause much damage to these Mongol cavalry, and they killed them in the blink of an eye.

Seeing that these newly recruited soldiers under his command were about to become the ghosts of the Mongolian elite cavalry, Zhang Shixing drew his sword in his hand, shouted, and led his 100 cavalry to meet him, and fought with thousands of Mongolian cavalry, he hoped to buy them a little time, so that they could escape back to the city.

It's a pity that he backfired, when Di Baonu led the Mongolian cavalry to rush up, he had already thought that he must destroy the opponent's artillery troops, so he only sent a small number of people to deal with Zhang Shixing, and most of the rest stepped forward to surround the five hundred foot soldiers of the southern country of the mountain, wielding knives and slashing, those people were originally newly recruited, and the weapons in their hands were mostly firecrackers and artillery, under the close siege of the cavalry, they had no resistance, and they were chopped to the ground one by one, wailing and moaning.

Zhang Shixing saw it in his eyes and felt pain in his heart, he was trying to break out of the encirclement and rescue these people.

Dibaonu crossed the sword and jumped on the horse to block the way, and smiled at him with a sympathetic smile: "Zhang Dudu, you are indeed capable, you have actually made a firearm in these two months, you see this, why don't you and I join forces to level the three kingdoms of Ryukyu together, and the golden silk women will divide it equally, what do you think?" ”

Zhang Shixing said angrily: "You get out of the way, I'm not rare to be a golden silk woman, I want to save them, I can't watch them die under your knife." ”

Jibao Nu looked up to the sky and laughed: "They are just Ryukyu pariahs, why do you feel sorry for them?" That Ba Zhi just married his sister to you, and you worked so hard for him? You and I teamed up to take the Ryukyus, what kind of woman can't find it? We can also unite the remnants of the Mongol Yuan on Jeju Island, the Mongol tribes on the grassland, and attack the Ming Dynasty together, then the whole world will be ours, and we will take the Yellow River as the boundary and divide the world equally, what do you think? ”

Zhang Shixing didn't want to listen to his demagogy anymore, so he urged him to step forward, slashed down with a knife, and scolded in his mouth: "Let your mother's stinky fart." ”

Di Baonu snorted, and dodged with the reins, and more than a dozen Mongolian cavalrymen behind him stepped forward to surround Zhang Shixing, fighting in one place.

Suddenly, there was a loud sound of the sky cracking, and a ball of fireball shot out a piercing light like the sun, rising up, and the nearby people and horses were instantly engulfed by this fireball and disappeared.

It turned out that a soldier of Shannan was caught up by the Mongolian cavalry, and he was about to die under the knife, he was angry, and ignited the gunpowder stacked together, and thousands of catties of gunpowder exploded, forming a terrifying scene just now, hundreds of Mongolian cavalry and Shannan infantry were killed and wounded, and the stumps and broken arms flew around, and even the Shuri city wall was blown down by the huge explosion power.

Dibaonu was stunned by this sudden change, and the horses of the Mongolian cavalry who were not dead were also frightened and scurried around, and they couldn't stop screaming.

The smoke of gunpowder dissipated, the battlefield was a mess, both the enemy and us had no intention of fighting again, and they were all silently searching for the figures of their comrades, and there was a wail.

Seeing this, Ba Zhi in the city led a thousand soldiers in the city to rush out, cut down anyone he saw, and killed anyone he saw, and those Mongol cavalry saw that the situation was not good, and fled in a hurry.

Ba Zhi led his troops all the way to the camp of the Zhongshan army, these people usually wanted to rely on the Mongolian cavalry to fight, and they were defenseless at all.

Ba Zhi won a complete victory in this battle, he collected the defeated soldiers of Zhongshan Kingdom, and formed an army with his original soldiers and horses, with more than 4,000 foot soldiers and 300 horse troops. Although all the firearms made by Zhang Shixing were blown up, his prestige has spread all over the Ryukyu Island, and it is said that he is the god of fire who came to help Ba Zhi.