In the luxurious and quiet study, a violent cough suddenly sounded.

Xie Yuheng, Xie Changfeng, Xie Changcheng, Xie Changping, and the children of the Xie family all showed worried expressions when they saw An Guogong coughing like this.

Everyone can see that An Guogong's health has been getting worse and worse in the past two years.

Almost every once in a while, I get sick, and the sickness lasts longer and longer, which is too much worse than the old and strong appearance before.

Now that the Xie family is under attack on all sides and in turmoil, if something happens to An Guogong, who is the pillar of the pillar, at this time, they hardly dare to imagine what to do.

Although Xie Yuheng is the only one alive among An Guogong's two sons, he is also the rightful heir of the Xie family.

But compared with An Guogong, who has been in charge of the military for decades and has close ties with the heads of various families, Xie Yuheng wants to completely replace his father to lead the whole army.

What's more, the heir that An Guogong favored the most was Xie Changzhi, the eldest grandson of Dafang.

He originally wanted to let his eldest son Xie Yukun inherit the Guogong Mansion first, and then logically let his eldest grandson Xie Changzhi inherit the Xie family.

Therefore, he intends to leave many connections and military power to Xie Changzhi, so that he can take over the Xie family smoothly in the future.

However, people are not as good as heaven, he never expected that the Hu people would sneak attack the southwest region across the southwest plateau of thousands of miles, and also killed the eldest grandson Xie Changzhi.

Later, Emperor Shuntian personally drove the expedition, and Xie Yukun, the eldest son of the general, was ambushed by the Hu people, resulting in the annihilation of the entire army.

Due to the loss of the eldest son Xie Yukun and the eldest grandson Xie Changzhi, the Xie family's big house has existed in name only, and Xie Mingshun, the Duke of Anguo, can only make the second room the heir, which is also a helpless move.

Just as no matter how old an emperor is, he is unwilling to hand over the imperial power before he dies.

Although it was time for the transfer of power, An Guogong, who has a strong personality, has been accustomed to the feeling of being in power for many years, and of course he is not willing to hand over the military power in his hand to his son now.

As the "Hidden Prince", Xie Yuheng is also very aware of his father's taboos, so he naturally does not dare to brush the tiger's whiskers, so he can only inherit to be a man with his tail between his legs.

As a result, the transfer of military power has been dragged on like this, and it has not been up or down.

After coughing for a round, An Guogong wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief, and then said in a deep voice: "How is the war situation in Jiangxi now?" ”

Xie Yuheng hurriedly took a step forward and reported: "Back to my father, the thief army is powerful, and now it has captured Kaiyang Mansion. ”

"How much time did it take for the Northwest Army to take Kaiyang?"

Xie Yuheng replied with a somewhat ugly face: "It only took one day for the Northwest Army to capture Kaiyang. ”

Although he had long expected that Kaiyang would be lost, An Guogong still couldn't believe it when he heard this answer, "Did the Ning family really take Kaiyang City in just one day?" ”

"Yes, Father. According to the spies, the thieves used a large number of firecrackers to cooperate with the siege, and the defenders of the city could not resist at all.

Under the cover of the continuous concentration of fire by the firecrackers, the siege soldiers easily climbed to the top of the city and engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the defenders of the city.

Because the thieves were as fierce as the Hu people, the city was quickly lost. A few hours later, Kaiyang City was taken by the thief army. ”

"It's fire again, damn it!" An Guogong's face turned pale.

The sharpness of the fire gun array, he had already seen it with his own eyes in the Northwest War.

Even elite cavalrymen equipped with horse armor and armor could not stop the power of firearms, let alone the mere defenders.

It was precisely because he had seen the power of the fire gun that he decided to move the capital to Jiangnan.

He did not really intend to completely abandon the capital and even the entire northern territory, but was ready to move the capital to Jiangnan to temporarily avoid the edge, and then devote the whole country to make a large number of firecrackers to equip the whole army.

In other words, his real purpose in moving the capital to Jiangnan was to exchange the vast land in the north for valuable time to make a large number of firecrackers and equip the whole army.

After his ideal army of firecrackers is formed, he will launch a major counterattack against the Ning family again, thus establishing victory in one fell swoop.

As long as the fire gun can really equip the whole army, let alone the Ning family, even if it is a Hu person, he will not be afraid.

In An Guogong's opinion, this brand-new weapon is even more powerful than a million army, and he is already deeply fascinated by it.

However, the reality is often much more difficult than imagined, and the firecrackers developed by the Ministry of Industry are not only very difficult to use, but also too time-consuming and labor-intensive to make. Achieving the goal of equipping the entire army is simply far away.

Today's Ministry of Industry has changed three batches of people.

The first two groups of officials were almost killed by An Guogong because the progress was too slow.

But even with such a thunderous means to force the Ministry of Industry to speed up the progress, it still failed to break through the current predicament.

The firearm developed by the Ministry of Industry is not at all like the Northwest Army, which can directly shoot lead bullets.

On the contrary, before each fire, a fire rope must be inserted into the medicine chamber like the fire gun of the previous court, and then ignited and fired by manual ignition to complete a shooting action.

From pushing in gunpowder and buckshot, then inserting the arquebus, to igniting and firing, each launch takes a long time.

Compared with the guns of the Northwest Army, it is almost twice as long.

It would be nice to get a musket for the Northwest Army, so that we can see how they managed to fire lead bullets without the use of an arquebus.

However, the Northwest Army guarded the Gun Battalion tightly, which could not be realized.

Even if this is difficult to use, the most unbearable thing for An Guogong is that it takes at least three or four months from the beginning to the completion of each firearm.

This is still something that only skilled craftsmen can do, and if it is a raw hand, it may take half a year to a year.

Now, three years have passed, and the Ministry of Works, which used thousands of craftsmen to work overtime, has only made more than 2,000 barely usable firecrackers.

Such a progress wants to equip the whole army, it is simply wishful thinking.

On the other hand, the Northwest Army has become more and more accustomed to using firecrackers in actual combat, and has repeatedly performed miraculous feats.

In contrast to these two, how can the Xie family not feel extremely anxious.

The dilemma the Xie family is facing now is the same as the problem that Chi Fei encountered when he was researching how to mass-produce muskets. That is how to dramatically increase the production of muskets.

However, no matter how smart and wise An Guogong and others are, they would never have imagined that there is such a thing as a simple machine tool in this world, as well as a streamlined way of working such as standardized division of labor and cooperation.

Without these two things, it is simply impossible to achieve mass production of muskets.

This gap is not caused by how much smarter Chi Feizhen is than the officials of the Ministry of Industry, but by the difference in time and knowledge.

And this gap is by no means forced by means of coercion and inducement to officials and craftsmen to make a breakthrough.

Otherwise, in the modern history of Chi Fei's world, the dignified Chinese power would not have been beaten by foreigners' foreign guns and cannons.

The Opium War of that year was not so much a foreigner fighting the Qing Dynasty, but an industrial civilization fighting an agricultural civilization.

Today's Xie family is a bit similar to the Qing Dynasty back then.

In the face of the sharp muskets of the Northwest Army, he knew that he could no longer do anything by manpower alone, so he had to study and make a more copycat musket than Chifina's knock-off version of the Suifa pistol to deal with the attack of the Northwest Army.