Ma Cheng saw that Zhang Guozhu beside him was trembling like Wu Lao Er next door, and hurriedly asked, "Lao Zhang, what's wrong with you?" Is it Alzheimer's disease stroke? ”

Zhang Guozhu was woken up by Ma Cheng, and hurriedly clenched his fists and asked, "My lord, can this new artillery be equipped with the soldiers of the front battalion first?" ”

Zhang Guozhu was the chief soldier of the former battalion, so he naturally wanted to fight for new equipment for himself. But the other three general soldiers are gone, and they are all equipped with your front battalion, what should we do?

Ma Bao, the chief soldier of the left battalion, is not inferior to Zhang Guozhu, and he is also Ma Cheng's uncle, relying on his identity and said: "My lord, you should equip the left battalion first!" ”

The commander of the rear battalion is Ma Xi, this is Ma Cheng's younger brother, hearing the shamelessness of these two uncles and began to rob, he hurriedly stepped forward and said: "Second brother, I am your own brother, good things should be given to your brother first!" ”

Only Luo Bingran, the chief soldier of the right battalion, was anxious but did not dare to speak out, he had the lowest status among the four general soldiers, Zhang Guozhu was a subordinate of Ma Shiying, and the two families still had a relationship of more than 200 years. Ma Bao is similar, Ma Shiying's brother. As for Ma Xi, it can't be compared, but he is the younger brother of the military gate, only Luo Bingran is an outsider, thinking of this, Luo Bingran hurriedly opened his mouth and said: "Lord Junmen, the four battalions are all equal, if the equipment should be distributed equally, there must be no relatives who are far from each other!" ”

Luo Bingran's words caused public anger, and Ma Xi didn't say anything about his self-respecting identity, but Zhang Guozhu and Ma Bao quit. Zhang Guozhu was originally a Chinese officer of Ma Shiying, and he was the deputy chief soldier when he was in Fengyang, what are you Luo Bingran? You were a little guard at the time. Ma Bao is even more so, Ma Bao was second only to Zhang Guozhu as the flag officer, where can he afford Luo Bingran?

Now that these two people heard that Luo Bingran dared to compete with them, the angry two were about to step forward and beat this guy who didn't know how to die.

Ma Cheng saw that his subordinates were going to fight in groups, and scolded angrily: "What are you doing? What do you want to do? Do you want to fight in front of Lao Tzu? ”

Reprimanded by Ma Cheng, Zhang Guozhu and Ma Bao hurriedly arched their hands and said in unison: "The last general will not dare!" ”

Looking at the four chief soldiers, Ma Cheng snorted angrily and scolded: "You guys still want to grab the new artillery? To tell you the truth, these artillery pieces must be equipped with Lao Tzu's Shenji Battalion first, and only after the Shenji Battalion is ready will it be your turn. When the time comes, Lao Tzu will see the results of your drilling, and the battalion will be the last to equip at the end! ”

There are a total of five battalions of soldiers under Ma Cheng, of which the four general soldiers are each in charge of one battalion, and the Shenji battalion is under the direct jurisdiction of Ma Cheng. Now there is no general soldier in the Shenji Battalion, only two guerrillas Gu Changwei and Xu Dahu.

Just now, the four general soldiers were scrambling for the new artillery, and Gu Xu and the others looked anxious but didn't dare to speak. Regardless of their status and status, they are too different from the four major commanders, and now listening to Ma Cheng giving priority to equipping their Shenji battalion with new artillery, Gu Xu and the two thought that it was still the old commander to take care of himself.

Stopping the quarrel among his subordinates, Ma Cheng glared at the gang and then continued to order the craftsman to continue testing the cannon. However, this time instead of using solid bullets, they replaced them with shotguns invented by Ma Cheng.

The principle of shotgun is very simple, that is, a large number of small projectiles are launched at one time, because the number of projectiles is large and the range is short, so the shotgun is the only magic weapon for artillery to deal with infantry at close range. In the Song Dynasty, China had a prototype of a shotgun, that is, a firecracker, a body weapon made of large bamboos that fired a large amount of iron sand, although it could not kill people, but it could also cause damage to unprotected parts such as faces at close range.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was a great development of body weapons, such as the small Franc machine, which is known as a small sample, as well as the three-eyed gun, the carrying gun, etc., which all fired shotguns. However, at that time, there was no same model of shotgun, basically what to put in anything, stones, iron sand is the basic configuration, sometimes put in iron nails, chopsticks, sticks, etc., anyway, whatever you use to get your hands on.

The shotgun developed by Ma Cheng naturally can't be so earthy, and the shotgun used by Ma Cheng is an ordinary musket lead bullet. The caliber of the musket lead bullet in the Ming Dynasty was about one centimeter, and one hundred and eight shotguns were used, which were carried by wooden bottom brackets and wrapped in thick paper. After this kind of shotgun is launched, because of the centrifugal force of each lead bullet, it will quickly tear up the thick paper and spread it out into a fan, although the range is only one hundred and fifty steps, but the area is large enough, so it is a killer weapon against ordinary soldiers.

In addition to this musket, there were large lead bullets with a diameter of three centimeters, and the shotguns composed of this lead bullet had twelve shots each, which was used against cavalry within 300 paces.

Now Ma Cheng asked the craftsman to load the small shotgun, and while the craftsman was preparing, Ma Cheng asked the artillery to set up a dozen two-centimeter-thick planks within the range of fifty to two hundred paces, and at the same time there were several sets of new slatted armor from the arsenal to test the power of the shotgun.

With the blessing of two catties of new gunpowder, the shotgun gained an initial velocity of 357 meters per second, and the thick paper bag filled with lead bullets shattered into multiple pieces within 0.1 second of the discharge, and more than 100 lead bullets grew into 20 meters and were fired in a fan shape with a height of 3 meters. Please net

The planks at a distance of thirty paces and fifty meters were beaten into a sieve without any suspense, and the planks of fifty paces were the same. After the smoke cleared, Ma Cheng and his subordinates stepped forward to watch the results of the battle, in addition to the wooden planks, those slats and armor were also beaten full of holes, if it was a human being, it had been broken down into parts.

The maximum limited distance of the small shotgun is one hundred and fifty paces, that is, more than two hundred meters, and there is basically no way to survive in this distance, even if you wear three layers of heavy armor. Later, Ma Cheng experimented with large shotguns, which had a power of about 400 meters and were enough to deal with cavalry.

Today, Ma Cheng was very satisfied with the artillery test, and ordered the craftsmen of the Ordnance Bureau to start production. In addition to today's light artillery, Ma Cheng ordered the simultaneous production of medium artillery with a caliber of twelve centimeters.

In Ma Cheng's military system, there must be an artillery company for every 1,000 households, which is under the command of 100 households, and is equipped with 18 light artillery pieces. A guerrilla regiment of 3,000 men should be equipped with a medium artillery company and 12 medium artillery pieces with a caliber of 12 centimeters. Ma Cheng does not have a new army at the level of a general, and there are only two guerrillas in the Shenji Battalion, with a scale of less than 6,000 people, which requires 114 artillery pieces of different sizes, according to the current supply of raw materials in the arsenal, Ma Cheng estimates that these are enough to produce for a year, so Ma Cheng did not give an order to produce heavy artillery.

Ma Cheng was very happy about the success of the artillery test, and asked Xu Zhenye to reward all the craftsmen who participated in the development of ten taels of silver each. As for Song Yingxing, he naturally wouldn't ask for this silver, but Ma Cheng's cheap sycophants made Song Yingxing very happy. After all, being able to add this weapon to Daming is also a name in history, so Song Yingxing is in a very good mood.

Ma Cheng saw that the teacher was happy and hurriedly stepped forward to compliment: "Teacher, the success of today's new artillery test is all the teacher's credit!" ”

Song Yingxing twisted his beard and said with a smile: "There, this is all the credit of everyone, the old man is just in the middle of the coordination!" ”

Listening to Song Yingxing's modesty, but there was no modest demeanor on his face, Ma Cheng secretly scolded this old guy in his heart, this is obviously the drawings provided by Lao Tzu, and now it has become your credit!

"Teacher, in a few years, the disciple will take this new artillery to the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains to recover the Ming Dynasty, and then the history books of future generations will definitely record that this great achievement will be half of the teacher's! But the apprentice is afraid of the future ... The compliments Ma Cheng said earlier made Song Yingxing very useful, but in the second half of Ma Cheng's words, he completely changed his tone.

Song Yingxing heard Ma Cheng say this and hurriedly asked, "Zhonghe, what are you worried about?" What will the future? ”

"Hey, teacher, the apprentice is afraid that the teacher will lose his education in the future, after all, the teacher is about to reach the age of ear shun, if the teacher has a good Northern Expedition, what can I do!"

Fifty knew the destiny of heaven, sixty ears were shun, and seventy ancient times were rare, and the life span of ancient people was very short, and fifty was already considered a long life. Song Yingxing was born in the fifteenth year of Wanli, and it was fifty-seven years old in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and people in the Ming Dynasty were generally two years old, so Song Yingxing should be fifty-nine years old this year.

Song Yingxing also sighed when he heard Ma Cheng say this: "Yes! The old man will be obedient next year, but your two senior brothers can only work as a farmer at home if they can't study, as for you... Song Yingxing looked at Ma Cheng and shook his head and said: "You kid is smart, but you are all smart, you lack the spirit of hard work, and you can't pass on the mantle of the old man!" ”

Hearing Song Yingxing say that he was all smart, Ma Cheng scolded in his heart: If Lao Tzu hadn't taught you high school mathematics, would you have achieved today?

But scolding and scolding, Ma Cheng said: "Teacher, the disciple has an idea, not only to prevent the teacher from being lost, but also to let this sharp firearm be passed on for generations!" ”

Song Yingxing heard that Ma Cheng had a way not to let what he had learned be lost, this was a more important issue than compiling heavenly creations, Song Yingxing hurriedly grabbed Ma Cheng's hand and asked, "Zhonghe, say it quickly!" What's the idea? ”

"Teacher, it's very simple, you also start a class to teach apprentices! Just like the Confucian saint back then, the teacher also accepted seventy-two disciples, and when the time came, the teacher would be Song Sheng, and he would also be worshiped by the disciples and grandsons! ”

Ma Cheng's idea was to set up a university of the kind that would be taught to Song Yingxing in later generations, so as to avoid the loss of the advanced mathematics he taught to Song Yingxing, and at the same time to keep China's scientific and technological strength from falling too far behind the West.

In the Ming Dynasty, China's scientific and technological prowess had already begun to decline, but it was not yet obvious, but with the closure of the Manchus, it was far behind the European countries in the most important two hundred years. Ma Cheng came from later generations and knew that science and technology are the primary productive forces, so Ma Cheng felt that since he had crossed once, he must not just run away from the Manchu Qing Dynasty and be done, at least he had to leave something for China.

So Ma Cheng wants to build a university in later generations, but Ma Cheng is illiterate in this era, and if he wants to build a university, he will definitely laugh at the big teeth of the Donglin Party, so Ma Cheng wants to pry Song Yingxing out of this head. Although Song Yingxing is only a person and his level is not high, after all, he belongs to the ruling class, and there is less resistance for him to come forward and run this university.