Early the next morning, Shi Jian and Bai Yu took the Hurricane No. 1 with Li Jing's letter and drove at full speed towards the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Shi Jian will disembark at Hankou, raise enough river boats and food on the spot, and wait for the Shizhu soldiers to come here to change to a large ship and continue east to Nanjing. Bai Yu would quickly rush to Chaozhou to meet Li Jing's second uncle, and ask the second uncle to assist in raising enough sea ships to bring food to Nanjing to pick up the Shizhu soldiers and ship them to Qinhuangdao or Huludao.

Li Jing saw in the stone pillar the execution that he had not seen in Daming, and from here he also saw that the power of Tusi was so great that it was terrifying, and all the work and materials were arranged, and if it could not be completed, it was directly whipped, with military sticks and even hanged. The chickens and dogs in the jurisdiction of the stone pillar suddenly jumped, and they were busy like burning their buttocks.

At this time, Li Jing was on the school ground of the barracks, instructing the native soldiers to practice the spear formation, "People must be as close as possible, shoulder to shoulder, so that if the enemy is looser than your formation, it may be possible for two or even three of you to face an enemy, and it is impossible for him to block the three spears and stab." And when several of you face an enemy, don't stab in one direction, but in different parts of your body, so that he blocks one and can't block the second and third. ”

The officers shouted one-two-one, and the stone-pillar soldiers were practicing in the queue, carrying or walking diagonally in front of them with spears in front of them, trying to practice until the queue was neat. Turn left and right, front and back, be uniform, and if someone falls in battle, the person behind must immediately make up for it. Keep the formation intact.

Li Jing explained to a group of three rows of spearmen, "The spearmen with shields in the first row should stretch out the tip of the spear from the depression on both sides of the waist of the big shield and stab the enemy in the lower three ways, whether it is a calf or a foot, and ordinary people on the battlefield will not pay attention to the lower three ways." Just stab them down. ”

"The spearmen of the second platoon set their spears on the shoulders of the first platoon and stabbed them directly in the direction of the front, piercing the cracks of their armor, stabbing their bare necks, their faces for which they had no visor, and piercing their eyes and nose triangles."

"The third row of spears is mounted on the shoulders of the second row, but they are to be stabbed at the enemy in a position to the right, in the same way. Okay, now everyone practice, listen to my orders, prepare, and stab the stone pillar soil soldiers let out a chorus, and three rows of spears more than four meters long went out to sea like dragons, and quickly stabbed forward.

"Li Gongzi, stab downwards and stabs forward, and understand why the third row should be stabbed to the right. Is there any doorway here" Ma Zuochen couldn't help but ask, before Li Jing asked Qin Liangyu to give him some soldiers, he taught some formations, and asked Ma Zuochen to follow.

"Ma Lao, think about it, the spear head stabbed from the front and the left, most people are right-handed, so naturally they can wave their right arm and block it to the left with the weapon held in their right hand, but if it is the spear head stabbed from the right side of the right arm, how can he resist it."

Ma Zuochen thought for a while, gasped, and said: "The joints of a person's arm determine that the right arm is not easy to swing outward, so it is really impossible to prevent it. The person who invented this formation is really vicious."

Three days passed, and the "instructors" brought out by Li Jing began to lead all 12,000 soldiers to contact the queue and formation. Li Jingze, Qin Liangyu and others came to the smelter, where all the metal materials purchased from the surrounding areas were piled up with stone pillars and a catty, and almost all the metal was brought by the people this time.

Even the brass door nails of the Tusi Yamen gate were knocked down. The iron pots, kitchen knives, farm tools, and axes of the family were confiscated. All the coppersmiths, blacksmiths, silversmiths and even tinsmiths are gathered here, totaling thousands of people. It was recast into copper skin, which was used to wrap the rattan shield that was being produced.

A group of the most skilled craftsmen in addition to making a new batch of spearheads and other weapons in an emergency. Under the guidance of Li Jing, leather cannons are being made. That's right, a cannon made of leather. This kind of cannon was invented by the Swedish king of the same era, Gustav II, and the specific production method is to first roll copper or iron sheet into an iron cylinder, and forge and forge the interface. The outer layer by layer is wrapped tightly in leather. Then tie it tightly with a rope in a circle.

The essence is to cover the outside of a thin iron or copper pipe with leather and hold it in place with a rope. This cannon can only be used to fire chain-type shotguns, and is more effective against cavalry and infantry. Because it is relatively lightweight, the smallest caliber weighs less than 100 catties, and the weight of the large caliber is only one-fifth of the weight of the same general cannon and iron cannon. Can accompany the troops. But the service life was very short, about 20-30 shells could be fired, which could only meet the use of one campaign.

The BBC's Mythbuster, a mythbuster, once copied a leather cannon and tested it with modern instruments, showed that the shells were discharged even faster than iron and bronze cannons of the same caliber. The power is slightly higher, that is, it is not durable, but the advantages are also obvious, lightweight, easy to carry, basically scrapped after a battle, it is a one-time product.

Li Jing made some improvements, using two layers of thicker one-centimeter-thick copper plates and iron plates to roll into an inner cannon chamber. Including the copper pipe, the iron pipe is wrapped on the copper pipe while it is hot, and when it cools, it will shrink and tightly wrap the copper pipe. Then add a few rows of hoops. Then after cooling, apply another layer of cowhide to the outside, apply frankincense and rosin, and paste a layer of cowhide. After multiple layers, the outside is wrapped in iron sheets. Finally, after the wire is burned red, it is wound around the outside of the iron sheet from the muzzle, so that when the wire cools, the barrel can continue to be tightened.

After test firing, the range and power of these twelve-pounder leather cannons reached the level of the same bronze and iron cannons. The weight was only equivalent to a six-pound Napoleon gun, and Li Jing designed a lightweight two-wheeled wooden gun carriage with reference to the Napoleon cannon, which two native soldiers could push and run.

Li Jing's improvements also had an effect, and the first cannon fired 103 shells before it was scrapped. The stone pillars did not have enough copper and iron to cast cannons, and they did not cast cannons either. Time is also not allowed. The leather cannon is the best way Li Jing can come up with, let's deal with the battle of Liaodong in front of him first.

Li Jing took Qin Liangyu and others to the test site, watching with their own eyes, the continuous bombardment of large iron ball shotguns, chain bullets, and solid bullets, the target scarecrow, the straw-tied cavalry, and the wooden planks turned into fragments and flew one after another. In particular, the twelve-pound solid bullet directly penetrated a target equivalent to twice the thickness of the Eight Banners shield car at a distance of 500 meters. Qin Liangyu was overjoyed. Tears of excitement were left behind.

Here, the cannon factory began to produce such simple guns in large quantities. You can build as much as you can. When unplugging, take away the prepared ones. The factory continued to produce, and every batch of subsequent ships was shipped to Liaodong by ship. In the end, he gave Qin Liangyu, Ma Xianglin and others 21 sets of remaining aluminum alloy armor and 21 Kangxi war knives. The armor is all scanned and custom-fitted. After this thing is done, everything that can be done for Qin Liangyu has been done. I hope that in this bloody battle of the Hunhe River in history, Qin Bangping will not die in battle, and I hope that the aluminum alloy armor with the mask can protect Ma Xianglin's eyes, originally in history, he was shot into a one-eyed dragon by the Qing army outside the Shanhaiguan. I also hope that the last 3,000 Qi family troops and Qi Jin, with the help of the Shizhu soldiers, will not all die under the city of Shenyang. Because Li Jing felt that Da Ming owed them an explanation.

Shi Zhubing finally decided that after a month of training, he would take a boat to Hankou with new equipment and sufficient baggage, and find a sword to exchange for a large ship to go to Nanjing, at that time a large number of sea ships were already waiting for them at the Xiaguan wharf. Then they went back to Tianjin, Qinhuangdao, Ningyuan Huludao, and Lushunkou to land, and Li Jing didn't care about how to go.

Li Jing temporarily bid farewell to the Shizhu people, he had been delayed for too long, took his two sisters and four maids, took the Black Pearl, set sail to Chongqing Mansion, arrived at Chongqing Mansion, the last stop of this tracing the Yangtze River, and completed the layout in the southwest region.