Xiao Tianjian immediately asked Gao Cheng: "Then have you tried it, how far can this thing fly?" How powerful was the explosion? ”

Gao Cheng replied ashamedly: "I've tried two, the farthest one flew about a mile, and there was no explosion when it fell, and the other one didn't fly close, but it fell to the side of Tiezuo!" But there's a problem.,When this thing ignites, it won't fly and it will explode on the spot.,For this little one, it's almost blown up! And the one that flew up didn't make it, it caught fire in mid-air, and it seems that it didn't meet the general's requirements! Small incompetence! ”

Xiao Tianjian was a little sorry when he heard it, but when he thought about it, the wooden shell should be very high after the ignition, the temperature of the tail flame should be very high, the wood will definitely catch fire, and the charge is also knowledge, don't look at the small fire is no problem, but so many charges, a little careless, will explode, so the black powder to make a big rocket, with the current technology is still a bit insufficient, the material can not guarantee its safety, although there is no problem with the idea, but the actual operation is still very difficult, In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Wanhu wanted to use rockets to push themselves into the sky, but the rocket exploded and died on the spot.

So Xiao Tianjian smiled bitterly and shook his head: "That's it!" In that case, don't do it again, it's better to put safety first! You can't hurt that! This thing is here for now! Now you still need to make a lot of gunpowder and reserve as much gunpowder as possible for emergencies! Now that we are using and relying more and more on gunpowder, you can't afford to have a problem here! ”

Gao Cheng was also a little deflated, nodded and agreed, and told Xiao Tianjian that gunpowder was not a problem, and now the people in the jurisdiction of the Xingtian Army had already touched the doorway to accumulate nitrate, and they would often sweep up the nitrate and store it, and then hand it over to the chief in exchange for a lot of money to supplement the family, and then the chief would send people to transport the nitrate collected by each household to Shuangfeng Village, and Gao Cheng ordered his subordinates to boil nitrate and purify it into pure nitrate, so at present, the Xingtian Army is not short of nitrate at all, plus sulfur is not out of stock during this time, Feng Gouzi often sends sulfur, In this way, there is no shortage of gunpowder in the Xingtian Army, and tens of thousands of catties of gunpowder are also in reserve, which is enough for the Xingtian Army for a period of time.

As long as there is no shortage of gunpowder, Xiao Tianjian will be relieved, the amount of firearms and equipment of the Xingtian Army is getting bigger and bigger, what can be short, gunpowder cannot be broken, once the supply of gunpowder is cut off, then for the Xingtian Army, it will be a disaster, in the case of the general equipment of the official army with firearms, a single cold weapon can no longer gain an advantage on the battlefield, so this is something that Xiao Tianjian is particularly concerned about.

Although the rocket did not succeed, but Gao Cheng still has a lot of credit, these days the gunpowder shop has produced nearly 100,000 rounds of paper shells for the Xingtian Army, as well as nearly a thousand shells used by various artillery, in addition to the production of more than 2,000 thunderbolts, which greatly supported the expansion of the Xingtian Army during this time, if it were not for the sufficient ammunition provided here, it is estimated that the progress of the Xingtian Army would not be so fast, under the fire of the Xingtian Army, Many of the resistance in the fort quickly collapsed, and then the fort was breached.

In addition, the original trial production of iron shell bullets in Shaanxi has now been re-manufactured, the original in Shaanxi Tianlong Village, whether it is iron or gunpowder is very lacking, the craftsman skills are also limited, so the kind of iron thunder that was made at that time was clumsy and heavy, and later changed to paper to make paper mines, but paper mines are only emergency things, there are problems of susceptibility to moisture and insufficient power, this time under Xiao Tianjian's arrangement, Yang Changshou's iron work there, In accordance with the graphics and weight requirements given by Xiao Tianjian, a batch of iron thunder shells have been tried to be cast for Gao Cheng's side, and the quality of Gao Cheng's granular gunpowder has also been steadily improved.

Especially when Xiao Tianjian asked Yang Changshou to cast the iron thunder shell, he pre-cast the groove on the thunder, which is equivalent to having a preset fragment, and the fragments of the iron thunder shell are more uniform when it explodes, and the lethality is much greater, and the shape is also close to the grenades of later generations, but because there is no fire tube and detonator now, it still needs to be ignited by twisting, just after being put into trial, the response of the Xingtian army is quite good, and Xiao Tianjian plans to mass-produce this thing in large quantities in the future and equip it with the Xingtian army. It is used by the Torture Heavenly Army for combat purposes.

For this expansion of the Xingtian Army, the government did not expect that when the soldiers and horses of the three-way Xingtian Army began to move in the three directions of Yuanqu, Qinshui and Zezhou at the same time, the news soon spread to the Taiyuan Mansion, and the report of the three places asking for help flew into the city of Taiyuan Mansion like snowflakes and fell on Wu Fu's desk.

What Wu Fu didn't expect was that in less than a year, the strength of this group of Xingtian Army had developed so fast, not only controlling the entire territory of Yangcheng County, but now almost controlling the entire territory of Qinshui County and Yuanqu County, and also taking a large area south of Zezhou, almost controlling the entire southeast corner of Shanxi in their hands.

At this time, Wu Fu also knew that if this continued, this group of Xingtian Army was likely to become a big problem for the Ming Dynasty, and he wanted to send troops to suppress it, but he really couldn't get many decent soldiers and horses at hand, so he had to send messengers again, Pegasus to Shaanxi to find Hong Chengchou, who was currently supervising the military affairs of Shanxi and Shaanxi, for help.

In August of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Chongzhen took into account the great power of the peasant army and the death of Cao Wenzhao, so that the Ming court saw such a reality, that is, in Shaanxi Province, Hong Chengchou got to such a point, and then let Hong Chengchou take charge of the military in Henan, Shanxi and other places, it is bound to take care of one and lose the other. Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen asked Hong Chengchou to hold on to the three sides of Shaanxi in Xi'an, and issued an order to promote Lu Xiangsheng to the prime minister of Jiangbei, Henan, Shandong, Huguang, and Sichuan, and the governor of Huguang. And it was clearly pointed out that the governor of Hong Chengchou was in the northwest and the southeast was promoted to the southeast. Soon, Hong Chengchou was relieved of his position as governor and promoted to the post of squire of the military department, supervising the military affairs of Shanxi and Shaanxi, giving him a sword, allowing him to act cheaply, and specifically dealing with the peasant army in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.

In this way, Hong Chengchou can concentrate his energy on the peasant army in the two provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi, at this time Hong Chengchou is still in Shaanxi, because his subordinates have broken Cao Wenzhao, Ai Wannian two generals and angry is angry, led the army to chase and kill Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng in Shaanxi and other road mutinous army, and Shaanxi because of natural disasters and man-made disasters for many years, has long been a thousand miles of red land, a large number of peasant troops can not survive here, so Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong and other Lu Yi army returned to Henan, The peasant army that remained in Shaanxi was only Li Zicheng's department, plus Mantianxing, Lao Zhang Fei, Zhenggong Wang, Chaotianxing and other departments, a total of thirteen battalions, but the actual strength was not very large, so Hong Chengchou was able to breathe and gradually began to turn the tide of the war in Shaanxi, otherwise, just one Shaanxi Province would make Hong Chengchou busy enough.

It was at the end of September that Hong Chengchou received Wu Fu's report in Shaanxi, that is, nearly a month after the Xingtian army began to attack in three ways.

For Wu Fu's request for help, this is not the first time, the last time was in June Wu Fu sent someone to him for help, also because of this group of Xingtian Army, but at that time he was in Shaanxi to lead the troops with Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and others to kill in full swing, and he had no ability or interest in dividing troops to Shanxi to suppress a newly emerging Xingtian Army, so he ordered Wu Fu to mobilize Shanxi defenders to suppress it.

Unexpectedly, Wu Fu's attack on the Xingtian Army ended in a big defeat, and he lost thousands of soldiers, and now Wu Fu asked him for help again, so he couldn't ignore this group of Xingtian Army anymore.

So Hong Chengchou inquired in detail about the situation of the Xingtian Army sent by Wu Fu, and after hearing the courier's description of the Xingtian Army, Hong Chengchou couldn't help frowning.

In the many years since he led his troops to suppress the mutant people's army, in his impression, the wandering people's army has been fighting on the move, going to one place to scourge another, eating up one place like locusts, and then pulling out the camp and moving to the next place to do evil, including almost all the wandering people's army, but he has never heard of a wandering people's army entrenched in one place to do such a thing, and actually divides the land among the common people, making a posture of planning to entrench for a long time.

In this way, with his understanding of the world, such a wandering army is even more terrifying, once they have been entrenched in one place for a long time, and they will divide the land to buy the hearts of the people, and if this continues, they will definitely win the hearts of the people in the local area, and once they are allowed to sit in the local area like this, it will be even more troublesome in the future.

And Shanxi Governor Wu Fu twice large-scale attack on it, both ended in failure, but also fully shows that this group of Xingtian army should not be simple, otherwise, even if the official army in Shanxi is not elite, it should not be easily defeated by a small army of displaced people in the case of superior troops, and afterwards the court also intended to recruit it, but it did not come to fruition but was categorically rejected by Xiao Tianjian, the leader of the Xingtian Army, so it seems that this Xingtian army should probably be quite strong, And it's Wang Ba who is determined to be the enemy of the imperial court, if he doesn't want to solve it now, then once he lets it expand in the future, it will be even more difficult to solve.

So this time Hong Chengchou decided to reach out to help Wu Fu, and sent someone to transfer He Renlong, who was working under him, to briefly explain the situation of the Xingtian Army in Shanxi to He Renlong, and ordered He Renlong to lead 5,000 officers and troops from Shaanxi to Shanxi to exterminate this group of Xingtian Army.