Entering August of the first year of the Apocalypse, under the leadership of Zhu Youxiao, the Ming Dynasty moved forward steadily.

There was good news from the steelmaking mill, under the guidance of Song Yingxing, a high-carbon steel with extremely high hardness was smelted, because it was found that his hardness was very high, so it was processed into a drill bit, and then according to the grinding machine principle invented by Zhu Youxiao provided by Zhu Ling, a drilling machine was manufactured, so that a delicate barrel was made with a drilling machine, which was very strong, basically would not explode, and it was much lighter than the barrel made of iron.

The good news from the firearms factory is that the refined nitrate refined by Lei Mingtian is made by adding a small amount of sulfur and charcoal to make a powerful explosion and easy to detonate. Therefore, Zhu Youxiao asked Zhu Ling to create it according to his idea.

In order to make Lei Mingtian's * more powerful, Zhu Youxiao specially instructed Lei Mingtian to try to make particles*, that is, add egg white to *, and then use a bamboo sieve to sieve out the * grains with uniform particles, whether it is used as a * bag or a bullet *, the effect is surprisingly good.

Bi Maokang played according to the principle of this smashing gun, and used the barrel of the steel mill to create a preliminary smashing gun with a modern gun model. Then to solve the problem of the amount of charge, paper shell bullets were created.

Zhu Youxiao then asked Bi Maokang, Song Yingxing, Zhu Ling, and Lei Mingtian to transform this kind of smashing gun together, and after their unremitting efforts, they finally developed a bullet that can be fired by a paper shell, so that the rear loading paper shell bullet gun came out. The bullet pointed small wrought iron column, the bullet case is rolled into a cylinder with oilcloth paper using a press with great pressure, and then cut into an inch and a half section, and the bottom is filled with a primer, that is, a smashing gun, and the middle is loaded with particles*, and the front head is stuffed into the pointed bullet. To protect against rain, the primer is sealed with a thin layer of wax.

This kind of gun belongs to the firing gun, when the firing pin hits the primer, the primer explosion ignites the * in the paper shell, * combustion explosion pressure shoots out the bullet, because the back of the firing pin resists the firing empty, so generally does not occur the phenomenon of backfire, so it can be used basically safely. As soon as you pull the trigger, you will hear "pop" and "bang" two bullets and go out, the shooting distance is about 250 steps, but the shooting accuracy is not very good, the shooting rate is about 10 rounds per minute, of course, a master like Lei Mingtian can shoot 15 rounds, and he can hit the target within 200 steps, Zhu Youxiao is already very satisfied with this, with this kind of gun, and then lined up in three rows, it can completely form the effect of platoon shooting.

Or under the leadership of Bi Maokang,' The second kicking 'small cannon has also been improved, due to the development of the steelmaking plant, Bi Maokang let them cast the barrel, originally wanted to drill out of the barrel but did not succeed, had to use the casting first, the design of the shell has also improved, the front is no longer paper, but changed to cast iron thin skin, the rear side with hard mud with three different lengths of ignition wire wound on the hard mud to ensure the explosion, the inside is equipped with flute iron sand, the tail wing uses three iron plates pressed in, to ensure that the iron sheet ejects after the gun is ejected, so that it becomes a modern version of the mortar, basically no longer limited by the frequency of firing, can be fired continuously without worrying too much about the barrel overheating caused by the explosion。 And because the bore can withstand more pressure, now the shell can shoot more than a thousand paces, which is equivalent to 1.8 kilometers. However, people's eyesight is limited, so they can't see clearly at such a distance, so they made some decisions to equip them with a cannon scope, plus a rangefinder, which was successfully developed by Xu Guangqi, and the specific calculations were made into a book by Cheng Tianying, a mathematical genius, and then memorized by artillerymen.

Cheng Tianying is now handy in the application of Arabic numerals, the calculation speed is more than ten times faster than before, and he strongly requires that it be popularized in the Ming Dynasty immediately.

Sun Yuanhua was extremely brilliant in the battle of Liaodong, Zhu Youxiao asked Sun Yuanhua to hand over the artillery to Sun Chuanting, and asked Sun Chuanting to divide the artillery of more than 1,000 people into 500 people to be brought back to the capital by Sun Yuanhua, and the rest were used as masters, and an artillery battalion of 5,000 people was formed in Liaoyang, and 400 'two-kicked' small cannons were sent to him, and the shells were made on the spot. For this reason, Zhu Youxiao allocated 15 million taels of silver to Liaodong.

Zhu Youxiao also asked Xiong Tingbi to use the conscription system to train soldiers, and the original guard system was abolished in Liaodong, and they were changed into military reclamation corps. By August, Xiong Tingbi had raised 100,000 soldiers to fight. Very simply, the original soldiers were restructured, and the veterans retired from Liaodong with 20 acres of land, sent 10 taels of silver, and brought their families to each of them, each of whom was given 10 acres of land, and was exempt from tax for five years. So people from Shandong, Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi come to Liaodong in an endless stream, the fields can be developed freely, there are people who are soldiers at home, and each person is exempt from tax for five years, and those who are not soldiers are exempt from tax for five years per person. Therefore, Xiong Tingbi will soon be able to recruit soldiers who can fight. However, this also used up almost half of the silver copied from the salt merchants, Zhu Youxiao didn't care, as long as Liaodong was stable, it would be worth spending the money.

Zhu Youxiao instructed Xiong Tingbi to safely encroach on the territory of Jianyu, divide Nurhachi's allies, capture the Tieling and Kaiyuan lines when he has the opportunity, completely cut off the connection between Nurhachi and the Mongols, and divide the relationship between Nurhachi and other Jianzhou Jurchens. As long as there is a place where people can live, we will arrange for residents, not only do not collect taxes, but also subsidize them to provide convenience for their lives.

Sun Yuanhua led more than 500 people to the capital at the end of July, and Zhu Youxiao took him to the firearms factory.

Now the firearms factory has been divided into two parts by Zhu Youxiao, one part is dedicated to the development of *, *, and leads, and Lei Mingtian is in charge, but this guy is a research maniac, and Zhu Youxiao will arrange another person to be responsible for specific production, life, and safety, especially the safety piece, and Zhu Youxiao asked the person in charge to keep an eye on it very closely. The other part is specialized in the development of guns, specifically Bi Maokang is in charge, Bi Maokang after the successful development of the firing gun and mortar, the interest of Bi Maokang greatly increased, and then Zhu Youxiao instructed him to study the cannon, because the cannon can be installed on the warship in the future, is a wide range of application, powerful multi-purpose gun. Think about it, if in a naval battle, the Ming army's rangefinder plus * shot the enemy's warship, how cool it would be.

Song Yingxing was in charge of the steelmaking plant, and Zhu Youxiao reminded him that he could build a small steelmaking crucible, not afraid of wasting coke and other materials, and not afraid of not enough silver to spend, as long as he needed to receive it from the household department or the inner treasury, he had already greeted the household department and Wang An. He could try to add other ores to the steelmaking process and see what could be done better. And be sure to remember to keep a record of weight, color, and temperature, and bind it into a book in case you need to check it later.

Xu Guangqi is responsible for the overall adjustment of the factory, and gathers the personnel in charge of various departments every half a month to report their respective results and see who needs them; On the other hand, each of them puts forward their own needs and sees who can help. Through the convening of this coordination meeting, various new research results are constantly being used, and various needs are constantly being studied. For example, Lei Mingtian needs all kinds of transparent bottles, and Song Yingxing's glass factory tries to develop all kinds of transparent bottles; Zhu Ling needed all kinds of iron pipes, and the ironworks tried to develop them. In short, such a research society was established by Zhu Youxiao as a scientific research society, and became a regular meeting of the Ming Dynasty Academy of Science in the future, and the science and technology of the Ming Dynasty have always led the world's scientific and technological trends.