In a blink of an eye, it was the fifth year of Chongzhen (1632 AD), Li Zicheng except for the daily morning exercise, almost all of them were nested in the back office, accompanying the ladies, except for Mu Sirong who returned to her parents' house because of the school holiday, Gao Guiying, Sun Mengjie, Chen Qiudie, Tian Fen, and Song Yulian, plus two children, Li Feng and Li Yuxin, the family was happy.

Gao Guiying has a big belly, she is close to giving birth, not at the end of the first month, but at the beginning of February, Li Zicheng said in her heart, last year opened up Longyou, almost a whole year of busy, this year I can finally have some leisure, it is best to accompany Gui Ying to give birth to the child.

Good things have always come in pairs, just when Li Zicheng was busy making people in the Houya, good news came from Kadang Mountain: Qilianshan Iron Mine has been officially put into production, and it is not surprising that within half a month, the first furnace of pig iron will be produced.

Although it has long been known that iron ore has been found at the foot of Qilian Mountain, but the iron ore has been put into production, which still makes Li Zicheng surprised, and now the Mandate of Heaven Army needs a large amount of pig iron, Xining rifles, cement bridges, howitzers under development, and agricultural production, which requires a large number of iron farm tools.

Li Zicheng rewarded the craftsmen of the Qilianshan Iron Mine, and on the other hand, he went crazy at home and kissed the wives one by one, as if they were the biggest contributors to the production of the Qilianshan Iron Mine.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, Li Jibu took five hundred rifles and set off to Ganzhou to replace Qin Danian's department, according to the plan, after arriving in Ganzhou, the army will be expanded to two thousand households, and Qin Danian will also expand the army to two thousand households in Ganzhou, and then return to Xining for training.

As soon as Li Jibu left, before Qin Danian's department returned, the entire Xining was in a vacuum, and the seven thousand households of the Heavenly Mandate Army were all stationed at the border, but there were still some reserve soldiers in Xining who temporarily took over the guarding of Xining City.

Among the soldiers with combat effectiveness in the city, only Li Zicheng's personal soldiers remained, but fortunately, Xining City was the earliest base of the Heavenly Mandate Army, and the people returned to their hearts, and there was no hidden danger.

Although before the 15th, the civil and military officials were all on holiday, but the craftsman workshop has been working overtime to produce rifles, in addition to the last storage of more than 300, recently produced more than 300, these rifles were transported to Guguan, enough to arm the soldiers of the Ma Youshui Department with 600 households, and there are still 400 households short of Li Zicheng's plan.

On the afternoon of the 14th day of the first lunar month, Liu Fang, a craftsman from the craftsman's workshop, came to the Dadu Governor's Mansion and asked to see Li Zicheng.

What does Liu Fang do? He is a blacksmith, could it be that the pig iron from Qilian Mountain has arrived? It won't be so fast, will it? Li Zicheng couldn't guess for a while, so he asked He Xiaomi to call him in.

Liu Fang hurriedly entered the study and hurriedly crawled on the ground, "The grass people knock on the governor!" ”

"No need to be polite, get up," Li Zicheng saw his old acquaintance, so he asked him to sit opposite, "Liu Fang, is there anything going on in the craftsman's workshop?" ”

"Governor, great joy, great joy!" Liu Fang couldn't hide his excitement, "That...... The howitzer has been cast! ”

"Success?" Li Zicheng is also overjoyed, with this kind of big killing weapon, Guguan will be impregnable, "Liu Fang, you say slowly, is the cannon barrel successful, or the artillery shell successful?" ”

"It's all successful," Liu Fang saw that the Metropolitan Governor was light and light, and he was a little disappointed in his heart, such an artillery was unheard of before, but now that it has succeeded, why doesn't the Metropolitan Governor have much joy? Oh, by the way, this is the design of the Grand Duke, no wonder ...... "Grand Duke, at noon today, the second cannonball has been produced in the workshop. ”

"All succeeded? So fast? Li Zicheng's performance this time did not disappoint Liu Fang, he put his hand on the square table a little, and he didn't even know that he had knocked over the tea cup, "Liu Fang, have you tried the cannonball?" What data do you get? What needs to be improved? ”

"Dadu Governor, we haven't had time to test yet," Liu Fang may have run too fast along the way, and he was still a little out of breath until now, and he drank two sips of tea before he calmed down, "Mr. Tang said, we will test it in a while, and instructed the grass people to specially invite Dadu Governor to watch!" ”

"Experiments? Good! Li Zicheng couldn't wait to rush to the test site immediately, in this world, no one knows the power and role of howitzers better than him, once the howitzer is successful, the artillery of the imperial court is not as good as a trebuchet, "Let's go, go and see!" ”

The howitzers are not in the craftsman's workshop, there is no large enough testing ground in the craftsman's workshop, the craftsmen have moved the howitzer to the south of the city, and the people outside the south city have long since left this dangerous area.

Tang Ruowang, Tang Jin, and Zhao Jiacai were all there, and when they saw Li Zicheng, Tang Ruowang just arched his hand, "The Metropolitan Governor!" And Tang Jin and Zhao Jiacai all bowed and saluted, together with the craftsmen and the auxiliary soldiers and people who assisted in transporting howitzers, and countless butts were cocked on the city.

Li Zicheng took two steps and came to the crowd, "You don't need to be polite, get up quickly!" Although he doesn't like to be polite, but in this era, the noble and the low must be divided, the hierarchy is strict, and sometimes the party must be sufficient.

He came to the howitzer, and took a closer look, the red copper barrel was only one meter long, about the middle of the barrel, and there was a cannon lug on each side, the barrel could be used as an axis to change the firing angle, and the muzzle looked up into the sky, and there was a heavy steel base below, "Mr. Tang, this howitzer is much lighter than the 'red cannon', right?" ”

Tang Ruowang said: "The barrel and base are more than 1,000 catties in total, but compared with the 'red-clothed cannon', the weight is only 30%, which saves a lot of copper and iron, but I don't know the power......"

You can rest assured that as long as it is qualified, it will definitely surpass the "red-coated cannon", Li Zicheng said in his heart, Lao Tzu will not cast that kind of obsolete product!

Tang Jin came to Li Zicheng's side, bowed down and said, "Metropolitan Governor, everything is ready, do you want to try it now?" ”

"Of course you have to try," Li Zicheng said in his heart, Lao Tzu came to see the howitzer firing test, who knows if this howitzer can be used in actual combat if he doesn't test it? "Go get ready, I'm watching!"

"Yes, Grand Duke!" With Li Zicheng's approval, Tang Jin hurriedly went over to prepare.

The dozens of people who were originally surrounded immediately dispersed, leaving only two people to start debugging the muzzle, because the maximum range was to be tested, so the gunner adjusted the barrel to the maximum angle, Li Zicheng visually measured, about 80 degrees.

Two soldiers carried the conical shells and carefully put them into the barrels, and one of them trotted to Li Zicheng's side, "Governor, ready, do you need to ignite?" ”

"Wait!" Li Zicheng raised his hand and said: "When the howitzer is fired, it will make a huge roar, in order to avoid the sound from bursting the eardrum, let everyone plug their ears with cotton first." ”

But John Tang didn't prepare cotton, so there was no way, Liu Fang tore off his coat and made it into a narrow strip of cloth, and the people present each distributed two small pieces to block the ear holes.

Li Zicheng looked outside the city, there were no pedestrians in the scheduled launch area, and only then did he nod his head, and a messenger had already sent a message, but he saw a soldier twist the fire and ignite the fuse.

"Sneer......"

After the fuse was ignited, it made a slight sound, and the flames swam forward rapidly along the fuse, and at this moment, everyone's eyes were fixed on the lead.

Li Zicheng calculated that this kind of howitzer needs at least six people to launch at one time: two debugging gunners, two bomb gunners, one ignition gunner, and one herald gunner.

Among these six gunners, the commissioning gunner and the ignition gunner must undergo professional training, and in the event of injury or death, others are irreplaceable, while the bomb gunner needs to be physically energetic in addition to training.

Once the howitzer is successfully tested, the first batch will be deployed in Guguan, but there are no gunners in the Ma Youshui Department, and qualified gunners must be trained in Xining, and at least one gunner of 100 households is needed based on the calculation of 10 artillery pieces.

Just as Li Zicheng was thinking, changes had already taken place over there.

"Boom...... Long ......"

Dozens of pounds of shells came out of the muzzle of the cannon, drawing a graceful arc in the air, and then smashed heavily into the open space outside the city, exploding a round crater that could be seen by the naked eye!

The city was quiet, and everyone was stunned by the flowering bomb, even its designer Li Zicheng, and its developers Tang Ruowang, Tang Jin, and Zhao Jiacai were no exception.

This is the first flowering bomb in the Central Country!

Among the crowd watching from the city, many people were excited, but their hearts were blocked, and they couldn't speak for a while, just clenched their fists tightly, eager to fly outside the city and see the traces of the explosion of the flowering bomb with their own eyes.

"Succeeded, Grand Governor, we succeeded!" Tang Jin finally shouted, his fists waved and pointed to the sky, his voice was so hoarse that his voice changed tone, but he himself was unconscious at all, the whole person seemed to be in a crazy situation, at this moment, who else could I be?

Zhao Jiacai was still stunned, and when he heard the voice, he also shouted, "It's successful, we've succeeded......"

Tang Ruowang is well-informed, although he is excited, he can still control himself, and his blue-green eyeballs move left and right in his eye sockets, "Oh, oh my God...... God bless ......"

"It worked, we made it!" Li Zicheng didn't know the exact effect of the flowering bomb, but since the flowering bullet was launched in the established way, would it be far from success? At most, it's improvement...... The morale can be boosted, and after Tang Jin and Zhao Jiacai, he also shouted.

"Succeeded......"

"Succeeded......"

……

The crowd erupted in shouts, if the sound can be used as a weapon to attack the city, Li Zicheng believes that even the towering Beijing City will tremble at this moment, and even finally fall apart!

It's a pity that the one in the Forbidden City can't hear it at the moment!

It's not enough to have passion, the key is to see the actual results, the craftsmen who stayed in the city in advance have long been silent, and began to measure the data of this experiment, everyone's passion has not yet subsided, and the craftsmen who measured have already gone to the city, "Governor, my lords, the data of the flowering bomb is out!" ”

"Okay, say!" Li Zicheng was in the city and could not visually produce accurate data, but he estimated that this test was not much different from the data on paper.

"The flowering projectile has a range of 2,200 meters, an explosion radius of three meters, and within two meters, the grass roots are exposed, the soil is renovated, and the radius of the crater is more than one and a half meters!"