After reviewing the troops, the next step is to review the guns.

Under the guidance of Master Guo Chenggui, Zhao Lie once again secretly came to the "Iron House".

At present, the secrets of this iron house are completely mastered by only Zhao Lie and Guo Chenggui. Shi Yang and the Ding family siblings vaguely knew that there was such a base, but they didn't know the specific situation inside. They are all "old men" who have been following Zhao Hunt for many years, and they all know that Zhao Hunt has a batch of treasures, and they take them with them wherever they go. also knew that this was Zhao Lie's biggest secret, so he never dared to inquire and kept his mouth shut.

When he came to the iron house in the back mountain again, Zhao Lie saw that the materials that were piled high were obviously short. All the materials consumed turned into 234 shotguns, 54 pistols and revolvers, and 181 flintlock muskets. The flintlock pistols were equipped in the army, and the reloaders were all mothballed, which was prepared for the expansion of the martial arts team. At the moment, weapons are available, but people don't have them.

At present, Zhao Lie has weapons and lacks people, but he knows very well in his heart: people, the Great Song Dynasty is not lacking, as long as he returns to the Central Plains, there are as many people as there are, even if they are elite martial arts members among the elites, there will be more guns in the future to the extent that there are not enough guns - yes, the problem in the future is that there are fewer guns than people.

Due to the non-renewable materials, Zhao Lie was unable to expand the martial arts team significantly. He calculated that the production of rear-loading guns of various lengths could not exceed a maximum of five hundred. According to the length of each person's armament and two guns, the limit size of the martial arts team is about 300 people. Of course, this is not to say that the materials of the military-industrial base are only enough to make five hundred guns, in fact there are enough materials to make thousands. It's just that the barrel will always be scrapped one day, and the gun will always be damaged, so you must always leave enough spare materials, right?

Three hundred guns, it sounds like a little less, but before Zhao Lie only led a martial arts team of less than thirty people, it was difficult for Ali Hague's tens of thousands of troops to advance. If there is a martial arts team full of 300 guns, how strong must it be? It's really exciting!

Guo Chenggui didn't know that Zhao Hunt was surging at this time, only to see Zhao Hunt staring at the pile of steel plates and steel pipes that had been reduced a lot, and said busily: "Fortunately, I received an order from the prince in the first month to no longer use seamless steel pipes to make flintlock pistols, and then the king led the iron ship to arrive, and mixed raw wrought iron to obtain steel, which was used to make knives and spears, and flintlock pistols from wrought iron. There are machine tool molds, saving countless man-hours, and the flintlock musket made of this is quite inferior to the flintlock musket made of seamless steel pipe, but it is far better than the gun made in Yacheng......"

After Zhao Lie defeated Ali Hague and surrendered thousands of defeated soldiers, he realized that if all these thousands of soldiers were equipped with muskets, all the seamless steel pipes in the military industrial base would not be enough. Seamless steel pipes are non-renewable materials, and good steel should be used on the blade, and can no longer be used to make flintlock guns, but all of them must be used for the manufacture of rear-loading guns. Therefore, he urgently ordered the iron house to stop production and then fire the gun, and when Wang Ping'an transported the iron materials bought from Zhancheng to the Wan'an army, he would use this batch of iron materials to refine the barrel to replace the seamless steel pipe.

The most difficult part of forging a musket is the parts of the bolt, and the most time-consuming part is the barrel. In the past, because of the use of seamless steel pipes, this roadblock almost did not exist, so it was put into full production, and dozens of guns were built in a day. After switching to wrought iron to make guns, it is necessary to first smelt the iron into iron ingots, and then roughly hammer them into a rough iron plate, and then send them into the iron house, use a machine tool to stamping them into a plate with a uniform texture, and then roll them into a tube, repeatedly beat them tight, then roll them into a layer, and beat them again to make them dense. If it is three layers, and then use a drilling machine to drill deep and smooth, a closed barrel can be considered to be manufactured, and the man-hour process is more than ten times more than before. This is still a machine drilling and boring, if it is a manual or simple hydraulic machine tool drilling and boring like Yacheng, it will take longer.

That's the difference between a machine and a human being!

The flintlock pistol made in this way has a thick wall and a heavier barrel, which is half the weight of the previous flintlock pistol, and the service life of the barrel is half less, so it can be said that the performance in all aspects is greatly reduced. Fortunately, the power is not reduced, how far the old gun can hit, how far the new gun can hit, how lethal the old gun is, and the same lethality of the new gun. This point was also confirmed by Zhao Lie when he reviewed the musketeer drill before. The only advantage of the new gun, and the most important advantage, is that there is no shortage of materials, as long as there is enough iron, as many soldiers can be equipped.

While watching the manufacturing process of the new gun, Zhao Lie calculated in his heart that the output was indeed much lower, at such a manufacturing speed, at most five pieces could be produced per day, and the monthly production capacity was only about 100 pieces. The main reason is that the process of rolling the iron pipe takes too long, of course, this can be compensated for by expanding the scale.

Zhao Lie brought 1,000 musketeers with him when he reinforced Yacheng, and there were 300 musketeers left in the Wan'an army. In the past six months, the total number of old and new guns produced by the Wan'an Army has reached more than 800, and in this way, there is still a gap of 7 or 800 guns to form 3,000 musketeers.

Zhao Lie exhaled vigorously and ordered Guo Chenggui: "At the end of the month, I will take 2,000 musketeers to fight Qiongguan, once my Wang division captures Qiongguan, the Yuan army on the other side of the strait will never sit idly by, and will definitely move." There is a lesson from Ali Hague's past, the Yuan army will not move, and it will be like a tide when it moves. Before July, I had to have six musket battalions (about 500 men in the Song military system). Can it be done? ”

Guo Chenggui thought about it again and again, calculated it in his heart, gritted his teeth, and arched his hand: "As long as the prince transfers all the craftsmen in Yacheng and expands the scale of iron work, Chenggui will definitely live up to the prince's trust." ”

Zhao Lie nodded heavily: "Okay!" I will provide everything you need, and by July I will see eight hundred flintlock pistols in front of me. ”

"Yes!"

Although there were 3,000 musketeers who were more sure, Zhao Hunt couldn't wait, he had to launch an offensive before the summer. In addition to avoiding the scorching heat and taking the lead before the Yuan army reinforced, it was also very important that the army was short of food and straw, and it was no longer possible to sit on the empty side. Otherwise, if you don't need the Yuan soldiers to fight, you will collapse.

In this place, Yacheng has almost no fields, no output, and no grain taxes, so you can basically only rely on the sea to eat the sea - of course, not seafood. In this era, there is no seasoning, even abalone and lobster can't be eaten. And fish and shrimp can only be used as a meal, not as a staple food.

The source of food before the Xing Dynasty was the income from the capture of the Jiyang military city, and the second was the large purchase from maritime merchants such as Champong and Annam, and the latter was the main source.

During the Song Dynasty, Zhancheng rice was famous all over the world, not because of how delicious this rice was, but because of its high yield, three crops a year, and the people here never had the risk of starvation. Yacheng is not the closest place to Zhancheng in the entire Great Song Dynasty, but it is the most convenient place for transportation. For example, Guangnan West Road borders Annam and Champong, but if you want to transport grain, it is called a high mountain and long water, difficult and rugged. But when it is transported to Yacheng, it is stable and convenient. That's the advantage of sea freight.

The dynasty will lack everything, and the treasury will be full of money, plus heavy profits from the market. As a result, a large amount of rice and grain was purchased, which basically maintained the normal operation of the dynasty. But since the defeat of Ali in The Hague, there were suddenly more than 20,000 horses, which was five times the number of soldiers and civilians in the marching dynasty. This time it really ate the line.

In all dynasties, the most difficult thing was to raise soldiers, and the cost was huge. Due to the single source of revenue for the state treasury, it will be difficult to support the expenditure of an army of 20,000 in the long run. Thanks to Zhao Hunting's weakness, the total number of troops was reduced to about 15,000 people, plus the capture of a large amount of baggage from the Yuan army, and the increase in sea purchases, only then did there be a surplus of grain for half a year.

However, after the budget of the degree branch department, the treasury is gradually weakened, and the existing rice and grain are no longer enough for the army to use for two months.

The princes of the political hall have discussed this matter many times, although the ministers have the material to pass through the heavens and latitudes, but the cliff city is cramped, the resources are scarce, even if there are various means of making money, it is difficult to carry out. So, to survive, you have to fight out. It is imperative to take down the Qiong tube!