Qi County, barracks in the city.

Master Chen came to the lobby where Li Yan was and arched his hand: "General, it is about to enter the wax moon, and the autumn grain of the imperial court should also be collected." ”

Now the center of the county government is the household branch room of Ma Dianshi, and the center of the county is the barracks in the city. Lu Xiru and his two are staff members, that is, they live in the back house of the county government, and none of them have any official duties sent to them.

After Lu Xiru sent the excerpt to Kaifeng, he couldn't wait for his family to come back a few days later, and he realized that something might be wrong. His family members are all born to the family, and they usually don't treat them badly, and their families are still in the Lu family, so there is almost no possibility of escape.

After waiting for more than half a month, he still didn't see his family come back, and there was no movement in Kaifeng, so he knew that he was being monitored. He didn't dare to send his family members to deliver letters anymore, one family member disappeared, and another family member was beaten, and he was frightened, and he only had two family members who could use it.

So Lu Xiru bribed those yacha to send him letters, but the yacha were all locals, and few of them worked alone, they supervised each other, and they didn't dare to accept Lu Yiru's money. Until there was a bold one, the front foot received Lu Yiru's five taels of silver and letters, and the back foot even handed over the letter and silver to Li Yan. Li Yan left the letter and the silver, and gave the yacha half a catty of cotton. After that, this pattern continued, and Lu Xiru spent more than fifty taels of silver, but not a single letter was delivered.

Li Yan frowned and thought for a while, and said: "Don't worry about this, we have paid so much summer tax this year, let's save this autumn grain." ”

"What do you mean, the general, not at all?" Master Chen asked in surprise.

Li Yan said: "Don't worry about Master Chen, what's the problem, there is a tall top." And now we are plagued by thieves all over Henan, and of course our Qixian County is not immune. I have already reported it to Governor Li, and I believe that the imperial court will not be too harsh on us. ”

Master Chen nodded silently, and then took his leave. He knew that Li Yan had completely controlled the entire Qi County, and even if Li Xianfeng sent someone to investigate, Li Yan would be able to conjure up a group of thieves.

As soon as Master Chen left, Blacksmith Zhou came over with Wang Renhui. They brought with them a handcuff and a fixed set of ammunition. The amount of ammunition had been set before, and there was one or two coins (about thirty-seven grams) of medicine in it, along with the ignition charge and propellant. But the bullet casing sent last time was a columnar body, which made Li Yan dissatisfied, so he asked Wang Renhui to go back and change his life.

"Childe, this is a newly made handcuff, the handguard has been reduced a bit, the whole handgun has been thinned, and the weight of the whole handcuff has been reduced by ten taels, and now it is three catties and four taels."

Li Yan took the handcuff and tried it in his hand, feeling that it was indeed lighter. After that, he unscrewed out the whole bar of the handguard under the mouth and looked at it, and the through bar was more than half thinner than the head of the whole bar. "What is the impact of these improvements on production?" he says. ”

Blacksmith Zhou replied: "It has some impact, but it has added two processes, and the impact is not big." ”

Li Yan nodded and asked Wang Renhui, "The new ammunition pack has also been made?" ”

Wang Renhui opened the box, took out an ammunition pack and handed it to Li Yan, and said, "This is a new ammunition pack made according to the general's prompt, please check it by the general." ”

Li Yan took it and looked at it, and nodded with satisfaction. Underneath the new ammo pack is a cylinder, and almost a third above it is a cone. The tip of this vertebra is easy for soldiers to bite open, and it is easier to pour gunpowder into the powder pool, so you don't have to worry about pouring too much. And it can make it easy to distinguish where the head is and where is the tail, and save the time of identification.

He pinched the tip of the ammunition pack with his hand, found that it was full, nodded, and boasted: "Well, yes, I know that I have thought about it." It's convenient to bite into this way, so you don't have to worry about gunpowder sticking to your mouth. ”

Wang Renhui said curtly: "This experiment was done by myself, and then it was improved according to my feelings when I did the movements. ”

Li Yan nodded, picked up the firearm in his left hand as he spoke, and held the cartridge in his right hand. He bit the tip of the cartridge open, then poured gunpowder into the pool where the buckle spring had been raised, and pressed the buckle spring down with his right hand to jam it. Then he put the handcuff up, poured the rest of the gunpowder into the barrel, and then pinched it with his fingers, squeezed the lead pellet stuck in the tip of the ammunition pack, and then put the ammunition bag made of oiled paper into the barrel as well.

After that, take out the whole strip again, poke the oiled paper down, and then gently poke it down two or three more times after poking it to the end, until you feel that the oiled paper has stuffed the projectile tightly. After that, pull out the throughstrip and put it back in the handguard and twist it. Finally, when the gun is flat, the right hand moves the striking iron from the safe position in the middle to the waiting position, and then completes all the steps from loading to preparing for fire.

Blacksmith Zhou and Wang Renhui, who were standing in front of Li Yan, immediately retreated to both sides, this handcuff was loaded with flint, as long as Li Yan pulled the trigger, he could fire it.

Li Yan said with a smile: "Quite vigilant." ”

Wang Renhui said with an embarrassed smile: "We have been experimenting with this firearm every day these days, and we can break through the chain mail in thirty steps. We tried it on half a fan of pork, and the lead shot will deform when it is punched in, and it will not be saved when it hits the body. ”

"Let's go, let's go to the school and try it." Li Yan stood up as he said and walked out. Blacksmith Zhou and Wang Renhui, who was holding ammunition, hurriedly followed.

Sun Sifu ran out earlier, and Li Yan didn't wait long when he arrived at the school grounds, when he saw a target set up in the corner against the wall.

Li Yan asked everyone to retreat, and then began to aim. The eye, the door, the quasi-letter, and the bullseye in front of him were connected into a line, and he immediately pulled the trigger.

With a "bang", a puff of white smoke came out of the powder pool to the side, the muzzle of the gun flashed, and his hand was raised up under the effect of recoil.

The wooden target leaning against the wall moved backwards, and a faint puff of smoke rose from the wall.

Sun Sifu immediately went up to check, and then shouted loudly: "Twenty-five steps, hit the bull's-eye!" Pierced! ”

Li Yan moved the striking iron to a safe position in the middle and lifted the buckle spring. At this time, Wang Renhui immediately handed over an ammunition bag. Li Yan started a series of movements neatly and loaded the ammunition. After that, shooting began.

"Bang", "Bang", the gunshots rang out every once in a while on the school grounds. The white smoke was blown by the not strong north wind, and only a faint bit of smoke remained. Although the soldiers who are training are very curious, they do not dare to slack off in the slightest because of the strict training in ordinary times.

Li Yan stopped after firing six rounds of ammunition. He felt pretty good, and he didn't go blind. So he commanded: "This handcuff is good, and the ammunition is good." After going back, we set down the process as soon as possible and start production. Wang Renhui, you have to get an ammunition box out, and it must be rainproof so that the soldiers can carry the ammunition together. ”

"Subordinates obey." The two bowed in agreement.