"That's enough, you live first." Huang Taiji interrupted Aobai's words with a loud voice, and turned to look at Fan Wencheng on the side, "Xiandou, the news from the south, how much silver does this musket cost?" ”

Fan Wencheng stepped forward and bowed and said: "Back to the master, according to the information we have gathered, the Southern Dynasty sells a flintlock musket to Orion for about 22 yuan, and sells it overseas, ranging from 33 yuan to 120 yuan a shot. Therefore, the minions estimated that the Southern Dynasty Weapons Supervisor should not need more than 12 taels of silver to make a flintlock musket. ”

In the military, Huang Taiji has never been afraid of spending money, and in order to build a red-clothed cannon, he even allocated a part of the copper coins in the treasury to Tong Yangxing as a raw material for casting cannons. But he can't tolerate these minions so blatantly cheating his money, the reason why the Ming army was defeated by the Mandate of Heaven Khan is that the officials of the Ming State are too corrupt, and even the ordnance and military salary have to be corrupted.

How long has the Qing Dynasty been founded, and these Manchus have been damaged by those Han minions, and even the musket team that he personally paid attention to has people who dare to get up and down their hands, which is really to cut off a few heads to set an example.

When Huang Taiji thought of this, he was certainly furious in his heart, but he didn't show it on the surface, but just looked at Tuna, who was entrusted with the important task by him, and asked, "Tuna, is what Ao Bai said the truth?" ”

The three scholars of the Third Inner Academy and the guards around Huang Taiji naturally heard the annoyance in Huang Taiji's heart at this time, and only Tuna, who had not been by Huang Taiji's side, still looked unaware, and after listening to Huang Taiji's question, he said with a wry smile: "What Ao Bai Zhang Jing said is good, but the slave hopes to explain a thing or two for the master." ”

Huang Taiji leaned back and stared at him for a while, before he softened his tone a little and said, "Okay, you explain to me what is going on." ”

Tuna lowered his head and sorted out the thoughts in his heart, and then opened his mouth and said: "Just now, Scholar Fan said that the cost of making a flintlock musket by the Ming State Armament Supervisor is 12 taels of silver, and the slave thinks that there is something wrong.

When the slave turned back from the Ming Kingdom that day, the cost of a flintlock musket was already almost this price, and now that so many years have passed, the manufacturing cost of the Ming Kingdom should be reduced to less than 10 taels to be regular. ”

The corner of Tuna's eyes noticed that Fan Wencheng wanted to interrupt his movements, so he sped up his speech and said: "The minion's judgment is also well-founded, although the minion was not able to enter the ordnance supervision office when he was in the Ming Kingdom, he had a good relationship with some students in the logistics department.

Among these trainees, there are meritorious personnel who have been drawn from the ordnance superintendent. In the daily chats between the minions and them, they learned some rules for the affairs of the ordnance superintendent.

It is true that the Ordnance Inspector manufactures ordnance and equipment, first of all, with quality as the first goal, but they also pursue efficiency and cost control..."

At this time, Huang Taiji had to interrupt him and asked: "I can understand the cost and quality, but what is efficiency?" ”

"Efficiency is about producing more products per unit of time." Tuna had to interrupt his train of thought and first clear up Huang Taiji's doubts.

Huang Taiji nodded, waved at him and said, "Well, you go on." ”

Tuna thought for a while before continuing: "In terms of management quality, our country and the Ming country can be said to be similar, and the slaves will not explain. Only with the two points of efficiency and cost control, the gap between China and Ming is too big.

In the manufacture of ordnance in our country, whether it is forging swords and armor, casting cannons, and building muskets, it is actually a model, which is nothing more than the careful supervision of officials, and then the selection of good workers to be responsible for manufacturing, and then with the assistance of laborers or soldiers.

This method of production is not only time-consuming and time-consuming, but also troublesome because the quality of the ordnance produced by each craftsman is uneven. Swords and armor are easy to pass and fail, but muskets and cannons are difficult to measure the quality of the inside by the surface condition, and if there is a problem on the battlefield, it is a lot of poison.

In addition, muskets and cannons use ignited gunpowder to propel projectiles to kill and injure the enemy, and in order to achieve the best power and maximum range, the gap between the projectile and the breech and the chamber of the gun is naturally as small as possible. However, the specifications of muskets and cannons made by each craftsman are different, and even the front and back batches of guns made by a certain craftsman have errors, although these errors do not affect the use of soldiers, but for the craftsmen who provide the projectiles in logistics, it is an extremely laborious work...

To sum up, even if it does not involve raw materials, the labor costs used in the manufacture of guns in China are dozens of times that of the Ming Kingdom. As for the iron ingots sold in the Ming Kingdom, they contain too many impurities and are brittle, and the muskets made from these ingots are easy to explode.

On the other hand, on the side of the Ming Kingdom, there are several iron factories with tens of thousands of tons in the north alone, and the iron they use themselves is naturally cheap and high-quality. In addition, the Ming Dynasty made objects, all pay attention to mass production, advocate the use of machines instead of manual processing, so that the production of ordnance equipment, not only the quality is stable, the cost is also greatly reduced.

Therefore, Ao Bai Zhangjing is right, at present, the cost of China's self-built flintlock musket is as high as 5 or 60 taels of silver, which is 5 or 6 times higher than the manufacturing cost of the Ming Kingdom. However, if we can follow the example of the Ming Dynasty to build its own iron plant and improve the production process, there is still a great room for this manufacturing cost to be reduced.

As for Ao Bai Zhangjing, the soldiers who used the muskets were not brave enough, and they were cowards who were afraid of hand-to-hand combat. These views are also recognized, but please think about it, how many warriors are there in the world like Ao Bai Zhangjing? Even among my people, there are far fewer warriors who have dared to rush into battle over the years than in the past.

After all, it takes a lot more courage to engage an enemy face to face and slash a sword into his body than it takes to shoot at an enemy twenty or thirty paces away with a musket. Yes, muskets may be the weapons of cowards, but as long as four or five cowards with muskets are aimed at you at a distance of ten paces, even a brave man like Ao Bai Zhangjing will surely die.

And a coward can do such a thing as long as it takes 3-6 months of training, but a warrior like Ao Bai Zhangjing cannot achieve his current skills without more than ten years of uninterrupted training since he was a child.

The shallow knowledge of the slave is probably like this, and the master is asked to make a clear decision. ”

Aobai, who was standing behind Tuna, had a darkened face, and although he was extremely dissatisfied with his intention to use himself as a comparison object to elevate the role of the musket team, he could not raise his voice against it. Although he did not like to see muskets as a weapon, this musket team was trained by him with Tuna after all, not to mention five people with muskets against him, even with spears he was difficult to deal with.

Huang Taiji did not pay attention to the open and secret battle between the two minions, but focused his attention on another place, he pondered for a long time after listening to Tuna's explanation, and then asked again: "You just said that a musketeer can go to the battlefield after only spending 3-6 months of training, is this infantry-based training or is it trained by a farmer who doesn't know anything?" ”

Tuna thought for a moment and said, "If it is an ordinary infantry who has been in battle, then three months of training is enough. If you don't know anything, it will take six months. If it's just for garrison use, it only takes seven or eight days for them to learn how to load ammunition, and if you shoot this kind of thing more often, you can do it. ”

Huang Taiji's face suddenly became ugly, and after a moment's pause, he returned to his senses and instructed Tuna and Aobai: "You two go down first, and by the way, bring the rewards to the musket soldiers who participated in today's martial arts exercise." As for the establishment of a firearms battalion, Tuna, you should first draw up a plan. ”

Although they didn't know why King Khan's mood suddenly turned bad, Ao Bai and Tuna still accepted the order first and followed Sonny out of the room.

After Ao Bai and Tuna left, Huang Taiji asked Fan Wencheng: "The news of the Southern Dynasty has always been collected from your side, how many muskets were produced in the Southern Dynasty last year, do you have any records there?" ”

Fan Wencheng thought about it carefully, and only then did he dig out some data from his memory, and replied to Huang Taiji: "How many muskets were produced in the Southern Dynasty last year, there is no detailed number here. However, last year, the South Korea sold nearly 30,000 muskets of various types, and last year the South Korea army was equipped with about 40,000 new weapons... According to this estimate, the muskets produced by the Southern Dynasties last year should be between 50,000 and 60,000. ”

Huang Taiji couldn't speak out for a long time, and just when Ganglin, Xifu, and Fan Wencheng were a little confused, Huang Taiji suddenly changed the topic and said: "It is said that since the return of the prince of North Korea to North Korea last year, the struggle between the old and new parties in North Korea has suddenly become fierce, Fan Wencheng, tell me specifically, what happened in North Korea?" ”

What happened in North Korea, in fact, is a very simple question. Since the Joseon king Yi Ju was ordered by Chongzhen not to meddle in political affairs, Shen Jiyuan, who served as the chief minister, began to implement the political reform of the DPRK in order to seek to change the status quo of corruption and incompetence of the scholars and the bullying of the DPRK by foreign enemies.

Of course, in the process of this reform, Shen Qiyuan was inevitably influenced by North Korean partisan politics. He promoted the Xunxi faction members who were close to him, and suppressed the other two classes that disagreed with his political views. And the party members he promoted are not so innocent, so for North Korea, it is just a change of two classes in power.

It's just that Shen Qiyuan is a little farther away than others, and he mainly wants to open up the country and let Ming merchants make unrestricted investments in North Korea. In this way, the reformers led by Shen Qiyuan also offended all the old two groups in the country, who either opposed the reforms he promoted politically, or opposed him opening the country to outsiders to enter North Korea, or hated Shen Qiyuan's control of the government and blocked their way to progress.

However, the Ming Dynasty, who stood behind Shen Qiyuan, made these conservative forces have to endure for a while, and they pinned their hopes on Wang Shizi, believing that as long as Wang Shizi returned to the country, Shen Qiyuan's arrogance could be suppressed, so that North Korean politics could return to the right path.

However, after they worked hard to dredge the Ming court and invited Wang Shizi back to China. These old-fashioned ministers discovered that Wang Shizi, who took turns hostage in the Manchu Qing and Ming Kingdoms, was no longer the Wang Shizi they were familiar with. Although the son of Zhaoxian, who had been wandering abroad for many years, suffered a lot, he also broadened his horizons, believing that today's North Korea is far from keeping up with the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and that North Korea has reached the point where reform is indispensable.

In the eyes of this prince, the reforms promoted by Shen Qiyuan were nothing more than the work of pasteurs, although they eased some domestic contradictions, but did not solve the fundamental problems of North Korea. If North Korea wants to become truly rich and strong, if not comparable to the Ming Dynasty, it should at least be able to withstand an invasion similar to that of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

In order to liberate more of the Korean population to participate in overseas trade, Wang Shizi believes that the slaves and maids of North Korea should be liberated, whether they are official slaves and private slaves and maids, they should be gradually given freedom, and the problem of inheritance rights of concubines should be weakened.

Wang Shizi's radical ideas, not to mention that the old-fashioned ministers could not bear it, and even the reformers such as Shen Qiyuan also complained about it, so the current North Korea has become a mess, and some of the old-fashioned groups have even begun to contact each other to try to abolish Wang Shizi's right to inherit the throne.

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