Overnight, outside the four gates of Yangzhou, the originally flat ground suddenly appeared with many criss-crossing deep trenches and low walls.

The Ming army came to such a hand, and it was impossible for the cavalry of the Qing army to rush out directly, unless there was an infantry army to kill first, push the low wall, and erect a moat bridge, so that the people and horses in the city could enter and exit.

Early in the morning, Duoduo saw the results of the Qingming army overnight, and the criss-crossing fortifications under the city made him a little shocked and a little intolerable.

He ordered Liang Huafeng to lead 2,000 people out of the city, wanting to destroy the Ming army's fortifications, but the Ming army defended with the fortifications, and under a volley of artillery fire and platoons, although the Qing army knocked down two earthen walls, they still left hundreds of corpses and fled back to the city.

As soon as the Qing army retreated, the Ming army held a shield on its head, and the body was in the trench, and the damaged fortifications were rebuilt with shovels.

Duoduo had no choice, tossed all night, ran out of energy, and his body was tired, so he could only go down to the city with hatred.

The Ming army fortifications and a little force blocked the contact between the Qing army in the city and the stone village, but the Ming army did not immediately capture the stone village, and half of the Ming army was dispatched in last night's operation, and at least one day of rest was needed, and then the village was attacked.

At this time, outside the camp, in a school field, the sound of "bang bang bang" sounded.

A Ming sergeant of about 1,000 people was test-firing, and there were many soldiers sitting around to watch, which caused many military schools to discuss.

On the school ground, Chen Bangyan, Liu Shun and others were watching the soldiers try to make a new gun.

They have seen this kind of fire gun a few times, but they are mainly only equipped with Wang Yan's guards and pro-army, that is, the original governor, and the other towns of the Wuzhong Army are rarely equipped.

It was Zhang Youde's department who tried the guns, and as soon as the 1,000 guns arrived in the camp yesterday, they were allocated to his Xuanwu battalion.

At this time, Zhang Youde was a little excited, "The cabinet department, the governor of the town, the last general already knew about this kind of self-generated fire, and when he was in Wuchang, he followed His Royal Highness, and saw the person who supervised the standard to conduct a test firing, and he was still thinking about when he could equip his subordinates, but he didn't expect to get a thousand so soon." ”

Chen Bangyan smiled, "This kind of gun, as far as this pavilion knows, the Kesheng camp is not fully equipped, His Highness sent a thousand, you should understand His Highness's intentions." ”

"Rest assured, the last general will definitely live up to His Highness's trust." Zhang Youde solemnly clenched his fists.

Chen Bangyan nodded, and then asked, "How are the soldiers to use, can they be put into the battlefield immediately?" ”

"This kind of gun is easier to use than the bird gun and the Lumi gun, and it will make the hand of the bird gun only need one day to be proficient in using it."

Liu Shun on the side listened to it and interjected: "That's fine, don't blow up the cowhide, if you can't beat the stone village tomorrow, see if the town doesn't kill you." ”

Yangzhou City was blocked, and now he has a thousand quick guns, Zhang Youde patted his chest, "Don't worry, if you can't beat it, the cabinet and the town can push the last general to the end." ”

When everyone heard this, they laughed in unison, and the gloom of the frustration of the attack on the village for days seemed to have slowly dissipated.

At this time, Lu Shikui, who was next to him, also said with a smile: "What about the defense of the new armor?" It is said that the Ministry of Industry referred to the cuirass of the Dutch, and invited Portuguese craftsmen and craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry to forge it under the personal auspices of Song Shilang. ”

When Wang Yan bought guns from the Portuguese, he took a fancy to Western plate armor, but it was difficult to make and the cost was high, so he gave up the manufacture of this kind of armor.

The reason why forging began now is that the number of cavalry in the Ming army is not as good as that of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so Wang Yan wants to surpass the Qing cavalry in terms of equipment, so he instructed the Ministry of Industry to manufacture new equipment for the cavalry, second, there is some money in the hands of the imperial court, and third, there is a breakthrough in forging technology.

It is worth mentioning that this technological breakthrough was not made by the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry and the government, but came from private workshops.

Over the years, Wang Yan handed over many ordnance productions to private firms, and in order to expand production, it was inevitable for these firms to compete for craftsmen, improve salaries, and encourage innovation.

One of the firms, mainly responsible for making swords and iron armor for the imperial court, because of the lack of craftsmen, the scale has not been expanded, and the main family Tuli, and received many orders from the imperial court, in order to be able to complete the project on time, it is inevitable that the craftsmen will be used as two.

Although the owner paid a high salary, the blacksmiths were still miserable, and an old blacksmith in the business had to go home to recuperate because of overwork.

During the recuperation period, the blacksmith looked at the rotating waterwheel in his hometown, and suddenly had a whim: if the waterwheel was improved, with a hammer, and a few gears, cranks and levers, and the water lifting was changed to a lifting hammer, would it be used to make iron?

With this idea, the blacksmith took a long leave from his owner to renovate the waterwheel at home, but the process was not easy, and he soon spent all his savings, but the transformation of the waterwheel was never successful.

The blacksmith is the master of the firm, and the owner sees that he has not returned to the firm for more than half a year, so he thinks that the old thing is going to another business, and a master in the workshop often takes more than a dozen apprentices, and as soon as the master leaves, most of the apprentices will also leave, and the business will suffer a lot of losses, so the owner will send someone to renegotiate the treatment and want to keep it.

As a result, the person who came back informed the blacksmith of his idea, and the proprietor of the business immediately sensed the benefits, and immediately contributed money and efforts, and found many craftsmen to renovate on the basis of the old iron general, and finally achieved initial results.

After the blacksmith carried out the transformation, the main problem was that after the hammer was raised by a waterwheel, the landing point was unstable when it was lowered, and many craftsmen worked together to cast the hammer into a square, and instead used iron bars and iron plates to build a skeleton to become a square well the size of an iron hammer.

The hammer is lifted and lowered by a rope pulled by a waterwheel in the square well, and the angle at which the hammer falls is kept vertical, so as to ensure the stability of the landing point.

The firm soon adopted this technique, reducing the number of human thrashing and switching to the hammer forging with a water machine, and in order to maintain its advantage, the proprietor naturally re-signed contracts with blacksmiths and other craftsmen in order to monopolize this technology.

However, the merchants were well-informed, and when others saw them eating so many orders, they were naturally suspicious, and the matter quickly spread and was known by the government.

After that, the officials of the Ministry of Industry came forward and recruited the old blacksmith and others into the Ministry of Industry on the condition of giving a fixed order to the firm every year, and gave the title of the Ministry of Industry's Camp Repair Institute Zheng Jiupin.

The Ministry of Industry has obtained this group of craftsmen, and on the basis of the original, it has been further improved, which has greatly improved the speed of the Ministry of Industry's armor making.

These thousand pairs of armor are also equipped with the Xuanwu Battalion, but because they are much heavier than cotton armor and armor, they have not been put on by the soldiers.

"I haven't tried this way!"

Lu Shikui listened and hurriedly said: "Then hold on to the current opportunity to give it a try, it is said that this batch of armor was originally prepared to be equipped to rampage the horse army, but it was transferred to Yangzhou by His Royal Highness." Before I left, Song Shilang had an order, hoping that these guns and new armor could be used by the soldiers, and that if there was any problem in the army, it would respond to the Ministry of Industry in time, so that the Ministry of Industry could improve the weapons. ”

Although these things have been tested repeatedly by the Ordnance Superintendent, they still need to be used on the battlefield, so Song Yingxing cares extremely about the feedback from the battlefield.

"Then take it out and try it!" The Ministry of Industry is taking the Yangzhou battlefield to test the new guns and new armor, and Chen Bangyan is in charge of the Ministry of War, so he naturally hopes that the Ministry of Industry can make good things.

Zhang Youde heard this, hugged his fists, and then turned to leave.

After a while, several soldiers took out several sets of new armor, which consisted of two iron plates, a chest plate and a back plate, and the buckles and rivets were made of brass, with leather inside, and there were patterns on the chest plate, as well as the words "Hengchong", which showed that it was indeed made for the Hengchong Ma Army.

The soldier quickly put a new set of armor on the straw dummy, and then raised the gun to shoot, a hundred paces away, after a bang, the soldier stepped forward to check, the whole armor was dented, but the gun did not break through the armor.

The soldier immediately stepped forward to fifty paces, and then fired, and a bullet hole the size of a little finger was immediately visible.

After listening to the report, Chen Bangyan and the others were surprised, this new armor is made of iron, which is obviously better than cotton armor, how can it be pierced in fifty steps? What's the point of equipping it.

Lu Shikui was also very puzzled, the Ordnance Superintendent must have conducted a test, and he refused to be able to produce such a thankless armor, he glanced at the self-fire gun in the hands of the test shooter, and suddenly reacted, "Change the bird gun and test fire!" ”

Everyone also reflected in unison, and hurriedly asked the soldiers to change the bird gun and Lu Mi gun to shoot again, but the result was that the armor was not broken within fifty steps.

Seeing this, Lu Shikui and the others couldn't help but feel a little in their hearts, firearms will definitely become stronger and stronger in the future, and armor will inevitably be eliminated in the end, but for now, these armors are still very useful against the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

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