Jing Zhaojun's firearms research and development and testing site is located on the west bank of Bashui, 20 miles north of Chang'an City, there is a small basin with a radius of about 10 miles, surrounded by continuous mountains, many caves in the mountains, and the air is relatively dry, which is very suitable for the manufacture and research and development of firearms.

In the afternoon, under the escort of a thousand cavalry, Li Yanqing came here with a group of important ministers.

Everyone was immediately attracted, it turned out that the famous earth-shaking thunder was made here, and at this time, there was a 'boom!' from afar! There was a muffled sound, but the sky was clear, and there was no sign of rain.

Li Yanqing smiled and said to everyone: "This should be a test of earth-shaking thunder." ”

Liu Tao asked suspiciously: "The Heaven-Shaking Thunder should be a very mature firearm, do you need to continue the test?" ”

"Of course, it is necessary to constantly change the gunpowder formula to make the explosion more powerful, or to test various characteristics of the earth-shaking thunder, such as the explosion just now on the side of the water, it is very likely to be a test water earth-shaking thunder."

"What does a thunderstorm look like in the water?" Wu Jie asked curiously.

"In fact, the principle is very simple, it is a large wooden box, the earth-shaking thunder is fixed in the box, after lighting the fire rope, the lid is closed, and then put it in the water, let it drift down the water to the middle of the river to explode, it is generally used to blow up pontoon bridges and the like, and it is also possible to blow up boats, if you have time when you come back, I will take you to see, now we go to the shooting range."

At this time, another explosion came from the direction of Bashui, stirring up a river of white flowers, more than a zhang high.

Everyone looked in the direction of the explosion, but the range was in the other direction, so they had to wait to see if there was time when they returned.

In the memory of everyone, the arrow range is used to test the rockets in the firearms, the fire harrier or the latest burst crossbow, the burst crossbow is also a new type of firearm that appeared at the beginning of the year, that is, a two-inch long sealed thin bamboo tube, which is filled with explosive gunpowder, which is very powerful, can explode the shield, which is mixed with iron sand, when exploding, the iron sand splashes, and it is also a potential injury to the eyes of soldiers.

This kind of bursting bamboo barrel is generally tied to the crossbow of the god arm or the crossbow of the city defense bow, so it is called the bursting crossbow, which is actually an upgraded version of the gunpowder arrow.

At this time, there happened to be a row of ten soldiers shooting on their knees, and everyone was immediately attracted by the firearm in the soldier's hand, which turned out to be a six-foot-long black pipe. Bang! Bang! There was a loud noise, and puffs of white smoke rose from the mouth of the iron pipe.

"What is this?" Everyone asked in surprise.

"It's called a firebolt!"

Li Yanqing introduced them with a smile: "A powerful shooting weapon, it took six years to develop it to succeed, the key is the material, at the beginning it was cast with pig iron, and after various failures, it was finally decided to use copper pipe, which is easy to cast, smooth in the pipe, and not easy to blow up the pipe." ”

Li Yanqing took a firearm and handed it to everyone, "Let's take a look!" ”

From the point of view of appearance, this is not the first fire gun in history, the fire gun in history appeared in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, Li Yanqing advanced it by more than 100 years, and made a well-made wooden butt, which can be shot with the butt, from the appearance, it is completely a later arquebus smoothbore gun.

"What does it shoot?" Uncle Zhang asked.

Li Yanqing took a lead bullet the size of a little finger from the soldier's hand, and said to everyone with a smile: "That's it, the killing distance is two hundred steps, a little farther than the Divine Arm Crossbow, but the armor-piercing effect is stronger than the Divine Arm Crossbow." ”

Seeing that everyone was still confused, he smiled and said to a soldier, "You show everyone!" ”

"Obey!"

The soldier turned the gun tube upwards and took out a tube of gunpowder, the tube was a bamboo tube with a lid on it, and a tube of gunpowder was exactly the explosive gunpowder needed for a shot, which was very standard, and the soldier poured all the gunpowder into the gun tube, pulled out a long iron bar to poke the gunpowder tightly, and put the lead bullet into it.

He immediately put out a shooting support, scooped a spoonful of ignition gunpowder from his waist and put it into the powder pool, took out a five-inch long fire rope and inserted it into the powder pool, at this time he pulled out the fire break from his back waist and threw it, the fire break immediately ignited, the soldier lit the fire rope, took back the fire chip, and immediately put on a shooting posture, aiming at a straw man a hundred steps in front of him.

For a moment, just listen to 'Bang! With a bang, a puff of spark with white smoke erupted from the mouth of the pipe, and the lead bullet shot away. 'Straw man in the middle.

Everyone was stunned again, and after a while, Li Guang stammered: "Envoy Jingluo, this is too troublesome!" ”

Li Yanqing smiled slightly: "It looks troublesome, but if you are proficient, it is actually the same as the Divine Arm Crossbow, it was just shown to everyone just now, so I deliberately slowed down the movement, and I will take a look at it again." ”

It's still the same soldier, I saw him fill the medicine, load the ammunition, fill the medicine, light the fire rope, and shoot, all in one go, as fast as flowing water, even a little faster than the crossbow shot of the divine arm.

Everyone nodded, and sure enough, after being proficient, it was extraordinary, and it looked very pleasing to the eye.

At this time, Li Yanqing beckoned, "Take it!" ”

Two soldiers lifted the straw man target from a hundred steps away, and there was a piece of armor on the straw man target, at this time, Wu Jie and Xu Huiyan exclaimed in unison: "Cold forging armor!" ”

Everyone's eyes lit up, it turned out that this swarthy armor was the most famous cold forging armor in Western Xia, it is said that it is extremely difficult to build, the success rate is very low, Western Xia has only built thousands of pieces in the past hundred years, except for the three thousand iron harrier equipment, the rest of the cold forging armor is in the hands of the nobles of Western Xia, I didn't expect that there would be one in front of me.

Li Yanqing introduced to everyone, "This is indeed cold forging armor, a complete set of cold forging armor includes cavalry armor and war horse armor, war horse armor is slightly weaker than cavalry armor, I haven't been able to get it, this cavalry armor was purchased by me for 3,000 taels of silver from a broken nobleman in Western Xia through the channel of the black party, please take a closer look!" ”

Li Yanqing ordered the soldiers to peel off the cold forging armor and unfold it for everyone to take a closer look, only to see that the thick cold forging armor was covered with dense small holes, and everyone was stunned, this is ........

Liu Tao suddenly reacted, "This is the ..... Pierced by the firebolt? ”

Li Yanqing nodded, "You can't penetrate it one hundred and fifty steps away, but you can penetrate it in one hundred steps, this is the secret weapon I told you to deal with the Iron Harrier." ”

The Iron Harrier is actually a heavy cavalry, arrows can't be penetrated, guns can't pierce, has always been the Song army most afraid of a Western Xia army, and now it finally has a weapon to restrain it, so that everyone sees hope.

Li Yanqing smiled and said nothing, in fact, not only the fire gun, but also the explosion-type sky-shattering thunder can also kill a large number of iron harriers, and its huge shock wave can definitely shock the iron harrier cavalry, although it has not been tested, but Li Yanqing is full of confidence.

........

At dusk, Zhang Shun walked quickly into Jingluo Mansion with a middle-aged man, and the two soldiers behind him were still carrying a box, and they waited in the courtyard for a while, and a personal soldier led them into Li Yanqing's official room.

Li Yanqing had just returned from the firearms test site, and was fiddling with a firearm brought back from the firearms base, which was actually an arquebus, Li Yanqing was amazed at the superb craftsmanship of the Song people, who could actually make such a slender and uniform long copper pipe, which was extremely delicately polished, and it was said that it took craftsmen ten days to make such a copper pipe, and it took two years for the craftsmen to make a thousand copper pipes.

With the current process, it is not realistic to make an inner spiral rifling, but Li Yanqing is considering whether it can be made into a flintlock pistol, with the craftsmanship of the Song Dynasty, it should be feasible, as for how to do it, Li Yanqing will not think too much, he only needs to put forward ideas, and the skilled craftsmen will naturally follow his ideas to figure it out.

At this time, a soldier reported at the door, "The scout battalion commander is here!" ”

"Let him in!"

After a while, Zhang Shun walked in, knelt down on one knee and saluted, and introduced the man behind him to Li Yanqing, "This is Tuoba Lu, the chief of the Black Party Xianghui Prefecture, and the proprietor of Helan's old sword weapon shop." ”

Tuoba Lu hurriedly stepped forward to salute, and Li Yanqing smiled: "You're welcome, please take a seat!" ”

Li Yanqing invited Tuoba Lu to sit down, and let the soldiers serve tea, he smiled slightly: "The cold forging armor last time made you bother!" ”

Tuoba Lu hurriedly said: "Xiaomin got another cold forging armor this time, I don't know if Li Dutong is interested?" ”

Li Yanqing's eyes lit up, "Did you bring it?" ”

"Brought!"

Zhang Shun hurriedly asked the soldier to carry the box in, opened the box, and it was indeed a swarthy cold forging armor, Li Yanqing rubbed his hands excitedly, he took the previous one to test the gun, but he always regretted in his heart, if he got another one, he would definitely use it to study imitation.

He has always wanted to rebuild a heavy infantry to deal with cavalry, that is, the Mo knife army of the Tang Dynasty, the Mo knife forging technology of the Tang Dynasty has disappeared, but the Song Dynasty also has a sword and a three-pointed two-edged knife, and the Song Dynasty Shenzong era also appeared to chop the horse sword, Li Yanqing has carefully studied, the hardness is enough, but the sharpness and durability are still a little worse, until they crack the gold-filled forging method of the Xia State sword, and they can already create a new Mo knife.

Now what Li Yanqing needs is heavy armor, cold forging armor is undoubtedly the best heavy armor, and finally got another one, if it can be cracked, he can imitate it in large quantities.

Li Yanqing simply put the cold forging armor on the table and put it down, gently stroking the cold feeling on the armor, he suddenly found that this armor seemed to have never been worn, and the format was different, it was not the armor of the Western Xia people, but it was very similar to the black hammer armor.

"Was this also purchased from that broken nobleman?"

Tuoba Lu shook his head, "This one was obtained from a Qiang family on Xihe Road. ”

Li Yanqing was stunned, seemed to think of something, and hurriedly asked, "Could it be Qingtang Qiang?" ”

Cold forging armor is not invented by the Xixia people, but the ancestral skills of Qingtang Qiang living in Huangzhou, the armor they forged is also regarded as a treasure in the Song Dynasty, called the Qizi armor, there are detailed forging records in "Mengxi Pen Talk", but there is no complete record, resulting in the armor forged in the Song Dynasty is not as strong as the Qingtang Qiang forging, and later Qingtang Qiang was attacked by the Western Xia army, all of them were taken captive to the Western Xia, and this forging armor technology was handed down in the Western Xia.

Tuoba Lu nodded, "It is the one left by Qingtang Qiang, they have not forged armor for nearly fifty years, but they still retain the forging method of cold forging armor, this time Xiaomin brought three old men, they can dictate the forging method of a full set of cold forging armor." ”

Li Yanqing was overjoyed, God really helped him, and if he got the forging method of cold forging armor, he could rebuild the Great Song Dynasty Heavy Armor Mo Sword Army, why not be afraid of the Jurchen iron horse?