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Chapter 155: Catching Up

"As Han Qing said, the defeat of this Shahe River is also to blame on the head of the surnamed Zhu?" At the moment when Zhu Bayi, Lu Luzeng, Huang Laowei and others were pondering how to lead the disaster to the west and buy time for the Huai'an army to "farm". In the capital, there were several pairs of sharp eyes, staring at them tightly.

"It's better for adults to call me Xiaosi, it's comfortable to listen to. The two words Han Qing went out to call others, so as not to lose the face of an adult! Got rid of his childhood playmate, Li Hanqing, the housekeeper of the Prime Minister's Mansion, bowed down, sincerely afraid.

"Here we go again!" Tokhtar glanced at him and shook his head slightly, "Since the weak crown, who has ever treated you as a slave in the whole house?" ”

This is a true statement. For Li Hanqing, a playmate and a scholar, the men, women and children in the Tokhoff Mansion are all respectful. And what is rare is that Li Hanqing has never been pampered and arrogant, and always willingly considers himself a slave, as if only in this way will he feel comfortable.

This time, he knelt down decisively again, choked up and responded, "The adults have never treated Li Si as a slave, but Li Si can't forget his roots." So Han Qing two words, please don't call it again. Otherwise, Li Si would no longer have the face to stay in the mansion! ”

"Whatever you want!" Seeing that he said so sincerely, Tokhtar had no choice but to fulfill his wish, "Anyway, the name is just a title." At home, you are my scholar, and outside, you are the first housekeeper in my house. Even if you go out on business occasionally, no matter how long it takes, this position is always reserved for you! ”

"Adults treat each other like this, if Li Si doesn't repay himself, he won't be a human being!" Li Si kowtowed again, got up from the ground, and responded with red eyes.

"You've done enough!" Tokhtar smiled and nodded slightly. "The court sent so many spies, and the news they reported back was all about the powerful thieves, the thieves had the help of the local people, and they came and went. Only you can explain the cause and effect so clearly. Biye first Timur wrote to me, and it was all clear! ”

"The first master is a fan of the authorities!" Li Si thought about it, didn't dare to take credit, and took the initiative to explain it for Timur, who had lost the battle.

"What a fan of the authorities, he is not a war material at all, but he is capable. I persuaded him, and he felt that I, the elder brother, was delaying his future! Totoh smiled again and pouted disdainfully.

The younger brother also Timur was a good civil official and a good imperial history, but he was by no means a good commander. But if he doesn't hand over the military power to him, his right position will never be stable. So in desperation, he could only choose the lesser of two evils, but Timur didn't even hold Bianliang, lost all 300,000 troops, and fled back to the north of the Yellow River with only a few thousand cronies.

Well, those short-sighted guys in the court can't find their own handles. Misleading the country, cronyism, and self-respect for foreign thieves. What are the charges that there are and are not, all the brains have been deducted. And Na Tuhuan Timur's Majesty, since he was a child, he has been bullied by powerful ministers, and he is most afraid of reproducing the nightmare of the past. Before eating this big defeat, I still wanted to reduce the power of the phase, but after eating this big defeat, it was even more justifiable to cut it.

"It was the red scarf thief who was sharp with his firearms, and he was caught off guard first!" As a loyal minion, Li Si would never say anything bad about his master. After thinking for a while, he once again led the conversation to Huai'an Jun.

"I believe you when you say this. But how can I use this reason to convince the emperor? Tokhtar glanced at him and sighed helplessly. The Huai'an thief only dispatched 3,000 people. And Liu Futong is 150,000, Sesame Li is 50,000, and Zhao Jun is 30,000. It is almost clear who is the main force and who is the helper. I went to tell the emperor that Liu Futong's 150,000 troops were not to be feared, and Zhu Bayi's 3,000 soldiers and horses were the culprits. Didn't the emperor flip the table with me on the spot? ”

"But that's exactly what happened!" Li Si pointed to the secret report written by himself, and insisted bitterly, "At that time, Liu Futong and Yexian Master faced each other across the Shahe River for a month and a half, but in fact, both sides had become tired soldiers. The red turban thieves who came from Huai'an, although they numbered only three thousand, brought forty artillery pieces. In the middle of the night, when the brothers were asleep, the forty men came together to bombard the camp, could they not bomb the camp? If you want to blame, you can only blame Gong Buban, he is an old soldier, and he actually built yì and the first master to tie the camp on the bank of the river! ”

"Gong Buban is dead, people are dead, and a hundred are gone. And the first is still alive. The emperor has always refused to punish him, just waiting for the old man to confess! "Something like that, Tokhtar has heard it several times tonight. He glanced at Li Si again and emphasized impatiently.

"Although a man is dead, he cannot bear the blame!" Li Si was stunned, and his voice quickly became lower, "The cannon of the Red Turban Thief can fight at least three hundred and fifty paces away. And his camp was only one hundred and fifty steps from the river beach. The red turban thieves quietly docked in the middle of the night with their cannons in boats, and it was impossible for the brothers on night patrol to show up! If the emperor doesn't believe it, you can take the emperor to the Ordnance Bureau to inspect the cannon. Even if we imitate our own copper cannon, loaded with the black gunpowder that our subordinates sent people to buy back with a lot of money, it can fight three or four hundred paces away! ”

That's a good idea. As the saying goes, it's better to see than to hear. Let Tuohuan Timur see the power of the new artillery with his own eyes, and he will understand which direction should be the focus of the imperial court's next use of troops. And when he understood the power of artillery, he knew that Timur's defeat was actually excusable, and his anger would be lessened.

Thinking of this, Totoh breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at Li Si's eyes, he asked in a low voice, "How much gunpowder is left after you bought it with a lot of money?" Can our Ordnance Bureau be able to imitate it? ”

"It has been made clear to the craftsmen who make gunpowder, if they can come up with the formula within half a month, each person will be rewarded with a hundred taels of silver. If you can't match the same gunpowder within half a month, delay a day to cut off a person's head until everyone is killed! Li Si's expression immediately became cold, and a sound like a poisonous snake spitting out a letter came out of his mouth.

"Hmm!" Shedding his eyebrows jumped slightly, and immediately understood that Li Si had done a reasonable job. The craftsmen of the Ordnance Bureau are the leaders in the country, and there is no reason why the craftsmen in Xuzhou can prepare gunpowder, but they can't prepare it. What is missing is loyalty to the employer. I believe that under the steel knife, they can be forced to go all out.

"The undercover agents assigned by his subordinates in the Red Turban Army have already inquired clearly. The people who are responsible for preparing gunpowder over there are all people around a few main generals, not some skilled craftsmen, so the recipe will definitely not be too complicated. It is nothing more than the change in the composition of the three main materials of sulfur, nitrate and carbon, plus a little auxiliary materials. And the craftsmen have also verified with the rinsing method, the gunpowder of the red scarf thief, I am afraid that there are not even fire oil, croton, arsenic and other accessories, it is very likely, sulfur, nitrate, toner three kinds! ”

"If it is really as you say, within two months, our artillery can also be pushed to the battlefield!" Hearing and listening, the spirit was greatly lifted. Fists clenched, waving in mid-air.

"Maybe it won't take two months!" Li Si thought for a moment and responded very confidently, "The craftsmen of the Ordnance Bureau used a steel saw to cut the cannon that their subordinates bought back with a lot of money, cut it from it, and copied it as it was. Although it is a bit heavier than the original one, it is also easy to blow up. But the subordinates asked them to engrave their names on the cannons, and the first cannons were lit by their own hands. Presumably they won't take the initiative to seek death! ”

"That's a good idea! It's a good idea!" Totoku touched the back of Li Si's head, and praised it repeatedly, "It's a pity that you come from a humble background, otherwise, it would be more than enough to be an ordnance supervisor." ”

Li Si was more than half a head taller than him, and in order to make him feel more comfortable, he deliberately bent his knees and responded with a smile, "There is a way, the fourth rank official of the prime minister's house." The ordnance supervisor is only a positive fourth product, to be honest, Li Si is really not rare. Li Si would rather follow the master forever and be the concierge of the prime minister's family! ”

He will always be the porter of the prime minister's house, which means that Tokhtar will always be the prime minister. This sycophant is a good shot, but the level is extraordinarily high. The right prime minister of Dayuan took off and listened, and was really amused to laugh, "You kid, this mouth can bring the dead alive." Okay, I'll try my best to be the prime minister for a lifetime, and let you be a four-grade scholar for a lifetime. We are two masters and servants, and this life has a beginning and an end. ”

"Thank you, Master Hongen!" Li Si knelt down again and made a gesture of worship.

Totoh pulled it up, shook his head with a smile, "Don't worship, don't worship, the old man has been friends with you since childhood, and you don't miss these two heads." By the way, you just said that our cannon is heavy and easy to explode, how big is the gap between it and the cannon of the red turban thief. Tell me the truth, don't keep comforting me with nice sounds! ”

"It's hard to say!" Li Si thought for a while, frowned and responded, "Your Excellency, you may not know that the same four-catty cannon is in the hands of different people, but the news you get is completely different. Some red turban thieves are said to explode their chambers after firing more than a dozen cannons. Some said that it was no problem to shoot twenty or thirty shots in a row. Others said that they had never blown up over there. In addition, the four-pound cannon of the Huai'an thief is also better than the batch. Not only is it becoming more and more difficult to blow up, but the weight of the cannon is also constantly decreasing! ”

"Constantly reducing? How do they do it? The eyebrows that had just been stretched out were immediately wrinkled into a pimple again.

The power of the artillery is indeed amazing, but the cost of each cannon is indeed terrifyingly high. Basically, it is made of bronze containing about 90% copper. A cannon that shoots a four-pound projectile requires more than six hundred pounds of bronze. If these copper materials are used to cast copper coins, even the most standard copper six lead and four coins can be minted more than 200 times. Coupled with the fire consumption, the cost of a bronze cannon is as high as more than 300 yuan, which is definitely a big pit for burning money.

On the other hand, the Red Turban Army was able to continuously reduce the weight of the artillery while strengthening the life of the artillery. This means that every time they build a cannon, they can spend four or five times less than Da Yuan's side. If this goes on for a long time, just consumption can also exhaust the Great Yuan Imperial Court!

"The subordinates don't know how they got it. I guess practice makes perfect! According to the news sent back by the spies, last month they provided 120 cannons to Liu Futong's family alone! ”