"Can you try?" Xu Hecheng's throat was dry, he traveled around the world in business, had a wide range of knowledge, and naturally saw the arquebus, but at that time, this weapon was still regarded as a militaristic weapon, even if there were a few in the caravan, it was also precious and secret, as a life-saving treasure at a critical time, where had I seen Liu Cheng pile up neatly, and the cloth, bowls and chopsticks in the roadside shop.

"Then why not?" Liu Cheng laughed: "Although the junior brother has a humble official position, he still does the master here!" After that, he and Xu Hecheng came to the small school field outside Qianhu City, and some soldiers had already prepared to stop the shooting range. Xu Hecheng stood under the parasol, and saw seven or eight straw men erected about seventy meters away, presumably for shooting, and about 100 meters behind the straw men was a small dirt mountain twenty or thirty meters high. A few soldiers were shouting loudly, driving away a few of the children who were watching.

"What are those people doing?" Xu Hecheng asked.

"Oh! This is the place where our soldiers practice shooting on weekdays, and at first the muzzle of the gun is always raised too high, and many projectiles fly up the hill, and some children pick them up as toys, and even sell them for money. I was afraid that these children would be injured by stray bullets, so I drove them away before every shot! ”

"What? Can you hit this far? Xu Hecheng couldn't help but be taken aback, he was not the kind of scholar who dared to write "erosion for more than ten miles" in his book without seeing a firearm, the hill was nearly two hundred meters away from here, and there were not no firearms used by the Ming army that could be fired to that distance, but it was either a behemoth that could only be controlled by more than a dozen people, or it could only be heard at all, and it was completely uncontrollable to hit there. It's unheard of like this bird in front of you.

"There is no basis for words, but if you try it, you will know?" Liu Cheng laughed, he first skillfully wrapped the fire rope around the serpentine clamp, then poured a little of the gunpowder from the horn into the primer pot, closed the lid of the primer pot, and took out a small copper bottle from his waist. Bite off the cork with your teeth, pour the gunpowder inside into the barrel, fill it with lead bullets wrapped in small pieces of sheepskin, tamp it with a pusher lever, hit the fire rope with a fire sickle, and finally aim for a while, and suddenly pull the trigger. With a loud bang, Xu Hecheng couldn't help but be startled when he saw a burst of fire and white smoke ejecting from the muzzle of the gun.

"Hit, smacked in the chest!" A soldier runs to the straw man who is being targeted. After a little observation, he shouted loudly, Liu Cheng looked back at Xu Hecheng and laughed smugly: "How about it, do you want to try it?" “

"Don't worry, I want to go and see what the target looks like!" Xu Hecheng didn't take the bird gun, and walked straight towards the target, Liu Cheng threw the bird gun in his hand to his own soldiers, and also followed. The two walked to the straw man, and Xu Hecheng reached out to remove the blackened straw bales that had been burned by lead bullets, revealing the wooden pillars inside that served as skeletons. He could clearly see that the lead bullet was deeply embedded in the wooden pillar, and he pulled out the dagger and pulled it four or five times before prying it out. Xu Hecheng fiddled with the deformed lead bullet in his hand a few times, and suddenly said excitedly: "Even the iron armor can't stop it so far!" “

"If you go any further, you can still pierce the iron armor!" Liu Cheng pointed to the distance of about 100 meters in front: "It's just that it's difficult to aim there, only the selected high-quality goods can do." ”

"That's enough. At this distance, the bow and arrow can't even shoot through the cotton armor, and it hurts a little to take an arrow! Xu Hecheng said very excitedly: "Come, quickly teach me to use this thing." “

Liu Cheng demonstrated the steps of loading and shooting in Xu Hecheng, and explained to him the essentials of aiming with a crosshair. and how to measure the distance, and estimate the method of the angle of shot. Xu Hecheng fought with great interest. The smuggler and former cult leader had a talent for shooting and only hit him four or five times with the gun. I mastered the essentials of shooting, and then only flew once every three or four shots, and the rest hit the target, which can be said to be an excellent result for a beginner.

"Sure enough, it is a first-class weapon, and it will be used as a weapon, let you be a good soldier, as long as you are hit, it will turn into powder. It's just—" Speaking of this, Xu Hecheng sighed, a look of pity on his face.

"Pity? What are the shortcomings of this instrument, please tell my brother bluntly. ”

"It's a pity that this bird gun is quite cumbersome to use, the interval between two shots is too long, the white blade on the battle array is crossed, and the life and death are only breathing, this bird gun is only one or two rounds in battle, and the enemy soldiers rush to the front, just afraid that they can't help."

"What the elder brother said is very true, but you can divide the people with guns into arrays, take turns to load and fire, and then the bullets can rain down like rain, continuously, and then list several rows of pikemen, if the enemy soldiers are approaching, the gunners will come forward to meet them, and the gunners can be divided into two wings, and the enemy soldiers can be flanked and shot at the rear of the enemy."

"That's a good idea." Xu Hecheng high-fived and smiled: "However, the aiming and stimulation you just explained involves the way of mathematics, and loading and shooting is so cumbersome, if you are an ignorant fool, I am afraid it will be difficult to learn, unlike spears and knives that can be practiced for more than a month." ”

"It's okay, you just need to obey the orders of the superior and follow the operation. In fact, this bird gun is a woman and a child, and it can also be used, if there are more than ten in each caravan of the eldest brother, ordinary bandits on the road will not be able to infringe on it. ”

"Women and children? Brother Xian was laughing again. Xu Hecheng shook his head and smiled: "Although it is the first time to use it for my brother, after all, he has practiced martial arts, and his eyesight and hand strength are not comparable to ordinary people. “

"If it's too heavy, it doesn't hurt!" Liu Cheng casually took over a fork frame from the hands of the soldiers next to him, this fork frame is about 120 centimeters long, and the upper part is a fork, which is somewhat like a fork used to dry clothes from a high place in later generations, but the difference is that the bottom end is a sharp spear tip. Liu Cheng inserted the end of the fork into the mud, and then put the front of the bird gun on the fork frame to make an aiming and shooting shape: "Brother, please look, isn't this enough, this fork can also be used as a short gun if necessary." ”

Xu Hecheng took the bird gun and the fork frame, tried it a few times, and it was really a lot lighter, and because the fork frame is not like the arm that will tremble with a person's breathing, the accuracy of shooting is also much higher, and he couldn't help laughing: "I really don't know how long your brain is, Brother Xian, to come up with such a clever trick." “

"Brother praises falsely! In fact, there is an easier way, you pick a few good shooters in the caravan, and if you encounter a thief, let the mule drivers and handymen in the caravan fill them with medicine. These people don't need to be distracted by loading ammunition, they just need to concentrate on shooting the thief, those mule drivers and miscellaneous servants can't do anything else, they always load ammunition, right? “

"That's a good idea!" Xu Hecheng said with a smile, and then he heard the meaning of Liu Cheng's words, and his face changed greatly: "Brother Xian, don't you plan to sell these bird guns to me?" “

Liu Cheng laughed: "I can't say it, but brother, you have the grace to save my life, if you open your mouth to buy it, the younger brother can't ignore the brotherhood." Say no in one bite, right? “

Xu Hecheng forcibly suppressed the ecstasy in his chest, pulled Liu Cheng to a secluded place, and said in a low voice: "Brother Xian, you have to think clearly, this is a military weapon, and the imperial court must strictly prohibit it, if you are short of money, just tell me." You are now a fourth-grade military attache in the imperial court, but don't ruin your great future! “

Liu Cheng heard Xu Hecheng's words. I was also quite moved in my heart, it should be said that although the relationship between him and Xu Hecheng was like-minded and kind, it was more about interests, especially the unilateral support given to him by Xu Hecheng. Until now. He got far more from Xu Hecheng than Xu Hecheng got from him, even in the future, for a long time to see, Liu Cheng's career is still extremely dependent on Xu Hecheng's support and cooperation.

Due to the use of firearms and the influx of huge quantities of silver. Since the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the form of warfare has undergone profound changes compared to the Middle Ages. Compared to cold weapons driven by muscle strength or mechanical elastic force. The lethality and range of firearms driven by chemical energy have increased exponentially, and the difficulty of operation has also increased, even an illiterate person is not difficult to teach him to use a spear and a crossbow, and to throw an arquebus to an illiterate person is most likely to blind his own eyes, let alone use heavy artillery; In order to avoid being slaughtered by the enemy's firearms and to give full play to their own firepower, officers must learn to make their soldiers quickly and correctly change formations, change horizontal formations into columns, column formations into horizontal formations, disperse and concentrate formations, expand from marching columns to combat formations, dig trenches and build breastwalks, all of which require a long period of study and a great deal of practice. The advent of firearms required officers and soldiers to become more "professional", and the old army of the past, consisting of the children of the nobility as officers and a large number of improvised peasants as soldiers, was replaced by a new type of army of specialized officers and soldiers with rich military experience and skills, who had no other means of livelihood than war, and whose only skill was to fight, so that even in peacetime, the kings had to pay them, rather than be able to disarm them and return to the field, as was the case in the past, otherwise these dangerous vagabonds will become a nightmare for the kings.

So what prevented the emergence of such an army at the end of the Ming Dynasty? A very old-fashioned reason - no money. But don't think that the Ming border army owes salaries for several years in ancient times is a rare thing, and paying salaries on time in peacetime is a luxury for the ancient army, the reason is very simple, the army is a social group without any output, and who is willing to invest a huge amount of social wealth into the bottomless pit of supporting the army? If you have to do this in order to survive in wartime, then saving money in peacetime is a natural choice. There are only two kinds of societies that will spend huge amounts of wealth for a long time to support a highly specialized professional army: 1. Both have a large military advantage over neighboring countries and can obtain rich benefits through foreign conquest; 2. Being in a state of "warring" with neighboring countries for a long time, and if you slack off, you are in danger of being conquered. For example, in the late Tang Dynasty, the Son of Heaven and the generals did not dare to default on the salaries and rewards of the forbidden army, no matter how shy they were, because they knew that the consequences of doing so would be either killed by the rebellious soldiers of their own army, or their own army would be demoralized and killed by the enemy, but this was obviously not the case in the late Ming Dynasty.

According to the practice of the Ming Dynasty, with Liu Cheng's current official position, there should be an army of about 1,000 people in his hands, but in fact, there are only more than 100 followers and personal soldiers, and the rest of the more than 3,000 Ding Zhuang is just a burden, and Yang He will not give him a penny. The 500 new troops that are now being trained do not exist in the roster of the Ming army, but exist in the name of the dredging team and the gate guard team of Limin Pi, and their rations and salaries also come from the taxes collected from the local gentry and common people in the name of building the Limin Pi, as well as the water donations collected for the future use of Pitang irrigation.

But Liu Cheng knew very well in his heart that this economic source was unstable, because according to the unspoken political rules of the Ming Dynasty, after paying the imperial grain and national tax, the remaining interests of the local gentry were monopolized by the local gentry, and even the Wanli Emperor, with the respect of the Son of Heaven, sent eunuchs to the local area to try to get another piece of the pie, which would also arouse strong resistance from the local gentry, and on this issue, local officials often sided with the gentry rather than the imperial power.

In addition to his vision and talent, the main reason why Liu Cheng was able to get a piece of the pie was that Shaanxi was on the eve of a large-scale peasant uprising at that time, and a few of the more far-sighted gentry in Dunzhou were willing to temporarily give up some of their short-term interests in exchange for longer-term interests in order to avoid the devastating blow brought by the peasant uprising. In other words, Liu Cheng's victory was achieved by taking advantage of the situation, not that he had enough strength to force the gentry to cede their interests, so he established a temporary political alliance at the cost of handing out the rich benefits to Ma Ziyi and Lu Boqi, controlled the profits of Liminpi, and gradually established a hydraulic textile, hydraulic forging, and a small new army with this water conservancy project as the core.

But alliances formed by common interests will also be dissolved due to conflicts of interest, and when the gentry need Liu Cheng's skills and construction team to build the Liminpi project, and Liu Cheng's army to suppress the peasant army, they will reach a compromise with Liu Cheng and share the benefits; But when the construction of the project is completed and the threat of the peasant army passes, these gentry will tear up the agreement and try their best to drive Liu Cheng out of the Pitang Bureau and monopolize all the benefits. At that time, either Liu Cheng would be able to compensate for this loss with other gains, or he would have enough strength to suppress the local gentry, whether it was the former or the latter, he could not do without Xu Hecheng's help. In this case, at this time, it is extremely necessary to tie Xu Hecheng and himself with closer common interests. (To be continued.) )

PS: Here Webb must ask readers for forgiveness, the day before yesterday I clicked the wrong time when I set the scheduled release, so when I came back from the evening shift, I found that it was not released, and it turned out to be late. Webb will pay attention to it in the future, and update it regularly at nine o'clock in the morning every day. In addition, thank you for the monthly pass and the book friends who gave tips, thank you for your support.