"I just had a nightmare, I fell out of bed, and Xingguo poured me a glass of water!"

"Yes, sir!" Wang Xingguo looked at the room and saw that there was no one in the house, so he put the knife into the sheath and poured a glass of water for Liu Cheng. Liu Cheng drank a few sips before he felt better, and suddenly heard a muffled sound from outside, and it seemed that the death knell he had just heard in his dream was this sound.

"What's that noise?" Liu Cheng asked.

"I don't know what I do." Wang Xingguo listened attentively and shook his head.

Liu Cheng pushed open the window and looked out, only to see the moonlight like water, shining everywhere, and the sound was heard more and more clearly, he suddenly turned to Wang Xingguo and said, "Let's go, go and see where this sound comes from." ”

"My lord—" Wang Xingguo was about to open his mouth to dissuade him, but it seemed that Liu Cheng's face knew that it was useless to say more, so he bowed down and said, "My lord, wait for a while, let the humble duty clean up." ”

A few minutes later, Liu and Wang got on their horses and followed the sound to find out that it came from a hut by the Luo River. When the two came to the front of the house, Wang Xingguo stepped forward and knocked on the door, shouting, "Is there anyone in the house?" ”

Wang Xingguo just knocked twice, and there were a few dog barks in the house, and then he heard someone scolding: "Da Hei, don't bark, where is the swinger outside, to disturb the peace of others, I can tell you, this is for Liu Dusi, if you dare to come nonsense, take it and hit a hundred killing sticks before asking!" ”

As he spoke, the door was pushed open, revealing a middle-aged man in his thirties, wearing a bare sheepskin jacket, holding a short fork in his hand, and a waist-high black dog at his feet looking eager to try. The man saw that Wang Xingguo and Liu Cheng were dressed unusually, his face changed slightly, and he asked, "Who are you?" Why are you here so late? ”

"Be bold, you won't bow down when you see the guerrilla Lord Liu in Yansui Town!" Wang Xingguo scolded loudly.

"Guerrilla?" The man's eyes widened, but he didn't bow down immediately, he just kicked the black dog under his feet twice, so as not to pounce on Wang Xingguo and Liu Cheng from this fierce beast, and muttered: "In the middle of the night, when the third watch came, he said that he was a guerrilla and a general soldier." I only know that there is a Liu Dusi here, and I don't know where a Liu guerrilla came out. The mouth grows on a person, and it is not left to man to say. ”

Liu Cheng grabbed Wang Xingguo, who was about to have a seizure, and said with a smile: "Guerrilla Liu is Liu Dusi, and the boss has just been promoted to the position of official two days ago. I couldn't sleep at night, and I just heard a voice coming from here, so I looked for a sound to visit, and I beg forgive me for the trouble! ”

When the man saw that Liu Cheng was polite, he didn't dare to slack off. While opening the door, he kicked the black dog away, and said busily: "Forgive me, my lord, I am here a rice workshop, and you have thousands of people there who have to eat in the morning and evening, and I have to work here day and night, disturbing the rest of the adults, please forgive me!" ”

"I see!" Liu Cheng walked into the house. I saw that there were several stone mortars in the house, and the pestle made of hardwood was constantly pounded into the stone mortars. The skin of the grain inside was stripped off, and several ragged men kept pouring out the white rice inside, adding the unpeeled dry grain.

"You're hydraulic, aren't you?" Liu Cheng asked casually.

"Not bad!" The man replied with a smile: "If it weren't for the river, we would have been exhausted to death, and we wouldn't have been able to finish so much work!" ”

Liu Cheng's questions have been answered, and he also feels a little sleepy. After casually asking a few more words, he was about to turn around and go back, but when he walked to the door, he suddenly stopped, and Wang Xingguo behind him didn't know why he could only stop. Liu Cheng suddenly turned around and asked, "This rice is made of water power?" ”

"yes, that's not what the man said?" Wang Xingguo replied a little inexplicably, wondering if his boss was a little dizzy.

"Isn't that wrought iron also capable of using water!" Liu Cheng suddenly high-fived and said, "Didn't Tang Muyao say that there are not enough people?" If you use water, you won't be able to do it! "Speaking of which. Liu Cheng didn't care about his subordinates who were still in the fog of five miles, jumped on the war horse and said: "Let's go, let's go back, and build a hydraulic forging hammer early tomorrow morning!" “

Twenty days later, a new building appeared on the banks of the Luohe River, which looked very rudimentary from the outside, with four walls made of rammed earth and a mere temporary thatched roof. The main part of the building is a hammer weighing 80 kilograms, which can be lifted to a height of six meters from the forging platform by hydraulic force, and as long as the user moves the bracket, the hammer will fall under the action of gravity and hit the iron parts to be forged. Although this hydraulic hammer is still very simple compared to the forging machinery of later generations, it is already an artifact compared to the blacksmith shop of the Ming Dynasty, and no blacksmith can swing an eighty-kilogram forging hammer, let alone accelerate it to the speed when it falls from the height of a three-story building; And people get tired, and hydraulic hammers can work forever as long as they don't break down. All the worker had to do was to raise and fall the hammer and place the iron in the correct position on the forging machine, a job that even a half-grown child who had never worked as a blacksmith could do. After forging, the iron parts are compacted and welded due to the internal segregation, looseness, porosity, slag inclusion, etc., and the original coarse dendrites and columnar grains also become a recrystallization structure with smaller grains and uniform size, and the mechanical properties of the iron parts are greatly improved, and then they are finely processed, and the tools and weapons that far exceed the ordinary forging level can be obtained.

"This steel mouth is still passable, right?" Liu Cheng picked up a saber that had just been put on the handle, played with it twice and handed it to Tang Muyao on the side.

"My lord, it's the first time in my life that I've seen someone who can strike iron like this!" Tang Muyao subconsciously went to catch the knife, but his eyes did not leave the hydraulic forging hammer on the side, and as a result, he grabbed the blade, if it wasn't for the saber that hadn't opened yet, he would have almost cut off his fingers.

"Now that we have a forging hammer, we can grasp the matter of weapons. If it is not fully made before January next year, you are the only one who asks! ”

"Yes, sir!" Tang Muyao bowed down to receive the order, then stepped forward and said in a low voice: "My lord, the villain dares to ask you to give this machine a name." ”

"Name?" Liu Cheng looked the forging hammer up and down for a while, and replied with a deep sigh: "Let's call it 'Gonggong'!" “

Liaodong, Daling River.

The hills rise abruptly from the dense forest, and strong winds can be seen on the summits for miles. Hunters and ginseng pickers in the vicinity call it the Horn Mound.

"It's really like a tomb!" Gui thought to herself, the steamed bun-shaped mountain suddenly became very steep when it approached the top. There are white stones everywhere, and only a few old pine trees are jagged in between. Ah Gui was very unhappy with this bad thought, and he spat on the ground fiercely, as if this would get rid of the bad luck. In fact, he has a quarter of Mongol blood and a quarter of Jurchen blood, and there are many mixed-race people like him in the Liaodong army, since the Ming army conquered Liaodong. This land became a melting pot of Han, Mongol, Jurchen, Korean, and many other peoples, whose blood and sweat flowed on this fertile land for more than two hundred years.

Like most Mongols and Jurchens, Gui was superstitious, believing in lamas, ancestors, forest elves, and many other strange things. As Zu Dashou's "night does not collect", Ah Gui can be described as the elite of the Guanning army - with the title of general, eating double military salaries, and has a 100-acre grange near Ningyuan. It is planted by four Zhuang Ding, and there is also a wife and a concubine. Of course, all this did not fall from the sky, Ah Gui has been recruited into the army since the beginning of the second year of the Apocalypse, and participated in the Battle of Guangning, the Battle of Ningyuan twice, and many battles such as returning to Beijing, which can be said to be experienced in a hundred battles. To be able to survive so many battles, Ah Gui's biggest capital is not strength, martial arts and riding skills, of course, this is not to say that Yue Fenggao is a wreck, on the contrary. Yue Fenggao's martial arts and riding skills are very good, but these alone can't save his life on the battlefield. Otherwise, Liu Wei, a fierce general who could run a hundred and twenty pounds of iron broadsword like a fly, would not have died in Salhu. Gui's biggest capital is a big black dog, whenever there is an ambush or other danger in front, this dog will be very restless, it is with this dog's early warning, he can live to this day, and become a promising profession of night not collecting. In Gui's opinion. This dog is a gift from God, a four-legged brother, and he always calls him "Anda" (Mongolian brother) on weekdays.

But at this time, when Ah Gui and his party arrived at the foot of the Oxhorn Mound, An Da's behavior became extremely strange, and it barked restlessly. And ran around, even when Gui whistled and gestured to give clear instructions, it still resisted the command, and even turned and fled into the forest. In the end, the commander Feng Jingshi finally lost his patience and shouted: "Ah Gui, let it go, if we don't go up the mountain, it will be dark, and we won't see anything at that time, let's go up first, and come to find your dog tomorrow!" ”

"But—" Ah Gui wanted to explain to Feng Jingshi that he had escaped several catastrophes with this dog, but when he saw the faces of the rest of the team, he swallowed back without saying anything. He knew very well that what Feng Jingshi said was very reasonable, Niujiao Hill was the commanding height within a radius of dozens of miles, as long as it was occupied, it would be impossible for any movement of the Houjin army to hide from the eyes of the Ming army at the top of the hill, it was not early now, if it was delayed for a while, if they wanted to climb the steep hillside, they would have to raise fire, but this was equivalent to exposing their position to the nearby Houjin Tancai, it would be too dangerous.

The road up the mountain is very difficult, near the summit there is a circle of stone masonry, close to a person's high wall, that is the remains of the previous Ming army outpost, after the defeat of Quang Ninh, the Ming army abandoned all the outposts in this area, and then the Jin army in the dismantling of all the available things after burning it, this low wall is the remnant of the sheep and horse wall outside the outpost. The group had to make a great circle to find a gap for mules loaded with baggage. Feng Jingshi carefully observed the surrounding terrain and nodded with satisfaction: "The terrain here is good, the stones are ready-made, as long as you prepare some wood, build a pier here, leave thirty people here to guard, and as soon as the east moves, you can use the beacon fire to notify Dalinghe Fort." ”

Gui didn't speak, his attention was focused on the low wall: the weathered gray stone was covered with green moss, the cracks of the stone were filled with dirt, and he kicked it hard with his foot, and only a small piece of dirt and a few grains of gravel fell on the low wall, and the main part below stood still—the low wall, though rough, but very strong.

"Go down there and get some dry firewood, and some sticks, and some water, and make soup for cooking!" Feng Jingshi casually ordered a dozen people, but he didn't call Ah Gui, whether in the Later Jin army or the Ming army there was an unwritten rule - people like Ah Gui had the privilege of being exempt from these duties, because they had to retain enough energy to deal with the battle that might happen at any time.

"Gui, come and have a look!" Feng Jingshi still trusted the vision of this old subordinate: "When necessary, this place is easy to defend, we have eighty people here, and even if there are five hundred people in the east, we can't attack it." “

Ah Gui looked around with the sophisticated eyes of a veteran, and nodded: "That's right, this place is okay." He walked to the gap in the low wall, pointed to the gap, and said, "Dig a trench outside before dark, and erect the antlers, and gather the firearms here!" It is better to erect a high platform on each side, on which one can shoot with bows and arrows and firearms. “

"Ah Gui, just one night, Donglu may not come, you are thinking too much!" Feng Jingshi laughed, and when he was alone, he spoke in a much kinder tone.

"My lord, fighting is not a joke, Dongyu is not as good as the Tartars, they fight hard, and they give strict orders, counting from Wanli Ye, how many generals have suffered from them."

"That's what you said!" Feng Jingshi's face also became serious, and he immediately gave the order to the remaining soldiers to dig a trench, and the soldiers who were already quite tired complained about Shangguan's order, but they still obeyed the order honestly. The soldiers roasted the severed branches with fire and sharpened them, then inserted the trunks into the soil so that the sharp end was pointed in the direction where the enemy might appear.

"Is there anything else you haven't prepared?"

"Water, there's no water here!"

"By the way, that's a big problem!" Feng Jingshi slapped his palm: "Didn't we pass by a stream when we went up the mountain?" You go over there and get some water, and by the way, get your Anda (Mongolian brother) back, so that you don't have to worry about it all the time. Speaking of this, Feng Jingshi squeezed his eyes at Ah Gui.

In the face of Shangguan's mockery, Ah Gui laughed a little embarrassedly, he was indeed very worried about his four-legged brother, and Fang Cai's abnormality made him feel faintly uneasy in his heart. (To be continued.) )