"Stop! Please show your waist badge! ”

Outside the newly built wharf in the southwest corner of Niudao, a wooden wall tightly enclosed the wharf, leaving only a walled gate in the center, and two soldiers from the garrison stood in front of the door and shouted at Chu Fan and his party.

As more and more people moved out of Ushijima and settled in various settlements, transportation to and from Ushijima became a major problem - it would take half a day to walk from the northeast as before, so a small pier was built in the southwest corner.

The garrison battalion was expanded on the basis of the original personnel of the fort -- the four batteries originally had more than 90 people, and in order to strengthen the defense work of Niu Dao and also to accommodate the disabled soldiers of the Fuliao Army, a new garrison company was formed, and in addition to the 18 disabled soldiers, more than 60 new people were recruited.

Now the one standing guard is a newcomer, and he doesn't even know Chu Fan, which makes Chen Shangren behind him very embarrassed, who just wanted to come out of the crowd and scold, but was stopped by Chu Fan.

Chu Fan looked at the long Lu Mi gun on the sentry's back, took out his waist card and handed it over, "You did it right!" As it should be, anyone who goes to the island must be checked, and there must be no exceptions! ”

After checking the waist card, Chu Fan and Chen Shangren said as they walked inside, "Uncle Shi, our stall is getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more secrets on Niu Island, so this guard work must be strengthened...... I'm afraid that the waist card alone is not enough, and this thing is still easy to forge...... If you can draw a person's face, you can make an ID card, then you can't really pretend to be it. ”

Chen Shangren has also thought about this question many times, but he can't think of any good way, and now when he heard Chu Fan say how to draw a face and make an ID card, he couldn't help but nod - this method is wonderful!

"Yixian, this plan is very good, but if this face is to be painted vividly. You have to be a Danqing master, we don't have such a person in our hands now! Chen Shangren raised a practical question.

"Might as well be! I've figured it out! Chu Fan shook his head and said with a smile - the method he came up with was charcoal sketching, but he still had to train a few sketch masters.

As they spoke, the group had arrived at the location of the distillation group located next to the beach in the west, and a smell of wine came to their faces.

Duan Laohan's main job these days is to make wine - the market for refined salt has not yet opened, and the production of snowflake candy is intermittent due to the limitation of raw materials. So Chu Fan asked Duan Laohan to experiment with how to make wine.

Sorghum is used for sake brewing, and the fermented stock is distilled to form alcohol of different concentrations.

When Chu Fan and Chen Shangren walked into the greenhouse, the process of distillation was in progress: I saw four or five cage drawers high in a cauldron with a diameter of two meters, and the large and small gaps on the cage drawers were all stuffed with Songjiang cloth; A long bamboo tube is attached to the top of the cage drawer, the end of which reaches into a small wooden barrel, dripping with liquor.

"Childe, this is the first wine." Old Man Duan's waist seemed to be getting more and more rickety, and he scooped a spoonful of clear and transparent wine with a small spoon and handed it to Chu Fan. Said with a smile.

Chu Fan took the spoon and sniffed it first, and the strong smell of alcohol came to his nose; After stretching out my finger and dipping it a little, I immediately felt the unique cooling sensation brought by the volatilization of alcohol.

After taking a small sip, Chu Fan felt a piece of charcoal in his mouth, burning all the way down his throat to his stomach, and his whole body suddenly warmed - this wine is afraid that it must be seventy or eighty degrees!

In the corner of his eye, Chu Fan found that Chen Shangren's eyes were looking directly at the wooden spoon in his hand, and he couldn't help but smile and handed the wooden spoon over—the old man usually takes two bites. Now that I have entered the greenhouse full of wine, where can I bear it?

After taking the wooden spoon. Chen Shangren squinted and took a sip of enjoyment, then his eyes widened with a red face, and it took a long time for him to breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Good wine!" What a strong wine! ”

Chu Fan couldn't help but smile and shook his head - although there are distilled spirits in this era, they are rare and the degree is not high, and this kind of high-grade liquor is the first time Chen Shangren has drunk it.

"Leader Duan. The alcohol used in the army is of this concentration," After handing the wooden spoon back to Old Man Duan, Chu Fan advised, "There is no way to accurately measure the alcohol content now." It's only your tongue...... Remember to take care of it, this is a matter of human life...... If the alcohol is too low to distill, you can also try to make it into a low-alcohol liquor and sell it...... It's just that now this taste doesn't work, and I have to find a way to add something......"

Chu Fan didn't know much about wine in his previous life, and he just knew the name of what strong fragrance, sauce fragrance, and fragrance were, and he couldn't say what to add, so he could only tell Duan Laohan to experiment slowly.

Coming out of the distillation group, Chu Fan took the slightly drunk Chen Shangren to the weapon group again, but happened to run into Tang Jiniu who was casting tiger squat cannons.

The current firepower composition of the Fuliao Army is: long-range above 800 meters, mainly relying on ballistas to fire flowering shells; At short ranges below 150 meters, it relies mainly on firearms and grenades.

In the range of 150 meters to 800 meters, although there was a 6-pounder Franc cannon to exert firepower, because of its large weight and poor combat ability, Chu Fan asked Tang Jiniu to try to build a much lighter tiger squat gun.

The production method of the tiger squat cannon is recorded in detail in Qi Jiguang's "Actual Record of Military Training", and what Tang Jiniu and they have to do is nothing more than to follow the map.

Next to the small blast furnace of the weapons group is a wooden box 1 meter long, 40 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters deep, filled with fine sand; There is a small hole the thickness of the index finger in the center of the fine sand, and the small hole is connected to the hollow mold of the tiger squat cannon - first make a tiger squat cannon with beeswax according to the actual size, and then fill it with fine sand to fix it, and then melt the beeswax, which is the standard lost wax method.

The coke in the small blast furnace was burning so hotly that the Snow King was naked, carefully carrying a pot of bright red iron juice into the small hole the thickness of his index finger.

"Childe, this cannon is a large tiger squat, 88 centimeters long, 23 centimeters in outer diameter, and 5 centimeters and 2 millimeters in inner diameter after being made," Tang Jiniu introduced to Chu Fan while observing the white smoke rising from the sand mold, "According to the book, the range of the solid projectile can reach 300 steps, that is, within 400-500 meters; If it is shotgun, the range can reach about 200-300 meters...... The exact range depends on the situation of the live ammunition. ”

"During the test firing, the amount of charge cannot be recorded in the book," Chu Fan nodded and said, "Our black fire * medicine is much more powerful than that used by Qi Shaobao, if it is still loaded with so much, most of it will be blown up...... You have to figure out how much medicine to fill slowly, and remember to pay attention to safety every time you test shoot...... There is also this shotgun, which the book says is filled with pebbles, let's change it! ”

"What is Childe going to change to?"

Tang Jiniu asked, and Chu Fan's answer made his eyes widen suddenly. (To be continued.) )