Zhang Chu saw that it was difficult to convince Xie Lian with his mouth, so he said to Xie Lian: "Lord Xie has been in the house for a long time, it is better to come out and relax, tomorrow it happens that the security army is going to hold a military exercise, Lord Xie can come and have a look." Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info”

Xie Lianxin said: "Who wants to be locked up in the house, I still want to exercise my governor's power, if you don't send someone to watch me, I will not only walk outside the house, but also walk farther, the farther away from you, the better." But it's useless to be angry, it's better to agree to come down first, and only when you get out of the door of this room can you find a chance to leave, Xie Lian nodded and agreed to Zhang Chu's invitation.

Early the next morning, soldiers from the security army took Xie Lian to the exercise site outside Dengzhou City, and Zhang Chu set off before Xie Lian and was already waiting there.

This exercise was not specifically for Xie Lian, Zhang Chu incorporated a large number of Kong Youde's rebels, and the number of fighters in Shandong grew to 15,000. Many of these rebel soldiers have been on the battlefield and have strong personal martial arts and combat skills, but they are not very familiar with the combat methods of the security forces.

An open area outside Dengzhou City, not far from the city wall, was used as a training ground, and a high platform was specially built on a small hillside near the edge of the exercise field, which was convenient for Zhang Chu and others to watch the exercise, and at the same time, the referee team of the exercise also judged the victory or defeat of each part of the soldiers on the high platform.

Zhang Chu Wang Chengen and Xie Lian climbed the high platform, Zhang Chu unceremoniously occupied the middle seat, Wang Chengen had long been accustomed to Zhang Chu's style, came to the chair on Zhang Chu's right and sat down, deliberately looked up at the exercise ground, and did not communicate with Xie Lian.

Xie Lian's situation is more embarrassing, according to the grade Xie Lian is the highest, now not only Zhang Chu is unreasonable to him, but even the eunuch he has always looked down on has ridden on his neck.

said that Xie Lian was a prisoner, Zhang Chu was still under the banner of Daming, and he didn't say what he was going to do to him, standing there was even more of a loss, as if he was standing guard for them. Xie Lian angrily personally lifted the chair on Zhang Chu's left and moved it forward, and then sat down.

Zhang Chu raised his eyes and looked at Xie Lian and said, "What are you doing sitting so far away?" I'm going to show you the cannon in a moment, don't scare you. ”

Listening to Zhang Chu's words, Xie Lian was even more angry, he had never seen any kind of artillery after fighting fiercely with the rebels for several months in Laizhou City, so he almost operated the artillery to fight against the rebels in person. He puffed up and didn't answer Zhang Chu's words.

Zhang Chu no longer cared about the unhappy governor in his heart, and signaled for the exercise to begin.

"The security army Dengzhou exercise is now underway, and the first thing to do is an artillery firing exercise." A young soldier stood on the corner of the high platform and loudly briefed the crowd on the stage about the progress of the exercise. In order for a layman like Wang Chengen to be able to understand the content of the exercise. Rather than being boring to watch, Zhang Chu selected articulate soldiers to briefly introduce the progress of the exercise at any time.

The soldiers of the artillery battalion of the security army drove the mules and horses pulling the artillery carts to the predetermined area, and this time they pulled a total of more than a dozen guns, and the artillery quickly established an artillery position after the artillery was unloaded. All of them didn't want to lose face in front of Zhang Chu, and worked hard to do all the work well, and the veterans kept shouting loudly to remind the recruits not to make wrong moves. The report of "ready" was constantly sounded, and it took a short time from entering the position to preparing the artillery to finish. The artillery battalion commander re-estimated the distance of the target to determine that there was no mistake in determining the parameters, and he decisively gave the order to shoot, and a huge cannon sound sounded, and the shells flew out of the muzzle and flew towards the wooden stakes and straw men that were the targets in the distance.

The first cannon shot startled Xie Lian, not because Xie Lian was unknowledgeable and timid. but because Xie Lian was a real expert, he was shocked.

Xie Lian was a literati from a jinshi background, but the battles in Laizhou City in the past few months made him an expert in everything on the battlefield. The intelligence of this kind of academic hegemon, who can stand out among many literati and be admitted to the top dozens of in the country, is really not comparable to ordinary people. In addition to Xie Lian's physical weakness, he is already a qualified general.

The artillery position was arranged not far from the high platform, Xie Lian could clearly see the movements of the artillerymen, he saw with his own eyes that the soldiers of the security army set up the artillery, and stuffed a yellow thing from the back of the cannon into the barrel, and then the commander gave the order to open fire. The cannonball flew out and hit the straw man and the wooden stake that were the target, and the cannonball jumped and knocked the target down.

This round was to test the accuracy of artillery shooting, so it was stopped after only one round, and the referee on the stage carefully observed the landing point of the cannonball and scored the artillery battalion.

During this period, Xie Lian's eyes never left the artillery under the stage, and the Ming artillery that could shoot so easily and quickly could only be the Franc machine, but the Franc machine was easy to cause the leakage of gunpowder gas due to poor sealing, which reduced the pressure of the gun chamber, and the shell could not hit far at all. And Xie Lian could be sure from a distance that these dozen or so guns were definitely not Franco, this was a kind of artillery that he had never seen before.

After the referees finished counting, the soldiers there reported the second drill: "Rapid artillery fire." “

With the sound of the command, the soldiers of the artillery battalion adjusted the parameters of the artillery that had been reset, and as the order was issued, the continuous sound of artillery sounded, and the entire artillery position was shrouded in the rising gunsmoke, and the shooting soon ended, and there were few wooden stakes and straw men in front of them who were targets still standing there.

The shelling stopped, and Xie Lian recovered from the shock. Regardless of the image, he pulled a chair and sat next to Zhang Chu. He had many questions to ask Zhang Chu, but if Zhang Chu sat with his governor standing and asked Zhang Chu for advice, this would definitely encourage Zhang Chu's arrogance. So he simply pulled a chair over and kept himself in the posture of sitting with Zhang Chu on an equal footing and asked Zhang Chu to ask.

"Where did you get these guns?" Although the number and types of firearms in the Ming army were very large, in fact, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming artillery manufacturing had been surpassed by other countries in the world. The imperial court was amazed by the medium artillery on the Western ships brought from Macao, and named them generals.

The artillery used by Zhang Chu is not only light in weight, long in range, but also super fast in rate of fire, Xie Lian knows that it is very cumbersome to reload and clean the chamber when the cannon is fired, and it is necessary to prevent the chamber from overheating when firing continuously, and it will take a long time to cool down the chamber. And when Zhang Chu used these cannons, Xie Lian didn't see these programs when he was shooting, and only saw the shells shooting out continuously. As a general who has been fighting the rebels with artillery in Laizhou City for several months, he naturally knows what such artillery means.

"These cannons were all designed and manufactured by Zhang Chu." Zhang Chu attributed all the credit for the invention of these cannons to his own name, and never thought that he was doing serious piracy.

"How many of these guns do you have?" Xie Lian became nervous, if these artillery pieces were really as Zhang Chu said, the security army could make such advanced artillery, then the Ming Dynasty would be in danger. (To be continued.) )