The banquet has begun, Wu Jin and Feng Wu were invited, Qi Huan is today's master of ceremonies, and he also followed, leaving only Qi Wannian and Qi Zhu father and son in the room.

Qi Wannian stood up a little tiredly, and smiled at his eldest son: "I've been sitting for a long time and the blood in my legs is blocked, you can accompany me to the back garden for a walk!" ”

Qi Zhu nodded silently and helped his father to walk towards the back garden.

The sky was still covered with drizzle, and the white snow particles had covered the rocks, ponds and trees in the back garden, making the whole back garden white.

Qi Zhu helped his father slowly walk on the cobblestone path with a thin layer of white snow, the air was cold and fresh, Qi Wannian looked at the gray sky and let out a long breath of white air.

"I feel that my father's heart is heavy."

Qi Wannian smiled bitterly and said slowly: "Wu Jin's words, did you hear something?" ”

"I have a feeling that he is very ambitious."

"That's right, his ambition is not ordinary, 'the world is in chaos, and the kings are seizing the heir,' his words have a deep meaning! Does this king include him? ”

Qi Wannian sighed, "If I guessed correctly, his purpose is not to protect himself, but to participate in the competition for the world, Xiliang has 200,000 strong troops, he has 50,000 sailors, and recruits another 100,000 private troops, this is 350,000 troops, such strength, is he just self-preservation?" ”

Qi Zhu was silent, he helped his father walk slowly, and after a long time, he whispered: "Father, I think this is a good thing." ”

"A good thing?"

Qi Wannian looked back at him, "What do you think is good?" ”

"Father, if he succeeds, the Qi family will be able to prosper for at least another three hundred years."

"What if he fails?" Qi Wannian unceremoniously refuted his son.

The two of them didn't speak for a while, and the two continued to move forward, Qi Wannian shook his head slightly, breaking the silence, "Hey! Maybe I'm too old, my courage is getting smaller and smaller, and I'm always afraid that the Qi family will be raided and exterminated. ”

"As my father said, Qi Ruifu's family business is too big, and there are too many celebrities."

At this time, Qi Zhu said unusually calmly: "So the Qi family can no longer be as risky as a small business, I think the risk of the Qi family is already very large, it is already the risk of stealing the family and destroying the family, for example, this run tide, if there is no Wujin to resist, whether the Qi family wins or loses, it is a dead end, Baifu and Donglai join forces, that is, to put the Qi family to death, the money village is just a breakthrough, once the money village is destroyed, followed by all the industries, all of them will be crushed, if there is no Wu Jin, what will happen if we win?" The prince said a word, the Qi family fornicated with the Phoenix Society, and then the king of Qi found out the evidence, and wiped out the house in the same way, just like Yang Tingjiang in Weiyang County thirty years ago, fortunately we have Wujin, so that we can escape this catastrophe, if he is finished, the Qi family is also finished. ”

Qi Wannian did not refute, nor did he speak, still silently listening to the eldest son's analysis.

"Father, since the Qi family already has such a big industry, then we must take the same big risk, there are some things we can't escape, so it's better to fight, success, our Qi family will prosper for another three hundred years, if it fails, we will follow Wujin to flee overseas, go overseas to re-establish our own dynasty, what does my father think?"

Qi Wannian was moved by his son's determination to break the boat, "Okay! This time I listen to you, Wujin wants to participate in the succession, let's support him with Qi Ruifu's greatest strength, and we will also do Lu Buwei once! ”

Qi Wannian laughed heartily, and the happy voice made Qi Zhu feel as if his father had returned to thirty years ago.

．．．．．．． Half a month later, Chuzhou's preparations for war began to be fully mobilized, and the counties transported tax silver and official grain to Jiangning in batches according to the will of the imperial court, as well as tents, pig iron, boats, timber, coal, fire oil and other large quantities of materials were also transported one after another, all the materials, money and grain were stored in thirty huge warehouses on the wharf, which were closely guarded by the navy, and the management of these money, grain and materials was also transferred to the navy governor's office.

Not only money, food and materials, but also the king of Heiliang and the governor of the navy, Huangfu Wujin, ordered to recruit 1,000 blacksmiths from all over the country to serve in Jiangning, and at the same time conveyed the will of the imperial court, and each county should recruit 3,000 strong men to go to Jiangning Mansion for training, as a reserve militia of sailors, and the service period was six months.

Originally, the counties of Chuzhou were not enthusiastic about the extermination of the Phoenix Society, and now they not only levy grain and money, but also recruit 3,000 strong, how much grain and silver are needed, and the official grain and tax silver from all over the country have been transported to Jiangning, what kind of recruitment do they take, and the counties have sent letters to the Governor's Office of the Navy and Army, and politely rejected this order.

However, the will of the imperial court was here, and it could not be given up because of the polite refusal of the county, and Huangfu Wujin immediately ordered the Navy Military Mansion to form 20 recruitment teams to recruit elite people in each county, with 100,000 people as the upper limit, and concentrate on training in Jiangning Mansion.

With the 800 warships of the Jingzhou Navy and the 30,000 elite soldiers selected by the Dadu Governor's Mansion from all over Chuzhou arrived at the Jiangning Navy Army Mansion to prepare for the war and enter the **, Huangfu Wujin ordered as early as 20 days that all the sailors gathered in Jiangning to prepare for the first sea exercise.

．．．．．．．．．． In the past few days, the family feels that Wujin is very busy, going out early and returning late, and the mood is also extremely excited, as if there is something very worthy of everyone's expectations, Su Han asked Wujin's pro-soldiers, and the pro-soldiers squeaked and whined, no one could say, just when the family was guessing what Wujin was doing, Jingniang fell ill unexpectedly.

Everyone's mind turned to Jing Niang, and the doctor said that she was not actually sick, so what could it be?

In the northeast corner of the Meihuawei military camp, there are twenty rooms, the rooms are filled with one million catties of fine iron seized from the quarry town, ten days ago, twenty iron-striking blast furnaces were erected on the large open space next to the house, more than 200 blacksmiths and masons requisitioned from all over the country are busy here every day, all the soldiers think that this must be building weapons, but some people have doubts, their weapons are provided by the governor, how much to give, there is no need to build their own weapons.

Although there is doubt, the area is already separated by a fence, and no one can go to see the truth.

In front of one of the largest blast furnaces, an old blacksmith of about sixty years old is instructing several masons to make a model of straight sand, which is not wrong in thickness and size.

At this time, Wu Jin walked quickly under the escort of several personal soldiers, and he couldn't hold back the excitement in his heart and asked, "Master Wang, I heard that there is a new finished product again?" ”

This old blacksmith's surname is Wang, he is the old blacksmith in the capital introduced by Chen Jinjin, and he can make a cannon that Wu Jin dreams of.

Blacksmith Wang nodded, got up and said, "General, please come with me!" ”

He took Wu Jin to a room, Wang blacksmith was ten days ago from the capital to Jiangning Mansion, seven days ago to build the first cannon, but unfortunately the two pieces of fused cannon can not withstand the pressure of the chamber, in the test of the explosion of the chamber, after summing up the lessons of failure, Wang blacksmith began to cast a new cannon, using the sand mold method casting, because the use of extremely high hardness of fine iron, and there are skilled professional clay tiles to make a model, after the test and failed fifteen times, this morning, finally created a satisfactory artillery.

Wang blacksmith took out the key to open the iron lock, he pushed the door open, the light shone into the dark room, only to see a swarthy cannon in the middle of the house, exactly the same as the sketch drawn by Wu Jin, Wu Jin slowly stepped forward and squatted down, gently stroked this sharp firearm, the gun body and the inner chamber were polished very smooth, the most satisfying thing for Wu Jin was that this cannon was poured smoothly, without a trace of cracks, and it could be seen that the blacksmith level was superb.

The artillery was a straight-barreled cannon, six feet long, weighing four hundred catties, and if it played normally, the range of the shell would be five hundred paces, far exceeding the original stone machine.

"General, this cannon needs to be fixed on the ship with an iron hoop or an iron anchor, so that its breech vibration will not be too great, and it cannot be fired continuously, and after firing three times, you must wait for it to cool down, otherwise it is easy to explode, and it is very dangerous to explode on the ship."

Wu Jin nodded, "I want to test it!" ”

"Yes, let's go!"

Wu Jin called a carriage, lifted the cannon into the carriage, and headed out of the camp.

The test site is not far from the barracks, is the firearms test site of the Jiangning Metropolitan Governor's Ordnance Bureau, located at the foot of a large open space, all kinds of pig iron mines, projectile thunder, etc., are tested here.

Ten special test soldiers carried the heavy artillery to the specially built turret, aimed the muzzle at the open field in the distance, they have tested more than a dozen times, including the first two-piece fusion artillery, the artillery itself is a successful test, the key is to solve the problem of exploding the chamber, according to their experience, as long as five consecutive shots do not explode the chamber, it is a success.

After more than a dozen tests, they have found a solution, one is to transform the gun body, thicken the rear gun wall, and form an irregular cylindrical shape with thick back and thin front, and then the dose of gunpowder, not more, not less, they have obtained the accurate dose, and solve it with a special method, that is, to make a standard dose of gunpowder bag with fire paper, and put a pack for each shot, so as to ensure the accuracy of the dose.

"General, shoot hollow bullets or live ammunition?" A sergeant asked.

The hollow bullet is a flowering bullet, which contains gunpowder, and the body of the bullet will explode after being shot, which is extremely lethal.

"Shoot hollow bullets!" Wu Jin ordered without hesitation.

The two sergeants involved in the test were already very proficient in maneuvering, they stuffed a bag of gunpowder through the muzzle, pressed the gun tightly with the barrel, inserted a fuse through the fuse hole, and then put a hollow bullet with a long fuse into the muzzle, one for the shell itself and one for firing gunpowder.

"General, please take thirty steps back!"

From the very beginning, the blacksmith Wang was very careful, so although there were many explosions, none of the soldiers were injured, and at the same time, in order to prevent the gun body from violently shaking and rebounding, the gun body was firmly fixed with a hundred-pound iron anchor.

Wu Jin and the other soldiers quickly retreated, leaving only one ignition soldier at the scene, he used his torch to first ignite the cannonball fuse of the muzzle, and then ignited the firing fuse behind him, turned around and ran, just ran more than 20 steps, only to hear 'boom! There was a loud bang, and a puff of white smoke erupted from the muzzle of the cannon, and the cannon body did not move, followed by a rumbling explosion hundreds of paces away, and white smoke rose into the air.

But this was only the first time, and the soldiers fired five more fires at once, and when the fifth shell exploded in the distance, and the cannon remained unmoved, not exploded, and did not shake, the crowd immediately cheered.

"It worked!"

They jumped up and hugged each other tightly in excitement, and Wu Jin was so excited that he slowly knelt down, and his first cannon was finally born.

(To be continued)