"Is it the Queen?"

Sima Shu rolled over again, frowning and thinking. Empress Jia has not given birth to a son so far, but this does not mean that the queen will not give birth to a prince in the future. Once Empress Jia gave birth to a prince, how could she watch Sima Shu occupy the East Palace.

Moreover, Sima Shu's mother is from a humble background, and she is still only a lady, Xie Jiu's mother's family can't be compared with the Jia family who is in the limelight, if it weren't for Sima Shu being Sima Zhen's only son, he wouldn't be able to be made the prince anyway!

As long as Sima Shu is removed or abolished, the crown prince will definitely be born to the daughter of the Jia family in the future, and only in this way can the Jia family prosper forever.

"Empress Jia's possible surname is the largest!"

Sima Shu preliminarily judged that he still did not have a brother by his side, and it was impossible for other concubines to do things behind his back. In addition, Queen Jia is a person with a criminal record, and every time there is news of pregnancy among Sima Zhen's concubines, she must think of ways to kill the other party.

The reason why Sima Shu was able to survive was thanks to his mother's cleverness, and he invited Sima Yan to take their mother and son to the palace to take care of them, otherwise his life would have been gone if he couldn't wait for Sima Zhen to ascend the throne.

The palace is a big sauce jar, people with few eyes can't live long at all, and the reason why Sima Shu can still live a good life is because Queen Jia has been fighting with Empress Dowager Yang for power before, and now that the Empress Dowager has been abolished, the Yang family has also been uprooted, and Empress Jia's political opponents are basically gone.

I'm afraid that now that she has free her hand, maybe it won't be long before Queen Jia will reach out to him with her poisonous hand, or that the other party has already begun to act.

Sima Sixiang's head hurts, and he can't make a decision at all, he knows too little about the inside story of the palace, and there is no one who can help him. In the East Palace, he couldn't trust anyone at all, plus there was a father who didn't even know his son, it was indeed not easy to find out the real culprit behind the scenes and take revenge.

What you can do now is to survive and get rid of the enemy in front of you. Thinking of this, his head hurts even more, his body is still very weak, if he goes head-to-head, an adult man with normal hands and feet can strangle himself to death, and there is no one around him who can be trusted.

"Alas! It seems that Jia Hou is doing it again! ”

Thinking of this, Sima Shu added a trace of worry, it is said that the prince has just had a problem, no matter how much Sima Shu messed around before, his safety palace will not let it go, there must be someone in front of him to make a ghost in advance, thinking of this, Sima Shu couldn't help but shudder, it seems that he has to be more careful.

Through repeated observations, Sima Shu found that only Manager Liu really cared about him in the entire East Palace, and the others just looked at his status as a prince and treated him poorly, and no one really took him seriously. Although Sima Shu was not angry, he did not act rashly.

And there is an unknown force out there that wants to assassinate him, and he must get rid of this threat as soon as possible. Before his own strength was restored, Sima Shu was ready to use external forces, so he asked Manager Liu to find what he needed from the outside, and prepared to make a simple flintlock pistol by himself.

As a graduate of the Mechanical Academy and a veteran of the army, Sima Yu did know the process of making a simple flintlock pistol, and after making up his mind, he got all the things he needed into the study through Manager Liu, and then he began to make pistols by himself, of course, some large parts still need to be commissioned to be made by outside craftsmen.

Speaking of firearms, there have been many advanced firearms in Chinese history, but due to the lack of attention from above, firearms eventually did not become the mainstream equipment of the Chinese army, and this situation lasted until the Republic of China.

Qi Jiguang of the Ming Dynasty once praised the bird gun as the first sharp weapon in the battle, the sharp energy cave armor, the shooting can hit, and the bow and arrow can reach. Historically, the Qi family army trained the bird gunner, and stood a five-foot-high wooden card in eighty steps, and the bird gunner shot three shots and one hit, and ten shots and seven Chinese sides were the art masters. However, the process of making the bird gun is complex, and the skill of the craftsman is quite high, so it is necessary to find some good craftsmen to make a good musket.

Sima Shu once asked Mr. Liu about the level of craftsmen nearby, and although Mr. Liu was very upset that the prince was messing around, he still tried his best to find a few qualified craftsmen for the prince. That's the benefit of having privilege.

After getting the exact news, Sima Shu immediately clapped his head and said: "Even so, there is Manager Lao who is responsible for making these parts out of Guji!" In addition, we must give sufficient remuneration and ensure quality! ”

"Please rest assured, Your Highness!"

According to Sima Shu's estimates, plus the price of iron, charcoal, the wages and food of craftsmen, and other expenses, the cost of a bird gun is three to five yuan. And he didn't think that he could succeed in one step, with the current craftsman's technology, coupled with the fact that the steel is not up to par, the bird gun is easy to be damaged for a long time, so Sima Shu had to endure the pain and use the expensive copper barrel.

Historically, the Ming Dynasty has very strict requirements for the quality of birds, whether it is the Ministry of Industry or the local health institutes, they must indicate a certain department, a certain guard, a certain institute, a certain year, a certain season to make a certain word, and then need to make a book, so that they can be checked at any time. However, even with so many regulations, the quality of Daming weapons is obvious to all. Of course, the reason for the low quality of Ming weapons is also related to the [***] of officialdom and the poor artisan system.

Immediately, when Sima Shu talked to Mr. Liu about the specific production process, it was only then that Sima Shu discovered that the production of muskets in ancient times was really complicated. The production of this bird gun, if it is in accordance with the practice of the Ming Dynasty, the first is the gun, the wrought iron that is made of the gun pipe is burned red, and then it is hammered on a steel core, so that it is rolled into an iron pipe, and then wrapped in the second layer outside after cooling, and the percussion is fine, and after reaching a certain thickness, the steel core is extracted, and a section of the gun pipe is completed. After making several sections of the pipe, they are welded together one by one, which is the key, and it is easy to blow up and bored if the welding is not good. After the preliminary pipe is done, it is necessary to drill out the boring with a steel cone to frustrate the crosshairs, which is the longest here, sometimes up to a month, and then the boring is scraped clean with a steel bar, and then various assemblies.

However, fortunately, Sima Shu prepared to use copper, which was a little easier than steel, but the cost was high, and it would be a little cost-effective if the musket was promoted in the future.

Sima Shu handed over the specific work to General Manager Liu, while he himself commanded it remotely. This said, Mr. Liu came to ask for advice. "Your Highness, the slave maid has a problem to ask Your Highness, that is, the inner and outer layers of pipes need to be tightly pressed together, which is extremely difficult for craftsmen with ordinary crafts to complete, and the time spent is surprisingly high, how can we solve it?"

Sima Shu has received hundreds of years of accumulation of large-scale industrial influence, naturally has a solution, said with a smile: "What you are talking about is that each craftsman completes the production of the inner and outer layers of the pipes by himself, and the time is naturally very slow, why not change to the inner and outer layers of pipes made by different people, and finally the people behind them assemble them?" In this way, the time to make the barrel is greatly reduced! ”

Manager Liu was stunned for a moment, and carefully pondered for a while before speaking: "Your Highness's method is that one person is responsible for making one thing, and the speed will naturally increase a lot, but the barrels made by different people are not the same, and it is really difficult to ensure that all the internal and external barrels made can be used." ”

Sima Shu blurted out without thinking: "That's not easy? We only need to specify the size of the inner and outer pipes, and only the pipes that meet the requirements are qualified. ”

Sima Shu then painted the most mature flintlock pistol of later generations, especially the bolt of the flintlock pistol, vividly depicted it. The most difficult part of making a musket is the process of drilling the bore.

Historically, the musket of the Ming Dynasty is usually octagonal, the body of the gun is thick at one end and the other is thin, the thick one is made of the belly, the thin one is made of the mouth, the musket is still rough when it is first made, and the chamber is rough and uneven. Drilling skills are more refined, skilled in this technology of the manpower is also limited, in the Ming Dynasty, good drill bits and frustration knives are the use of the best fallen steel, fallen steel has been regarded as the best hard steel at that time, but in fact, the surname of steel and later generations is still far from the same, with the fall steel drill shaft, it is still difficult to drill, a month to drill light can also be understood.

Moreover, after the rifle is drilled, it is necessary to use a four-edged steel bar to scrape the inner tongue of the gun, and make the screw back door, etc., so it usually takes a long time to make a bird dysprosium at that time, and a large number of skilled workers are required, and the output is not very high. Most of the time spent making the musket was spent on the drilling and boring of the barrel.

Sima Shu also knew that there was no mechanical drill in this era, and he could only solve it by himself, and there was no way, he had raised the bounty for the craftsmen to solve by themselves, anyway, he just made a gun for self-defense.

While making muskets, Sima Shu did not forget to make gunpowder, he directly used granular gunpowder that was easy to preserve and powerful, he was a soldier and was also very good at dispensing gunpowder, and it didn't take long for him to get the granular gunpowder he needed for the military.

In the next few days, Sima Shu used the excuse of being ill, and the cat never went out in his courtyard. It's not like it's been a long time since I got up today, and the prince Sima Shu has been hiding in the small study and hasn't come out, and he doesn't allow anyone to go in and disturb him.

Except for Father-in-law Liu, no one could step into the study, and it took him more than a month to finally make all kinds of parts, and after his repeated trials, a simple flintlock pistol was finally made by him. Although it was only a rudimentary flintlock pistol, the barrel was still copper, and due to the accuracy of the ancient machining, its power was only 30 meters. However, this is enough to protect himself, and since he got the pistol, Sima Shu has to take it with him every time he goes out.

Because he didn't want to die assassination for no apparent reason!

At night, Sima Shu had just finished exercising, and he was sweating, and at this time he was lying on the couch like a dead dog and didn't want to move, and he didn't even have the strength to raise his hand to wipe the sweat off his face. After a while, Sima Shu gasped for breath and turned over to take a hot bath.

At that moment, the sound of the chime was heard outside, and it was already midday, about nine o'clock and 11 o'clock in the modern evening. He had just dried his body and lay on the bed, ready to fall asleep, when there was a sudden soft sound on the roof, and Sima Shu quietly pulled out his pistol from under the pillow and rolled out of bed and hid in the dark.

The sound of footsteps stopped abruptly at the eaves, a figure was reflected in the window, Sima Shu held his breath, held his gun and stared at the figure waiting for his next move.

The visitor observed for a moment, listened for a moment, and then gently pushed open the window and rolled in.

"Damn, it seems that the other party won't give up if I die! There was no chance on the road, so she went directly to the East Palace, Queen Jia is really like a poisonous scorpion! Sima Shu gently raised the hammer and aimed the muzzle of the gun at the black shadow.

"Bang!" In the silence of the night, the sound of gunfire was heard far away, and the Assassin fell under the window. Sima Shu took the opportunity to run out of the room and shouted: "Assassin, there are assassins......"

A terrible shout suddenly sounded in the prince's room, coupled with the thunderous sound just now, the whole courtyard was alarmed. The little yellow door on duty immediately rang the gong to warn and shouted loudly.

The only thing that was a little unusual was that the guards of the East Palace, who were supposed to arrive a long time ago, were nowhere to be found......

Seeing this, Sima Shu showed a sneer, it seems that Empress Jia really wants to get rid of himself and hurry up! This East Palace is too dangerous, and there is no one available here for Sima Shu at all.

For more than a month, Sima Shu found that except for the governor Liu Gonggong, who was loyal to him, everyone else was more or less involved in various forces in the court.