It took Xu Renjie a short time, and finally figured out the use of the revolver musket, he took out a porcelain bowl from the pile of celadon nonchalantly, put it on the ground in the distance, and then retreated more than ten zhang with the firecracker, raised the gun and aimed.\\

Westerners were shocked: "Hey, do you want to use that porcelain bowl to test the gun?" Please let the cloth be ruined like this, that porcelain bowl is very valuable......"

"Smack!"

The foreigner's words have not yet spoken, the gunshot has already sounded, Xu Renjie doesn't care what is worth it or not, he was originally a big businessman with a lot of money, usually when he is in a bad mood at home, it is common to take a porcelain bottle from Jingdezhen to smash and play, he didn't take such a small celadon bowl to his heart at all, but he didn't know that the foreigner was screaming in his heart: such a porcelain bowl can be sold to Europe for fifty times the price, and a bowl can be worth a silver coin...... This man actually aimed at the musket, and did not carry such a waste.

After a long while, the smoke dispersed, and the porcelain bowl was unharmed, and a small pit was punched by a bullet on the ground next to it, and the smoothbore gun only had such accuracy...... What's more, Xu Renjie's marksmanship is terrible, even if he is given a modern rifle with extremely high accuracy, he will not be able to aim accurately.

The Westerners were overjoyed, pounced on the tiger, hugged the porcelain bowl that had survived the catastrophe, and shouted: "If you want the cloth, give it to me, and the cloth will be used to test the gun again......"

The crowd laughed: "Send you, look at your virtue." ”

In this era, the cultural differences between the East and the West are still very huge, and the Oriental people are more interested in face, while the Westerners are more interest-oriented. To let an Oriental pick up porcelain bowls like this shamelessly, not to mention the rich, even many poor people can't do it. But Westerners don't care about what face is not faced, they prefer to do what they want.

So when the Westerner heard that this porcelain bowl was given to him, he didn't feel embarrassed at all, so he quickly wiped the porcelain bowl clean with the corner of his clothes, stuffed it into the bag he carried, and his face was full of smiles: "Hey, pick up a bowl for nothing." ”

Everyone was speechless, this is also a world-class black businessman, why did a bowl turn him like this?

At this time, the business was basically over, and the Westerners were the kind of personality that couldn't be idle, so he asked to visit Baishui, and Zhu Yuanzhang and Xu Renjie accompanied him around. As he walked, the man looked left and right, wanting to know more about the situation, and after looking at it for a while, he was happy: "You have a lot of potatoes planted in the picking...... It's something I haven't seen anywhere else...... The farmers of the Ming Dynasty do not try crops that have not been seen before......"

Zhu Yuanzhang and Xu Renjie both smiled and said nothing.

After turning around a few more times, the Westerners said, "You don't have a Buddhist temple or Taoist temple in the picking, don't the people in the pickings have faith?" ”

"People who can't eat enough have the time and mood to engage in any faith." Xu Renjie spread his hands.

"Oh, I have a different opinion." Westerners laughed and said, "The poorer the person, the easier it is to have faith......

Zhu Yuanzhang had no objection to this statement, nodded and said: "That's right, it's not that the people here have no faith, but they are so poor that they can't even afford the temples and Taoist temples...... Monks and Taoist priests also starved to death and fled from the famine...... "He is talking about the situation a few years ago, after Zhu Yuanzhang's army occupied Baishui in recent years, the people have become rich, but the temples and Taoist temples have been deserted, and they have not been able to take care of reconstruction.

Westerner: "I know two missionaries who are willing to build monasteries anywhere, without the support of the local people, if you need them, I can refer them here to spread the faith......"

At this time, the Catholics who came to the Ming Dynasty were all Catholics who came to China to preach at the behest of the Pope, and their purpose was not simple, not only to spread Catholicism, but also to privately collect and record a large amount of information on China's politics, military, economy, geography, customs, and human feelings through missionary activities, and to report this information to the Holy See, and then vainly tried to use religion to conquer and control the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the Pope had been trying to bring the whole world under the control of the Holy See by means of proselytizing, but it turned out that this was a very stupid and impossible way to work.

At that time, the Ming people did not know that they harbored evil intentions, but the Ming Dynasty people relied on instinctive intuition to reject Catholicism out of their emphasis on tradition and contempt for Western barbarians, which made it difficult for Catholicism to take root in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the missionaries seized every opportunity and tried by all means to drill into the interior.

For example, in the last few years on the eve of the fall of the Ming court, two missionaries named Lizisi and An Wensi found Zhang Xianzhong, hoping to preach on Zhang Xianzhong's territory, and also left an important document "The Sacred Religion Enters Sichuan", which shows that as long as they can preach, they are willing to get close to you whether you are a court or a thief.

Hearing Feng Wuxian say this, Zhu Yuanzhang was interested, he knew that the missionaries were uneasy and kind, but he also knew that the Pope's delusions were impossible to realize, even if these missionaries were allowed to come, they would only achieve nothing, because history has long proved that Catholicism cannot control our Celestial Empire. On the contrary, our Celestial Empire can use these missionaries to gain a lot of scientific knowledge and medical technology.

He pretended not to care and said, "Missionary? Well...... Whatever, they can come if they want, it doesn't matter if they don't come, I don't have more of them here, and it doesn't matter if they don't have enough. ”

When Feng Wuxian heard this, he was secretly happy, if the Western merchants at this time could help the Holy See find a place where they could settle down and build a monastery, they would receive a large amount of honorarium from the Holy See. Since the other party did not show obvious disgust, this matter can most likely be negotiated, so the joy is born.

Zhu Yuanzhang could guess what he was thinking, and he was secretly happy in his heart: As long as you get me two monks, I will have a way to dig out all the knowledge in their stomachs...... Let's see which of us can get the yin.

The two can be said to have a good conversation.

A few days later, Xu Renjie sent a caravan, led by the big shopkeeper of his family, and then sent three hundred elite swordsmen to protect the goods, and loaded the celadon, green tea, Shu brocade, and Shu embroidery in the warehouse to Guangdong.

This time, the gunpowder trade completely concealed Xia Erduo, he always thought that he was just running a sweet potato trade, and after he came back, he began to study the technology of cultivating sweet potatoes, Li Qingshui was also very concerned about this new crop, and the two brothers of the county and county squatted on the edge of the field all day to study sweet potatoes, and became like two old farmers.

While they were playing with sweet potatoes, Zhu Yuanzhang distributed gunpowder to Yang Hong, and Zhu Yuanzhang's firearms troops could finally train normally with live ammunition.

In fact, there are not a lot of firearms troops in the Ming Dynasty, many guards have firearms, and the border army is equipped with firearms in a large area, but they lack live-fire practice, so the firearms troops cannot exert their maximum power when they are in battle, Zhu Yuanzhang absolutely does not allow such a situation to happen, and he requires all firearms soldiers to undergo full live-fire training.

Reloading, aiming, shooting, all the movements have to be practiced repeatedly.

The imperial court could not afford this kind of training, the reason was that the financial constraints were tight, and tens of thousands of Guan Ning soldiers only needed one person to shoot a gun, which was enough for the imperial court's military expenses to drink a pot. However, Zhu Yuanzhang's army did not have this problem, he now only has only 350 firecrackers, and this kind of firecracker training can be completely supported by the financial resources of three counties.

At the same time as the firecrackers began to train, Zhu Yuanzhang also began to plan to integrate the blacksmiths of Babaoshan.

The blacksmiths of Babaoshan have always provided armaments for Zhu Yuanzhang's army with the working method of private handicraft workshops, digging iron ore by themselves, smelting iron by themselves, and then using hammers to make them into instruments, such a working method is really very backward.

Zhu Yuanzhang, who has watched the world in the sky for hundreds of years, already has the concept of subdivision in later generations, and it is undoubtedly stupid and inefficient to let a small family independently complete a complete set of production processes. The best way is to subdivide the work, mining for mining, iron for iron, and weapons for weapons...... After the subdivision of the production process, the entire production can be organized and the efficiency can be greatly increased.

In the past, he was not in a hurry to intervene because he was just a guest to the blacksmiths of Babaoshan, but after more than half a year of trading, he has become the superior boss who controls the lifeblood of the blacksmiths of Babaoshan......

Now that he has such influence, he can start to make some demands and make plans for the blacksmiths, without worrying that the other party will not agree.

Zhu Yuanzhang first separated those who lacked the skills to build weapons among the mine thieves, and let them concentrate on mining stones, and nothing else. The ore dug up by these people does not need to be smelted into pig iron, so Zhu Yuanzhang directly pays for it.

Then select some blacksmiths from among the blacksmiths who have poor ability to make weapons and are not very qualified to make things, let them no longer engage in crafting, but give them a large amount of raw ore, and let them be responsible for smelting these stones into pig iron, and he is responsible for making "iron-making wages".

Finally, the pig iron is handed directly to the skilled blacksmiths, who are responsible for making the pig iron into weapons and paying them according to the number of pieces.

At first, blacksmiths were not very accustomed to this method, and there were always some ironsmiths who would secretly craft a few weapons, and some blacksmiths who were responsible for crafting weapons would secretly make iron in their own homes.

But after a while, they found that they could earn more money by doing one thing alone than they could by doing it all! This is a very obvious truth, if you do everything, you will delay a lot of useless time, but if you concentrate on only one kind of work, the efficiency will be higher, and of course you will make more money.

So after a period of adjustment, the craftsmen finally found their own positioning, no longer as a family unit to engage in production, but each split into a link, concentrating on doing their own things.

After straightening out the production line, Zhu Yuanzhang selected a handful of people with the best skills, handed them the revolver musket, and let them try to imitate it...... This solved the problem of scientific research, and since then, the work efficiency of the blacksmiths in Babaoshan has increased greatly......

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