As early as 20 years ago, when Song Zhenzong was in power, a big drama of "Lanyuan Alliance" was staged. Although under the city of Lanzhou, I don't know which Song soldier killed the general of Liao with a bed crossbow like a god, and barely won the battle, and finally was able to send money to end the battle.

This incident deeply pierced the hearts of the subjects of the Northern Song Dynasty, as if telling the Song people that as long as the Liao State was willing, they could gather hundreds of thousands of cavalry to hang around the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty at any time.

And Zhao Zhen's fancy location of this Cizhou is still in the north of Lanzhou, once the establishment of an industrial base in this place, large-scale steelmaking, it is like putting bones in a dog hole, you must know that the Khitan people's dedication to iron is no less than the dog's pursuit of bones.

Although the Liao State has been thinking about it at the moment, it is not enough to shake its foundation, and it is not difficult to gather two or three hundred thousand cavalry, and the border army of the Northern Song Dynasty is not able to deal with such a large-scale cavalry now, after all, it is impossible to stop people from passing around the city just by defending the city.

Zhao Zhen thought about it, and although he coveted this place, he had to give up for the time being, at least not before his field army became large. After much thought, he said to Li Tiezhu: "So be it! For the time being, a small industrial zone will be built in the vicinity of Wanzhuang in the west of the city, where you will gradually adjust the size of the open-hearth, and then it will also be used as a place where you will supervise and conduct large-scale experiments. I took a look, and the mining points marked on your map are basically distributed on both sides of the Yellow River, and choosing this place is also convenient for future ore transportation. Your iron-smelting team is the first to enter this place, and the firearms team will also be stationed in the future, and I will officially change the name of this place to Jingxi Industrial Park. ”

"Wechen obeys!"

Subsequently, Zhao Zhen came to the firearms group with a transcribed mineral map, and the old Duan Xin was working hard to direct a group of people to conduct experiments nervously.

I only heard Duan Xin shouting in a hoarse voice: "If it's lit, run back, everyone hide!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard a "boom", Zhao Zhen didn't notice it for a while, and he was so frightened that he almost fell. This plot happened to be seen by Duan Xin, and he hurriedly came over to salute Zhao Zhen.

"Disturb the emperor, the old minister should die, please punish the emperor!"

"I didn't inform you in advance, but you will have to put a sentry outside in the future." Zhao Zhen said lightly: "Come and tell me, what were you doing just now?" Such a big battle. ”

"Back to the emperor, the minister is testing the grenade you said, according to your previous instructions, we have purified the current gunpowder, and added egg whites to make granules, and its power has really increased greatly. But now, no matter how we adjust, the power of this gunpowder seems to have reached a bottleneck. The minister had no clue for a while, and it happened that the minister had heard that His Majesty had said that the grenade was a thing with great power, and it was especially suitable for the soldiers of our dynasty who lacked cavalry to deal with the cavalry, so Wei Chen pondered for a while......"

Duan Xin picked up the terracotta jar next to him and said to Zhao Zhen: "Your Majesty, you see, the ministers just put gunpowder in this jar, add a fuse, and throw it out after ignition. Just now, the ministers tried it and disturbed the emperor. ”

"Oh! Don't know how powerful it is? Zhao Zhen looked at a small ordinary pickle jar in his hand and asked in surprise, but he didn't expect that he just inadvertently mentioned it to them, and they began to toss according to a few simple descriptions, and it was neat and tidy.

"After such a big jar was filled with medicine, the fragments of the explosion flew hundreds of paces, fortunately, the ministers and others had protection in advance, you see that this is fifty steps away, and the fragments of this crockpot are all nailed to this wooden baffle. If you can come in the enemy's formation, you must be able to hurt people within 50 steps! ”

Zhao Zhen's face turned black after hearing this, you are really ignorant and fearless, such a big jar still dares to fill it, Leng doesn't know how to write dead words! If it weren't for Zhao Zhen's usual telling them to pay attention to protection, it is estimated that they would all be reimbursed now. Besides, does this thing of yours have a dime to do with grenades, it has caught up with the range of shells in later generations, I'm afraid that the soldier is almost the same as carrying a thing, and he is still fighting!

No matter what he said, Zhao Zhen couldn't hurt people's enthusiasm, so he had to say euphemistically: "Aiqing!" You must be careful when you conduct experiments in the future, these are all dangerous places, but this time it is good to be blocked by these baffles, if you are too powerful, it will be troublesome. ”

"Yes, yes...... Lao Chen must pay attention! Duan Xin also found himself hot-headed at this time, and he only ignored some other aspects in pursuit of power, so he had to blush and resigned.

"Anyway, your spirit of subjective creation is still worthy of recognition, everyone is frightened, and they will be rewarded after work, and make up for it!"

"Thank you for your kindness!"

"Now that you've started working on this thing, I'm going to give you a good talk today. As we all know, weapons are essential for sergeants, so the invention of any kind of weapon must consider how the sergeant uses it. For example, this grenade that you are pondering, as the name suggests, is a thunder in your hand, that is, an explosive firearm that is thrown by hand.

How can you make it easy for a soldier to use and be able to inflict a lot of damage on the enemy without hurting yourself? That's what you need to think about as weapons developers. Take the jar you chose, for example, how far can you screw it and throw it? With this power now, can you avoid it yourself? ”

The rest of the people behaved like Duan Xin, all blushing and bowing their heads, all of them only cared about the power, and did not consider the issue of applicability at all.

Zhao Zhen looked at everyone's performance, and it was not good to continue to fight, so he changed his words: "You don't have to be embarrassed, you must know that any kind of innovation and invention will go through all kinds of twists and turns, and it can only be practical after continuous improvement." What you have to do is to keep summarizing the experiments, saving the essence and eliminating the dross. Of course, you should also go to the various military camps to conduct field investigations, so as to invent more weapons and equipment to arm our Korean soldiers, strengthen their combat effectiveness, and ensure the peace of our Great Song Dynasty! ”

"Thank you for the emperor's teachings, the ministers must keep it in mind!" Everyone bowed down and replied in unison.

"Well, let's get down to business, grenades, as a hand-thrown weapon for individual soldiers, mainly consider the distance that soldiers can throw, and consider the appropriate weight and explosive power according to the strength of the soldiers. Just like you do, the power is enough, but it is not convenient to use and carry. If the size and weight of the jar are reduced, the pit will definitely affect the power of the explosion. If our soldiers fight against the enemy's cavalry, should we think more about the distance we throw? These are all questions that you need to experiment with slowly in the future to find the most suitable grenade for our sergeant to use. ”

"Wait for you to understand!"

"Bring me pen and paper, and I'll give you a brief picture of my understanding of this grenade."

After a while, the official next to him laid out the white paper, and Zhao Zhen took the brush and explained while drawing on the paper: "Ladies and gentlemen, please see, I think that in order to make this grenade easier to hold, we can design the shape of a long-necked vase, so that the hand can be held in a thin section and waved and thrown out." The gunpowder is loaded into the belly of the bottle, and the bottleneck is also used to place the lead, and the length of the lead is adjusted according to the time required to be thrown, so that the grenade can explode in time when it is about to hit the ground. ”

Zhao Zhen then used a brush to mark a cross grid on the belly of the painted vase, and said to everyone: "You have also seen that the shell of this jar like yours is used, and the fragments of the jar are of different sizes after the explosion, or they will be directly exploded in half, so that the range that can be affected is smaller. So we can make this kind of crack in the belly of the bottle like this, and at the same time, we can consider adding some iron nails or iron beads to the bottle, so that the fragments will spread out in all directions, and can kill and injure a large number of enemies at the same time. What do you think? ”

"The emperor is talented and intelligent, and the ministers are ashamed of themselves!"

"You don't have to be humble, I believe you can think about it a lot, I just put forward such an idea, and it depends on you to improve it in practice!" Zhao Zhenhao does not blush in recognition of everyone's praise, talent and intelligence are not easy to say for the time being, this copycat ability is leveraged.

"Obey the holy decree!"

"Okay, you're thinking about what loopholes I have in this plan?" Zhao Zhen looked at his idea and suddenly found that there was a very serious problem, but it was not good to lose face, so he turned his mind and pretended to test them.

After all, Duan Xin and the others did not have Zhao Zhen's advanced experience, and they didn't find the problem for a while, so they had to shake their heads one after another.

Zhao Zhen breathed a sigh of relief before continuing: "I said that this grenade is a throwing weapon, and this gunpowder needs to seal the environment in order to explode. So what if you say that you are using ceramics to make this charge, throw it out and break it? ”

"The emperor is reasonable, the old minister only thought about using ready-made things like jars at that time, and he didn't think about this problem, I don't know what the emperor's plan is?" Duan Xin asked with a red face.

"In my opinion, in fact, this is not difficult, we just need to change the part of the charge to pig iron casting, can't we! It's okay to change the handle at the back to a wooden or bamboo one! Zhao Zhen was very cheeky and took the creativity of the wooden-handled grenade of later generations as his own.

"Holy Count, Lao Chen, this is a few tests according to your wishes!"

"Well, do it!"

In fact, many inventions are full of all kinds of coincidences, because the person who invented them needs a little inspiration or prompt, as long as they open the door for them, they will open the door more and more.

"After talking about this grenade, I'll tell you about this thing you made! Although it is impossible for such a big guy to throw it with his hands, I think that with a little improvement, it can be thrown with a catapult or a bed crossbow, or even buried in the ground and detonated when the enemy passes by, I believe this is very powerful! Zhao Zhen looked at their remaining "gunpowder jar" and had a sudden inspiration, so he gave everyone his thoughts.

"What the emperor said is very true, and the ministers must do their best to develop it."

"Alright! Everyone, work hard, and keep busy with your work! After Zhao Zhen finished speaking, he took the lead in pacing out.

"Your Majesty, please stay!" Duan Xin just caught up from behind.

"What else is going on with Aiqing?" Zhao Zhen heard the sound, stopped, turned around and asked.

"These old ministers are deeply loved by the saints, and they have not made any great contributions since they took charge of the prison, and they have been entrusted by the saints, and the old ministers are deeply ashamed. However, recently, the old minister felt that his physical strength was exhausted, and his memory was not as good as before, and the old minister was afraid of affecting the great cause of the saint, so he had compiled his meager experience into this "Introduction to Gunpowder", hoping that the emperor could choose a successor as soon as possible. The old minister still has one last bit of extravagance, I hope that the emperor can let the old minister personally watch the grenade you said was born from the hands of the old minister, and hope that the saint will be fulfilled! Duan Xin knelt on the ground as he spoke, holding a book in both hands and said to Zhao Zhen.

"Aiqing, please hurry up, I can't help you! Aiqing is still working for me at such an old age, I should have let you enjoy your old age a long time ago! Aiqing, rest assured, I guarantee that the grenade will be born in your hand, so you can rest assured! ”

Zhao Zhen is very grateful for this selfless dedication to help him take care of the old man who will be imprisoned for many years. At the very beginning, he supported Zhao Zhen as a prisoner, and when everything was on the right track, he felt that he was short of energy and retreated bravely, and he would never lag behind. In this era when the portal is only heavily protected, it is indeed extremely rare for him to be able to selflessly dedicate himself to what he gains!

When Zhao Zhen left the research institute, he was still imagining that his soldiers would soon be able to throw off the grenades of their own cottage and set foot on the vast grassland, unaware of success......