Wu Sangui came under the guise of coming to mourn Mei and Li Ergong, of course, this is only a superficial reason. He really came to Liu Jun to buy cannons, before Liu Jun gave the imperial court a batch of artillery, there were thousands, but most of them were small cannons such as tiger squats, and there were ten Hongyi in them, all of which were cast in Macao in the early years.

Although these things were happily transported away, the Guan Ning army, which rushed to the Beijing Division to receive them, was not satisfied after seeing them. They already knew that Liu Jun was invincible with cannons in southern Liaoning, and they knew that Liu Jun had a large number of new Western cannons in his hands.

As the Guanning Army, which spent countless money and food to build for the imperial court, they did not lack old-style small cannons such as Tiger Squatting and Extermination, and they hoped to get Liu Jun's new artillery, and those heavy artillery that he obtained from the southeastern Zhuyi.

Hong Chengchou, Gao Qiqian and others sent Wu Sangui to personally go to Hubei.

On the way here, Wu Sangui happened to meet Qin Liangyu going north with twelve Hongyi cannons, and after seeing those cannons, Wu Sangui was even more sure that Liu Jun did have a good cannon in his hand.

After hearing about Wu Sangui's intention, Liu Jun was not surprised.

"Eighteen-pound Hongyi cannons of four thousand catties, eight thousand silver dollars each, two thousand catties of nine-pound Hongyi cannons, four thousand dollars each, and three pounds of one thousand pounds and three pounds, two thousand four hundred silver dollars each. Each gun can come with a full set of tools, as well as 100 live shells and 100 shots, with a gun carriage and no tractor. ”

Liu Jun readily agreed to pull out some Hongyi cannons and sell them to Guan Ningjun, but the price was quite amazing. It's basically a pound of cannon and a tael of silver. The 4,000-pound cannon is 8,000 silver dollars, no more, no less.

Wu Sangui was startled, and exchanged a pound of cannon for a tael of silver, which was sold by weight.

"Duke Chu, this price seems to be a bit high. The Hongyi cast by the imperial court is only three thousand taels of silver. ”

"One penny of silver, one penny of goods, the red cannon cast by the imperial court, more than 3,000 catties and more than 3,000 taels of silver. And the cannon is heavy, and it can't shoot far, I'm not wrong. Liu Jun said with a smile, "That's it, let's not talk about whether the price is expensive or cost-effective, I'll take you to see the cannon first." You can see for yourself how the shot looks. ”

In the open field, the carriage pulled out the eighteen-pounder ship's long cannon, and the gunners were familiar with pushing the cannon, and in less than a column of incense, they had already completed the preparation for the shelling.

In order to demonstrate the power of the artillery, the artillerymen set a target, an abandoned house two miles away.

After about a stick of incense, the artillerymen fired three shots, the first two of which passed by. The third shot hit the house and directly smashed the rammed roof wall.

"Two miles away, one out of three guns, what's the matter, this speed, this range, this power, are you satisfied?" Liu Jun asked.

Wu Sangui had already wiped the scar on the bridge of his nose several times. The soldiers standing beside him knew that this was the subconscious action of Lord Commander when he was thinking about the problem very seriously.

Two miles away. Unexpectedly, three shots can hit a house, and this accuracy has already made Wu Sangui very moved. Although it must have a lot to do with the gunner, the artillery is indeed much more effective than the original Hongyi.

"Duke Chu, we want this cannon." Wu Sangui finally said.

He didn't even bargain anymore, anyway, in the end, the silver was paid by the imperial court. Although the imperial court was very poor, Guan Ningjun always gave priority to supply. If you want money, food, and anything, you will have it.

"It's just that this cannon is cast in iron, why isn't it cast in bronze?"

"Cast iron is lighter and more performant. The red Yi of the imperial court is cast in copper, but is it good to have this cannon? ”

Seeing is believing, Wu Sangui nodded. "We want twenty-five of these eighteen-pounder guns, fifty for nine, and one hundred for three-pounder."

"Do you have so much silver? I don't owe any credit. Liu Jun chuckled, these cannons add up to hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, even if the imperial court has money, it doesn't have the money to this point, and it costs them hundreds of thousands of silver to equip so many artillery pieces at once.

"And, even if you want, I don't have that much."

"How many are there?"

"Half of what you just wanted."

The number was reduced by half all of a sudden, Wu Sangui nodded with some regret, it is difficult to get half of it is also very good, equipped with so many Hongyi cannons, are you afraid that you can't beat the Tartar? When the time comes, defeat the Tartars, and all the fame, fortune, promotion, and fortune will be available.

"Okay, we all want it, I'll have someone prepare a silver ticket right away." Wu Sangui couldn't wait to finalize this deal, and thanks to the Four Seas Bank, which has an exchange business, as long as he immediately sent someone back to Liaodong, let them deposit the silver in the bank, and wait for the bank to deliver the bill, and then they could get the silver. Even if you want to hurry up, you can directly deposit the silver in the bank and exchange it for silver dollar coupons or silver bills, and it will be faster to bring it to Huangzhou immediately.

"Wait!"

Liu Jun stopped Wu Sangui who was excited.

"Does Duke Chu have any other requirements?"

"Yes." Liu Jun said with a smile, he wouldn't sell the artillery to Wu Sangui so cheaply, it's just a hundred thousand taels of silver, and Liu Jun is not short of this bit of silver.

"I can sell you artillery, but I don't want silver."

"Don't want silver?" Wu Sangui was stunned for a moment, but immediately understood that not wanting silver was not to give it to them for free, but to receive something else. "What does Duke Chu want us to pay with?"

"Horses, war horses, and horses. I hope that you will pay for all this artillery with horses, fifty silver dollars for each horse, and thirty silver dollars for horses. Liu Jun put forward his own conditions. Liu Jun's troops were always short of horses because they could not get good horses to import them.

And Liu Jun was in great need of horses, cavalry, scouts, messengers, and even officers' mounts. And the demand for pulling horses is also huge, especially now that a large number of artillery is equipped, those field artillery heavy artillery, each cannon needs seven or eight horses to pull, plus ammunition carts, grain and grass, etc., the demand for pulling horses has surged.

Liu Jun has cannons, but Guan Ningjun has horses.

Since the Qing army conquered Mongolia, the imperial court also lost the two horse markets of Liaodong and Mongolia, and the main source of war horses was cut off. However, the Guanning army guarded the outside of the pass, but in private it was still in control of the smuggling of horses. If you want a horse, it is more convenient and direct to find Guan Ningjun directly than to find the emperor.

"Horses for cannons, no problem. However, Chu Gongdang knew that war horses were hard to find now, even if they were pulling horses. I won't say much, just be the master in private, how about a hundred silver dollars for a war horse and forty silver dollars for a horse? This is already the lowest degrade. Wu Sangui didn't dare to open his mouth like Liu Jun.

One hundred silver dollars is only fifty taels of silver, which is indeed very fair as the price of a war horse. However, Wu Sangui needs Liu Jun's artillery very much, but Liu Jun may not need his horse as much as he does, even if he suffers a loss, Wu Sangui will not fight for that point.

"Give you twelve doors and eighteen pounds, twenty-five doors and nine pounds, and fifty doors and three pounds of red yi, even if it is two hundred fifty-six thousand silver dollars." Liu Jun calculated it and felt that the money was a bit small, only 250,000 silver dollars, although it was sold for less than 100 cannons, it was sold for 100,000 taels of silver, but this money didn't seem to be able to buy many horses.

"One thousand war horses plus three thousand nine hundred horses, I will make a whole and give Hou Ye a thousand war horses and four thousand horses." Wu Sangui said.

There are only 5,000 horses, which is far from Liu Jun's goal. He began to think that maybe he could sell some arquebuses to Guan Ningjun.

Wu Sangui also seemed to be a little unsatisfied, "Does Master Hou have any other firearms that can be sold to us?" ”

Liu Jun smiled, "We have two muskets here, both of which are extremely sharp, when I led the army of Xinlian Yueyu, I was able to defeat the bandits who had been crisscrossing the Central Plains for more than ten years, and it was because of them." ”

Liu Jun asked people to fetch two muskets, a bird gun and a flying dragon gun.

"These two guns are improved by us, and they all use fixed ammunition, especially this flying dragon, with a self-opening fire door and a wide butt, which not only greatly increases the accuracy, but also increases the shooting speed a lot, especially this self-opening fire door, which can greatly adapt to the windy weather in the north, and is not afraid of gunpowder blown by the wind, and even if it is generally cloudy and light rain, it does not affect shooting."

Liu Jun first picked up a bird gun, skillfully loaded it, and then raised his gun and put a gun on the rake eighty paces away.

"Right in the middle of the rake heart." The soldier brought a rake, a wooden man, with an iron armor on his body, and now the wooden man was shot in the chest, and the iron armor, which was supposed to be defensive, was pierced.

"Within eighty steps, as long as you hit, you can break the iron armor, and if it is cloth iron armor and cotton armor, as long as you shoot to the chest of the face door, you can also give heavy damage or even kill. Even if they have been training for two or three months, as long as the number is lined up in a phalanx and the continuous segmented shooting, no matter how strong the Tartar cavalry is, they will not dare to charge the fire formation. ”

"Not bad." Wu Sangui nodded, he could see that this bird gun was indeed better than the one made by the imperial court.

Liu Jun personally showed Wu Sangui the Flying Dragon Gun, which was a direct insight into the iron armor on the wooden man a hundred steps away.

"Can you let the last general try?" Wu Sangui said.

"Absolutely." Liu Jun handed the firecrackle to Wu Sangui, and then saw that he was very familiar with cleaning the firecracker, loading it, then picking up the firecracker, and shooting at the rake a hundred steps away in an extremely standard standing position.

"Right in the head!"

The rake was carried, and Liu Jun was surprised to find that Wu Sangui was still a sharpshooter. I only knew that he liked to use a big knife and was good at riding and shooting, but I didn't expect that he could beat the fire gun so well.

"Good guns!" Wu Sangui felt it clearly, and couldn't put it down.

"If you want, I can produce it for you, and I can make as much as I want, and I can supply you with at least 20,000 pieces a month. It can also speed up the speed and quality assurance, and it must be a high-quality product. ”

"How's the price?"

"Thirty dollars for a bird, fifty dollars for a flying dragon."

Wu Sangui shook his head, "The bird gun of the Ministry of Industry is only two taels of silver. ”

"That bird gun is for you, do you dare to use it?"

"Even so, the price is too high. Twenty dragons and ten birds. ”

"Forty dragons, twenty birds."

Wu Sangui glanced at Liu Jun and said, "I heard that Duke Chu also has a new type of firecracker in his hand, which does not use a firerope and is not afraid of wind and rain, especially a short gun, which is most suitable for cavalry horses." I don't know if I can sell it to us, the price is easy to say. (To be continued......)