In the flower hall of the county king's mansion, Ye Zhao fiddled with a rifle in his hand, and carried a yellow wooden box beside him, there are more than a dozen metal bullet barrels in the yellow wooden box, each bullet tube is loaded with bullets, and the rifle does not need to be loaded with a single round when reloading, as long as the barrel is replaced, the barrel is inserted from the bottom of the handle, so that the rifle rate of fire can reach more than 20 rounds per minute, in this era, the efficiency has been greatly improved.

Ye Zhao knew at first sight that this was about the same as the Spencer 1865 Bead Rifle.

Turning his head to look at Thomas with a look of hope, Ye Zhao smiled and said, "Very good, with this sharp weapon, the entire European continent will be imitated." ”

Thomas grinned, and was praised by His Excellency the Prince, and the hard work of the past few days had not been in vain.

However, Ye Zhao then smiled again: "But it's not good at all." As he spoke, he carried the yellow wooden box and said: "This is too cumbersome, if you travel hundreds of miles in a hurry, I am afraid that the soldiers will complain, your conical bullet shoots well, the magazine, you think about it carefully." ”

In fact, if this kind of rifle is used, the combat power will also be greatly improved, but now there are corresponding conditions, Ye Zhao hopes to be able to do it in one step, using Mauser guns, Hanyang and other models, if the steel pipe is easy to explode, you can use casing to reinforce, of course, just use its concept, because of the relationship between materials and gunpowder, etc., the power may not be as good as the Mauser 89 generations and Hanyang. This is an era of rapid development of rifle technology, various ideas emerge in an endless stream, until the Mauser gun has been perfected for several generations before entering the modern rifle mode, Ye Zhao knows which concept is really in line with the future development trend, and hopes that the development of rifles under his rule will be less detours.

Immediately, Ye Zhao discussed rifle technology with Thomas, such as rotary back pull, shell hook, double-row magazine, bridge clamp technology, etc., Ye Zhao naturally talked on paper, relying on his own understanding of firearms, but he also heard Thomas nod again and again, obviously inspired.

"Listening to the prince's words is better than reading a book for a hundred years." Thomas sincerely came to such a sentence in blunt Chinese, which caused Ye Zhao to laugh and pat Thomas on the shoulder, "There are good friends, I won't feel bored on the journey, I hope we will continue to cooperate and be close." Thomas quoted a Chinese proverb, Ye Zhao replied with a British philosophical saying, Thomas smiled and nodded vigorously.

When the Prime Minister's Yamen of National Affairs walked to the Nanyang Trade Minister Zou Kaizhi, Thomas had already taken his leave.

Zou Kai's experience can be described as extremely rich, he has worked as a translator, has served in the Hong Kong church for many years, is very familiar with Western affairs, and he can't put down several books written by Ye Zhao that analyze the situation in Western countries, and regard them as the Bible, but recently he has some worries.

Looking at Zou Kaizhi's frowning appearance, Ye Zhao smiled: "Yiming, I don't pay attention to sitting together, why do you have so many worries?" Ye Zhao knew what Zou Kaizhi was thinking, his friend Hong Renji in the Hong Kong church returned to China and went to Tianjing, which was quite popular with Hong Xiuquan, and he heard that he had been crowned the king of the gods, and he was very drummed up with a set of Western-style systems, but it also intensified the contradictions in the upper echelons of the Taiping Army.

When he was in Hong Kong, Zou Kaizhi seemed to have a lot of dealings with Hong Renji, and now he is naturally afraid of being turned over old accounts and colluding with the puppet king, which is not a light crime.

Zou Kaizhi was stunned when he heard Ye Zhao's words, but he didn't want the general Wang to know about it, so he was shocked and ashamed, and bowed down and said: "Lord Wang, my subordinates don't dare to deceive the prince, Hong Renji wrote a secret letter to his subordinates a few days ago, and his subordinates were worried that they would be criticized after handing it over, so they concealed it and didn't report it." ”

Ye Zhao waved his hand: "It's okay, why bother with these subsections?" I didn't come to you for this purpose, have you seen the British mission? ”

"Yes." Zou Kaizhi replied respectfully.

Ye Zhao smiled: "This mission, it has a lot of appetite to mediate the war between the north and the south." He sneered twice.

Zou Kaizhi didn't know the mind of the general Wang, so he was not easy to talk to.

Ye Zhao took a sip of tea and said: "I have met with the empress dowager of the two palaces with the mission, and I have discussed with the two palaces again, and I am ready to make peace with the Northern Dynasty by you as the minister of peace talks." ”

Zou Kai was stunned: "Peace? ”

Ye Zhao smiled: "Yi Xin wants to negotiate peace, then talk to him, it doesn't hurt to talk, you tell Yi Xin's people that it is okay to negotiate peace, and the south of the Yangtze River belongs to this dynasty, so you can give him a chance to breathe." What's more, it's fun to talk about fighting. ”

Zou Kaizhi originally wanted to admonish, now that Changsha has won a big victory, and the civil strife in Jiangbei is a good time to encroach on Jiangnan, how can you miss it? But when he heard that the prince was talking about peace with the lion, he couldn't help but smile and said, "What the prince said is true." ”

Ye Zhao smiled again: "What's more, it's not a good thing that Jiangbei is broken, if you can not be constrained by the Northern Dynasty and suppress the bandits, it is also a blessing for all the people." ”

Zou Kaizhi was in awe and said, "Yes!" The prince always cherishes righteousness and forgiveness, which is the blessing of the common people in the world and the blessing of all the people in the world. ”

Ye Zhao smiled and didn't squeak.

To negotiate peace with the Northern Dynasties, of course, we do not want the wars in Jiangbei to continue, but if we can take this opportunity to calm down the bandits and recover the two rivers, Fujian and Zhejiang, then the trend of sweeping the world can be achieved.

In fact, what is the peace between the north and the south, it is simply a joke, this is completely different from the peace talks between the north and the south and even the republic of the country in later generations, there is no two heavens and no two lords, and now the south and north of the river consider themselves to be orthodox in the Qing Dynasty, how can they really stop the peace talks between the north and the south? It's just that each has its own calculations.

The six kings hoped to take a breath and speed up the arming of the new army, and they hoped to pacify the southeast half of the wall as soon as possible, so that the economic circle they conceived had become a trend, and from then on, the competition with the Northern Dynasty would only pull it farther and farther away, and they were no longer afraid of him.

What's more, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, and Fujian are initially decided, and it is the time to unite people's hearts, especially in Hunan, if you want to subdue the hearts of Hunan people, you have to spend a lot of effort.

There is another reason, Ye Zhao does not want the power of the Houdang to expand sharply, now the Northern Expedition, the more officials surrender, in fact, the heavier the power of the Houdang, most of the officials who surrendered are the Queen Mother of the Two Palaces and the Emperor Tongzhi, Yuan Jiasan, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Lao Chongguang, the governor of Yunnan, can actually be called the Houdang.

These officials need to digest it themselves.

However, although Lan Guiren is lustful for power, his ambition is really not big, and he is very much in favor of her, obviously he can favor Guangzhou, and she is quite satisfied with the honor of Bao I.

One is that in this life, she has been bumpy and displaced, and she has never enjoyed the taste of the pinnacle of real power, less experience, less ambition; Second, he lived in the inner palace, although he had heard of the strength of the Pingyuan army, he was afraid that he would think it was an exaggeration, and he had less confidence in waving the Jingshi to oust Yixin from the throne. It's a talent who will try his best to agree to negotiate peace, but then again, this woman, in addition to being good at playing with power, has never been very knowledgeable, right?

Looking at Zou Kaizhi, Ye Zhao smiled again: "The peace talks are scheduled to be held in the Shanghai Concession, so you will select capable people and report them to the General's Mansion by name." If you encounter a strange and complicated disease in Shanghai, just send a message. ”

"Yes." Zou Kaizhi hurriedly bowed down and agreed.

(To be continued)