It is said that sharpening knives is not worth cutting wood, since Zhao Ta has made up his mind to build a new type of army, he must be equipped with firearms, his own service life is only more than 20 bullets, the range of 30 meters small revolver is not competent, then it is necessary to build a long range, long service life of muskets and artillery, and these are based on the quality of iron, so he has nothing to do these days to run to the smelter in the workshop.

Zhao Ta has never been in contact with the smelting of steel, and there are only two chapters of brief introduction in the textbook when he went to school. Since they don't produce iron ore here, the smelter buys back pig iron that has been processed in the primary form, and then smelts it again to make wrought iron suitable for forging, and then makes various accessories.

Zhao Ta soaked for a few days, and finally understood that Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Pen Talk" mentioned the 'steel filling method' steelmaking, that is, the sponge-like pig iron and soft iron sheets are bundled together, sealed with mud, smelted in the furnace, and after the two are fused together, they are cooled out and forged, and then smelted in the furnace, and after several tosses, it becomes homogeneous wrought iron. Zhao Ta has no opinion on this, if you want to be good, you have to work harder and burn more money, anyway, you can't make smokeless gunpowder now, you can only use black powder, the speed of the bullet fired by black powder is low, and the wrought iron barrel is enough to meet the requirements. Of course, a steel barrel is better, but it is not necessary, it will cause unnecessary waste, and it is unknown whether the tool that can process steel can be found.

The barrel is the core of a gun, and Zhao decided to try to make a few out of good iron. Zheng Fu, the shopkeeper of the workshop, heard that the prince was going to create again, and immediately dispatched the people with the best skills in the workshop to form a special team to be dispatched at any time, and now he is also a hot figure in the house, no worse than the big steward in the past, with six or seven hundred people under his hands, he can also create two or three hundred yuan of profits every year, and is the main force of the palace's income.

When Zhao Ta saw these craftsmen making gun barrels according to their own requirements, he not only had a pain in the egg, but also a pain all over his body, and the process was too complicated. First of all, a steel core with a cylindrical body about 30 centimeters long and a diameter of about 7 millimeters is prepared to make cold bones, and then the wrought iron is burned until it is red-hot, and the craftsman uses a hammer to knock the red-hot wrought iron outside the steel core and roll it into an iron pipe. In the process of cladding iron, the steel core is constantly extracted and cooled with water to prevent the inner steel core and the outer wrought iron from being welded together. After the steel core is pulled out, it becomes a round steel pipe. However, the 30-centimeter steel pipe is too short to make a barrel, and according to Zhao Ta's minimum requirements, two such steel pipes need to be welded to become a gun barrel. Since the barrel is neither seamless, but also welded in sections, this kind of barrel is easy to explode, but there is no way, so I can only make do with it first and pick a good one.

knocked out more than a dozen iron pipes, Zhao Ta looked at it, in addition to the curved, flat, and improvised, there were only eight left, but at this time, the barrel was only a rough embryo, and it still needed to be trimmed. Because the barrel is not straight, the barrel is also rough and uneven, you need to use a drill and a frustration knife to polish the gun chamber smooth, the tool used is the most advanced 'spin' in the Song Dynasty, this thing is all manual, and it can't be sharpened much in a day, and the stability is too poor to shake the bad, the things made are not the same, the muzzle is a bit like an egg, he still endured, who let himself be unlucky, did not bring a mechanical processing factory when he crossed.

The craftsmen saw that the prince was in a hurry, and immediately divided into two shifts, worked day and night, and finally made five barrels after twenty days of busyness. Zhao Ta rewarded a few craftsmen, and on the way back with the barrel, he threw two more, without a ruler, his eyes couldn't see it. When I got home, I put the remaining three guns with gunpowder and did a destructive test, and after a few explosions, fortunately all of them were destroyed, and one of them could be continued. Zhao Ta was extremely depressed, his road to army building had just begun, and he suffered such a big setback, he was so angry that he didn't eat lunch, of course he ate more dinner!

As a special soldier who has undergone brutal training and countless tests of life and death, Zhao Ta will never give up. The next day, he instructed the smelter to make better wrought iron, and he held it in the study for three days, giving full play to his mechanical expertise, and came up with a set of equipment improvement plans. After more than ten days of busy work, a new rotary lathe was made, and the forging and grinding were changed from manual operation to waterwheel, which not only improved the stability of the equipment, but also saved manpower and improved efficiency. ,

The experiment did not disappoint Zhao Tai again, and it took five days to build five more barrels, but the destructive experiment still caused two welds to crack, and the rejection rate was as high as 40%.

In the following days, everyone found that the prince seemed to have tossed enough, and no longer ran to the workshop, but a few people in the workshop in the house were busy, and they would receive a job from time to time, requiring them to process a gadget according to the drawing, and they were all stared at by the two small yellow doors in the inner courtyard, and they would immediately take the picture and send it back after they were done, and they were not allowed to go out in the middle, and the meals were all sent, and the craftsmen understood that the prince was in a hurry.

Of course, these things were made by Zhao Ta, as a traverser who had learned machinery, he knew that the production of a gun was by no means so easy, especially this kind of standardized production, fixtures, measuring tools were specially made, and the preparation was tedious and meticulous. Now he has completed the design work, with the experience of designing and making agricultural machinery in the front, he will outline the appearance of the gun in his head, and then draw out the parts one by one, and then after many calculations, complete the preliminary design, and then let the craftsmen make parts one by one, assemble them into a sample gun, after testing, repeated modifications can be finalized, and wait for the first qualified sample gun to shoot bullets, Zhao Ta felt that this period of time was more difficult than the days when he set up a mourning hall in front of the palace.

······

"Lord, lord, good news..." The time seems to have become shorter in the busy, and now it is April, and as soon as Zhao Ta finished exercising on this day, Huang Jingchen shouted and trotted into his yard.

"Uncle Huang, why did gold ingots fall from the sky? Running so fast, I'm not afraid of flashing my waist! Zhao Ta hurriedly helped him sit down.

"Almost!" Huang Jingchen said with a smile, the excitement has not passed, "I received news from Beijing in the morning, Cai Jing's kid is finally going to regain his appearance, and the emperor set up a deer banquet to entertain him yesterday!" As he spoke, he handed a note to Zhao Ta.

"Cai Jing, that kid is back?" Zhao Ta asked, although he knew that Cai Jing would revert this year, but he didn't know when it would be.

"Come back, in February, the emperor has already issued an edict, saying that Cai Taishi has served as Zaifu twice, a total of eight years before and after, and suggested that Shao Xining's new policy, hard work, meritorious service, should be given preferential treatment, allowed to return to Bianjing to live in the original mansion, still enjoy the treatment of the crown prince and the prince of Chu, in early March, sent Rongzhou defense envoy Tong Shimin, with an edict to Hangzhou to summon Cai Jing back to the capital, the beginning of this month has arrived." Huang Jingchen replied.

"On the eighth day of the fourth month, Taiqing Lou Sheng set up a deer ming banquet to entertain Cai Jing and play "Poetry, Xiaoya, Luming", what does it mean, there is not a word here to mention Cai Jing's reinstatement, what are you happy about?" Zhao Ta looked at the note and asked suspiciously, and Cai Jing had returned to Beijing a month ago.

"Lord Wang, you don't understand this!" Huang Jingchen said with a smile, ""Poetry, Xiaoya, Luming" is said that the early Zhou Dynasty King Lixian Corporal was feasting on the guests, playing the piano and drums to welcome, there were virtuous and respected ministers in the seat, he was a typical example of a gentleman to follow, the king toasted the guests with wine, and the guests and hosts enjoyed themselves. After the emperor ascended the throne, a total of two deer banquets were held, the last time was in the first month of the first year of Daguan, when Cai Jing was reinstated as the left minister, this time it happened to coincide with his return..."

"Oh, that means Cai Jing's reappearance is right now!" Zhao Ta nodded, his father is really elegant enough to do things, and appointing a prime minister is also a detour for people to guess, maybe he is also embarrassed to go back on his word, so he will take a tune to let everyone understand and prepare for public opinion.

"That's right, after Cai Jing returned to Beijing, some people in the DPRK said that he would definitely return to power again, and now some people expect him to change the method of salt money and start buying old banknotes everywhere, should we also take action and collect some more!" Huang Jingchen asked, now he regrets it a little, he didn't charge more at the beginning, and wanted to make up for the position again.

"Don't take it anymore, you will enter Beijing immediately, as soon as Cai Jing comes to power and changes the salt banknote law, you will immediately exchange all the old banknotes for new banknotes, the best price increase, and the parity is OK, just don't be greedy, the speed must be fast, don't sell the things you change, pull them back first and wait and so on!" Zhao Ta thought for a while and gave two instructions.

"Okay, I'll go and do it as the prince tells me immediately!" Huang Jingchen didn't ask again, now he has great trust in the judgment of the prince, this matter was brought up by him, and he is running errands.

As Zhao Tan expected, as soon as Cai Jing came to power, he began to revise the salt banknote law, restore the old system, and in order to attract salt merchants to the capital to buy salt money, in addition to reiterating the various regulations on preferential treatment of salt merchants formulated in the past, he also formulated new measures, one of which is the most powerful, that is, whether or not to recruit salt merchants as the main criterion for the performance evaluation of local officials, there is a quarterly evaluation of the salt administration, and there is an annual assessment. Those who do not implement the new salt law will not be promoted, and they will be severely punished, which is simply a twin with the fact that many places today regard investment promotion as a performance evaluation.

The good policy of the government, of course, attracted a large number of salt merchants with thousands of dollars, they all wanted to make a profit from it, but found that they were late, most of the quota has fallen into the hands of those who have backers in the background, just when they are extremely depressed, but they found that someone is selling new salt banknotes, although the price has been increased, but it is acceptable, it is still profitable, and they immediately rushed to buy it...