"Did he say that?" Bai Yijie put down the cast-iron barrel in his hand and asked back.

Zheng Yunming nodded thoughtfully, and Yang Luo, Wang Deng, Zhu Sheng, Qin Wu and others behind him all covered their mouths and snickered.

Bai Yijie turned back and continued to look at the iron pipe in his hand, and sighed: "Master said, only women and villains are difficult to raise, this is true. ”

On the day Zheng Yunming hurried back to Xiangyang from Changsha, he could still catch up with the bidding meeting in the Shuangjing test field in the west of Xiangyang City.

The so-called bidding for the purchase of firearms was a new idea that Zheng Yunming came up with with the assistance of the shogunate. The craftsmen and folk craftsmen under the jurisdiction of the government put forward their own research and development of new firearms, and then performed them in the test field for the generals in Xiangyang, and the government decided whether to carry out large-scale procurement, and if the government decided to procure, the government paid the inventor a certain amount of remuneration according to a certain proportion of each firearm produced, and this fee was called exclusive interest, referred to as patent fees.

As soon as the announcement of the bidding method was announced, it immediately aroused tremendous repercussions in Jinghu, and some enthusiastic craftsmen immediately calculated that according to the proportion of patent fees announced by the government, the profits of craftsmen inventing a new weapon were much higher than those offered in previous years.

Taking the Bamboo Generals who shined in the First Jinghu Defense Battle as an example, Jinghu produced 1,600 Bamboo Generals throughout the war, most of which were equipped with the Tulong Army. According to the government's announcement, the inventor of each bamboo general can receive a patent fee of 21 yuan, and according to the calculation of 77 yuan in circulation, 1,600 bamboo generals will be able to bring 2,000 yuan to the inventor. And then General Bamboo will be manufactured in large quantities in Jinghu, and according to the law that the enemy will inevitably attack in the autumn and winter every year, the number of General Bamboo will be made in the future will not be in the thousands? Then just inventing such a small thing is enough to make people rich.

Therefore, when the ambassador of Jinghu Manufacturing, Si Zhiri, openly began bidding for firearms at the Shuangjing Test Field, not only the craftsmen of Xiangyang and Jiangling, but also craftsmen from Jingnan, Jiangxi, and even Sichuan upstream came one after another, bringing all kinds of their own whimsical ideas to win the blue eyes of the envoys and generals.

The small Shuangjing test site is like a lively bazaar, where craftsmen set up stalls and loudly beckoned the generals to come and see the new weapons they had invented.

The iron pipe in Bai Yijie's hand is the invention of Ezhou blacksmith Qian Yiwu, he named the small firearm he built according to the number of ways Zheng Yunming named the firearm, but after Zheng Yunming checked it, he thought that in the future, it would be necessary to distinguish between the large-caliber firearms and the small-caliber firearms cast by a single person in the cooperative performance and placed on the pedestal.

Zheng Yunming proposed that it be used as a unified name for small barrel-fired firearms, and since then the prestige of the gun has become one of the symbols of the Jing Chu army.

Qian Yiwu's iron gun, the total length of the gun is one foot two inches, the depth of the chamber is more than six inches, the muzzle is eight points, the whole gun is divided into three parts: the chamber, the medicine chamber and the tail hammer, the medicine chamber is partially raised for filling gunpowder, and there is a fire door on it, which can fill the fuse. A wooden handle can be installed at the tail of the firebolt, and when firing, you can hold the wooden handle with your arm and release it with a fire. The whole firearm weighs seven and a half pounds, and a soldier is enough to fire alone, but it only uses lead weighing seven coins as a projectile, and the range is only dozens of steps, and the power of the lead fired is also insufficient.

Zheng Yunming was very dissatisfied with this, although this iron gun already had the appearance of some metal firearms, and it could be seen that the inventor also had some ideas of his own, but the iron gun as a whole still copied the shape of General Zhu as it was, and it was just reduced for individual use. And I saw that this iron gun was made roughly, and the thickness of the pipe wall was uneven, and if it was really taken to the battlefield to kill the enemy, I was afraid that before the gun could be used to injure the enemy, I would be blown up and take my life first.

He motioned for Bai Yijie to put down the firearm and look at it one by one along the stall.

The house next door was a gunsmith who made bamboo and wooden guns, and when he saw the deputy commander coming over, he hurriedly bowed and handed over a bamboo gun.

Zheng Yunming was quite puzzled at the beginning, today is to make the yamen bid for firearms, why did this person come up and present a bamboo gun that has nothing to do with firearms?

He carefully examined the gun and found the joints in it, the iron head of the bamboo gun was not directly behind the barrel, but a bamboo barrel of more than two feet, the bamboo tube was crossed with four thick hemp ropes, the mouth was smooth, and the barrel was inserted in the back. The gunsmith demonstrated to Zheng Yunming how to release the bamboo musket, because there was no fire door, so the fuse must be put in first, and then put in three or four coins of gunpowder to compress it, and then fill the bamboo barrel with a projectile. When firing, the soldier bends his knees and clamps the spear, lights the fuse, grasps the handle of the gun with both hands and cannot shake it, and fires the enemy, and if the enemy rushes close after one shot, the gun head is loaded and used as an ordinary bamboo gun.

The gunsmith proudly named this weapon, which can be used as both a firearm and a cold weapon, as a fast gun. Zheng Yunming also felt that this idea was quite in line with the current army building idea of mixing hot and cold weapons, and it seemed that there would be no flaws when using it. This hybrid spear should be a handy weapon for city garrisons.

He immediately ordered to use this as a blueprint and tried to make 500 of them to be used as weapons to defend the city.

Seeing that someone was successfully selected, the craftsmen who set up the stalls were excited, and many people were about to rush forward to show Zheng Yunming with their works.

Under the reprimand and obstruction of the back soldiers, it was not easy to start the patrol again.

Zheng Yunming saw a craftsman who was stopped by the soldiers holding a stone in his arms, and his curiosity became great, and he asked, "Is this also a firearm?" ”

The craftsman laughed embarrassedly: "The little one is a stonemason, I heard my cousin who works in the gunpowder workshop mention that now after the innovation of the capital, the production efficiency of gunpowder has increased a lot, and the supply of gunpowder in each army is very sufficient, but the number of iron shells used to make iron cannons is not enough every month, so the output of iron cannons is limited." Isn't a small inspiration just a shell? Isn't it the same as iron artillery to dig a nest in the stone and fill it with gunpowder and a fuse to ignite it? And there are stones everywhere, so you don't have to worry about the lack of materials. ”

"It's a good idea," Zheng Yunming praised, "In this way, the iron artillery used to defend the city no longer has to worry about the number." However, the materials for stone artillery are too cheap, and you won't get much money if you charge royalties proportionally."

The stonemason smiled innocently, "I just thought about it casually, and I didn't expect it to sell for much price." ”

"In this way," Zheng Yunming said, "I bought your idea and production method with 200 yuan, which is better than calculating the patent fee and adding a lot of trouble, what do you think?" ”

The stonemason didn't expect that he could get such a rich reward for such a simple idea, and immediately thanked and accepted the reward.

Immediately after, someone offered Zheng Yunming a mud pill.

Zheng Yunming almost burst out laughing, his original plan was to hope that someone could develop a firearm with a metal body, and he only needed to procure it. I don't want someone to offer bamboo spears first, and then stones, and now even mud balls are being presented.

He flipped over and examined the large mud pellet, which had a fuse attached to it, apparently filled with gunpowder.

"There is not only gunpowder in it, but also a poison that causes smoke, which is usually stored in wooden barrels, and when the city is defended, it is lit and thrown down, which can be burned and poisoned the enemy."

After the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, many such arson and smoke weapons were invented, including the thunderbolt cannon of Jingkang's year, and the fire blaster in the early years of Duanping, which was named by the inventor as a big mud ball called the enemy of ten thousand people, and at most it was an enhanced version of these weapons.

He was only willing to offer a hundred guan to buy out, but Zhao Kui was very interested in the improved version of this traditional weapon, and he added an additional fifty guan to Zheng Yunming's reward.

The atmosphere of the bidding meeting became more and more enthusiastic, and when Zheng Yunming was overwhelmed, he found a middle-aged man sitting in the corner, who neither crowded around him like everyone else, nor shouted loudly to sell his invention. Just sit quietly, as if an unrelated person came in to see the excitement and didn't want to participate.

Zheng Yunming looked interesting, and told Ma Guangzu and Wang Deng to deal with the swarming treasure donors, and quietly came to this person's stall.

When the middle-aged craftsman saw the deputy capital of Jing and Hubei suddenly coming, he panicked, and he was at a loss to pick up his invention to show Zheng Yunming, not wanting to be overly nervous, so he dropped the firearm in his hand to the ground with a miss.

Zheng Yunming heard the sound of the fire gun falling to the ground, which was very different from the shoddy goods in front of him, and he became interested. He leaned over and picked up the firecracker, and weighed it in his hand, which probably weighed more than ten catties. The main part is generally similar to the first shoddy firecracker, but on closer inspection, the small part is different.

The breech part of this gun is no longer straight, but is thickened from the mouth to the chamber.

Clever way, Zheng Yunming thought, whenever the gunpowder is fired, the chamber pressure that suddenly appears in the medicine room is the largest, and the more the projectile is pushed towards the gun, the lower the pressure. This is a simple truth, but these craftsmen only learned a few months ago about the existence of firearms that can shoot projectiles, and those who can understand this truth must be people who observe things very carefully.

He raised his head and smiled, "You came up with this fire hammer with a thin front and a thick back?" ”

Seeing that Zheng Yunming was speaking as kindly as the legend, the craftsman calmed down a little, blushed and said, "This is very simple."

Zheng Yunming looked at the way he struggled to speak, smiled and patted him on the shoulder, signaling him not to say any more. Keep playing with the new toy in your hand.