'Bang' The gun rang out, Zhao Ta saw a puff of gunsmoke in front of him, the bullet roared out of the muzzle, hit the wooden board set up in front of him, he did not check the impact point, but checked the lower gun, did not find anything wrong, the cartridge case was relatively complete, immediately pulled the retainer, pressed the bullet, pulled down the hammer, and fired again, this kind of test test is very troublesome, Zhao Ta kept standing up, loading, shooting, after a cartridge was finished, he was already sweating.

"It seems that this amount of bullet will not cause damage to the gun body!" Zhao Ta fired sixty rounds of low-charge bullets in a row, made a judgment after checking the gun, and then replaced it with a bullet that increased the amount of one-third of the medicine to continue the test, and now he has no good solution to the leakage of the gun, and can only increase the power by increasing the amount of medicine appropriately.

After cleaning the chamber of the gun, after several rounds of firing, the gun continued to shoot normally, except for the hot hand of the barrel. Next, Zhao Ta tested the power and range of this kind of bullet. He looked at the large courtyard, measured the distance again, about eighty steps from east to west, that is, a distance of one hundred meters, he arranged the five wooden planks one inch thick and five feet wide at one end in turn, then adjusted the gun carriage, after aiming, re-fixed the gun, and then began to shoot.

After a few rounds of bullets, there was no fault in the body of the gun, which made Zhao Ta full of confidence. This time he did not hide, but stood in front of the gun carriage openly and fired two cartridges in one go, and after twelve bullets, the target was checked. The results were not bad, there were 10 rounds on target, and the bullet holes were scattered within a three-foot range, which was relatively even. The upper target bullet had all penetrated the first three planks, and there were only six bullet holes in the fourth plank, which he judged to be due to the change in the trajectory of the bullet after passing through several planks in succession. There are still three bullet holes left in the fifth plank, and the rest of the bullets are embedded in it, indicating that the effective range of the gun is completely fine at a hundred meters, and it is not small at this distance.

After testing, although the long-distance shooting accuracy of the gun is unsatisfactory, but if the use of concentrated fire, it is still very effective for group targets, Zhao Ta considered whether it is possible to add a few rifling wires to the barrel, the spiral can't do it, I am afraid it will not be too difficult to get a few rifling, so the accuracy and range will also be improved a lot.

The next thing he was going to do was a destructive test to test what the limit of the lower gun was. Seeing that the large-charge bullets he made had not been used, Zhao Ta pressed them into five cartridges and began to shoot, but after only firing more than 20 rounds, the gun was jammed, and then the frame that fixed the gun began to crack, and the wrench could not be pulled, so he had to stop. He sighed, with this amount of medicine does not say whether the gun can withstand it, if the gun is not fixed on the shelf now, the person with the gun may not be able to bear it now, maybe the shoulder blades will be cracked, but you can't match each gun with a bracket because of this.

Zhao Ta put the scrapped gun aside, and took out two new guns assembled for testing, equipped with cartridges, the rate of fire of the gun is very fast, he estimated, he can shoot fifteen bullets in a minute, this is still without training and unskilled, if after a long time of systematic training, he concluded that there should be room for improvement.

When both guns were firing about 200 rounds, there was a malfunction, one was the ammunition feeding system, and the other was the firing system. At this time, Zhao Ta was already exhausted from tossing, and he didn't have the heart to think about the cause of the failure, and was ready to stay and study it carefully after he went back. Reluctantly cleaned up the scene, cleaned up all the remnants such as bullet casings, and found a room for a few wooden planks to seal, and then beckoned to the small yellow door guarding outside.

"Second Master ???" For more than half a day, the two little yellow doors sunbathed for half a day, listened to the 'thunder' for a long time, and were already a little impatient to wait, but they didn't dare to leave half a step, and when they heard Zhao Ta's greeting, they promised to walk in quickly, waiting for instructions.

"Hey, why don't you talk when you come in!" Zhao Ta sorted out the box and turned around, looking at Xiao Huangmen, as if he hadn't heard them just now.

"Second master, I'??? We're talking! The two little yellow doors raised their heads and looked at each other suspiciously, and they were even more startled when they saw the prince who turned his face, "Second master, what's wrong with your face?" They saw that Zhao Ta's face was swarthy, as if he had just come out of the stove.

"Why don't you just open your mouths and don't speak?" Zhao Ta was even more strange, these two guys didn't seem to be silent after taking dumb medicine, he asked loudly. ,

"Second master, your face!" Xiao Huangmen couldn't figure out the situation even more, and boldly pointed to the prince's face and raised his voice and said.

"What's wrong with my face? You can't talk louder,! Zhao still didn't understand, but guessed a little bit based on the gestures.

The two little yellow doors were stunned when they heard Zhao Ta's words, in the past, the prince's ears were like dogs, if you pass in front of the door, he can tell who it is, why is he deaf today? "Second master, what's wrong with you, can't you hear us?" A small yellow door leaned into Zhao Ta's ear and shouted at the top of his voice.

"Huh?!" Zhao Ta heard it this time, and realized that it was his own problem, he plucked out his ears, looked at the anxious little yellow door and thought for a while, and immediately understood that he had fired hundreds of shots in the morning, and the sound of gunfire shook his ears and made him deaf, "Don't be afraid, my ears are deaf by the sound of cannons, and it will be fine after a while!" He was deaf at this moment, and he was afraid that others would not hear, so he shouted vigorously.

"Oh!" Xiao Huangmen breathed a sigh of relief and nodded vigorously, indicating that he understood, and shouted loudly: "Lord Wang, why is your face black, you are not injured, right?" ”

"Smoked!" Zhao Ta said angrily, this black powder smoke is too big, not to mention that the face is black, I'm afraid that the hole in the mouth and nose is also black now!

??????

In the next period of time, Zhao Ta tried to improve the barrel, the barrel was shortened, and the shape was changed to a hexagonal shape, which not only simplified the process, but also improved the strength of the barrel, and more importantly, it reduced the difficulty of barrel production and improved the yield rate; The butt of the gun was lengthened without affecting its use, so that it could accommodate longer cartridges; He also changed the material of some gun components according to the actual wear and tear to minimize the failure rate.

After three months of struggle, Zhao finally finalized the gun, the whole gun is 3.5 Song feet long, weighs 10 Song Jin, has a caliber of .45 Song inches, four straight rifling, the gun is fully loaded with 10 rounds of ammunition, the effective range is 150 steps, and it can be accurately shot within 100 meters, and it still has lethality at 200 steps away, and it can shoot through the commonly used leather armor. After firing fifty rounds in a row, the chamber needs to be cleaned, and after firing five hundred rounds, vulnerable parts need to be replaced.

In order to solve the problem of production, he set aside an independent area in the workshop and closed it to set up a new workshop-gun workshop, although it is still under the name of the workshop, but it is directly under the management of Zhao Tan. In order to keep it secret, Zhao Ta specially transferred 60 craftsmen with good skills from the workshop and signed a long-term labor contract, of course, to give generous remuneration.

He subdivided the craftsmen into groups to make a single part. There are no drawings for the parts produced, only a prototype, and what each craftsman has to do is to copy the same workpiece in strict accordance with the template. This model was assigned by Zhao Ta to two small yellow doors for special storage, take it out when it is used, and put it away when it is not in use. The qualified products and semi-finished products produced must be registered every day, sealed at the end of work, and the waste products should also be registered and destroyed immediately to ensure that the products are not leaked. In this way, even if someone runs away, they can only take away the incomplete secret of this one part, and will not cause a full leak. All the parts for the production of good Lu were sent to Fuzhong, assembled by him personally, and carried out the acceptance after the most Lu, but fortunately the production volume is small now, otherwise this work is enough for him.

The formula for the production of ammunition, Zhao Ta is even more strictly confidential, this is his most rearly line of defense, even if the secret of the gun is leaked, there is no formula for the production of bullets, and the role of the gun is not as good as a big knife. He gave the task of producing bullets to the pyrotechnic workshop, but the explosives and primer ignition powder were prepared in advance, and all they had to do was to assemble a few things together, and as for what this was for, the craftsmen didn't know what it was for, and only regarded the bullets as a new type of fireworks.

A month after production, Zhao Ta checked the accounts and found that there were only fifteen finished guns, but the cost of each gun reached about 100 after he roughly calculated. Although this is related to the fact that production has just begun, the remuneration is high, and the craftsmen are not familiar with the process, it is also related to the high scrap rate, and the current output is far from reaching Zhao Ta's vision, and his primary goal is to reach 50 finished guns per month. After analysis, he believes that the only solution now is to recruit more skilled craftsmen and engage in crowd tactics, but this also means that he has to pay more money!

??????

It has been half a year since Cai Jing's third reinstatement, and he has continuously implemented the 'New Deal', not only changing the salt tea law, but also implementing the Fangtian law on a large scale, restoring all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes in the past, and even some taxes in the previous dynasty have been turned out and reused. The role of the minions is also huge, and the more than 30 confidants who were dismissed at the same time when he was dismissed are now reinstated, and of course they must be grateful for the kindness of the 'boss', who commanded the party henchmen of the three provinces and six Cao and the prefectures and counties to vigorously and resolutely carry out the above decrees. The problem of the government decree not being implemented has also been solved, and everything has returned to the same way it was two years ago. Poor Prime Minister Zhang Cheng lacked an effective team and no one carried out the spirit of his instructions, so the good policies could not be implemented, and he became a lonely man and left Beijing.

Officials are most fond of reform at all times, because as long as the system remains unchanged, they have no resources to allocate money and benefit from it. Now that the opportunity has come again, and the government has reinstated all kinds of exorbitant taxes, who wants to lose this God-given opportunity? The state and county officials all showed their skills, grabbed fish, extorted money, and made a fortune together. The unfortunate ones are always the bottom of society, the poor peasants and the well-to-do peasant households have suffered, and as soon as the grain is laid, the servants come to the door with whips in their hands to urge them. The yamen is constantly being tortured, like a wolf and a tiger, and the means are renovated to reach the peak.