"Mother, I will definitely return to my hometown in fine clothes, and let those shameless villains see what it is to soar to the sky. The stroke was heavy, Zhang Hao shook his head, smiled bitterly, and crumpled the paper. His own qi cultivation kung fu has always been insufficient, when he answered the questionnaire in Bianliang, it was also because he was excited, a drop of ink accidentally dripped onto the volume, and a splendid article became a waste manuscript.

In the early morning of the next day, Yu Xi, who had returned from thousands of miles, was waiting for Wu Yingying anxiously, the headquarters of the Ordnance Division was connected with the Longya Military Camp and the Xia Wangfu, and the guards were strict, and here I saw craftsmen and apprentices walking back and forth in a hurry, and no one paid attention to him.

"This brother is very good, may I ask for your name?"

Yu Xi looked back, but it was a young man with a rectangular face, smiling and bowing to him, he was young, looking at the mark on the robe, he was actually a master craftsman.

"In the next aftermath. ”

"Oh?" Zhao Ping's look of surprise appeared, "The one who sailed thousands of miles and traveled dozens of overseas barbarian countries, but is he a master?" After Yu Xi's nautical chart and log copy were sent to the Bachelor's Mansion, there were countless exotic things to see, and there were even some things that were consistent with the description of "species evolution" in the "Theory of Heavenly Evolution" in the Book of Strange Regions of the Western Regions.

"It's down there. Yu Xi arched his hand, secretly wondering in his heart, he had been living in a simple place since he returned to Dunhuang, how did this young man know his experience.

"It's really Brother Yu, in Xia Zhaoping. Zhao Ping suppressed his excitement and was about to speak, when he suddenly saw several people walking outside the school field, the first one was Xia Wang Wu Yingying, and the school captain Lu Zhongjie followed behind with a few guards.

After Wu Yingying reintroduced the two, he asked Zhao Ping, "Are you ready for the gunpowder experiment?" Zhao Pingbing said: "Just wait for the lord to order it to start." Wu Yingying nodded, glanced at Lu Zhongjie and Yu Xi next to him, and said in a deep voice: "Then let's start." ”

Wu Yingying came here many times to watch the progress of the experiment, Zhao Ping and the craftsmen and apprentices under him were accustomed to it, opened the tightly covered curtain, revealing a row of pure bronze cast cannon bodies, several bronze cannons of different calibers of different sizes, more than a dozen craftsmen after checking the barrels, began to load powder and spherical shells of different sizes. Seeing that the craftsman was about to light the arquebus cannon, Wu Yingying signaled Yu Xi to cover his ears, only to hear several loud rumbling sounds, some iron bullets were thrown more than ten steps to dozens of steps away, the farthest iron bullets were thrown out of a hundred and ten steps away, and there were also iron projectiles in the barrel that failed to come out, only to see thick black smoke coming out of the muzzle.

Yu Xi was stunned by this earth-shattering loud noise, Lu Zhongjie showed a mocking look in his eyes, and Zhao Ping was ashamed. Only Wu Yingying sighed slightly in his heart, and smiled at the craftsmen who showed an expectant expression: "In two months, I have concocted several prescriptions, which have been done well, and these prescriptions, as well as the data of various calibers and lengths of artillery test live ammunition, must be carefully recorded, and the gentleman from the bachelor's mansion will analyze how to improve." ”

"Your Majesty," Lu Zhongjie said back to the Ordnance Department, "This bronze cannon is expensive and extremely impractical, if you must use firearms, the army uses a stone thrower to throw fire oil bombs, which is very useful, and there are poisonous fireballs in Jiangnan, fire thistles and the like, which are more practical than this bronze artillery." "Zhao Ping and Yu Xi are both silent, although Zhao Ping is responsible for improving the formula of gunpowder, but he and Yu Xi are not people who are not ashamed to speak, with the current performance of artillery, the use on the battlefield is far inferior to the divine arm crossbow and repeater made by the Ordnance Division.

Wu Yingying looked at the three subordinates and said slowly: "It seems that a child has just been born, can you let him wrestle with an adult? The current artillery is like a newborn child, you don't know how great its future prospect is." His tone was extremely affirmative, and all three people in the room were unconsciously infected by him.

Lu Zhongjie thought to himself, "I don't know, can you not know the prophet, Your Majesty?"

Wu Yingying seemed to hear Lu Zhongjie's slander, looked at him with a little weak eyes, and said in a deep voice: "I know." ”

He turned his head to Zhao Ping and said: "I have already explained the key to the development of artillery, which is to develop gunpowder with high explosive power, and I only take the explosive power. At present, the strength of the copper cannon body is much higher than the explosive power of gunpowder, and in the future, the explosive power of gunpowder will be increased, and then how to improve the strength of the cannon body, and what kind of caliber and body length can achieve the best effect. But these are all for later, and the only focus of the development of artillery is to trial the production of gunpowder with stronger explosive power. After a pause, he smiled kindly, "You're doing something unprecedented, don't worry about slow progress." ”

Zhao Ping's frustrated expression showed a hint of excitement, Wu Yingying asked him to take out a few drawings from the archives of the Ordnance Division, which were sketches of sea ships drawn by the craftsman according to his description, the first picture was a common arson ship in the Jiangnan Naval Division, usually tied to the back of the big ship, and the sailors were driven by the brave men to burn the enemy ships when they were fighting, and the second picture was a sailing ship, with a bronze cast cannon of the kind that was seen in the bow and stern of the ship, and the picture in the third chapter was also a sailboat, but it was much taller than the previous one, and the sides of the ship were covered with dense gun windows, adding up to no more than seventy or eighty guns。 Zhao Ping secretly estimated in his heart, not to mention that such a huge ship, just casting the copper cannon with that configuration would cost a lot of money, if it was built according to this drawing, where the ship was built, it would be a mountain of money.

"The three of you are here today, and I just happened to explain together," Wu Yingying looked at the drawing with complicated eyes, he first pointed to the arson ship, and said: "At present, the sailors mainly use bows and crossbows when fighting, and fierce fire oil bombs are sharp weapons, but the projectile is not accurate, so it depends on the flesh and blood of the soldiers to burn the enemy ships." He pointed to the second ship, "and the day will come when the range of this cannon will be increased far beyond that of a bow and a trebuch, and the projectiles will be fired miles away, and the guns will be placed on the decks of the old ships at once, and the ships will be bombarded first and then killed in every naval battle," he pointed to the third sketch, "and the sailors must not rest on their laurels and immediately build a huge ship with multiple decks and gun windows on both sides, and the firepower of this ship can only be dozens of ships in front of it." He looked at the three subordinates, and said slowly in an affirmative tone: "As soon as the artillery is completed, the biggest change is not the land battle, but the water war, and the future of the five lakes and seas will be the world of giant ships and artillery." I don't know if I can see that day, but you all have to remember what I told you today. ”

After the three of them recovered from their surprise, Wu Yingying asked, "Yu Xi, last time I asked you if you were willing to continue to lead the fleet to sea, do you have an answer?"

Yu Xi's expression was a little complicated, he gritted his teeth, and replied: "Your Majesty is very kind, and the last general is willing to lead the fleet to sea again." Lu Zhongjie and Zhao Ping glanced at each other, and they both showed secretly admiring eyes, they somewhat understood the dangers and hardships of sailing to sea, not everyone had the courage to return to the sea after having an experience like Yu Xi.

"Okay," Wu Yingying nodded, "There are now fifteen seagoing ships in Guangzhou and Jinling, so you should be the governor of the ocean-going fleet, Zhong Jie." ”

"Yes," Mr. Lo replied.

"Fuhaixing opens up trade routes, and you can't say that you have to fight with overseas barbarians and alien fleets, you go to the Chengying Battalion to select some backbones, and then go back to Jiangnan to recruit some old Lingbo Army and sailors who dare to die, and form a battalion of elite soldiers, and the military salaries are hung under the Chengying Battalion to protect the fleet that goes to sea. ”

"Obey!" Although he was going to leave Hexi, Lu Zhongjie was still a little happy to be able to go back to Jiangnan to meet his brother.

"The three of you are all the heroes I have high hopes for, my country is inland, and it is difficult to echo each other with the sailors, and it is not profitable, but there is still something to be done in the time of day and people, and I will not wait for it. Wu Yingying said with emotion, although the current development of Xia Guo is focused on land, the sea fleet has to fall a chess piece first to seize the opportunity.

"The trial implementation of firearms in the army is very widely implicated, and it is easy to affect combat effectiveness if it is easily implemented, and this is especially true of artillery, which must be kept strictly secret now, and if this artillery can hit hundreds of steps away in the future," Wu Yingying smiled at Zhao Ping again, "Let's first transfer a regiment to train the army to test the tactics of coordination with artillery." He seemed to be joking at what he said, Zhao Ping and Lu Zhongjie also smiled and said yes, they all thought that Wu Yingying arranged this way because the artillery was not powerful enough and very cumbersome, and it would drag down their combat strength if it was equipped with various armies.