In the ninth year of Chongzhen, the fifth day of the first month.

Some good deeds say that purple clouds are shrouded in the sky over Ji'an Mansion, and black dragons are seen in the north, and five-colored clouds follow. It was night, but when I saw the red light rushing out of the general soldier's mansion, the sound of the tiger roaring and the dragon's chant was endless, and all the weeping willows by the river pulled out new branches......

Well, without so much nonsense, Fei Rulan gave birth to a son smoothly.

In the land of two prefectures and thirteen counties, the government and the people rejoiced. They were truly glad that the monarch had an heir, and that the cause of the rebellion had become more secure.

Of course, there are also countless gentry who curse, expecting Zhao Han's son to die.

But it seems that God is celebrating, this spring has been in good weather, with two spring rains falling early, and finally there is no longer a spring drought like in previous years.

Just after the Lantern Festival, it was suddenly sunny, and Zhao Han took a walk around the garden with his child in his arms.

The guards came in and reported: "Commander, Song Sigong asks to see." ”

"Please!" Zhao Han returned the child to the nurse.

As for Fei Rulan, she is doing confinement in the house. At first, the doors and windows were closed, saying that they couldn't blow the wind, but Zhao Han asked people to hang up the window screens and forcibly open the windows for ventilation.

Song Yingxing walked in quickly, followed by a subordinate, holding a brand-new bird gun.

Zhao Han said happily: "The bird gun is made? ”

Song Yingxing arched his hand and said, "Thirty have been made." Last year, many blacksmiths were making waist knives and spearheads, and this year they recruited some to hammer the guns, and at least 500 bird guns can be made a year. ”

"It's still too little." Zhao Han said.

"You can only train apprentices slowly, and it would be nice to have more craftsmen." Song Yingxing said.

Zhao Han thought for a while and said: "Cotton armor iron pieces or something, they can be handed over to the private iron factory to build, and the official craftsmen will make firearms with all their might." ”

Although Song Yingxing was in charge of the Department of Public Works, his main energy was used to make bird guns and gunpowder, and he lived in Fenyi and Xinyu counties for a long time. Tian Younian has been transferred to the deputy of the Public Works Department, and Tian Younian is presiding over the daily affairs of the Public Works Department.

Now, Zhao Han has three weapons.

One is located on the outskirts of Ji'an Province, mainly making spears, bows and arrows, leather armor, and wooden shields.

One is located in the Fenyi County Iron Factory, mainly to create waist knives, gun heads, and arrows.

One is located in Xinyu County Iron Factory, which mainly makes iron pieces of cotton armor - chain mail cannot be made, and Song Yingxing does not understand wrought iron drawing technology.

Zhao Han did not occupy all the iron mines, and allowed the local gentry to take refuge in them to continue to run their mines and iron works. In order to concentrate the blacksmiths to make the firecracker, some of the simple work can be contracted to a private ironworks. In particular, the iron pieces of cotton armor have no technical difficulty at all.

In the past few months, there have been more than 300 sets of cotton armor made by weapons.

Cotton armor can be protected against slashing and bows and arrows, but it has limited effect in the face of stabbing blows, and it is impossible to defend against firearm shots. It was actually a cotton coat with iron pieces embedded in the surface, which was much lighter than traditional armor.

At the same time, Tian Younian also gave advice to recruit craftsmen to weave helmets.

This kind of bamboo helmet can be protected from arrows and knives. Although the effect is limited, it is better because of the low cost and the manufacturing speed is very fast. If you want to be defensive, you can also weave in a few pieces of iron when you make it up.

Zhao Han took the firearm and said with a smile: "Let's go, follow me to the school field outside the city." ”

As you walk, you can see that the bird is almost a meter long. The gun tube is thin in front and thick in the back, and there is also a trigger, which can be pulled to move the ramie rope.

Zhao Han pulled the trigger a few times and understood how it worked.

Ramie rope is slow-burning, and its effect is similar to that of incense. With this device, the arquebus does not need to be specially ignited, and the gunpowder can be ignited by pulling the trigger.

This kind of bird gun should actually be called a Malacca arquebus.

Zhao Han asked curiously, "How is the barrel made?" ”

Song Yingxing explained: "First build the iron mullion, and then use the red-hot steel, wrap the iron mullion and beat it continuously, and after many times of jointing, it can be formed into a pipe. The four-edged steel cone is used to penetrate into the tube and rotate and grind, so that the pipe wall is as smooth as a mirror, and the medicine is fired without suffocation. ”

Gradually approaching the school grounds, Zhao Han couldn't help but ask, "It's not easy to blow up, right?" ”

Song Yingxing could only say: "Sooner or later, the bird gun will be blown up, but the bird gun I made must be a hundred times better than the imperial court." First of all, it is better to make a stove fire with charcoal than to make a stove fire with charcoal. Secondly, the pipes are made of steel, not wrought iron. Of course, if you put too much medicine, you may still explode. ”

Song Yingxing didn't know how to make Suzhou steel, but he knew the Guangnan steel irrigation method, which was the kind of steel smelted in the Foshan area.

"That's a lot of trouble," Zhao Han said, "If you don't train for a long time, it will be difficult for the soldiers to get the right amount of medicine." Can you set the appropriate dosage first, and then wrap it in an oily paper shell, which can usually be moisture-proof and drench-proof. During the battle, the soldier held the paper shell in his hand, tore it open with his teeth, and then filled the medicine in the shell into the gun? ”

"That's a wonderful way!" Song Yingxing said happily.

Walking to the gate of the school field, Song Yingxing asked again: "General Town, there is also a kind of shotgun, do you need to build it?" ”

"Isn't a shotgun different from a birdgun?" Zhao Han didn't figure it out.

Song Yingxing explained: "The shotgun, like a spear, can only be controlled by two people. The bird gun is exhausted by 100 paces (the longest range), but the bird gun can shoot more than 200 steps. ”

Zhao Han figured it out, the shotgun was the gun during the Opium War, and the barrel of that thing was higher than that of people.

"No need," Zhao Han commanded, "only build bird guns, bird guns are too difficult to operate." ”

Song Yingxing said: "There is also a kind of 10,000-strong enemy, which is a sharp weapon for defending the city. ”

Zhao Han asked, "What are the enemies of 10,000 people?" ”

Song Yingxing described in detail: "Stuff gunpowder with a dry hollow mud mass, add poisonous fire, divine fire and the like. After penetrating the medicine and safety, the outside is surrounded by a wooden frame, or the clay is made with a wooden barrel. When the enemy attacks the city, he lights the fuse and throws it under the city, and the enemy is not lucky. ”

Poisonous fire, that is, arsenic, cinnabar, dung, silver embroidery (the residue of refining silver ore) and other substances are added to the gunpowder.

Divine fire, that is, in the gunpowder, cinnabar, realgar, orpiment, borax, magnetic powder, pepper flour and other substances are added.

In other words, the Ming Dynasty made a lot of strange firearms. Even as early as the time of Zhu Di's martyrdom, mines had already appeared, and Zhu Di's Yan army almost collapsed when he stepped on the mines, and he didn't know how those mines were detonated.

Zhao Han understood it immediately, this thing is a large grenade.

However, the shell is made of mud, and for fear of breaking the mud, it is also covered with wooden strips.

It is even more frustrating to use a wooden barrel, which can no longer be called a grenade, but a bomb the size of a barrel.

It must not be thrown far, and can only be used to defend the city.

Zhao Han asked: "Can you use ceramics as shells, I rule the mountains and mountains with white clay, and I can fire ceramics." Craft small 10,000 enemies that can be thrown in the field, and fragments of ceramic explosions can also kill enemies. ”

"This method works." Song Yingxing nodded.

The grenadiers who used ceramic bombs, I don't know if the European missionaries saw it and would think that Zhao Han was violent.

How expensive porcelain is in Europe!

When they came to the barracks, the officers immediately came to pay a visit, and Zhao Han asked them to immediately train the army.

Walking to the shooting range where archers were trained, Zhao Han opened the gunpowder bag and found that it was granular black powder, and couldn't help asking, "What is this black granular?" ”

"The gunpowder of the cannon is like that." Song Yingxing replied.

Black particle gunpowder was born in the late Tang Dynasty and was made by Taoist alchemy.

But it was really used on a large scale in actual combat from the Yuan Dynasty. The bronze cannons of the Yuan Dynasty unearthed by Wuwei in later generations had granular gunpowder. The mines unearthed in Hohhot at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty also found residual granular black powder.

Zhao Han became more and more surprised, and asked, "The gunpowder made by the imperial court is all this thing?" ”

Song Yingxing sighed: "A lot of the gunpowder issued by the imperial court to the officers and soldiers cannot be used, and the generals have to buy gunpowder at their own expense." ”

According to Xu Guangqi's account, due to the poor quality of the gunpowder and the poor manufacture of the bird guns, the Ming army's musket units were sometimes unable to penetrate the heavy armor of the Tartars.

Zhao Shixin, the governor of Beijing, also said: "The gunpowder made by the cunning craftsmen is shoddy and prevaricating. ”

Is it really the craftsman who is cunning?

Definitely!

Officials deduct all kinds of gunpowder production fees, no matter how good the craftsman is, it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice.

Daming is really not bad at technology, but the complete corruption of the bureaucracy.

Zhao Han retreated fifty steps away and asked Song Yingxing how to load ammunition and then aim at the arrow target in front of him.

"Bang!"

The smoke cleared, and the target was the same.

I don't know where the projectile flew.

The onlookers were a little embarrassed and embarrassed to laugh.

Song Yingxing said: "It is normal for people who are new to learning bird guns to miss the target. ”

Reloading the ammunition, Zhao Han smiled and moved forward, walked to a distance of thirty steps, and pulled the trigger again to release the gun.

"Bang!"

This time he actually hit the edge of the target.

Everyone shouted for divine shooting, and Song Yingxing was also surprised: "You can hit the second bullet, and the town is talented." ”

The second bullet of the fart, before Zhao Han crossed, he was also a shooting expert in the company, and he was fed with countless ammunition.

However, Zhao Han was quite surprised that a smoothbore gun like a bird gun could achieve such accuracy.

Mainly due to the fact that the barrel is very long, already close to a meter.

Of course, the fire gun offered by Song Yingxing belongs to the strictly created boutique. If you increase manpower and increase production, even if the quality control is strict, the overall quality will decline a lot.

This kind of bird gun still has to put a row of guns, and it is difficult to achieve results by shooting separately.

Zhao Han said with a smile: "This bird gun is good, it will be mine in the future." ”

At present, the high-ranking generals in the army, the ones with the strictest rules and the best discipline are the troops trained by Li Zheng.

Zhao Han decided to let Li Zhengtong lead the firearms battalion, and for the time being, there were only a few dozen firearms, and in another year there would be several hundred.

"Is there still a shortage of gunpowder raw materials?" Zhao Han asked.

Song Yingxing replied: "Saltpeter must be purchased from Ningdu County, and there is no shortage of other raw materials." ”

Ningdu County is next to the southeast of Yongfeng County, and the merchants who sell saltpeter can be transported to Xingguo County to take a small road, and the goods will be transported to Ji'an along the Ganjiang River.

There are also more convenient routes, all the way to Ganzhou, and then from Ganzhou to Ji'an.

However, Ganzhou was tightly guarded and was not allowed to transport saltpeter, a strategic material.

Zhao Han advised: "Hurry up the construction of firearms, craftsmen who do well and quickly can be promoted and rewarded for reuse." If there are craftsmen who can improve the process, it should also be a big prize! ”