After Zheng Chenggong received Shen Shuren's instructions, he only spent a few days in Wuchang to consult on strategies, and then obediently returned to Poyang Hukou to continue his tax inspection and economic blockade tasks.

In addition, he also greeted his family, 300,000 taels of silver, 150,000 taels each in the north and south, and handed them over to the people of the Shen family in case they could open the joints at any time.

The Zheng family is really happy to give silver, 300,000 taels, but it is just a matter of the eldest young master's words. Casually approve a note to sign Zheng Chenggong's name, seal the letter with fire paint, and send a henchman to take it, and pay it when you see the letter. The Zhengjia Shanhai Five-Road business in the north and south of Beijing is basically just a little bit of a move and it can be done.

There is no way, whoever asks the Zheng family to collect the flag silver every year has three or four thousand large sea ships, each ship is three thousand taels per year (a small half is self-operated, and more than half is operated by other Zheng families to collect protection fees), and this income is more than 10 million taels per year.

The water transport merchants who pay protection fees to the Zheng family in the world will pay the money to the five ports of Shanwu Road, and the north and south capitals were originally one of the import and export bases of the Zheng family's Shanwu Road.

Now that it is almost the end of the year, each of the Zheng family firms in the five major commercial cities has less than two million taels of silver in the account, and it is too easy to draw out 150,000 yuan each.

……

The effects of the economic blockade are not immediately visible, and they are certainly much slower than direct military strikes.

It is only winter now, and the lack of supplies in the mountainous areas is not obvious. It is not until the most severe cold time in the middle of winter, and even when the spring is barren and yellow, that it is a real desperate situation.

Therefore, Shen Shuren was not in a hurry to make a forced landing immediately, and there was still a wait-and-see period of two or three months.

During this window, he had nothing else to do, so he naturally devoted his energy and attention to the industrial construction of the territory.

Since mid-November, Shen Shuren has left Jiangxia County, Fuzhi, and personally went to Daye County to live for a period of time to rectify and inspect the mining of Iron Mountain, as well as the construction of military technology and production capacity.

In addition, when Shen Shuren first took over Wuchang at the beginning of last month, he instructed his henchmen and family members to relocate the military bureau and workshop that had been built in Huangzhou, and the craftsmen and management personnel were also moved to facilitate unified management.

Now, more than a month later, the relocation has been successfully completed. Anyway, the house can be built in Daye and Wuchang, as long as the people and equipment are transported over.

Shen Shuren's deployment was also due to the consideration of moving the most important military industry under his nose to facilitate unified management.

In the future, he will certainly continue to develop science and technology in military production, and if metallurgy and machinery manufacturing are respectively laid out on the north and south banks of the Yangtze River, transportation will be too cumbersome and not conducive to secrecy.

Moreover, Huanggang is a poor and remote ravine after all, and the conditions, environment, and transportation convenience are obviously incomparable with the provincial capital of Wuchang in later generations.

After the relocation was completed, Shen Shuren also inspected it for the first time to understand the latest situation, so as to have an idea of the current situation.

The last time he personally inquired about military production was in April this year.

At that time, the military workshop in Huangzhou had just completed the production of hoop bayonets and long-handled guns and battle axes for 1,200 musket troops. Then he began to switch to the production of Lu Mi Gong and Turtle Dove Gong, and reversed thinking about how to imitate the original Dutch Hongyi cannons sent by the Zheng family.

It's a pity that there are only a few trial productions, and they encountered Erhe's successive attacks, and Shen Shuren came to the front line to supervise the battle, and he basically had a free-range state for the military workshop in the next half a year.

I haven't seen him for half a year, and I met the Taoist inspection again, and the craftsmen and managers were also nervous. After Shen Shuren arrived, the chief craftsman Zhou Tie Dan took a copy of the latest accounts that his apprentice and the Shen family steward had just counted a few days ago, and personally handed it to him for review.

According to the accounts, from April to October, the production capacity of Lumi guns and turtledoves in the Huangzhou Soldier Workshop has gradually increased from more than 100 per month to more than 300 per month.

At the beginning, all kinds of foot boring machines, grinding machines, drilling machines, and coil forging machinery were also operating well. Two to three hundred craftsmen who are accustomed to the new machines have been trained – the number of blacksmiths has not increased significantly compared to the beginning of the year, but the skills training has improved considerably.

It's not that these blacksmiths were not good at the time, but they used to master the art of hand-striking iron, and now at least everyone can skillfully play with several simple machine tools, and the work efficiency is much faster.

The doubling of the production capacity of muskets is the best evidence of the improvement of the craftsmanship proficiency.

Of course, considering the slow run-in in the early stage, an average of 1,800 light and heavy muskets have been produced in the past seven months. Together with the 1,200 muskets owned by the Shen family before the war, the total number of self-produced muskets reached as much as 3,000.

In addition, in the past half a year or so, Shen Shuren has also obtained some firearms from some other channels, first of all, the thieves who have been destroyed, and each family can more or less seize hundreds of them.

It's just that the thieves' firearms are poorly workmanlike, there are no turtledove guns at all, and there are very few Lumi guns, mainly bird guns and old-fashioned firearms.

The old-fashioned firecracker has almost no value to today's Shen Shuren, and if it is seriously rusted and the gun is in bad condition, it can only be rebuilt as steel.

If the condition of the gun is better, it cannot be used by the field troops, because it is too unreliable, and the firing is slow, and it cannot keep up with the training rhythm of the troops. However, Shen Shuren will not blindly seek refinement and waste. These guns are in good condition but poor in performance, and they can still defend the city for the second-line troops.

In the past, Shen Shuren's base areas were all in the mountains, the terrain was dangerous, and there were no enemies who could directly attack the city, so there was little need to consider the strength of the city.

Now only more than half of Shen Shuren's territory is in the mountainous area, and the remaining half has extended to the Jianghan Plain, and the defense of the city must also be taken seriously. He picked out all the old-fashioned firecrackers that were picked out and reloaded with cumbersome firecrackers, and concentrated them in the two important towns of the plains of Wuchang and Xiangyang.

In the end, he also sent one to Fang Kongzhi, so that it could be used to guard the strategic places of Yiling and Jiangling - this is not Shen Shuren being a good man, but he knows that the two dangerous places where Fang Kongzhi personally sits are the key to blocking Zhang Xianzhong's return to Huguang. Helping Fang Kongzhi to defend the fortified city and ensure that it is not lost is helping Shen Shuren himself.

If Zhang Xianzhong dares to bypass the strong city and attack in the future, he relies on robbery to maintain logistics. Then the existence of Fang Kongzhi can also make Zhang Xianzhong's back road threatened at any time. Shen Shuren must join forces with him to beat Zhang Xianzhong from head to tail.

In addition to the firearms on the thief's side, Shen Shuren's last source of firearms was the three official and military guards who stayed in Wuchang and Hanyang after Zuo Liangyu moved to the town.

The Ming Dynasty guard station had a full quota of three or four thousand people, and there should be at least 700 firearms.

But the soldiers in the guard post are more than half empty, and of course the firearms will be equally lacking. In fact, there are more than 200 in each battalion, and the three battalions together are only 800, which is only a little more than a full battalion.

The thieves and the officers and soldiers of the local guard station provided a total of 1,700 firearms of various types for Shen Shuren.

After screening, 200 rusty scrapped guns were returned to the furnace, 900 old-fashioned firecrackers were converted to defend the city, and only 600 were able to directly equip the new army of the Shen family and reach the quality of standard bird guns and Lumi guns.

With the addition of the previous 3,000, Shen Shuren could equip his field troops with a total of 3,600 muskets above the bird gun.

Moreover, the Huangzhou Soldier Workshop has been dedicating manpower to produce bayonets during this time, anyway, the manufacturing cost and manpower consumption of bayonets are much less than firearms, and it is not much more than 2,000 bayonets. So these 3,600 people are all equipped with bayonets.

Of the 900 firebolts guarding the city, Shen Shuren left 300 in each of the two cities of Xiangyang and Wuchang, and the last 300 were given to Fang Kongzhi.

When this batch of firearms was sent to Jiangling, it was less than half a month since Shen Shuren last visited Fang Kongzhi to ask for support. Fang Kongzhi was really happy when he received the gift, and thought that Shen Shuren was repaying the favor for his support last time, and he was immediately assigned to the city defense troops.

There's no way, Fang Kongzhi has never fought such a rich battle as Shen Shuren. The Fang family is a traditional scholar, even if he is an enlightened reader, he has a lot of knowledge in science and engineering, but after all, he doesn't know how to do business and engage in production.

Fang Kongzhi, the governor, has been a governor for several years, and has been relying on the top to allocate ordnance, even if there is a certain production capacity for soldiers, they also have some cold weapons and armor, and basically have not produced their own muskets. Getting 300 pieces of defending the city at one time is a lot for him.

……

In addition to muskets, in the past six months or so, the great cause of making artillery in the Huangzhou Soldier Workshop has also gained a little eyebrows.

Although there was no large-scale mass production, I finally figured out the samples I got before, and I also tried to produce 5 samples successively - it's just that these 5 guns are not standardized at all, and the actual combat effect is probably lacking.

After all, it was for the purpose of accumulating experience, and the first two of the five guns could not be used in actual combat at all, and there were also records of explosive chambers, and the caliber and size were also different.

Because Shen Shuren asked them to try all kinds of attempts, don't be afraid to make mistakes. So Zhou Tie not only tried to build a 12-pounder gun, but also had the courage to try an 18-pounder gun together. The more projects you make, the more mistakes you make.

Fortunately, the live-fire test environment in the workshop was relatively tight, and the ignition people were far away during the test, and the explosion did not kill the craftsman, which was a blessing in misfortune.

After the 12-pound and 18-pound each made one scrapped, the follow-up three doors finally achieved a similar shape, two 12-pound doors and one 18-pound door, which can be successfully launched.

Only the weight of the charge and the ammunition must be reduced by two or three percent compared with the original Dutch cargo to ensure absolute safety, that is, in fact, they are only loaded to 10 pounds and 15 pounds respectively, and the maximum firing range can only ensure that the shot is about two miles.

Zhou Tie was afraid that Shen Shuren would blame him, so he specially emphasized in the report that the external dimensions of these cannons, and even the surface of the inner chamber, can be the same as the original Hongyi cannons, and there are no obvious sand holes and cavitations, but they are not very able to withstand heavy charges, and the reason is unknown.

Of course, Shen Shuren knows that this is all a problem of the quality of raw materials, the metal quality of copper and steel itself is not good, and it is useless for the casting master to have good craftsmanship.

Previously, there was no iron ore in Huangzhou, and the raw materials were purchased, and the Huangzhou workshop was only responsible for processing and casting at the mechanical level.

Now that there are conditions, it is still necessary to start from the bottom and start from the upstream metal smelting in order to hope for a decisive breakthrough.