In the second year of Yuanxing, in the winter moon, there were sporadic snowflakes falling.

In the northern suburbs of Yanjing, the sound of fires and explosions sounded in the distance on the hillside.

On the platform, which was relatively a hundred zhang away, several figures dressed in official robes stood on it, guarding a tall figure in the middle.

The firearms maker was standing on one side to be questioned.

Q: How does this improvement feel?

Answer: Your Majesty thinks it is possible to go further, but it will take more time.

Question: The power is almost up, so let's send this batch to the Shenji Battalion first.

A: Back to Your Majesty, there may not be many of them.

Question: It's not very powerful, it's not much, but it's loud enough, I don't expect you to make anything powerful right now.

Answer: Thank you, Your Majesty!

……

On the dirt slope over there, a few unarmored soldiers wearing red uniforms, cloaks, and round-brimmed hats sprinted a few steps, and a few sparkling iron bumps in their hands were thrown out in unison, and thrown behind an earthen wall in front of them, which was a few bangs one after another.

The fire, the explosion, the earth wall did not move, but a large amount of black smoke rose.

Su Chen, dressed in imperial clothes and wearing a big coat, sat among several generals, roasting the fire, and asked, "How do the generals feel?" ”

The highest status here is naturally Li Jing and Huo Quai, as well as Zhang Yu who was replaced, but unfortunately as a Ming general, he is not familiar with firearms, everything here is the third token given by Ming Chengzu: Liu Sheng, the first generation commander of the Shenji Battalion.

Su Chen also set up a 2,000-strong Shenji battalion for him, as well as a 500-horse army.

Li Jing put down the hot tea and said with a smile: "Firearms are widely used, and recently the minister has been reading Ming Chengzu's book on firearms. ”

In the past two years, at first was not optimistic about the so-called firearms, with the appearance of the Ming general Liu Sheng, the firearms that have been stagnant have finally made some breakthroughs, although the application on the battlefield, it is still not as good as the bow and crossbow, but the first to develop the iron bump, which can be carried by soldiers, ignited, thrown, and create unexpected explosions.

"Before the firebolt matures, it can also be used to bind the gunpowder with arrows and replace the ordinary fire arrows, but unfortunately the output of gunpowder is extremely low, and it can only be used in the Shenji Battalion, and cannot be extended to various armies."

For Li Jing, who was accustomed to mastering the battlefield, he quickly saw that this kind of thing would be more widely used in the future, and then borrowed Zhu Di's "Divine Spear Firearms Law" from Su Chen and read it for several days, and he had his own opinions.

Lu Bu 'cut', and then stood up.

"A certain family is still accustomed to using their own bows and arrows, and firearms are just used by ordinary soldiers."

Su Chen smiled, did not continue, in the past two years, the effect of firearms improvement is not large, but the space for extension is very wide, the fifteen warships in Feiyungang have been equipped with artillery, but the forging metal process is not enough to support the explosion, and if you fire a few pieces, you have to stop for a while to avoid exploding.

"Let's go, I'll see it here today."

After saying a word, Su Chen got up and dusted off the ashes on his body, and ordered the official beside him: "Tell General Liu, don't look at the rest of the world, save some gunpowder." ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." The official cautiously stepped aside and watched the emperor and his generals leave.

On the road, he also talked about firearms from time to time, Lu Bu was not interested in this, and from time to time he said a few words to Huo Quzhi, and invited the other party to the mansion as a guest, Huo Quzhi shook his head again and again, he knew what Lu Bu was thinking, but he didn't have that plan, even if he did, what he wanted to find was a gentle woman who took care of his family.

"By the way, it seems that General Lu's daughter is leading the army back to the city today, how about we go and see?"

Su Chen heard Lu Lingqi mentioned on the side, and couldn't help mentioning it, in the past two years, the Central Plains, grassland, and northern land have been stable, but it doesn't mean that there is no small chaos, especially on the grassland, there are always a few small tribes who want to make trouble together, and then they are pressed down by the Political Governor.

But it's always like this, so that Su Chen is also angry, the most recent time he was going to let the Iron Buddha or Iron Tooth go to slaughter there, but Lu Lingqi took over the errand, Lu Bu was not at ease, so he asked Gao Shun to follow, and Ma Yunlu also volunteered to join in.

After two months, the news of the victory came back, and today he arrived in Yanjing.

Everyone guarded Su Chen from the north gate into the city, all the way to the south gate, the government had already cleared the road over there, all moved, hundreds of messengers all dispatched to maintain order, although it was not a return from the war, but two years without fighting, for the people of the north, this war can also be used as a conversation after dinner.

Sporadic snowflakes drifted across the street and fell on the people who were crowded on the side of the street, Su Chen changed into civilian clothes in the car, and came to a tea shop with the people who also changed into regular clothes, looking at the street scene below.

"Among the four countries, there are female generals, I'm afraid that only Xia Guo is the country." Su Chen stood behind the fence on the second floor, and said with a smile to Lu Bu, Li Jing and the others on the left and right, "It's okay to let them fight the battle that is not too difficult, and the big war still has to be handed over to my generals." ”

"Women lead the army, and it is sometimes inconvenient to be in the army." Li Jing nodded, in fact, he didn't approve of letting women go to the battlefield, "Especially if women will be kind and have an impact on the battle situation." ”

"Hmph, my daughter won't!" Lu Bu clasped his hands around his chest and snorted.

At this moment, the voices of the people came from the street below, near the city gate: "Enter the city!" ”

Followed by a plethora of different voices shouting: "It's coming, it's coming!" ”

"I see the Great Xia Banner!"

“…… Female general! ”

On the streets, at the moment noisy and lively,

In the chattering voice, neat footsteps came from the direction of the city gate, and on the city tower was the sound of war drums to welcome the triumphant march of the team.

On both sides of the crowded street, all kinds of miscellaneous words stopped, and the literati and gentlemen of restaurants and tea shops also put down their wine glasses, stood up, walked to the window and glanced down at the street.

Wind mixed with scattered snowflakes fluttered over the streets.

At the end of the street, soldiers wearing cotton clothes on the outside and leather armor on the inside are in three columns, like a long black dragon.

In the heavy footsteps, the long soldiers leaning on their shoulders and the long soldiers of their companions bumped into each other, the long shield was held in the left hand, and the ring knife at the waist swung from time to time, hitting it, looking straight ahead with a solemn expression, and the falling snowflakes hung on their eyebrows and eyelashes.

Occasionally, in the middle of the group, there was a shorter, but extremely strong, red-haired brute, also wearing winter clothes, which seemed a little abrupt in the group, and the leader of the group of Gentiles was a red-haired Gentile general named Elsa, and her brother Barry.

Feiyungang didn't need them anymore, and after learning that there were still this group of foreigners, especially women, Lu Lingqi pestered Su Chen and asked these people to go out together under her command.

At this time, Ma Yunlu and Elsa guarded Lu Lingqi, giving people the illusion of a general.

Seeing the three female generals walking in the front row, the man in the people on the street couldn't help but say, "This is General Lu's daughter, right?" Such a spirit! ”

There was also a voice that whispered and said, "Who will dare to marry in the future...... I can't hold it back when I marry home, and I can't be beaten by her every day. ”

In the remarks of the market, Lu Lingqi straightened her back, regardless of the eyes around her, she was holding a crescent halberd, and the red horse under the seat had already been replaced, it was a curly-haired red rabbit horse, and it was still on the horse, wearing leather armor spliced with red cotton clothes.

She wore a cloak on her shoulders and a cloak from left to right, wrapping half of her body in it, and at first glance, under her thin eyebrows with snowflakes, her apricot eyes were majestic.

The man who just said, 'Marry home, you can't be beaten by her every day', happened to meet Lu Lingqi's gaze, and the man suddenly felt a chill in his stamina, immediately closed his mouth and retreated behind the crowd.

The team in the discussion had already left, and after Su Chen and the generals watched for a while, they pulled Lu Bu, who couldn't close their mouths, and Huo Quzhi, Li Jing, Zhang Yu and others got out of the tea shop and returned to the imperial city by carriage.

Two full years have passed since the rectification of the Central Plains clan, and during this time, the three places in the Xia Kingdom have been in a conservative state of recuperation for the past two years.

Under the hard work of Zhuge Liang, Wang Lang, Jia Xu, Li Ru, Guo Jia and others, the foundation is getting stronger day by day, especially the trade between the two countries in the northwest Qi and Liang has been cut off.

For this reason, Liang also sent troops to attack the Xuan Department once, and after winning a game, the Xirong cavalry launched a safari, and with the cooperation of 5,000 soldiers and horses of the Political Fu Division, more than 10,000 people in Liang Guo fled back less than 500.

Since then, from the Western Regions to the grassland, and then to the northern land of the Xia Kingdom, a large number of Western Regions specialties directly from the grassland into Yanjing, and war horses, furs, cattle and sheep bones and other things, no longer imported into Qiliang, let alone Wuyue, but in the Central Plains after processing and manufacturing into weapons, and then sold to the south at a high price.

In the past two years, the people on the border between Qiliang and Liang have not been able to get by, and many have ventured to settle down in Meizhou in the Central Plains, and the population of Meizhou has increased by nearly 90,000 in the past two years.

And the south of Wu and Yue, from a small-scale war, within two years has affected the border counties, the two sides have fought back and forth, on the bright side Su Chen is to support the Yue country, the other side is quite a lot of mountains, grain is in short supply, in two years Zhuge Liang to grain for copper and iron policy, almost one-third of the copper and iron of the Yue country to the Central Plains.

The Wu State, which was secretly supported by Su Chen, was also on par with the Yue State on the battlefield because of all kinds of arrows, arrows, and the Wu State standard armor forged specifically for them.

It seems that the national prestige has been shown, but in fact, the border population of the two countries has been declining sharply.

Under the advantages of the other, Yanjing in the north is now an important military and government town of the Xia Kingdom, and trade and culture have moved to Luyang in the Central Plains.

Since the roots of the Central Plains clans were cut off two years ago, they have gradually disappeared from view, the fields have been replanned, and various assets have been collected by the imperial court or sold to merchants in need.

The most important thing is that the spread of the Chinese language has continued without the slightest hindrance, from the army to the academy, from the peddlers and pawns to the court officials, they have also begun to use the Chinese language as the national language.

After all, if you can't get fame in the examination, you can also rely on the things from the five subjects to get enough food and clothing.

From south to north, there is only agriculture regardless of region, the batch of experimental grain planted that year, will be planted in a large area after the spring of this year, Zhuge Liang strongly advocated the Central Plains, the north of the land to open up the wasteland, in addition to the mountains and forests, the place that can be planted, all can not be wasted, but also specifically applied to Su Chen for a series of expenses such as renovating ditches to prepare for planting new grain.

On the other hand, Li Ru suggested that the cattle, sheep, and horses of the Xirong tribes should be all handled by the tribal nobles for unified trade, so that the Xirong tribes would completely rely on livestock breeding, so that they would be firmly tied into their interests.

In the future, if you dare to make trouble, you will be attacked by other tribes.

In the same way, the prosperous trade drove the merchants in the north and south of the country, and there was no war for two years, and a large number of shops, restaurants, wine shops, and workshops outside the city expanded at an astonishing rate, which also gave the peasant women in the villages after the agricultural slack a place to earn extra money.

……

Xia Palace, Chengyun Palace.

Lu Lingqi, who returned triumphantly, led Gao Shun, Ma Yunlu, and the Gentile female general named Elsa up the stone steps carved from the white rock, and Elsa, who had been here for three or four years, was the first time to enter the power center of this huge country.

Looking at the splendid hall, Rao is a woman who has never been afraid of the corpse mountain and the sea of blood, crossed the high threshold, and after entering the main hall, in the countless murderous eyes around her, she trembled and followed Lu Lingqi in front of her, and bowed down respectfully.

"Your Majesty!"

The crisp voice sounded from Lu Lingqi's mouth, and Ma Yunlu and Elsa also shouted out.

On the royal steps, Su Chen raised his hand, asked the three women plus Gao Shun to get up, and after briefly asking a few words about the battle over there, Lu Lingqi suddenly opened her mouth and brought an angry news.

"Your Majesty, the envoy sent to the State of Qi was killed by the monarch of the State of Qi."

The hall was silent, and the sound of needles falling to the ground could be heard.

(End of chapter)