"Brother Su is going to the Yaohuo Bureau?"
Yu Zongyuan looked at Su Ze in confusion and asked: "What's so good about Yaohuo Bureau? It stinks. Brother Su, let's go have a drink!"
Su Ze said: "Brother Yu, you also know that I was born in the military guard. Lin Baihu of our Changning Guard wanted to set up a firearms bureau in the guardhouse. Didn't I just find it? But what should I do with the firearms bureau? I don’t know anything about it, so I came yesterday just to ask for help from Brother Yu. I wanted to go to the Yaohuo Bureau in Guiwei, but I didn’t expect that Brother Yu actually became the head of the Yaohuo Bureau. Wouldn’t that be more convenient?”
Yu Zongyuan said angrily: "Brother Su is such a great talent, but you are allowed to do the work of a craftsman by the hundred households of your guard! If that troublesome Lin Baihu were the hundred households of the Yanping Guard, I would definitely beat him to death !”
Su Ze added: "Brother Yu, please do me a favor."
"It's easy to talk! Come on, I'll take you to the Fire Bureau!"
After walking out of the gate of the county school, Yu Zongyuan's subordinates pulled a carriage. Yu Zongyuan said in a showy tone:
"Brother Su, how are you? This is the carriage my mother gave me as a reward! This is a fine Fengyang horse!"
Su Ze looked at the horse and saw that it was not tall but had tight muscles. Although it was not as good as the tall horses he had seen before traveling through time, it was still a top-notch military horse.
Capital command posts like Yanpingwei naturally have war horses, and I don't know if the second master Yu's horse is a military horse in service.
After pulling Su Ze onto the carriage, the second young master said proudly:
"Brother Su, how are you? I will be in charge of a yamen person from now on. Isn't this carriage majestic?"
Su Ze nodded. This was the second time Yu Zongyuan praised his horse to him, which shows his love for carriages.
In ancient times, a good carriage was just like a modern luxury car.
Yu Zongyuan has always been keen on the carriages of his father and brother, and today he finally got on the carriage drawn by Fengyang.
Since Zhu Yuanzhang conquered the country from the Mongols, he attached great importance to war horses.
There was indeed no shortage of horses in the Ming Dynasty. Until the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ministry of War reported to the court that there was too much trade with the horse market on the border with Mongolia and that the herdsmen could not keep so many horses. They asked the emperor to buy inferior Mongolian horses. They were slaughtered and made into meat pies and distributed to the soldiers.
(Of course there is an inside story to this matter, which will be discussed later)
Nowadays, horses in the world mainly come from three sources.
The first one is the Yunnan horse traded on the Southwest Tea-Horse Ancient Road. The advantage of the Yunnan horse is that it is stable. The Yunnan horse is short in stature but has sufficient endurance. Some traders prefer to use the Yunnan horse, which is cheap and affordable.
However, the Yunnan horse is really not majestic, so most dignitaries still don’t like the Yunnan horse.
The most popular horses are Mongolian horses traded from the north, or horses from the Western Regions, but these horses are rare in Fujian.
The third source is the horses raised by the Ming Dynasty.
After Zhu Yuanzhang conquered the world, he divided it into two horse breeding areas, one in the south and one in the north.
The Jiubian area in the north continued to recruit nomadic people, and then opened up pastures for them to raise horses.
The main horse-producing areas in the south are Fengyang and Chuzhou, Anhui.
Yes, the main pasture in the south of the Ming Dynasty was in Anhui, which was under the supervision of Taipu Temple in Nanzhili. There were more than fifty group herding supervisors specifically responsible for raising horses.
Among the horse farms in the south, the horses produced by Fengyang were of the best quality, so at that time the south regarded Fengyang horses as the standard for good horses.
However, the quality of horses raised in the south is actually like this. Su Ze thinks that Yu Zongyuan's "horse" is not very tall, but it is taller than the Yunnan horses bought by ordinary businessmen.
However, this horse can be considered to have a well-proportioned coat and a well-proportioned body. It is indeed a well-raised horse.
Seeing Su Ze looking at his horse, Yu Zongyuan said with a smile: "If Brother Su likes it, I'll give it to Brother Su for a few days when I've had enough of my addiction!"
Su Ze quickly refused. What Yu Zongyuan said was weird, and he thought it was some kind of special sexual habit.
The two of them arrived outside the city while talking.
Powder is easy to explode, so the Ming Dynasty's military system requires that it be set up outside the city.
For example, the gunpowder used by the Third Camp in the capital was produced by the Wang Gong Factory outside the capital.
However, Zhu Di, who established the Wang Gong Factory, was a veteran rebel who started out in the rebellion. He also thought of a problem, that is, if the Wang Gong Factory outside the city was breached by the enemy, wouldn't the gunpowder be used by the rebels? ?
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty also stipulated that the gunpowder factory outside the city could only pre-produce half of the gunpowder process, and then it had to be sent to the city to continue mixing into usable gunpowder.
This half of the process involves grinding sulfur and nitre into powder and then mixing them together in proportion.
It is then transported to a workshop in the city, and finally mixed with carbon powder to obtain complete black powder.
The same is true for Nanping City. The gunfire bureau outside the city is only the first few steps of the production process, and the subsequent processes need to be completed in the workshops in Yanpingwei.
Naturally, the tax collectors at the city gate did not dare to stop the Yanping Guard's carriage. The most important skill learned in this subordinate job was to recognize the dignitaries who could not stop the tax collectors in the city.
The fist hard level is high, and the Yu family must not be offended. In the name of military affairs, the second master Yu, the city gate defenders quickly cleared the crowd and allowed Yu Zongyuan's carriage to leave the city.
The privileged class is good, Su Ze sighed while sitting in the carriage. It's no wonder that scholars in the Ming Dynasty thought about the imperial examination. In the Ming Dynasty, your status determined everything.
Those tax collectors and servants who regarded ordinary people as cattle and sheep and frequently beat, cursed and oppressed Yu Zongyuan as if they were their own father.
In the strict hierarchical Ming Dynasty, this desperate hierarchical society only allowed a very small number of people to be regarded as human beings.
The benefits you can enjoy and the obligations you need to pay are all clearly written in the Ming Dynasty's system.
And the role you play in this society has been determined almost from the moment you were born.
Everyone follows this rule to please those who are higher than themselves and bully those who are lower than themselves.
If you are lucky enough to be born into my old Zhu family, then you will not have to worry about food and drink throughout your life.
If you are lucky enough to be a close relative of the royal family, then congratulations, you can drink, drink and meat as you please in your own kingdom, and no one can do anything to you as long as you don't rebel.
If you are unlucky enough to be born in a lowly family like Lehu, then there will be no way out in your life except rebellion.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were only a few roads that could achieve class crossing, and the widest one was the imperial examination.
The imperial examination can make an ordinary farmer's boy become an imperial official all of a sudden. This changes not only the fate of an individual, but even the fate of the entire family.
Nowadays, several big families in Nanping County have produced Jinshi families. These families rely on the continuous imperial examinations from generation to generation to obtain privileges to protect the family. Some families trace their origins back to slightly wealthy farmers.
Compared with the imperial examination, which is a relatively broad road, there are other paths such as wielding a sword and entering the palace to become a eunuch. However, the Ming Dynasty had a large number of eunuchs and only a few key positions. The degree of examination was even worse than the imperial examination.
Su Ze was thinking randomly, and the carriage quickly stopped. Smelling the strong smell of sulfur, Su Ze also knew that Yanpingwei's gunfire station had arrived.
Yu Zongyuan covered his nose and got off the carriage, and was immediately greeted by a middle-aged man wearing Baihu clothing.
"General Office! Why didn't you inform the children? The children should greet the General Office at the door!"
Yu Zongyuan waved his hand, pointed at the middle-aged Baihu and said: "Brother Su, this is Ma Baihu, the treasurer of the Yaohuo Bureau. Before this, Ma Baihu was temporarily in charge of the Yaohuo Bureau. He is my Dad’s capable subordinate.”
Su Ze saluted Ma Baihu. Seeing that Su Ze and Yu Zongyuan were brothers, Ma Baihu did not dare to neglect and quickly handed over their hands.
Yu Zongyuan said: "This is Su Xianggong, the county school, a student of Haijiaoyu!"
Hearing Hai Rui's name, Ma Baihu said in awe, "It's the Hai Bijie from Nanping County! Su Xianggong is a disciple of Hai Jiaoyu, so he must be named on the gold list!"
Although Su Ze knew that Ma Baihu's words were pure fart, and Hai Rui was not a well-known scholar in the country, and his own academic qualifications were just a scholar, how could Hai Rui's disciples be so good.
However, after being praised by Ma Baihu, Su Ze felt a little elated.
It's no wonder that no matter how wise the emperor is, there will be a few flattering ministers around him. It is so comfortable to be flattered.
Su Ze quickly put away his fluttering heart and said directly: "I am from Changning Guard. Hundreds of households in our guard also wanted to build a medicine and fire workshop in Changning Guard. That's why I asked Mr. Yu to visit. Check out Yanpingwei’s Yaowu Bureau.”
Hearing that Su Ze was also from a military family, Ma Baihu became even more enthusiastic. He immediately said: "I didn't expect him to be a comrade of Chang Ning Guard. Whatever Mr. Su wants to see, I, Ma, will break it into pieces for you." I’ve told you everything, and there will definitely be no hidden secrets!”
Yu Zongyuan couldn't stand the strong smell of sulfur. He covered his nose and said, "Brother Su, I'd better wait for you at the door. This medicine and fire department is really smelly! Old Ma, please accompany Brother Su for a walk. I'll wait for you at the door."
After saying that, the wise soldier naturally brought stools, and someone else brought fruit plates and tea. Yu Zongyuan had afternoon tea at the entrance of Yaohuo Bureau.
Ma Baihu stayed with Su Ze and began to visit the Yaohuo Bureau.
[The discovery location is the Firearms Bureau. You can learn the skill "Firearm Manufacturing". Do you want to learn it? 】
"yes!"
Finally learned this skill! A set of black powder production techniques appeared in Su Ze's mind, as did several key sword manufacturing methods such as lead bullets and blunderbuss.
In fact, today's goal of visiting the Powder and Fire Bureau has been completed, but it is still early before dark, and Su Ze is ready to see what the Powder and Fireworks Workshop of this era is like.
As for the lower limit of how many brothers Yanpingwei has, you can tell by looking at Yu Zongyuan. Su Ze didn't have high expectations for Yaohuo Bureau.
But after going around for a while, Su Ze's impression of Ma Baihu changed greatly.
Although this guy is a flatterer and flatters Su Ze all the way, he is really a person who does things.
The medicine and fire bureau of Yanping Guard is quite large. It is not only used by Yanping Guard, but also supplies several nearby health centers.
Su Ze took a quick tour and found out that the entire Yaohuo Bureau actually needed a hundred craftsmen.
Producing gunpowder is inherently a very dangerous thing. Although the Powder and Fire Bureau only mixes sulfur and charcoal and does not make complete black powder, sulfur and charcoal are both flammable, and burning sulfur will produce toxic smoke. Managing such a fire department is no easy task.
But this Ma Baihu arranged everything in an orderly manner, and he patiently explained the process to Su Ze in detail, and even made fire prevention and evacuation plans.
In fact, the gunpowder of the Ming Dynasty was not bad. At the same time, both output and quality were ahead of the West.
The Ming Dynasty's imitation bird guns are also very fast. If you want to blow up the chamber, firearms these days are only half a dozen, so don't make fun of anyone.
The military backwardness of the Ming Dynasty was still due to the corruption of the military system and the court, as well as the logistical difficulties caused by the depleted treasury in the later period.
It is indeed not easy to rebel now. At least there are still many people in the Ming Dynasty who are doing things.
However, Su Ze was still a little confused. Based on some data provided by Ma Baihu, he simply used the "accounting room" skill to roughly estimate the output of this medicine and fire bureau.
The output of this medicine and fire bureau is enough to equip a thousand-man army of gunmen, but what is the state of the Yanping Guards? Not to mention the cannon team, the last time the Japanese pirates invaded Nanping City, they couldn't even control the cannon on the city gate, so where would they use the gunpowder?
"Ma Baihu, your medicine and fire bureau produces a lot of medicine and fire every year?"
Ma Baihu said with a smile: "Of course, this Yaohuo Bureau is an important part of the Yanping Guard, otherwise the commander would not send the Second Young Master to take charge personally."
"I heard from Brother Yu that before he came here, Ma Baihu was in charge of the Fire Bureau?"
Speaking of Yu Zongyuan, Ma Baihu didn't have any dissatisfaction in his tone:
"The second young master is the commander's biological son. If you work for the second young master, you are working for the commander!"
Yu Zongyuan's lazy character is even unwilling to enter the medicine and fire bureau.
Moreover, this Ma Baihu must be a close associate of the Yanping Guard Commander. It is said that Yu Zongyuan is in charge of the Yaohuo Bureau. In fact, this Ma Baihu has not lost the management rights of the Yaohuo Bureau, and he can also directly report to the commander. The envoy reported that Yu Zongyuan was just in name.
Yanpingwei is in such a bad state that it will definitely not be able to use so much gunpowder in a year, but the gunpowder bureau is in full swing, what is it for?
After a while, Su Ze thought of another possibility. If that were the case, Yanpingwei would really suck!
However, Su Ze remained calm, just covered his nose and said:
"Ma Baihu, this sulfur is too strong. Our place in Changningwei is small, but we don't have room to place a medicine and fire workshop."
Ma Baihu immediately said with a smile: "If this is the case, I would suggest Mr. Su to build a medicine mixing workshop first."
"Just pull the medicine we have here back and mix it with the toner to create a gunpowder. Why bother?"
"But Ma Baihu is the Yanpingwei Fire Bureau. Isn't it in line with the court's rules for me to buy goods from you?"
Ma Baihu said with a smile: "Isn't it just some gunpowder? It's humid in the south of Fujian, so it's normal for some gunpowder to be scrapped due to moisture. Both the commander and the second master can understand."
Ma Baihu added: "If Mr. Su has any questions about making gunpowder, just ask me."
When Ma Baihu and Su Ze came out, Yu Zongyuan, who had been bored all afternoon, wanted to take Su Ze to drink again.
Su Ze rejected Yu Zongyuan because there was a banquet in the evening. The young commander had completely believed in Su Ze's magical plan, and then he pulled Su Ze and said:
"Then if Brother Su comes to the city in the middle of the month, he must give me a favor. I have something important to ask of Brother Su!"
Yu Zongyuan is even more convinced that Su Ze can help him win the hereditary military position of commander. However, this trip to Fuzhou has also polished his temperament. Anyway, his father is still in good health, and fighting for the inheritance will not take a day or two. Regarding matters, as long as I have a good relationship with Su Ze, I can take my time.
Yu Zongyuan handed over a cloth bag again and said seriously: "Then I made an appointment in advance. This is a specialty I brought back from Fuzhou. Brother Su, please accept it."
After saying that, Yu Zongyuan drove Su Ze back to school in Nanping County in a carriage, and gave Su Ze a cloth bag when they parted.
Su Ze opened it and saw only two pieces of girdle silver wrapped in a cloth bag, which together weighed about forty taels.
It's not like Su Ze hasn't made money these days, but this is the first time he's seen such a good fat sheep like Yu Zongyuan.
Su Ze hid the money in the school building. When it was almost time to entertain Lin Qingcai's brother, Su Ze called three classmates and walked towards the Yaoyue Tower.
(End of chapter)
