Jia Cong would not be surprised to find anything in the Taoist Eight Diagrams Furnace.
But using gunpowder as a burning substance to make elixirs like Burdock is no different from throwing an oversized grenade into the house.
With a huge amount of gunpowder, a metal confined space, and all kinds of strange things thrown inside, the power of the explosion can be imagined.
If it hadn't exploded into the sky for unknown reasons, Niu Geng would have been killed on the spot even if he was hiding behind the bronze tripod.
This guy is also a geek. He can actually prepare gunpowder by himself and save dozens of kilograms. He is really a master, and he is really awesome.
After sending away the people from the Changping Prefecture Yamen who came to inquire, Niu Geng took Jia Cong to visit his "workshop".
This guy is really a genius. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, he is proficient in carpentry and blacksmithing. He can also weave and embroider. There is a textile machine he made himself in the workshop. During the demonstration, Jia Cong found that it was even more up-to-date than the Ministry of Industry. The single-person loom is more efficient and produces better cloth.
What a genius!
But this wasn't what surprised Jia Cong the most. When Jia Cong saw a pile of firearms thrown in the corner of the room, his whole body went numb.
"Uncle, these are all made by students. Their range is only a little further than the range of standard firearms in the military, but they are a little more powerful..."
Jia Cong picked up a musket with a smooth body and a flintlock mechanism. Take a closer look, damn, this thing is actually rifled...
Looking at the small cannon again, there is almost perfect rifling in the barrel.
It's just that it has rifling. These muskets and artillery all use breech charges.
"How did you get that rifling?"
This time, Niu Geng was confused. He scratched his messy hair and murmured: "Rifling?"
Jia Cong was also confused. Didn't you make this thing?
"It's the barrel, those lines in the barrel? How did you get it? Rub it with your hands?"
Just listen to Niu Geng say: "Oh, it turns out that this is what my uncle said. The student went to Xuan Mansion to visit his father and found that the projectiles fired by military firearms always deflected, so he wanted to see if there was any way to improve it... …”
It turns out that this guy likes to think about things when he has nothing to do. He watched a firearms demonstration in the army, and then went home and started thinking about improving firearms.
Not to mention, he was tinkering around and discovered that just by carving a few lines into the barrel, the range and power of the firearm could be increased to a greater extent, and the accuracy was also doubled.
This discovery made Niu Geng overjoyed, and he devoted himself to studying the effect of rifling on firearms in the "workshop".
The transformation from straight rifling to spiral rifling took only less than ten days. As for breech loading, it is purely because with the use of spiral rifling, front loading is a bit laborious, and it is purely for the convenience of loading.
After Niu Geng finished studying these, he quickly lost interest in firearms and turned around to study his steam boiler. He even forgot to send these firearms to Xuan Mansion to his father.
This resulted in the fact that there was a pile of firearms in the corner of Niu's workshop that could increase Daxia's military power several times, but no one knew about it.
Eight months, a whole eight months was delayed!
When Jia Cong thought of these advanced firearms being left to gather ashes in the corner of the workshop, he wanted to grab the cow's neck and hit him on the head.
Although the rifling method of burdocks and the creation of firearms are more time-consuming and energy-consuming, the ideas of breech-loading guns, cannons and rifling are so advanced that the Ministry of Industry can use this to speed up research.
There are also iron-making, steel-making and gunpowder mixing. This guy is a proper "bomber man"!
My Ministry of Industry wants it!
"This is a threshing machine developed by students, specially used to thresh corn..."
"This is a blower developed by students. It is more labor-saving and practical than ordinary blowers..."
"This is a Kongming lantern, uh... Kongming ball. The student thinks it should be able to take people to the sky, but my wife doesn't allow it. The student hasn't tried it yet..."
"Man-powered smoke extractor is used to remove the oil fume produced when cooking in the kitchen..."
"Rotate the mandarin duck shovel, and the hot oil will no longer splash on your hands..."
"The harmonious bed between husband and wife, uncle, you see, as long as someone turns this outside, there will be a wooden support rising and falling in the middle of the bed... Uh, this... this is just an ordinary bed, uncle, you don't need to pay too much attention .”
"Awesome!"
"What is awesome?"
"I just sigh that you are awesome!"
"I see……"
Jia Cong had to admire the brilliance of the burdock brain and melon seeds. Although there were many strange inventions in the workshop, the firearms and the artifacts for corn threshing were enough for the emperor to grant him an official title.
The servant who lost half of his arm due to the explosion of the alchemy furnace was rescued. Niu Geng lost three points of his worry, and the remaining seven points came from his wife Tian.
He blew up the house again, and no matter how good-tempered or virtuous a person was, he would become violent.
Fortunately, Mrs. Tian knew that her husband was entertaining the emperor's confidant Yongfeng Bo Jia Cong, so she suppressed her anger, arranged for people to clean up the mess, and prepared a banquet, intending to keep Jia Cong for lunch at Niu Mansion.
Jia Cong also wanted to finalize the matter of Niu Geng going to Beijing to work as a "cow horse" for him in the Ministry of Industry as soon as possible, so he stayed and asked people to go to Changping Prefecture to pick up Daiyu.
When the princess arrived, the original anger in Tian's heart subsided by a third. When news came from the front hall that Yongfeng Bo had invited Niu Geng to the capital and planned to recommend talents to the emperor, all the anger disappeared.
After the couple sent Jia Cong and Daiyu away from Niu's Mansion, Niu Geng peeked at his wife's face anxiously, and seeing that she had no intention of getting angry, he said cautiously: "Madam, Uncle Yongfeng said he wanted me to go to the Ministry of Industry Taking office..."
Tian raised her eyebrows: "Husband, don't you plan to continue the imperial examination?"
Niu Geng scratched the back of his head, feeling a little confused: "Well, this... mainly because I still don't know whether the fifth-grade sense organs can participate in the scientific examination."
"Fifth grade?"
Tian covered her mouth and exclaimed, her father-in-law was a fourth-grade military attache, and her husband's situation must be too unfavorable.
…
Jia Cong held a delicate gun in his hand and played with it over and over again. This was a gift given to him by Niu Geng.
Made of fine steel, wooden handle, wheel loading, can be fired five times in a row. According to the test at Niu's house, the shooting range is more than fifty steps, and it is fast and accurate within twenty steps.
Jia Cong fell in love with this gun at first sight... No, it should be called a revolver.
Sure enough, this is a man’s toy!
Daiyu curiously asked about Niu Geng. When she heard that the scholar was actually a "great inventor", she was shocked and at the same time happy for Jia Cong.
"This burdock is really a genius. His brain works very fast. His research on firearms alone is fifty years ahead of the Ministry of Industry. I'm going to make a decision on this guy. Even if his father comes, he won't be able to snatch him away!"
Daiyu was a little surprised by Jia Cong's admiration for Niu Geng: "So powerful?"
"The Ministry of Industry's research on firearms has been stuck in a bottleneck for almost a year. Apart from technological limitations, the main reason is that the craftsmen have no ability to innovate and are always trying to find answers in old papers."
The previous decades of rule by the grassland peoples over the Central Plains had done too much harm to the culture of the Central Plains. Many inheritances have been cut off, and only fragments of records can be found in books.
If Jia Cong hadn't used his limited memory to draw a rough sketch, Bactria's firearms would have been quickly left behind by the Westerners and suppressed for hundreds of years.
"And the steam boiler he made. If this thing is completed, Daxia will achieve a qualitative leap..."
When Jia Cong accompanied Daiyu to inspect the capital of Gyeonggi Prefecture, Niu Geng and his wife had already packed up their belongings in Changping and left for the capital.
Niu Geng's lineage and the Zhen Guo Duke's Mansion have not yet left the fifth service. After entering the capital, they naturally have to go to the Zhen Guo Gong's Mansion to pay a visit.
When the people in the Zhenguo Palace learned that Niu Geng had been appreciated by Jia Cong and was recommended to the emperor and promised the official position of Yuanwai Lang of the Ministry of Industry, they were all surprised and asked why.
Niu Geng did not hide anything and told the whole incident in detail.
The first-class Bo Niu Jizong, the head of Zhenguo Palace, was angry, not because of Jia Cong, but because of Niu Geng's father, Niu Chang. The Lao Niu family finally gave birth to a genius, but he clearly gave all the credit to the family, but he didn't even notice. Without asking, he was intercepted by Jia Cong.
Firearms are being used more and more in the military. As long as the Lao Niu family presents the firearms made by Niu Geng, not to mention making marquises, at least they can get more viscounts and barons for the Lao Niu family.
Well, now, it is true that Niu Geng will be reused by the emperor, but in the eyes of the emperor, the biggest credit for this matter still falls on the head of that boy Jia Cong.
It is estimated that in the eyes of the emperor, Jia Cong, who has a keen eye and talent, is much better than Niu Geng.
At this time, Emperor Liu Hengsheng arrived in Fengzao Palace. Today he would have dinner with Concubine Xian.
"Jia Cong is really my lucky star. Look, I have found another talented young man!"
"That is also Shiro's keen eye and knowledge. Otherwise, Brother Cong would never have the chance to serve the country as a virtuous man!"
Liu Heng happily showed off to Yuan Chun the thousand-mile horse he had found for him. Of course, Yuanchun wanted to give all the credit to the emperor.
Look at what Yuanchun said, it immediately scratched the emperor's itch. This double happiness made the emperor feel very good, and he sent the reward to Rongguo Mansion free of charge.
Yuanchun put his son to sleep and handed him over to his aunt to undress the emperor.
The graceful and noble concubine was now the emperor's favorite, so he pulled her over and hugged her into his arms.
Yuanchun took advantage of the situation and leaned his head on the emperor's solid chest, shyly burying his face in half.
This kind of shyness, half-hidden while holding a pipa, was not at all out of place on the stunningly beautiful Yuan Chun, but actually made Liu Heng, who had never been very fond of women, dazzled.
After the storm passed, the emperor in his sage state hugged Yuan Chun and chatted about daily life.
Just as the matter of Jia She came up again, Liu Heng also told him the reprimands given to him by the sage of Longshou Palace.
"I think what the saint said makes sense. It's not that I am speaking to my uncle... I am a daughter of the Wu Xun family, and I know very well what kind of life the generals live. What impressed me the most was every time my grandfather When you return from the expedition, the clansmen on West Street will look nervously at the intersection of Ningrong Street..."
"The worst time, every house on West Street hung white flags, and every household was crying..."
"The soldiers who died in the battle are not the numbers in the Ministry of War documents, but the sons of old women, the husbands of women, the fathers of children..."
"This is true for the Jia family, let alone those ordinary families?"
"Southern Xinjiang has just surrendered, and the flames of war have not yet dissipated. Mr. Zhou Ge is doing this. Who will dare to sacrifice his life for His Majesty in the future? The loyalty of the generals will not change, but their courage will be suppressed a little bit by the civil servants. Consumed."
"Fortunately, Shiro Shengming took action in time, otherwise..."
Although Yuanchun hadn't finished her words, the emperor had already understood the meaning of her words.
Whether a military general can fight is completely different from whether he dares to fight and whether he wants to fight. If he fails to suppress the unhealthy tendency of the DPRK and China to suppress military generals in time this time, those civilian officials will gradually test the bottom line and gradually suppress the power of military generals.
When the cabinet overpowers the five-army governor's office, and under the imbalance between civil and military affairs, the generals' ability to fight, dare to fight, and desire to fight will slowly be worn away by the civil servants, and Daxia will eventually become the former Song Dynasty...
He hadn't noticed this problem in the past two days. He just looked at the civil-military dispute from the emperor's perspective.
Today, after being reminded by Yuanchun, a daughter from the Wuxun family, I finally figured out something.
The spirit of martial arts is not something you can just talk about. The pride of warriors needs to be taken care of. Isn't this person who has the ability and responsibility to protect the pride of warriors the Emperor of Great Xia?
"Yuan'er, you are indeed the most transparent!"
Liu Heng laughed loudly, gently stroked Yuanchun's smooth back, kissed him hard on the face and said, "Tomorrow I will ask the Ministry of Rites to prepare a grand ceremony to welcome the souls of heroes who died in southern Xinjiang home!"
…
"Uncle, His Majesty orders you to return to Beijing as soon as possible!"
The Long Imperial Guard quickly delivered the emperor's handwriting to Jia Cong. After opening it and reading it, Jia Cong asked in surprise: "Why did your Majesty suddenly remember the Office Ceremony?"
"I don't know, General. I heard that His Majesty dreamed of the souls of heroes who died on the battlefield and wanted to go home..."
Jia Cong didn't believe this at all. The emperor was a pragmatist. A grand ceremony would cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. With this money, the emperor would definitely use it wisely.
For example, if it is distributed directly to the families of heroes and martyrs, this is much more than a public memorial ceremony.
Strangely enough, Jia Cong and Daiyu hurried back to Beijing.
After returning to Beijing, the two of them learned the whole story from the old lady.
It turned out that this incident was triggered by the impeachment of the pardoner by the civilian officials, and the struggle between the civil and military forces of North Korea and China soon became intense.
Wu Xun continued to express his dissatisfaction, and the Second Saint punished several civil servants before temporarily suppressing this evil trend.
In the end, Yuanchun couldn't help blowing the emperor's pillow, which made the emperor think about holding a public memorial ceremony.
Jia Cong also guessed the emperor's thoughts. Yuanchun's words meant the same thing inside and out. Whether the warriors could fight, dared to fight, and whether they wanted to fight all depended on whether they were still angry.
The suppression of military personnel by North Korean civilian officials is the most draining of military personnel's morale.
Jia Cong sighed with some worry: "Eldest sister is really... a little reckless. I'm afraid this will offend many people in the court!"
Monthly ticket recommendation ticket
I’ll stop here tonight and continue tomorrow. Good night!
(End of chapter)
