Yang Fanzheng, Fu Laoliu and others were studying the drawings of open-hearth furnaces for steelmaking.
Song Yingxing suddenly walked in.
Song Yingxing has been responsible for repairing the dam recently, and he is too busy to touch the ground. There must be something wrong with his sudden return.
"The proprietor, Mr. Xu Guangqi introduced a guest from Beijing to Zunhua who wants to buy some firearms. Do you want to meet him?" Song Yingxing said.
"Beijing, buying firearms is against the rules, isn't it?" Yang Fan was a little surprised. Xu Guangqi was either old and confused or poor and crazy, and he actually introduced people from the capital to buy firearms.
What are these people going to do?
"Oh, they are guests from Japan. These firearms are to be transported to Japan."
Yang Fan was a little strange, what kind of interaction did Xu Guangqi have with those dwarfs, and how could he recommend them to come to him.
Go take a look and see what medicines are sold in the gourd.
Yang Fan met these guests from Japan in a large tent at the construction site.
Now that the northeast corner of Zunhua has been bought by Yang Fan, new buildings are being built everywhere, making it very chaotic.
This large tent was captured from Jiannu. It was made of pure cowhide and embroidered with various patterns with gold thread. Very impressive.
Yang Fan usually works here.
When Yang Fan and others entered the tent, these Japanese were already inside.
The tent was lit with carbide lamps and was brightly lit.
The leader is a young woman wearing a veil, and there is a little boy of four or five years old beside her. The young woman's face is covered by the gauze and cannot be seen clearly. She is not tall, only about 1.45 meters, and has a slightly plump figure. A pair of small hands are very white and tender.
The child was born very beautiful, with absolutely symmetrical facial features. Yang Fan has never seen such a beautiful child.
But the strange thing is that this child's face does not have the innocence and cuteness of a normal child. His face is pale and only has a depth that does not belong to his age.
He doesn't look like a living person, but a god who has been worshiped for a long time.
There are also three old men. Judging from their respect for the mother and son, they should be retainers or the like.
They all have two Japanese swords on their belts, one long and one short, showing their status as samurai.
When the woman saw Yang Fan coming in, she immediately stood up, bowed, and spoke in Japanese.
"はじめまして、どうぞよろしくおねがいします."
Song Yingxing quickly translated: "Mrs. Masuda and Mr. Masuda Tokisada greet Dongzhu Yang and ask Dongzhu Yang for his advice."
Yang Fan also bowed slightly to express his return.
The two parties were seated separately.
Yang Fan suddenly discovered that the child was wearing a large Western-style cross around his neck. It was inlaid with many gems and looked very luxurious.
Suddenly it dawned on me, how could Xu Guangqi and the Japanese have any intersection? It turned out that they were both Catholic brothers.
These people came to Xu Guangqi to buy arms. Xu Guangqi learned from Song Yingxing that he had useful repeating muskets here. So I recommended it to myself.
Now that Xu Guangqi has resigned, it is tantamount to unilaterally breaking the contract. He must be embarrassed. Introducing some business to himself can be considered compensation.
The old man apologized to himself in disguise.
"Yang Jun, we are members of the Nagasaki Saint Mary Order, and we are familiar with Mr. Xu Guangqi. We came to Ming Dynasty this time to buy some iron ingots and firearms." A person who looked like a retainer behind the woman spoke fluently. Chinese said.
"Can I ask why you want to buy these weapons and the materials to make them?" Yang Fan said.
"Is Yang Jun very interested in Japan's politics?" said the gray-bearded retainer.
"Oh, no, no, no, I'm only interested in Japanese silver and gold." Yang Fan said with a smile.
"That's wonderful," said the retainer.
Song Yingxing said in Yang Fan's ear, "Mrs. Masuda's husband is a general of Lord Konishi Gyōchō. They are old ministers of the Toyotomi family and have a grudge against the Tokugawa shogunate who is currently in charge of Japan."
Then you will understand that this group of people believe in foreign religions in Japan. Not only are they ideologically unique, but they also have hatred against the shogunate because of the resignation of the Toyotomi family. In this case, they can do business happily. Adding some chaos to their country will do no harm to Ming Dynasty.
"I remember, aren't the iron cannons you made yourself very elite? Why did you come to Ming Dynasty to buy them?" Yang Fan asked doubtfully. At this time, Japan's matchlock technology was better than that of Ming Dynasty.
"Yang Jun, the shogunate restricted the spread of Catholicism and discriminated against Catholics. It is difficult for us to buy steel and firearms in the country."
"So that's the case, but I only have fire gate guns here, not matchlock guns, which may disappoint you." Yang Fan said.
These people were surprised. Obviously they trusted Xu Guangqi very much. Since Xu Guangqi said that there were advanced weapons here, they believed it very much.
After a few people discussed it, the woman spoke, "Yang Jun, can we take a look at your fire door gun."
"This is no problem. Grind the table, prepare the shooting range, and demonstrate it to our guests." Yang Fan said excitedly.
This is his first export customer, so he must treat him well.
Afterwards, the group of people came to the shooting range. Under a hill outside the city, this is where Yang Fan's iron mine that has been discontinued is located. Because it is very remote and there are no people around it, it has now been converted into a shooting range.
In addition to the training of a small team waiting for the performance, there were also some bronze and iron cannons made by Xu Guangqi's trainers in the shooting range. Many of them are defective products, discarded in piles here.
These cannons that exploded during test firing made these people's eyes almost stretch out their claws, which shows the Japanese people's yearning for firearms.
"Yang Jun, I didn't expect that you still produce large tubes here. It's really amazing." The old retainer bowed at ninety degrees.
Just now I was a little disappointed with Xu Guangqi's unreliable recommendation, but now I was immediately excited when I saw the experimental waste in this place.
Yang Fan kicked it with his foot. This small, exploded cannon was not much better than a gun.
I also understood in my heart that the big barrel these people talked about was actually an enlarged caliber matchlock gun. It's completely different from artillery. But this is already a black technology in the eyes of these people.
"If you like this kind of small Folang machine cannon, we can provide it." Yang Fan said casually.
At this time, those people, led by the lady, collectively bowed ninety degrees.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Yang."
I asked Fatty Wu to make a few iron molds for this piece of shit and cast it in bronze. I didn't want to make as many as I wanted.
Copper is relatively soft and has good ductility. Bronze casting will generally not explode if it is cooled with iron molds and oil. Even if it explodes, it won't be very dangerous.
The success rate of clay mold casting is only about 15% to 20%. Yang Fan's current iron mold can achieve a success rate of close to 90% when refueled and cooled.
Yang Fan simply followed their ideas, enlarged the nine-knot continuous musket, and forged a nine-knot continuous musket for them, without giving them the beautiful snot bubbles coming out of their noses.
The best weapons are the ones imagined by the customer.
People with such large charges don't dare to use pig iron. It's just a disaster for these people. I don’t want to be known as a profiteer with my first order.
As for their height of 1.5 meters, which is considered a big man's standard, how can they handle such a nine-section continuous fire barrel made of bronze? The biggest problem is to install a tripod or install two wheels.
Yang Fan took a nine-section repeating gun with a wooden 98K stock from Mo Zhui, showed it to these people, loaded the gun head and made several stabbing movements, and then loaded nine rounds of ammunition in sequence. Lit them one after another at the target ten meters away.
While these people were stunned, nine rounds of bullets were fired in less than six seconds. Moreover, the regiment trainer dragged the target wearing triple armor over and lifted the armor. It was seen that the lead bullet was deeply embedded in half of the pig.
"Mr. Yang, this is the weapon we want. Please sell it to us." The lady bowed again excitedly.
