On the sixth day of April, the east and west cities of Yehe were successively attacked by the Jin army. Jin Taiji, a shellfish in the west city, was captured, and Beile Buyangu in the east city surrendered. Both of them were executed.
It is worth mentioning that Buyangu, who saved Liu Zhaosun by stabbing the blue flag in the Hunjiang River last time, ended up exactly the same as his father.
Jirharang split Dongcheng Beile in half with his own hands. Half of the body was taken back to Hetuala and given to the Khan, while the other half was thrown into Haixi to feed the dogs.
Since then, the Yehe tribe (Yehenala means the sun), which had been powerful in Haixi for two hundred years and prided itself on the sun, was declared destroyed.
Under Nurhachi's order, Jierhalang and Huang Taiji led the Xianglan Banner and Zhengbai Banner to successively move the civilians in the east and west cities of Yehe to Houjin.
Except for a small number of the 68,000 Yehe people who committed suicide, most of the rest were incorporated into the Eight Banners and became the new people of Hou Jin Dynasty.
With the help of Ye He in Haixi and the continuous defection of Han people from northern Liaoning, by August of the fourth year of Tianming, the population under the control of Hou Jin expanded to 820,000.
The forces of each banner were replenished and their strength grew rapidly. The Xianglan Banner, which had suffered heavy casualties, gradually began to regain its strength.
Compared with before the Battle of Kaiyuan, the Hou Jin Dynasty was stronger. Some small Mongolian tribes around northern Liao Dynasty joined them one after another, and the attitude of North Korea was also more ambiguous.
In early September, Houjin sentry cavalry frequently appeared in the suburbs of Liaoshen and Liaodong, causing shock in Liaodong.
~~~~~
When Hou Jin was in Haixi and Yehe was conquering the city and recovering blood, Liu Zhaosun was not idle either.
On the sixth day of May in the forty-seventh year of Wanli, Kaiyuan City was opened.
Chief military officer Liu Zhaosun led 300 soldiers, 600 trackers, 8,000 shi of grain, and a large amount of gunpowder and cold weapons, and finally returned to his hometown of Kaiyuan City without any danger.
When the motionless Qiao Yiqi watched nearly a hundred carriages continuously transporting various materials into the city, the already loud-mouthed military supervisor grinned happily from ear to ear, turned around and picked up an artillery commander, Keep shouting, "Get rich, get rich."
It was indeed a fortune.
Director Xie of the Munitions Department, together with Song Yingxing, the magistrate of Anle Prefecture, and Jin Yuji, the captain of the Chinese Army Guard, together with two accountants, took inventory of various materials in Kaiyuan City over two nights.
In March, Xiong Tingbi supported Kaiyuan. In addition to the proceeds from the previous seizure of slaves and the transportation back from the capital Tianjin, Kaiyuan City currently has a total of:
More than three hundred and twenty-nine thousand taels of silver, twelve thousand taels of gold, and seven thousand three hundred bolts of cloth;
There are more than 56,000 dan of food. Even if each soldier consumes four kilograms of staple food per day as a standard, this food is enough to feed 6,000 people for more than 12 months. This is still on the premise that the food is empty;
Four thousand kilograms of gunpowder, one thousand walking bows...
In addition to these mountains of military supplies, Liu Zhaosun's biggest gain during this trip to the capital was that he brought back three great talents.
The three great talents are:
Good at agriculture, handicrafts, machinery, military, familiar with bricks and tiles, ceramics, sulfur, candles, paper, weapons, gunpowder, textiles, dyeing, salt making, coal mining, oil extraction agriculture, firearms, urban defense and other fields, killing Da Vinci in ten seconds Song Yingxing, the seventh-century Oriental encyclopedic scientific maniac;
A living map of the Ming Dynasty. The mountains, rivers, vegetation, mountains, waterways, geology, and landforms of the two capitals and thirteen provinces are familiar to each other. The masters have not reached the places, and the unknown places have been explored. After thirty years of survival in the wild, I can kill Bei Yede in an instant and be taught by the teacher. The twice-mentioned ancient wonder Xu Xiake;
One shot destroyed tens of miles, and the Liao Dynasty was leveled in five years. The commander-in-chief Ji Liao, Ning Yuan, and Ning Jin were victorious. Yuan Chonghuan, the terminator of the cannon and the desperate Saburo.
In addition, there is strong support from military expert Mao Yuanyi, Jiangnan tycoon Qiao Yiqi, dog-headed military advisor Kang Yingqian, three thousand elite soldiers, Zhejiang soldiers, white pole soldiers, and Liaodong refugees. Not to mention the North Korean coup that Jin Yuji and his brother are planning, North Korea will also help in the future. He lends a helping hand.
Liu Zhaosun doubted whether he had saved the galaxy in his previous life, so that God would give him such a magical combination.
In this case, he would be embarrassed to use various cheats as soon as he traveled through time like other weak time travellers.
Oh, in order to prove that he was a serious time traveler, he decided to just cheat.
Start with the flintlock gun.
On the second day after returning to Kaiyuan, Liu Zhaosun summoned Mao Yuanyi, Song Yingxing, Wang Erhu and two blacksmith representatives to the living room of the General's Yamen to discuss matters.
Six people gathered around an Eight Immortals table. On the table were piles of gunpowder, paper packets, a gun dismantled into several pieces, and a piece of rice paper with a sketch of a flintlock gun drawn in charcoal.
Six grown men seemed to be eating hot pot, sitting around the Eight Immortals table and pointing, but they still needed six pairs of chopsticks.
Mao Yuanyi stared at the sketch for a moment and then said:
"Your Majesty the General Soldier and Mr. Zhizhou are here,..."
Liu Zhaosun was impatient, waved his hand and interrupted him:
"Brother Mao, there are no outsiders here. You are my confidant and Lord Song's best friend. You don't need so much red tape. Let's just talk about the matter directly. The slave chief is attacking Ye He, and Shenyang is next. In addition to protecting the territory, I To calm the people, we also need to immediately make Hongyi cannons, Mini rifles, grenades, field guns, and attach bayonets to the rifles... The military affairs are busy. How much more time will it take if we are all like you? Hurry up and say this Can a flintlock gun be made?!"
Mao Yuanyi was secretly shocked when he heard this. He didn't know what sharp weapons the mini rifle, grenade, field gun and bayonet on the rifle were, but he quickly handed them over and said so.
Now Liu Zhaosun has been promoted from a staff general to a commander-in-chief. He has been granted the title of General Xuanwu by the imperial court. He also works part-time as a co-president of two guard posts in Kaiyuan. He has also taken more than 20 taels of silver from the emperor. He has money, soldiers and food. He can be said to be a prince. , and he was still so approachable when talking to such a low-ranking official. This feudal staff member was quite moved. He thought for a moment and continued:
"This blunderbuss, oh, it's what adults call a flintlock gun. In fact, it just has an extra hidden trigger than the blunderbuss. When your finger pulls the outside trigger, the hidden trigger will also be activated. That's what the picture says. Yes, the yang makes fire and the yin opens the door. This saves the steps of ignition and launches it faster than using a matchstick. It’s just..."
After Mao Yuanyi finished speaking, she raised her head and looked at Song Yingxing. Mao Yuanyi and Song Yingxing had known each other since they were in the capital. The two of them had studied this kind of combined-shot gun when they were in the capital. Of course, it was only an idea at that time and had not been actually manufactured.
When Song Yingxing saw Mao Yuanyi looking at him, he came to the rescue of his old friend and said to Liu Zhaosun:
"Sir, in fact, the manufacturing process of this blunderbuss is not difficult. As long as the craftsmen are given the drawings, they can be made quickly. But it is this reed. A blunderbuss requires at least three coins of reeds. The reeds must be elastic. If it is made thin, it will not last long; if it is made thick, it will be difficult to fire. In addition, "
Song Yingxing was a little embarrassed, rubbed his hands, and looked up at Liu Zhaosun.
"Master Song, please speak."
"These reeds require good steel, plus hiring someone to drill the barrel, the cost of carpentry... When Xiaguan and Mao Shimin were in the capital, they calculated that each reed would cost five taels of silver, which was more expensive than a gun. Some."
After Song Yingxing finished speaking, he stared at Liu Zhaosun without saying a word.
Liu Zhaosun pondered for a long time. A flintlock gun cost five taels of silver. Including the maintenance and daily training costs, he went for at least seven or eight taels. To equip a thousand people, it would be 8,000 taels. He could afford the money, but at the moment There are definitely not enough craftsmen. No matter what, we will make a batch first.
Thinking of this, Liu Zhaosun nodded to Song Yingxing and replied:
"The money is not a big problem, I'm just worried about the firing rate of this flintlock gun."
Before time travel, Liu Zhaosun knew something about flintlock guns. Although he was not even a fan, he had heard that flintlock guns in this era had frequent malfunctions and low firing rates. This was also the reason why flintlock guns had not replaced the matchlock. One of the reasons for guns.
He didn't want to spend a lot of money and end up with a bunch of defective products.
Liu Zhaosun saw a gray-haired blacksmith sitting next to Mao Yuanyi, and saw several superior officials talking incessantly. His throat was crawling, and he wanted to speak several times, but Liu Zhaosun said to him:
"What do you call this old craftsman?"
When the craftsman heard the Commander-in-Chief asking him questions, he quickly stood up and left his seat, intending to kowtow to Liu Zhaosun and salute him.
"The old man is sitting and talking!"
Mao Yuanyi glanced at the craftsman. The old craftsman then carefully sat down, raised his hands and said to Liu Zhaosun:
"Sir, my name is Lei Youcai. He is a master craftsman from Shenyang. Last time, Mr. Mao paid us to redeem the craftsman's house. He brought dozens of blacksmiths and followed Mr. Mao to Kaiyuan."
Liu Zhaosun glanced at Mao Yuanyi and nodded to him, indicating that he had done a good job. Looking at this Lei Jianhu, he is in his fifties, but his figure still looks like that of a young man in his twenties.
"Lei Jiangtou, do you think this matchlock gun should be changed to a flintlock gun? What specific changes need to be made?"
Lei Youcai bowed his hands towards Liu Zhao and Sun Gong, and then said:
"If you want to talk about the development of flintlock guns, the two adults have just said it very well. If you want to make the ignition better, you need to add a secret machine. Sir, please take a look, here."
As Lei Jiantou said, he pointed to the drawings on the table with his finger. Liu Zhaosun looked in the direction of his finger, smiled and nodded.
After all, Mao Yuanyi was the superior of Lei Jiang. After listening to what Lei Youcai said, she felt that there were some mistakes and quickly added:
"The linkage mechanism must be carefully checked to ensure that when the door cover is opened, the faucet can fall down in time to fire the flint. It does not matter whether the fire door cover is opened early or late. The trick requires craftsmen to study it repeatedly in practice. "
Liu Zhaosun nodded after listening to what he said. Mao Yuanyi usually focused on firearms, which was rare, so he asked him about the progress of the Hongyi cannon.
Although the Hongyi cannon is powerful and has an amazing hit rate, its shortcomings are also obvious. In summary:
He is good at siege, but bad at field battles.
The firing efficiency of the Hongyi cannon was not high. It is said that the most skilled European gunners of the same era could only fire one shot every two minutes. The cannon body was too heavy to move quickly.
Although this kind of artillery has many shortcomings, Liu Zhaosun still wants to build one. Kaiyuan will soon be under siege. With the Hongyi cannon, it is very possible to copy the history of Yuandudu and kill Nurhachi with one shot.
Mao Yuanyi used the traditional clay cannon-shaping method, which is to use mud to make a mold, pour molten iron into it, and cast the various castings of the cannon.
Although this kind of clay mold is low-cost, it has many problems. The main reason is that after the molten iron is poured in and cooled, the surface of the casting will be particularly rough.
It should be noted that the fineness of the cannon bore is directly related to the distance and direction of the cannonball launch. The inner wall of this clay sculptured cannon bore is inherently rough. In actual artillery operations, if there is any problem with the proportion of gunpowder, a horrific explosion will easily occur. chamber.
Liu Zhaosun knew a little bit about the manufacturing of Hongyi cannons. He knew that the cannon was very easy to explode, and the only way to improve it was in terms of casting technology and casting materials.
The casting process was extremely complicated, and there was little room for improvement for a while. Liu Zhaosun didn't know the casting technology, so he could only start with the casting materials.
It is recommended that Mao Yuanyi adopt the copper-iron mixed casting method. Simply put, it takes advantage of the different melting points of iron and copper to cast bronze on the iron tire. After the copper cools, it can compress the iron tire inside through thermal expansion and contraction. Reinforcement and compression resistance make the cannon stronger than a pure iron cannon and cheaper than a copper cannon.
Of course, there is another method that combines the wrought iron core with the outer wall of pig iron. It is said that the effect is better than the combination of copper and iron.
Liu Zhaosun could only provide some theoretical knowledge. As for the specific method of casting, it was up to the craftsmen to slowly explore.
Before entering Beijing this time, Liu Zhaosun heard from Mao Yuanyi that the craftsmen had already molded the clay according to the above method and were ready to pour molten iron into the clay mold.
"Brother Mao, how is the production of your Hongyi cannon going?"
Mao Yuanyi quickly replied:
"The gun body is basically in shape and needs some time to be polished. Right now, Lei Jiantou and the others use files to polish the gun barrel every day to remove burrs and blisters, and also use boring tools to boring it."
Liu Zhaosun nodded. The casting speed of this red-coated cannon was much faster than he thought. But he didn’t know how the quality would be when the time comes. When the time comes to test the cannon, he must stand far away. Don’t kill Nurhachi. He should kill himself first. Accounted for.
In any case, the flintlock gun had to be built quickly. Liu Zhaosun turned around and said to Lei Youcai:
"Leijiangtou, you and your craftsmen will first use wood chips or paper to make the machine gun. If there is a problem, you will modify it immediately. After you have made the sample, you will hand over the flintlock gun to me, and the manufacturing cost will be handed over to the military supply. Lord Si Xie has taken a look at it. I want to see how much money it will cost. If it is too expensive, I will make less for the time being."
Liu Zhaosun looked up at the two craftsmen, smiled slightly and said:
"Leijiangtou, if this flintlock gun can pass the trial production, you will be given one thousand taels of silver to your craftsmen. At that time, Mr. Song and Director Xie will conduct performance appraisals based on your daily work. In addition, I would like to tell all craftsmen, If anyone can first come up with a way to increase the firing rate of a flintlock gun, as long as it is effective, I will reward you with a one-time reward of five hundred taels of silver! Also, I will also make adjustments to your craftsman level system, which will be announced tomorrow. Let me inform you that from now on, everything will be in order."
When Liu Zhaosun said this, he couldn't help feeling that many of the strange systems of the Yuan Dynasty that Zhu Yuanzhang followed were full of anti-human nature.
For example, the craftsman household system of this era, like military households, had hereditary status and belonged to the Ministry of Industry. It can be said to be one of the saddest groups.
Craftsmen are divided into two categories: shift craftsmen and live-in craftsmen.
In the early Ming Dynasty, it was stipulated that shift craftsmen must serve in the official crafts workshop in shifts every one or five years, with an average of three months per shift. Resident craftsmen work in official handicraft workshops for ten days a month. This is similar to the shift workers. The government squeezes manpower to the maximum extent and pays extremely low costs. Many shift workers work almost for free.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, this anti-human craftsman system naturally collapsed, and craftsmen only needed to pay silver to be exempted from military service. Each shift craftsman pays four and a half cents of "shift craftsman's silver" per year, while a resident craftsman must pay one cent of silver per month.
But no matter what, under this system, the enthusiasm of Ming craftsmen is almost non-existent.
For this group, there are no good things and constant bad things. The rewards are few, but the punishments are constant, ranging from city wall masonry to treasure ship hulls. As long as there is a problem, the person responsible for production will pay a heavy price.
There are now more than thirty local craftsmen in Kaiyuan City, plus those who came from Shenyang. Putting aside the current monthly salary of three taels, Mr. Liu will give a bonus of 500 taels at once, which is equivalent to nearly thirty taels. With a monthly salary, how can these hard-working craftsmen not be tempted?
After hearing this, Craftsman Lei stopped talking to others, and immediately pointed at the drawings on the table, studying how to perfect and improve this flintlock gun. The craftsman next to him named Yan was not to be outdone, and looked at the drawings like Liu Zhaosun summoning the soul. He was mumbling the same thing, probably calculating something.
Liu Zhaosun didn't blame the two of them. A craftsman should have the temperament of a craftsman. You can't become a craftsman just by cooking rice.
He looked up at Qian Zong Wang Erhu. This burly man was born in the Southern Army. After going through two bloody battles and following him to the capital, his character had become much calmer and he had a vague demeanor of a general.
"President Wang Qian, I am also planning to install a bayonet on the flintlock gun. You see, it is so long. In the future, the proportion of spearmen in the army will be reduced, and the main force will be firecrackers. What do you think?"
Lewen
