"Guan Jia, for the sake of the peace and happiness of all the ethnic groups in the northwest, you have really worked tirelessly, traveled thousands of miles, and were not afraid of arrows. This really makes everyone in the country feel grateful. Your kindness can only be compared to the Buddha who protects tens of millions of people in the northwest. Your good health is the well-being of millions of people in the northwest. Without your protection and protection, how can the country survive? How can the northwest be safe? I have a daughter, although she is not very beautiful and cannot be recognized by the officials, but His hands and feet are quite diligent, and he can handle some daily tasks. This is also a little bit of loyalty from the minister, and I hope the officials will reward him..."
In the Lingzhou Palace, the Xixia envoy Cao Mian, who had just arrived yesterday evening, spoke for a long time with great emotion after submitting Li Qianshun's petition and gift list. Then he took a few steps back while looking at his nose, nose and mouth, and then clapped his hands vigorously.
"Dad, Yu Niang is here."
Just after Cao Mian's applause, he heard a clear and melodious female voice coming from outside the hall, followed by a girl wearing a jingle and a swaying skirt, walking in. This girl is wearing a red green smoked sweater and a narrow chest-length red skirt. She holds a round fan in her hand and has a graceful figure. From a distance, she looks like a fairy coming from a picture. And when I walked in and took a look...she turned out to be a beautiful woman full of Western style, with bright eyes, a nose job, red lips, fair skin, and a face with a pointed chin.
Zhao Kai was stunned when he saw this beauty from the Western Region, and then blurted out: "Hot, hot..."
Guo Tiannu, who was standing on the edge, heard Zhao Kai say "hot" and quickly asked: "Does the official think the weather is too hot? Do you want some iced drinks?"
"Ah, no need..." Only then did Zhao Kai react, and then he took a closer look at the girl from the Western Regions who was bowing to him respectfully. It was not someone who had traveled through time, but a girl from the Western Regions. She looks 70% to 80% similar to the little beauty from the Western Region.
"After the Cao family of the slave family returned to the rebel army, Yu Niang, the daughter of Cao Mian of Guazhou, met the official family..." The little beauty from the Western Regions saluted and introduced herself to her family in a sweet voice.
"Ah, the little lady turns out to be Queen Zhongliang! Okay! Okay!" Zhao Kai looked at the beauty from the Western Regions in front of him and smiled with joy.
Now that he is an official, there is no shortage of beauties around him. Queen Zhu Fengying, concubine Pan Cailian, Wu Meiniang, Ren Baolian, and Zang Jinnu are all stunningly beautiful, no worse than Cao Yuniang.
But Cao Yuniang could make Zhao Kai think of those women he could only meet in dreams in his previous life...
Thinking of them, Zhao Kai's poetic nature suddenly aroused, and he opened his mouth and said: "I lie drunk on the knees of a beautiful woman, and wake up to take over the world; I don't ask for the city wall, but I ask for a murderous sword! Hahaha..."
Seeing Zhao Kai's reaction, Cao Mian was also quite proud... His eldest daughter is now Qian Shun's favorite concubine, and she also gave birth to the prince Renxiao. The younger daughter's beauty is even better than that of her elder sister, and she has also joined the official family of the Song Dynasty. It seems that the Cao family in Guiyi will become famous in his generation.
"The official family," Cao Mian continued to promote his daughter and told Zhao Kai, "the little girl Yuniang is not only the descendant of the Cao family who returned to the rebel army, but also the descendant of the Li family in Khotan. Her mother is the descendant of the Li family in Khotan who was exiled in Guazi. Daughter... The Li family in Khotan regarded themselves as defenders of China. When Zhang's rebel army expelled the Tubo and returned to the Tang Dynasty, the Li family in Khotan also expelled the Tubo and became a vassal of China again. Later, he kept guarding the border for the country until he was killed by the Black Khan Uighurs!"
Zhao Kai sighed softly: "It is a pity that the late emperors of this dynasty were benevolent monarchs and were not good at using troops, so they could not save the lonely loyalists in the Western Regions. But now it is better. With Li Qianshun as the Great Protector of Anxi, the lost territory in the Western Regions will be restored soon... ..The Li family in Khotan should be able to restore their territory by then, right?"
When Cao Mian heard this, he quickly gave his daughter Cao Yuniang a wink. Yuniang's bright eyes immediately became misty, and then she sighed: "The officials don't know something. The Black Khan Uighurs have a vast territory, a large population, strong soldiers and horses, and they also have Western allies to help them. It's not like the Hexi Army." Soldiers and horses can defeat it. Unless the Hexi Army can get some indestructible immortal thunder..."
"Xian Lei?" Zhao Kai was stunned when he heard this, and thought to himself: What is Xian Lei? Isn’t it the Song Dynasty now? How could there be such a thing as immortal thunder?
When Cao Mian saw Zhao Kai's expression, he had some idea in his mind - the "thunder" that blew up the Lingzhou embankment walled city defenders and suffered heavy losses was probably not a magic spell...
"The official family is the thunder that your Song Dynasty soldiers used to reward Yikou and Lingzhou! They are all immortal magic, immortal thunder..."
Cao Yuniang continued to test, and what she said now was taught by Cao Mian. After seeing off my daughter, I still have to ask about the news for Li Qianshun... If there really is a fairy around Zhao Kai, then Dabai Gaoguo will be completely at a loss, and people can still fight with fairies! Otherwise, Li Qianshun can still miss him a little.
"Hahaha," Zhao Kai said with a smile, "Yu Niang, are you trying to find out about me for Qian Shun and Brother Cha?"
Zhao Kai didn't mean to be angry at all, but Cao Yuniang was so frightened that her calves became weak and she almost knelt down. But this girl is brave enough to continue to lie to people at this time.
Cao Yuniang gritted her silver teeth and said: "Guan, the sage of the Guan family is indeed the master who asked my sister to lead the slave family to find out about Xian Lei..."
Zhao Kai nodded, "This is easy to handle!" He said to Guo Tiannu: "Goddess, go and ask Meiniang to prepare a portion of gunpowder, and get a copper pot, and bring them together."
Granular black powder is a secret, to be guarded as much as possible.
There is no need to hide the bombing pot, and it cannot be hidden... because the wooden tube fuse used in the bombing pot cannot be 100% effective, so sooner or later someone will pick it up and study it.
Although the enemy will not be able to figure out how to get the granular black powder for a while, they must know that it is some kind of gunpowder, just use a little fire to find out!
Therefore, it was only a matter of time before the enemy filled the copper kettle with powdered gunpowder that had not been granulated to imitate a less powerful explosive kettle... and the enemy would not let Zhao Kai wait for too long!
But...copper kettles are expensive!
Making a copper kettle requires at least one and a half to two kilograms of copper, not counting labor! Make 100,000 copper pots, and 200,000 kilograms of copper will be gone!
And the labor required to make 100,000, 200,000, or even millions of copper pots is something that the Western Bandits and Jurchens can afford?
If the future war really turns into a war that consumes a lot of copper and gunpowder... the Jurchens, Mongols, and Dangxiang will not stand a chance!
This is greater than the scale of financial resources and handicraft industry!
Of course, the Song Dynasty also lacked copper! The industry and commerce in the Song Dynasty developed rapidly and currency was relatively scarce. Taking millions of kilograms of copper out of circulation and putting it into military use (casting copper pots and artillery) would definitely have a negative impact on people's livelihood.
Therefore, the "real Song Dynasty" would probably not do such things that "waste people and waste money".
The "compassionate" civil servants in the court will not let the people lack copper and money in pursuit of the ultimate performance of weapons. Just like they would not use scarce and expensive charcoal to refine military iron in order to pursue the ultimate performance of armor and iron weapons...
Wu Meiniang quickly prepared a powdered gunpowder based on Zhao Kai's wealth - the formula was of course kept secret! And he brought the prepared gunpowder, a copper kettle, a wooden tube fuse, and a roll of silk to the main hall.
Then she poured the gunpowder into the copper pot in public, wrapped the wooden tube fuse with some silk cloth, and plugged the mouth of the bottle.
"This is the fairy thunder!" Zhao Kai took the bombing pot, weighed it in his hand, and then said to Cao Yuniang, "Yu Niang, let's go and see how powerful this fairy thunder is?"
...
"Rumble..."
There was a loud noise, and Xiao Heda felt the ground shake, and thirty or forty steps in front of him, a large cloud of white smoke rose.
Outside Lingzhou City, there is an open space under Diba City. Zhao Kai just ordered Guo Tiannu to light a bomb and throw it out - he was showing Xiao Heda, who had come from afar, the power of the copper kettle bomb!
"Guan, Guan family... Is this the power of gunpowder?" Xiao Heda was so shocked that he couldn't speak clearly. Of course he had seen gunpowder, but he had never seen such a powerful gunpowder weapon!
"This is the power of gunpowder and copper combined!" Zhao Kai glanced at this Daliao lone warrior and said with a smile, "If it were replaced with a porcelain or wooden shell, it wouldn't be that powerful!"
Historically, China had actually mastered the secret of gunpowder long ago. Even granulated black gunpowder appeared in the Ming Dynasty, and the formula of gunpowder was almost figured out in the Yuan Dynasty. But just because I couldn’t bear to part with copper... I was never able to maximize the power of gunpowder!
But Zhao Kai is not that frugal. He is a "military-oriented" emperor! Moreover, the peak of copper production in the Song Dynasty was more than 10 million kilograms (annual output)! What's the problem with using one to two million catties for military use? If you build him a million bombs, what kind of barbarian can't blow them all?
In addition, the official money supervisors of the Song Dynasty could mint up to several million copper coins and iron coins a year, so there was no problem in converting part of their production capacity into copper kettle bombs.
When people are short of money, they use silk and cloth tickets... Is there anything that cannot be overcome?
Zhao Kai paused and then said: "Xiao Qing, this fried pot will be mass-produced in the future, but I don't have many on hand right now... I'll give you 3,000. You can take them to Montenegro to Weifu." Military Division, if we take down the Black Mountain Military Division, we will be able to access the Mobei grassland and find the Big Stone Forest Tooth. I want to join forces with him. He will dominate the grassland and I will dominate the Central Plains. The two countries will always be brothers. What do you think?"
Supporting the Khitan people to rule the grasslands was Zhao Kai's long-term method to suppress Mongolia - the Khitan people in this era were already very Chinese, and they also believed in Buddhism... The so-called Liao Dynasty released the waste!
It’s just that my belief in Buddhism has been ruined!
But the Mongols now believe in immortality, so they are very fierce!
If the Buddhist Khitans could be allowed to rule the grasslands for a long time, Zhao Kai felt that Mongolia would have no chance to rise again.
"Guanjia," Xiao Heda asked, "will you give Dashilin Ya some fried pots?"
"Of course!" Zhao Kai said with a smile, "How else could he beat the Jurchens?"
