After staying at Li Xuanying's place for a whole night, Guo Kang didn't have time to rest. It happened that his father was also on duty at the Yamen and there was no one to take care of him at home, so he called Bu Lei and others and asked them to follow him to find Lama Wang.
"Sir, we don't have many guards here. Once we leave, the remaining people won't be able to see us." In the concierge, Bu Lei reminded him: "Do you want to keep more people here to avoid losing things?"
"Don't worry, our house is never afraid of losing things, but of losing people." Guo Kang said speechlessly: "Today's matter is a bit strange, so you have to be careful."
"The more I think about it, the more worried I am, whether people are keeping an eye on my actions. But if I don't contact you quickly, I'm afraid it will lead to a long night and a lot of dreams. So I ask everyone to take a risk and go to the Empress Temple with me. Tonight, We’ll live there.”
"Of course we listen to you." Bu Lei and others assured: "Usually the situation is special and we have to relax. This time we must be careful."
Guo Kang nodded.
He was also prepared and put on the soft chain mail given by his adoptive mother in advance, and put on a robe outside. But Bu Lei looked at him and shook his head.
"Wait a minute." He turned around and shouted: "Chen Xiao, come here!"
"Coming, coming." A young guard named Chen Xiao walked over quickly.
Bu Lei asked him to stand next to Guo Kang and looked at the confused eyes of the two.
"Master, please give him the robe." He said in a not too tactful tone.
Chen Xiao immediately understood what he meant, and immediately took off his robe, revealing the armor underneath: "Master, let me pretend to be you."
He also has an oriental appearance, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and is about the same height as Guo Kang. After putting on the helmet, you really can't tell who it is.
"Well, there's no need to be so exaggerated." Guo Kang said awkwardly: "I mainly wanted to guard against people who might be following me. If they really attacked me, they would have just attacked me on my way back."
"It's hard to say." Bu Lei shook his head: "I don't know the specific situation yet, and I guess you don't know it completely, right? So since we have to take precautions, let's do the safest thing. It's better to go through it a few more times now than to go there. It’s time to regret it.”
As he said that, he and several guards took off Guo Kang's robe without any explanation, found a set of armor worn by the guards and put it on him.
On the other side, Chen Xiao put on Guo Kang's robe and took out two loaded pistols. He checked the match ropes, fastened the lid and stuck them around his waist, then wrapped himself in his robe and hid them.
This kind of matchlock pistol was modified by Guo Kang himself.
Compared with the commonly used guns and guns these days, the matchlock gun has no technical threshold. As long as you find someone to build the corresponding device, you can put it into use directly.
Guo Kang then imitated the crossbow machine and made a device that linked the gunpowder chamber cover and the match head. When the trigger is pulled, the curved rod will push the lid forward, and at the same time, the match rope will move downward, penetrate deep into the lid, and ignite the charge. In this way, no matter how the pistol is placed, the gunpowder in the medicine pool will not be spilled or misfire due to contact with the match rope.
In addition to the entire device, a cover was made to imitate the machine shell of the Central Plains crossbow. It covers the match rope and mechanical structure, preventing them from touching soft clothing or being damaged by external forces.
This thing is superfluous for muskets on the battlefield and hinders loading, but it is very useful for fighting in towns, especially at night. What everyone is fighting for is the first shot in a dark situation. As for after this, there is probably no chance to reload.
The few made by Guo Kang were first given to the guards for trial use. Bu Lei and others liked this kind of thing very much and directly replaced the original hand crossbow.
Of course, Guo Kang himself has something more advanced.
"Where's the lightning gun?" he asked.
"Here it is." Bu Lei opened the box next to him, took out two weapons that looked similar in shape, and handed them to him: "It's already installed."
"How have the tests been these past few days?" Guo Kang asked.
"I think it's okay." Bu Lei said, and then asked: "But this is a new thing, and it doesn't just involve tampering with the trigger. Sir, do you want to change it to a safer one? In fact, these two things are used during raids. The difference doesn’t seem too big, it’s all a matter of pulling the trigger anyway…”
Guo Kang hesitated for a moment.
Although firing weapons look high-tech, the threshold is not high. Historically, it could also be produced by manual workshops.
In his past world, such firearms appeared in the early 19th century. But later, Ding Shoucun, a firearms expert in the Qing Dynasty, developed a method to produce thunder silver that did not require modern chemical industry.
According to this method, only green vitriol, saltpeter, silver, alcohol and other raw materials are needed to produce this sensitive triggering medicine with simple equipment from the medieval era. And with the flash cap made of it, the matchlock gun commonly used in East Asia can be used as a percussion gun with slight modifications.
Due to the low threshold, in the past history, the Qing Dynasty was able to quickly popularize percussion guns, roughly less than twenty years later than the Europeans. During the Taiping Rebellion, both sides used percussion guns extensively in combat.
Moreover, this material also provides the basis for other weapons. Ding Shoucun also made jumping mines and modified the artillery at that time. Driven by a series of inventions, the Qing Dynasty almost suddenly skipped the entire flintlock era and directly entered the era of the leading percussion gun at the time. It can be seen that this technology has the potential to be popularized.
Because of the poor record in history, this incident is not too famous. But this does not mean that this technology itself has no value.
For the performance of the Qing army, weapons were not the most important factor. Looking at the military industry alone, the situation of the Qing Dynasty before the Sino-Japanese War was better than that of Japan, and the number of self-produced fixed bullets and artillery shells even exceeded that of the Ottomans, and far exceeded that of some modern powers. But the performance on the battlefield was completely opposite.
It can be seen that there should not be much inevitable connection between the two.
Guo Kang happened to have all the materials needed for this kind of craft. So it's better to get it right in one step and make this weapon directly. After all, for a qualified knight, using convenient hidden weapons during fights is also a part of martial arts.
But this is indeed a new thing, and it’s hard to say if there will be any problems in actual combat. Guo Kang thought for a while, put down one of them, and picked up a matchlock pistol.
"The same one, that's fine." He muttered.
Bu Lei nodded and put away his weapon. The others also finished dressing up and walked out of the gatehouse together.
Although on weekdays when standing guard, they were either bragging and chatting or watching a show, and even the weapons they held were lasso, iron fork and the like, but these people really put themselves into actual combat, and they seemed to be pretty good at it. Outside, someone had already brought the horses, and more than a dozen people got on their horses, sandwiched Guo Kang among the crowd, and followed the leader, Chen Xiao, to set off.
There are indeed not many people left behind, but Guo Kang is not worried. This place is often visited by female heroes of unknown origin at night, and the thieves have to beat them first.
They do seem to be overestimating the dangers, though. Along the way, there were people everywhere who came out to celebrate and have fun. However, seeing their posture, no one dared to stop them, and the group arrived at the Empress Temple smoothly.
When Lama Wang learned about the situation and came out to greet him, Guo Kang was taking off the guard's armor and taking over his robe.
"What's wrong?" Lama Wang was a little surprised: "This is midnight, is there something urgent?"
"We encountered something unexpected. It has something to do with the gangsters in the city." Guo Kang replied briefly: "Can you lend me the 'Sword of Brother Tian'?"
"So serious? What kind of accident?" Lama Wang was even more surprised.
"Brother Tian's Sword" is a force under the church. Strictly speaking, it should be considered an armed policeman and prosecutor.
The Purple Horde did not have a tribunal with centralized power like the Roman Church. Religious crimes and secular crimes were all subject to unified Roman law and were tried by the officials.
Because the targets of the Khanate's attack are strictly speaking various cults, these people cannot only violate religious regulations, but will definitely be connected with crimes such as murder, kidnapping, and extortion.
In relevant trials, the church usually sends trial representatives to join the court to provide professional support to the presiding judge. For this reason, an understanding of Roman law and canon law is necessary. Therefore, the church also has full-time judges and subordinate officials, but these people are mainly scholars who are proficient in secular law and do not care much about other matters.
And if it does not involve secular crimes or commits political crimes that use religion to incite the people, the Khan's court generally does not pay much attention to it. At the beginning, Guo Gai believed that doctrinal disputes were too trivial. The two sides often engaged in useless arguments based on trivial matters and even topics that could not be clearly defined. The church is an important talent provider for the Purple Horde. It would be a waste if we were obsessed with this every day.
Therefore, the church only has this level of participation in the power of judgment.
But on the contrary, in terms of investigation and arrest, the church's presence is much more conspicuous.
These days, religion is the most basic form of organization. If you want to defraud people to make money or even rebel directly, they will often organize them through religion first.
Churches at all levels are the most sensitive to these changes.
Therefore, the church often receives reports from various grassroots clergy, warning that someone is plotting evil. In order to conduct investigation and identification more efficiently, over time, the church has formed a set of rapid response procedures and response plans for various incidents. This is also why the Great Lama Wang is responsible for intelligence gathering.
Similarly, in order to quickly determine the truth and control the situation, the church also obtained the power to investigate and arrest suspects, and formed a capable team. Because their token logo is a cross and a sword, the locals nicknamed it "Brother Tian's Sword".
As the Patriarch, Lama Wang has the power to urgently mobilize the "Sword of Brother Tian". But accordingly, he had to give everyone a reasonable explanation afterwards. So it is reasonable to ask more questions.
"Someone is plotting a conspiracy against us, and it may be related to the cult." Guo Kanglu had already thought of an explanation: "They should have colluded with the gang organizations in the city, and also used the gang-controlled theater troupe to cover themselves, taking the opportunity to carry out propaganda and criminal activities."
"In the past few days, the city has been commemorating the triumph. There are many people and chaos, which is just suitable for them to act and realize their conspiracy." He suggested: "Although the specific situation is not clear, I feel that this matter cannot be ignored, or We need to investigate quickly.”
Lama Wang was still doubtful.
"We still don't know the current situation at all." He shook his head and said: "The investigation of the case requires a lot of preliminary preparations. We need to find out the specific identities of the enemies, their communication channels, and their organizations. Only by using this method can we have a general outline of their organization, and then it’s time to close the net and arrest people and interrogate them.”
"If you don't know anything and just attack, you may fall into a trap. At the very least, you will alert the enemy and allow the really important enemy to escape easily."
"I've rarely seen you in such a hurry. But no matter how anxious we are, it's not so urgent." He looked at Guo Kang and said, "It's OK to rush for time, but we must also pay attention to methods. The more urgent we are, the more we must pay attention to efficiency. , the less you can panic."
"You are still young and have been exposed to too few things. I know you have many ideas, but when you really do things, you still have to control your emotions first."
"You don't have to worry about this all the time. Tell me the general scope, and then go and rest first." He made arrangements: "I will send people now to investigate the situation over there."
Guo Kang thought for a while and nodded.
Lama Wang dismissed everyone and asked a monk to take them to rest. He himself and Guo Kang came to the second floor.
Seeing that there was no one around, Lama Wang asked: "Master Guo, is there any secret about this matter that cannot be disclosed publicly? Can you tell me the general situation so that I can judge what to do? "
Guo Kang hesitated and said: "I only know that it should have some relationship with the Ross gang. Otherwise..."
"It's okay. You don't need to tell me anything else. Since you are so anxious, I probably know what level of incident it is involved in." Lama Wang nodded confidently: "In addition, your guess should be right. This There must be a lot of people behind. Is it the Ross Gang? I said they planned a complex conspiracy themselves, do you believe it?"
Lama Wang is obviously experienced. Looking at him like this, he should have grasped the general situation.
However, the fact that he reacted so quickly really put Guo Kang at ease.
"Hey, there's nothing I can do about it." Guo Kang also complained: "These things are really troublesome. I understand why dad always said that there are so many things in the city, it's better to beat people up on the battlefield..."
"It's okay, we have a lot of ways to deal with it." Lama Wang said, "Just listen to me, old man, and go to bed first."
"According to my experience, the real big part of this matter is yet to come. And this kind of thing, like fighting, consumes a lot of physical strength and energy. So, you must stay in good condition - if you want to work, in the next few days Something to keep you up all night."
Guo Kang felt that what he said did make sense and nodded.
Lama Wang shouted downstairs and asked a monk to take Guo Kang to take a bath first. Then, he remembered something again.
"By the way, speaking of the Russians, there is one more thing. I originally planned to tell you tomorrow." He turned around and said, "Mrs. Elena gave me a reply. She wants to invite you and Tuohuan Taiji to talk again. .”
"What's going on?" Guo Kang asked.
"They are also from Russia." Wang Dalai Lama said meaningfully.
(End of chapter)
