After hearing Luo Zhixue's question, Blacksmith Song did not answer immediately, but thought for a few seconds and said, "The current output is still relatively low. We should be able to produce about fifty guns in the first month. This is mainly because many current workers are not skilled enough, and some of our auxiliary machinery often have problems and need further improvement."
"But by next month, when we get on track, we should be able to make about 130 guns every month."
Luo Zhixue said: "Okay, this is much faster than the old method before."
When Blacksmith Song and others made muskets before, one craftsman had to complete most of the processes alone. The requirements for the craftsmen were not high, and the output was extremely low.
According to this old-fashioned production method, on average, a craftsman can only make one musket per month.
There were not many craftsmen in the weapons workshop who were skilled in making muskets. There were only Blacksmith Song and his three sons, plus seven or eight apprentices who had learned how to make muskets with Blacksmith Song and them.
If we follow the old method and all these people go into battle, they will only be able to build more than ten muskets in a month.
But now, by directly adopting the assembly line production method, these skilled craftsmen can free up their hands to do some delicate processes, or simply exist as technical guidance, while a large number of repetitive boring processes are completed by ordinary workers.
In this way, the same dozen skilled craftsmen, but combined with the assembly line and dozens of ordinary workers, can directly increase the output of muskets to more than a hundred.
The yield improvements are huge.
And this is why Luo Zhixue has been unswervingly promoting assembly line production a few months ago, and has built a lot of messy auxiliary machinery and equipment for this purpose.
Judging from the output of the musket factory, next month I will be able to obtain more than 50 muskets for the replacement of the second infantry sentry. In the second month, I will be able to purchase two more muskets and the third one. In just one month, he was able to complete all the changes to the existing five sentries, and he could also replace the small-caliber muskets captured directly from the Ming army.
Three months later, the five infantry posts under his Baoxiang Battalion will all be equipped with new 18mm matchlock guns.
As for the future, there is no need to worry that the muskets produced will be useless, because the expansion of the Baoxiang Battalion will not stop. Three months later, Luo Zhixue estimates that he has established several new infantry posts.
The musket factory was responsible for the re-equipment of the Baoxiang Camp in Funiu Mountain and the subsequent expansion of the army. Not only Luo Zhixue attached great importance to it, but also several other sentry officers in the Baoxiang Camp.
Everyone also knows that if they want to bring more soldiers, they have to expand, and expansion requires enough musketeers or archers to act as long-range firepower for the infantry.
Don't count on archers. They have been cultivated for several years, and it is difficult to recruit externally. Archers can only be obtained in large numbers from prisoners of war, but there are not many prisoners of war now.
Therefore, now Lin Dongsheng, Huang Dingquan and other infantry sentries can only count on the musketeers.
After all, as long as you can make enough muskets as a musketeer, you can recruit civilians and train them for a few months to use them. It is simple, convenient, and cheap.
Therefore, after Luo Zhixue completed his inspection, in the following days, you could see Huang Dingquan and other infantry sentry officers running to the musket factory from time to time to take a look.
This put Blacksmith Song under a lot of pressure, fearing that something would go wrong and annoy the old men, and he would end up with his body and head missing.
Blacksmith Song still wanted to leave this rebel den alive.
In order to save his life and leave here alive, Blacksmith Song would go out early and come back late, working in the weapons workshop all day long. As the chief engineer of the entire weapons workshop, he provided technology for artillery casting, musket making, and cold weapon making. Consulting, but also as the top manager of the weapons workshop, coordinating the procurement of raw materials, production, placement of workers, etc.
The busy thing is keeping your feet from touching the ground.
And his behavior also caught Luo Zhixue's eyes.
"This old Song is thoughtful!" Luo Zhixue was already thinking about further improving Blacksmith Song's treatment and giving Blacksmith Song more courage.
Recently, he was preparing to rebuild the civil and military management system of the entire Funiu Mountain Baoxiang camp, including an organization named the Industrial Department.
As you can tell from the name, this is an organization specifically responsible for industrial construction.
And now there is no industry in Funiu Mountain. The only thing that can be linked to industry is the weapons workshop.
The reason why a special industrial office was set up instead of being managed directly like the previous weapons workshop is mainly because the scale of the weapons workshops is getting larger and larger, and the things they produce are becoming more and more complex. Now in this weapons workshop, there are more than just They make cannons, muskets, swords and spears, other tents, clothes, kettles, and all kinds of other things.
Whatever the Baoxiang camp needs, the weapons workshop will produce it if it can be produced.
As a result, the weapons workshop is too messy, and its management is also messy.
Therefore, Luo Zhixue has already planned to divide the weapons workshop into three, setting up an arsenal, a logistics factory, and a machinery factory respectively.
Needless to say, the arsenal will inherit the main body of the weapons workshop and continue to engage in various types of ordnance.
Machinery factories, on the other hand, develop and produce various types of machinery, regardless of whether they are hydraulic machinery or power storage/human-assisted machinery.
The logistics factory is a hodgepodge. Anyway, it includes everything except weapons and machinery in the original weapons workshop. By the way, it also adds some independent workshops, such as brick workshops, so there is a bit of a mess. They sew tents, military uniforms, produce kettles, tableware, and various agricultural tools such as hoes and sickles.
Luo Zhixue will also split the logistics factory in the future, but now, there is insufficient manpower and energy.
Luo Zhixue's main purpose now is to ensure the production of important ordnance such as guns, cannons, knives, spears, arrows, armor, and ammunition.
The second is to ensure the purity of the machinery factory, with specialized people and specialized links to think about improvements, invent and manufacture various types of machinery and equipment.
As for other messy productions, let’s just leave them messy for now and sort them out later.
According to Luo Zhixue's rectification, an industrial department will appear, and the candidate for the director of this industrial department will naturally be Song Tiejiang, the former manager of the weapons workshop who also manages a large stall.
In the huge Funiu Mountains, only this person is qualified for such an important task.
Ever since, Blacksmith Song was a little dumbfounded...
Why was he in this den of rebels, getting better and better, and he was promoted at a speed that even he was afraid of.
When he was first captured in the mountains, he was just an ordinary craftsman. Later he became the steward in charge of making guns, and then he became the general steward of the entire weapons workshop. He began to supervise more than a hundred people under his command. .
And now, Luo Zhixue directly appointed him as the director of the Industrial Department, in charge of hundreds of people in the three major factories...
The question is, does this kind of self count as a rebel? When the officers and soldiers reach Funiu Mountain, will they let themselves go?
Blacksmith Song did not dare to think too much, because the more he thought about it, the more desperate he became...
Blacksmith Song, who had been promoted, was uneasy and woke up several times at night, but the other people who had been promoted were different, and they were all happy.
Luo Zhixue's reform of Baoxiang Camp was not limited to weapons workshops, it was as simple as setting up an industrial department.
The Industrial Department is actually just one of the institutions. Luo Zhixue has also established many institutions at the same time.
The first is the Business Affairs Office, which is the core organization for Luo Zhixue's organizational reform. It is mainly an organization directly affiliated to Luo Zhixue and assists Luo Zhixue in managing many business affairs. It is regarded as a private auxiliary secretarial agency.
The next important organization is the grain collection office, which is responsible for collecting grain and other tax items at fixed rates from villages under the control of Baoxiangying.
There is a commerce and trade office, which is responsible for purchasing local specialties from each village and transporting them for sale outside. It also purchases salt, cloth, iron materials and other materials from outside the mountains. However, the purpose of this organization is not to exchange goods and make money. Instead, they obtain various strategic materials needed for the rural protection camp through trade.
By the way, they used the caravan to spy on various information.
The Agriculture Department manages matters related to farming and mulberry cultivation.
There is also the Food and Pay Office, which is mainly responsible for managing the distribution of rations and allowances and pocket money for some officers and managers.
Then there are the Ordnance Department, Logistics Department, and Staff Department, which are three agencies that are purely responsible for military affairs. You can know their functions just by looking at their names, so there is no need to introduce them in detail.
Eight offices have been temporarily established, and Luo Zhixue will adjust the functions according to the situation and add or delete various offices in the future.
However, although various divisions have been established and Luo Zhixue, the director of each division, has been selected, the problem is that every one of the eight division chiefs is illiterate...
There is no way, there are not many scholars in such a large rural protection camp, and there are only about ten people in total.
Most of these ten people were prisoners of war of the Ming army, such as mid- to high-level generals such as Huang Guangmao and Fei Bingqing.
There are also a few half-hearted scholars who fled into the mountains.
Luo Zhixue recruited these half-hearted scholars who were born from mountain people, one by one, regardless of whether they were willing or not. However, these people had just turned into thieves not long ago, and Luo Zhixue could not let them directly become the director or deputy director. Director and other important positions.
As for prisoners of war, it is even more troublesome. Some officer prisoners of war of the Ming army were temporarily assigned to false posts after expressing their intention to surrender. As for whether they will be used, they have to be observed for a period of time. However, a few of them, such as Huang Guangmao and Fei Bingqing, were The senior generals have not expressed their surrender for the time being and are still staying in prisoner of war camps.
This led to a special situation in the Baoxiang camp. All the division chiefs were illiterate, and the appointed deputy division chiefs and section chiefs were also illiterate.
Later, even if those half-literate mountain people and surrendered prisoners of war joined through the inspection period, they would not be able to fill the positions above the section chief.
Talent is rare!
This was Luo Zhixue's biggest feeling during the system reform in recent days. At the same time, he also understood why Li Tonglin and Sun Lili paid so much attention to him.
Damn it, it’s not easy to get a scholar who is willing to become a rebel with them, how can we ignore this...
It was a coincidence that when Luo Zhixue was in urgent need of scholars, Lin Dongsheng, who was sent by him to collect food outside the mountains, returned with his team. In addition to bringing back a lot of food, mules and horses, cloth, gold, silver, iron materials and other materials .
Lin Dongsheng also brought him back scholars, not one or two, but a whole bunch.
This string is not an exaggerated adjective, but a straightforward description, because these seven scholars are tied with ropes and strung together like candied haws...
They all looked young, most were in their twenties or thirties, and there was a young man who looked about seventeen or eighteen years old. These people all wore Confucian clothes and scarves, and they all spoke in a variety of ways that was incomprehensible. They even cursed. The kind of scolding that others can't understand.
There is no doubt that these are the senior talents that Funiu Mountain is in urgent need of!
Lin Dongsheng has made a meritorious service. He has brought back urgently needed high-level talents to Funiu Mountain. The only problem before Luo Zhixue now is how to persuade them to join Baoxiangying, a warm and promising rebel family, and work together for the rebellion. effort!
