Fenghou

Chapter 387
Since the news of the arrest of the two deserters became clear, the battle preparations for Fort Ganquan began to step up. Thousands of pine trees were felled and transported back. The mountains of trees must be at least seventy or eighty miles away.

This can be regarded as a disguised form of fortifying the wall and clearing the countryside, including some farmers living nearby who either moved to the city or moved to other counties hundreds of miles away.

In addition to logging, mining coal and boulders is also a kind of preparation for war. Needless to say, coal was mined thousands of tons in just half a month, and piled up in the northwest corner of the city, enough for the army and civilians in the city to use for a year. The Song army stopped immediately He stopped coal mining and began to dig big stones with all his strength. He quarried large stones from the stone mountain thirty miles to the south and returned to the city. This was to prepare defensive weapons.

Before dawn, thousands of soldiers ran out of the barracks, ran directly along the corridor to the city wall, and began to conduct physical training along the city wall. These soldiers failed the physical fitness test, a total of [-] soldiers, including [-] from Hu Yantong Soldiers, they were all long-distance runners at the beginning, but they have been pampered in the past few years, stopped training, and their physical strength has seriously declined. No one has reached the standard.

The soldiers were originally training outside the city, but they were worried that the Jin soldiers would kill them at any time. Since yesterday, the army has changed to running and training on the top of the city.

Although Ganquanbao is called a castle, it is actually a county seat. The circumference of the city wall is fourteen miles, and it takes more than forty miles to run three times.

At this time, Chen Qing was also on the top of the city. He had nothing to do with running training. He was inspecting the Song Army craftsman camp to test the fire kite. The fire kite was in charge of two master craftsmen, one was Hu Zhen, a master craftsman of the crossbow workshop, and the other was a master craftsman of the equipment workshop. Xie Changzhi, these two have their own strengths.

Hu Zhen is the chief craftsman of the Shaanxi Road Armament Bureau. He originally followed Wang Yan of the Eight-character Army, and later followed Chen Qing. He is good at making crossbows. He made the giant crossbow gunpowder guns installed on large ships, and he also designed and made small trebuchets. .

And Xie Changzhi is good at making large-scale equipment, and he is also good at making flying machines, that is, wooden birds, and the fire kite is a kind of wooden birds.

Xie Changzhi and Hu Zhen are doing two things at the same time. One is to install the second thousand-step gun, which is a super giant trebuchet. It will take five years at the fastest for a throwing pole, and they have no time to mass-produce it.

It's just that Zhou Kuan, who is far away in Zitong County, accidentally found a throwing pole of a thousand-step gun in a boat shop in Chengdu. As for how it got there, Zhou Kuan immediately bought it for [-] guns. After getting rid of this throwing pole that has no effect on the boat, this time the army went north, and the throwing pole also went northward together.

There is already a thousand-step gun in Ganquan Fort, and this is the second one.

The thousand-step cannon was almost completed, and the finishing work was handed over to other craftsmen. Hu Zhen and Xie Changan began to go all out to make the fire kite.

The fire kite can be said to be a firearm with the highest technical content. It must always maintain a stable flying attitude, even after the gunpowder boosts it, and it must land accurately at the end. This is not an ordinary difficulty.

Fort Ganquan has carried out hundreds of improvement tests successively. It has basically solved the problem of accurate landing and normal flying posture, but the biggest problem is that it will deviate from the flight path and always fly off. The reason for this problem has never been found. Also has not been resolved.

Xie Changzhi has conducted three days of experimental research. He is worthy of being the chief craftsman of the Tokyo Military Bureau. After flying more than a dozen test flights, he found the reason.

"Qi Dutong, the reason for the flight deviation is caused by the kerosene loaded on the belly of the fire kite. The instability of the kerosene makes the flight of the fire kite unstable, so sometimes it flies straight, but more often it flies off. In addition, the wings of the Size and thickness are also a bit of an issue.

Beizhi used the fire kite without kerosene to test the flight, and after making a slight improvement on the wings, it succeeded five times in a row. "

Chen Qing asked in a deep voice: "Then is there a solution?"

"The solution is to go back to the beginning, instead of loading kerosene, ignite the fire kite itself, and then explode over the enemy, and the burning debris will fall in all directions."

Hu Zhen next to him added: "Another way is to soak the fire kite in kerosene for a few days, then take it out and dry it in the sun, so that the fire kite itself is kerosene, or find a way to make the kerosene into a sludge. smeared on the fire kite"

Chen Qing said with a smile: "The idea of ​​oil immersion is okay, that is, the original wood is soaked in oil, not the fire kite, otherwise it will be deformed after drying, and the oil sludge is not applied properly, but the idea of ​​oil sludge is very good. It can overcome the problem of liquid oil. There are a lot of disadvantages, such as throwing after being directly ignited, no need to throw the kerosene barrel.”

"We can experiment!"

"As soon as possible! If it's too late to soak in oil, I'll improve it slowly in the future, so that the fire kite can be used first."

"Humble job understands!"

At this time, a soldier rushed over and knelt down on one knee to report, "General Zheng is in a hurry at the East Gate, please hurry!"

Chen Qing encouraged the craftsmen a few more words, and then hurried down to the city.

A group of merchants came from outside the East City Gate, consisting of more than [-] strong mules, and each mule carried four large wooden barrels. Zheng Ping was leading the soldiers to inspect the supplies in the large wooden barrels.

"what is this?"

Chen Qing came down from the Dongcheng corridor, just in time to see the caravan.

"It's the baby we need most!"

Zheng Ping excitedly said, "Guess what it is?"

Chen Qing saw the black liquid from the cracks in the wooden barrel, and said with a smile: "It can't be kerosene!"

Zheng Ping gave a thumbs up, "One guess is right, absolutely right!"

Chen Qing was surprised and delighted at once, and quickly asked: "Who sent this?"

The short and fat owner of the caravan stepped forward and saluted: "This is a small effort made by the villain to the Song army. We sincerely hope that Ganquan Fort can stand still, so that we Han people in the north can still see hope!"

Chen Qing was really moved, and quickly returned the courtesy: "May I ask the proprietor's name, where is he from?"

"Han Dongtang, a native of Fushi in Yanzhou, is in the wine business!"

"It turned out to be Dongzhu Han, please come to the barracks to speak!"

The soldiers drove the mules to the barracks and unloaded all the kerosene. One barrel was [-] catties, a total of [-] barrels, and a total of [-] catties. Of course, this is not kerosene, but crude oil, and a few more impurities need to be filtered. Only then did we get relatively pure Menghuo oil, and in the end we could get about [-] catties of Menghuo oil.

Chen Qing asked Han Dongtang to sit down in the big tent of the Chinese Army, and asked, "How did you get this batch of kerosene?"

Han Dongtang leaned forward and said, "This kind of high slave oil is produced in some ditches near our Fushi County. Gudu Gudu emerges from the ground. It used to be a monopoly of the imperial court. There are troops stationed in more than a dozen oil producing areas, and ordinary people are not allowed to steal it. , but still can’t control it, everyone used it to light oil lamps at night, and it can also treat moss scabies. Later, when the golden soldiers came, no one took care of these high slave oils, and then every household collected them and sold them to pharmacies and groceries everywhere. Shop, mainly used as lamp oil.

Probably the year before last, the Puppet Qi government once again controlled Huoyou, but it was far less strict than the Song Dynasty, and there were loopholes. I planned to do this business because I knew people from the government, but I heard from a friend that this is also a very powerful city guard. Weapons, I was thinking about getting some for Ganquanbao. "

Chen Qing suddenly became interested, and asked with a smile, "Is kerosene under military control?"

"No, it's just that the Fushi County government is managing it!"

"If I want to buy more, can I still get it?"

"More than a thousand barrels per month is fine, but no more."

"I heard from you just now that the common people seem to have quite a few of them."

Han Dongtang said with a smile: "There are indeed a lot of stocks, but it is easy to collect in the hands of the common people. The key is money!"

"How much does a barrel of [-] catties of kerosene cost now?"

Han Dongtang thought for a while and said: "The cost of getting oil for a humble job is [-] Wen a barrel, of which [-] Wen is wooden barrel money, and the market price is [-] cents a barrel, including the wooden barrel money."

"Are barrels readily available?"

"Suizhou produces wooden barrels, and Yanzhou also produces them. They are easy to buy. Small wooden barrels are cheap, and this kind of large wooden barrels are a little more expensive."

Chen Qing nodded, and asked again: "Will you encounter checkpoints along the way?"

"There are checkpoints, but I am familiar with the road conditions and can completely bypass them."

Chen Qing was overjoyed, and ordered the soldiers: "Go and get one hundred and fifty taels of silver, and then go and find General Hu Yanyun!"

Of course, Chen Qing would not miss this opportunity. They have a thousand camels, and each camel can carry five hundred catties, which is ten barrels of kerosene. One trip can transport [-] barrels of kerosene!

Chen Qing said to Han Dongtang: "Please ask Dongzhu Han to collect folk kerosene for me. I will pay Dongzhu Han the usual commission for each barrel of kerosene. I want [-] barrels of kerosene first."

Han Dongtang never dreamed that he went to Ganquan Fort out of the idea of ​​helping Song Jun, and he could earn [-] yuan.

(End of this chapter)