prosperous age

No matter how long the journey is, there is always an end. A few days later, the large group of people returned to Sijiu City safely.

The Jizhen army that was guarding the surrounding area also entered the city and set up camp, waiting to participate in the upcoming grand review.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty’s grand military review consisted of some surrounding foreign countries, but this year there were three additional delegations from European kingdoms, so the Ministry of War’s plan was even more ambitious.

Especially knowing that the Western barbarians and Portuguese barbarians had been conquering cities and seizing territories overseas, the Ming Dynasty had to show its military power.

To conquer the enemy without fighting is the best strategy in military tactics.

The imperial carriage entered the city from Yongding Gate, followed the central axis of the capital, passed Zhengyang Gate, Daming Gate, and Chengtian Gate to enter the imperial city.

It was not until they reached Fengtian Gate that the officials accompanying the emperor sent him back to the palace.

As for Zhang Juzheng, Wei Guangde and others, they first returned to the cabinet to meet Zhang Siwei and learned about the government affairs of the past half month.

Although he received a report every day, Zhang Juzheng attached great importance to power, so the first thing he did when he came back was not to go home and rest, but to visit the cabinet first.

Wei Guangde was not so patient. After sitting for a while, he asked for leave on the grounds of being tired from the journey.

"Brother, I haven't done this for a long time. I will rest in the mansion for the next two days and then go back to the cabinet to do my work in three days."

Wei Guangde said to Zhang Juzheng before leaving.

"Well, that's fine, let's take a break for the next two days.

I'll rest when you come back."

The little emperor had given everyone three days off before returning to the palace, but not everyone could have the day off at once, as everyone had to rush around to do their own work.

If you have something to do, of course you have to wait a while and you can make up for the leave when you are free later.

The officials in the hall are all aware of this, so when you need to take a break, just tell your superiors in advance.

Wei Guangde returned home and rested that day.

Later, news came from Liu Shouyou that the Ministry of Industry seemed to have completed the design of the firearm, but it had not yet been cast.

Officials from the Honglu Temple also came to visit, and the court held a state banquet three days later to entertain civil and military officials and diplomatic envoys to China.

"Is everyone settled?"

Wei Guangde asked the official from the Honglu Temple.

"They have all been properly settled in the Huitong Hall, and the interpreters borrowed from the navy have also been settled in the Siyi Hall.

Lord Xu intends to select some of the interpreters who will participate in this event and keep them in Beijing to supplement the strength of the Siyi Hall. "

The official reported to Wei Guangde.

"Are you in the guest department?"

Wei Guangde asked.

"Yes, I am Xiahou Hui. Last year, I was in the Ministry of Travellers and accompanied Lord Lin on his diplomatic mission to Korea. This year, I was transferred to the Ministry of Guests and Guests and took up a temporary post in the Honglu Temple. I am mainly responsible for the reception arrangements for this diplomatic mission."

Xia Houhui bowed and replied.

"Are you a Jinshi in the fifth year of Wanli?"

Wei Guangde felt that the man looked familiar. Although he had a good memory, it didn't mean that he could remember everything he saw.

Among the Jinshi candidates of that session, Xiahou Hui ranked in the middle to lower middle level, so it was not easy for him to stay in Beijing.

However, the Ministry of Rites's Office of Travellers was not necessarily a very good government office. Not only did they have no power, but they had to go abroad when something happened. Although there were benefits, there was really no room for development.

However, Xiahou Hui was able to jump out of the Ministry of Travel and transfer to the Ministry of Guests, and also took on a job in the Honglu Temple, participating in the execution of this grand ceremony. There would be no problem for him to be promoted to a higher level based on his merits afterwards.

This also shows that Xiahou Hui is a man who knows how to handle things, otherwise it would be difficult for him to get ahead.

He became a Jinshi in the fifth year of Wanli, and became a disciple of Zhang Siwei. Wei Guangde didn't have any idea about it.

After casually asking about the preparations, he sent Xia Hou Hui back.

On the second day, Wei Guangde did not really rest at home, but chose to go to the Ministry of Industry.

The Ministry of Works has been relatively free recently. Before, they were busy handling all the projects inside and outside the palace. Now that they have been delivered, they have some free time.

When Wei Guangde came, Jiang Zhi accompanied Wei Guangde to the workshop under the Ministry of Industry.

"I heard about the thing you mentioned a few days ago. They just said that they were still polishing the gun stand, and it's not very complicated.

The barrel can be cut directly from the middle of a bird gun barrel. He also said that if a two-foot long barrel is made directly, it is actually easier than cutting a bird gun barrel. "

On the way, Jiang Zhi whispered to him.

Jiang Zhi was very concerned about what Wei Guangde wanted. He would ask people about the progress every few days, and no one dared to be lazy or perfunctory.

However, Wei Guangde thought that the Ministry of Works' craftsmen's method of using local materials was just a perfunctory response.

When I arrived at the workshop entrance, Liu Shouyou was already waiting there.

A rapid-fire musket, let’s not talk about whether it is easy to use or not, even if it is made, there must be someone to operate it.

Therefore, Liu Shouyou proposed to Wei Guangde that the Jinyiwei should send someone to be responsible for testing this weapon.

In this capital city, the Jinyiwei has sufficient manpower. There is no one in the North and South Pacification Offices, and all the personnel are drawn from various thousand households.

However, the more than ten thousand households under its jurisdiction were definitely the largest among the Ming Dynasty’s garrisons.

In addition to the five traditional guards of left, right, center, front and back, there were four cavalry guards of front, back, left and right, six guards of the royal army including center left and center front, as well as naval guards, military farms, elephant training guards, etc., which almost covered all the military forces of the Ming Dynasty.

"Greetings to Elder Wei, Lord Jiang."

When Liu Shouyou saw Wei Guangde and Jiang Zhi coming, he saluted to the two of them with a captain in Feiyu uniform behind him.

"Wake up, this is"

Wei Guangde glanced at the people Liu Shouyou brought and asked.

Liu Shouyou hurriedly introduced them, "Lord Wei, Lord Jiang, this is Luo Bingliang, the captain of the Imperial Guard. We brought him here to let him learn about the rapid-fire musket so that he can demonstrate it during the review."

"Well, let's go in together."

This workshop of the Ministry of Industry is actually a place for weapon design, not a workshop for producing weapons.

It’s just that the Ministry of Works refers to these government offices as “workshops” to keep it simple.

Under the leadership of Jiang Zhi, the workshop manager came over immediately and led them inside.

After passing through several courtyards, we soon entered a small enclosed courtyard.

Along the way, there seemed to be several similar courtyards. Wei Guangde guessed that this was where the Ministry of Industry designed weapons, and each small courtyard was a project.

Soon, the person in charge appeared in front of them with two men in their fifties, dressed as craftsmen.

Wei Guangde was not wearing his official uniform today, but Jiang Zhi was wearing a red official uniform, which still let these low-status craftsmen know that an important person had arrived.

After the person in charge told them their identities, the two craftsmen hurried forward to greet them. Well, one was a cabinet minister, one was their immediate superior, and the remaining two were even more powerful, the masters of the Jinyiwei, how dare they neglect them.

Although the Jinyiwei is no longer the same as it was in the past two years, people still regard them as a scourge and a violent agency that can destroy families.

And to be honest, you, the Jinyiwei, have been involved in a lot of extortion cases in the past, and your reputation among the people has long been bad.

Of course, with Wei Guangde's intervention in the past two years, the protection fees collected monthly by the Jinyiwei, Bingmasi and Shuntianfu yamen runners have been turned into whitewashed taxes such as sanitation fees, and the people who collect the money have also been changed to Shuntianfu yamen runners, but there is still a monthly account split.

The common people knew that although the Jinyiwei no longer came to collect money, they still opened their doors to do business and paid the same amount of money as before.

We are not fools, so we all know the trick.

As for Wei Guangde, he had no choice.

There are so many government offices in the capital, employing so many idle people. The salaries paid by the court are limited, and those people have to rely on themselves for food and drink.

In addition to arranging some work for them, at least some work related to the city's appearance, it would not be excessive to charge them a fee.

Even the emperor would not want hungry soldiers, so the court naturally could not do this, otherwise the troops would lose morale and would be unable to accomplish anything.

After the introduction, Wei Guangde did not beat around the bush. He came just to see the finished product they designed, so he asked directly: "Don't worry, I heard that you have already made samples, so I came to take a look.

If it is suitable, then there is nothing wrong with it. If there is a problem, it can be corrected this morning."

Seeing that the two old craftsmen were still trembling a little, Wei Guangde first said something to comfort them and then went straight to the point.

"Yes, Elder Wei, the things were just polished the day before yesterday and are still being mixed."

The leading craftsman spoke.

"Okay, Master Lei, right? If that's the case, then ask someone to bring the things over for me to see."

The manager had just introduced two old men, one surnamed Lei and the other surnamed Sun. They were experienced craftsmen in the workshop. Jiang Zhi had told them what Wei Guangde wanted this time, and the manager threw the job over to them.

"Xiao San, Sun Liu, quickly bring the gun stand over here."

Nowadays, most craftsmen, due to the household registration system of the Ming Dynasty, follow in their father's footsteps. Skilled masters would arrange their sons and relatives to work under them as assistants at an early stage. They could also earn some wages from the government and pass on their skills bit by bit.

Sure enough, the few people who came out, especially the two people carrying the gun stand, looked somewhat similar to Master Lei and Master Sun in terms of facial shape. Wei Guangde could tell who was Sun Liu and who was Lei Xiaosan without any introduction.

Wei Guangde just glanced at these people casually.

To be honest, under any other circumstances, these people would not be worthy of appearing in front of him now.

After so many years, Wei Guangde had long since become accustomed to the slogans of equality for all and world peace in later generations, and he had become accustomed to the life of a superior person.

Because his eyes were fixed on the iron rack that was being carried by several people.

It must be said that these craftsmen were very smart. The Ming army's heavy bird gun was fired by pounding the ground with a wooden stick, and the stand was similar to the stand of heavy machine guns in later generations, a tripod with two discs with many small holes on the front and back.

The few people behind were holding dozens of gun barrels in their hands. They were shorter than the government army's bird guns, and were exactly as Jiang Zhi said. The bird gun barrels were divided into two, each about two feet long.

To be honest, it was really not easy to drill holes in the Ming army's gun barrels.

At the beginning, they would drill through an iron pipe three or four feet thick. However, because it required too much skill, there were too few craftsmen who could complete it. This is why there were very few bird guns during the Jiajing period.

However, later I learned from Haojing how Western guns were made, and I realized that they actually welded the gun barrels together in sections.

In fact, the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty were very familiar with this technology, but they were worried about the possibility of the chamber bursting and did not think about it.

As a result, the manufacture of firearms in the Ming Dynasty began to explode in recent years, and was able to meet the government army's demand for bird guns to a large extent.

First, the craftsman will prepare a cylindrical steel core about 30 cm long and 10 mm in diameter as the cold bone.

Next, they took out the wrought iron that had been heated to a certain temperature, and used a hammer to knock the hot wrought iron onto the steel core, rolling it into an iron pipe.

During this process, the steel core is constantly drawn out and cooled with water to prevent the steel core and the wrought iron from welding together.

The iron tube made in this way is about one centimeter thick, ensuring that the gun barrel is strong and durable and can withstand continuous firing.

After that, the gun barrels are welded together section by section.

The quality of welding is directly related to the safety of the gun. After the craftsmen put the iron pipe into the furnace and burn it until it is incandescent, they will prepare a steel core that is the same as the previous one, but the length should be longer than the length of the finished gun.

Then, they put the bright red iron pipe onto the steel core, and the master craftsman hammered the joints together.

At the same time, the auxiliary hammer operator will sprinkle white copper powder on the welding joints of the iron pipe to enhance the strength of the welding joints and avoid leaving faults or cold welds.

The steel core is also pulled out and cooled at any time, while the iron pipe is returned to the furnace for heating.

Finally, the beaten iron pipe became the prototype of the gun barrel.

The last step is to trim the barrel. Early bird gun barrels were often made into an octagonal shape, with one end thick and the other end thin. The thick end was used as the belly of the gun, and the thin end was used as the muzzle.

The front sight and rear sight are welded on using the same method after the gun body is welded.

The front sight and rear sight are just some protrusions before processing and have no practical function.

Before welding, the gun body and the fire base have pre-drilled fire holes. Welding must be done at the position of the fire holes and must not be blocked.

At this time, the bird gun was still a rough draft, and the craftsman needed to re-drill the gun bore and file out the crosshairs.

Due to the technological limitations at the time, the cross-section of the steel core was not a pure circle, the core body was not straight, and the inside of the bore was rough and uneven, so a drill was needed to drill the gun boring drill until it was smooth.

This type of drilling machine uses a wooden frame and a round stone disc as an inertia wheel. It is tied with a leather strap and pulled by manpower to make the stone disc drive the drill bit to rotate.

In the Ming Dynasty, good drill bits, files and other hard steel tools were all made of wrought iron, which was not very hard. Therefore, half of the time in making a bird gun was spent on drilling and scraping the barrel, which could take up to a month.

As for the final assembly of the bird gun, the trigger and the spigot as a complete set of mechanisms are made by a coppersmith. The trigger, spigot, cover, and flash port cover are all made of copper.

However, what Wei Guangde wanted did not come with these complicated mechanisms. Instead, it used the most primitive matchlock gun design, which was simpler.

Master Lei took out the more than two-foot-long gun barrel they had prepared. During this period of time, they were mainly modifying this type of gun barrel.

It is not actually correct to say that the barrel is sawed off. Instead, it is cut with a ready-made blank, and then a bore is drilled to add a rear door to the barrel, which is the plug at the end of the gun, which is screwed on.

Wei Guangde was holding a finished gun barrel. There was a hole in the center of the screw for inserting the lead wire.

"Put it on and let me see."

Wei Guangde motioned to Master Lei to assemble it for him to see what they had come up with.

Master Lei squatted down and opened a snap button on the gun rack, and removed the round hoop at the back. Only then did Wei Guangde realize that the gun rack and the front and rear round hoops could actually be disassembled.

One by one, the gun barrels are inserted into the holes of the round hoop in the front, then put on the round hoop at the back and finally locked with a slipknot.

Wei Guangde stared at the automatic musket they assembled and frowned slightly. Looking left and right, it felt like the most primitive multi-barrel machine gun.

"Lord Wei, this gun barrel is pre-loaded with gunpowder before it is installed. After putting on the round hoop, you only need to insert the fuses one by one, and finally ignite the fuses. The musket will fire out, and it will fire thirty rounds at once.

Then open the snap, remove the fired barrel, replace it with a new one, and you can fire again."

Master Lei was still talking, and Wei Guangde looked at what was in front of him, feeling that it was getting further and further away from what he originally wanted. (End of this chapter)