Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

"Emperor Ming Times?" Xu Shiyi couldn't help interjecting. "What the hell is this?"

"Father, the Huangming Times is not a thing, hey." Xu Yingwei said angrily, "It's just a newspaper, similar to the mansion newspapers issued by the imperial court to local prefectures and counties, but with more content."

Shi Jiuke also said: "There are Cheng Wen, poems, and even ghost novels in the newspapers."

"Ghost novels?" Xu Shiyi immediately regained his energy. He likes to read ghost novels the most.

"Father, since you like to read it, you can order a copy later." After Xu Yingwei finished speaking, he asked Shi Jiuke, "Brother, let's talk about your workshop."

"Oh, that's right, let's talk about workshops." Shi Jiuke said hastily, "This notice from the Huangming Times said that it can provide capital and participate in handicraft workshops in eight prefectures and one prefecture in the south of the Yangtze River to expand their business scale. I don't know about Shaoxing's Is it possible?"

Shaoxing does not belong to the eight prefectures and one state in the south of the Yangtze River, so Shi Jiu is not sure whether he can get the money from the Industrial and Commercial Bank.

"Hey, I still don't know what's the big deal, that's all?" Xu Yingwei said with a smile, "I can solve this matter with one word, brother. Zheng Zunqian, the big shopkeeper of the Industrial and Commercial Bank, is my iron brother."

"Really?" Shi Jiuke was overjoyed when he heard the words, "Youzhen, then I'll leave it to you."

"No problem, small matter." Xu Yingwei waved his hand, and then said, "But there is one thing, how much is your silk reeling workshop and weaving workshop worth, and how much is your industrial and commercial bank to take shares in? But it doesn't matter, how much silver and how many shares should be, the people from the chamber of commerce have the final say."

"Of course, of course." Shi Jiuke said repeatedly.

At this time, Xu Shiyi said: "Youzhen, can't you help me with a few words? Let the Industrial and Commercial Bank pay more money and less share? Jiuke is your uncle after all."

"Father, what are you talking about?" Xu Yingwei frowned.

"Remember how you taught me when I was a child? A gentleman must be cautious of his own!"

"Cough, cough cough." Xu Shiyi's face turned red immediately, and he could only relieve the embarrassment with a dry cough. It's really embarrassing today, and he let his son teach him.

Shi Jiuke also quickly said: "My father-in-law, this is really unnecessary."

Xu Yingwei asked Shi Jiuke again: "Brother, are you in a hurry?"

"Quite urgent." Shi Jiuke said with some embarrassment, "I really can't hold on."

Xu Yingwei said: "But I haven't finished the initial training, and I can't go back to Nanjing for the time being, why don't I write you a letter, and you take this letter to Zheng Zunqian."

Back in the study, he wrote the letter in a few words and handed it to Shi Jiuke.

After Shi Jiuke got the letter, he didn't even bother to eat lunch, so he left in a hurry.

Seeing that his son helped the Shi family solve a big problem with just a letter, Xu Shiyi couldn't help but feel relieved. His son has a great future, and a word can help a famous family like the Shi family to make peace.

Let's see, who else would dare to bully our grandma Xu in the future?
Thinking of this, Xu Shiyi straightened his back for a moment.

Nearly two hundred catties of water were on his shoulders, but he couldn't bend his waist.

Things like Huangtanshi's family are not isolated cases, and they are happening repeatedly in Jiangnan at this time. …

Especially in Nanjing, the capital of Liuzhou, hundreds of handicraft workshops represented by Xu's book printing workshop and paper workshop have all received equity injections from industrial and commercial banks.

The situation of competition among various industries is taking shape.

The shares of the workshops participated by industrial and commercial banks are generally less than [-]%, and rarely more than [-]%.

In addition, it will be written in black and white on the contract that the industrial and commercial bank will not participate in the specific affairs of the workshop, and everything will still be decided by the original workshop owner, but there is only one thing. Every once in a while, the bank staff will come to check the accounts to prevent shares. The workshop made false accounts and reported losses.

……

Jiangnan under the rule of the Ming Dynasty was already on the eve of competition for all kinds of industries.

However, Shaanxi under Dashun's rule was still lifeless.

After the founding of Dashun, the situation of the people at the bottom has been improved to a certain extent, and they have been allocated land, but the industry and commerce have suffered a devastating blow, and they have not recovered until now.

In particular, tea, fur, medicinal materials, silk, etc., which were the bulk trade in Guanzhong, were completely withered.

With all industries and industries withered, we can only pin our hopes on agriculture. The problem is that agriculture is not good.

Although Guanzhong did not suffer from a severe drought this year, there was also insufficient rainfall. Therefore, the wheat in Qinchuan, eight hundred miles away, grew sparsely, and it seemed that the harvest was going to fail.

Looking at the sparse wheat on the White Deer Plain, like the hair on a leper's head, Li Zicheng seemed worried, fearing that there might not be enough food this year.

If the food is not enough to eat, they can only grab it, or they can only starve.

If troops are sent to rob, there are only two places where food can be robbed, one is Sichuan and the other is Huguang, but now that Sichuan has been turned into a piece of scorched earth by Zhang Xianzhong, only Huguang can be robbed of food.

But going to Huguang to rob would destroy the de facto alliance with the Ming Dynasty.

This is what Li Zicheng does not want to see, because Jiannu is the number one enemy of Dashun.

If the Dashun Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty fight together, wouldn't Jiannu take advantage of it?
Thinking of this, Li Zicheng sighed again, worrying about people, this emperor is really hard to be.

Song Xiance saw what Li Zicheng was thinking, and said in a low voice, "Your Majesty, it is impossible to go to war with Daming. The alliance between Dashun and Daming can protect itself. If the two families kill each other, they will definitely be defeated by Jiannu."

"How can I not know what you're talking about." Li Zicheng sighed, "But I'm afraid there will be a famine this year."

Song Xiance persuaded again: "My lord, we can buy grain from the Ming Dynasty. Last year, we bought hundreds of thousands of shi. This year, we just need to buy more grain. We can get through it."

"Buy grain?" Li Zicheng said, "But we have no money, so how can we buy grain?"

Liu Zongmin looted a total of more than [-] million taels of silver from Beijing, and all of them were snatched by Jiannu, so now the Dashun Dynasty is actually very poor and does not have much wealth.

Song Xiance was also speechless after hearing this.

At this time, Li Shuangxi rushed over excitedly.

"Father, great victory!" Li Shuangxi shouted, "Great victory in Guihua City!"

"Huh?" Li Zicheng, Song Xiance and their followers all turned their heads to look.

Li Shuangxi rushed to Li Zicheng excitedly and reported: "Father, the army of the rear battalion has captured Guihua City, captured two Zasaks who were enslaved, and captured more than one million cattle and sheep and Hundreds of thousands of horses!"  …

"Really?" Li Zicheng was overjoyed when he heard the words. This was really a surprise, I didn't expect it!

Song Xiance also smiled and said: "My lord, this is really timely rain. We are worrying about not having money to buy grain from the Ming Dynasty. Now that we have cattle, sheep and horses, we can use these livestock to buy grain from the Ming Dynasty."

"Yes." Li Zicheng nodded, "immediately ask Gao Yigong and Li Yan to send the cattle, sheep and horses to Xi'an, and then send people to Nanjing, saying that we will exchange the cattle, sheep and horses with the Ming Dynasty for food."

"Yes." Song Xiance accepted the order happily.

……

Another more than a month has passed, and the time will soon come to the end of October.

After nearly two months of rush work, the first real flintlock gun in the Ming Dynasty was finally built, which was no different from the flintlock gun in Chongzhen's memory.

The caliber of the barrel is 4 points.

[Note: 4 points = 12.8 mm]

The wall thickness of the barrel is 2 fen, so its outer diameter is 8 fen.

In order to facilitate fixing, the entire gun barrel is filed into an octagonal shape.

The bottom of the gun barrel is locked by a screw, and the gunpowder hole is opened on the right side.

The trigger was filed by an old blacksmith by hand, and even engraved with exquisite patterns.

Because it took too long to process the gun barrel, the old blacksmith in charge of processing the trigger had nothing to do, so he showed his craftsmanship on the exquisite iron carving.

Looking at the flintlock gun in his hand, Chongzhen felt a little emotional.

To be honest, it was beyond Chongzhen's expectation that the flintlock gun could be manufactured so smoothly.

Since the beginning of Chongzhen, the first development of the flintlock gun will definitely not go smoothly, and there will definitely be various setbacks and technical problems that are difficult to solve. He has even been mentally prepared to fail dozens or even hundreds of times. But no matter how many times he fails, he will make the flintlock.

However, what Chongzhen never expected was that the whole process was completed in one go, without encountering any difficulties.

It was not until the flintlock was completed that Chongzhen discovered that the metallurgy, forging, casting, welding and machining technologies of Ming Dynasty had reached a very high level.

Chongzhen was worried about several technical difficulties before, one was welding, and the other was drilling and polishing the gun barrel. After participating in it, he discovered that Daming's technology was quite mature.

Even the tapping technology of internal and external threads is quite mature.

Therefore, after Chongzhen provided the processing sketch, the old blacksmiths quickly made it.

In fact, the technical difficulty of flintlock guns is not fundamentally different from matchlock guns. If you can make matchlock guns, you must be able to make flintlock guns. Before Chongzhen, he took it for granted, thinking that the performance of flintlock guns was so much ahead of matchlock guns, so The difficulty of processing must be much greater than that of the matchlock gun, but it is not the case.

But having said that, although the flintlock gun was manufactured, it is still unknown whether it can be fired.

Immediately, Chongzhen brought a group of people to the test firing site, preparing for the first test firing of the flintlock.

First load flint, pour gunpowder, then wrap lead with a small piece of silk and stuff it into the muzzle, then use a cleaning rod to penetrate the bottom of the gun chamber for compaction, and then insert the cleaning rod back to its original position.

Then pour a little primer into the medicine chamber.

Finally, pull the slightly heavy trigger.

"Ban Gao." After doing all this by himself, Chongzhen shouted. …

Gao Qiqian stepped forward with a bitter face, and took the flintlock gun from Chongzhen.

After receiving the flintlock gun, Gao Qiqian didn't dare to aim directly with his eyes, but just held the flintlock gun with both hands, aiming roughly at the human-shaped target in front of him, and then pulled the trigger.

"Click!" The flint hit the anvil with a crisp sound.

Almost at the moment when the flint hit the anvil, the anvil flipped up, exposing the medicine chamber underneath, and the sparks generated by the flint hitting the anvil also fell into the medicine chamber at the same time.

"Peng!" followed by a loud noise.

Accompanied by this loud noise, a large cloud of white smoke rose from the muzzle.

Gao Qiqian also screamed in fright. He didn't use both hands to hold the handle tightly, but the handle bounced back under the action of the huge recoil and hit his chest heavily.

Chongzhen didn't care about Gao Qiqian, and asked anxiously, "Go get the target!"

Lu Jiude next to him had already rushed fifty paces away to bring back the humanoid target.

Chongzhen searched carefully, his face collapsed, no bullet holes were found, and Gao Qiqian's shot just now missed the human-shaped target.

"Long live, do you want the old slave to fight again?"

Gao Qiqian was as frightened as a quail, and he didn't dare to look directly at Chongzhen's eyes that seemed to want to eat people.

"If this shot misses, I will castrate you, eh, no, if this shot misses again, I will cut off your head." Chongzhen threatened Gao Qiqian with a vicious look on his face.

But before he finished speaking, he was amused.

Although the shot just now missed the human target, it still fired after all.

For this flintlock gun, as long as it can fire, it is successful. As for the shooting accuracy and penetration, it can be saved and improved slowly in the future.

The biggest advantage of flintlock guns over matchlock guns is the firing mechanism!

Due to the improvement of the ignition mechanism, the impact of rain and fog is greatly reduced.

And after being equipped with a flintlock gun, you can form a dense formation, and three people can stand sideways within three feet, while only one person can stand within three feet of an arquebus.

So the firepower density of the flintlock is at least three times that of the matchlock gun!
At that moment Chongzhen said to Gao Qiqian again: "Gao Banban, let's do it again!"

"The old slave leads the decree." Seeing that Chongzhen was not really angry, Gao Qiqian's hanging heart sank back into his stomach, and he immediately began to fill the medicine with numbness in his hands and feet.

This old eunuch used to be the military supervisor of Ji Town, and also served as the admiral and eunuch of the Beijing camp, so he is no stranger to shooting birds and guns.

In less than a minute, the high dive loaded the ammunition, then pulled the trigger, and then raised the flintlock gun again, but this time the high dive was no longer afraid, but held the flintlock firmly, the butt Brace your right shoulder.

There was a clicking sound, followed by a loud bang from Peng, and then white smoke rose.

Lu Jiude rushed forward again, and brought back the humanoid target fifty paces away.

When Chongzhen, Zhu Cijiong, Hu Guozhu and others gathered around to watch, this time they finally hit a human target.

Moreover, the location of the hit was also very particular, and it happened to hit the "crotch" of the lower abdomen of the humanoid target.

Seeing the dark bullet hole on the human-shaped target, Chongzhen, Zhu Cijiong and Hu Guozhu couldn't help laughing out loud, and Gao Qiqian also smiled flatteringly.

After a pause of laughter, Chongzhen said again: "Gao Banban, continue!"

"The old slave leads the decree." Gao Qiqian began to reload the ammunition again.

Lu Jiude also hastily put the humanoid target back fifty paces away.

In the next few minutes, Gao Qiqian fired more than a dozen guns in succession.

The hit rate was not bad, almost half of the lead bullets hit the human targets.

Then let Lu Jiude place the humanoid target a hundred paces away, and the hit rate is almost impossible to see. Even if you shoot three shots from high up and dive, you may not hit the target with one shot.

It can be seen that for a musket, fifty steps is a hurdle.

The hit rate within fifty steps is quite impressive.

Fifty steps away, the hit rate began to drop off a cliff.