unclear

Chapter 1454 The Emperor is Lei Zhenzi's Uncle
To destroy something, first make it go mad. The arms smuggling group led by Jia Yihui had been frantically trading for more than half a year, making a fortune. But their greed was not satisfied; instead, it grew stronger, and they set their sights on artillery, shells, and grenades.

These weapons are inexpensive to manufacture, but they sell for exorbitant prices overseas, generating profits far exceeding those of firearms and ammunition.

But just as they were advancing triumphantly and seemingly unstoppable, bad news suddenly arrived. A staff officer in charge of logistics and supplies in the Western Regions Command discovered something amiss while conducting a spot check on the military equipment being transported from the rear.

Completely different from the traditional Ming army, the Ming army, including the navy, had specialized personnel in charge of ordnance in each guard and each capital, called equipment staff officers, who were under the leadership of the chief of staff of the command and the chief of staff of the capital, roughly equivalent to the ordnance officers of later times.

Their job is to analyze the shortcomings of the various weapons in the unit's equipment and then provide the data to the General Staff to provide suggestions for improvement to the designers and manufacturers. Therefore, they conduct tests every day and are more familiar with various weapons and equipment than the designers and manufacturers themselves.

The staff officer randomly opened a box from a newly arrived batch of firearms, grabbed one at random, made slight adjustments, and then took a box of ammunition to begin live-fire shooting.

As a result, after firing the first bullet, the overly familiar muscle memory protested, and the recoil was insufficient! The second bullet, the third bullet... more than ten bullets were fired, and the staff officer's brows furrowed more and more tightly.

The low recoil issue was confirmed, and now there was the problem of barrel overheating. He was willing to swear on his life that this gun and this box of ammunition were not right; they were clearly different from previous batches.

What's next? The staff officer didn't jump to conclusions. Instead, he brought in two more equipment staff officers to continue testing, trying to eliminate all human factors and ensure the test results were objective.

The results came out that same day: some of the firearms and ammunition in the same batch had clearly abnormal parameters. Whether it was due to defective products or adjustments to production standards by the General Staff, the staff officers didn't know and didn't want to know. Their job was simply to identify and report problems; they weren't required to reply—that was the job of their superiors.

As luck would have it, this report returned to Lanzhou along with the wagons transporting the wounded. Since it wasn't a frontline battle report, it wasn't considered urgent and was temporarily held up to make way for war supplies. It was handed over to local military officials for screening and classification along with other official documents and letters.

Even more coincidentally, this Ministry of War official was stationed in Lanzhou, and the Jin County Arsenal was also under his jurisdiction. When the Jin County Arsenal was being expanded, the General Staff coordinated the direct occupation of the Ministry of War's warehouse. The two sides had frequent contact and were at least close acquaintances, if not good friends.

The Ministry of War's warehouse was occupied by the arsenal, but the office still had a small courtyard, separated from the Jin County arsenal by only a wall. The few people who were usually stationed at the Ministry of War didn't think it was worthwhile to start a fire alone, so they simply ate in the arsenal's canteen.

The most coincidental thing was that Jia Yihui happened to be eating at the arsenal that day, and the two met in the canteen. They chatted while eating, and eventually the conversation turned to reports from the front-line combat troops. The Ministry of War official didn't mean anything by it; he was just half-jokingly reminding Jia Yihui, who was involved in manufacturing military equipment.

As the saying goes, what is said without intention may be taken seriously by the listener. Jia Yihui was so frightened he almost peed his pants. If this report had been sent to the General Staff or the Ministry of War, it would have been a huge disaster.

Leaving aside the past, even now, the warehouse is short of hundreds of rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and over a dozen boxes of grenades. If someone from above were to investigate, the truth would be revealed in no time.

What to do? Jia Yihui thought for an entire afternoon but couldn't come up with a good solution. However, he did come up with a desperate plan. He decided to go all in and blow up the warehouse storing military equipment and ammunition! This way, he could not only destroy the nearby Ministry of War office and the report, but also cover up all the previous embezzlement.

For Jia Yihui, deciding who to bomb was not difficult at all; in those remote and impoverished areas, there were plenty of poor villagers willing to risk their lives for a sum of compensation. So, on a stormy night, the arsenal's warehouse suddenly turned into a giant fireball, along with the Ministry of War's office next door, seven lives lost, and numerous crimes, all vanished into thin air.

With battle imminent on the front lines, such a disaster has occurred in the rear, making a thorough investigation both necessary and inevitable. However, the quantity of firearms and ammunition stored in the Jin County arsenal warehouse was not large, and they were not considered important supplies by the General Staff Department, so they were not given much attention at a time when manpower was needed everywhere.

The military police were only sent to the scene for a short while, and after listening to the statements of several parties involved, they found nothing unusual. In addition, there was a thunderstorm that day, so the case was closed as being caused by lightning.

However, the Ministry of War was unhappy. The warehouse was their property, and they had only said that it would be lent to the arsenal for expansion, with the General Staff guaranteeing it. The price hadn't even been agreed upon yet, and now it was all gone, plus two Ministry of War officials had died. They were losing money from all sides.

So Wang Jiazhen went to Wang Zheng and Tan Mingbu to ask for compensation. Those two were not the type to be easygoing. They said whatever was agreed to, but not money. As soon as they heard that compensation was needed, they immediately handled the matter officially.

In order to clarify responsibilities, a joint investigation team was formed in a few words, and it was planned to send people from the capital to conduct a thorough investigation again, and then whoever was responsible would bear the responsibility.

In fact, things wouldn't have exposed Jia Yihui's conspiracy up to this point; the problem lay with Zhang, Wang, and Zhao's thinking. He had traveled a long way on behalf of the General Staff, not intending to just go through the motions; from the moment he received the assignment, he was already figuring out how to investigate.

Anyone who can become a key strategist is bound to be cunning and resourceful; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to devise plans for the treacherous world of war. After reviewing the initial investigation report, Zhang, Wang, and Zhao immediately spotted the problem: a lightning strike!

The vast majority of ancient Chinese buildings were constructed of wood, which could withstand earthquakes but were extremely vulnerable to fire. Tall buildings, especially palace complexes, were frequently struck by lightning and ignited into fires, which were almost impossible to extinguish once started.

The three main halls of the imperial palace were destroyed by fire, and no matter how many auspicious beasts were placed on the roof, it was useless. However, after Emperor Jingyang ascended the throne, he quickly invented a lightning protection system. It used finger-thick copper strips installed on the roof ridge, replacing the traditional auspicious beasts, and then connected to the ground several meters deep, called grounding.

Don't let its simplicity fool you; it's incredibly effective. Since this system was implemented nationwide, tall buildings across the country have rarely been struck by lightning. The Imperial Palace, for over thirty years, has remained unscathed even during the heaviest thunderstorms.

At this point, anyone who claims the emperor is a mortal would be met with disbelief from the officials in charge of construction. Who among mortals could avoid lightning? It had to be a god, or at least someone with a close relationship to a god, to have such influence—like Lei Zhenzi's uncle!

(End of this chapter)