Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 202 Paper Ball
Seeing that his brother had remembered, Yao Liang nodded, and then continued to say to Zhu Shenzhui: "Boss, we brothers can try this job, but we can't guarantee when it will be completed. If it goes well, it may only take a few days. If it doesn't go well, it's hard to say how long it will take..."

"It's okay, just try it. By the way, what do you need for the test? Just tell me what you need and Zhao Da will help you arrange it." Zhu Shenzhui was overjoyed when he heard such a promise. He didn't expect things to go so smoothly, so he laughed and said.

"What you want is common. What we brought before should be enough. Tomorrow we brothers will take a look to see if there is anything missing. If there is any, I will go directly to Uncle Zhao." Yao Liang replied.

"Good!" Zhu Shenzhui slapped his thigh. This was a good thing. Yao Liang was a steady man. Although he said he was only a little sure, judging from his performance and demeanor, the possibility of success was still very high. After thinking about it, Zhu Shenzhui immediately promised that as long as this thing was done and he was satisfied with it, he would reward him handsomely.

The Yao brothers quickly said that this was what they should do, and it didn't matter even if there was no reward. Since their boss treated them so well, they would naturally do their best.

But when Zhu Shenzhui smiled and told them that this reward was different from the one he had mentioned before, the Yao brothers were puzzled for a moment. Seeing their expressions, Zhu Shenzhui told them about Zhao Da's experience. Zhao Da was just a craftsman like them before, and he was just a blacksmith. But now? Zhao Da has the official title of governor. Although this official title is only of the eighth rank, it is a real official title, and all the workshops here are under the jurisdiction of Zhao Da.

Zhu Shenzhu loves people with ability the most. As long as you have ability, Zhu Shenzhu will never treat you unfairly. Although the Yao brothers are new here, once they accomplish this task, it will be a great achievement. In addition to the gold and silver rewards, Zhu Shenzhu can also give them an official position, perhaps the ninth rank, or perhaps the eighth rank. The specific level depends on their ability. This opportunity is rare, and I hope they can seize it firmly.

The Yao brothers may not care much about the reward of money, but when they heard that Zhu Shenzhui could give them official positions, their eyes instantly glowed with heat. They were the same as Zhao Da before. Although fireworks craftsmen were better than blacksmiths and had more freedom, they were still craftsmen after all.

What's more, the Yao family has been ruined because of the previous accident, and the family property has long been gone. Now, there are only two brothers and the eldest sister-in-law of the Yao family left in the entire Yao family. Where will the Yao family go in the future? It's not that the brothers have not considered it, but they really don't know how to think about it.

After all, now that I have come to Shanxi, I am living under someone else's roof. Even if I meet a good boss, my life will only be better. I can only take one step at a time and see the future. After all, a craftsman is always a craftsman.

But now Zhu Shenzhui's promise made them see a different possibility. If they could really be given an official position, let alone an eighth-rank governor like Zhao Da, even a ninth-rank or even a minor official would be a big deal for them.

For a moment, the eagerness in the eyes of the two was mixed with doubt. After all, they had not known Zhu Shenzhui for a long time, and they still did not know his true identity. Although Zhu Shenzhui said so, could he really do it? But even so, the Yao brothers felt that this opportunity must not be given up. What if it was true? Once it was true, their Yao family would completely get rid of the status of a craftsman.

After dinner, Zhu Shenzhui left first. As for how the Yao brothers discussed things after he left, that was their business.

However, the next day, the Yao brothers went to the fireworks workshop early in the morning. The two brothers were so busy that no one knew what they were doing, but from their obviously excited energy and complexion, it seemed that they had firmly remembered what Zhu Shenzhui said last night. This future opportunity was rare and was worth a try regardless of whether it was true or false.

In a blink of an eye, a few days passed. One day, the Yao brothers came to Zhu Shenzhui in person. After meeting, Yao Yuan excitedly put down the basket he was carrying, took out some things from it, and told Zhu Shenzhui that the things were made.

"Is this it?" Looking at the things wrapped in paper ball, which looked no different from a ball of tightly squeezed waste paper, Zhu Shenzhui asked curiously.

"Boss, don't underestimate them, but they may meet your needs." Yao Liang said with a smile. Then he asked Zhu Shenzhui to stand further away and said that he would perform an experiment for Zhu Shenzhui to see.

At Yao Liang's request, Zhu Shenzhui walked a few steps to the side, and then Yao Liang asked his younger brother Yao Yuan to move away as well. However, Yao Yuan shook his head and refused. He said that he could help from the side. Seeing his younger brother like this, Yao Liang did not force him.

Yao Liang took a small ball of paper and placed it on the flat bluestone. Then he took a small hammer from Yao Yuan's hand and raised it up.

"Boss, look carefully! Hey!"

Yao Liang reminded Zhu Shenzhui, and then he swung the hammer vigorously. The hammer fell and hit the small ball of paper directly.

When the hammer hit the small paper ball, there was a crisp bang, followed by a ball of fire and a puff of smoke. The bang was not loud, at most it was about the same as the sound of ordinary firecrackers, and the flames were the same, even smaller than the fire of firecrackers, but the smoke was quite large, the yellow smoke was slightly pungent, and it also had a strong and familiar strange smell.

When he heard the sound and saw the fire light up, Zhu Shenzui's eyes instantly became bright. He never thought that the problem that had been bothering him would be solved so easily. The Yao brothers took only a few days to make what they needed.

"How much have you done? Try again, try a few more times!" Zhu Shenzhui said excitedly, rubbing his hands.

Yao Liang smiled and nodded. He took a new paper ball from Yao Yuan and placed it in the same position as before and continued to hit it with the hammer. Just like last time, it exploded smoothly again. Next, Yao Liang continued to repeat, hitting more than ten paper balls back and forth. In the whole experiment, except for one paper ball that failed for some unknown reason, the rest were fine.

Such a result has made Zhu Shenzui extremely excited. Facts have proved that his previous assumptions were correct. The emergence of this thing is of great significance because it is enough to change the way of war and become the key to determining the outcome of future wars.

Since the emergence of gunpowder, hot weapons began to appear on the historical stage. The earliest use of gunpowder in war was in the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the birth of primitive firearms such as muskets changed the original structure of war. However, the use of gunpowder and hot weapons was still very primitive at that time, and they were merely a supplement to cold weapons.

The Mongol Empire rose in the middle and late Southern Song Dynasty. The Mongol Empire swept across the world and spread the invention of gunpowder from China to the West through wars with the Southern Song Dynasty and then the Western Expedition. In the following hundreds of years, both the East and the West conducted a lot of research on the use of gunpowder as a weapon. By the time the Ming Dynasty was founded, the use of firearms in the Ming Dynasty had reached a fairly advanced level.

Fire guns, bird guns, three-eyed guns, Lumi guns, Portuguese guns, etc., including the later-born "Yiwofeng" and "Shenhuo Feiya" and even land mines and sea mines. The Ming Dynasty's firearms technology level was the highest in the world, and it also had a professional firearms unit - Shenjiying.

As time went by, the Ming Dynasty's firearms research and development began to lag behind, while the Westerners began to catch up. However, compared with the two, the gap between the two sides is not that big now. Although the Westerners are better at cannon casting, the Ming Dynasty is not weak in conventional firearms.

However, firearms have not yet officially replaced cold weapons as the dominant force on the battlefield. At present, cold weapons still play a decisive role in wars, and firearms are still only used as an auxiliary. Even though the West later used firearms on a large scale on the battlefield, the firing restrictions of firearms still required the use of various tactical formations to achieve their full potential. Among them, the line tactics known as queuing and shooting were born in this way.

The main reason for limiting the use of firearms in wars is that loading and firing firearms is too cumbersome. Even well-trained musketeers can only fire two to three rounds per minute when using smoothbore muskets. And only excellent musketeers can do this. For ordinary musketeers, firing one or two rounds per minute is already amazing.

In addition, the battlefield and shooting training bring different pressures, and musketeers also need strong psychological qualities. For example, the musketeers in the Ming army often only fired three shots at most, and this was because they used three-barreled guns. If they were replaced with ordinary muskets and bird guns, it would be amazing if they could fire two shots.

There are many reasons for this problem, such as training factors, psychological reasons, and of course the fact that the loading procedures of the firearms themselves are too complicated. In addition, due to weather conditions, the use of firearms will also be greatly affected.

At present, the most troublesome thing about firearms or muskets is the ignition device. Generally, it is a matchlock gun, or a more advanced flintlock gun. But Zhu Shenzhu had already experimented with these, and both firearms have problems that cannot be solved. Although the former is reliable, the ignition requires the ignition match to be lit first, and the ignition match is greatly affected by the weather. Although the latter can be fired in bad weather and does not require a matchlock, the success rate of firing and ignition is only half or even lower.

In this case, no matter which one is used, it has limitations and cannot become a decisive factor on the battlefield for the time being. Therefore, the key to solving this problem lies in solving the ignition and launch first. Only when this trouble is dealt with, the large-scale use of firearms will become truly possible.

This is why he found the Yao brothers and spent a lot of money to get them here. Zhu Shenzhui is not a firearms professional, and he did not study science in college, so he has only a vague understanding of how to make firearms. To put it bluntly, the muskets he asked Zhao Da to help make before were just additions and subtractions to the existing musket technology, and then they were made with excellence, and the principles have not changed much.

But in any case, Zhu Shenzhui was clear about the general direction of the future development of muskets, and he knew that the real direction was to use primers to replace matchlocks or even flintlocks. And once the problem of primers was solved, it would be possible to change from muzzle-loading to breech-loading, and then imitate the principle of the first generation of revolvers to create a new type of musket that could fire continuously.

We can continue to develop it in the future and eventually create a bullet that can be assembled with a primer, cartridge case and gun, thus approaching the level of modern muskets, but that is a story for another time.

(End of this chapter)