The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 399 You'll Be the Vice Minister of Works

Chen Gui glanced at the barrel of the musket a few times and quickly made a discovery: "The structure of this musket is actually not much different from that of a bamboo pole. It's just a long, thin cylinder filled with gunpowder. But when your Northern Song muskets are lit, they can kill enemies a hundred paces away with a 'bang,' while mine can only 'hiss,' spitting fire and burning the enemy. They are truly incomparable, alas!"

Li Tiezhu: "Being able to burn the enemy is quite impressive. Our Ministry of Works in the Northern Song Dynasty is currently imitating your long bamboo pole musket. We tried to do it with an iron tube, but the iron tube actually restricted the combustion of the gunpowder, so the effect was not good. In the end, we could only follow your example and use bamboo poles."

After saying that, Li Tiezhu also took out a long bamboo musket, which looked similar to the one Chen Gui made. It was a long bamboo musket with the middle hollowed out and filled with gunpowder.

Li Tiezhu said, "We treat this thing as a disposable item, light it, and throw it forcefully at the enemy."

It turns out that after the Northern Song Dynasty's arquebus formations fought against the Jin army and the puppet Qi regime many times, the enemy had become smarter and began to learn from the Northern Song Dynasty to build shield carts, which were large wooden planks with four wheels. Whenever they encountered the Northern Song army, they would line up the shield carts and push them forward.

A while ago, Kong Yanzhou and Zhang Wei had many skirmishes, with Kong Yanzhou using shield carts to defend against the Northern Song Dynasty's muskets in an attempt to close the distance.

This caused Zhang Wei a lot of trouble!

Of course, if there were cannons, they could easily overturn the shield wagons, but cannons are not always available, especially in small-scale battles. Without cannons, and with the enemy deploying shield wagons, it is indeed quite troublesome.

As Li Tiezhu explained these reasons, he said to Chen Gui, "When we heard about your long bamboo pole musket, we thought we could use your method to burn down the enemy's shield carts, and that's how we came up with this thing."

He lit the long bamboo flintlock pistol in his hand, then hurled it forward with the force of a javelin throw. The long bamboo pole flew a long way, blazing, and landed on the ground some distance away with a thud. Then, with a "sizzle," the gunpowder burst into flames...

This thing burns much more powerfully than ordinary torches; it burns fiercely and intensely.

Chen Gui was surprised to discover that the Northern Song Dynasty had also improved the long bamboo firearms; their bamboo poles were filled with gunpowder in the first section and oil in the second section.

The fire ignited the oil, making it burn even more fiercely, and it wouldn't go out for a long time.

A large area of ​​the ground was burned black by oil.

Chen Gui, the original inventor, couldn't help but applaud: "So that's how it is. You can even put oil in it. It seems like I'm starting to get a brain too."

Li Tiezhu smiled somewhat awkwardly: "Sir, please don't say that. It's all thanks to your invention that we were able to think of further applications. The main problem is that the wooden planks on the shield cart are thick and heavy, and it's difficult to ignite them with just gunpowder. That's why we thought of adding fuel. It's a weapon that was born out of necessity."

Chen Gui felt delighted. He suddenly realized that doing research alone behind closed doors was far less interesting than doing it with others. Only by researching and exchanging ideas together could they create more interesting and widely applicable gadgets.

"Hey! Let's see some other things."

The old man held onto Li Tiezhu's hand tightly...

Just then, Yue Wenxuan's life-size figurine and Gong Er Niangzi slowly walked over.

It turned out that Yue Wenxuan had already switched his consciousness back to the lifelike figurine. He walked over side by side with Gong Erniangzi and greeted Chen Gui: "Greetings, Lord Chen." Chen Gui was happily playing with his musket and didn't even notice the arrival of such an important person. He just gave a casual reply.

Li Tiezhu, however, stood ramrod straight and bowed: "Young Master Yue, Privy Councilor!"

Chen Gui realized that an important person had arrived based on Li Tiezhu's behavior, and that's when he turned around.

Gong Erniangzi said, "Lord Chen, I am about to go on an expedition and don't have time to chat, so I'll keep it short. I'd like to appoint you as the Vice Minister of Works of the Northern Song Dynasty, in charge of all kinds of technological development work. What do you think?"

Chen Gui was startled and quickly said, "I am not very knowledgeable and don't understand many of these new things. How can I become the Vice Minister of Works right away? I should start as a minor official and learn from scratch."

Gong Erniangzi shook her head and said, "To be honest, the Ministry of Works in our Northern Song Dynasty is currently facing a problem with talent. We either have craftsmen like Li Tiezhu who understand the technology but don't know many characters, or we have scholars from scholarly families who are full of knowledge but know nothing about novel techniques. We truly lack someone like you, sir, who is both technically skilled and learned. The Ministry of Works desperately needs someone like you to guide the direction."

Chen Gui then understood; so that's how it is.

Gong Erniangzi wanted to say a few more words, but suddenly a loud voice rang out from afar. It was the voice of thousands of soldiers shouting at the same time: "Northern Expedition! Northern Expedition!"

Gong Er Niangzi then suppressed her words: "Old Master Chen, I'm going to war! Li Tiezhu will assist you with the rest."

Chen Gui had been traveling for the past few dozen days and had been cut off from news. When he suddenly heard that the Northern Song Dynasty was about to launch an expedition, he was startled: "A Northern Expedition?"

Gong Erniangzi nodded: "Do you still remember Li Heng? The Xiangyang Garrison Commander who led the army to attack De'an Prefecture a few months ago and fought against you, he has now launched a northern expedition. This is a golden opportunity, and our Northern Song Dynasty is also preparing to take advantage of this opportunity to launch a northern expedition and catch the puppet Qi Dynasty off guard."

Chen Gui was completely bewildered: "Li Heng went on a northern expedition? This...this guy..."

In his mind, Li Heng was nothing but a thief! Although he was appointed as the garrison commander of Xiangyang, he was still a thief in nature. Despite being granted an official position in the Southern Song Dynasty, he went to attack De'an Prefecture of the Southern Song Dynasty. It was really reckless. Now that he heard that he had gone to fight the puppet Qi, he didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

Gong Er Niangzi didn't have time to say more and turned to leave.

Yue Wenxuan stopped and smiled at him, saying, "At this time of national crisis, it's really hard to say who is good and who is bad. Sometimes even thieves can do amazing things. Li Heng's northern expedition might be unexpectedly interesting. You should pay more attention to the intelligence, sir; it will be very interesting."

After saying that, Yue Wenxuan turned and left.

Chen Gui looked bewildered; he really didn't think a thief like Li Heng could do anything too serious.

At this time, apart from Yue Wenxuan, no one in the world had a high opinion of Li Heng, so the entire Southern Song court was completely unprepared, and Yue Fei and Han Shizhong also remained inactive...

No one expected that Li Heng's Northern Expedition would achieve such brilliant results, accumulating experience and laying the foundation for Yue Fei's later Northern Expedition.

(End of this chapter)