1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 75: Ping Zai Shan

He owned his own charcoal business in Jiangkouwei, facilitated the patrol of the Dahuangjiang River, and maintained harmonious relations with the boat corps on the Xun and Qianjiang Rivers.

The problems on the production, transportation, and sales sides have all been solved.

Peng Gang is now able to sell coal from the Honglianping area to Jiangkouwei at a relatively competitive price, earning a very stable income.

As for money, he had not yet used up the gold and silver he obtained from defeating Zhang Zhao, and he also received an additional two thousand taels from the Wang family, so he was not short of money.

With the downfall of the Wang family, no force in Zijing Mountain and Pingzai Mountain could stop him or the rise of the God Society.

Peng Gang's influence extended from the small town of Honglianping southward to Qianjiang and northward to the Dachong area.

In the vast Xiping area nestled in the mountains, only two outlying fishing ponds, Shangdongtang and Bitanxun, remained beyond Peng Gang's direct control.

More than a month after the Wang family's downfall, Peng Gang's reputation gradually spread throughout Xunzhou Prefecture.

People from Xiping kept coming to seek refuge with Peng Gang, the new head of the Zijingshan community, hoping to become his servants and protectors.

Peng Gang has 120 young trainees who have been tempered in actual combat under his command, and he naturally does not need servants or guards.

But Peng Gang still took them in and allowed them to burn charcoal and reclaim wasteland on the former Wang Zuoxin's mountain land nearby, without having to pay any rent for three years.

For the first three years, all kinds of charcoal and grain produced could only be sold to him. Grain was purchased at 60% of the market price at Jiangkou Market, and charcoal was purchased at 40% of the market price at Liangkou Market. He would buy as much as he could produce.

By the end of September, those who came to seek refuge with Peng Gang included not only villagers from Pingzai Mountain, but also bankrupt and impoverished people from Wuxuan, Dongxiang and other places.

Including the two blacksmith families and one carpenter family that moved from Dachong, as well as the five blacksmith and gunsmith families that Feng Yunshan found for him.

In just a month and a half, as many as 300 people came to seek refuge with Peng Gang, a population size that was almost comparable to that of Bitan Xun.

The small Honglianping area cannot support such a large population, and at present, Peng Gang's charcoal-making business has shifted its focus from production to transportation and sales.

Using Honglianping, this barren mountain, as a base is clearly no longer appropriate.

After inspecting and surveying the Xiping Zaishan area, Peng Gang moved the camp from the opposite river valley, six miles southeast of Honglianping, to better manage the Xiping Zaishan base and make use of water power.

The land around the opposite river valley is relatively flat and can accommodate a larger population.

The river on the opposite bank originates in the middle of the Pingzai Mountains and cuts out a narrow valley running north-south through the area it flows through.

Hou Jiyong's Shangdongtang is located on the slope on the west bank of the opposite river.

This small valley is called Shanjiangping. It was not originally within the Wang family's territory. It was under the jurisdiction of Shangdongtang, which was five miles to the north. It was not unclaimed land either, as three families of soldiers from Shangdongtang had settled here.

Peng Gang used the thousand acres of mountain land north of Lianhuaping, which he had obtained from the Wang family, to exchange with Hou Jiyong, an external contractor from Shangdongtang, for Shanjiangping near the river valley, planning to establish a new campsite there.

Hou Jiyong got the seahorse badge on his chest thanks to Peng Gang. Peng Gang didn't take over Dongtang's land for nothing, so Hou Jiyong readily agreed.

The soldiers at Shangdongtang had no objections; they were now relying on buying Peng Gang's cheap charcoal to sell in order to supplement their household income.

They wished Peng Gang could live closer to Shangdongtang so he could walk less mountain path when collecting coal.

Peng Gang, who was planning the new campsite, stood on the opposite bank of the river. The river had a small flow, and although it was a pity that it could not be navigable to directly connect with Qianjiang, it was more than enough to provide power for the hydraulic lathe.

After selecting a new campsite and making plans, Peng Gang recruited people to carry out large-scale construction near Yuwen, building camp buildings.

When residents of Shangdongtang and even Bitanxun heard that Peng Gang was going to build a militia camp and houses in Shanjiangping, they rushed over to find work.

Around the time of the autumn harvest, more than 140 people, covered in wounds and wearing tattered clothes, came to seek refuge with Peng Gang, along with their families.

After inquiring, I learned that they came from Longshan in Guixian County.

During the autumn harvest, a dispute arose between the locals and the migrants from the vicinity of Tongling in Longshan County because the locals had stolen their rice. This dispute escalated into a brawl.

The local people of Tongling seemed to have been planning this for a long time. Just two days after the fighting began, local people from Wuxuan joined in.

The people who came from the vicinity of Longshan Tongling were outnumbered and not only had their grain looted, but also about forty houses burned down, and more than twenty people were killed.

When I went to the county seat of Gui County to file a complaint with the county magistrate, the government ignored me, clearly showing their bias towards the local people.

These people from Guixian came to seek refuge with Peng Gang, carrying their meager remaining grain.

Longshan in Guixian County was not only a hotspot for land disputes, but also a major area plagued by rampant banditry.

This group of people is experienced in armed combat, and there are also many promising young talents among them.

Peng Gang had no reason to turn them away.

He was looking to free his young men from the heavy labor of production so they could undergo military training and study. The resulting labor shortage needed to be filled, so he took them in and settled them near Honglian Village (formerly Shanjiangping) to work as charcoal burners.

Under intense training and use, Peng Gang has already worn out three of his muskets.

If it weren't for the six muskets seized from Wang Dazuo in Dachong as reserves, the three musket squads wouldn't even be able to guarantee that each person has a musket.

It was imperative to imitate the musket, and even attempt to imitate the flintlock musket.

Relying solely on existing stock, given his training intensity, he probably wouldn't even survive until the Jintian Uprising; all the muskets would have already been worn out.

After settling the group of visitors, Peng Gang disassembled and studied the only brown bass guitar he had on hand, drew up blueprints, and attempted to tackle the technical challenges of replication.

From 1722 to 1854, the Brownbees family (including percussion cap models) produced a total of 780 million rifles in various models.

Zhang Zhao neglected the maintenance of this brown bass during his lifetime, and the barrel and flintlock mechanism were already covered in rust.

Use fine sandstone mixed with coarse linen to repeatedly rub the surface of the gun barrel to remove the rust layer.

Peng Gang finally saw clearly the VEIC inscription engraved on the end of the cover plate, which means United East Indian Company.

Peng Gang guessed that the brown bass was an Indian version that Zhang Zhao had bought from a deserter of the British Indian Army in Hong Kong.

The production of the Indian version of the brown beige was also quite staggering, at around 280 million units, mainly supplied to the soldiers of the Indian colonies and other East India Company forces.

The Indian version of the Brownbes is not only the shortest in the Brownbes family of rifles, but also the shortest among many standard smoothbore rifles.

该枪全长55.2英寸（140cm），枪管长39英寸（99.06cm），口径约点75~点78之间（大约19mm），重量：9.5磅（4.31kg）。

The bayonet was probably damaged or lost by Zhang Zhao; there was no bayonet, only the bare gun.

Peng Gang found several muskets in good condition to compare with this brown bass.

The barrels of Green Standard Army bird guns were mostly made of pig iron, which has a high carbon content and is brittle and hard.

In addition, the workmanship was rough, and they were too lazy to even polish the exterior properly, let alone the inner wall of the barrel.

The inner wall of the gun barrel was riddled with visible air holes and sand holes, making it extremely crude.

What caught Peng Gang's eye was that the barrel of one of the bird guns was made of wrought iron.

Despite the existing manufacturing issues, the barrel of this musket is in the best condition due to the good toughness of wrought iron.

The barrel of the brown bes is also made of wrought iron, but even though they are both made of wrought iron, there are differences in quality and processing methods.

Brownbees' barrels are made of wrought iron of better quality.

Moreover, it is a seamless wrought iron pipe formed by drilling holes directly from wrought iron pipes. The inner wall of the gun barrel is very clean, and there are almost no air holes or sand holes.

The wrought iron barrel of the musket contained many impurities, and the quality of the barrel material differed greatly from that of the brown breech.

In terms of process, the process involves heating wrought iron sheets and rolling them into tubular shapes, then manually forging and welding the joints.

The inner wall of the musket barrel is much rougher than that of the brown beaker barrel; upon close inspection, one can even see tiny cracks at the joints.

To manufacture a gun barrel of similar quality to that of a brown bees, the technology for mass production of high-quality wrought iron is required.

Low-sulfur, low-phosphorus wrought iron is produced by smelting with coke or in a blast furnace to ensure the toughness and strength of the gun barrel.

Peng Gang couldn't get coke, and there were no iron mines nearby, so blast furnace steelmaking was out of the question.

The most practical and feasible solution is to purchase iron materials and forge wrought iron ourselves.

The only thing he could do in this process was to design and manufacture a water-powered forging hammer to improve the quality and efficiency of forging wrought iron and produce wrought iron of superior quality to that of the Qing army.

As for drilling holes in the gun barrel, this step was even more difficult, as he had neither the drilling equipment nor the technology.

He had already entrusted Luo Dagang to try his luck in Guangzhou and Hong Kong to see if he could buy some decent high-carbon carburizing steel for the drill bit.

If you can't buy it, you can only try to forge it by hand.

As for tungsten alloy steel drill bits, even the British themselves didn't have those at the moment, so forget about it.

He could only try to make the simple drilling machine and boring machine, since he couldn't even make a single screw.

Moreover, it's difficult to guarantee processing precision and yield when the product is rolled out.

(End of this chapter)