The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 92 Family
If you don’t understand, don’t rush to understand it, just follow along.

Wu Jialiang didn't ask any more questions.

His gaze shifted to the two teams of "heavenly soldiers" behind Qi Jiguang. These were two regular Qi family troops, and their military appearance was different from those of Madam Gong Er, who had just trained them. As soon as Yue Wenxuan said, "I'll give you two teams of soldiers," the two teams walked behind Madam Gong Er, stood still, and acted as if they were ready to follow her orders.

This team of Qi's army wore armor of Ming Dynasty soldiers, which was obviously different from that of the Song Dynasty.

Wu Jialiang pondered for a long time but couldn't figure out where these "heavenly soldiers" came from. He had never even seen the style of their armor before.

Now that Madam Gong Er has taken over the baton, she has to get busy.

She turned to Qian Zhuoqun and said, "Second Uncle, I'm leading 500 soldiers ahead. Each of us only carries three days' worth of rations. If the battle is over in these three days, it's fine. If not, you have to deliver the remaining food to our brothers."

Qian Zhuoqun nodded with a serious expression.

When they were a "bandit army" in the past, they did not consider logistics at all when going into battle. They just robbed whatever they could and ate whatever they robbed.

But now that we have the True Lord watching over us, we must ensure that “no harm is done to the people”, so we have to solve the logistical problems ourselves.

Qian Zhuoqun arranged for people to open the warehouse and distribute three days' rations to the soldiers who were going to fight.

All these rations and simple cooking utensils were handed over to the "cooks" in the Mandarin Duck Team.

So each soldier carried a bag of grain weighing dozens of kilograms and a pot on his back. It looked very funny, and the burden was not light.

The other mandarin duck teams were fine, but the Zhangjia Village mandarin duck team was a bit embarrassed.

Their cook Zhang Wazi was still an underage boy whose body had not yet fully grown. Carrying three days' worth of food for more than a dozen people, an iron pot, his armor and weapons, was a bit too much for Zhang Wazi.

It’s okay now that he’s carrying it on his back, but once he starts marching and walking for dozens of miles, I’m afraid Zhang Wazi won’t be able to bear it.

Zhang Dashu couldn't bear it, so he reached out to help Zhang Wazi take the grain bag.

Zhang Wazi shook his head and said through gritted teeth, "Brother Dashu, I'll carry this myself."

Zhang Dashu: "Don't force yourself."

Zhang Wazi: "Brothers, if it weren't for your support, I wouldn't have been able to join the Yuanyang Team at my age. I only got the position of cook thanks to your help. You killed the thieves, and I even shared your reward money... I know that other than cutting off my ear, I didn't do anything. I just took your money for nothing. If I can't even carry food and cook properly, I won't be able to stay in the Yuanyang Team."

Zhang Dashu: “…”

Zhang Wazi: "Let me carry it myself. Unless I fall down, brothers, please don't help me."

Before Zhang Dashu could say something, team leader Zhang Dalang came over and gave Zhang Wazi a thumbs up: "Wait, good job! You have such an idea. When you grow up, you will definitely be more capable than your brothers. But I have to tell you that we are all from Zhangjia Village, and we all have the surname Zhang. We are a family! Since we are a family, we can't say that I took your money for nothing. It's not shameful for you to take your brother's money, and it's not shameful for you to ask your brother to help you with work. If your brother doesn't help you, it will be shameful for your brothers." Tears appeared in the corners of Zhang Wazi's eyes.

Zhang Dalang said, "You carry it for a while. When you can't carry it anymore, let others take turns to help you carry it. But don't try to hold on until you collapse."

Zhang Wazi wiped away a tear and said, "Okay!"

When Yue Wenxuan saw this scene, he couldn't help but mutter in his heart: No wonder fathers and sons were always together in the ancient times. The army must have some relatives, fellow villagers, same surnames, and fellow soldiers from the same place, so that the fighting force can be stronger.

At this moment, a blacksmith apprentice came out from the blacksmith's yard in the village who was responsible for making firearms. He was the one Wu Jialiang met on the way to Dongmiaozi Village, named Li Tiezhu.

While Wu Jialiang was touring Dongmiaozi Village and seeing the corn growing well, Li Tiezhu had already sent his fellow villagers to the cold weapons workshop, while he himself went to the firearms blacksmith workshop to continue his promising career as an apprentice.

However, before he even started working on his new project, the Immortal Craftsman handed him a bird gun and said, "Take this first finished product to the general for his inspection."

So Li Tiezhu foolishly held this strange "big iron stick" in his hands, walked up to Yue Wenxuan, and offered it with both hands: "General Qi Tian, ​​this is what my master asked me to bring over. He said it was a bird gun."

Yue Wenxuan was secretly delighted: Wow, the first musket has been made?

Calculating the time, it’s almost time!

It would take a skilled old blacksmith in the Ming Dynasty about two months to make a bird gun if he worked alone.

But if there is a team to support it and they work together, the time can be shortened to one month.

Of course, there was no concept of "standardization" at that time, so their division of labor and cooperation was very simple, that is, "I will make the pipe" and "you will make the flintlock mechanism". If the things we made did not fit together, we would hit them a few more times, polish them again, force them to fit together, and force them to be assembled together.

If it still doesn't come together after polishing, try again.

Yue Wenxuan took the bird gun and held it with both hands. It felt very heavy. He looked into the muzzle and saw that there were no rifling. It was a smoothbore gun. Ming Dynasty blacksmiths did not know how to make rifled guns, so his plastic blacksmith did not know how to make it either.

He had tested it and found that plastic people had no learning ability, only the ability to "perform according to settings", so he would never be able to teach plastic blacksmiths how to make rifled guns. Even if he threw the information in their faces, they would not be able to learn it.

If you want to turn a smoothbore gun into a rifled gun, you need to wait for the apprentices to grow up!
He couldn't help but pat Li Tiezhu on the shoulder and said, "Tiezhu, have you learned how to make a bird gun?"

Li Tiezhu shook his head vigorously: "I've just started learning, I don't know how to do it yet. The pipe making step is so difficult, it's giving me a headache."

Yue Wenxuan had filmed a video of the blacksmith's work process outside the sandbox and was already familiar with the Ming Dynasty blacksmiths' pipe-making techniques. They placed a long, red-hot iron strip in a U-shaped mold and repeatedly hammered the center, gradually bending it into a U-shape. This process required repeated heating and hammering until the two sides of the iron plate closed together, forming the rough shape of the gun barrel. The bore was then machined. Furthermore, the barrel's exterior needed to be polished for a smooth and shiny finish.

Finally, the tail of the barrel is tapped and a bolt is screwed in to block the tail, so that the bolt can be unscrewed from the rear of the barrel for maintenance and cleaning. (Some barrels are not cylindrical but regular polygons, and the bolts are also made into polygons.)
This series of operations is indeed quite difficult for an apprentice.

(End of this chapter)