Beiyang new warlord

"What the old man said, catch him!"

Mao Jue hummed impatiently, but this time Wen Meng didn't leave. Instead, he paused for a few moments as if hesitating to speak, and then he gritted his teeth and fisted hysterically with some incomprehension.

"General! The last general really doesn't understand! What do you have to do when you practice making those quilts and have a meal? When you serve as a soldier and fight, you just need to be brave. What does these things have to do with fighting? Isn't it a tosser?"

"Trouble people?"

His face darkened, and Mao Jue suddenly stood up.

To talk about the difference between the soldiers of this era and the soldiers of later generations, Mao Jue felt that the biggest difference is not weapons and equipment, or even culture, but temperament. Even veterans, you can feel that he is different from ordinary people in society. It was different, it was a temperament tempered by long-term experience in collective life and rules, that kind of cleanliness, that kind of reliable temperament, this kind of temperament, Mao Jue had never seen this kind of temperament in the entire Dongjiang Town.

"Let me ask you, what is the first duty of a soldier?"

"Be a soldier and fight!"

Wen Meng was puzzled, but answered naturally.

"wrong!"

It was so iron but not steel, Mao Jue knocked on the table angrily.

"The bounden duty of a soldier is to obey orders! What is an order? An order that must be fulfilled even if you take your life! Usually, you can't even obey such trivial matters. On the real battlefield, swords and swords have no eyes, bows and crossbows are flying, heads are rolling, and blood is flowing like rivers! How can you let such a group of people live and die with you under such circumstances?"

"What about other armies? They were all defeated on the battlefield! Sarhu! Guangning! How many people died? If you want to defeat the Eight Banners of Jiannu in the field, you must have iron-like discipline! I, Mao Jue, have to abide by this rule! This is the last time!"

The strength of the army is forged in this subtle way. When obeying orders has become inertia, to the point of numbness, even if it is a mountain of swords, it will not hesitate to give an order, and unknowingly, Mao Jue also secretly changed the concept However, other generals and officials want to be loyal to the court, but Mao Jue wants his subordinates to abide by his rules and work hard for him.

Suddenly, he seemed to understand something, his forehead was covered with beads of sweat, Wen Meng immediately cupped his fists, turned around and went out without saying anything, this month, even he seemed to have become a bit more capable, but this time he just left Soon, the door of the office was pushed open again, and Mao Jue, who saw it, slapped the table angrily.

"Didn't you say it? The military camp is important, don't intrude!"

"But you also said that as soon as there is news from the other side of the valley, I will tell you immediately, my young master!"

It is said that only women and villains are difficult to raise, this foreign girl is really becoming more and more unscrupulous, with her arms folded, her eyes are still floating down, the foreign girl asked with her eyes flying with special interest.

"What are you doing down here?"

Chapter 68. Workers want to do their jobs well

Mao Jue's personal corps was indeed a great painstaking effort. He didn't have a capable combat force at hand. Standing at the forefront of the battle with the Jurchen Eight Banners, he had no confidence at all.

But now that there is a pro-corps, this past month has also allowed them to get close to the soldiers in Mao Jue's later memory. What is eye-catching is that these people are still holding big sticks in their hands, and they use this to compare with the murderous Jianzhou Eight Banners. What to contend with?primitive?

Although weapons are not the entire combat effectiveness of an army, the Great China with homemade weapons still defeated Little Japan with [-] heavy machine guns and tanks. The situation of being numb and dawdling, in which Mao Jue was as small as a screw, without sophisticated weapons, he would be easily kicked into the sea.

Fortunately, Qian Zeng really brought him a treasure.

It is still Mao Jue's blessed land, Moon Valley. From the fortress to the back and over three mountain ridges, a rather unrestrained river roars loudly and rushes towards the North Sea. This is the main branch of the Qingjiang River, one of several major rivers in Tieshan one.

This river is too fast, the location is too high, there are not many fish, and there are few people on the road, but this time, it is a bit lively, and the giants are turning their heavy bodies amidst creaking and moaning.

Tieshan is really a treasure land. In addition to the small area of ​​cultivated land, there are enough mining pipes, enough trees, and high-quality wood everywhere. In a month, five sets of huge waterwheel wheels were erected in the center of the river. To move something with flowing energy.

But here, the push is not a conventional mill, but some strange things. The thick cast iron rods receive the huge force from the water wheel bearings and transmit it into the cement house by the river. The cast iron rods carry The dense sawtooth drives the rows of wooden shelves to creak.

Sparks flew, and the thick iron rods standing upside down on the shelf exuded scorching heat, and the drill bits had penetrated into them.

The production method of the Daming bird gun is to use an iron rod as the bone, then wrap it with wrought iron, repeatedly forge it into a barrel, and finally drill it open, but wrought iron is soft and easy to deform when beaten, and the forging time is quite long , the most important point is that when drilling, it is extremely difficult to study the skills of craftsmen, and it takes a skilled worker a month or two to drill a hole. The failure rate is extremely high. It is not bad if three out of ten tubes succeed.

These two steps were all omitted by Mao Jue. He melted the wrought iron with the local blast furnace method during the Great Leap Forward, held the pig iron rod with tongs and stirred it continuously, and used the steel pouring method to carburize the wrought iron. Oxidation movement is used to remove steel slag, so that the quality of the refined steel is already very high, and it can be directly cast into steel rods without forging.

The formed steel rod is quickly annealed with oil to achieve the purpose of refining the crystallization. Although such a barrel material is not as tough as the fine crystallization from repeated forging, it is already much stronger than the wrought iron barrel. More importantly, save effort.

Next, the drilling depends on the water wheel outside. People will get tired and their hands will shake, but the machine will not. The water wheel provides continuous power, fixes the drill bit through several gears, and then just watch the machine turn through. The Chinese musket casting method that lasted until the Westernization Movement was changed beyond recognition by Mao Jue.

But the production capacity is impressive!Casting takes about three days, and drilling takes two days. Five waterwheels drive ten machine tools, and each machine tool has twenty drills, followed by polishing, and equipped with wooden handles, triggers and hammers. It takes another day. From Mao Jue The workshop started to be built simultaneously when the city was built, and it was completed three days earlier. Now it has been produced for about a month. Thirty or forty boxes of muskets wrapped in straw and grease at the corners have been piled up.

Mao Jue really had to thank the supervisor who often put on small shoes for him. He had to run errands to a nearby factory to order shipbuilding accessories. The iron old man who came here, and another one who stayed in Italy and saw a foreign girl who made Western clocks, had this workshop come to the world.

Using a crowbar to pry open a box, Mao Jue casually took out a gun from inside and weighed it twice in his hand. It was much heavier than the bird gun issued by the Ministry of Industry of the imperial court, about ten catties, after polishing. The gun barrel was painted black, and Mao Jue just played with nitric acid a few days ago, which is an anti-embroidery coating made of pickling.

This thing is also a little different from the previous court bird gun. The bird gun sticks out a tongue backwards, but this one is the same as the trigger shape of later generations, and there is an extra piece of matchlock hammer called the beak on the muzzle. Little black stones.

Another extremely powerful improvement has also been applied to the barrel of the gun, that is, the mechanical aiming at the star rear door. A small square iron lump is erected at the muzzle of the gun. The first two pieces of the wooden handle are placed on the shoulder. The gun was raised, aiming with one eye, and the three small iron blocks coincided with each other.

There was no gunpowder in the gun, but when Mao Jue pulled the trigger, the hammer still struck hard, and with a bang, a series of sparks flew out.

"Who taught you this!"

She was still wearing a ladylike hat like a noble lady, and she was wearing a long dress with a waist and a bust. Adelaine's lake blue eyes were so curious that they turned into cat's eyes. The unique Venetian mirror was on Mao Jue I have seen it here, and he understands Roman cement. The muskets modified at this moment are even stronger than the Swedish and Spanish muskets. The muskets inspired by flint are more convenient and labor-saving than matchlock guns. Especially in night battles, this thing is completely unnecessary. Worried about the burning matchlock exposing its position, the firing efficiency is at least one-third higher than that of the matchlock gun.

It's a pity that Mao Jue still gave her a blank stare at this girl's hopeful question.

"Ask God!"

Even the Jingshi Shenji Battalion couldn't use a firecracker of this size, but Mao Jue seemed dissatisfied, so he shook the firearm twice, and casually threw it to Liu Chong, who was acting as a personal guard beside him. When he reacted, Mao Jue had already pulled out his knife suddenly, and slashed the barrel of the gun with a bang, sparks burst out.

However, like cutting water pipes with knives in later generations, it only cut through the anti-rust layer a little, leaving a shallow mark, and the barrel basically did not change its shape.

"Bring another blunderbuss!"

Mao Jue, who was still unsatisfied, shouted loudly, guarding here also needs a lot of firearms, and within a moment, a standard blunderbuss made by the Jiangnan Supervisor and distributed by the Ministry of Industry was in Liu Chong's hands again, and he slashed at it with a sharp knife. The firecracker in the ring was cut in half by the knife.

It's no wonder that the Ming army's firecrackers collapsed almost as soon as they were approached. This thing can't even be used as a stick in melee combat. Without a weapon in hand, the courage is naturally lacking.

"Have you done what you were asked to do?"

"Master Hui, everything is done!"

However, he was dug out with a lot of money by Mao Jue, with five taels of silver a month, but the pressure on this old blacksmith is even greater. Mao Jue has made it clear that his blacksmith workshop must be of high quality. , the first one was to chop off the head of his old man, Mao Jue came to get things, he was extraordinarily trembling.

It is another tube, palm-length, with a handle-like steel tip welded on one side, without a blade, but with three edges. The sharp triangular cone exudes a gloomy cold light. Twisting it in front of the barrel, this The three-edged bayonet with a length of more than 40 centimeters was screwed onto the muzzle, which was thinner at the front and slightly thicker at the rear. Poke in about half an inch.

"This is simply a short spear. No wonder the general didn't set up spearmen in the personal camp. This thing is more convenient than a fast gun. You can shoot from a distance, and switch to a spear when you are close. You are really a genius !"

It's rare that such a rough guy like Liu Chong can say a few words of compliments. It can be seen that this thing really makes him feel very useful. Mao Jue finally nodded in satisfaction, letting the old man breathe a sigh of relief .

But immediately, his breathing became more rapid, and he dropped the musket, Mao Jue asked again.

"What happened to the cannon I asked for?"

"This, General, is still there, still making it!"

This workshop is really modern enough, drilling, grinding, all using machinery, the only flaw is the use of water power instead of the electricity of later generations, the division of labor like the assembly line of more than two hundred apprentices, a gun barrel is passed from the door to the house. Afterwards, it was basically assembled. Next to the assembly line, an extraordinarily hot pavement hit. Ten small blast furnaces piled up with loess were spraying heat outward. One furnace of molten steel was poured into the iron mold just after it came out of the furnace. middle.

However, next to the blower made of cowhide, several mud shells were placed there, and one of them had been broken, revealing the dark cannon body.

This thing is a miniature version of the Hongyi cannon, or this foreign girl is a treasure. She actually understands the Hongyi cannon that those Western missionaries understand. The ears, thin at the front and thick at the back, are exactly the same as the cannon Mao Jue had seen in Shanhaiguan, except for the size.