Gunpowder was the foundation of the era of thermal weapons, but the power of gunpowder itself was far less great.

Nowadays, whether it is the capital or the Yuwen Department in the north, they all attach great importance to gunpowder, but in fact, the "heavenly thunder" in the southwest is only the most basic application of gunpowder.

Thermal weapons are like a big tree, gunpowder is the trunk of this tree, and the trunk of this big tree extends outward countless branches and leaves.

Limited by their vision, it is difficult for people in this era to see farther scenery, they have only seen the thunder, and the limit of the current imagination is just to imitate the thunder.

Every bit of improvement in thermal weapons will take an era, a decade or even decades, to advance little by little.

But Li Xin is different.

He had seen distant landscapes.

He knew very well what would come out of gunpowder, and the earth bomb of Tianlei was the simplest thing, and then there were firecrackers, birds, artillery, and even ...... Fusiliers.

But unfortunately, Li Xin was a liberal arts student in his previous life, and he knew what gunpowder would become next, but he didn't know anything about how to get these things.

Originally, he didn't plan to really get these things out, Li Xin was a person with no ambitions, if he hadn't fallen out with the Ji family, he even planned to bring gunpowder into the coffin, not to change the original course of this world.

But because of a series of ideas and conflicts of interest, in the end he and the royal family still went to the opposite side, Taikang nine years, Lin Hu was tied up by the Meihuawei design, Li Xin got the Meihuawei logo from Xiao Zheng, and spent a lot of effort, from the capital to Jincheng, to rescue the bruised Lin Hu from the hands of Meihuawei.

From that time on, Li Xin knew that between himself and the Ji family, he had reached the point where he had to distinguish between the superior and the inferior.

Thereupon...... A simple gunpowder, or a few years ago, the thunder he had figured out by himself was not enough.

There are only 31 state capitals in the southwest, less than one million households, at most, it is like now, supporting 150,000 troops, no matter how much, Zhao Jia's side will not be able to afford military expenses, and the people in the southwest will also complain because of too many conscriptions.

To put it simply, the 31 state capitals in the southwest can only afford about 150,000 people.

At that time, Li Zhijie and Li Shen, father and son, had been operating in the southwest for more than 30 years, and the Pingnan Army was only this number, Li Xin was not a genius general, nor did he have the talent of Wolong, only with the thunder, he could not lead the troops to win more with less, and enter the capital, nor could he let the southwest have hundreds of thousands of troops out of thin air.

Therefore, he had to push the thermal weapon down and keep pushing it down.

Lin Hu was tortured by Meihuawei a lot back then, and Yulan, the only woman who walked into his heart, couldn't get together with him, and after he was injured in Jincheng for a few months, he suddenly disappeared.

Even Zhao Jia and Mu Ying didn't know where Lin Hu went, but these two people were also very smart, and they never asked Li Xin about Lin Hu's whereabouts, but they didn't know.

It is now the fifth year of Yuan Zhao, and in the past five or six years, Lin Hu has been in a manor on the outskirts of Jincheng with more than a hundred craftsmen, and according to the ideas given by Li Xin, he has slowly tried to reproduce those things that have appeared in history.

For example, firecrackers, artillery...... There are also bird guns.

Because Li Xin doesn't know anything about these things, he can only give ideas, so the process progresses very slowly, but as long as it takes long enough, there is always something to gain.

With gunpowder, it is not difficult to make a firecracker, and it only takes a few blacksmiths to make a prototype, but the difficulty lies in accuracy, reloading speed, the safety of the bearer, and the effective killing distance.

Lin Hu and others had already made the fire gun in the first year of Yuan Zhao, and it was silently improved for four or five years, and now they have been quite mature in this aspect of the fire gun, the steel balls in the fire gun, lead bullets can shoot nearly 200 steps, and the effective killing distance has also reached about 50 to 100 steps.

But in addition to this, there is almost no progress in the artillery and the bird gun.

Even if Li Xin drew a simple schematic diagram for them, these people still had no way to come up with a more practical bird gun, and even the artillery called the "large gun", although it was made, the progress in aiming was very slow, and it could not be used in combat for the time being.

But in any case, the weapon workshop led by Lin Hu has made great progress in the past few years, and these craftsmen hidden in the shadows are also the confidence of Li Xin to dare to rebel!

Before Li Xin went to Beijing last year, he transferred Lin Hu and his craftsmen from Jincheng to Hanzhong, so that when the fight started, Hanzhong would be used as a weapon base, and at the same time, Li Xin also gave them another task.

That is to make a "projectile version" of the heavenly thunder.

To put it simply, it is to thicken the thickness of the clay pot so that it can be thrown out by catapults.

Catapult is a mature weapon and equipment in this era, whether it is Ye Mao or Mu Ying Li Shuo, they will be proficient in using catapults, if they can use Tianlei as the "stone" of the catapult, it will be very simple in siege.

This kind of improvement is not very difficult, as long as the appropriate amount of thickened clay pots of heavenly thunder will do, the difficulty is that this thing needs to be ignited before throwing out, which requires accurate grasp of the time when the lead burns.

What Li Xin asked just now was this heavenly thunder that could be thrown out by a catapult.

The craftsmen of this era, the most important thing is patience, in a few months, they have almost figured out this thing, but they have not practiced it, so Lin Hu will tell Li Xin that Li Xin wants to get a few real guys to give it a try.

Li Xin lowered his head and groaned, and said: "This is in the city, it is not very convenient, these days I will ask people to build a hill for you outside the city, open it up as soon as possible, and then get a few catapults there for you to test." ”

Speaking of this, Li Xin lowered his head and pondered for a moment, and said: "Huzi, this thing must be made out as soon as possible, it is estimated that I will use it in a few months." ”

Lin Hu patted his chest with a smile and said, "Master Hou, don't worry, with the catapult, I can debug it in a month at most." ”

Li Xin nodded, and then patted Lin Hu's shoulder: "You don't need to take a bite of a Hou Ye, you can still call it how you used to call it." ”

Lin Hu grinned.

"Brother Xin."

Li Xin also smiled and said: "You are one year younger than me, and you are in your thirties, and you have not been married for so many years, do you want my brother to find you a daughter-in-law, you also have a son, and leave an incense for Uncle Lin." ”

Lin Hu shook his head.

"There's no urgency in this matter, I still have a lot of things to do here, and when my brother's affairs are done, it's not too late to talk about my affairs."

Li Xin silently patted Lin Hu's shoulder.

"Brother, can't you forget that woman?"

Lin Hu bowed his head and was speechless.

Li Xin sighed and said, "I should still be able to find her now, otherwise I will take her to you?" ”

"Nope."

Lin Hu shook his head very resolutely and said, "Brother, I don't see her, it's good for both of us, it's not easy for you to spare her life back then." ”

This dark-skinned man from the mountains smiled innocently: "I don't think much about women now, it's quite interesting to do things here." ”

Li Xin sighed slightly: "Then it will be another two years, but no matter what, you must marry a wife and have children, if you are not in a hurry about this matter, I will also give you Zhang Luo, otherwise in the future, Uncle Lin will not spare me first." ”

"I listen to my brother."

Li Xin patted him on the shoulder again and said, "How much of the fire gun we got out two years ago?" ”

Lin Hu opened his mouth and said, "There are about four or five hundred." ”

"I'll send you some blacksmiths in two days, and from now on, I'll make all my strength to make firebolts and thunderbolts for catapults."

"Get more ammunition for the firecracker, too."

Speaking of this, Li Xin paused and continued: "In a few days, I will select some young people from the army and send them to you, and you will send some people out and teach them how to make firecrackers. ”

Lin Hu nodded and said, "Brother, don't worry, I wrote it down." ”

"From now on, you can't hide here."

There is nothing wrong with sneaking research on weekdays, but once production starts with great fanfare, it will definitely be exposed.

"I will gather 3,000 men to come and guard you all around you and keep you safe."

Li Xin narrowed his eyes and said, "If someone here is disobedient, Huzi, you will kill him directly, and the person you kill is equivalent to me personally killing him." ”

Lin Hu bowed his head respectfully.

"I must live up to my brother's trust!"

(End of chapter)