Thinking of the weapons that Ying Longjun will configure in the future, Zhu Cihong plans to go to the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau of the Ministry of Industry to take a look, saying that after he ascended the throne, he has not had time to arrange Director Chen of the Beijing Ministry of Industry Manufacturing Bureau and Ji Niansheng, a firearms genius who made a flintlock pistol, into the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau of the Ministry of Industry.

But this time, Zhu Cihong brought both of them over.

Nanjing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau is located in the north of Nanjing, covering an extremely large area, there are dozens of workshops in it, which were built during the period of Emperor Taizu Hongwu, and it is not bad at all compared to the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau in Beijing.

Zhu Cihong went this time, and did not inform the people of the Ministry of Industry, but suddenly visited and inspected.

Zheng Jianjiong, the director of the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, heard that the emperor was coming to inspect and immediately arrived at the door, and was immediately startled, and hurriedly asked everyone to stop working and go outside to greet the emperor.

Dozens of palace guards riding on tall horses in front of them opened the way, and Zhu Cihong sat on a luxury carriage pulled by four horses and came to the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau.

Almost all the soldiers of the Imperial Palace Imperial Forest Army were selected by the Beijing Battalion, although Zhu Cihong was very dissatisfied with the combat effectiveness of the Beijing Battalion, but he did not bring it up, everything was just waiting for the new army to be trained, and he would immediately remove all the Imperial Forest Army of the Nanjing Imperial Palace.

As soon as he saw the appearance of this carriage that the emperor was sitting in, Zheng Jianjiong, the director of the Manufacturing Bureau, immediately stepped forward and knelt down to pay respects: "Zheng Jianjiong, director of the Manufacturing Bureau of the Ministry of Ministers, see the emperor, long live my emperor, long live, long live!" ”

"Long live my emperor, long live, long live!" Behind the head of the manufacturing bureau, a large number of people from the manufacturing bureau all bowed down.

Of course, these people are all in charge of the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, after all, there are tens of thousands of people in the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, and it is impossible for everyone to come to the door to greet the emperor, and there are not so many places to stand when they come.

Zhu Cihong got down from the carriage, and the eunuch Zhao Dequan reached out to support Zhu Cihong.

"Your Majesty, be careful of the gravel underground." Zhao Dequan quickly swept the gravel road on the ground with his feet.

"Dead open, I'm not so hypocritical, it's a waste of my time!" Zhu Cihong glared at Zhao Dequan dissatisfied, and Zhao Dequan hurriedly put away the dog-legged smile on his face and stepped out of the way.

"Excuse me!" Zhu Cihong faced a large number of people who were kneeling.

"Your Majesty."

"You're the one here." Zhu Cihong looked at a fifty-year-old man in the lead and said gently.

Zheng Jianjiong, the director of the Nanjing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, and Chen Xin, the director of the Beijing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau brought by Zhu Cihong from Beijing, are about the same age, and both have decades of experience in manufacturing weapons, and they are both rare talents, so Zhu Cihong also values them very much.

"Back to the emperor, Weichen is the main thing here." Zheng Jianjiong replied.

"Take me in and have a look." Zhu Cihong nodded, and turned to Chen Xin and Ji Niansheng who were following behind him, "You guys should also go in with me and have a look." ”

"It's the emperor." After Chen Xin and Ji Niansheng answered, they followed Zhu Cihong into the Weapons Manufacturing Bureau together.

Zheng Jianjiong glanced at Chen Xin and Ji Niansheng suspiciously, although he didn't understand who these two people were, and why the emperor took them to visit together, but he didn't ask more.

The Weapons Manufacturing Bureau is very large, but most of the weapons being produced at the moment are cold weapons such as knives, swords, spears, bows and arrows, armor, shields, etc., each of which has a ** workshop.

Every time Zhu Cihong inspected a workshop, the workers inside would stop to pay homage to Zhu Cihong, one by one, they were honest, they didn't dare to talk or move, after all, they didn't know Zhu Cihong's temperament as the emperor, if they accidentally annoyed the emperor, it was not a joke, and their heads fell out in vain.

"Why are they all cold weapons, where are muskets and cannons produced? Why didn't you see it? All the way down the road I saw were all cold weapons, and I didn't see anything I wanted to see, Zhu Cihong was very disappointed, and asked Zheng Jianjiong with a frown.

"Back to the emperor, the production workshops for muskets and cannons are over there." Zheng Jianjiong pointed to a place that was a little embarrassed.

"Then why don't you take me over and have a look." Zhu Cihong commanded.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Although Zheng Jianjiong was a little embarrassed, he didn't dare to disobey the emperor's order, and hurriedly led the way in front.

When he came to the workshop specializing in muskets and firearms, Zhu Cihong immediately became even more disappointed when he saw it, because he found that in these two huge workshops, there were only a dozen people fiddling with some gunpowder in them, and the people who produced muskets and cannons did not see any of them, and all the workbenches were in a state of stoppage.

"Where are all the artisans here, and why is no one doing it?" Zhu Cihong asked with a frown.

Firearms are the protagonists on the battlefield in the future, and the Weapons Manufacturing Bureau in Nanjing only produces cold weapons and ignores hot weapons, which makes Zhu Cihong very dissatisfied.

"Back to the emperor, in recent years, due to the very small amount of funding received by the Ministry of Industry, and the cost of firearms such as muskets and cannons is expensive, except for some gunpowder, Lord Shangshu has long ordered the production of all firearms to be stopped, and the craftsmen have nothing to do, and they can't pay for it, so Weichen let those workers go home to rest." Director Zheng Jianjiong explained.

Listening to what Zheng Jianjiong said, Zhu Cihong instantly understood that it turned out that the Nanjing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, like the Beijing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, lacked funding, and even the Beijing City Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau was even worse, and there was no funding for the production of cold weapons.

What Zhu Cihong didn't know was that in fact, the Nanjing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau had already stopped work as long ago as the Beijing Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau, and there was no money to produce cold weapons, but since Beijing City was occupied by Li Zicheng, Hebei, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and other erosive places were all out of the control of the Ming Dynasty, and with less money to resist the Qing soldiers in Liaodong, the imperial court slowly became richer, and the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau got the funds to start producing weapons again.

It's just that firearms such as muskets and cannons are too delicate and expensive, and they can't be produced much in a month, so production has not resumed.

"Are there any muskets and cannons that were originally produced in stock?" Zhu Cihong didn't mean to blame, and asked instead.

"Back to the emperor, there are still hundreds of arquebuses, and the cannons are all distributed, there is no inventory, if the emperor wants to see it, he can mobilize one from Beijing." Zheng Jianjiong said.

"No need, just bring me a musket." Zhu Cihong commanded.

"Wechen obeys."

Soon, a little steward quickly went to the inventory place and fetched a musket, it was a new gun, not much different from what Zhu Cihong saw when he was in Beijing, the whole gun was more than four feet long, and weighed about a dozen catties.

"Old Chen, you and Niansheng should also take a look." Zhu Cihong took it and looked at it, and then handed it to Chen Xin and Ji Niansheng behind him.

After Chen Xin took it and looked at it, he shook his head slightly and handed it to his apprentice Ji Niansheng.

"Old Chen, do you see the difference?" Zhu Cihong noticed Chen Xin's expression and asked curiously.

"Back to the emperor, although the appearance of this arquebus is similar to that made by Weichen in the capital, there are still a little flaws in many details, which affects the power." Chen Xin said, looking very professional.

Zhu Cihong's heart moved, and suddenly thought that when he first entered the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau of the Ministry of Urban Industry in Beijing, where the work had obviously stopped, but Chen Xin had already taken a few people there to tinker with firearms, presumably Chen Xin's best thing was firearms, and he also taught Ji Niansheng such a genius, Zhu Cihong had no doubt about his judgment.

...