Chapter 70

Located in the city around the city god temple area, in addition to the school field, there is also a piece of land enclosed with a bamboo wall next to the school field, now this open space has become a workshop, the largest iron workshop in the city, in the bamboo wall, two new iron furnaces have been lit two days ago, hundreds of craftsmen in the city and nearby countryside are busy there, melting the scrap iron in the furnace into molten iron.

Although it is only a county seat, but Jiangyin City is not bad all kinds of craftsmen, in previous years, the weaving industry in Jiangyin City is the most prosperous, there are spinning wheels, looms inside and outside the city and tens of thousands of units, there are thousands of carpenters, blacksmiths, coppersmiths and all kinds of craftsmen to make all kinds of spinning wheels and looms. Although after the Jiangyin Massacre in recent years, coupled with the chaos of the army, the cotton spinning industry has long been decayed, but the Chinese people's love for the soil has made most of the craftsmen still stay in the city, and it is precisely because of this that hundreds of craftsmen can easily be found to be hired here to make all kinds of weapons for the army.

Entering the workshop, Zhu Mingzhong saw a spear with a handle of more than seven feet long on the wooden frame leaning against the shelf, which was the equipment created by the craftsmen for the town army, one of the cheapest and most ordinary weapons, the reason why this weapon was chosen was only because it was cheap and easy to make, and most of the troops in the north and south of the river used it as a weapon, and even together with the hundreds of thousands of green battalion soldiers recruited by the Qing army after entering the customs, they also had their own red tassel guns.

"Hey, when I get a musket......

Looking at the spear without red tassels, Zhu Mingzhong just sighed in his heart, there were muskets at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and they were widely used, because firearms were not banned by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so even in the south of the Yangtze River, there were many bird guns among the people, and even when they were recruited before, hundreds of them also brought bird guns to join the army, but the power of those bird guns was really unsatisfactory, although the structure of the bird guns was similar to that of European arquebuses, but its caliber was small, the caliber was only about one centimeter, and the power of this kind of musket was extremely limited to a hundred meters away, Sometimes, even within 50 meters, it is not possible to penetrate heavy armor.

In Zhu Mingzhong's opinion, the musket should at least be a flintlock pistol, a smoothbore flintlock pistol like a long-barreled brown beth, but now he didn't have time to make a flintlock pistol, or even give him time to make a large-caliber bird gun.

One month!

Thirty days later, Zheng Chenggong will be defeated in the city of Nanjing, and in these thirty days, not to mention the redevelopment of flintlock pistols, even large-caliber bird guns are difficult to make, after all, time is limited.

However, despite this, Zhu Mingzhong still ordered the craftsmen to try to produce a caliber of sixths and three centimeters of the "big mouth" bird gun, which is equivalent to the caliber of the arquebus in Europe at the same time, and its firing range can be at least doubled, but the manufacture of the musket is a long process, and it takes more than ten days to complete the manufacture of only one gun, from the initial wrought iron to nail it on the iron plate to the grinding of the chamber.

Now Zhu Mingzhong thinks that before Zheng Chenggong's defeat, he can launch a bunch of musketeers, and then match them with spearmen, to make a Chinese arquebus phalanx, but the problem is that there is no time at all.

Without musketeers, or even archers, the only way to defeat the Qing army in the future was to find another way.

In the shed at the back of the workshop, several large iron pots are supported on several mud stoves, and not far from the shed is filled with purified and filtered potassium nitrate, sulfur, and refined charcoal. Unlike the usual ones, the craftsmen who were invited from the firecracker shops in the city did not mix the medicine as usual, but only refined the nitrate and sulfur according to the requirements.

Before Zhu Mingzhong entered the shed, the craftsmen knelt down and kowtowed.

"Small, small, I've seen the garrison!"

Looking at Zhu Mingzhong who entered the workshop, the craftsmen looked a little nervous, after all, for thousands of years, the Chinese people have a heartfelt awe for officials, and these craftsmen naturally dare not make mistakes because of their extremely low status.

Looking at the craftsman kneeling in front of him, Zhu Mingzhong hurriedly said.

"Everyone, please get up! Zhao Gongzi, what is this doing! Rise up, all of you! ”

Hurriedly helped Zhao Shiqi at the front, he is the young owner of Zhao Ji Firecrackers, and what he is best at is preparing all kinds of gunpowder, but in the past few days, he has learned a lot of novel methods here, and he admires Zhu Mingzhong for teaching these methods.

Zhu Mingzhong naturally didn't know that Zhao Shiqi said to the craftsman in front of him again.

"When you see Zhu in the future, don't do this big gift again, I used to be the same as the big guys, that is, ordinary people, if it weren't for the situation, it is estimated that this will still be the same as you, and I will also go south and north, relying on medical skills to eat! In the future, in this workshop, you are not allowed to kneel! This rule is set! ”

After a simple politeness, Zhu Mingzhong walked to the shed, carefully inspected the potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal, looked at the powdered sulfur and charcoal, and asked Zhao Shiqi beside him.

"All these have been sifted?"

"Return, if you go back to the adult, you will sift it with rice noodles!"

This Zhao Shiqi is not as nervous as before, after all, he is also a person who has seen the scene, this sulfur, charcoal sieve is Zhu Mingzhong specially requested, ancient Chinese gunpowder only pays attention to the raw materials into fine powder, and then use it, while the West requires the raw materials to be screened out of coarse grains with a fine sieve, and only the fine powder is retained, so that it is easy to make medicine, so that the raw materials are more tightly combined, so as to increase the threat.

After pinching some of the raw materials with his hands, and feeling the charcoal powder and sulfur powder as smooth as rice flour under the feeling of his fingertips, Zhu Mingzhong nodded with satisfaction, and walked to the side of the pot shed.

"Pour seven catties and five taels of nitrate into the pot first!"

This?

This has been mixed in a wooden pot since ancient times, and there are those who mix medicine in an iron pot, Zhao Shiqi hurriedly reminded him.

"Your Excellency,"

Xu is reason for some relaxation, as soon as Zhao Shiqi's words came out, he realized that the person in front of him was a Jiangyin guard, and he looked good at talking, but if he annoyed him, he didn't know what trouble would be caused at that time, so he held back the words, and dared to remind this adult not to mix medicine in the pot.

Not to mention him, even other people looked at the adults in surprise, after mixing medicine for so many years, they naturally knew that they couldn't mix medicine in the iron pot. In the confusion and even nervousness of the people, the craftsman weighed seven catties and five taels of nitrate and snow nitrate, and then poured it into the pot.

"More clean water!"

"General, is it filtered water?"

Zhao Shiqi asked softly, the water used for nitrate refining is pure water that uses multiple layers of numbness to filter through the sedimentation debris.

"Yes!"

When Zhao Shiqi poured a bucket of water into the pot, Zhu Mingzhong continued.

"Don't add more, just two fingers!"

Uh, it's not that Chapter 68 is missing, it's ...... Banned, driving failed, painful, look back and see if you can lift the ban! Let's recommend a ticket to comfort the speechless...... Tears run!