The spring rain in the capital is as expensive as oil, but for the people around Beijing in the fifteenth year of Wanli, the spring breeze is the most valuable. Because it's March, but the weather is still quite cold, everyone is waiting for the spring breeze that blows the cold winter to come and restore everything.

In late March, the weather finally warmed up after a few spring and rain shows, and there were many hard-working farmers in the fields, and the faces of the people finally showed happy smiles.

In this regard, except for some officials who are worried about the world, other people in the Ming court do not care. Now that the situation is rising again, everyone is focusing on the matter that is closely related to them, who will pay attention to the people's suffering?

How many people racked their brains for the establishment of the crown prince and the reduction of the common practice of the clan nobles, constantly put forward various opinions, and wrote one after another generous articles. How many people argue with each other in the court for their own purposes, in private, and even break off their friendship for many years.

But just as they ignore the people's suffering, Yang Zhen is also familiar with their arguments, even if there are indeed many lobbyists in his house these days, but his attitude towards himself has always been secretive.

If it weren't for Yang Zhen's deliberate arrangement, he himself felt in a dilemma and was very contradictory. In fact, starting from the situation of the Ming Dynasty, he was very happy to see the reduction of the expenditure of the clan and nobles, because only in this way can the treasury be filled and cope with waves of challenges in the future. But now that he has become one of the nobles, he can't get along with himself, right?

And in the past few days, several nobles who have a certain friendship with him have frequently come to the door, hoping to use his deep friendship with the Son of Heaven to make some influence on Wanli's decision, such as Empress Dowager Li's father, Wuqing Bo Li Wei, Empress Wang's father, Yongnian Bo Wang Wei, and Zhenyuan Marquis Gu Huan and Taining Marquis Chen Liangbi, who had some contacts, all of them came to see Yang Zhen for various reasons, and either knocked on the side, or bluntly proposed that he wanted to ask him to speak for the Son of Heaven on his behalf, and did not want to change the current rules.

In this regard, Yang Zhen could only agree superficially, but there was no further action. In addition to his own hesitation, it is also because he does not think that he can really change the mind of the Son of Heaven, and everything is better to wait for the emperor's final judgment. Don't look at him, he has always won the trust of Wanli, but he can see that this is a quite assertive human master, and it is not the words of one or two people around him who can influence his decision.

Of course, the reason why he did this was also related to the fact that he didn't value the little bit of Lu rice in the imperial court too much, and unlike many nobles who hardly held any positions and could only rely on a little dead money to support their families, he, the governor of the brocade guard, had a way to get money.

Indeed, in this era, as long as you have the power and brains, you have a way to make a fortune, so why bother to cling to the gifts of the court? In fact, the few people who came to talk to him also had their own way to get money, but there were still too many relatives and friends around them who couldn't get money, and these people still pointed to the Lu rice of the court for a living, so they could only ask for them. In addition, these treatments are also status symbols, and no one wants to be deprived, right?

Compared with this problem, it seems that the matter of Lichu can only be regarded as a small fight. After all, people's energy is limited, and the officials are still pointing to the fact that they can move the Son of Heaven to reduce the expenses of the clan nobles, so there are only a few people playing side drums on this matter, but they have not yet made much movement.

And in order to avoid being pestered all the time, Yang Zhen has been hiding in the Zhenfu Division recently, and he has to wait until the evening when he goes home. There are not many nobles in this town who dare to trespass casually, but it is a good place to hide. However, in this way, Yang Zhen can no longer afford to accompany his wife and children as well as before, because when he goes home, the five children have already fallen asleep - by the way, in the past few years, the two daughters have given birth to a daughter and a boy for Yang Zhen, and Zhang Jingyun finally fulfilled his wish.

Today's Jinyi Wei is amazingly powerful, but it is more secure than any of its kind before, but its deterrent power has always been pressed on the top of the heads of hundreds of officials like Mount Tai, which is also the fundamental reason why Yang Zhenneng has always stood above the court with a special identity.

However, in the past few years, Yang Zhen has not been too involved in the affairs of Jinyiwei, but just checked the general direction. Everything else, he handed it over to Song Guang, Yu Yao, Shen Yan and others to make their own decisions. With the continuous expansion of Jinyiwei's power, there are too many things that the Zhenfu Division needs to deal with, and if he asks about everything like before, Yang Zhen has three heads and six arms, and he is afraid that he will not be able to finish it for twenty-four hours a day. So as early as a few years ago, after returning from the north and finding that these people were doing things fairly safely and reliably, Yang Zhen had already delegated power to the hands of these subordinates.

In retrospect, his decision was incomparably accurate. This not only made him worry about himself, but also made his subordinates become independent characters in the continuous training. In addition, they also gained great benefits because of this, and they were naturally convinced by Yang Zhen, the boss who not only promoted them, but also was willing to let go.

Before this wave of Xungui rose, Yang Zhen would only go to the Zhenfu Division every three or five days, in addition to listening to everyone's thoughts and directions, the most important thing was to see how the progress of the craftsman workshop that secretly developed firearms was.

Over the years, Yang Zhen has never given up on the research and breakthrough of firearms. To this end, he not only invested a lot of energy and money, gave Zhu Siyuan a steady stream of support, but also thought of finding other firearms from other places, especially masters with many years of experience in guns, to cooperate with the other party to develop new firearms.

Although the external troubles of the Ming Dynasty have been completely eradicated, the internal troubles are obviously still there. If those with hoes and forks and other agricultural tools rebelled, and the Ming army opposite them was replaced by a large-scale use of firearms, the result would naturally be very different from the original history.

Moreover, as a traveler, Yang Zhen knows very well what the future world will look like. Whether it is for self-protection or for development, Daming must take the lead in firearms. As the most industrious and intelligent nation in the world, the Han people have always been superior to other countries in all aspects, but after some deviations, people took the lead. Since he existed as a prophet, how could he see the Han people fall again?

Yang Zhen really doesn't have the heart and ability to make changes in other court politics, but at least in terms of weapons, he can help this great nation, right?

In fact, although Yang Zhen used to be a good hand at using guns, and he was also good at assembling anything, he was blind to how to make guns, and he didn't learn anything in the arsenal after all.

But Yang Zhen still understands some simple theories, and for today's Ming firearms, they are all earth-shattering and leapfrogging points.

For example, the front boring gun, which could only be poured into gunpowder and projectiles in batches from the muzzle, was replaced by a breech gun; Changing the extremely primitive arquebus into a flintlock pistol; Another example is to try to combine gunpowder with projectiles so that it is easier and faster to reload bullets, and so on.

All this is too ordinary for future generations. But for the people of the Ming Dynasty hundreds of years ago, especially those who have been engaged in firearms research and development all their lives, this kind of mention is so unexpected and sobering, so that these craftsmen have not been able to come back to their senses for a long time.

Moreover, these things are simple to say, but if you really want to build a physical object, it is not possible to achieve it in the short term. To this end, the craftsman studio has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in research and development, and after several years of continuous failures and attempts, it was only last year that a major breakthrough was made.

Therefore, Yang Zhen's recent stay in the Zhenfu Division is not completely idle, at least he can provide these craftsmen with more convenient ideas, so as to promote the advent of new firearms more quickly.

On March 27, when Yang Zhen came to the Zhenfu Division to "take refuge" in the morning, Zhu Siyuan had black circles under his eyes and rushed over with excitement on his face: "Dudu, we finally made the kind of gun you said!" ”

"Really?" Yang Zhen was also pleasantly surprised when he heard this, and he didn't enter his own public hall anymore, and immediately came to a small courtyard that was turned into a craftsman's room, which occupied more than half of the area of his governor's office.

And when Yang Zhen arrived there, there were already more than a dozen excited craftsmen standing in the courtyard of the craftsman's room, they had worked hard for several years to make this new musket, and now that they finally had results, they were naturally both happy and a little apprehensive.

Yang Zhen glanced at them and said hard again, and then his gaze fell on a musket more than half a person high on the table in front of him. On the surface, the gun looked seven points similar to the muskets used in the army today, but the barrel was more slender - because it no longer had to be loaded with gunpowder from the muzzle, so it was improved.

Yang Zhen picked up the gun casually and looked at it carefully, and then someone handed him a thumb-thick, papershell-like cylinder: "Dudu, this is what you wanted, the 'bullet' you said." ”

Yang Zhen replied in a low voice, and under Zhu Siyuan's guidance, he opened the loading hole above the butt and stuffed the bullet into it. Even better, there's a fire cap on top of it to keep the rain out from above and keep the inside of the gun dry.

As Yang Zhen raised his musket and aimed at the arrow target in front of him, all the craftsmen present held their breath a little nervously. Although there have been attempts before, no one dares to guarantee that this shot will definitely satisfy Yang Dudu......