If the method of boiling dung and boiling nitrate can be feasible, for the Taiping army, it is really a charcoal in the snow, and its value is better than the manufacture of flintlock pistols in the short term. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The reason for the stalemate in the war between Guangxi and Hunan was that on the one hand, the Taiping army was on the defensive and only wanted to seal the Qing army in Yunnan and Guizhou, so it was only the Qing army in Guangxi and the Qing army of the State Security Department that broke through the line, and the Qing army in Guizhou on the Hunan side was simply unable to break through the flesh and blood defense line built by the Taiping army sacrificing tens of thousands of Han and local people.

On the other hand, the extreme shortage of gunpowder forced the Taiping army to stop large-scale military operations. After the fifth town of Guangxi inflicted heavy losses on the Qing army in Quanjiesuo, it should have immediately launched an attack on the Qing army in Qingyuan after resting for a few days, in order to annihilate the line of the Ministry of State Security or force it to retreat to Guizhou and re-block the Guizhou-Guizhou border. However, because the supply of gunpowder was not available, the advantage of artillery and firearms was lost. The storming of Qingyuan Mansion was bound to cause heavy casualties, so Shao Jiugong, the governor of Guangxi, who was still in charge of the war in Guangxi at that time, ordered all towns to stop attacking the Qing army, and while seizing the time to rest, he waited for the medicine sent by Hou from Guangdong to be replenished before attacking.

At the same time as the truce in Guangxi, Shao Jiugong and Yu Shizhong were not idle, they ordered the generals Zhou Guoding, Lu Sanxiang, Geng Juxian and others to constantly write letters to persuade the Qingyuan Qing army to surrender, although there was no effect, but it made the Qing army suspicious, because no one knew what the idea was in the hearts of their colleagues. Some of the Qing generals who received the letters of persuasion were sent to the Qing army in order to show that they had no second intentions, so they handed over those letters to the line Guoan. As long as the letters are burned and burned, they will vigorously appease the generals, saying that as long as they hold Qingyuan, and wait for the general to lead the army to come, the situation in Guangxi can be changed again.

Whether the general Doni really led the Manchurian army to come, the line Guoan actually has no bottom in his heart, he has sent several fast horse messengers to Yunnan, every time Doni replied that he insisted on Qingyuan and other Hou reinforcements, but it was almost half a month, but the reinforcements were delayed, which made the line country feel at ease, worried about whether something had happened in Yunnan, otherwise why the northern line was blocked, but Doni did not return to the army.

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Line Guoan insisted on Qingyuan and other Hou reinforcements, while the Taiping army waited for Hou Guangdong's medicine. However, the newly built military pharmaceutical factory in Guangdong is limited by the source of raw materials and the production of drugs is extremely low, so the gunpowder used by the Taiping Army now comes from three main sources. The first was captured by the Qing army, the second was purchased from the Portuguese in Macao, and the third was from the Zheng trade.

On the Qing army's side, firearms were used in large quantities by the Han army's banner soldiers and horses, and ordinary green battalion soldiers did not have firearms at all, so in the battles to seize Guangxi and Hunan, the Taiping army failed to capture a large amount of gunpowder. When the fifth town hit the Qing army in the whole section, it was not able to capture much gunpowder, and when the line Guoan withdrew, he didn't even have time to dismantle the big tent of the Chinese army, and the artillery on Xiaobei Mountain was not needed, but all the medicine was taken away, which made the fifth town that hoped to replenish the medicine by seizing it was a big disappointment, and it is not difficult to see that the Qing army attached no less importance to gunpowder than the Taiping army.

If it is not captured, whether it is the Guangxi Taiping Army or the Hunan Taiping Army, they are all facing the problem of lack of medicine. The medicine carried during the western expedition has been exhausted, and the remaining small amount of medicine is also constantly consumed, and there are no large-scale wars, but small groups of Qing army stragglers and Tusi armed rebellions often occur in various places, so there is no medicine left. In the Battle of Xiaobeishan, the artillery battalion and the Fourth Town A Brigade lost the advantage of fire blockade because of the inability to supply gunpowder, and were broken through by the Qing army with their lives.

It was now basically impossible to seize this piece, and the way to purchase gunpowder from the Portuguese in Macao was also cut off. Gunpowder was not only very important to the Taiping army, but also to the Portuguese in Macao. The Taiping regarded salt, iron, manpower, food, and gunpowder as strategic materials, and the Portuguese also regarded gunpowder as life-threatening materials. The Grape People themselves could not produce gunpowder in Macao, so most of their medicine was sent from China and India, and most of the medicine needed to be used in merchant escorts, and the amount of gunpowder in the Portuguese army in Macao was actually not much. Therefore, it is impossible for them to sell gunpowder to the Taiping army again and again, after all, the Taiping army had made extremely unfriendly actions towards Macao last year, and the war was triggered at that time.

Compared with the Qing army and pirates, the Taiping army in the eyes of the Portuguese was a very dangerous enemy. In this world, no matter how stupid a person is, he will not exchange peace for his enemies, so the governor of Macau, Bu Galo, euphemistically told the Guangdong political envoy Si Yamen that they really have no gunpowder to sell to the Taiping army. The Portuguese refused to sell gunpowder anymore, and there was bad news from the Jinxia Zheng family.

Hu Qili, the commander of the seventh town of Chaozhou, sent people to Jinxia to buy gunpowder on the order of Song Xianggong, but since March, Jinxia has stopped selling gunpowder to the Taiping army. Hu Qili sent someone to ask the reason, and Chen Yonghua, the king of Yanping County, explained that Zheng Jun would make a big move this year, so his subordinates were hoarding a large number of supplies, so they could no longer provide medicine to Guangdong, and hoped that Guangdong would forgive him.

The main sources of the three gunpowder were all cut off, and only a newly built military pharmaceutical factory was left to produce medicine with an output of several tens of catties every day, and how could it supply the needs of hundreds of thousands of Taiping troops, that is, the medicine needed by the first, third, and seventh towns in Guangdong was stopped, and the Guangxi Field Army and the Hunan Taiping Army were not enough to use it, not to mention the expeditionary force to fight for Annan. On the army side, how can the naval division suppress the Annan naval division without gunpowder.

After Yu Shizhong became the commander of the Guangxi Army, Guangdong had just sent 2,000 catties of medicine, including 600 catties of granular gunpowder. Two thousand catties of medicine sounds like a lot, but when it is actually apportioned, each town can only receive a few hundred catties, so that a firecracker can get less than half a catty, and the amount of medicine fired by a gun is three to four dollars, that is to say, all the two thousand catties of medicine are used by the firecrackers, and it can only ensure that a firearm in his hand can be fired six or seven times. If some of this gunpowder were to be used by the artillery battalion in the fourth town, it would be even more difficult for the monks to continue at all.

However, Yu Shizhong couldn't wait for the next time Guangdong replenished the medicine to be sent, so he personally led the fourth and fifth towns to launch a strong attack on Qingyuan Fucheng. In the report to the military marshal's office, Yu Shizhong bluntly said that the gap caused by the advance of the Ministry of State Security of the line must be plugged immediately, otherwise once the Yunnan Qing army invades Guangxi along this gap, it will be difficult to prevent it with the more than 30,000 soldiers and horses of the Guangxi Field Corps.

Zhou Shixiang approved Yu Shizhong's action, and also agreed to transfer all these two thousand catties of medicine to the fourth and fifth towns. Yu Shizhong's worries are imminent, the Ministry of State Security has broken through a gap in the Guizhou-Guizhou border, if Doni ignores the undecided war in Yunnan and the rule of Yunnan and Guizhou to lead troops from Guizhou to Guangxi, then the Guangxi Field Army will definitely not be able to stop it. As soon as Guangxi was lost, the blockade on the Hunan side became a joke. The Hunan Taiping Army will be alone at that time, and the hometown of Guangdong will also face the danger of being lost, and at that time, it will be the time of real life and death.

With the war in Guangxi, there are new medicines sent from Guangdong, and it is difficult to supplement them to Hunan, and Zhou Shixiang has been deploying the second town and the ninth town and transferring the two towns of the Xiangxi Bandit Army to prepare to break into Guizhou, annihilating Luo Keduo in one fell swoop with lightning speed, and then waving his army to the east to pick the fruit of the country's surname and seize the southeast.

Now, this plan has to be postponed again, because Zhou Shixiang really has no medicine in his hands, so he attaches great importance to the method of boiling dung and boiling nitrate, and even attaches great importance to Cheng Hanbin, the son of Huguang who dedicated the book.

The blind man Li immediately invited Cheng Hanbin, a person from Nahu Guangju, in, but before the other party stepped into the hall, Zhou Shixiang had already stepped forward to greet him, and he was very excited: "Mr. Cheng is the author of this "Illustrated Weapons of Weapons"? ”

Although I had heard that the Guangdong thief Xiucai was quite young, when he saw the real person, he felt that the other party seemed to be less than a year old, and Cheng Hanbin was still quite shocked in his heart. In a trance, he couldn't help but think of the young Shunzhi Emperor in Beijing, and inevitably made a comparison between the two in his heart, but then he secretly laughed again: What is the comparison between these two.

"No, "The Illustrated Illustration of Weapons" is not written below, but a masterpiece by Mr. Bi Maokang." Cheng Hanbin shook his head and said.

"Bi Maokang?"

Zhou Shixiang was stunned, he had never heard of this person, and almost subconsciously blurted out: "I don't know where Mr. Bi is now, Ben Shuai is thirsty for talent, Mr. Bi's "Illustrated Weapons Description" really solves Ben Shuai's big problem, and Ben Shuai wants to visit Mr. Bi to ask for advice. ”

The appearance of the "thief Xiucai" who was eager to seek talent made Cheng Hanbin secretly relieved, and said in his heart that the "Illustration of Weapons" was really a stone throwing and asked for a way. But he shook his head again and said, "Mr. Bi is no longer alive. ”

"Huh?"

As soon as he heard that Bi Maokang was dead, Zhou Shixiang was suddenly lost, how could such a big material die. After being lost for a moment, I remembered that I seemed to be a little snub to Cheng Hanbin, so I hurriedly invited him to sit down and asked about Bi Maokang.

Cheng Hanbin said that Bi Mao Kang was a Jinshi in the twenty-sixth year of Wanli, and served as the imperial history of the right capital, the patrol press of Shaanxi, and the imperial history of Shandong Patrol Salt. In the 42nd year of Wanli, he built Lishan Academy in Jinan, Shandong, which was the largest academy in Jinan at that time. During the Apocalypse, he was impeached by the imperial historian Wang Jikui, and then his status was reduced. In the early years of Chongzhen, he was used as a political envoy in Nanjing, and he was promoted to the right attendant of the military department. When saying goodbye, Emperor Chongzhen ordered him to make military vehicles, Shenfei cannons and other ordnance. After the equipment was completed, he edited the "Illustrated Description of Weapons" to enter the Sizong.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Bi Maokang died in his hometown, and Cheng Hanbin first saw this "Illustrated Description of Weapons" in Emperor Shunzhi's Marfa Tang John. At that time, when Cheng Hanbin, Xu Wenyuan and others discussed Western studies with Tang Ruowang, when they talked about firearms, Tang Ruowang took out this book "Illustrated Description of Military Weapons", saying that China has great materials, and there are many firearms production methods in this book, some of which are stronger than Westerners, especially the self-generated guns.

Before this, Cheng Hanbin was quite curious about firearms, and he had also seen firearms, but when he saw the self-generated guns mentioned in this book, he was shocked on the spot, and he understood the difference between igniting gunpowder with a flint machine and igniting gunpowder with a fire rope.

This move made Xu Wenyuan, who came with him, very puzzled, because Cheng Hanbin came to participate in the examination, but he studied what the martial artist used to do with the firearms. But they didn't know that Cheng Hanbin had made a lot of strange things by himself during the ten years he had been waiting in his hometown, so when he saw the self-generated guns that he had never touched, it was difficult to hide his curiosity, or it was difficult to find out.

Tang Ruowang saw that Cheng Hanbin was interested in this self-generated gun, so he smiled and ordered someone to take a rod out, telling him that it was made by the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty. However, because there was no money to make them, only a few dozen samples were made and the work was stopped, and a year later, the city of Beijing was broken, and these samples were either destroyed in the war or dispersed among the people. The rod in his hand was also unintentionally obtained, and Emperor Shunzhi also played with it when he came, but he didn't take it seriously.

Seeing the real thing, Cheng Hanbin was even more excited, and after a careful look at the structure, it was exactly the same as the graphics drawn in the book. After being excited, he wanted to ask John Tang for this self-generated gun, but he didn't want John Tang to refuse with a smile, saying that he had promised the bishop of Macao to send this gun to Macao.

When Tang Ruowang said this, Cheng Hanbin was not easy to force, he only secretly remembered every detail of this gun, and made his own notes after he went back. After giving up the Qing court's attempt to go south, he pondered all the way how he could attract the attention of the other party when he went to vote for the thief Xiucai, if he went straight to the point and persuaded the other party to go down the east of the river to take the southeast, it would inevitably be a bit exaggerated and talked on paper, so he might as well start from the actual needs of the thief Xiucai, first let the other party value himself, and then choose the opportunity to speak.

Along the way to Hunan, Cheng Hanbin not only saw the oppression of the people of Hunan by the Taiping Army, but also saw the importance of the Taiping Army to gunpowder and gunpowder, so after thinking about it repeatedly, he resolutely took the "Illustrated Weapons of Weapons" as his stepping stone.

Now it seems that this stepping stone has had a great effect, and this thief Xiucai is really a good firearm person.

"The people who are most afraid of China are also firearms. The "Illustrated Description of Military Weapons" written by Bi Da before his death can be described as a comprehensive exhibition of ancient and modern firearms, a collection of ancient and modern firearms, plus his own creation and research, which is really a military weapon. When I first saw it, I was so shocked that I couldn't speak, especially the self-generated gun I didn't believe it, and after I beat the self-generated gun with my own hands, I didn't have any doubts. ”

"Mr. Cheng has ever seen a physical object of a self-generated gun?"

The speaker has a heart, the listener has an intention, and when he heard that the flintlock pistol actually had a real thing, Zhou Shixiang couldn't sit still. Later, after listening to Cheng Hanbin's words, his heart suddenly settled down. Thinking about it, Chongzhen got this "Illustrated Description of Military Weapons", and he must have ordered someone to make it according to the drawing, after all, they are all militaristic weapons. But there was no silver in the Ming treasury, and there was no time and resources at all due to the tension of the war, so he had no choice but to stop the manufacture of self-generated guns. Now there are only a few flintlock pistols in the world, and one of them is in the hands of Tang Ruowang, but Shunzhi does not treat this thing as a thing, it seems that most of it is the idea of riding and shooting and the idea of guarding against the Han people. And that John Tang wanted to send this self-generated gun to Macau, and this intention was not good.

(To be continued.) )