The weather is at its sunniest, and the sun is radiating its light and heat to its fullest. The mountains and grasslands are bright. In the Jinlianchuan grassland, more than a dozen horsebacks roared in the grass, startling the birds and beasts on this grassland to rise to the sky. The men on these horses were dressed in shiny cuirass, and wore steel helmets with white feathers stuck on them, which was the emblem of the Guards cavalry.

Chen Dexing raised his shotgun and slammed it. His marksmanship is certainly stinky. After all, he has never shot like this in his two lives. Shots rang out, and a hare was still running fast. A bow and arrow whizzed out, plunging into the rabbit's body, and the rabbit fell headlong.

A masked man laughed, proudly waved the stubborn sheep's horn bow in his hand, laughed at Chen Dexing, and said in stiff Chinese: "Sage, it's really better to use bows and arrows, right?" I've heard of your magic shooting in the grassland, so why don't you switch to a bow and arrow, and let's have a good fight. ”

This Mongolian is Haidu Khan, who is now competing with Chen Dexing to fight rabbits on the Jinlianchuan grassland. Haidu is using a bow and arrow, while Chen Dexing is using a small and delicate smoothbore gun.

He reluctantly glanced down at the smoothbore gun in his hand, as if it really didn't work as well as a bow and arrow.

This is a smoothbore gun designed and produced by Meng De according to Chen Dexing's requirements. The design, which was thought to take 3 years to complete, has now taken a few months to make a lot of breakthroughs. However, this breakthrough has not fully met Chen Dexing's requirements. Because the gun was still an arquebus, the flintlock mechanism was not designed. But it is much easier to reduce the weight of the gun body, it is nothing more than the use of a thinner barrel, a smaller caliber, a shorter body. The weight of this smoothbore gun was reduced to eight and a half pounds, and the length was only a little more than five feet.

The smoothbore gun was very delicately built, and the inside of the barrel was also bored - an invention of the craftsmen of the Ordnance Bureau. The primitive boring machine is welded to the iron rod with a drill bit made of crucible steel, and then the iron rod is mounted on a wheel - repeated boring, very smooth, almost to the smoothness of the inner wall of the steel pipe in the industrial era. Moreover, its effective range barely meets Chen Dexing's requirements, and it can hit a humanoid target from 70 steps away. The armor-piercing ability is poor, and it can penetrate steel armor with a thickness of 1 minute at a distance of 30 steps. Although the power is not as strong as the Heavenly Dao Second Year Heavy Smoothbore Gun, it is not under the bow and arrow.

In terms of effective range alone, the power of this gun seems to have surpassed most of the smoothbore guns of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe in history. In addition to the careful polishing of the barrel, one of Mende's students came up with the idea of wrapping buckshot in deerskin to increase the airtightness of the smoothbore gun – a method that was actually used in history in Europe. and line infantry contemporaries of light infantry (skirmishers). Sometimes it is equipped with rifled guns, sometimes it is equipped with carefully selected smoothbore guns that fire deerskin bullets.

A well-crafted smoothbore gun (not so good in mass-produced production), combined with equally elaborate deerskin bullets and the finest granular H-medicine, can indeed make a smoothbore gun barely match a bow and arrow in terms of range accuracy.

But the premise is that the person who uses the bow and arrow is not a master like Haidu Khan or Chen Dexing.

"King Khan, you and I both started practicing bows and arrows at the age of three, and we both have skills for twenty or thirty years." Chen Dexing shook his head with a smile and threw the smoothbore gun to Baoyin beside him. Another loaded smoothbore gun was taken from her. "But I have only practiced shooting for less than 20 days. The total number of bullets was only more than 100 rounds. ”

While speaking, another panicked rabbit rushed over, Chen Dexing hurriedly raised the smoothbore gun, hooked the trigger, and banged another gunshot, this rabbit was unlucky. Fell in response.

This time it was Chen Dexing's turn to laugh proudly, "King Khan, how is it?" I have been practicing guns for more than 20 days, and I can compete with you who have been practicing bows and arrows for more than 30 years! ”

Haidu's face was slightly ugly, and he was also one of the most outstanding military strategists of this era. How not to understand the deep meaning of Chen Dexing's words - the era of bow horses is coming to an end. A Mongolian warrior who has been riding a horse and shooting arrows since he was a child may not be able to match a Han farmer who has been practicing a smoothbore gun for several months!

He laughed dryly, "Although this arquebus is good, the price is not cheap, and the H medicine is also very expensive, where can it compare to the price of a bow and arrow?" ”

Chen Dexing handed the musket to Baoyin, took another smoothbore gun loaded with lead bullets, and smiled: "The musket is not expensive, the material is a few catties of wrought iron, a few catties of wood, and the cost is labor...... Labor is actually not expensive, how many laborers can be used for a musket? How much money can a worker spend? If this musket is cooked, and then produced in large quantities, it will be at most a dozen yuan a piece. There are more than a slightly better bow, unless you find a piece of wood to sharpen a bow to make do, which is cheaper. ”

Mass production, mass sales...... This already has a bit of an industrial meaning! As early as when Yangzhou City was under the control of the artillery army, Chen Dexing introduced the two concepts of standardization and assembly line production. Later, the weapons workshops opened in Haidong and Mingdu still adhered to this line of thought. Later, the Ordnance Bureau was reformed, and only the three core departments of H medicine, iron and steel, and cannon making were retained, and the craftsmen of the rest of the workshops were released to start their own businesses. Some of these people have spread the concepts of "standardization" and "assembly line".

Therefore, in recent years, many factories using "standardized" production and "assembly line" production have risen in Mingdu Prefecture. The same is true of the Meng Kee Musket Shop founded by Meng De. Moreover, a variety of simple machinery driven by water and animal power has also been widely adopted, which greatly improves production efficiency and reduces production costs.

Therefore, the prices of various weapons used by the Ming army have also been declining in recent years. Taking steel armor as an example, the price of a pair of 30-kilogram infantry steel armor has fallen from 1,500 guan at the beginning to about 250 guan (the factory price of Mingdu Mansion) now! The price of the steel clamping knife has also fallen from hundreds of times at the earliest to dozens of times today. The price of the spear has dropped to more than a dozen.

A large number of weapons workshops have also diverged in this round of industrial waves where price declines and demand expansion coexist. Some of the workshops expanded in size and became workshops; Some of the workshops closed down, and the owners became hired laborers in the workshops – the proletariat had been born in the workshops of the Mindufu!

However, there are also some weapons that are difficult to achieve large-scale production because of the complex production process and the time taken by the material processing. For example, the price of horse lance, such as compound bow, is still high. A horse lance is a thousand at every turn! And there is no market for it. A good bow can be easily charged for two or three hundred yuan, which is worth the price of five or six Heavenly Dao two-year-old arquebuses!

The two of them rode their horses as they talked, up a high slope, and at their feet was a military camp under construction. The outer moats and the earth-wood fence (wood-clad earth) have been formed, and you can already see the size of the barracks. A gust of mountain wind blew, making Haidu Khan, who had a lot of fine beads of sweat on his forehead, feel a little cool.

"Baoyin, take a Heavenly Dao Second Year Style and show it to Haidu Khan." Chen Dexing suddenly smiled at this time, and asked Baoyin to take a Heavenly Dao Second Year Style from his entourage and hand it over to Haidu.

What a musket! Haidu held the musket, looked and looked, and his face couldn't hide his love. Kublai Khan relied on the fire gun to defeat Aruhu, he already knew about it, and naturally he also wanted to get the fire gun. But the craftsmen on the Mongolian steppe don't know how to make it at all, and even if they can make it, it's useless, because the Mongolian steppe doesn't produce iron and there is no H medicine.

Chen Dexing stretched out a slap and said with a smile: "This Heavenly Dao Second Year Style is a musket made only last year, it is much larger than the arquebus I used just now, the range is also long, and the power is also great, and the steel armor can be broken from seventy steps away. The price of Meng Ji Gun Store is only 50 yuan! Would you like to buy some? ”

'It's only 50!? Really? Haidu Khan took a deep breath and was skeptical. 50 guan is not cheap for Mongolia, but it is nothing for the Ming Empire, which has leveled the south of the Yangtze River, has Mingzhou gold and silver income, and has an annual income of more than 12,000 guan (of which the financial income belonging to the central government is about 80 million).

"If I want to buy 5,000 sticks, can I have them?" Haidu Khan thought about it for a moment and decided to try to buy some.

"5,000 is 250,000." Chen Dexing nodded with a smile and said, "However, the Ming Dynasty has to increase tariffs on the export of weapons, and a arquebus will be taxed at 10 guan, and 5,000 will be 50,000 guan, a total of 300,000 guan." If you want to deliver in Kaiping, you have to add some freight. ”

Of course, arquebuses can't be exported casually at the moment, and this thing, like the bronze cannon, is a controlled weapon. However, with the approval of the War Department, it can still be exported. And those who can get the approval of the War Department are naturally allies or vassal states of the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Dexing paused for a moment, and then said: "As long as the Ming Dynasty and the Great Mongolia form an alliance, not to mention the arquebus, even the bronze cannon can be sold to Brother Haidu." ”

"The condition for forming an alliance is......" Hai knew that he didn't have much weight to bargain with Chen Dexing, but he still had some bottom lines that he had to adhere to. For example, you can't call yourself a minister to the Ming Dynasty, and of course you can't recognize Chen Dexing as your father.

Chen Dexing said: "The first is the demarcation, the south of the border between the two countries is divided by the desert, the north of the desert is Mongolia, the south of the desert is the Ming Dynasty, and the Mongolian tribes are not allowed to nomadize in the south of the desert. The east of the border between the two countries is not demarcated for the time being, but the Mongol tribes are not allowed to enter the land close to the Mengke Mountains and the 100 miles west of the Haravan Mountains.

The second is trade, stipulating the location of the mutual market, and setting up a mutual market in the south and north of the desert. Mo Nan is Kaiping, and Mo North is chosen by Brother Haidu. In addition, the Trade Treaty was to be signed, which provided for customs duties and various trade matters.

The third is missionary teaching, and Tiandao can spread freely and without restriction within Mongolia.

The fourth is to open embassies, the Ming Dynasty set up embassies in the mutual markets of Helin and Mongolia, and Mongolia set up embassies in Yanjing and Kaiping.

Fifth, the Khan King, you must become the Great Khan of the Mongols! ”

Hearing this last condition, Haidu was stunned for a moment, "What? Do you want me to call the Great Khan? ”

"Yes, you are going to be the Great Khan of Mongolia!" (To be continued......)