At the end of January, the camp of the Ming army not far from Jiujiang.

"Marksman unit, sergeant, Zheng Yaojun reports."

Just now, Zheng Yaojun's commander ordered ten soldiers, including Zheng Yaojun, to report to Deng Ming, followed by Sergeant Zheng, and the other nine people also saluted Deng Ming one by one.

"You haven't seen this gun yet, so let's take a look." Deng Ming took out a sample of the last flintlock pistol and handed it to the musketeers composed of Zhejiang soldiers: "This is called a rifle." ”

After a simple practice, all ten soldiers said that the flintlock pistol looked good, but the unlit arquebus was always a little uneasy, and it would be bad if it suddenly went silent at a critical time.

"But the arquebus will dumb the fire, right?" Deng Ming asked rhetorically.

"Yes, but if the fiery cord goes out we can see it, and if the flintlock trigger breaks, we don't know what to do to fix it." While the advantages of the flintlock pistol were obvious, it was clear that the musketeers were still a little uncomfortable with this unfamiliar weapon.

"We want soldiers to use this weapon, to be familiar with the weapon, to know how to fix a broken rifle." Deng Ming nodded, only long-term and continuous use can we know which part of this new weapon is most likely to be damaged, and let the soldiers give feedback, so that the weapon can be improved. Amleth's munitions dealer believed that it would take a year to break more than 200 rifles before this weapon could be improved reliably - of course, this time was closely related to the frequent use of weapons by the Ming army, and if the Ming army let thousands of soldiers start using rifles in one breath, shooting non-stop every day, and damaging dozens or hundreds of rifles a month, then the improvement speed would definitely be much faster, but Amnesi and they all estimated that Deng Ming was reluctant to waste expensive rifles like this, so it would be good to have a small improvement in a year.

"When will we be able to equip ourselves with rifles?" The ten musketeers asked one after another, they still needed some numbers, after all, they didn't dare to charge a large number of charges at first, and they didn't know if the continuous firing would cause the bolt to partially explode. Anyway, the way back to Sichuan is idle, so it is better to start immediately, and wait until Sichuan just takes out the test report.

"I originally wanted to equip you with rifles in a few days and start testing, but more than a hundred of our rifles were suddenly sold to others." Deng Ming had just received an urgent report from An Lesi, detailing his deal with the dealer, and Deng Ming was also very much in favor of this deal. If there is a test report of actual combat, of course, it will be more meaningful to improve the weapon, and Deng Ming estimates that the self-defense battle of the dealer will not be too intense, and the relatively low intensity of the rifle can better expose the problem of the new weapon, but it will not lead to the consequences of being too strict - if he is now fighting against the regular army of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Deng Ming will not dare to replace the long-tested bow and crossbow with a rifle that has not been tested in actual combat.

"This batch of rifles will be transported to Huzhou and handed over to Mr. Zhuang Yuncheng Zhuang, who has purchased a total of one hundred and forty rifles and five tiger squat cannons from Boss An. We are not interested in testing the Tiger Squat Cannon and that kind of thing, your task is to train Mr. Zhuang Ding's Zhuang Ding, so that they can master the basic actions such as loading and aiming, and can deal with the attack of the government servants or the green battalion. You are not allowed to participate in the battle, if unfortunately the dealer is lost, you will have to surrender to Zhao Guozuo, and I will arrange for the exchange of prisoners - I need you to record this month's training in detail, and also record the actual combat results on the battlefield - without affecting your life, I need you to help Mr. Zhuang win as much as possible. ”

Now Zhuang Yuncheng is worried that even if he abandons his family property and flees to Sichuan, it will be a dead end, since Deng Ming sold weapons to him, he must have hoped that he would set off a big chaos in Huzhou, so he relied on his family's desperate struggle to fight for his bereaved family to fight for a way to enter Chengdu.

"You tell Mr. Sù Zhuang that if he can hold out for more than half a year, I will consider giving him a permit to invest in immigration."

Even if Zhuang Yuncheng is allowed to flee to Sichuan immediately, he may not dare to make up his mind, and the Zhuang family's family is big, and it is unlikely that he will move away in the short term. Therefore, Deng Ming put forward a request to stick to it, so that Zhuang Yuncheng felt that his guess was correct, so that he could also have a hope: "This investment immigration law has just been issued by the imperial government, and it was originally intended to leave a way out for the governors of the southeast, so it is stipulated that those who have made outstanding contributions to the empire can pay money to directly obtain the status of Tongxiucai." ”

Deng Ming felt that this bill of the Imperial Assembly was too dark and the scope of application was too small, and it was difficult to meet the conditions of a rich gentry. However, since the parliament has decided so, Deng Ming does not intend to amend it according to his own wishes - this bill is also easy to bypass, and outstanding contribution is a very vague word, which can be decided by Deng Ming, and whoever has contributed will have it.

After hearing that the people who attacked the Zhuang family at the beginning might only be the local officials and the green battalion soldiers in the county town, Zheng Yaojun and the others' faces were obviously relaxed. In their opinion, a group of officials and county officials were easy to deal with. If it weren't for Deng Ming's strict prohibition of them taking risks in battle, and the stipulation that they must use rifles instead of those familiar old weapons, Zheng Yaojun felt that ten standing army soldiers would definitely be able to beat the officials to the ground, even if the other party was more than a hundred.

"How long do we have?" However, since the standing army is not allowed to participate in the war, it is difficult to say whether the war will be won or lost, because the Zhuang Ding are inferior to the officials, especially in the first confrontation. Because they knew that as long as they did it, they would kill the officials and rebel, so even if the official on the opposite side yelled viciously, it might make Zhuang Ding lose the courage to resist.

"For about a month, there won't be any danger until March. At that time, our troops will retreat to the front line of Wuchang, and it is estimated that the Zhejiang side will start to act if they do not feel the pressure. Deng Ming estimated that Jiang Guozhu would probably not make a move until both the Ming and Qing armies were far away from his territory. An Lesi has already sent a letter to Chengdu with an expedited 800 miles, and wants to produce weapons with all his might, but even so, I am afraid that there will not be many rifles that can be shipped to the southeast within three months. Therefore, Deng Ming is also thinking about how to help Jin Shengsian and them delay time, so that more weapons can be transported to Suzhou.

"IMHO, it can't be." After hearing Deng Ming's answer, Zheng Yaojun said without thinking: "A month is too short, even if it is a firearm that we are familiar with, it will take at least two months for a person who doesn't know firearms at all to carry it to the battlefield, and we are not familiar with rifles." ”

"It's true that it takes at least two months to train a musketeer, but what's the most dangerous thing for a recruit?" Deng Ming also learned how to use an arquebus, so he knew exactly where the difficulty was: "The most dangerous thing is not to let the open flame come into contact with the gunpowder!" ”

Loading the bird gun is a complicated set of steps, one accidentally will explode, and the fire rope will touch the gunpowder pocket on the body, so two months of training is almost essential. Although this speed is already much faster than training archers, it still does not meet the needs of the banker. It is precisely because the firecracker needs to be trained carefully that the three-eyed gun will be popular, that thing is not easy to explode, and there is no need to honestly practice the reloading steps.

"There are no open flames in the rifles, you'll figure out a much quicker way to reload, and the recruits will be much safer." Several people opposite Deng Ming showed expressions of sudden realization on their faces: "So although the time is a little tight, it is not necessarily enough, I am waiting for your good news." ”

……

Zheng Yaojun and ten other people set off with more than 100 rifles and left the large army, and went straight down the river to Huzhou. Deng Ming thought of a reason to delay time at this time, last time because of the issue of dividends, Liangjiang and Huguangtong guò suppressed Deng Premier Yamen to jointly protest, demanding that Deng Ming stop directly giving red to their officers and soldiers, and the solution was that the provinces would no longer directly apportionment the bonds of the Ming Dynasty, but issue their IOUs with bonds as collateral.

As a result of the victory at Huaiyang, the southeastern governors became more wary of the Sichuan army, and they were now worried that the Qing army would come to settle accounts with them, and that the Sichuan army would take the opportunity to annex their territory. Therefore, Deng Ming used the issuance of bonds and dividends as an excuse to stay in Jiangxi for a longer time, but if he stayed too long, Zhang Changgeng and Zhang Chao might be worried about the Sichuan army's plans to invade.

"Did the political envoy Dong Bu feel that the silver was not enough to spend?" After seeing Dong Weiguo, who came to negotiate with him, Deng Ming asked straight to the point, and let out a long sigh: "Now I am also a big family, and I am looking for money everywhere, this life is not easy." ”

This question made Dong Weiguo chuckle in his heart. More than half a year has passed, and the day when Deng Ming repays the bonds is getting closer and closer, although Deng Ming has been red once, Dong Weiguo is still worried that Deng Ming will repay the debt at that time. The reason for this meeting was to discuss the issue of bonds, and Deng Ming mentioned that the money was not enough to spend when he saw him, which obviously did not bode well.

"I've pondered a deal to make money, I wonder if Envoy Dong Bu is interested?" However, Deng Ming did not talk about bonds, but said a set of things that Dong Weiguo did not understand at all: "I plan to set up a stock exchange in Jiujiang, as well as a futures market, which should earn us a lot of fees." I'll come up with ideas, formulate rules, and use the territory of Dong Bu's political envoy to start a business, and if we have money, we will split the account fifty-fifty, how about it? ”

Listening to Deng Ming's five-fifty accounts, and without Dong Weiguo's capital, Dong Weiguo naturally had no conflict, so he listened to Deng Ming's detailed introduction to the concept of stock and securities trading, and the futures market was very novel.

In addition to Jiujiang, Deng Ming's plan was set up in Wuchang, Anqing, and Nanjing, which not only allowed short buying and selling, but also did not require a high margin - watching TV had given Deng Ming some vague impressions about such transactions, but he had come up with the details of the rules on his own - so Deng Ming planned to set up a look at it in Huguang and Liangjiang first, and then learn from the lessons and establish a safer system in Chengdu.