Shanxi, the mountainous suburbs southwest of Pingyang Fucheng.
Gao Yingxiang stood on the mountain and looked at the towering Fucheng in the distance, his weather-beaten face full of doubts.
He is thinking about a problem.
Regarding the question of what exactly Liu Shizi is.
After thinking about it for a long time, Gao Yingxiang still couldn't figure it out.
The third day after Liu Chengzong left Shanxi and the first day after Gao Yingxiang pulled the Fenzhou Prefecture troops into Yonghe County, there was hail in Yonghe County.
Gao Yingxiang's team of tens of thousands of people was originally very loosely organized. Suddenly, hail fell. In a place as small as Huojiabao, there was no place to hide.
The army was smashed into pieces.
When the hail stopped and the wind and rain began to subside, there were still more than 4,000 troops left in Gao Yingxiang's army, more than half of whom had suffered bruises and swollen faces.
The remaining people all ran away, and it took two days to get back together. Everyone was injured, and more than 700 bodies were smashed to death.
Not many people were crushed to death. Most of them died from falling and running around in the mountains at night. Their injuries were not treated, they bled to death, and they froze to death in the wind and rain.
Horrible.
Later, Gao Yingxiang discovered that the reason why he suffered this hailstorm was all because of Liu Shishi.
If he hadn't reported the news to Liu Shishi, Liu Shishi would not have let him leave Pu County. If he had not let him leave Pu County, he would not have waited for his master to make clay molds for me in Huojiabao.
Originally, he should have happily robbed Wangzhuang in Fenzhou Prefecture, instead of being hit by hail in Pingyang Prefecture and getting bruised and bruised.
Standing on the cliff, Gao Yingxiang felt aggrieved and murmured to himself: "They all say that lions are auspicious beasts."
For more than thirty years, Gao Yingxiang never thought that he was an unlucky person until he brought Liu Shizi to his side after the rebellion.
Being unable to get close to the lion, Li Bei led his army into Yan'an Prefecture and wanted to beat him first, Gao Yingxiang, from Yanchang to Fushi.
It's not good to stay far away from the lion. As soon as the auspicious beast leaves, he will be hit by hailstones.
A lion walks on its front legs, and a hailstorm comes on its hind legs.
He is simply God’s own son, counting the days.
Gao Yingxiang recognized the reality.
The place where they are now is in the western mountainous area of Linfen, Pingyang Prefecture, at the junction of Linfen County and Xiangning County. It produces both coal and iron ore, and it is also magnetite commonly known as Qingmei.
In the early Ming Dynasty, there were two iron smelting works here, Fengguo and Fuguo. At their peak, more than 500,000 jins of iron were produced every year.
However, the official iron smelting was later abolished and turned into private operation. Today, the scale is not as large as in the early years, but the local people still continue the iron smelting in that area in order to make a living.
Looking at the Fenhe Plain stretching behind the mountains, Gao Yingxiang sighed. He is a miserable person. He cannot bear this beast.
However, Pingyang Mansion and his party are not without good things.
The mountain where he is now is called Guajialing, and there are two Tielials not far to the west. There is little land in the area, and the people have made a living by fanning furnaces, mining, selling iron, and selling charcoal for generations.
These people had a hard time, so Gao Yingxiang only paid a small amount of food in exchange for them working for him.
Gao Yingxiang walked down the mountain. His troops stretched for sixteen battalions in the river valley that was easy to defend but difficult to attack.
Master Chengwo, whose head is bandaged with plain cloth, is instructing the craftsmen to make cannons in the river valley, while He Xin, the gunsmith, is supervising the craftsmen on the other side to make cannons.
When Gao Yingxiang came down the mountain, a huge dry clay mold was being heated, and craftsmen used a wooden frame to pour out the wax liquid in the mold.
I was next to the copper furnace on the other side, measuring on the ground with tools, instructing the masons to build the base, and then erected the large wooden frame at the measured position.
"What is the division commander drawing?"
I didn't even raise my head when I was a teacher, I gestured with the rules and said: "Cannon barrel."
Gao Yingxiang looked confused. There was obviously nothing on the ground.
The only thing is that there is a brick base with a wooden frame on it. I pulled a rope from the wooden frame and drew it on the ground like a ghost drawing, but there was nothing else.
The whole channeling ceremony.
"That's it, no mistakes allowed, dig."
When the division was completed, I gave an order, and the sentry and auxiliary soldiers nearby started to work according to his orders.
At this time, he breathed a sigh of relief, turned his head and smiled at Gao Yingxiang: "King Chuang is here."
Gao Yingxiang said helplessly: "I've been here for a long time, and you just told me that it was a cannon chamber. Where is the cannon chamber?"
Shichengwo raised his hand and rubbed the wound on his head, and said with a smile: "King Chuang doesn't know something. The key to casting a cannon is to keep the barrel straight. If this position is not found correctly, the cannon will be a waste."<
/p>
His head was hit by hail when he rushed out of the house to protect the Huojiabao mud mold.
It's very uncomfortable to have a wound at this location. If you don't pay attention when sleeping at night, you will rub the healed wound open. It has been nearly a month and it is still not healed.
"The king of mud shells also saw it. He buried it in the pit and exposed half of it, and fixed it with this shelf."
Teacher Cheng, I pointed to the wooden frame. The frame was very simple. It was just two columns erected, and two crossbars were tied to the columns at different intervals: "The upper one is on the outside, the lower one is on the inside, and the middle one is inserted diagonally from outside to inside according to the caliber of the artillery."
The same wooden stick is the barrel of the cannon."
"Actually, you don't need wooden sticks. If it's an iron cannon, it would be better to use willow sticks. Willow sticks are used for frying steel. It doesn't matter for bronze cannons."
Gao Yingxiang looked at the wooden frame, frowned and calculated for a while, but couldn't come up with a result, so he asked: "How do you know where the barrel of the cannon is when you put a stick in it?"
"Forget it, I know how wide the barrel is, how thick the wall is, and how long it is from the fire door to the muzzle. It's not difficult to calculate it."
Speaking of this, Shi Chengmei rubbed his chin beard and frowned: "But when this cannon is cast, it may be heavier than the general wants."
"How heavy is it?" Gao Yingxiang asked: "Don't the lion want a 200-pound cannon?"
"Yes, the general wants a two hundred kilogram cannon, and my cannon may cost three hundred kilograms to cast." Shichengwo shook his head and said, "My calculation was wrong... King Chuang, how long can we stay in this mountain?"<
/p>
"How long?"
Gao Yingxiang had never thought about this. Hearing his question, he shook his head and said, "How long do you want to stay?"
"Can we wait until June, two months?"
"I don't know."
Gao Yingxiang answered this answer very simply.
How long they can stay here is not up to them. They have to leave whenever the imperial court sends troops.
"There is no need to be afraid of the officers and soldiers of Fenzhou Guard and Pingyang Guard. Earlier, when we went south from Huozhou and walked to Gongji Bridge, the master craftsman also saw it. They did not dare to come across the Gao River. They are afraid of us."
Gao Yingxiang mentioned the Pingyang Flag Guard, with a smile on his face, and then said: "Actually, I am more worried about the Tuanlian Minzhuang of Pingyang Prefecture than them."
In Shanxi's Fenhe Plain, Wangzhuang landlords and merchants are everywhere.
Under normal circumstances, there is nothing to be afraid of. Compared with the border troops, the landlord regiments are not dangerous enemies.
If the frontier troops are like wolves, tigers and leopards, the guard flag troops are like guarding dogs, the landlord regiment training is like a hedgehog at best.
If the thorns grow more than the flesh, Chuang Jun will not fight.
But the current situation in Shanxi is a bit difficult to say.
Because Gao Yingxiang is not the most violent leader in the Fenhe Plain.
The most violent ones are the Jiaocheng bandits in Jiaocheng County, Taiyuan Prefecture.
Since the two years of non-sticking between the north and the south, Gao Yingxiang has become troubled, and the bandits there have also become active.
Their leader, King Calabash, rushed out of the mountains and attacked Jiaocheng with tens of thousands of troops, capturing Jiaocheng, Wenshui, Qingyuan, Xugou, and Taigu one after another.
The latest news is that the Gourd King sent someone to contact Gao Yingxiang three days ago, saying that they were going to attack Fenzhou Prefecture.
"If we were just here, there would be no problem in staying until June, but now that the lunatic gang in Jiaocheng is making trouble, it's hard to say when the court will dispatch troops to suppress it."
Gao Yingxiang really felt that the Jiaocheng bandits were not the same kind of people as them, and the situation there was very complicated.
There are hundreds of leaders in Jiaocheng Mountain. The big leader, King Gourd, only has 400 people under his command. Tens of thousands of people are not under each other's command, so the people are very mixed.
Gao Yingxiang alone knows.
Along with the Gourd King, they were local bandits in Shanxi, and those who starved the people and the army were Datong Yanghewei who mutinied against the hungry army in the seventh year of the Apocalypse, Zheng Zhenming, a White Lotus disciple, who rebelled against the remaining party in the second year of the Apocalypse, Yang Dagao who resisted taxes in the third year of the Apocalypse, and Jiangzhou rebels
Wang Deshan.
In addition to the local bandits, there was also a wave of grain transport troops from Yangzhou Prefecture and Fengyang Prefecture.
Their name is Longhuahui, including the remnant party of Zheng Zhenming who rebelled in the second year of Tianqi, all of them are White Lotus believers.
In fact, Gao Yingxiang likes to cooperate with others to fight, for example, with auspicious beasts, which makes him feel relaxed.
But these Jiaocheng bandits cannot coordinate themselves.
The Gourd King just wanted to seize the opportunity to plunder near Jiaocheng. As soon as the government troops suppressed it, he went back to hide in the mountains. The peasants who resisted the tax went home as soon as it rained. The White Lotus cultists attacked from all sides, wishing that the government troops would not come to suppress them. Compared with them, many anti-kings in northern Shaanxi are too pure.
Gao Yingxiang weighed it carefully in his mind. Although his team was a force that could be dispersed by hailstones, at any rate, there were 4,000 people in it under his control.
At present, Shanxi's guard army and landlords are training together, and he can deal with them without joining forces; if the border troops come in the future, he will not be able to defeat them even if they join forces.
Once the officers and soldiers suppressed them, the gang would all go back to the mountains, leaving him alone as a big fool to be beaten.
Just forget it.
He asked: "Why do you have to stay until June? Isn't this cannon ready to be cast?"
"The shell of this cannon has been drying in the shade for a month. This cannon was made in an attempt to make it. It was not done well. I found out that the calculation was wrong. The cannon is heavy. I have to make another shell. It will be May. If the new shell is
No problem, as long as we have enough copper and make dozens of shells, we will have dozens of cannons in June."
After the earth pit next to the base of the fort was dug, I asked someone to bring the clay mold over and bury half of it in the pit in the direction of the inclined wooden stick.
Then he carefully compared the positions. Gao Yingxiang looked nervous and didn't dare to express his anger, although he didn't know what he was nervous about.
It wasn't until I completed all the preparations and the copper kiln nearby began to blow, that I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He pointed at the clay mold and said, "The rest will be easy. Once the copper juice enters the clay mold, when it's cool, crack the shell into pieces, and you'll have a bumpy artifact."
"I just like making copper cannons. Bronze cannons have to be polished and polished until they are polished. Iron cannons are not polished as smoothly as this."
Gao Yingxiang stared blankly: "Is it that simple?"
"It's that simple. Hongyi's cannon is thick where it should be, and thin where it should be. Cannons have different sizes depending on what they are used for. Other than that, there is no difference from the previous cannons."
Shicheng, I laughed as I said it.
The most critical part of the so-called red barbarian cannon lies in these size patterns.
These rules can maximize the power of the combination of gunpowder and pipe in this era and make the pipe more durable.
In fact, for me, the most difficult part of casting the small Hongyi cannon required by Liu Chengzong is not the casting, but the design.
Generally, if someone else uses this set of tools to make a cannon, it will cost at least one thousand kilograms.
Just like last year, he helped Wang Zheng cast cannons in Sanyuan County, casting three red Yi bronze cannons weighing 1,500 kilograms.
But when he came to Lion Camp, Liu Chengzong wanted to cast a small cannon of 200 kilograms. This time, all aspects were very different. He almost designed a cannon by himself.
This is much more difficult than casting.
Once he gets the design done, the rest won't be a problem, and he may not even need him for the rest, especially in a place like Shanxi.
Just find any goldsmith who can cast bronze bells, tell them the dimensions, and they can cast a cannon.
That night, Gao Yingxiang, who was excited, held a torch and watched the teacher and I pour water on the spindle-shaped copper pillar.
After seeing that there was no water leaking out, we started drilling the blast holes and polishing away the casting burrs and pits on the gun body and barrel.
They also used hammers and chisels to carve out the word "lion" in front of the blast hole.
Originally, I wanted to carve my name on it when I became a teacher, but Gao Yingxiang persuaded me: "Don't carve it, just carve a number on the cannon. What if the officers and soldiers take away the name after carving it?"
Finally, I carved the words "Tianzi No. 1 Big Gun" on the cannon, and the cannon was completed.
In the firelight of the river valley, the sergeants used a specially made large frame to weigh the cannon and measured various dimensions.
The caliber of this gun is two inches and two cents. The muzzle is four inches and four cents thick. The fire gate is the thickest part of the gun body. It is six inches and six cents. The whole gun is four feet long and weighs an unusual 302 kilograms. Three pounds of iron bullets.
"It is indeed heavier than the general requested, but I think this gun is quite good."
I looked at it again and again, then turned to Gao Yingxiang and said: "King Chuang, if you are not sure how long we can stay here, I want to make two preparations first and start modifying the two-wheeled artillery cart drawn by the general tomorrow. , and then make a new clay mold."
Gao Yingxiang leaned over to listen, and then his teacher said to me: "First make ten clay molds according to this, and then make smaller clay molds. If you have to return to Shaanxi in early May, then bring eleven Tianzi lion cannons."
"I estimate that the 200 kilograms of clay molds can be finalized next time. They are temporarily called the lion cannons with the word "di". In May, I will make twenty more lion cannons with the word "di", so that I can bring back thirty-two heaven and earth lion cannons."
However, I didn't expect that Gao Yingxiang actually shook his head: "I don't think so, the copper material is not enough. There are so many cannons, and the copper material is just right. If one of them is not done well, it will be broken. We need to make more clay molds." ."
Gao Yingxiang said with a serious face, but then he couldn't help but smile: "And make more clay molds. I, Gao Yingxiang, have been standing next to you for so long, don't you understand what I mean?" "This gun is good, I want it too, you have to make some for me."
As he spoke, Gao Yingxiang stretched out his hand and said, as if he was afraid that he would refuse me. "There are not many. For a cannon like this, you have to make it five for me. If you make a lion cannon for me, you can make ten for me. It only costs half the price of a lion." p>
"You are short of manpower. I will find as many manpower for you as you need. Goldsmith, I have already found 140 households. I guarantee you can make it."
"Manpower is easy to say." Shi Chengwo pursed his lips and said: "If there are fifteen more people, the materials will not be enough."
Gao Yingxiang heard him relent, pursed his lips and breathed a sigh of relief in his heart: "As long as you are willing to build it, I will go to the Buddhist temple tomorrow!"
