"This is the last meal of dry food we carry, what should we do next?"
"If it doesn't work, just go around and go deep into Xuzhou." A look of fierceness flashed across Obai's eyes, "I don't believe it, there are such fortresses all over Xuzhou."
"Sir Zhang Jing, we only have more than a hundred riders."
"Isn't this too risky?" Yabraan advised.
After experiencing the Battle of Xiazhen and the Battle of Xuzhou, Jiannu's feelings towards the Ming army had changed greatly, and he no longer dared to despise them as before.
A hint of gloom flashed across the depths of Obai's eyes.
The terrifying scene of being chased by the Yiding two years ago appeared uncontrollably in front of his eyes. If he really went deep into Xuzhou and met the Yiding again, he might not have the same good luck as before.
Seeing that the time was right, Yabulan persuaded in a low voice: "Master Zhang Jing, how about we surrender to the Ten Kings? The Ten Kings have made it clear that they want to use military supplies to control us with the yellow flag. If we refuse to surrender to him,
, when the ten kings get angry, if we use Niulu to kill chickens to scare the monkeys, we will be in big trouble."
Obaidun felt his heart tremble for a moment.
This possibility exists.
The third brother Mulima also persuaded: "Brother, please give in to the ten kings. The current situation is already obvious. Sooner or later, the regent will usurp the throne and become emperor. If we, Niu Lu, go against the two white flags, we will definitely
We will be killed by the Ten Kings to sacrifice the flag, and the Queen Mother and the Emperor will not fall out with the Regent just to protect us."
Yabulan sighed: "Even if they want to keep us, they don't have the ability."
Ao Bai also sighed softly and said helplessly: "Okay, then you two go to Dongchang Mansion and tell the ten kings that from now on, I, O Bai, will only obey the regent and the ten kings."
"Brother, if you don't go there, I'm afraid the Ten Kings won't believe it."
"Yes, this matter requires Mr. Zhang Jing to go in person."
"You just say I was hit by an arrow." Obai said with a dark face.
"I'll go pay his respects after my injury recovers, that's all."
Mulima and Yabulan had no choice but to mount their horses and rush to Dongchang Mansion.
Watching Mulima and Yaerlan go away, Obai sighed softly.
It seems that the Qing Dynasty is really about to change, because all the military officials left behind by the late emperor have rebelled.
Tan Tai, Ta Zhan, Bai Yin Tu, Sony, Tu Lai and other military ministers of the two Yellow Banners have all submitted to the regent's command, either openly or covertly. Now it is finally his turn to submit to Obei. The general trend cannot be violated.
…
Nanjing Imperial College.
Chongzhen put away the urgent delivery and asked: "Gao Banban, are Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingyuan back?"
Gao Qiqian replied respectfully: "In reply to my words, Mr. Xu and Mr. Yan have returned. They just returned to Nanjing this morning. They should be in the military camp now."
Chongzhen waved his hand and said: "Tell them to come to Yilun Hall immediately. By the way, call the Crown Prince and Prince Ding as well."
Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingwei were already competent in their duties as staff officers. Zhu Cihong and Zhu Cijiong were called in to train them.
"The old slave received the decree." Gao Qiqian received the decree and went outside the Yilun Hall to arrange for a quick little eunuch to go to Xu Yingwei, Yan Yingyuan and the prince, Prince Ding, to announce the decree.
Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingyuan are at the military camp inside Shence Gate.
So after receiving the order, the two people quickly rushed to Yilun Hall.
But Zhu Cixiang and Zhu Cijiong were a long time late, because the two brothers rushed back from the Ming Dynasty Arsenal at the foot of Lime Mountain, and it took almost half an hour to ride a fast horse.
"You guys take a look at this first."
Chongzhen first handed the urgent delivery to Zhu Cihong.
Zhu Cixiang and the other four people all looked stern after seeing the express delivery.
"Father, I didn't expect Jiannu to send troops before us." Zhu Cijiong said, "That being the case, there is nothing to say. We can just send troops to Xuzhou and fight Jiannu again."
Zhu Cixiang said: "Father, this matter is somewhat illogical."
Xu Yingwei also said: "Yes, the Jiannu just fought a war with the puppets last year, and the fight was delayed until October. It is said that it is impossible to use weapons again in a short time."
Yan Yingyuan also said: "I also think that it is unlikely that the slaves will go south in a large scale. Their intention is mostly to kill and plunder, destroy the farmland in Xuzhou as much as possible, consume and weaken the national power of the Ming Dynasty."
"My son, I think so too," Zhu Cixiang said in deep agreement.
"If Jiannu really wants to move south in a big way, Li Ruolian will not know about it."
Li Ruolian's lurking is top secret, but several people here know it.
Chongzhen actually thought so in his heart, but he didn't have the confidence to think so alone.
Now that I heard that Xu Yingwei and others held the same view, I immediately strengthened my judgment.
"Do you guys think so too?" Chongzhen said, "In this case, it should be just harassment from Jiannu, and Xuzhou and Guide's soldiers can handle it."
"But just in case, we still need to be prepared."
"If the slaves move south in large numbers, we can send troops as soon as possible."
After a pause, he continued: "So don't go to sea these days."
"Accept the decree." Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingyuan bowed their hands and turned to leave.
"Hey, don't leave in a hurry." Chongzhen waved and said, "Tonight I will entertain the group of scholars from the West at Liubiju, and you two will also go to accompany me."
However, Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingwei shook their heads after hearing this.
"Your Majesty, we won't go there." Xu Yingwei said, "While we have this time, we'd better redraw the maps of Beizhi and Liaodong to avoid any delays."
China has actually had atlases, that is, maps, since ancient times.
However, ancient Chinese maps were all abstract.
It means that it is okay to look at the map, but if you march and fight according to the map and make a battle plan, you are asking for trouble, and you will definitely be tricked by the map into doubting your life.
Last year when we sent troops to Yunnan, the New Army suffered this loss.
So after returning to Nanjing, Xu Yingwei and others began to redraw the map.
This time it is not an abstract map, but a modern standard map drawn after field surveys.
"How do you draw the maps of Beizhi and Liaodong?" Chongzhen was surprised, "I haven't done any on-site survey."
Xu Yingwei smiled and said: "Because there is no on-site survey, it is impossible to draw an accurate map. However, there are many people who have been to Beizhi and Liaodong. It is no problem to draw a rough map based on their descriptions of the terrain of Beizhi and Liaodong."
, and even the rough map is much more accurate than the previous maps."
"Okay." After saying this, Chongzhen couldn't stop the two of them.
After sending Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingyuan away, Chongzhen asked his two sons again: "Can the rotary lathe be used?"
During this period of time, Chongzhen was not idle, but kept busy at the Daming Arsenal to participate in the production of rotary lathes.
Lathes have actually existed for a long time, but they have no mechanical power, only human power. Tiangong Kaiwu records several types of lathes and grinders powered by pedals.
Rotary cutter lathe, as the name implies, is a rotary feed lathe.
The reason why Chongzhen wanted to personally participate in the development of this lathe was to draw rifling for the blunderbuss tube.
As the saying goes, you have to eat food one bite at a time and do things one by one. When the standardized production process of flintlock guns gradually matures, you can consider making rifled rifles.
The move from matchlock to flintlock was a revolutionary advance.
So the move from smoothbore guns to rifled guns was also a revolutionary progress.
Compared with smoothbore guns, the accuracy of rifled guns is not improved at all.
The effective range of a musket is only fifty steps or eighty meters at best, and it must be fired in a queue. If a single musket fires, the effective range is only thirty steps or less than fifty meters.
In other words, the accuracy of a smoothbore gun drops off a cliff beyond fifty meters.
However, the effective range of a rifled gun can easily exceed two hundred meters.
This means that an army equipped with rifled guns can fire from a distance of two hundred meters, which is enough to crush smoothbore guns.
In fact, rifled guns are not a new thing. Rifled guns have appeared in the West more than a hundred years ago. However, because they are labor-intensive and time-consuming to make and loading ammunition is too troublesome, they have not been popularized.
It wasn't until rifles evolved from front-loading to rear-loading that rifled guns truly became the dominant force on the battlefield.
But as a time traveler, Chongzhen actually knew that there was a way to solve the problem of front-loading rifled guns being difficult to load and being airtight at the same time.
This is a concave bullet, or a Minie bullet.
Change the warhead from a circular shape to a cylindrical shape, and make a concave conical cavity at the bottom.
In this way, after the gunpowder in the gun barrel deflagrates, it will form a huge pressure on the thin round edge of the concave cavity, and then the thin round edge will expand and tightly stick to the gun bore, greatly increasing the air tightness.
But the Mini bullet is only effective if it is used with a rifled gun.
If a rifled gun is not built, even if there are Mini bullets, the range can only be increased, but the accuracy will be reduced, because the flight stability of round warheads is obviously better than that of cylindrical warheads.
The cylindrical warhead will inevitably roll after exiting the chamber.
Once it rolls over, the shooting accuracy will be terrible.
Therefore, the actual killing effect is not better than that of round warheads.
Therefore, the Mini bullet must be used with a rifled gun to be effective.
Because with the rifling, the Mini bullet will rotate at high speed under the stimulation of the rifling. After it is released from the chamber, it can still ensure stability due to the high-speed rotation, so its accuracy is far better than that of the round bullet.
But if you want to draw a rifled gun, you must standardize the blunderbuss tube.
You can't make a special broach for each gun tube, right?
Now that the standardized process of barrel processing in the Ming Dynasty Arsenal has become increasingly mature, we can try to make rifled guns.
Since drawing rifling is very time-consuming and labor-intensive, it was definitely impossible to equip a large number of rifles before steam engines were put into practical use, but it was possible to make a small number of rifled rifles to equip elite troops.
Such an elite force can play a key role.
If you want to draw rifling, you must have a rotary lathe.
The human-powered rotary cutter lathe designed by Chongzhen himself has four sharpening knives on the tie rod, which can pull out four cavities at the same time in one process, but the strength requirements for the tie rod are correspondingly increased.
