Gao Qiqian was a little embarrassed: "Long live my Lord, I don't need to show my ugliness anymore, right?"
"If I ask you to hit me, just hit me." Chongzhen said. "If you don't hit, you will be punished. The imperial staff will be eighty."
"Ah? Eighty-year-old imperial staff?!" Gao Qiqian almost cried. Did I provoke you?
"For every second of delay, add another imperial staff." Chongzhen said with a hum, "Eighty-two staff!"
Gao Qiqian was startled. He quickly took the rifled rifle from Chongzhen's hand, loaded it, and fired at the human-shaped target 150 steps away. When he finally reported the target, it hit the bull's-eye.
This time, Chongzhen was really surprised.
I didn't expect this old castrate's accuracy to be so good.
Even with a rifled rifle, it is not difficult to hit a human-shaped target from a distance of 100 meters, but it is still quite difficult to hit the bullseye from a distance of 200 meters. It seems that this old bastard has something good about high dive.
"Give me the gun." Zhu Cijiong couldn't wait to grab the rifled rifle from Gao Qiqian's hand.
After just one shot, Zhu Cijiong fell in love with the rifled rifle. It was so accurate.
"This is such a good gun!" Zhu Cijiong couldn't put it down. "Father, please give this gun to me."
"Okay, if you like it, just keep it." It was just a rifle. Naturally, Chongzhen would not be stingy, and asked Zhu Cixiang to find Zhan Yangzhi.
"Zhan Yangzhi, a foreign minister from the Ministry of Industry, bows to the Holy Spirit Jin An."
Zhan Yangzhi came over quickly and paid homage to Chongzhen.
"Zhan Weng, how many rifles can the Daming Arsenal produce each month now? Is there two thousand?"
"Back to the Holy Spirit, there are less than two thousand." Zhan Yangzhi said with some shame, "There are only fifteen hundred."
"Only 1,500 pieces per month?" Chongzhen frowned and said, "That's not what you said at the beginning of last year. You said that the monthly output would be increased to 2,000 pieces in one year."
Zhan Yangzhi said helplessly: "The main reason is the lack of manpower. It is too difficult to train a blacksmith who can skillfully roll gun tubes. And after finally training him, he was quickly poached by other workshops. In the past few months after the Chinese New Year,
, our Daming Arsenal has lost hundreds of blacksmiths."
"Who is so bold as to take advantage of the Ming Dynasty Arsenal?" Gao Qiqian said angrily.
"Gao Banban?" Chongzhen glared at Gao Qiqian coldly, "Do you want to restore the previous craftsman household system by not allowing blacksmiths to move freely and choose their own jobs?"
I feel very aggrieved when I rise from the high altitude.
I thought, "Isn't this also for the sake of Ming Dynasty?"
At that moment, Gao Qianqi argued again: "Long live the Lord, but we can't let those unruly people do what they want, right?"
"Who are the unruly people? Paying a high price to hire a blacksmith has turned into nonsense?" Chongzhen's face fell, "A blacksmith who works with the Ming Dynasty can only get a low salary in the Ming Dynasty arsenal, and cannot go to other places to get a high salary? Mr. Gao, are you really this?
Wei Feng, how about letting all the blacksmiths in the Ming Dynasty come over and work for nothing in the arsenal?"
Hearing this, Zhan Yangzhi broke into a cold sweat.
Before, he really planned to take advantage of the strong position of the Ming Arsenal to coerce the handicraft workshops to fire the blacksmiths who were poached from the Ming Arsenal at high salaries. Zhan Yangzhi even planned to punish these blacksmiths who were greedy for high salaries, so as to set a good example for other craftsmen.
Rules prevent others from following them easily.
Otherwise, this situation will only get worse.
However, this matter was finally stopped by Zhu Cihong.
Because Zhu Cixiang told him that Chongzhen would not agree to this.
Now it seems that the prince is right, and the Holy Spirit is indeed opposed to this.
Of course Chongzhen opposed this, because what he wanted was for officials to supervise private affairs, not for officials to supervise government affairs.
If the government's power is directly used to set rules for craftsmen, and they are only allowed to earn meager salaries in the Ming Dynasty Arsenal, but are not allowed to go to other workshops to earn high salaries to support their families, what is the difference between them and the previous craftsmen's households?
According to this approach, the Ming Arsenal will soon become another war bureau or weapons supervisor.
The flintlock guns produced by the Ming Dynasty Arsenal will soon become the inferior muskets of the past.
At that moment, Chongzhen asked Zhan Yangzhi: "Zhan Weng, since other workshops can give high wages to blacksmiths, why can't the Ming Dynasty Arsenal give high wages to blacksmiths?"
"Your Majesty, I really can't do this."
Zhan Yangzhi complained bitterly: "The workshops that poach people only need one or two skilled blacksmiths, so the salary can be five yuan or even ten yuan per month! But the number of blacksmiths in the Ming Dynasty Arsenal is a full three thousand. Last year they hired
After 6,000 apprentices became formal craftsmen, the number of blacksmiths reached 9,000."
"If each blacksmith is given a monthly salary of five yuan,"
"Just nine thousand blacksmiths will cost 45,000 yuan."
"Including the salaries of craftsmen in other workshops,"
"The monthly salary for craftsmen alone exceeds 50,000 yuan!"
"Fifty thousand a month, that's 600,000 a year."
Speaking of this, Zhan Yangzhi was about to cry: "Your Majesty, how can this be done?"
"The Ming Dynasty Arsenal can only produce 18,000 rifles and 500 4-inch cannons a year. Based on 2.5 yuan per rifle and 600 yuan per gun, the total is only 345,000 yuan."
"In other words, after a busy year, I still have to spend 300,000 yuan to accompany you."
Chongzhen was a little embarrassed when he heard this: "I'll talk to Ma Mingluan later."
After a pause, he added: "But even if the price is increased a little for you, it will never be increased too much, so you have to figure this out yourself. You can sign a long-term contract with the blacksmith apprentice."
"What the Holy One said is absolutely true," Zhan Yangzhi said, "I have already begun signing long-term contracts with the craftsmen."
"That's right." Chongzhen said happily, "In short, you must act according to the rules. Don't think about the privileges you can enjoy because you are the Ming Dynasty Arsenal. Privileges do not have privileges. Everything must be done according to the rules."
After a pause, he asked again: "So, the production speed of rifled rifles is even slower?"
"Yes." Zhan Yangzhi said with a bitter face, "pulling rifling is too labor-intensive and time-consuming. It only takes one month at most to drill the barrel, but it takes at least two months to draw the rifling. If all rifled rifles are produced, it will only take one month.
It can produce 500 rifled rifles, which is only about 35% of the flintlock muskets."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Hearing this, Chongzhen also sighed, the productivity level is still not good enough.
If there were a steam engine, mechanical power could be used to drill the barrel and draw the rifling, and the speed would increase tenfold and hundreds of times. At that time, tens of thousands of rifled rifles could be produced in a month.
After all, we still have to get the steam engine out as soon as possible.
At this stage, there is no steam engine, so we can only prioritize the production of muskets.
However, small batch production of rifled rifles also needs to be produced.
At that moment, Chongzhen said in a deep voice: "Zhan Weng, fifty rifled rifles must be produced every month. This will not affect the normal production of smoothbore rifles, but the price of rifled rifles can still be negotiated."
Zhan Yangzhi originally planned to refuse at all costs, but after hearing this, he immediately changed his mind and said: "How much price can the Holy Spirit give?"
After all, a businessman is still a businessman. As long as there is a profit, everything can be discussed. If it is not profitable, then there is no need to discuss anything. There is no businessman who puts aside his interests and talks about his family and country.
Chongzhen never expected that Ming Dynasty would have such merchants.
After pondering for a moment, Chongzhen said: "Five yuan a piece!"
"Ten yuan a piece!" Zhan Yangzhi said loudly, "at least ten yuan."
"Sure, just ten yuan a piece." Chongzhen agreed. The output in two years was only 1,200 pieces. A mere ten thousand yuan was not worth the extra effort of the emperor.
Zhan Yangzhi was a little annoyed, was it going to be less?
After Chongzhen left the Daming Arsenal, he went straight to Qingliangfang.
As a result, as soon as he arrived at Jinchuan Gate, Wang Chengen received a secret letter from Beijing.
After reading Li Ruolian's secret letter, Chongzhen's face suddenly became a little embarrassed.
Because what the secret message said was not good news, but bad news.
Dorgon actually completed a major reform of the Eight Banners system, not only abolishing the Eight Banners' military merit system, but also abolishing the Eight Banners' deliberation system, and then built a military machine room.
Originally, most of the military ministers in the military machine room were served by the princes, county princes, Beile and Beizi of each banner. However, in the recent Battle of Dagukou, most of the Eight Banners' princes, county princes, Beile and Beizi were killed by Yan Yingyuan with one shot.
Except for the minors, the only two brothers left in the entire Manchu clan were Dorgon and Duduo.
Then Dorgon promoted a large number of Manchus from various banners into the military machine room.
For example, Sony, who carried the yellow flag, and Obai, who wore the yellow flag, both became military ministers.
At this time, Dorgon's control over the Qing government reached an unprecedented level.
Therefore, it is completely foreseeable that the cohesion of the entire Qing court will be unprecedentedly strengthened.
This matter is certainly not a good thing for the Ming Dynasty. Originally, Chongzhen planned to use the internal conflicts of the Eight Banners to divide and disintegrate the power of the Qing court, but now it seems that his intention is probably stillborn.
After reading the secret letter, Zhu Cixi comforted Chongzhen: "Father, even if Dorgon completes the reform of the Eight Banners system, it doesn't matter even if the Eight Banners Manchuria becomes a monolith from now on, we can still find ways to divide and disintegrate the Manchus, Mongols and Han ministers
The relationship between them, especially Jiang Xiang, Wu Sangui, Hong Chengchou and others."
"Hong'er, you are a bit wishful thinking." Chongzhen shook his head and said, "It is much more difficult to differentiate the relationship between the Manchu nobles and the Han ministers and the Mongolian nobles than to differentiate between the Manchu nobles and the Manchu nobles, because
The relationship between the Manchu and Qing aristocrats was reciprocal, and there were competing interests between them. However, the relationship between the Manchu and Mongolian aristocrats, and the Han ministers was a master-slave relationship, a relationship of personal dependence.
There is no competition for interests between us.”
Zhu Cixi was a little puzzled and said: "Isn't it better to return to the Ming Dynasty and be a human being than to be a slave to the Jiannu?"
"You don't understand this," Chongzhen said with a sigh, "There is a phenomenon called convert fanaticism, which refers to the fact that after individuals from one ethnic group convert to other ethnic groups, they will show a deep hatred for the original ethnic group. This is used to prove the legitimacy and rationality of their conversion to other ethnic groups, so don’t expect Hong Chengchou and others to return to the Ming Dynasty."
