It is the eighth day of the first lunar month in the first year of Tianyou.
Zhou Jun, who was in the government meeting hall, looked at Sun Aying who was standing in front of him and asked, "Have you seen the letter of appointment recommending you as Chishui Military Envoy?"
Sun Aying said: "My lord, I saw it."
Zhou Jun: "The largest army is none other than Chishui. It covers an area of 5,180 miles, with Tubo in the front and Uighur in the north. It has 32,000 soldiers under its command, which is the largest among all the armies in Hexi and even in the entire Tang Dynasty.
An army. But after Fang Guan's defeat in Chang'an, the Chishui Army now only has more than 17,000 people."
Sun Aying hesitated for a moment and replied: "Your Majesty, Aying..."
Zhou Jun: "What? Are you worried that you are not competent?"
Sun Aying was silent.
Zhou Jun: "I said earlier that you are still young and cannot be the leader of my personal army forever. Sooner or later, you will have to go out and make a career and achieve great achievements. Besides, I just made Wang Sili the Hexi Festival
Du Shi, this man has always been resourceful and resourceful, and I feel at ease if you work under him."
Sun Aying finally stopped refusing and bowed and said: "Aying will definitely live up to the Lord's expectations!"
Zhou Jun smiled and said: "That's right... Oh, one more thing, after you take up the post of Chishui Military Envoy, among those in the Guards, who can take over your position?"
Sun Aying thought about it and said: "Ban Wei Zheng is smart, and he is good at marching and fighting, but he spent his early years in the market and contracted some stubborn diseases, so he is not suitable to be a guard; Zhang Yanling was born as a refugee, and his family is old.
Xiao died of famine. He hated the powerful and wanted to get ahead. His temperament was a bit utilitarian and not suitable for him. However, there was another person among the refugees, Wang Hong and Wang Liulang..."
When Zhou Jun heard the name Wang Hong, he was startled and asked, "Where is Wang Liulang from?"
Sun Aying: "A native of Jinyang, Bingzhou."
Zhou Jun: "Do you have any words?"
Sun Aying: "You, whose courtesy name is Honghu."
Zhou Jun heard this and recalled it.
Wang Hong is recorded in history books as a martial arts scholar during the Suzong period of the Tang Dynasty.
When he was young, he was very fond of military science, studying military books and practicing battle drills. When he grew up, he was well-known in the countryside for his wisdom and authority. During the Tianbao period, he was promoted to the Yulin Army Suwei.
After that, he successively served as the governor of Chenzhou, the governor of Rongzhou, the inspector of the Ministry of Etiquette, the minister of provincial affairs, the defense envoy of Dongji Ru, etc.
During his tenure, Wang Hong once led troops and defeated the Lingnan barbarians, Tubo people and Hexi rebels several times. He was called the general who protected the country by Tang Dezong.
Zhou Jun sighed a little, such people actually became refugees.
Thinking of this, Zhou Jun said to Sun Aying: "Let Wang Liulang be the leader of the personal army."
Sun Aying raised his hand and said yes.
After Sun Aying left the meeting hall, Kong You walked in with a pile of memorials and official documents.
Zhou Jun looked at the documents that were high above his head and felt a headache. He asked Kong You, "I've already seen a batch of them, so why are there so many?"
Kong You: "Your Majesty knows the military and government affairs of Anxi, Beiting, Hebei, Hexi, Shuofang and other places at the same time. Naturally, there are many things that you need to review...I have already screened a lot of them. These are urgent matters. I still want to see them."
There are many things that are not particularly urgent, so I have compiled them into a collection and will show them to the Lord later."
Zhou Jun sighed and looked at the many memorials and official documents on the desk. He first picked up a letter from Anxi and started reading.
The letter was written by Mao Shun of Jianghong Taixue, which detailed the development progress of the new artillery at the Anxi Arsenal.
Li Siye used gunpowder and artillery to defeat the Dashi army in the third Battle of Talos.
After Zhou Jun read the report of that battle, he found that although traditional artillery has a long range, its damage is small, it is very dependent on the terrain, and it cannot pose a sufficient threat to the enemy because of its small number.
Therefore, Zhou Jun once wrote a letter telling Anxi Arsenal that if you want to use artillery to cause huge damage to the enemy, then it is necessary to change the thinking of artillery manufacturing in the direction of maximizing lethality.
In the letter, Zhou Jun, who had studied armaments courses at the police academy, provided the Anxi Arsenal with the design drawings of a new artillery—the Tiger Crouching Cannon.
The Tiger Crouching Cannon is the master of firearms in the Ming Dynasty.
It is only 2 feet long from head to tail, with 7 iron hoops added around the body. The cannon head is supported by two iron claws and reinforced with iron trippers. The total weight is only 36 kilograms.
Compared with the bronze artillery that fires a single shell, the Tiger Crouching Cannon belongs to the category of shotguns, and its range is only about twenty to thirty steps.
Each time it is fired, 100 small lead bullets or pebbles weighing 5 taels are loaded into the barrel of the Tiger Crouching Cannon, and a large lead bullet or large stone bullet weighing 30 taels is used to press the top, so as to maximize the efficiency of the gunpowder explosion airflow.
change.
When fired, large and small bullets fly out together with a thunderous roar, large lethality and radiation range. It is most suitable for close range artillery fire when the enemy formations are dense.
Compared with those artillery pieces that weigh hundreds of kilograms at a time, the Crouching Tiger Cannon is somewhat compact. Soldiers with a little more strength can even hold the Crouching Tiger Cannon with both hands, put it on their waist, and point the muzzle toward the enemy.
Near launch.
Therefore, Zhou Jun hoped that the Anxi Arsenal would temporarily stop the production of bronze curved fire cannons and start producing tiger crouching cannons instead.
However, there are several troublesome problems in the production of Tiger Crouching Cannon.
Among them, the biggest problem is the material of the gun body.
The entire body of the Tiger Crouching Cannon is made of wrought iron. Since it is a shotgun, the gun barrel has a large amount of explosives, so the requirements for the material of the gun body are relatively high.
Although the iron hoop on the outside of the gun body can effectively prevent the barrel from exploding, if the wrought iron material is not up to standard, the service life will be greatly reduced, and the breech may even backfire.
However, although Zhou Jun knew the structure of the Crouching Tiger Cannon and could draw the relevant drawings, the knowledge of smelting steel was not his expertise.
The only thing he knows about the iron smelting of artillery is to use refractory materials to build a blast furnace, and then leave a feeding port, a gas port and a slag port. After melting the iron scraps into a liquid state at high temperature, he continuously removes carbon impurities to obtain high-quality
of steel.
As for how to make high-temperature refractory materials, how to build gas ports and slag ports, how to generate scum in iron materials, the timing of stirring molten iron, the mixing method of slag discharging, etc., Zhou Jun knew nothing about it and could only deal with all these issues.
It was left to a group of craftsmen from Jiang Hong Taixue.
Fortunately, based on the letters of Master Mao Shun, the Anxi Arsenal has successively overcome these problems.
Among them, refractory bricks are thanks to a young craftsman named Zhu Yang. The quartz refractory bricks he accidentally discovered became the key to indigenous ironmaking.
As for the remaining blast furnace design, ventilation cooling, scum skimming, mixing and stratification, slag mixing and other technologies, Anxi craftsmen, after hundreds of experiments, finally got the technology that can be used to build the Tiger Crouching Cannon.
Wrought iron.
After the wrought iron of the cannon was made, the production of the squatting tiger cannon came naturally without any difficulty.
According to Mao Shun's introduction, the Anxi Arsenal has recruited more than 300 new craftsmen, and the production line has been expanded to five times its original size. Currently, one Tiger Crouching Cannon can be produced every ten days, and this speed is also accompanied by the proficiency of the craftsmen.
, is being further improved.
Zhou Jun felt relieved when he saw this.
The advent of the Tiger Crouching Cannon means that shotguns have officially entered the stage of war. This weapon can play a huge role in field battles, street battles and city defense battles.