The craftsmen and blacksmiths recruited by Li Zhi are full of expectations for a better life in the future:
It was the second day that blacksmith He Laoer moved to Fanjiazhuang. The second uncle of the captain, Li Dao, was the chief officer of the gunsmiths. He made the decision and allocated He Laoer a small courtyard to the north of the village. There are three rooms in the courtyard.
There was a kitchen, but it had been abandoned for a long time, and the eaves and tiles were broken and leaking. It took He Laoer and his wife a whole day to clean up the cobwebs and drive away the rats and insects entrenched in the house. Fortunately, the management team
Fortunately, He Laoer got twelve taels of moving money, so he had enough money to hire a mason to repair the house.
The family first moves into a house with more complete roof tiles, and lets the masons repair the other two houses first. After the two houses are repaired, the family moves into the repaired house, and lets the masons repair the remaining room and kitchen.
It was still dark, so He Laoer got out of bed.
He Laoer's wife was woken up by He Laoer. She sat up sleepily and cursed: "He Laoer, what are you doing getting up so early? Are you seeing a ghost? I haven't seen you get up so early in so many years.
!”
He Laoer glared at his wife and said, "Don't yell blindly, don't wake up Zhuzi!"
The couple were already in their thirties, and they only had a four-year-old son, Zhuzi, whom they loved very much. When He Laoer mentioned Zhuzi, the woman lowered her voice and said, "What are you going to do?"
?”
"My master's house is repairing the yard. I'm going to see if there's anywhere I can help!"
"Our family is also repairing the yard. You don't care about it. Why do you go and help your master with it?"
"What do you, a woman, know? Now that the leader of the team is giving such a high monthly salary of two taels of silver, do you think it is for free? You have to learn how to make a 'rifle' within half a year. If you don't have a good relationship with the master,
If you can’t learn it in half a year, your monthly income will be reduced to one to two or five cents, and life will not be so easy!”
He Laoer's daughter-in-law spat: "What are you afraid of? Didn't you say that if you can't learn it, your master will deduct your monthly payment after half a year? Are you afraid that he won't teach you?"
He Laoer shook his head and said: "What do you know? It's better to learn skills from others, or to be more diligent!" After a pause, He Laoer said: "Once you learn the skills, your monthly salary will rise to three taels. If you do it,
There is also a rifle and a silver reward, and then our family will really have a good life!"
He Laoer's daughter-in-law smiled and said: "Then when you leave school, we can have another daughter to raise! We will have both children!"
He Lao Er glanced at his wife with disdain, turned around, but couldn't help but laugh. Thinking of the good days ahead, He Lao Er, who had only slept for three hours, did not feel tired at all, and only felt that his whole body was full of strength.
.
After pouring half a basin of water from the water tank and washing his face, He Laoer put on his patched clothes and walked to Master Shen Dagui's house. When he arrived at the door of Shen Dagui's yard, He Laoer found that the door was open and several people were in the dilapidated house.
The masons and carpenters who had stayed overnight had already gotten up to work.
Shen Dagui moved to Fanjiazhuang seven days earlier than He Laoer. At this time, the renovation of the house was nearing completion. With the moving money given by the management team and the generous monthly payment, Shen Dagui was willing to use money and various materials for the renovation of the house.
The work was done very solidly, and at this moment, the Shen family yard, which was almost completed, looked quite decent.
In the yard, Shen Dagui's blacksmithing stove, anvil, and various tools have been arranged, and he can start making guns.
Shen Dagui saw He Laoer coming so early and said with a smile: "He Laoer, I haven't even started the furnace yet, and you're here?"
He Laoer said diligently: "Master, I'm here to check on your house repairs and see if there's anything I can do to help."
Hearing He Laoer's words, Shen Dagui smiled and said affectionately: "Come, come, take a look. There are many places for you to help!"
Although Shen Dagui said so, in fact, Shen Dagui's yard has been basically repaired and does not need any help. Shen Dagui took He Laoer and looked around. He saw several masons in his yard going back and forth to lay up walls and tiles. The two of them just looked at
It was lively.
After watching for a quarter of an hour, another apprentice of Shen Dagui also came.
Shen Dagui said: "Since you two are here, we will open the furnace and make a rifle handle! I will demonstrate in front, and you two will watch carefully from the side." After thinking about it, Shen Dagui said: "You are also old blacksmiths. You can hammer out a handle.
I’m afraid you all know how to hammer a thick barrel, but do you know how to straighten the barrel’s bore?”
When He Laoer heard Shen Dagui's question, he knew that Shen Dagui was teaching wholeheartedly and was not prepared to hide anything, and he couldn't help but feel happy.
"Please also ask Master to teach me!"
Shen Dagui nodded and said: "Every time you grind the bore with a drill, you have to lift the barrel and aim it at a bright place to see if you can see through. If you can't see through, you have to hit it with a hammer to block the light.
Knock the part that blocks the light straight until the entire barrel is straight, and then use a thicker drill bit to grind it again!"
"You have to do it to understand the secret behind this. Today is the first day, you two will watch me do it first!"
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After finishing the work of making rifles, Li Zhi began to recruit soldiers. In the late Ming Dynasty, there was no military force. No matter how much money you made, it was still a castle in the air. Sooner or later, you would be plundered by the Tatars and Jiannu.
Li Zhi deliberately moved the soap workshop and textile factory to Fanjiazhuang and put them under his own management. This way the confidentiality work would be easier and safer. However, Fanjiazhuang was too small. There were no vacant houses in the village and could not accommodate nearly two people.
Thousands of workers and their families settled there. So the first thing Li Zhi had to do was to build a new city close to Fanjiazhuang, and build factories and residences in the new city to accommodate the workers.
Building a new city requires building new walls, and Li Zhi planned to leave this matter to the newly recruited soldiers.
Li Zhi plans to recruit two thousand soldiers. Of course, a Fanjiazhuang management team does not need so many battalions. All the soldiers Li Zhi wants to recruit will be his servants.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, generals hired servants extensively because the soldiers belonged to the imperial court. No matter how much money the generals spent on training the soldiers, they would be gone to make wedding clothes for others after being transferred. Ming Dynasty
At the end of the officialdom, even the generals who led troops felt insecure and generally spent their money on servants who could always follow them. Even when going into battle, the main force was the general's servants.
This situation has become a common practice in the late Ming Dynasty. As a military attache, Li Zhi was certainly not willing to work hard to build a strong army and then be transferred away. By then, all his Mini rifle soldiers would become someone else's subordinates.
In that case, not only would he be making wedding clothes for others, but all the secrets of his Minnie rifle would be leaked. Therefore, Li Zhi did not plan to expand the size of Fanjiazhuang's troops, but instead recruited two thousand soldiers.
Of course, externally speaking, they are servants, but internally Li Zhi calls this first armed force the Selected Front Regiment. Li Zhi is not used to the military names of such and such a certain battalion of a certain army in the Ming Dynasty, and plans to use the names of divisions, regiments, battalions, and companies in later generations.
They used names like this to call their troops. Later generations called them more directly, so that their own people could tell the size of the troops at once.
