After Chen Shuren arrived in Daye, he should have inspected the progress of the military industry first, but there were so many civil affairs disputes arising from Fang Yizhi's side, so he had to concentrate on dealing with them, and it only took him two or three days.
The refugees from Shaanxi and Henan who were previously resettled for farming were mainly in Changsha Prefecture, Changde Prefecture, Yueyang Prefecture and other places, but there were actually not many in Wuchang.
However, after Fang Yizhi sent troops to quell the rebellion, he killed a group of the most stubborn ones and took the remaining ones who were making trouble but whose crimes were not serious, were punished with hard labor and sent to Daye to mine.
Chen Shuren thinks this idea is good. In the future, whenever there are northern refugees who are captured and reformed, they can no longer be thrown directly into the local area for cultivation.
The Ming Dynasty was so big, the winds were different for ten miles, and the customs were different for hundreds of miles, not to mention the migration of at least thousands of miles.
Many of the cunning survival wisdom accumulated over many years of living in an area full of thieves, as well as the cunning and bad habits of causing trouble for each other, must be modified in order to adapt to life in a new province.
Originally, Shenshu people did not do this because they believed in the simplicity of the people and did not want to engage in regional differential treatment. On the other hand, they also felt that the people engaged in industrial labor were at least somewhat professional and technical and should be done by specialized people. If some people have done it
Workers, if they go back to be farmers, it would be a waste of labor skills.
But now that he has suffered through it once, he finally understands the problem——
In the late Ming Dynasty, this was not "regional discrimination". When Shaanxi and Henan were in good times, of course honest and good people accounted for the majority.
It's just that after so many years, it's impossible to survive without some bad habits. Good people die early, and natural selection reverses the elimination for decades. Those who survive must have special skills.
Without training and transformation, telling them that the laws of the world have changed and that they need to adjust their way of life, how can they naturally return to being simple and willing to be farmers?
As for the problem of "wasting hard-earned labor skills", it can be completely avoided through other detailed management methods.
For example, in just a few days, Shen Shuren sorted out all the worker positions in Daye Iron Mine and Iron Plant, dividing them into technicians with accumulated technical content and pure unskilled heavy manual labor.
Of course, all workers in military workshops are skilled workers, and they must remain professional.
For iron smelting plants, some that use blast furnaces for fueling or heavy lifting, you can first use the refugees who need to be rehabilitated, work for a year and a half, and then release them to contract land for reclamation if they perform well.
As for various mines, except for those who direct the mining, other people who work hard can be used to transform the refugees.
In addition, Chen Shuren also thought that in order to promote the right of permanent tenancy, farmers must generally know a few words - at least a hundred keywords on the relevant deeds, plus their own names and the names of the landlords.
You need to know the place names of nearby prefectures, counties and villages.
So Chen Shuren set about it and told Fang Yizhi and Song Yingxing to plan to recruit some idle and unemployed scholars to come to the Daye Mine and Iron Factory to set up the simplest rapid literacy class.
Then spend time compiling a dictionary with only two to three hundred of the most commonly used words, and let the workers work during the day and learn the words at night, and learn one or two words every day.
After one year of hard labor, you can learn enough 300 Chinese characters. If you know how to sign a contract of permanent tenancy with the government after you get out, and if you can understand the piece of paper, you can become a farmer who contracts government land.
Those who are slow to read and unable to protect their rights and interests after leaving the country may still have their legitimate rights and interests violated and cannot resist. Those who can only resist passively through destructive farming, resisting the construction of water conservancy projects, etc., then they will have to serve an additional year and a half in the mine.
Hard labor until he has learned 300 words before being released.
Those who are smarter can learn 300 characters in less than a year, and can be released early.
In addition, Shen Shuren also asked people to draw up a format of permanent tenant rights that would be used for government promotion, and found a printer to print it on a large scale.
It is stipulated that except for the empty boxes in the form contract issued by the government, such as place name, land area, location, land grade and texture description, other words are not allowed to be changed by the private sector, and the contract must be signed according to this form.
In this way, it can be ensured that "the released refugees only know 300 words, can understand the contract, and will not be raped or defrauded."
Otherwise, the main part of the contract can be modified and handwritten at will. Who knows what content the more literate party will add to it.
With most of the variables under control, the three hundred characters only need to include traditional Chinese numerals, Arabic numerals, common surnames among hundreds of surnames, place names, and characters used to describe fields. You don't need to learn the rest yet.
The biggest problem with such a high-profile effort is that many places clearly violate the "Da Ming Law" and the laws of our ancestors.
The Ming Dynasty did not have permanent tenant rights, and there was no protection or legal positioning of commercial formal contracts. As the government, it should suppress business and not intervene in business casually, let alone help merchants formulate formal contracts.
Something like a format contract has had no legal status in China since ancient times. No one knows how to define it. It didn't exist at all in the past.
Therefore, when he was helping to draft it, Fang Yizhi also reminded him: If this thing is so blatantly promoted and promoted, maybe it will come out next year, and the censors in Beijing will impeach you in front of His Majesty again.
Shen Shuren's reply to this was: Let them impeach them. In the future, find someone to record it, just find a friend in the capital. Write down which officials like to use the household law part of maintaining the Ming Dynasty law to talk about things.
Son, who came to attack political opponents and defend the "ancestral laws" of Zhang Juzheng's time,
In the future, Shenshu people will deal with it themselves.
Of course, it is limited to maintaining the "ancestral laws" in the economic part of the Ming Dynasty Law. If it is to protect the ancestral laws other than economics, he may be a gentleman. Of course, Chen Shuren will not avenge his private revenge.
After the city of Beijing is destroyed, those despicable officials who cling to the Ming Dynasty Economic Law will naturally leave no one behind.
…
The deployment took four or five days.
By November 25th, Fang Yizhi had finally completed a few tasks.
On the one hand, it is to screen out the words that need to be taught to the resettled refugees in the future.
For the surname part, because there are more than 400 characters in hundreds of family surnames, it is definitely impossible to identify them all, so we just pick the nearly 100 most common ones, and then choose the surname of each person, the surname of their close family members, and then select a dozen or so
.
The format contract of the permanent tenancy contract has also been sorted out.
Finally, Fang Yizhi also asked the officials in charge of prisons to suddenly find a bunch of cases in the past few days.
However, due to time and distance constraints, it is temporarily impossible to find cases from Yueyang, Changde, and Changsha, so what I have found are the evil gentry and unruly people in Wuchang Prefecture, especially around Daye County.
The main misdeeds of the evil gentry are, of course, "deceiving good people to contribute their efforts in building water conservancy projects, and then using other farmers who promised to pay higher rents to replace the tenant rights of farmers who contributed their efforts in building water conservancy projects".
The bad deeds of unscrupulous people are of course destructive land reclamation, especially those who are repeat offenders, wandering, and fraudulent destructive land reclamation. They have cultivated a piece of land for several years and then ran away with buckets——
Chenshu people have been very cautious in this regard. If they are just destructive reclamation and do nothing to allow the irrigation facilities to fall into disrepair, then they cannot be punished. Maybe they are just lazy?
At any time, laziness itself is not a serious crime that should be punished. After all, the Ming Dynasty has developed into a civilized era, and we cannot do what we did in Shang Yang's era (Shang Yang's era was more harsh, destructive reclamation and destruction of farmland sustainability were also
You can punish crimes by chopping off your hands and feet. Going further, you can also chop off your hands for "throwing ashes on the road", that is, chopping off your hands for littering on the road)
Therefore, Chen Shuren strictly added the prerequisite of being a repeat offender and committing crimes on the run.
If a person does not commit crimes repeatedly and does not wander around, it means that he is just lazy. Maybe he is just as lazy in farming his own land.
A wandering recidivist commits crimes, which means that this person "is not lazy and does not cause damage when planting his own fields. It is only when planting fields whose property rights belong to others that he is particularly lazy and deliberately causes damage." The subjective viciousness is completely different.
Shen Shuren also poured a bowl of water and caught dozens on both sides, preparing to show it to the public at that time, and then take the opportunity to publicize the new law and deepen the impression of tens of thousands of miners and steel workers in Daye, so that they can spread the word of mouth in the future.
, promoting Shen Futai’s harsh policies.
When the matter came to a close, Shen Shuren's only concern was that he was afraid that killing people just for these purposes would be unjustifiable - it was not that he was afraid of being impeached by pedantic officials, but that he himself felt a bit severe on punishment.
However, Fang Yizhi helped him organize it for several days, and when he finally made the move, he didn't think there was any problem at all.
He brought up the Confucian Spring and Autumn period's idea of aggravating or mitigating punishment based on malignant social influence, and discussed it with Shen Shuren, trying to prove that "as long as a bad social influence is formed, or even inspires people to learn bad behavior, then oneself
If the matter is not serious, beheading is not a problem."
In Fang Yizhi's view, these people took the lead in being cunning and brought bad habits of Shaanxi's destructive land reclamation and fishing for small gains to ruin the people's customs. Based on this, why can't they be beheaded?
?
Since Chen Shuren became an official, he really didn't know much about the Ming Dynasty Law, and he didn't study all the time. After hearing Fang Yizhi's words, he felt a little novel and learned a lot.
"In my Law of the Ming Dynasty, this was originally allowed. Because the bad social influence has ruined the social atmosphere, is there an unlimited increase in the original punishment?" Shen Shuren felt a little guilty when he asked for advice.
Fang Yizhi was worthy of being a scholar, and he gave a categorical answer: "Of course, the principle of judgment based on heart and mind has not changed since ancient times in the Spring and Autumn Period. From "Tang Lu Shu Yi" to the Song and Ming Dynasties, this idea is
Consistent.
As for the specific laws and regulations, there are many specific crimes in Ming Dynasty. When sentencing, the punishment is also increased and reduced according to the "social customs and evil behaviors".
Have you ever learned the crime of harvesting and cutting off raw materials? In my Ming Dynasty Law, this kind of harvesting and cutting is allowed, at least eight cuts, and as many as sixteen cuts and up to sixty-four cuts. Do you know why the sentence is like this?
Is it heavy?"
Chen Shuren was stunned. He really didn't know the knowledge point mentioned by Fang Yizhi.
Of course, he knew the term and crime of harvesting and cutting, which is to break the hands and feet of normal people (usually children or teenagers) and beat them into disabled people, and then force the disabled people to beg to deceive others' sympathy.
A lot of charity and some money.
This kind of thing was a serious crime in the Ming and Qing dynasties and could be delayed.
But Shen Shuren has never thought about why the sentence can be so severe - even if it is a murder charge and he kills several people, he may not be punished by lingchi.
He asked humbly: "This is really not clear. I have always felt that the penalty for harvesting, cutting, and harvesting was a bit harsh."
Fang Yizhi shook his head helplessly: "The key to this is not to severely disable people with sound limbs and to use cruel methods. More importantly, it will destroy the sympathy of the people in the place.
If a man who collects and cuts eucalyptus is exposed, but the mastermind is not put to death, what will happen to the local people in the future? If they see the disabled poor who really need help, they will treat them as cruel beggars who collect and cut eucalyptus.
Those who cheat money through discounts will damage the compassion of the people in the entire township or even the county, and the moral ethics in the township will also collapse.
Mencius said that everyone has four hearts, which correspond to benevolence, justice, propriety, and wisdom. This heart of compassion ranks first, which is benevolence. If one person's misdeeds and crimes lead to the loss of benevolence of the people in one place, we, the famous religious people, will
How can you just sit back and watch?
Therefore, in the laws of the Ming Dynasty, for major crimes such as harvesting and cutting, which undermine the compassion of the people of a certain country, the specific number of lashes will be judged based on the impact of the bad deeds.
If it only has influence in a township and brings down the people in a township who have no compassion, then at least eight knives are enough. If it has influence in a county or even a prefecture, then it can range from 16 to 64 knives.
Possibly, these sinners are being exposed to the public to praise the good and blame the evil, and to educate and warn the people not to follow their example. No matter how high it is, it probably won’t spread that far.”
Chen Shuren was also startled when he heard this.
In the era of feudal ethics, it turned out that destroying the compassion of the people and leading to a decline in morality was punished so severely?
Both the Ming and Qing dynasties could reach Lingchi!
Thanks to the lack of good media tools in the Ming Dynasty, the behavior that led to the moral decline of the people could not spread too far, so the limit of influence was limited to one government.
If it were like what happened in later generations, there would be no newspapers or media, and a person would do something shocking that would lead to a decline in people's morals, and it would be publicized to the whole country. From now on, people all over the country would lose sympathy and dare not donate money to the real crippled beggar.
According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, if it affects a prefecture, it can be hacked with sixty-four knives. If it affects a province, it is not allowed to be chopped with a few hundred knives. If it causes the moral decline of the people across the country, it is not allowed to be delayed by 3,000 knives like Yuan Chonghuan?
From this point of view, it would be better for future generations to have a civilized society governed by law, where at least there would be no unlimited increase in punishment based on influence.
…
After the last psychological barrier was removed, Shen Shuren had no scruples.
Early the next morning, he came to Daye Iron Mine in person.
The management staff of the iron mine had also been notified long ago and summoned tens of thousands of good miners, as well as more hard laborers who had just been converted from refugee army prisoners to miners, and assembled them in a large mine.
Well-informed people are already telling each other: "I heard that a lot of people will be beheaded here in a while, ranging from evil gentry to unruly people. It should be related to the people who caused trouble in Yueyang a while ago."
After the people were gathered together, Shen Shuren asked people to publicly announce the verdict and explain the reasons.
Fang Yizhi's voice was not loud enough, so he found dozens of scolders in the army in advance. After Fang Yizhi went through the motions and read it out, these scolders held wooden speakers and shouted the reasons for the verdict that they had already memorized.
once.
Then, Shen Shucai announced new regulations for the management of future refugee miners and hard labor camps, and the scolding players who should be yelled out and relayed them also did so as usual.
The tens of thousands of people below looked at each other in shock. It was obvious that their cultural level was not high enough to accept so much information at once.
But at least some smart people have understood it. In the future, when the government manages the refugees from the north, they will first learn to read and at least understand the words in the government form contract. Then they will continue to strictly punish the evil gentry and unruly people and use the government form contract.
Protect everyone’s legal and stable tenant rights.
Chen Shuren's practice of giving a stick and then a date was already considered kind among local officials in the late Ming Dynasty, but he was just a little more vigorous and resolute.
Seeing so many bloody heads, naturally no one would seek death.
Everyone knows that Mr. Futai's rule is based on one thing, not on harmony, but on clear rewards and punishments.
…
After doing all the things that needed to be done to establish his authority, Shen Shuren was finally able to inspect the armaments manufacturing situation at the Daye Iron Works according to his original plan.
Take stock of the upcoming final battle against Zhang Xianzhong and see if there are any new weapons that can be used.
Anyway, here we are. We inspected the mine early in the morning. It’s not far from the nearby ironworks. We can just turn a corner and get there.
The iron factory and other military workshops had also made preparations long ago. As soon as Shen Shuren arrived, he displayed the new results achieved in the past few months in the most conspicuous position.
The first thing that caught Chen Shuren's eyes was a pile of weapons, armor and firearms made of steel. Compared with the previous mass-produced models, there are not many qualitative changes that can be seen at a glance, but if you look closely, they are still somewhat improved. The key is the large quantity.
Fully managed and organized.
After all, there is an iron ore and iron factory nearby. This kind of gradual improvement and running-in is the easiest to achieve. Shen Shuren does not need to give instructions on his own. He can even rely entirely on the craftsmen of the military factory to figure it out themselves. Song Yingxing can give some theoretical knowledge.
Just support it.
Shen Shuren picked up the breech of the cast steel ferrule barrel leaning against a row of gun racks and loaded the double-barreled spray gun. This thing had already been used and equipped by the Shen family army when they attacked Zhang Xianzhong in Changsha Mansion half a year ago.
, the whole army at that time only had more than 1,000 troops.
So in the past six months, they have just continued to expand production. After roughly asking about the production accounts, Shen Shuren did the calculations and found that after excluding the battlefield losses in the past six months, the Shen family army can currently expand the number of double-barrel breech-loading musketeers to
Three thousand people.
Of course, considering the ultra-short range of this weapon, it can only be used as a final kick before charging and cannot carry the line, so it is still necessary to give it all to the cavalry. The best way for the infantry to continue to use muskets with a long killing range.
Compared with half a year ago, these breech-loading guns have not changed much, except that they look smoother, both on the outer wall and the inner chamber. This should be due to the upgrade of the metallurgical process and the improvement in the quality of the steel used to make the guns.
In addition, Chen Shuren also saw that these short-barreled double-barreled guns were also equipped with a new type of specially long bayonet with a custom-made ferrule, or a gun sword.
Originally, the bayonet promoted by Shen Shuren in the Huangzhou Army in the early years had a blade length of only more than two feet. With the five-foot spear, the total length could reach more than seven feet, which could barely be used as an anti-cavalry spear in close combat.
However, since the invention of the short-barreled double-barreled gun, the length of the barrel is only more than two feet, and the total length of the butt grip is less than three feet. If coupled with an old-fashioned bayonet, the attack range is completely inferior to the cavalry's spear.
It also lost the use of cavalry charges and stabbings.
Therefore, from the day the double-barreled gun was invented, it did not have a bayonet. The cavalry who used this type of firearm would also be equipped with a separate melee weapon for hand-to-hand combat.
Song Yingxing apparently discovered this shortcoming and felt that the bayonet invented by Master Futai was too easy to use. He should find a way to equip all long guns with bayonets, so he invented this bayonet for short guns with a blade length of more than four feet.
Make sure that when the gun and bayonet are put together, the total length still reaches seven feet.
Chen Shuren looked at the bayonet in front of him and was a little confused. The shape of this thing actually looked a bit like the three-edged bayonet of the 1960s. Of course, the extra bulge actually only served to strengthen the ribs and was blunt.
The reason is not to add an extra sharp edge to enhance the damage, but just to make the blade body less likely to break when forging a longer blade using materials that are not too strong.
In the later generations of Shen Shuren, in the early years on the Internet, I also saw a lot of street stall articles boasting the lethality of the three-pointed bayonet. I remember that there were particularly many before 2010, and they were exaggerated. Later, the information became more and more transparent, and the level of netizens gradually improved. Those
The street stalls said that the market gradually became smaller and disappeared.
The triangular bayonet certainly has no unique killing effect compared to later modern bayonets. The reason why it was eliminated was not because it was too cruel and was banned. It was entirely due to the improvement of the metallurgical process. After the quality of the steel became better, there was no need to add reinforcement ribs.
, the blade will not break. However, after being stunned, the versatility of the bayonet will be greatly limited.
Song Yingxing's new stabbing on the bayonet was entirely his own idea, not Shen Shuren's blind command. What Song Yingxing wanted to solve was the problem of steel strength.
Of course, after he made this reinforced bayonet, it was not completely without benefits. After Chen Shuren asked briefly, he learned that this new type of bayonet with reinforced ribs has a huge advantage, that is, it is low cost and can be directly molded.
Pouring molten steel for casting.
Previous bayonets had to be forged by a blacksmith. Although only traditional blacksmiths were needed and no high-tech blacksmiths who could make barrels were needed, they were still blacksmiths after all. It is always good to save the manpower of technicians.
.
In addition, this is also the steel plant here in Daye. It uses a new blast furnace, increases the furnace temperature, and improves the quality of the steel, so that it can do this.
If you use traditional low-temperature cast iron and cast it directly, the quality will be even worse. It will be full of loose holes. However, the Daye Iron and Steel Works improved by Shen Shuren produces at least the quality of primary cast steel, which is directly molded.
It became a reality that bayonets with reinforced ribs could be easily polished and put into use.
The processing technology of materials is so much cheaper that it would not be a pity to break it and scrap it after a few fierce battles on the battlefield. Anyway, the gun body does not need to be replaced. The bayonet on the head can be directly removed and another one is put on. It can also be regarded as a "modular design"
.
After reading it, Chen Shuren commented: "This thing can be manufactured on a large scale to save costs, but it is better to use it for the cavalry. It is more convenient for the cavalry to have lances and sabers. It can be used as a supplement at most. I don't mind it."
If it's heavy, you can hang an extra one on the horse's back.
However, directly using cast steel to make reinforced bayonets is a cost-saving method that can be used by non-direct troops who will expand the army in a large scale in the future. After all, the output is large, which facilitates mass production in a short period of time and does not occupy the working hours of senior craftsmen.
"
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After looking at the bayonets and muskets, Chen Shuren saw several bright breastplates placed next to them. They looked similar to the torso of the full-body plate armor in the West a hundred years ago, but they were much thicker.
Chen Shuren's eyes lit up, and he felt that this thing had the flavor of a cuirassier from the 18th century and the Napoleonic era.
This thing is not an innovation, because full-body plate armor appeared in the West after 1450, and reached its peak before 1550. Then with the popularity of firearms, full-body plate armor began to gradually disappear.
Chen Shuren had Spanish and Dutch people recruited from Zheng Chenggong. Song Yingxing and Fang Yizhi naturally had the opportunity to discuss with these foreigners during their daily work. In the end, it was not surprising that he combined Chinese and Western elements and absorbed the advantages of Western heavy armor.
.
Chen Shuren has been in a high position for a long time and is extremely wealthy. There is almost nothing that he has not seen in this era.
Therefore, in the past few years, his family has collected several sets of full-body plate armor purchased from the West at high prices - not for personal wear on the battlefield, but purely for collection and for reference.
Therefore Chen Shuren also knows that the thickness of full-body plate armor in the West is generally between 1.5 and 2.5 millimeters. Corresponding to the scale of the Ming Dynasty, it is less than one cent thick, and at most half a cent to 0.7 centimeters.
Don't underestimate the half-thick full-body plate armor. According to the density of steel, the whole body weight is already over 25 kilograms. If it is 0.7-thick, it can reach a total weight of more than 30 kilograms, not counting the helmet and iron gloves and iron boots.
, it definitely requires a strong man to wear it.
Such plate armor cannot even protect against black powder lead bullets with a muzzle kinetic energy of 500 joules, so it was eliminated.
But the breastplate Chen Shuren saw now was at least two cents thick, which was three times the thickness of heavy full-body plate armor! About six to seven millimeters.
The price is that this dome-like piece of armor can only protect the chest and the front of the torso. This piece alone weighs 15 kilograms, which is equivalent to 26 kilograms per pound.
Chen Shuren rolled his eyes, weighed the breastplate and asked, "Can this protect against single-headed lead bullets from cannons? Ironclad cotton armor can already protect against small shotguns, right? And it was specially made to be so heavy.
, mostly to prevent single-headed bombs."
Song Yingxing, who accompanied the inspection on the side, was convinced when Master Futai pointed out the key: "Your Excellency, you are really well-informed, and I will tell you the truth. This thing is simply the thickest Western breastplate made twice as thick as an experiment.
Finally, it can protect against single-point bullets with a charge of four cents and lead bullets weighing four cents.
However, if you really want to use it, it needs thick leather and cotton inside, otherwise the force caused by the dent in the steel armor can still cause internal injuries or fractures. It is also too heavy, this piece weighs more than 25 kilograms, so there is really no way
Full body protection can only protect the chest and abdomen.
If you want to defend against shotguns, ordinary iron-clad cotton armor is enough. In addition, it is also thanks to the steel from Daye Iron Works that the quality is better than elsewhere, so we can use heavy water hammer to forge such thick armor."
Shen Shuren made a few casual comments, and he still encouraged his subordinates' spontaneous innovation. However, this kind of heavy armor is of little use for fighting the peasant army in front of him, because Zhang Xianzhong's army does not have many firearms.
.
Unless in the future Zhang Xianzhong seized part of the old and disrepaired firearm inventory in the Sichuan Ming Army's arsenal, and insisted on using single-ended bullets in battle, then this new type of armor would still have some use.
Otherwise, it can only be used to strengthen the protection of the generals for the time being.
After Chen Shuren read it, he continued to ask: "These are all piecemeal and small. Are there any qualitative breakthroughs? Are none of the wild ideas that I have cared about in the past been realized?"