Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 270 0265 [Marriage Proposal]

After reading Zhang's marriage proposal letter, Zhu Ming sat at his desk and seriously thought about the pros and cons of this kind of marriage for him.

There doesn't seem to be much harm, but not much good.

The main reason is that the Zhang family is in Jiangxi and there is currently no one in an important position.

On the contrary, after the two get married, once Zhu Ming raises an army, he will make the Zhang family miserable.

Zhu Ming originally planned to find a Western Army general's family to marry, such as the Chong family, the Zhe family and so on.But gradually it was found that it was not feasible. Marriage between civil servants and military generals was normal in the early Song Dynasty, but gradually decreased in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty.

If you really want to get married, it's not too late to get married after you start the army. By then, it will probably become a concubine.

Zhu Ming even wrote letters in pinyin, discussing in detail the time of the rebellion, and basically determined three points in time:

First, after the Fangla Uprising, while the officers and soldiers went to Zhejiang and Zhejiang, they responded in Hanzhong.

Second, after Tong Guan's attack on the Liao Dynasty, the elite of the Western Army suffered heavy losses, which was a good time to rebel.

Third, after the Jingkang change.

Zhu Guoxiang's reply was that it was too risky to respond to Fang La's uprising, at least he had to wait until Tong Guan attacked Liao.

Ju Ming basically agreed with his father's point of view, but he felt that he could succeed in supporting Fang La.

The main force of Fangla's uprising army was wiped out within a year, simply hitting the muzzle of a gun.At that time, the officers and soldiers had already gathered in Gyeonggi, and all kinds of logistics work were done properly. Tong Guan was going to lead the army to conquer Liao, but when he learned that Fang La's uprising had no choice but to go and suppress it.

The national elite with well-equipped armor and sufficient logistics, even saved the time to gather troops, and directly pulled them to fight Fangla.How could it be possible?
To be honest, if Fang La hadn't rebelled, Tong Guan Faliao wouldn't have played so badly.At least there is no shortage of food, grass and ordnance, and morale must be much higher.

When Tong Guan finished suppressing Fang La, regardless of the outcome, the Song Dynasty's finances collapsed, because the southeast region was already riddled with holes.

At that time, Zhu Ming took the opportunity to occupy Hanzhong and Sichuan, cutting off another source of income for the Song Dynasty.Even if the elite of the Western Army were still there, there was a serious shortage of food and salaries. If they were brought in to suppress Zhu Ming, it would be easy to complain halfway.

After all, fighting is about logistics!
Just like Zong Ze in history, there is no possibility of "crossing the river" because he has no logistics to speak of.

"Zongze's Legacy" was compiled by the descendants of the Zong family, and a large amount of content is inconsistent with the official history, and it also differs from the memorials of other civil servants at that time.

There are 200 million righteous men gathered in the capital, and the food and grass can still be eaten for half a year. This kind of record can only be believed half.

Zong Ze's anti-golden spirit cannot be questioned, and the three calls to cross the river are probably true. He must be a national hero.

But Zongze's descendants said that the food and grass can last for half a year, which is pure nonsense.

There was a great famine in Gyeonggi the year before, the Cao River was blocked again, and countless rebels came. No matter how powerful Zong Ze was, he couldn't produce food.

In order to lie, the descendants of the Zong family also said that Zong Ze was ordered to dredge the Cao River, and it would be done in seven days.But the real situation is that Zongze did not receive this order at all, and before Zongze went to Tokyo, the Tokyo left-behind at that time was already dredging.

It's not very useful to dredge it up. The grain shipped to Tokyo can only barely alleviate the famine.

Because the golden soldiers ravaged the prefectures and counties, the water transport system had collapsed, and it was the limit to be able to transport a few waves of grain, and the follow-up grain transport activities were completely at a standstill.

Zong Ze's biggest problem at the time was not how to eliminate the Jin soldiers, but how to get food relief to feed the huge rebels from all walks of life.

The actual situation is: "There is a great hunger in Bianliang, three hundred dollars for a rice liter, and hundreds of dollars for a rat. People eat algae and locust tree leaves. The Taoist dies, and there is no bones left."

Even if Zhao Gou had the backbone and dared to run back to defend Tokyo, he would have to starve with Zongze.

Jin Bing also knew what was going on in Tokyo. During the Jingkang period, they had already ran out of money, and there was no money or food there, so why did they go there?From the beginning to the end, the Jin soldiers did not attack Tokyo again, but went around to attack the city in all directions.

The greatness of Zongze is that he dares to do things and is willing to be the mainstay.

Moreover, the skill of manipulating people was excellent, able to appease countless hungry rebels, and millions of hungry soldiers and civilians did not make any big troubles.

However, it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice, and no food means no food.

Half a year before Zongze's death, Zhao Gou ordered several times to resume water transportation, and it was not resumed until Zongze's death, and the officials in charge of supervising the transportation of grain were also punished. (The Cao River needs to be dredged every year by civilian workers. At that time, many sections of the river were seriously silted up, and the imperial court was unable to recruit civilian workers.)
His successor, Du Chong, was unable to appease the situation at all, because "people cannibalize each other" inside and outside Tokyo, so he simply left the mess and led the troops to run away.

Zhu Ming calculated all kinds of pros and cons, and decided to accept the Zhang family's marriage proposal.

One is to get some dowry money, and the other is to see the subsequent influence of the Zhang family.

This approach is quite shameless!
Picking up a pen to write a reply letter, Zhu Ming asked Bai Sheng to send it over.

He himself rode out of the city and took a boat to the iron smelting field.

The hydraulic forging hammer has been built, and in order to stabilize the water flow, a water reservoir has also been built.Use a hydraulic drum cart to pump water into the reservoir, and you can also use human power to step on the drum cart during the dry season-there were already windmills in the Southern Song Dynasty, but I don’t know if there were any in the Northern Song Dynasty.

There is a gate in the reservoir, which can adjust the size of the water flow, so as to control the speed of the forging hammer.

The water turbine can simultaneously drive four forging hammers for four blacksmiths to work at the same time.

At this time, the craftsmen are obviously not proficient, and they are a little flustered when they forge, and it is estimated that they will be able to fully master it in two days.

"How about the hydraulic forging hammer?" Zhu Ming asked.

Tu Shen smiled and said, "Save effort."

If a larger and higher reservoir is built, the efficiency of driving more forging hammers at the same time will be greatly improved.

Of the four forging hammers right now, two are forging steel, and two are forging steel.

Zhu Ming is already writing a letter to the emperor, saying that he can forge weapons here, and requesting the imperial court to allocate funds to forge hundred-refined steel knives.

This thing is valuable, as long as the court is willing to buy it, Zhu Ming is willing to sell it, and the iron smelter and forge must have profits.Even if hundreds of hundred refined steel knives are forged, it will not improve the combat effectiveness of the officers and soldiers, because such advanced weapons must be issued to generals.

Armor can also be made, it depends on whether the court gives money.

If the imperial court does not allocate funds, Zhu Ming can only use the Jinzhou treasury, and deposit the armor directly into the Jinzhou Armor.

After looking at the hydraulic forging hammer for a while, Zhu Ming went to look at the firecracker.

Only two craftsmen were busy, and Zhu Ming directly made bird guns.

Don't think that the bird gun is backward, its structure is relatively complicated, and it is also a precision firearm in the mid-Ming Dynasty.

With the current smelting and forging technology, it is necessary to use wrought iron to punch two tubes tightly together.The hole was very small at the beginning, and it required a stainless steel drill bit to drill all the way in. It took a month to drill the barrel of a bird's gun.

The "Wu Bei Zhi" of the Ming Dynasty complained that the blunderbuss of officers and soldiers were unusable, and gave specific reasons.

That is to say, in order to catch up with the progress, the craftsmen directly forged into iron pipes in order to save trouble, and did not drill at all.This results in barrels of different thicknesses and holes of different sizes, some of which can hold three or four bullets, and some of which cannot even fit a single bullet.In addition, there are various problems, anyway, it will explode as soon as the gun is fired.

After the trial production of the bird gun is completed, Ju Ming will continue to build it.

Only four craftsmen are arranged to make the barrel, and one craftsman is arranged to make other parts.Each craftsman makes one in 40 days, and can produce 36 firecrackers a year.

In the first year, let them train gun-making skills. From the second year, each person arranges two apprentices.

At the beginning of the rebellion, there were not many bird guns, and the officers and soldiers they faced were not strong, and they were only used to win by surprise.

……

Zhang Gen received Zhu Ming's reply, and smiled and handed it to his wife: "Send someone back to Dexing to arrange the dowry for our daughter."

"Maybe we can get married by the end of the year." Huang said happily.

The couple were very satisfied with this marriage, and had no idea that they were going to be cheated.

A few days later, Ju Ming arranged for a matchmaker to propose a marriage, and brought two big geese as gifts, and also asked for the woman's birthday.

"Please put it away, Dalang." Huang even changed his address.

Zhu Ming took the horoscope paper with both hands: "Thank you, old lady."

The woman could not see the guests at this time, so Zhang Jinping hid in the back room and took a peek with the maid.

After the business was settled, Zhang Gen invited Ju Ming to taste tea and asked, "I have been in Jinzhou for half a month, but I really can't find anything to do. Can Da Lang give me some errands?"

Zhu Ming asked, "Sir, do you want to train sergeants?"

Zhang Gen nodded and said: "As the deputy envoy of regiment training, I do have the responsibility to train sergeants."

Zhu Ming said: "There is no horse army in Jinzhou, and the infantry army has more envoys. Before I came, there were not enough sergeants, and my predecessor received a lot of empty pay. I haven't recovered these for the time being. The military pay has been used for other purposes, and there is no corruption at all."

"I don't doubt that Da Lang is empty-handed." Zhang Gen said.

Zhu Ming stated his attitude: "The state government does not have enough money and food, so it is impossible to train the Xiang army in full."

Zhang Gen said: "30 people are enough, and the salary and food are paid in full."

"Okay." Zhu Ming promised to pay 30 people and recruit young and strong troops for Zhang Gen to train.

This old man is really restless. Historically, he was relegated to the deputy envoy of regiment training, and he was promoted again by exterminating bandits.The giant bandits in Huaixi have been raging for two years, and the court dispatched many officials, but they couldn't handle it. Zhang Gen led a group of local soldiers to exterminate it.

Zhang Gen said again: "The armory in the staff library seems to be unusable."

Zhu Ming said: "Jinzhou Academy lacks craftsmen, so I'm too lazy to recruit them. I have an iron smelting factory in the mountains north of the city, where I can make some ordnance, and the state government pays for it."

"Then build thirty pairs of armor first." Zhang Gen said happily.

Zhu Ming immediately agreed to treat it as a call for himself and use public funds for reimbursement.

Going back with the woman's date of birth, Zhu Ming planned to explain to Zheng Yuanyi the matter of marrying a wife.

As soon as he returned to the state office, he was notified that two young people surnamed Wei had come to Xiangzhou.

These are the two grandsons sent by Wei Tai, who should have come after the state test last year.At that time, there were floods, refugees and bandits appeared, and I was entangled in trivial matters, which has been dragged on until now.

"Wei Yingwu (Wei Yingshi) pays homage to the prefect!" The two brothers saluted.

Ju Ming held hands happily: "Sit down and talk quickly. Last year when we bought food, we were all thanks to the generosity of the Wei family."

Wei Yingwu said: "My ancestors heard that the prefect was a great learner. I hope my two brothers can study under the prefect."

"I don't have much talent and learning, so I really don't dare to be so, just discuss knowledge with each other." Zhu Ming intends to bring the two brothers here to see if he can brainwash them. If he succeeds, it will also help him to attack Xiangyang in the future.

(End of this chapter)