Red Mansion Soldiers

Chapter 276 Pull out the carrot and bring out the mud

Things are not complicated.

Wei Chen, the doctor in the Ministry of Industry's Yu Heng Qing Li Division, as the doctor in charge of ordnance construction, usually seems to be inconspicuous, but in fact they have a lot of real power in their hands.

Although the Military Selection Department of the Ministry of War is far inferior to the Qing Li Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, it still barely deserves the term "low status and weight".

At the very least, when the chiefs of the various armies came to Luoyang to request new ordnance, in addition to having to do a good job in front of the Taiwei to get the approval slip, they also had to have a drunken night with the doctor of Yu Hengqing's official department.

What if this guy messes up and gives me defective weapons, right?

Although the officials of the Qing Dynasty in previous years said they had to have everything they needed to eat and drink, they still had steelyards in their hearts. They were very clear about what should be taken and what should not be touched. The limit was to resell swords, guns, swords and halberds in the rivers and lakes. As for artillery ?

Hehe, I don’t even dare to take out the blunderbuss, let alone the artillery!

If you are caught selling swords and spearheads, you will be fined twice at most and have to spend three years in prison. Since the swords produced by the Daqi Ministry of Industry are of excellent quality and are made of steel, far superior to the wrought iron weapons made by private craftsmen, they are smuggled out. There is no need to worry about selling the sword at all, and you even have to pay a premium of three to four times to buy a military-standard steel sword.

Take off the standard equipment and replace it, then engrave your name on the sword, and it will become a famous sword.

"Sigh, but I remember that these academies were taken over by the Ministry of Rites within a few years of opening. Thanks to these people, the government-run schools from the imperial court to the county were directly transformed into township schools or even village schools. In a sense , they can be regarded as indispensable." Lu Guan said with emotion.

Is it really because there are too many Nine Tribes or something?
There is no need to smuggle artillery!
Until this man named Wei Chen became the doctor of the Qing Dynasty.

Under the heavy pressure, other people would have resigned themselves to their fate and just made do with their backs to the sky for the rest of their lives. Wei Chen originally thought so too, but his father took a strong stance and firmly gave up. With a slap in the face, he left his hometown under tremendous pressure to survive, and took his family of five to live in the county town.
“It’s also thanks to Wei Chen and his family that they have direct relatives working in the county, and they helped them gain a foothold in the county. Otherwise, even the family’s food and clothing would be a problem.

Among the civil servants and generals who were born as old water workers, every one of them had Mr. Xu Wusugong and Mrs. Liu as their backer.

Jia Hui doesn't know whether to call him brave or timid.
Call him courageous, the embroidered clothes' first torture instrument had just been put on his body, and he was already so frightened that he became incontinent.

Call him coward, this guy actually dares to smuggle artillery!
But being timid is also a good thing when it comes to embroidering clothes. Except for those jailors who are shaking with regret.

Jia Hui rubbed his mustache: "Actually, it's no different. Those schools and academies are nominally owned by the government. In fact, the people who give lectures and go to school are still the same group."

It's enough to build an ethnography school at home to train your own children. Do you still want to build a school in your hometown that anyone can attend?

"I remember clearly that the letter on the piece of paper at that time contained one sentence, 'Are you going to rebel?', which scared me so much that I didn't even dare to cry out when I was being punished." When talking about his own embarrassment, Lv Guan didn't show any signs of embarrassment. Embarrassed, my face is full of nostalgia.
How much wine have you drunk? You, a military general, dare to train a civil service team?

Coupled with the fact that Koyoshiro Center is well aware of the established rules, each shipment is pitifully small, and things are rare and expensive, so the price of the sword cannot fall.

Therefore, even after paying the fine, they actually still have some surplus on hand.

Hearing this, Lu Guan nodded: "That's true. Back then, I was planning to build a building in Huai'an, so I wrote a letter to the old man hoping to get permission. But what I got was that the old man's family law was poor, and the thirty sticks were given to him. I was so shocked that I broke out in a cold sweat!"

In addition, his Tongsheng clan brother doesn't seem to be big-minded.

Through interviews and file investigations, the embroidery workers have roughly figured out the thread.

"Then there's nothing we can do. After all, taking away other people's schools has already caused a lot of criticism among scholars. If we confiscate other people's homes for running schools privately," Lu Guan sighed and shook his head, "After all, the country needs them to help govern. of the world,"

After that, Wei Chen went to the academy run by the Luo family in Yangquan.
It just so happened that Shi Xing returned to his hometown and set up a school. What kind of education seeds were cultivated? Of course the Luo family, whose ancestral home is in Yangquan, had to keep up. On the one hand, it was to raise hopes of becoming a real big family, and on the other hand, it was to recruit talents! "

Generally speaking, the clan will support this kind of motivated children. However, the trouble lies here. At that time, there was already a clan brother who passed the Tongsheng test, and the Wei family only occupied half of the village in the local area. The small clan has no ability to support another scholar who is completely out of work!

Wei Chen was from Yangquan. His family was poor when he was young, but he wanted to study and change his family.

Do you have any strange thoughts?
Do you have a talking fox in your backyard?
Are there any fish with something in their stomachs kept in the well?
Is there a stone man with one eye buried in the drainage ditch?
At that time, the emperor had just secured his throne and had just expelled the influence of his uncles from the court to take over the power. Everyone looked like a remnant of the uncles' faction. It was the time when he was most suspicious. Thanks to the old man, he woke him up. , otherwise.
Jia Hui didn't say anything after hearing this. It was inappropriate to say anything at this time.

Jia Hui nodded in agreement.

And what about selling artillery?

It's like this these days. Since we don't have the courage to break everything and cultivate a group of people from scratch, we have to make compromises with those who have the knowledge.

In fact, Jia Hui, who mastered the art of war, was also in this circle. Her butt is already sitting on the chair, and it is even one of the huge butts sitting on the top. Jia Hui is not one of those martyrs who can take his own life first, so since he has no intention of breaking all this , unwilling to let the country sink, reformism became the best choice.

The rest of the story is not important anymore. Lu Guan only needs to know how Wei Chen from the Yu Heng Qing Li Department of the Ministry of Industry got involved with the Luo family.

"As the only scholar who passed the Luo Family Academy in just a few years, Wei Chen also relied on the secret support of the Luo Family to slowly pass the exams for Juren, Jinshi, and finally joined the Ministry of Industry as an official. ."

From becoming a Jinshi to becoming an official in the Ministry of Industry, everything was quite peaceful. It wasn't until Wei Chen became the doctor of Yu Hengqing's official department that someone from the Luo family came.
At first, Wei Chen thought that the Luo family just wanted to smuggle some weapons to the grassland. It wasn't a big problem. In addition, this was an extra-currency project passed down from generation to generation among officials in the Qing Dynasty. Wei Chen didn't think much about it and gave them a batch of weapons without hesitation.
Then the second batch, the third batch, the fourth batch
The pleasure of receiving money really made Wei Chen intoxicated!
He became more and more lavish in spending money, and the things he played became more and more exciting. The stolen money from reselling swords was quickly spent, and he even owed a large sum of money to the gambling house.
A total of seventy thousand taels!
Although the salaries of Daqi officials are high, even some third-rank officials cannot guarantee that they will receive more than ten thousand taels of salary every year, let alone Wei Chen, who is only a fifth-rank doctor.

In fact, due to the implementation of the "high salary to support integrity (but not that high salary)" policy, and the fact that it has only been a century since the founding of the Qi Dynasty, the number of redundant officials accumulated is not that many. About twenty-six thousand people.

This number is very stable and has not changed in more than ten years.

Of course, the biggest factor affecting the number of officials is Qi Ren's temper that breaks out with violence.
According to incomplete statistics, approximately 900 to 1100 officials die every year due to quarrels, conflicts, fights, riots and even small-scale rebellions.

They even often end up losing their lives when trying to break up a fight.

Da Qi inadvertently solved the problem of as many as 120,000 redundant officials from the previous dynasty.
The annual salary of a fifth-grade official is two hundred taels of silver per year, with an additional reward of one hundred taels per year. In addition, he was given a sacrificial utensil, one sheep and one pig, five coins of gold, one twelfth ounce of silver, one piece of silk, and a total of three kilograms of various spices. According to the recent market value, the salary of a fifth-grade official is about four hundred taels a year.
Let's count it as four hundred taels, so Wei Chen would have to live for a full 175 years without buying new clothes, not participating in social activities, not spending a penny or even eating or drinking to pay off the principal of the debt. .
This doesn’t even count the interest on usurious interest rates!
God knows how he owes it!

"Hey, you can tell at this glance that Wei Chen has been tricked. Even a fool can react to this kind of thing!" Lu Guan curled his lips, then picked up the purple clay pot and took a sip.

Jia Hui hesitated to speak. The corners of his mouth twitched a few times, but in the end he still didn't say anything.
Protector General, you have even been scolded by your words.
Next, when Wei Chen was desperate, the Luo family helped Wei Chen solve his debt problem like an angel descending to earth, and their only request was that he should do some artillery business.

With the handle in hand and the great favor of supporting him to study for the imperial examination, Wei Chen made up his mind after thinking about it for a quarter of an hour.
"In the beginning, I just transported a few muskets to the young masters of the Luo family for hunting. I transported them five or six times in total. After I felt that this route was mature, I started smuggling artillery."

Of course, the new artillery that is cast needs to be inspected and accepted.

The artillery acceptance process of the State and North Korea is to test-fire five times with a standard amount of gunpowder, and then use twice the standard amount of gunpowder for test-firing. For example, the standard is three liang of gunpowder, and the test-firing is six liang. Fire two three-cent heavy lead bullets and fire them several times without any problems to be considered qualified.

Even some newly built artillery that is actually above the qualification line cannot withstand this rigorous and extensive test.

The standard dosage is three ounces of gunpowder. Can you say that a newly cast cannon with a limit of five ounces of gunpowder is unqualified?

Even those guns that passed the test left some hidden damage.

However, it is precisely because of this rough testing method that Wei Chen has a lot of room for maneuver.
Anyway, some of the forged artillery must be unqualified, so those artillery that can pass five standard tests, but may not pass twice the test, become their targets.

In fact, there are still traces to follow whether the artillery can pass the test.

The easiest way is to look at the caster.

The work of a master artillery craftsman must have a higher yield than that of an ordinary artillery craftsman.

Since the standard for becoming an artillery craftsman is to be "familiar with all casting processes and be able to lead apprentices to cast more than ten qualified artillery pieces by themselves", there is no specific indication of the minimum yield rate, so except for those who intend to increase the yield rate to 80% to become a major Except for the craftsmen, the rest of the artillery craftsmen actually don't care much about how many unqualified artillery pieces are. They only need to ensure the minimum standard of twenty qualified artillery pieces every year.

Wei Chen's target was these ruined artillery craftsmen's works.

Anyway, he is the one in charge of the test, so which artillery works and which does not work, isn't it all a matter of his few strokes?
They will not make trouble just because the yield rate of a certain batch of artillery is low, thereby losing their iron job.

“After obtaining these artillery pieces that have passed five standard usage tests, the next step is to find a way to transport these artillery pieces.

It happened that the weapons and artillery factories of the Military War Bureau were placed outside the city to save time and effort and facilitate testing. This was even more convenient. You only need to use the smuggled swords and tie them to the small cannons to be smuggled. It was impossible to tell what they were transporting, and the officers and soldiers on night watch had long been accustomed to the doctor's instructions when smuggling swords, so they couldn't even notice what they were transporting! "

"Hmph, these guardsmen are really rotten to the core!" Lu Guan snorted coldly, very dissatisfied with these guardsmen who wanted to take advantage of them.

Jia Hui nodded in approval, but there was nothing he could do about it. This was the ancestral law of the country.

And even if all the guards in the country are in ruins, with the huge number of people, they can still raise a few tens of thousands of troops at any time, which can become a qualified army with a little training and blood.

"Then it's the Luo family's business. Once Wei Chen transports the artillery to the designated location, the Luo family will transport the artillery as quickly as possible to Datong."

"So, who in Datong Town dared to set off cannons and leave the border?" Lu Guan held his purple clay pot and rubbed the surface of the purple clay pot with an expressionless face.

Jia Hui paused and spit out a name:
"Shi Bingyuan, the general in charge of the garrison in Marburg, was assisted by the Shanxi Provincial Governor."

. . . . . .

"Hahahaha, welcome, welcome brothers who embroider clothes to come to Datong!"

In the backyard of Cui Ji Tea Shop in Datong City, Cui He, who was dressed in outer clothing, was enthusiastically saluting Baihu, who was dressed in embroidered clothes.

"Haha, General Cui is so polite. Your reputation is like thunder, even among our embroidered clothes, you are very famous!" The embroidered clothes Baihu twitched the corner of his mouth and said politely to Cui He somewhat unskilledly.

He is not one of those people who works as an undercover agent. He is responsible for ransacking homes and conducting assassinations. He really doesn't have much time to play with the world.

After a few more awkward words, the two stopped at the same time.

Take your seat.

This kind of occasion is really not allowed to be known to other people, so there is not even a servant in the backyard, not even Li Sananniang.

"So, what's the mission this time?" Cui He got straight to the point.

Hundreds of embroidered clothes have no objection to Cui He's directness, but they like it very much.

"Since General Cui asked, I will tell you directly.

Based on your intelligence, General, I, Xiu Yi, captured Wei Chen, a doctor in the Qing Li Department of Yu Heng, Ministry of Industry, and found that the artillery was indeed flowing from him. Later, they secretly tracked the Luo family and found that they came out of Polu Fort and Zhuma Fort.

After Ji Qian knew about it, he ordered two small cannons to be used as bait and placed them again at the location provided by Wei Chen, intending to transport them away to the Luo family and let others take away the stolen goods.

Anyway, because Wei Chen confessed so quickly, the Luo family didn’t know he was captured and released, and they thought he had escaped.”

(End of this chapter)