The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Chapter 150: Boiled salt and sun-dried salt, fire gun and matchlock gun

After learning the good news that the rebels had captured Ruyang, the morale of everyone in the fishery camp was obviously higher, and everyone was smiling.

In this joyful atmosphere, Liu Sheng took Shen Wandeng and others, followed by Yu Hengfeng, Gongsun Tai and others to inspect the fishery camp.

It has been snowing and freezing in Daming, but the first snow has not yet arrived in the Central Valley of North America, and the temperature has remained at 5 to 10 degrees Celsius, which is not too cold.

However, in order to cope with winter, the fishery camp still builds larger temporary wooden houses, with two or three families living in one house with about ten people.

A clay brazier was built in the house, and now a coal stove and briquettes are used, so keeping warm is not a problem.

There is smoke and ash from burning firewood - there is no time to build a chimney, after all, the fishery camp has only been under construction for a month.

But everyone was originally poor people and became refugees. They could only complain about soot and other things and didn't care too much.

The fishing boats, fishing nets and other tools in the fishery camp are all brought from the riverside camp, so fishing can be carried out as soon as they arrive.

In order to cope with the rainy season, the fishery camp has built a special fish smoking house. Coupled with the low temperature in winter, the preservation of the fish brought back is basically no problem.

However, Yu Hengfeng still complained a few words about the fish.

"Commander, you don't know that there are too many fish here and they are too easy to catch. We were not sure before and there were too many fish for several days in a row.

The efficiency of smoking fish could not keep up. Apart from sending the transport ship back to the riverside camp, they had no choice but to eat it themselves - they didn't even want to share it with the salt factory, and they couldn't finish the fish there either.

Just when we were tired of eating fish, Yang Wanyong from the salt factory contacted a nearby native tribe and exchanged the fish with them for some animal meat, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc., so that we could have food here. Then it improved a bit. "

Liu Sheng laughed after hearing this and said, "I will ask the political hall to adjust the grain quota later and send more grain to your fishery."

"Thank you, handsome!"

There was somewhat of a food shortage here in North America before.

But since the rebels have seized hundreds of thousands of stones from Ruyang, they can send some one after another to relieve the food pressure in North America - North America is not short of food, but as Yu Hengfeng said, eating too much fish will always make you tired.

In addition to making smoked fish and salted fish, there are also small workshops for refining fish oil and isinglass in the fishery camp.

In later generations, fish oil was mostly used as medicinal materials and supplements, and the benefits and harms were controversial.

Isinglass is fish maw and fish foam, which is used as a food ingredient and is one of the eight delicacies of the sea.

But at this time, fish oil is mainly used to make antifreeze cream and moisturizing cream in winter; isinglass is mainly boiled into glue and used in woodworking and other aspects.

Although the demand for these two things is not large for Weibu, they are indispensable.

Nowadays, there are fish farms producing fish oil and isinglass, so Weibu no longer needs to collect and purchase such materials from the outside world.

In addition, animal bones, fish bones, fish scales, etc. from various major camps such as the fishery camp were also stored and made into phosphate fertilizer according to the method taught by Liu Sheng to be used to fertilize the fields next year.

Liu Sheng came here this time and was in no hurry to leave. After spending more than an hour carefully inspecting all aspects of the fishery camp, he found some common people to chat with others.

Although this act was somewhat of a show, it still made the people in the fishery camp feel friendly.

The people didn't have any more ideas, but some knowledgeable people like Shen Wandeng couldn't help but sigh that there were such leaders in the world who made the people feel respectable and amiable.

It is simply unjust for such a person to be unable to gain a position in the country.

However, when Yu Hengfeng, Gongsun Tai and others learned that Liu Sheng was going to rest here at night, they became confused.

Liu Sheng made it clear that he would stay in the camp set up by the guards.

But the fishery camp had to provide some materials to build the camp, and there were four to five hundred new immigrants to settle. The two of them and the stewards were really busy for a while.

The next day.

Liu Sheng took Shen Wandeng and other guards to have breakfast and then took a boat to the Longshou Bay Salt Factory.

After Yang Dagui, the executive manager here, learned the news, he quickly brought the clerical manager Wu Ming and several nearby stewards to greet him.

Speaking of which, Yang Dagui can be regarded as one of the Yuan Cong who followed Liu Sheng earlier - although he was forced.

At first, Liu Sheng placed him in the cavalry team. Later, when he saw that he was not a soldier, he asked him to change his career to be a camp manager.

Yang Dagui was not good at being a soldier, but he was quite talented in managing people and affairs. He had experience in Huachu Camp and Hebian Camp and performed well in both.

Later, Liu Sheng prepared the salt factory and promoted him to the standing manager of the salt factory.

As for Wu Ming, like Gongsun Tai, he was also an outstanding graduate of the normal class.

After Liu Sheng inspected the salt factory under the guidance of Yang Dagui and Wu Ming, he found that the production efficiency of the salt factory was not optimistic.

As early as when he was preparing for the Longshouwan Salt Factory, Liu Sheng knew that making salt in the Ming Dynasty was by no means as simple as "changing the boiling salt method to the sun salt method" in many novels.

In fact, the salt-drying method appeared very early, because the ancients also knew how to observe nature, summarize the laws, and apply them, and were no more stupid than modern people.

However, the salt-drying method has always been regarded as a secret and little known. It was not until the Song and Yuan Dynasties that relevant information began to spread.

During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, many conditions were suitable (site, climate, sunshine, etc.) and salt fields began to be built on the seaside, and salt production began to focus on drying.

Why do we say sun salt is the main ingredient?
Because at that time, there were no pumps, dehydrators and other types of machines needed for the salt industry in later generations. The efficiency was still relatively low just relying on wind and sun.

Plus there is always rainy weather throughout the year.

Sun salt needs to be supplemented by boiled salt to obtain higher yields.

As for those salt farms that do not have better conditions for drying salt, boiling salt is still the main method - and there are many salt farms that mainly boil salt. This is why there are still many kitchen households (salt workers) in the Ming Dynasty.

Although Liu Sheng was unable to replicate the modern salt-making industry based on various machines, he still made some improvements to the salt-making process at that time based on actual conditions.

For example, adding the steps of seawater filtration and sedimentation makes the brine used for salt production purer and the sea salt produced has greatly reduced impurities.

In addition, complete salt pans were built based on the experience and memory of later generations - sun-dried salt was only popularized in the Ming Dynasty. The construction of salt pans was not very particular, and the seawater utilization rate and salt production were relatively low.

Using the complete salt pan of later generations, the seawater utilization rate increased by at least [-]%!
Then for the rainy season, let the salt factory use water trucks and reservoirs. On rainy days, manually add water trucks to lift and fill the seawater, obtain brine by leaching sand, and then use firewood or coal to boil the salt.In this way, the salt factory can produce salt even on rainy days.

But rainy days still have a great impact on cooking salt.

For example, boiling salt requires the use of stored dry firewood, making the storage of firewood a very important task that consumes a lot of manpower.

Secondly, seawater is constantly washed by rain, and the salt content must be reduced, especially at the seaside, which reduces the efficiency of obtaining brine and boiling salt.

"Commander, please see, in order to cope with the production in the rainy season, we have stored a lot of firewood through logging. Even if it rains continuously for a month, we can survive!"

When Yang Dagui took Liu Sheng to inspect the firewood stacks near the salt factory and in various villages, he introduced it with some pride.

These firewoods were all stored through hard work by him, the general manager, along with the salt factory workers and the common people, which is indeed something to be proud of.

Although Liu Sheng felt that the production efficiency of the salt factory was low during the rainy season, he still recognized the hard work of Yang Dagui and others and nodded: "Well done!"

The salt farm is doing really well here.

Although it was not put into operation for a long time and the rainy season soon hit, the salt produced was enough for the eight major camps in North America, and there was even some surplus.

In addition, the Longshouwan Salt Factory can also use the technology provided by Liu Sheng to produce refined salt at an efficiency several times higher than that of the Ming Dynasty.In the dry season, when the salt farm mainly uses sun-dried salt, this efficiency will increase.

Coarse salt production is even higher.

By then, the coarse salt and refined salt produced by the salt factory can definitely be used for business and become an important source of wealth for the Ministry of Agriculture.

···
after one day.

On the afternoon of December [-]th, Liu Sheng returned to the riverside camp with more than [-] personal guards.

Liu Sheng did not stay long in North America and came to the iron workshop in Liujiazhai without stopping.

Now there are more than 100 blacksmiths and apprentices in the iron workshop.

Although Liu Sheng had recruited many blacksmiths at the Wuyang Ordnance Bureau before, only seven master-level blacksmiths and five gunsmiths (all master-level craftsmen) were sent here.

Other craftsmen were left in Queshan County.

After all, Liujiazhai is located in the mountains. Whether it is sending iron materials, timber, and coking coal into the mountains, or sending built equipment down the mountains, transportation is relatively difficult.

Therefore, Liu Sheng never thought of building the Liujiazhai Iron Workshop into a large arsenal supplying the entire army.

Instead, it is intended to be used as a weapons development center.

That’s why excellent blacksmiths and gunsmiths were sent here.

As soon as Liu Sheng came back on the tenth day of the lunar month, he gave the iron workshop a task, and today he came to check the progress of the task.

Kou Gensheng, the most skilled among the five gunsmiths, placed two muskets in front of Liu Shengming and said, "Please take a look, leader."

The Iron Works already knew that Liu Sheng had appointed himself Generalissimo, but many people still found it difficult to change their minds for a while, and Kou Gensheng was one of them.

Liu Sheng's attention was attracted by the two muskets in front of him.

One of them was a matchlock, the other a flintlock.

The so-called matchlock gun is relative to the Huomen gun - before the Jiajing Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, most of the firecrackers used in the army were Huomen guns.

As the name suggests, it is fired through red-hot iron wire or ignited charcoal, which is ignited by the fire door.

Not to mention the extremely poor air tightness, due to operational requirements, it was completely impossible to aim and the shooting range was not very far.

Even the Shenji Camp Fire Gunman in his heyday could only strike in three stages in one round, and the number of people needed to be large enough to cause enough damage to the enemy.

During the Jiajing Dynasty, Japanese pirates were rampant, which caused the Ming army to suffer heavy losses from the matchlock guns introduced from the West and Japan, so the Ming Dynasty began to imitate them.

The matchlock fires in a winning way that keeps it burning. The ignition port is much smaller than the fire door, so it is more airtight.

A gun stock is also installed, and with a match rope to ignite, you can aim and shoot.

Because the gun can be held high in the hand, it can shoot down birds standing on branches a hundred paces away, so it was named Bird Gun by the Ming Dynasty.

However, in general armies equipped with matchlocks, the optimal shooting distance is actually about 1.5 steps (one step = [-] meters), and volley fire is still the main method of killing.

If the enemy wears more than two layers of heavy armor and is lined with silk, he will need to take thirty or forty steps to defeat him.

Therefore, the matchlock gun (bird gun) was already a quite advanced and mature firearm in the late Ming Dynasty.

However, matchlock guns require higher craftsmanship and are more expensive.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty (the Chongzhen period), even in the south, where the cost of making muskets was relatively low, a musket cost four to five taels of silver.

Matchlocks are so easy to use, but the equipment rate of the Ming army is not high. Especially in the Ming army in the mainland, there are almost no matchlocks.

The high cost of matchlocks is certainly one of the reasons, but the main reason is the systematic corruption and depravity of the Ming Dynasty's military and political institutions. As a result, most of the matchlocks received by officers and soldiers were substandard and could easily explode.

In addition, when fighting bandits and bandits in the mainland, there was no need to use matchlocks. Over time, the Ming army in the mainland was no longer equipped with matchlocks.

The task Liu Sheng gave to the iron workshop was to obtain data through production tests for his reference to see which matchlock or flintlock gun is more suitable for large-scale equipment for the rebels.

When the army equips a weapon on a large scale, it cannot just be based on whether it is easy to use or powerful.

Factors such as price and output must also be considered.

Combined with the strength of the enemy, the most suitable one can be selected.

　Second more.

　　Good night~
　　Being forced to go on a blind date today, still following the same old rules from decades ago, I was really speechless.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)