Dawn of the Empire

Chapter 179: Yan Ran Can Be Destroyed (5)

Zhao Xingde raised his head and looked into the distance, only [-] paces away, piled up a mound of earth more than ten meters long and two feet high, with a flag 'inserted' on the mound.There are also various targets scattered around the earth fortress. Thousands of soldiers bundled with straw are arranged in a neat phalanx in front of the camp, and there are horse teams arranged by straw puppets on the left and right of the phalanx.The north wind blew the flags of various colors and fluttered, as if there was really an army ahead.

"It seems that this is the target for the test of the power of the artillery later." Zhao Xingde thought to himself.He rests his hand on a cannon, the smooth surface revealing the fine craftsmanship of the casting.Obviously, the gunner took great care in maintenance, not only polished the cannon, but also carefully applied a thin layer of grease.

Zhao Xingde noticed that the patterns on these cannons were simple and consistent, unlike the iron barrel cannons seen in the Imperial City of the Song Dynasty, each one had unique and exquisite patterns.This shows that Xia Guo's artillery was cast out of a unified mold, or even cast out of the same mold.The quality of the artillery is guaranteed, while the cost of casting is greatly reduced.

"You two, be careful." The gunner not far away saw Zhao Xingde's hand on the cannon and warned loudly.Zhao Xingde turned his head and smiled apologetically at him, and took his hand back.Although Zhao Xingde withdrew his hand, the gunner still yelled in this direction: "Stand farther away, be careful of the explosion!!" He was stocky, wearing a short jacket and trousers that looked like a craftsman, and he was covered from head to toe like a craftsman. , hung all kinds of gadgets, rushed to the front of the artillery in two or three steps, and glared at Zhao Xingde and Wang Tongdeng.

When did Wang Tongdeng suffer from this kind of embarrassment, and he said angrily: "You're 'grandmother'." This gunner, who is no more than a material officer, yelled at Chehou, which is really annoying.

The gunner replied unceremoniously: "If you want to save your life, don't 'touch' it!" He took out a piece of silk cloth from his pocket, and carefully wiped the area Zhao Xingde had just 'touched' again.The Marching Division arranged for these sergeants who were about to enter the artillery battalion to visit and familiarize themselves with the artillery first, but the former gunners and cannon craftsmen looked at these sergeants with hairy hands and feet like thieves.

Ordinary artillery battalions are mostly stationed in cities and forts, with only gunners.The newly established artillery battalion this time is composed of three parts, one part is the test gunners brought out by the cannon maker, and these people are converted from craftsmen to sergeants.The other part is the elite gunners who were originally stationed in the city.The last part is the elite sergeant in the field regiment.The reason for this arrangement is that precious artillery needs to be protected, so each artillery battalion is also assigned an infantry battalion for protection.Just like the Liao people arranged the Iron Wall Battalion next to the Artillery Battalion.

Seeing that he was being scorned by the gunner, Wang Tongdeng couldn't hold back at that time, stepped forward, put his hand on the muzzle of the cannon, turned his head and smiled at Zhao Xingde: "I am ordered to come to watch the cannon, but I also want to see it." Handle things carefully, lest you can’t see clearly and have a half-knowledge.” While talking, he tapped the copper cannon twice with his fingers, pretending to say: “That’s right, it’s barely usable.”

Zhao Xingde couldn't help but smile, although Wang Tongdeng was suspected of making trouble, but those old gunners pushed out the sergeants who were new to artillery, it was too obvious that several sergeants had quarrels with the gunners.He said with a smile: "Wang Jun, please be careful, it's freezing cold, be careful to stick your hands on the copper cannon." Wang Tongdeng smiled and said, "Exactly." Then he picked up his hands and put them on his chest .The gunner was furious, raised the brush for cleaning the barrel of the gun, brushed it a few times on the place Wang Tongdeng touched just now, and said in a rough voice: "Get out of the way, get out of the way." Wang Tongdeng swung it in front of him, and a piece of oily sewage spilled on his army bubble.

"How bold!" Wang Tongdeng shouted angrily, reaching out to grab the gunner's collar, and raised his fist to beat him.

The gunner widened his eyes and said loudly: "Beat Paoze, don't you want to stay in the artillery camp?" Although Wang Tongdeng's title is higher than his, elite gunners are more scarce than soldiers who are good at charging. , the Firearms Division will most likely transfer the soldiers, and not fire the gunners.The elite artillerymen are usually monitored and protected by the Military Intelligence Department.

Looking to the side, I saw a group of people walking along the artillery column, some of them were wearing military robes and cloaks, and some were wearing short jackets with narrow sleeves and leather robes. Seeing the conflict here, one of them shouted: "What's the matter?" Walking over, this man was over 50 years old, with a square face, shaved face and chin, and a pair of sharp eagle-like eyes under the crouching silkworm eyebrows, which made people daunting. Wang Tongdeng looked at his army The emblem on the robe turned out to be General Shangqing, and he immediately let go of the gunner and said loudly: "My lord, this man is rude first, and the general only wants to reason with him at the end." The stain on the robe is displayed for all to see.

But the gunner shouted: "It's clear that he touched the cannon indiscriminately. I just washed the cannon body and accidentally splashed some water on him. But he wants to hurt people. Master, please make the decision for the villain." Ah!" He is a gunner trained by the master craftsman of the cannon himself, and he feels that he is superior to ordinary gunners.Seeing this, he immediately shouted grievances, the gunners in the artillery battalion were scarce, he was not afraid of making a big fuss, and if it got big, the brash officer would leave.

Unexpectedly, the master craftsman didn't look at him at all, but stared behind the gunner with a look of surprise in his eyes, his hands trembling slightly, appearing very excited.It turned out that this person was Chun Yuzhen, a cannon caster whom Zhao Xingde had met when he was in Xianyang. According to Zhao Xingde's instructions, after several experiments, he finally succeeded in the experiment and greatly reduced the weight of the cast iron cannon.Because the weight loss was astonishing, it attracted the attention of the Ordnance Division.The Ordnance Department immediately allocated a large sum of money to him, asking him to focus on the more expensive and useful copper cannons for trial casting.

After receiving the support from the Ordnance Department, Chunyu Zhen became even more powerful. After reducing the weight of the four-inch-caliber bronze artillery that fired ten-jin projectiles to less than three thousand catties, he reduced the three-inch-caliber bronze artillery that fired five-jin bullets. The weight of the gun for heavy projectiles has been greatly reduced.What's even more gratifying is that he pioneered the use of iron molds instead of sand and mud molds. Each mold can be used multiple times. The copper cannons cast in this way are of the same size, which is very suitable for unified measurement and calculation of various parameters, which is of great help to the establishment of large-scale artillery troops. favorable.Therefore, the Ordnance Department attached great importance to Chun Yuzhen, not only asked the scholar's office to promote him as a master, but also specially selected a group of elite gunners for him to train.This time, the establishment of the artillery battalion for the training of the new army is of great importance, and the master of casting artillery was specially invited to come to guide.

Chun Yuzhen stared at Zhao Xingde for a moment, but was too excited to speak.At this time, everyone could see that the two of them were acquainted, Zhao Xingde was a little embarrassed, cupped his hands, and said with a smile: "Mr. Chunyu, goodbye to Chang'an, long time no see!"

Chun Yuzhen woke up from the memory, and sighed with emotion: "It's been a long time, Mr. Zhao, I've been looking for you so hard!" When he was about to commit suicide, Zhao Xingde came to his aid. He not only taught him how to cast a cannon, but also gave him [-] guan of silver.Afterwards, he brushed off his clothes and left without leaving his address.After Chun Yuzhen succeeded in casting the cannon, he tried to find Zhao De in Dunhuang, but there was no news.More than three years passed by, and he almost gave up hope of finding Zhao De, but he unexpectedly ran into him on the cannon proving ground.

Under Chunyu Zhen's mixed feelings, he somewhat forgot the occasion.Together with the General of the Firearms Department, a dozen officers from the Firearms Department, the Marching Department, and the Ordnance Department, and seven or eight craftsmen all looked at these two strangely.Zhao Xingde didn't want to show off in front of others, so he intercepted Chunyuzhen's words, clasped his fists with a smile and said, "The last general reunited with Mr. Chunyu after a long absence, so he lost his sense of proportion and delayed the artillery performance. I also hope that my lords will forgive me." .” He said, while giving Chunyu Zhen fierce winks.

Only then did Chun Yuzhen realize suddenly that Zhao De didn't seem to want others to know that he had the skill of casting cannons.Ever since he searched hard for Zhao De, he had thought over and over again his words and deeds that day, and he was particularly impressed by the sentence "Every man is innocent, but his wife is guilty".He is also a person with a quick mind, but he usually puts his whole body and mind into the casting of the cannon, which makes him seem a little unreasonable.After Zhao Xingde's reminder, Chun Yuzhen also smiled and said: "Exactly, I forget my feelings for a moment, and you generals, please forgive me." His tone of speech was quite different from Zhao Xingde's. The generals of the Firearms Division and the Ordnance Division also gave him a little bit of sympathy.

General Wang Yunzhong of the Firearms Department smiled and said: "It is a joyous occasion to reunite the old man." He looked Zhao Xingde up and down, and asked: "What is your name, and which army do you belong to?"

Zhao Xingde bowed solemnly and said: "The last general, Zhao De, was originally the centurion commander of the Chengying Army, and he has met the general."

"Oh, Cheng Yingjun." Wang Yunzhong nodded slightly, looked at the badge of title on Zhao Xingde's chest, and said with a smile, "Yes, he is already a Marquis of Che." Then he asked Wang Tongdeng, "What about you?"

Wang Tongdeng bowed solemnly, "The last general, Wang Tongdeng, was originally the centurion commander of the Chengying Army."

"Okay," Wang Yunzhong turned around and smiled at the other officers, "The two centurions who were born in Chengying, it seems that the artillery battalion is also hiding dragons and crouching tigers." All the officers laughed together.He looked at Zhao Xingde and Wang Tongdeng with a lot of kindness.

Originally, Xia Guo's artillery was heavy, and they were all placed in camps and were not used in field battles.With the strength of Xia's army, there are few strong enemies who can approach the city.Therefore, Xia Guo's gunners had almost no chance of making meritorious service in combat.Over time, the artillery battalion was lax and lazy, and was despised by all armies.However, since the founding emperor, the emperors of the Xia Kingdom have attached great importance to firearms, and even specifically listed the artillery battalion under the jurisdiction of the Firearms Department of the General's Mansion.In the past, the Firearms Division had only ten city artillery battalions under its jurisdiction, not only was it far less powerful than the chief generals of the various military divisions, it was also inferior to the general generals of the front army divisions.Even the commander of the Praetorian Guards was unwilling to be promoted to this post, so the general of the Firearms Division had to be promoted from the Ordnance Division and the general commander of the army.And the school lieutenant of the artillery battalion itself often has no chance of becoming a general because of his meager military achievements.

Emperor Chen Xuan attached great importance to the formation of artillery battalions for field battles in the General's Mansion, and Wang Yunzhong also regarded this as a good opportunity for the firearms department to turn around. As long as the artillery can go to the battlefield, there will be a chance to make contributions.And the Chengying army, who has always been above the top, is willing to send soldiers over, which is enough to prove that the Artillery Battalion is widely favored.Thinking of this, Wang Yunzhong couldn't help feeling a little secretly proud.He patted Wang Tongdeng and Zhao Xingde's shoulders, and encouraged: "Work hard, and you will have a great chance to make meritorious service in the Artillery Camp."