Han’s Son is Not a Slave

If the method of boiling dung and boiling salt works, for the Taiping Army, it is really a help in the snow, and its value is even better than the manufacture of flintlock guns in the short term.

On the one hand, the reason for the stalemate between Guangxi and Hunan was that the Taiping Army was on the defensive and only wanted to seal the southwestern Qing army in Yungui. Therefore, it was only the Guangxi side that fought fiercely with the Qing army of the National Security Department, which came in, while the Guizhou Qing army on the Hunan side fought fiercely. The army was simply unable to break through the line of defense built by the Taiping army at the expense of tens of thousands of Han natives. Luo Keduo, the king of Qingping County, had to lead his troops to retreat, while dealing with the growing anti-Qing movement of natives, and asking for help from the Qing army commander Doni.

On the other hand, the extreme shortage of gunpowder forced the Taiping army to stop large-scale military operations. After the fifth town in Guangxi had severely damaged the Qing army under the whole section, it should have immediately launched an attack on the Qing army in Qingyuan after resting for a few days, in order to annihilate the frontier national security department or force it to return to Guizhou, and re-block the border between Guizhou and Guizhou. However, because the supply of gunpowder was not available, the advantages of artillery and firearms were lost. The strong attack on Qingyuanfu City is bound to cause heavy casualties. Therefore, Shao Jiugong, the governor of Guangxi, who was still in full charge of the war in Guangxi, ordered the towns to stop the attack on the Qing army. attack.

At the same time as the truce in Guangxi, Shao Jiugong and Yu Shizhong were not idle either. They ordered the surrendering generals Zhou Guoding, Lu Sanxiang, Geng Juxian and others to keep writing letters to persuade Qingyuan to surrender. No one knew what was in the minds of his colleagues. Some Yuan Sun Kewang, who received the letter of persuasion to surrender, sent the letters to Xian Guoan in order to show that he did not have any second thoughts. However, Xian Guoan did not read these letters. As long as the people took the letters and burned them, he vigorously appeased the generals, saying that as long as he held Qingyuan, the situation in Guangxi would be changed again when the generals led the army in person.

Whether the general Doni really led the Manchurian army to come, Xian Guoan has no idea. He has sent a number of fast horse messengers to Yunnan. It has been almost half a month, but the reinforcements have not arrived, which makes the frontier countries feel at ease, worrying that something has changed on the Yunnan side, otherwise, why would the northern front line be blocked, but Duny would not return to the army.

..........

Lian Guoan stood by Qingyuan and waited for the reinforcements from Hou, while the Taiping army waited for the medicines sent by Guangdong. However, the newly built military pharmaceutical factory in Guangdong is limited by the source of raw materials, and the production volume is extremely low. Therefore, the gunpowder currently used by the Taiping Army mainly comes from three sources. One was captured by the Qing army, the other was purchased from the Portuguese in Macau, and the third was traded with the Zheng family.

In the Qing army, the Han army flag soldiers and horses used a lot of firearms, and the ordinary green battalion soldiers did not have firearms at all. Therefore, in the various battles to capture Guangxi and Hunan, the Taiping army failed to seize a large amount of gunpowder. When the fifth town severely damaged the Qing army under the whole section, it failed to capture much gunpowder. When Xian Guoan withdrew, he didn't even have time to dismantle the tent of the Chinese army, and the artillery on Xiaobei Mountain was no longer needed, but all the gunpowder was taken away. , which greatly disappointed the fifth town, which had hoped to seize supplementary medicine, and it is not difficult to see from it that the Qing army attached no less importance to gunpowder than the Taiping army.

If they were not captured, both the Taiping Army in Guangxi and the Taiping Army in Hunan were faced with the problem of lack of medicines. The medicines carried during the Western Expedition have been exhausted, and the remaining small amount of medicines are constantly being consumed. There is no large-scale war, but the small groups of Qing army skirmishers and Tusi armed rebellions in various places often occur, so there is only a little left. Medicines can't survive. In the battle of Xiaobeishan, the artillery battalion and the Fourth Zhenjia Brigade lost their firepower blockade advantage because of the lack of gunpowder supply, and the Qing army took their lives to break through.

Seizing this piece is basically impossible now, and the way to purchase gunpowder from the Portuguese in Macau has also been cut off. Gunpowder was not only very important to the Taiping army, but also extremely important to the Portuguese in Macau. The Taiping Army regarded salt, iron, manpower, food, and gunpowder as strategic materials, and the Portuguese also regarded gunpowder as life-threatening materials. The Portuguese themselves could not produce gunpowder in Macau, so most of the sources of their medicines were sent from China and India, and most of the medicines needed to be used in the escorts of merchant ships. The amount of gunpowder in the Portuguese army in Macau was actually not much. Therefore, it is impossible for them to sell gunpowder to the Taiping army again and again. After all, the Taiping army had an extremely unfriendly action against Macau last year. At that time, the war was a trigger.

Compared with the Qing army and pirates, the Taiping army in the eyes of the Portuguese is a very dangerous enemy. In this world, no matter how stupid people are, they will not exchange for peace through financing the enemy. Therefore, the Governor of Macau, Bougallo, euphemistically told the Guangdong Governor Si Yamen that they really have no gunpowder to sell to the Taiping Army. The Portuguese refused to sell gunpowder, and there was bad news from the Jinsha Zheng family.

Hu Qili, the general guarding the seventh town of Chaozhou, was ordered by Song Xianggong to send people to Jinxia to buy gunpowder, but starting from March, Jinxia stopped selling gunpowder to Taiping. Hu Qili sent someone to ask the reason. Chen Yonghua, the king of Yanping County, who joined the army, explained that Zheng Jun will have a big move this year, so the subordinates are hoarding a lot of materials, so they can no longer provide the medicine to Guangdong. I hope Guangdong will forgive me.

The three main sources of gunpowder have all been cut off, and only one newly built military pharmaceutical factory is left to produce medicines with an output of several tens of kilograms per day. How can it supply the needs of the hundreds of thousands of Taiping troops? The third and seventh towns needed medicines, and the Guangxi Field Army and the Hunan Taiping Army were not enough to use them, not to mention the expeditionary forces to fight for Annan. On the army side, that's all, how could the navy suppress the Annan navy without gunpowder?

After Yu Shizhong became the commander of the Guangxi Corps, Guangdong just sent 2,000 catties of medicine, including 600 catties of granular gunpowder. Two thousand catties of medicine sounds like a lot, but in reality, each town can only receive a few hundred catties, so that one fire gun soldier can get less than half a catty, and the amount of medicine fired by one gun is three cents. Four coins, that is to say, the two thousand jins of medicine are all used by the fire gun soldiers, and it can only guarantee that a gun soldier can fire the firearm in his hand six to seven times. If some of these gunpowder were redistributed to the artillery battalion of the fourth town, it would be even more difficult to sustain.

However, Yu Shizhong could not wait for the next supply of medicines from Guangdong, so he personally led the fourth town and the fifth town to launch a strong attack on Qingyuanfu City. In the report to the military commander's office, Yu Shizhong bluntly stated that the gap caused by the advance of the Ministry of National Security must be closed immediately, otherwise, once the Yunnan Qing army invaded Guangxi along this gap, the Guangxi Field Army alone would have more than 30,000 people. Soldiers and horses are hard to defend.

Zhou Shixiang approved Yu Shizhong's actions, and also agreed to transfer all the two thousand catties of medicine to the fourth and fifth towns. Yu Shizhong's worry is an imminent matter. The Ministry of National Security of the Line has pierced a gap in the border between Guizhou and Guizhou. If Duny ignores the uncertainty of the war in Yunnan, and the Yunnan-Guizhou rule is not settled, he will lead a large number of troops to break into Guangxi from Guizhou, then the Guangxi Field Army will definitely be is unstoppable. Once Guangxi was lost, the blockade on the Hunan side became a joke. The Hunan Taiping Army will become a lonely army by then, and the hometown of Guangdong will also face the danger of being lost. At that time, it will be a real life and death.

During the war in Guangxi, new medicines were sent from Guangdong, and it was difficult to supply them to Hunan. On the Hunan side, Zhou Shixiang had been deploying the second town, the ninth town, and the two towns in western Hunan to prepare for the invasion. Guizhou, annihilated the Luo Keduo group in one fell swoop, and then sent the division east to pick up the fruit of the country's surname, and seized the southeast.

Now, this plan has to be postponed again, because Zhou Shixiang really has no medicine in his hands, so he attaches great importance to the method of boiling dung and boiling salt, and even attaches great importance to the Huguang Juzi Cheng Hanbin who presented the book.

Li ordered the blind man to invite Cheng Hanbin from the Huguang Juren immediately. Before the other party stepped into the hall, Zhou Shixiang stepped forward to meet him, and said excitedly: "Is Mr. Cheng the author of this "Illustration of Weapons"?"

Although he had heard that the thief in Guangdong was quite young, but seeing the real person, he felt that the other party was not yet in his prime, and Cheng Hanbin was still quite shocked. In a trance, he couldn't help thinking of the young Shunzhi Emperor in Beijing, and he inevitably made a comparison between the two, but then he secretly laughed: what is the comparison between the two.

"No, "Illustration of Weapons" is not written by the next, but Mr. Bi Maokang's masterpiece." Cheng Hanbin shook his head.

"Bi Maokang?"

Zhou Shixiang was stunned, he had never heard of this person, and he blurted out almost subconsciously: "I don't know where Mr. Bi is now, this commander is thirsty for talents. Shuai really wants to visit Mr. Bi for a lesson or two."

Cheng Hanbin breathed a sigh of relief because of the thirsty appearance of the "thief scholar", thinking that the "Illustration of Weapons" really was the way to find the way. But he shook his head again and said, "Mr. Bi is no longer alive."

"what?"

As soon as he heard that Bi Maokang was dead, Zhou Shixiang was suddenly lost. How could such a talented person die. Lost for a moment, then I remembered that I seemed to have neglected Cheng Hanbin a little, so I hurriedly asked him to sit down and asked about Bi Maokang.

Cheng Hanbin said that Bi Maokang was a Jinshi in the twenty-sixth year of Wanli, and he served as the censor of Youqidu, the inspector of Shaanxi, and the censor of salt in Shandong. In the 42nd year of Wanli, Lishan Academy was built in Jinan, Shandong Province, which was the largest academy in Jinan at that time. During the Tianqi period, he was impeached by the censor Wang Jikui, and his membership was removed. In the early years of Chongzhen, he was appointed as the official envoy of Nanjing, and was promoted to the right servant of the Ministry of War. When he said goodbye, Emperor Chongzhen ordered him to make weapons such as Wugang chariots and Shenfei cannons. After the equipment was completed, he edited the "Illustration of Weapons" to enter Si Zong.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Bi Maokang died in his hometown, but Cheng Hanbin first saw this "Illustration of Military Weapons" in the place of Mafa Tang Ruowang of Emperor Shunzhi. At that time, Cheng Hanbin, Xu Wenyuan, and Tang Ruowang talked about firearms when they were discussing Western learning. Tang Ruowang took out this book "Illustration of Weapons", saying that China has great talents. This book records a lot of firearm production methods, some of which are more advanced than Westerners. Strong, especially the self-generated gun.

Before that, Cheng Hanbin was quite curious about firearms and had seen firearms, but when he saw the self-generating firearms mentioned in this book, he was shocked on the spot. What is the difference? At that time, I asked Tang Ruowang for this "Illustration of Weapons" and wanted to go back to Haosheng to study it.

This move puzzled Xu Wenyuan and the others, because Cheng Hanbin came to participate in the test, but he was studying what the firearm used by this warrior was. They didn't know that during the ten years of waiting in his hometown, Cheng Hanbin made a lot of ingenious things by himself, so when he saw a self-generated gun that he had never touched before, he couldn't hide his curiosity, or it was difficult to find out. Heart.

Tang Ruowang saw that Cheng Hanbin was interested in this self-generated gun, so he laughed and ordered someone to take one out, telling him that it was made by the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty. However, at that time, because there was no money to make it, the work stopped after only a few dozen samples were made. A year later, the city of Beijing was broken. These samples were either destroyed in the war or scattered among the people. This rod in his hand was also unintentional, and Emperor Shunzhi also played with it when he came, but he didn't take it seriously.

Cheng Hanbin was even more excited when he saw the real product. He carefully looked at the structure, and it was exactly the same as the graphics in the book. Excited, he wanted to ask Tang Ruowang for the gun, but Tang Ruowang refused with a smile, saying that he had promised the bishop of Macau to send the gun to Macau.

Tang Ruowang said so, Cheng Hanbin didn't want to force it, he only secretly remembered every detail of the gun, and he made remarks himself after returning. After giving up the Qing court meeting and trying to go south, he has been thinking about how he can get the other party's attention when he goes to vote for the thief talent. Set out from the actual needs, first let the other party value yourself, and then choose the opportunity to speak.

Traveling all the way to Hunan, Cheng Hanbin not only saw the Taiping Army's oppression of the people of Hunan's various prefectures, but also saw the Taiping Army's emphasis on guns and gunpowder. Therefore, after thinking about it, he resolutely took "Illustration of Weapons" as his own. The stepping stone ~www.NovelMTL.com~ Now it seems that this stepping stone has played a big role, and this thief show is really a good firearm.

"The barbarians are most afraid of China, and firearms are also the weapons. This "Illustration of Weapons" written by Mr. Bi during his lifetime can be described as an extensive collection of ancient and modern firearms, plus his own creation and research, it is really a military weapon. I was so shocked that I couldn’t speak, especially the self-born gun, and I didn’t believe it, but after hitting the self-born gun with my own hands, I didn’t have any doubts.”

"Mr. Cheng has seen the real thing of the self-generated gun?"

The speaker is intentional, the listener is intentional, and Zhou Shixiang couldn't sit still when he heard that there was a real object. After listening to Cheng Hanbin's remarks, his heart immediately calmed down. If you want to come to Chongzhen to get this "Illustration of Weapons", you will definitely order people to make it according to the picture. After all, it is a weapon of the military. But unfortunately, the Ming treasury had no money, and the war was tense and there was no time and resources, so the production of self-propelled guns was reluctantly stopped. There are only a few actual flintlock guns in the world today, and one of them is in Tang Ruowang's hands, but Shunzhi took it seriously. And that Tang Ruowang wanted to send this self-generated gun to Macau, he was afraid that he had no good intentions.

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