Guo Shao received a petition from the eunuch, which turned out to be written by Zhang, the Grand Imperial Consort in the harem.
He felt very pleased with the neat and elegant handwriting, and thought that Zhang was the aunt of Cao Bin, the leader of the Southern Tang army, so he read the content. Zhang said that she was pure-hearted, abstinent, and inactive, and wanted to become a Taoist monk in the Sanqing Temple, and took the Taoist name Xuanzhen Immortal Master.
Guo Shao did not know Zhang, and his only impression was that she was related to Cao Bin, so he thought he should treat her well. However, he knew too few people in the harem, and he did not usually ask about the affairs of the harem, but he had a slight feeling that the water was deeper. He immediately returned the memorial to the eunuch: "Give it to my sister-in-law for disposal."
The imperial study was filled with some of Guo Shao's daily necessities. Next to the desk was a copy of the I Ching and a copy of the Book of Tang compiled during the Later Jin Dynasty. There was also a volume on the official system of the Great Zhou Dynasty and a list of all civil and military officials of the fifth rank and above in the country.
There are also swords, bows, crossbows and other weapons in the corners. A few days ago, a minister wrote a letter saying that it was not good to place weapons in the palace, but Guo Shao ignored it because he liked these things.
Guo Shao has not read the Book of Changes and the Book of Tang yet, and the reason for placing them here is that he has always wanted to read them. There is a very strange situation. Guo Shao has been in ancient times for many years, but he actually lacks a deep understanding of the cultural thoughts of this era. His career as a warrior has been fighting for a long time, and he has not been exposed to these things much; but now he is the emperor, since he is the master of the world, he always feels that he should truly understand the ancient Chinese thoughts and ideas, so he wants to gradually read some classics.
In Guo Shao's mind, even if he was busy every day, he would always have plenty of free time to read books. But in reality, this was often not the case. Many things in front of him would make him impatient, and he would feel a little tired when he had free time. And those classics were very difficult to read, so he didn't turn a page even after they were left there for a long time.
Fortunately, I don’t have to spend too much energy dealing with memorials, otherwise I would be delayed even more.
Guo Shao turned his head and glanced at Zuo You, who was sitting at the desk. Zuo You was holding a brush, concentrating and calm, sometimes thinking deeply, sometimes writing quickly. He admired these civil servants, who were very determined in the face of piles of documents.
But maybe they enjoy it. This bright palace on a high platform, sunlight pouring in from the finely carved windows, an antique and elegant environment, the fragrance of inkstones floating in the air; moreover, this is the center of the country's central power, and the world calls it heaven, which itself has given it a high meaning. People are exposed to wise thoughts and important speeches that influence the world, and their words and deeds are elegant and polite, which is also a kind of enjoyment for people.
Guo Shao retracted his gaze, put down the brush in his hand, stood up, picked up a crossbow in the corner and started playing with it.
He is a sharpshooter, but he usually doesn't use a crossbow. Instead, he uses a bow. Although operating a crossbow also requires a lot of strength, it has a very low technical content. However, the technical content of making a crossbow is not low. The crossbow in Guo Shao's hand is a compound crossbow used by a single soldier. It has a relatively complex structure and is not light.
The disadvantages of the crossbow are that the manufacturing cost is very high, requiring skilled craftsmen; secondly, it is heavy and easily damaged. The strings made of animal skin glue are also very sensitive to moisture, and the small brown rope is not sensitive to moisture and has less power; the crossbow arrows consumed also require a large number of craftsmen to manufacture. In short, the material cost is very high, and the army equipped with a large number of crossbows is a very expensive army with huge logistical pressure. The advantages are also obvious: the quality of the soldiers is not high, and it is easier to train crossbowmen.
On the imperial desk in front of Guo Shao was a booklet. The handwriting was still not very good, but now he wrote more neatly.
The above records some of his usual military thoughts: The reason why the agricultural dynasty dealt with nomadic peoples like the Liao Army was not because of its inferior national strength, but because its national strength and population resources were difficult to effectively transform into military force.
Just like the current Zhou army, the more than 100,000 elite soldiers are elite soldiers trained in decades of chaos and naturally have combat effectiveness; but after successively annexing the territories of Shu, Nan Tang, Nan Ping, etc., the economy and population increased several times, but the military strength did not improve substantially. This is because elite soldiers and strong generals cannot be expanded by money and food alone.
If one wants to utilize the vast majority of the population and resources and quickly transform them into military force, there is only one way: after a few months of training, able-bodied men can form a combat-ready army.
Therefore, Guo Shao's eyes were focused on the crossbow in front of him. This kind of weapon could realize that kind of military thought in a relatively inefficient way. If there were 100,000 elite and hundreds of thousands of combat-ready crossbowmen at hand, and they could be continuously replenished with troops, the country's war potential would be very strong. In addition, before defeating the Liao Kingdom, one could not rush to use civil service politics, but had to maintain the military system to ensure sufficient combat effectiveness.
There is another thing that can replace the crossbow. There are two big words written on Guo Shao's booklet: musket.
Guo Shao didn't know how to make this thing because he had never specialized in studying this kind of thing in his previous life.
But he understood what a musket was: from the perspective of the long-term development of human weapons, hot weapons must be the kingly way. But in the short term, when the technology is not mature, a musket may not be more powerful than a bow and crossbow.
Even if it is produced, the initial disadvantage is that the range, speed of fire and accuracy are far inferior to the crossbow; the advantage is that the cost is definitely lower than the crossbow, even the training cost is lower, and the short-range armor-piercing ability may be stronger than the crossbow.
But when he thought about the resources consumed by the crossbow, which had to be squeezed from the people, the social conflicts and hunger that would result, and the possibility that the armor-making technology would be leaked in the medium and long term, Guo Shao firmly believed that the musket was the way out.
Guo Shao had thought about firearms several times, but he had no clue. This time, when the enemy country stole the armor-making technology, he considered this matter more urgently.
Even if my opponent has plate armor one day, I have a musket. As long as I maintain my technological lead, my opponent will never catch up with me.
Guo Shao didn't know how to make a musket, but he knew that it could be made without industry.
In feudal society, technological progress was very slow, and the technological gap between the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty might not be that obvious. In any case, there were bird guns in the era of Qi Jiguang, and Western Europe also used firearms on a large scale before the Industrial Revolution. Obviously, it was not something produced by industry and machine tools.
Guo Shao immediately summoned Zan Jurun, the military equipment supervisor and privy councilor.
When Zan Jurun followed the eunuch and bowed into the imperial study, he did not see Guo Shao. The eunuch guided him to the back room where the files were originally stored. But now it was a different scene, with pictures and notes on the wall. There were words written on those notes, but the minister obviously could not look up and look around on the wall.
After the formalities, Guo Shao said: I have something to hand over to Mr. Zan.
I dare not, I dare not, Zan Jurun hurriedly bowed and said, "Your Majesty, I will do my best to fulfill your mission."
Guo Shaodao: I want to build a military weapons workshop. This workshop will not produce anything for the time being. We just need to try according to my ideas. If we want to develop a new weapon, we must first learn lessons. This time we must keep it confidential and not let the secrets leak out easily.
Zan Jurun bowed and said: I will keep it in mind.
Guo Shao stood in front of a map of the imperial city with various house patterns drawn on it, pointing to a place in the northwest corner of Beiyuan, where a partition wall had been built in the imperial city. Ordinary people would have no chance of sneaking into the imperial city.
Yes. Zan Jurun responded.
Guo Shao added: "We don't need too many craftsmen, but we need to select them carefully. We need to register those with good family backgrounds, and young and strong craftsmen who are smart and clever. They can live in Beiyuan with one wife, concubine and family members, and they are strictly prohibited from entering or leaving at ordinary times; if they need to take leave for special reasons, they need to be escorted by people from the Internal Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."
Zan Jurun bowed and asked: Your Majesty, what kind of things does this military workshop need to prepare, and what kind of craftsmen are needed
Guo Shao blurted out: Blacksmith.
Zan Jurun was not paying attention and his expression was slightly strange. Guo Shao also remembered his nickname, Guo the Blacksmith, and stared at Zan Jurun for a moment. Zan Jurun immediately lowered his head and bowed in a respectful manner.
Guo Shao waved his hand, and Zan Jurun knelt down to express his gratitude, then backed out of the back room.
Guo Shao sat on a stool, looking at the drawings and pieces of paper around him, as well as the various files on the wooden shelves. He rubbed his forehead and felt his mind a little confused.
But he was still a competitive warrior, thinking: I just don't believe it. I am the emperor, how can I still be bullied by the Liao Kingdom
Guo Shao felt that he had a mysterious power that transcended the past and present. He became more arrogant under the stimulation of his status as the Son of Heaven. He felt that he was omnipotent and had unlimited power, but he was trapped by some inexplicable limitations and could not give full play to his abilities. He must realize his abilities. It was like a doctor of mathematics who was unwilling to only teach elementary school mathematics and would feel depressed because he thought his abilities had no place to be used.
He picked up the brush and easily drew a gun barrel on the paper, then stopped. Of course he knew what a musket looked like, but the barrel puzzled him. How did the ancients in later generations make the gun barrel
Guo Shao first ruled out the obvious impossibility of drilling holes on iron rods. This was not a matter of effort, it was simply impossible. Not to mention using manual drilling, the drill tool technology was difficult to solve; even if modern machine tools were used, drilling such a long pipe on an iron rod would definitely deviate in the middle, with a slight directional error. The deeper the drilling, the greater the deviation. I'm afraid it would be difficult to do it with machine tools.
There are only two ways left, casting and grinding, or forging and wrapping
Guo Shao wrote down two methods on paper, analyzing them one by one. Casting iron and then polishing it would not work. He remembered the lessons he learned from making toys not long ago. Cast iron cooled unevenly and had many sand holes. Unless it was a short, airtight fire gun, the inner wall of the product made by this method was too rough and difficult to process.
Guo Shao also doubted the pressure resistance of the forged barrel. After all, it was not a seamless barrel. Would it not be able to withstand the pressure of the gunpowder and explode
Guo Shao thought for a long time, but he was a little confused about how the ancients made firearms. Imagination alone would not work, so he planned to try it himself because he did not dare to trust the systematic innovation of ancient craftsmen too much, because they had never seen anything related, they could only imagine it, and they did not have systematic theoretical knowledge; their skills were all passed down from the experience of their predecessors, so the technological progress over thousands of years was a very slow process.
If it were so easy to go from concept to practical use, it would have taken less than a thousand years to go from the ancient Greek balloon to the steam engine.