In the court of Northern Han in Jinyang, many people have recently written to the emperor to discuss the Great Zhou's plan to attack Northern Han. People have cited various signs as evidence, saying that the main attack direction of the Zhou army has turned to the north. Others say that the Great Zhou has not taken back the military power of the imperial army generals, just to continue to pursue war.
In short, after the Great Zhou successively annexed Shu, Nan Tang, Nanping, Wuping and other large tracts of land, it has now become a superpower in the south, and its national strength and population have already rivaled that of the Great Liao; in comparison, the Northern Han’s territory is too small. The territory is too small, and the people, food, money and materials are all very scarce, and it cannot support a large-scale long-term war. In addition, the Great Zhou emperor Guo Tiejiang is a pure warrior, and his reputation is well-known.
The Northern Han ruler Liu Jun faced a huge threat from military force and was unable to sleep or eat.
The ministers wanted to share the worries of the king. Some suggested to talk to the Great Zhou Kingdom, but after all the talk, even Liu Jun himself felt that there was no way to talk.
The grudges between Hedong and the Central Plains were too deep; the grudges between the Northern Han and Zhou were also too deep. Zhou Taizu Guo Wei rebelled and destroyed the Later Han Dynasty; and the founding emperor of the Northern Han was the younger brother of the Later Han Gaozu. The Northern Han rulers always believed that it was the Guo family who had seized the kingdom of their Liu family, and that it was a complete feud. The Northern Han claimed to be the nephew emperor of the Liao Dynasty and sought asylum from the Liao Dynasty, and their camps were completely hostile. In addition, there were more old grudges: the Battle of Gaoping when Chai Rong ascended the throne, the Northern Han Dynasty always supported the hostile actions of Shu Nan Tang and others, and the hatred of the two sides fighting for many years.
Sometimes, for the sake of interests, two countries can negotiate even if they are enemies. However, some countries really cannot negotiate, such as the relationship between Northern Han and Great Zhou. The only way is to fight.
So some ministers suggested to use Zhao Kuangyin, thinking that Zhao Kuangyin was a good general and familiar with the military and political tactics of Zhou. But Liu Jun quickly rejected it, saying that Northern Han did not lack good generals, such as Yang Wudi and Yang Ye, who were all excellent generals on the battlefield. In fact, Liu Jun did not completely trust Yang Ye, because Yang Ye's brother was a defense envoy of the Great Zhou; compared with Zhao Kuangyin and Guo Tiejiang's feud, Yang Ye's position was not as good as Zhao Kuangyin.
But Liu Jun thought that Zhao Kuangyin was more difficult to control than Yang Ye because Yang Ye was a pure military commander, while Zhao Kuangyin was similar to Guo Shao. Liu Jun did not want to see Zhao Kuangyin's power grow in the Northern Han Dynasty.
Although Liu Jun was worried, the situation was not critical. After all, whether the Zhou army would use military force against the Northern Han was still in the speculation stage. There was no sign inside or outside Tokyo that the Zhou army was mobilizing troops and preparing for war.
Moreover, although the Northern Han was small but strong, it was not a country that was easy to bully. Liu Jun was busy thinking of ways to prepare for war. When he heard that Zhao Kuangyin's men had captured the armor-making craftsman, he sent someone to take over the captive and take charge of the matter.
Liu Jun had seen that kind of armor with his own eyes and attached great importance to this matter, so he sent Li Xin, who was from the Privy Council.
Li Xin was a talented civil servant. When he met the craftsman surnamed Lu at the place where the prisoners were being held, he knew that the craftsman was a nobody. This man didn't even have a name, and was called Lu Da.
Li Xin's heart skipped a beat, knowing that this task was going to be difficult. If a person had something in his stomach, there were a hundred ways to make him vomit it out once he got hold of it; but if that person had nothing in his stomach, how could he make him vomit it out
"It's Li's Mansion matter. Should we bring in instruments of torture?" asked the head clerk.
When Lu Da heard this, his body trembled and his face turned pale.
Li Xin raised his head slightly, his bright little eyes swept across Lu Da's face, and said: Not for now.
Yes. The clerk clasped his fists in response.
Li Xin calmly flipped through the file in his hand and read the records about this person. In order to save his life, Lu Da betrayed a man named Sun who made armor, and killed the whole family of the man. Seeing this, Li Xin remembered Lu Da's expression just now, and was convinced that this man was not a tough person. He had been forced into a desperate situation, and forcing him too much would be useless.
"Does the death of Sun Fangtou's family have anything to do with you?" Li Xin asked without any fierce tone.
Lu Da nodded with a sad face. The clerk next to him scolded: "You have no mouth." Lu Da quickly replied: "Yes, it is about
Li Xin turned his head and looked at the head of the clerks. The man quickly bent down and stopped talking. Li Xin said again: If you escape back to Zhou State now, will the government come to settle accounts with you
Lu Dadao: Yes.
Li Xin waved his hand and said: Take off his handcuffs and shackles.
Lu Damang was extremely grateful and thanked him profusely.
Li Xin said again: You stay here for the time being, and think back to what you saw in the armor workshop. As long as what you say is of some use, you will have food and water to drink today. Do you understand
Lu Da nodded hurriedly, thought for a moment, and gestured: A big hammer, the clang of iron
Li Xin frowned, but still picked up the pen to write it down.
Lu Da stretched out his hand and rubbed his temple, thinking hard: There is such a big one, at least several thousand pounds of iron chain pulled up, and then dropped down, there is an anvil underneath to hammer out the armor.
Li Xin asked: How many kilograms, nine thousand, three thousand
Two or three thousand kilograms, or one or two thousand kilograms, anyway it's very heavy, Lu Da frowned.
Li Xin asked: Do you remember anything
Lu Dadao: There is a wheel on the wall, and an iron chain leads to the next door, which I have never been to.
Li Xin nodded, and without further questioning, he said, "You two just watch over him, and give him some water later." Then he stood up and left, and when he reached the door, he instructed his men, "Go hire some blacksmiths first."
Guo Shao, wearing a fu hat, shouted and led a group of people to ride horses in the northern garden of the imperial city. A city wall appeared at the end of the grassland in front.
There seemed to be a small city there, with brick walls and battlements built on top, but the walls were not considered for military defense and were relatively thin and short. That was the experimental workshop set up by the Military Equipment Bureau. Guo Shao had done a good job of keeping secrets. The small city had only one gate, and the inside was almost isolated from the outside world. Moreover, the small city itself was within the walls of the imperial city, and it was even more difficult to communicate with the outside world.
Moreover, no one in the world knew about this. The only two departments that knew about it were the Military Equipment Bureau and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
This place is now developing firearms according to Guo Shao's wishes.
The first test of firearms has been carried out. The military weapons supervisor Zan Jurun wrote a memorial today, but Guo Shao was not very satisfied. It was not because Zan Jurun was incompetent or the article was poorly written. In fact, the memorial was very beautifully written and very detailed; but it always lacked strict logic. The ancients' thinking habits did not have that kind of classification method, which might be because they had never seen it before.
So Guo Shao decided to go there in person to check out the situation.
Once inside, there were some temporary houses, which were the living quarters for the craftsmen. Then, after entering another door, they arrived at the workshop area. Inside, there were all kinds of tools, iron materials, charcoal, and bellows for blacksmiths. Guo Shaoyi felt a sense of familiarity when he arrived.
Dozens of people knelt on the ground and shouted: Long live Your Majesty.
Get up. Guo Shao said casually.
Zan Jurun and two civil servants bowed beside Guo Shao and took him to see something. When they arrived at a room, they saw a row of metal tubes of different colors and sizes on the chopping board.
Zan Jurun said: "Your Majesty, they are all made according to your will. Please see, this one is a cast iron pipe. A total of five of the same iron pipes were cast. After casting, the inner wall was slowly drilled and polished to make it smooth, but the molten iron cooled slowly and there were sand holes and bubbles. The iron pipe was relatively narrow, and the lead shot was just the right size when testing the gun, so it exploded. Cast iron is too brittle and the inner wall is not very smooth.
Guo Shao nodded slightly.
Zan Jurun pointed to another larger one: This one is also made of cast iron, but the wall is thicker and the caliber is larger, shorter and thicker. The test gun is not broken, but it can only shoot ten steps away and cannot penetrate wooden boards. I think this thing is not practical, worse than a javelin, and more troublesome.
He changed another one and said: This thing is made of wrought iron after repeated forging, with an iron rod as the core, forged and wrapped; then drilled and polished to make it smooth. The lead shot is the right size. I loaded it with gunpowder and tried it. The forged joint of the iron pipe was stretched open.
Zan Jurun reported several kinds of metal tubes in succession. They were all Guo Shao's ideas. Because Guo Shao could not remember the craftsmanship of musket barrels at all, he adopted the classification test method: as long as he could think of a way, he would try to make one, and then test the performance one by one.
The casting and forging techniques were all crafts that blacksmiths of this era could easily do. The only novelty was the method and concept of the classification experiment.
Zan Jurun talked for a long time, pointing to a green tube: "It is made of bronze, and it is the best one. It is first cast with bronze, and then drilled and polished with an iron drill. Bronze is softer than iron, so it is easier to drill. However, there are often some debris inside, so it is still impossible to make it too smooth. When firing gunpowder lead bullets, it can shoot the farthest. It can penetrate thin wooden boards at 40 steps and iron armor at 20 steps. It is not very accurate and is much inferior to bows and crossbows."
Guo Shao heard that it was the best thing in comparison, so he picked it up to have a look. As soon as he held it in his hand, he felt that it was very heavy, and it was thicker and shorter; the caliber was not large, but the wall was very thick. He looked at it for a while, and always felt that something was wrong. He had never seen a real musket, but he had seen gunpowder guns for shooting birds, and he had seen what they looked like on TV; it was completely different from this one. In his impression, muskets were much thinner and longer, not like this thick stick.
As for why this copper tube is a bit short, Guo Shao is also a blacksmith and is familiar with the craft. It is impossible to make a sand mold that is too long when casting such a small-diameter tube.
Moreover, according to Zan Jurun, it takes forty steps to penetrate a thin wooden board, and the killing power is relatively large at twenty steps, and there is no accuracy. Guo Shao felt even more disappointed. He thought about his own archery, and he could still maintain a rough accuracy at a hundred steps. The gap was too big.
But when he thought about it, he realized that ordinary sharpshooters were not as good as he was with bows and arrows, and that their accuracy and lethality could only be maintained at a distance of a few dozen steps, and he felt a little relieved.