stubborn thief

Chapter 434 Disruption
Liu Chengzong's requirements for the arsenal are not difficult to achieve technically in Shicheng's opinion.

Whether it was the fire chariots that were popular in the early years, or the individual rocket launchers improved by Zhao Shizhen in the Wanli period, or the special rockets that made smoke and set fire, they all developed rapidly during this period. complete.

As for the performance of this weapon on the battlefield, the 20 Japanese who landed on the Korean Peninsula during the Wanli period had a very good user experience.

But in manufacturing, there are big problems.

The arsenal of the Marshal's Mansion has almost all types of military manufacturing capabilities in this era, except for rockets.

So Shicheng and I received the order to go back and ponder for two days, and then went to the new city to ask Liu Chengzong for instructions: "Marshal, can I ask General Cao to help me as a staff officer."

Liu Chengzong thought to himself, if Shi Cheng hadn't mentioned it to me, he would have forgotten that Cao Yao understood these things, so he nodded immediately and called Cao Yao into the government office to discuss matters.

Cao Yao arrived soon after hearing the summons, wearing a big leather robe like a rich landlord, before he even entered the west building, a voice came in: "What is the commander looking for me for?"

After entering the door, I first bowed to Liu Chengzong, looked up and saw that Shi Cheng and I were also in the yamen, and said hello: "Master Shi is also here."

Liu Chengzong asked him to sit down first: "It's not a military meeting, brother just sit down casually, what are you doing at home these days?"

Cao Yao smiled and sat down: "Come with my mother-in-law."

It's not that Liu Shizi wanted to make things happen, it's just that he gave Cao Yao a vacation. He had just agreed to a two-month vacation, and soon he was about to get him to the arsenal, so he always had to say something else first.

Unexpectedly, Cao Yao happened to be looking for him for something, rubbed his hands together and asked, "Marshal, I wanted to come here too. Didn't Chengyun ask for a prohibition order on the day of the military meeting? I have an idea."

Liu Chengzong smiled when he saw him, and asked, "What's the matter, you bought all the wine in Xining these two days?"

He wasn't in a hurry to issue a prohibition order. It was easy to issue any order, but if the order was unreasonable and unreasonable, it would be to find people to violate the order.

Even if there was a ban on alcohol, it would have to wait until the end of the Chinese New Year, and Chengyun brought this up at the military meeting, which would naturally cause the generals to seize the opportunity to send their families to Hehuang to buy alcohol.

"what!"

Cao Yao laughed, turned his head and said, "Forget it, there are so many people going to buy it, and it won't be my turn. I won't buy it. When they buy it back, I will ask them for it."

Liu Chengzong smiled and nodded: "My brother hasn't changed at all. If you have any suggestions, let's hear them."

"I don't think alcohol can be banned, just ban wine making, and the ban on wine making doesn't have to be banned in the whole territory, just the Hehuang Valley." Cao Yao said, looked at Liu Chengzong, and added: "Milk wine doesn't need food."

Liu Chengzong said: "But let alone the people of Hehuang, milk wine is not enough for the army to drink."

The Marshal's Mansion has two unemployed departments in Qinghai Lake. One is the Navy Yamen in charge of shipbuilding and shipping. On Sunday, they developed a sideline business of salting fish for sailors; the other is Yuanma Temple on Longju Island. sideline business.

The entire coast of Qinghai Lake is pastures. Goat milk, cow milk, horse milk, and camel milk are all used for wine making. Because of different purposes, two kinds of wine are mainly produced.

One is because there are too many livestock near Qinghai Lake, and fresh milk cannot be stored and transported, so Cui Cong used the ancient impact brewing method, asking herdsmen to brew milk into low-alcohol wine, which was filled and sealed.

However, this kind of low-alcohol milk wine needs to be transported by boat and truck to the seven field camps near Xincheng to distribute to soldiers. The soldiers drink it as a drink, otherwise it will deteriorate after a month or two.

The other is to protect against the cold, which is to distill the brewed low-alcohol milk wine multiple times to make high-strength shochu, because the nutrients that are easy to cause deterioration are basically gone during the multiple distillations, so it is more durable to storage.

The shochu brewed on Longju Island is generally distributed to the garrison in Nanshanbao and other places in units of [-] households, for cold protection, emergency and medical purposes.

When Cao Yao heard Liu Chengzong's words, he said seriously: "Because of this, I think this is a good opportunity for the chieftains of Kangning Mansion to build roads, ban wine making in Xining, and make wine in Kangning."

"Corning builds roads?"

Liu Chengzong pondered for a moment, feeling in his heart that this matter is ambiguous, that is, capable, so he asked: "What's your idea, brother, please elaborate."

"Yang Zhifu has long wanted to build roads in Kangning, but the chieftains are unwilling, and it is true if they think about it. The chieftains believe that the mountains are not as high as the emperor is far away, and the road can be built on a smooth road with four horses running side by side. There are no chieftains."

Cao Yao spread his hands and said, "Kangning is poor, but it has been cultivated for several years. There are a lot of fields, and the locality is more than self-sufficient. It is also rich in moisture and is not afraid of drought. It is a good place for wine making."

"Xining bans wine making, so the price of wine will rise. Yesterday I heard from Zhang Wu that the price of shochu has already risen to [-] cents. At this price, regardless of the foot price, Kangning's wine making is also profitable."

Let the chieftains build a good road out?
Liu Chengzong thinks that according to this idea, wine making and selling wine may not be profitable for the Marshal's Mansion, and it can only be used as a strategy to maintain stability after the ban on wine brewing, but if it can make Xikang Road more convenient, then the benefits will be great .

In terms of money, Xikang Road can transport cashmere, and can also sell the woven cashmere clothes back to Kangning and Uszang; in terms of strategy, Jinchuan and other chieftains who have built a pile of watchtowers will be destroyed by themselves.

"Yes, you can give it a try. This is not a strategy that will succeed in a short time, but the drought is not something that will end in a short time."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly, remembering this moment, and then he smiled at Cao Yao: "Brother is very clever, others are in a hurry to buy wine from Xining, did you plan to ask Gama to deliver wine to you from Kangning from the very beginning?" ?”

Cao Yao was said to be the center of the matter, so he nodded and just smiled.

He was different from Liu Chengzong, even if he came out of Yuhebao, he could sell a pot of wine to Liu Shizi even if he came out of Yuhebao. Drinking alcohol was an inseparable habit for him.

In fact, Cao Yao had a strong sense of resistance to the prohibition of alcohol, but he had just returned from Kangning Mansion, and he didn't want to contradict Liu Chengzong because of these things, so he thought about asking Ga Ma and Monk Wang to bring him some wine from Kangning Mansion.

It was only later that I realized that Kangning could make wine and sell it to Xining, so that the chieftains could earn some money in exchange for them building roads for the Marshal's Mansion.

Liu Chengzong also knew that Cao Yao liked to drink.

Not only do I know that he likes to drink, but I also know that he can't handle alcohol. When he gets drunk, he will think of his brother who died in Saarhu. Liu Yujie.

He didn't admit it when he was sober, with a face full of me, I didn't, I didn't, don't talk nonsense.

Liu Chengzong waved his hands, looked at Cao Yao with piercing eyes, and said with a smile, "Compared to letting the chieftains in Kangning build roads, I think the solution to the problem of drinking is to win Gansu, and the wine in Gansu must be enough for you to drink."

"Gansu is not easy to get." Cao Yao is very cautious about this topic: "To be honest, I am in Kangning, and I know the most about the army's loss of horses and artillery, and the impact on the army from heavy to light."

He waved his hand and said: "That bastard surnamed Hong is building a fort in Gulang Gorge, obviously he wants to lure us to climb over the mountain, and if we climb over the mountain, he will fall into his tricks, use the light army to fight the heavy army, and we will be finished if the tricycle cannon is killed. "

Morale is a weight. The same soldiers have different equipment, and when fighting against the same enemy, the morale they show is different.

Both the enemy and us have artillery, so they can shoot at each other like He Huchen's Ningxia soldiers in Huanglongshan.

The enemy has cannons and I don't have cannons, that is, when they faced Li Bei in the early years, they collapsed one after another. You have to pay attention to your efforts. People's expectations for victory are very low, and the will to persist in fighting is also not too high.

Fighting over the Qilian Mountains meant not only no artillery, but also no armor and horses. The difference between them and the peasant army in the early years was only in skill, will and physical strength - these things were not worth mentioning in front of the pieces of steel projectiles.

Cao Yao knew very well that the Ming army was an army that specialized in dealing with light soldiers, especially in Gansu and Ningxia. These two defense areas had always dealt with the Mongols, who were attacked by the Franz machine and the destroyer cannon that specialized in killing and wounding people. It's gone.

"Correct!"

Liu Chengzong agreed with Cao Yao's opinion very much. He said: "This is also the reason why I invited my brother to come here. I want to design a rocket to replace artillery, and I need my brother's help as a staff."

"Rocket?"

Cao Yao nodded slowly, and after thinking for a while, he slowly said: "It is a good idea to replace the artillery with rockets, but you must have horses and some armor."

After talking about the preconditions, he shook his head again and said: "The rockets are powerful in hundreds of thousands of formations, and it is good to deal with the southwestern soldiers or the Japanese who have never seen Malaysia in formation, but there are many reckless people in Kansai. If I They will not form formations with light soldiers over the mountains.”

"Only a reckless man can deal with a reckless man. Before he forms an formation, first charge him with cavalry for a while, and then force him to form an formation, and then use rockets to attack the enemy."

When Cao Yao talked about Xingqi, he danced unconsciously: "Even so, there is still a risk of a cavalry confrontation, but as long as you win one battle and plunder their armor and guns, you will be able to fight the next battle... If You can take the armor and war horse to the other side of the mountain, the rocket, you can try it."

Snapped!
Liu Chengzong applauded and said: "Brother said it well, Zijin Liang has held a Sanjie meeting in Gansu in the past few years, and it has been done well. He can help us get a thousand horses, a thousand soldiers from Gansu, and three A thousand camels."

Cao Yao's eyes lit up: "The officers and soldiers have three horses and seven steps. A full battalion with nine hundred cavalry is not bad, but the risk is still very high. We must fight quickly."

After that, he looked at Shi Cheng and said to me: "Master, there is nothing difficult to do with rockets. The only thing is that the medicine must be compacted, the holes for the medicine wires must be drilled straight, the lead wires shall be braided in three strands, and the standard rocket shall be filled with 37 spoons of medicine. Hammer [-] times, press firmly and drill straight, the fire will be sprayed straight, and the rocket will fly straight and accurately."

Cao Yao said with a smirk: "I never thought we could afford rockets."

Rockets are not cheap, on the contrary, as a one-time use weapon, compared with other weapons, it is extremely time-consuming, requires high manufacturing requirements, and is less cost-effective.

Its manufacturing requirements are high, not because of the craftsmanship, but because of the cost, because this thing is not like a gun. The characteristics of multiple uses of guns, it is relatively difficult to cut corners and materials. It needs to be fully completed from all aspects of manufacturing, supervision, and use. Will not track down.

And the Rockets rely entirely on appropriation, which can be made for one penny each, five cents each, or even one penny each.

If you want to verify its pros and cons, you have to type it out.

So now the Military Weapons Bureau in Shaanxi no longer makes rockets. If they do it better, they don’t have so much money;

"To make a rocket, you need paper, gunpowder, paper money, loess, drill bits, chute, and vertical drilling machine. You need to prepare more drill bits. The drill bits will become hot when you drill the gunpowder line. When I was in the firearms camp, I often heard people It is said that the craftsman changed the drill bit and blew up the cartridge drill."

Cao Yao emphatically reminded Shi Cheng and me, he opened his hand and said, "If you drill five rocket launchers, you need to change the drill bit."

Liu Chengzong saw that he was speaking clearly and logically, so he hurriedly asked: "Then brother, will you make a rocket with an explosive warhead?"

"Flower warhead?"

Cao Yao was stunned for a moment, then shook his head and said: "Flower bullets need to be installed to fly far away, and the cost is too high. I really don't know about this, but thinking about it, flower bullets are nothing more than ever-changing. Make it more appropriate."

"I do know how to use the backpowder for arson. In fact, it is four small cartridges that are installed backwards in front of the cartridge. The lead wire is connected to the front cartridge, and a little horizontal charge is put in it, so that it breaks the paper and sprays fire from all sides."

He said with a smile: "This is easy to use. It hit the camp fire, and hit the army formation to hide everywhere."

"As long as you have this in your hand, the army can carry two more rounds of cannon. If there are enough, thousands of them will be released, which will be enough to disrupt their army, and maybe even blow up their gunpowder. The horse army will rush to kill them." Can break through."

Cao Yao finished what Liu Chengzong wanted him to say, and then he paused, his smile slowly disappeared, and he asked, "Do you really want to take the risk and meet them at the northern foot of Qilian?"

"Brother still thinks it's wrong?"

"I'm not wanting others to destroy my prestige, it's just that this man surnamed Hong is clearly trying to lure the enemy, that is, to lure us to go over the mountain and fight with him lightly. If he dares to do this, he must have confidence. The siege of a battalion...is hard to say."

Cao Yao let out a long sigh: "Actually, I think that since he is playing tricks and putting on such a posture, there is no point in playing tricks with him. It is better to be a big fool."

"Just put up heavy troops and set up heavy artillery to fight him in the Zhuanglang River Valley. When Songshan came to the enemy, we wiped out the Songshan official army; if there was a castle, we knocked down the battlements with heavy artillery; Gulang Gorge is not easy to walk, so we can't hold a large army. , they can’t keep a large army.”

"We attack and they defend. If we defend for a long time, we will lose. Anyway, we have to wait half a year for the drought to come. Half a year is enough to break through the Gulang Gorge. With the commander-in-chief's heavy troops, taking Liangzhou is just around the corner."

After all, he changed the topic: "Even if we can't break through, we won't suffer too much loss."

Hearing this, Liu Chengzong couldn't help but smile on his face: "Brother thinks so too? Then Xie Erhu led the Mongolian cavalry to appear in Gulang Gorge, and those surnamed Hong would think that the main force of our army was not in Gulang Gorge; Zhang Tianlin appeared again in Qilian Beilu, if you use rockets to win a battle, the surname Hong will definitely think that the one who has crossed Qilian Mountain is the main force of our army, right?"

Cao Yao was stunned: "What do you mean, where else do you want to fight from?"

"Xie Erhu held back at Gulang Gorge, Zhang Tianlin disturbed at the northern foot of Qilian, the defense was lax on the north side of the Great Wall, where the wind and sand were heavy, and Ji Tutaiji from the Chahar camp knew the location of the river outside Gansu, and asked him to lead Yang Yao to step With the Shayue Wall, Gansu must be in chaos."

"If Wang Ziyong can help me open and close the city, I want to go to Jiayuguan."

Liu Chengzong leaned back in the chair, raised his hand and tapped twice with his knuckles on the table: "I want to walk from Jiayuguan to Shanhaiguan."

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)