Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 477 Convertible Frenzy

Gao Qiqian was a bit confused: "Long Live Lord, the old slave doesn't need to show his ugliness, right?"

"If I tell you to hit you, hit it." Chongzhen said, "If you miss a hit, you will be punished. The imperial staff is eighty."

"Ah? Eighty imperial staff?!" Gao Qiqian almost cried, did I provoke you?
"For every second of delay, add another court stick." Chongzhen snorted, "82 sticks!"

Gao Qiqian was taken aback, and quickly took the rifled rifle from Chongzhen, loaded it, and shot at a humanoid target 150 paces away, and finally reported the target, hitting the bullseye.

Now, Chongzhen was really surprised.

I didn't expect this old eunuch's accuracy to be so good.

Even with a rifled rifle, it is not difficult to hit a humanoid target from 100 meters away, but it is quite difficult to hit a bullseye from 200 meters away.

"Give me the gun." Zhu Cijiong couldn't wait to grab the rifled rifle from Gao Qiqian's hand.

After only firing one shot, Zhu Cijiong fell in love with the rifled rifle, which is so accurate.

"This is really a good gun!" Zhu Cijiong couldn't put it down, "Father, please give this gun to my son."

"Okay, you can stay if you like it." It was just a rifle, and Chongzhen naturally wouldn't be stingy, and at the same time asked Zhu Cihong to find Zhan Yangzhi.

"Wailang Zhan Yangzhi, a member of the Ministry of Industry and Engineering, please pay homage to the Holy Spirit."

Zhan Yangzhi came over quickly and paid homage to Chongzhen.

"Zhan Weng, how many rifles can the Daming Arsenal produce every month? Are there two thousand?"

"Returning to the Holy Spirit, there are less than two thousand sticks." Zhan Yangzhi said with some shame, "Only one thousand five hundred sticks."

"Only [-] sticks per month?" Chongzhen frowned displeased. "You didn't say that at the beginning of last year. You said that the monthly production could be increased to [-] sticks in one year."

Zhan Yangzhi said with some helplessness: "The main reason is the lack of manpower. It is too difficult to train a blacksmith who can skillfully roll gun barrels. It was hard to train them, but they were quickly poached by other workshops. In the past few months after the New Year , Our Daming Armory has already lost hundreds of blacksmiths."

"Who is so bold, dare to dig the corner of Daming Arsenal?" Gao Qiqian said angrily.

"Gao Banban?" Chongzhen glared at Gao Qiqian coldly, "Don't allow blacksmiths to freely move and choose jobs. Do you want to restore the previous craftsman household system?"

I feel very wronged when I dive high.

I said in my heart that I was also thinking of Daming?
At that moment, Gao Qianqi argued again: "Long Live Lord, you can't just let those rascals mess around, can you?"

"Who is a villain? Hiring a blacksmith at a high price becomes nonsense?" Chongzhen's face collapsed, "The blacksmith who co-authored with Daming is only worthy of a low salary in the Daming Armory, and can't go to other places to get a high salary? Eunuch Gao, are you serious?" Prestige, why don't all the blacksmiths in Ming Dynasty come to work for Baigan in the arsenal?"

Hearing this, Zhan Yangzhi broke out in a cold sweat.

Before, he really planned to take advantage of the strong position of Daming Arsenal to coerce those handicraft workshops to dismiss the blacksmiths who had been poached from Daming Arsenal with high salaries. Zhan Yangzhi even planned to deal with these blacksmiths who were greedy for high salaries, so as to set a new standard for other craftsmen. Rules, so that others dare not easily follow suit.

Otherwise, this situation will only intensify.

However, this matter was finally stopped by Zhu Cihong.

Because Zhu Cihong told him that Chongzhen would not agree to do so.

Now it seems that the prince is right, and the Holy Majesty is really opposed to doing this.

Of course Chongzhen opposed this, because what he wanted was government-supervised and private-run, not government-supervised and government-run.

If the craftsmen are directly governed by the public power of the government, they are only allowed to receive meager salaries in the Daming Arsenal, and they are not allowed to go to other workshops to earn high salaries to support their families. How is that different from the previous craftsmen?
According to this method, the Daming Armory will soon become another military bureau or weapons supervisor.

And the flintlock guns produced by the Daming Armory Factory will soon become the low-quality bird guns of the past.

At that moment, Chongzhen asked Zhan Yangzhi, "Zhan Weng, since other workshops can give high salaries to blacksmiths, why can't the Daming Arsenal give high salaries to blacksmiths?"

"My lord, this subject is really impossible."

Zhan Yangzhi complained: "The workshops that poach people only need one or two blacksmiths with good craftsmanship, so the salary can be five yuan or even ten yuan a month! But the number of blacksmiths in the Daming Arsenal is a full 3000. After 9000 apprentices became formal craftsmen, the number of blacksmiths reached [-]."

"If you give each blacksmith a monthly salary of five yuan,"

"Just 5000 blacksmiths need [-] yuan."

"Including the salaries of craftsmen in other workshops,"

"The craftsman's salary alone exceeds 5 yuan every month!"

"Fifty thousand a month, that's 60 a year."

Speaking of this, Zhan Yangzhi was about to cry: "My lord, how can this be done?"

“大明兵工厂一年只能生产18000支步枪外加500门4寸炮，按每支步枪2.5元及每门炮600元计，总共也才34.5万元。”

"That is to say, after a busy year, I have to pay 30 yuan."

Chongzhen was also a little embarrassed when he heard the words: "This, I will talk to Ma Mingpai later."

After a pause, he continued: "However, even if you raise the price a little, it is absolutely impossible to increase too much, so you have to figure out a way for this matter yourself. You can sign a long-term contract with the blacksmith apprentice."

"What the Holy Majesty said is very true." Zhan Yangzhi said, "I have already started to sign long-term contracts with craftsmen."

"That's right." Chongzhen said happily, "In short, you must follow the rules. Don't think that you can enjoy any privileges because you are the Daming Arsenal. There are no privileges. Everything must be done according to the rules."

After a pause, he asked again: "So, the production speed of rifled rifles is even slower?"

"Yes." Zhan Yangzhi said with a bitter face, "drawing the rifling is too labor-intensive and time-consuming. It only takes one month at most to drill the barrel, but it takes at least two months to draw the rifling. If all rifles are produced, it only takes one month. It can produce [-] rifled rifles, which is only about [-]% of the flintlock guns.”

Chongzhen sighed when he heard the words, and the level of productivity was still not good.

If there is a steam engine, mechanical power can be used to drill the barrel and draw the rifling, and the speed will be increased ten times and a hundred times. At that time, tens of thousands of rifled rifles can be produced in a month.

In the final analysis, it is still necessary to get the steam engine out as soon as possible.

There is no steam engine at this stage, so we can only give priority to the production of musket guns.

However, small batches of rifled rifles also need to be produced.

Immediately Chongzhen said in a deep voice: "Zhan Weng, fifty rifles must be produced every month, which cannot affect the normal production of smoothbore rifles, but the price of rifles is still negotiable."

Zhan Yangzhi originally planned to refuse with all his might, but he immediately changed his mind and said, "How much can the Holy One give?"

After all, a businessman is still a businessman. As long as it is profitable, everything can be discussed. If it is not profitable, then there is no need to discuss everything. There is no such thing as a businessman who talks about family and country feelings without interests.

Chongzhen never expected that there would be such a businessman in Ming Dynasty.

After pondering for a moment, Chongzhen said, "Five yuan each!"

"Ten yuan each!" Zhan Yangzhi opened his mouth loudly, "At least ten yuan."

"Success, it's only ten yuan a piece." Chongzhen agreed, and the output in two years was only 1200 pieces, and a mere 1 yuan was not worth the extra fuss of the emperor.

Zhan Yangzhi was a little annoyed, is there going to be less?
After Chongzhen left the Daming Arsenal, he went straight to Qingliangfang.

As a result, as soon as he arrived at Jinchuan Gate, Wang Chengen received a secret letter from Beijing.

After reading Li Ruolian's secret letter, Chongzhen's face suddenly became a little embarrassed.

Because what the secret letter said was not good news, but bad news.

Dorgon actually completed a major reform of the Eight Banners system, not only abolished the Eight Banners military merit system, but even the Eight Banners political discussion system was also abolished, and then set up a military computer room.

Originally, most of the military ministers in the military computer room were the princes, county kings, Baylor and Beizi of the banners, but in the Dagukou battle not long ago, most of the princes and county kings of the Eight Banners, Baylor and Beizi, were killed by Yan Yingyuan. Except for the minors in the entire Manchu clan, there were only two brothers Dorgon and Duoduo left.

Then Dorgon promoted a large number of Manchus from various banners into the military computer room.

For example, Sony with the yellow flag and Oboi with the yellow flag have all become ministers of military aircraft.

Now Dorgon's control over the Qing government has reached an unprecedented level.

Therefore, it is completely foreseeable that the cohesion of the entire Qing court will be unprecedentedly strengthened.

This matter is of course not a good thing for Ming Dynasty. Originally, Chongzhen planned to use the internal contradictions of the Eight Banners to divide and disintegrate the power of the Qing court, but now it seems that his intention may be aborted.

After reading the secret letter, Zhu Cihong comforted Chongzhen: "Father, even if Dorgon completed the reform of the Eight Banners system, it doesn't matter even if the Eight Banners Manchuria has become a monolithic one since then, we can still find ways to divide and disintegrate the Manchus, Mongols and Han ministers. The relationship between them, especially Jiang Yu, Wu Sangui, Hong Chengchou and others."

"Lang'er, you are a little wishful thinking." Chongzhen shook his head and said, "Dividing the relationship between Manchu nobles and Han ministers and Mongolian nobles is much more difficult than dividing the relationship between Manchu nobles and Manchu nobles, because The relationship between the Manchu nobles and the Manchu nobles is equal, and there are conflicts of interests between them, but the relationship between the Manchu nobles, the Mongolian nobles, and the Han ministers is a master-slave relationship, which is a personal dependence relationship. There is no conflict of interest.”

Zhu Cihong was a little puzzled and said, "Isn't it better to return to Daming as a person than to be a slave to Jiannu?"

"You don't understand." Chongzhen said with a sigh, "There is a phenomenon called convert fanaticism, which refers to the fact that individuals of one ethnic group convert to other ethnic groups, and then show deep-seated hatred towards the original ethnic group. This is to prove the legitimacy and rationality of their conversion to other ethnic groups, so don’t expect Hong Chengchou and the others to return to Ming Dynasty.”

(End of this chapter)