My life skills in Daming Liver

Chapter 88 Acquiring Firearm Manufacturing Skills

"Brother Su is going to the Medicine and Fire Department?"

Yu Zongyuan looked at Su Ze suspiciously and asked, "What's so interesting about the Yaohuo Bureau? It stinks. Brother Su, let's go to a bar!"

Su Ze said: "Brother Yu, you also know that I was born in a military guard. Lin Baihu of our Changning Guard wanted to set up a firearms bureau in the guard. Didn't this just happen to find me? But what about the firearms bureau? I don’t know anything, so I came to the door yesterday to ask Brother Yu, I wanted to go to Guiwei’s Medicine and Fire Bureau to have a look, but I didn’t expect Brother Yu to be the head of the Medicine and Fire Bureau, wouldn’t it be more convenient.”

Yu Zongyuan said indignantly: "Brother Su, you are such a great talent, yet you are allowed to do the work of a craftsman by the hundred households in the guard! If that laborious Lin Baihu is the Baihu of Yanpingwei, I will beat him to death." !"

Su Ze said again: "Brother Yu, please help me."

"It's easy to talk! Come on, I'll take you to the Yaohuo Bureau!"

Walking out of the gate of the county school, Yu Zongyuan's subordinates pulled over a carriage, and Yu Zongyuan said in a showy tone:
"Brother Su, how is it? This is the carriage my mother awarded me! This is the best Fengyang horse!"

Su Ze looked at the horse, which was not tall, but had tight muscles. Although it was not as tall as the tall horses he had seen before crossing, it was still a top-notch military horse.

The capital command posts like Yanpingwei naturally have war horses, and it is not known whether the horse of Yu Ergong is a military horse in service.

Pulling Su Ze into the carriage, the Second Young Master said triumphantly:

"Brother Su, how is it? I will also be in charge of a yamen from now on, isn't this carriage majestic?"

Su Ze nodded. This was the second time Yu Zongyuan had praised his horse to him, which showed his love for carriages.

In ancient times, a good carriage was the same as a modern luxury car.

Yu Zongyuan has always been envious of his father and brother's carriage, and today he finally got into the Fengyang horse-drawn carriage.

Since Zhu Yuanzhang took the country from the Mongols, he attached great importance to war horses.

There was indeed no shortage of horses in the Ming Dynasty. Until the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ministry of War reported to the court that there was too much trade in the horse market on the border with Mongolia, and the herdsmen could not keep so many horses. They were slaughtered and made into meatloaf, and distributed to soldiers.

(Of course, there is an inside story about this matter, which will be discussed later)

Today's horses in the world mainly come from three sources.

The first one is the Yunnan horse traded on the Southwest Ancient Tea-Horse Road. The advantage of the Yunnan horse is that it can be obtained stably. The Yunnan horse is short in size but strong in stamina. Some traders like to use the Yunnan horse, which is cheap and affordable.

However, the Dian horse is too imposing, so the general dignitaries still don't like the Dian horse.

The most popular are Mongolian horses traded from the north, or horses from the Western Regions, but this type of horse is rare in Fujian.

The third source is the horses raised by the Ming Dynasty.

After Zhu Yuanzhang won the world, he divided two horse breeding areas, one south and one north.

The Nine Borders region in the north continued to recruit nomads, and then opened up pastures for them to raise horses.

The main horse-producing areas in the south are in Fengyang and Chuzhou, Anhui.

Yes, the main ranch in the south of the Ming Dynasty was in Anhui. It was managed by the Taipu Temple in Nanzhili, and more than 50 group herd supervisors were set up to be responsible for raising horses.

Among these southern horse farms, the horses produced in Fengyang are of the best quality, so Fengyang horses were regarded as the standard of good horses in the south at that time.

But the quality of horses raised in the south is actually the same. In Su Ze's opinion, Yu Zongyuan's "horse" is not tall, but it is taller than the Yunnan horses bought by ordinary businessmen.

However, this horse is also well-proportioned and well-proportioned, and it is indeed a well-raised horse.

Seeing Su Ze sizing up his horse, Yu Zongyuan said with a smile: "If Brother Su likes it, after a few days I'll have enough of it, and I'll give it to Brother Su for a few days!"

Su Ze quickly refused, Yu Zongyuan said this strangely, no matter what he thought it was some kind of special obsession.

While talking, the two came to the outside of the city.

Gunpowder is easy to explode, so the Ming military system is required to be set up outside the city.

For example, the gunpowder used in the third battalion in the capital was produced by the Wanggong Factory outside the capital.

However, Zhu Di, who set up the Wang Gong factory, is an old professional rebel who started his career in rebellion. He also thought of a problem, that is, if the Wang Gong factory outside the city is breached by the enemy, wouldn’t the gunpowder be used by the rebels? ?
Therefore, Daming also stipulated that the gunpowder factories outside the city could only pre-produce half-processed gunpowder, and then send it to the city to continue mixing into usable gunpowder.

This half of the process is to first grind sulfur and nitrate into powder, and then mix them together in proportion.

Then transport it to the workshop in the city, and finally mix it with carbon powder to get the complete black powder.

The same is true for Nanping City. The gunpowder bureau outside the city is only the first few steps of the production process, and the subsequent processes need to be completed in the workshop in Yanpingwei.

The tax collectors at the gate of the city did not dare to stop them when they rode in the carriage of Yanping Guard. The most important skill acquired in this subordinate job is to recognize that the dignitaries who collect taxes cannot be stopped in the city.

The fist is high-level, and the Yu family must never be offended. Under the banner of military affairs, the second son of Yu, the guards at the city gate quickly cleared away the crowd and let Yu Zongyuan's carriage leave the city.

The privileged class is good, Su Ze sighed while sitting in the carriage, no wonder scholars in the Ming Dynasty thought about imperial examinations, and your status in the Ming Dynasty determined everything.

Those tax collectors who regarded ordinary people as cattle and sheep, beat, scolded and oppressed them frequently treated Yu Zongyuan as if he saw his own father.

In the heavily hierarchical Ming Dynasty, this desperately hierarchical society only allowed a very small number of people to be considered human beings.

The treatment you can enjoy and the obligations you need to pay are all clearly written in the Daming system.

And the role you play in this society is doomed almost from the moment you were born.

Everyone follows this rule, pleasing those who are higher than themselves and oppressing those who are lower than themselves.

If you are lucky enough to be born in my old Zhu's family, then you don't have to worry about eating and drinking for the rest of your life.

If you are lucky enough to be a close relative of the royal family, then congratulations, you are in your own feudal kingdom, and no one can do anything to you as long as you don't rebel.

If you are unlucky and born in a humble family like Lehu, then you will have no way out in this life except to rebel.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were only a few roads that could complete the class leap, and the widest one was the imperial examination.

The imperial examination can make an ordinary farmer's son suddenly become an imperial official, which not only changes the fate of an individual, but even the entire family.

Today, the several big families in Nanping County are all families who have graduated from Jinshi. These families rely on continuous imperial examinations from generation to generation to obtain privileges to protect the family.

Compared with the relatively wide road of the imperial examination, there are also roads such as entering the palace with a knife and entering the palace to become an eunuch. However, there were a large number of eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, and there were only a few key positions, and the degree of examination was even higher than that of the imperial examination.

Su Ze thought wildly, the carriage stopped soon, smelling the strong smell of sulfur, Su Ze also knew that Yanpingwei's gunpowder bureau had arrived.

Yu Zongyuan clutched his nose and got out of the carriage, and immediately a middle-aged man in Baihu's costume greeted him.

"General Manager! Why didn't you tell the little ones, the little ones should welcome the general manager at the door!"

Yu Zongyuan waved his hand, pointed at the middle-aged Baihu and said, "Brother Su, this is Ma Baihu, the treasurer of the Yaohuo Bureau. Before this, Ma Baihu was in charge of the Yaohuo Bureau temporarily. He is my Father's capable subordinate."

Su Ze saluted this Ma Baihu, and this Ma Baihu didn't dare to neglect when he saw Su Ze and Yu Zongyuan call each other brothers.

Yu Zongyuan said: "This is Su Xianggong, the county school student, and a student of Hai Jiaoyu!"

Hearing Hai Rui's name, Ma Baihu said in awe, "It's that Hai Bijia from Nanping County! Su Xianggong is a disciple of Hai Jiaoyu, and he must be named on the gold list!"

Although Su Ze knew that Ma Baihu's remarks were pure fart, and Hai Rui was not a well-known Confucian in the country, and his education was only a qualification, so how good could Hai Rui's disciples be.

However, Su Ze felt a little flattered by the compliments from all the horses.

It's no wonder that no matter how wise the emperor is, there will be a few flattering courtiers around him. It's so comfortable to be flattered.

Su Ze quickly put away his fluttering heart, and said directly: "I am from Changningwei, and all of our guards also want to set up a medicine and fire workshop in Changningwei, so I asked Mr. Yu to visit it. Take a look at the gunpowder bureau of Yanpingwei."

Hearing that Su Ze was also from a military household, this Ma Baihu became even more enthusiastic, and he immediately said: "I didn't expect it to be the same robe of Changningwei. What Su Xianggong wants to see, I, Ma, will definitely break it up for you Let’s talk it through, there will be absolutely no secrets!”

Yu Zongyuan couldn't bear the strong smell of sulfur, he covered his nose and said, "Brother Su, I'd better wait for you at the door, this gunpowder bureau is really smelly! Ma, you can go shopping with Brother Su, I'll wait for you at the door."

After finishing speaking, of course the knowledgeable soldiers brought stools, and some people brought fruit plates and tea, and Yu Zongyuan had afternoon tea at the entrance of the Yaohuo Bureau.

Ma Baihu stayed with Su Ze and began to visit the Yaohuo Bureau.

[Find the gunpowder Bureau, you can learn the skill "Firearms Manufacturing", do you want to learn it? 】

"Yes!"

Finally learned this skill!A set of black powder manufacturing techniques appeared in Su Ze's mind, and several key saber manufacturing methods such as lead bullets and bird guns also appeared in Su Ze's mind.

In fact, the goal of visiting the Fireworks Bureau today has been accomplished, but it is still early in the evening, Su Ze is going to see what the Fireworks Workshop looks like in this era.

As for Yanpingwei's lower limit, Yu Zongyuan knew it. Su Ze didn't have high expectations for the Yaohuo Bureau.

But after turning around, Su Ze's impression of Ma Baihu changed greatly.

Although this guy is a sycophant and flatters Su Ze all the way, he is really a man of work.

The Yanping Guard's gunpowder bureau is quite large, not only for the Yanping Guard, but also for several nearby guards.

Su Ze walked around briefly, and found that the entire gunpowder bureau needed a hundred craftsmen.

The production of gunpowder is a very dangerous thing. Although sulfur and charcoal are only mixed in the gunpowder bureau, it is not a complete black gunpowder, but both sulfur and charcoal are flammable, and sulfur burning will produce poisonous smoke. Managing such a gunpowder bureau is not an easy job.

But this Ma Baihu arranged it in an orderly manner, and he patiently explained the process to Su Ze in detail, and even made a fire prevention and evacuation plan.

In fact, the gunpowder of the Ming Dynasty was not bad, and it was ahead of the West in terms of output and quality at the same time.

Daming's imitation blunderbuss is also very fast. If you want to say that it exploded, firearms are all half-baked these days, so don't make fun of anyone.

The backwardness of the Ming Dynasty's military is still due to the military system and court corruption, as well as the logistical difficulties caused by the empty treasury in the later period.

It is really not easy to rebel now, at least there are still many people doing things in the Ming Dynasty.

However, Su Ze was still a little confused. Based on some data provided by Ma Baihu, he simply used the "accounting" skill to calculate, and he roughly estimated the output of this gunpowder bureau.

With the output of this gunpowder bureau, it is enough to equip a [-]-man army of bird gunners, but what is the state of Yanpingwei?Not to mention the blunderbuss team, the last time Japanese pirates invaded Nanping City, they couldn't even control the general guns on the city gate, so where to use these gunpowder.

"Ma Baihu, your gunpowder bureau produces a lot of gunpowder every year, doesn't it?"

Ma Baihu said with a smile: "Of course, the gunpowder bureau is an important part of Yanping Guard, otherwise the commander wouldn't have sent the second son to take charge of it himself."

"I heard from Brother Yu that Ma Baihu was in charge of the Yaohuo Bureau before he came?"

Speaking of Yu Zongyuan, there was no dissatisfaction in Ma Baihu's tone:
"Second Young Master is the Commander's own son, and doing things for Second Young Master is doing things for Commander!"

With Yu Zongyuan's lazy personality, he was unwilling to even enter the gunpowder bureau.

Moreover, this Ma Baihu must be a close confidant of the commander of the Yanping Guard. Speaking of which, Yu Zongyuan is in charge of the Yaohuo Bureau. The envoy reported that Yu Zongyuan was just taking up a name.

With Yanpingwei's rotten appearance, he would definitely not be able to use up so much gunpowder in a year, but the gunpowder bureau is in full swing, what is the plan?
Wait a minute, Su Ze thought of another possibility. If that's the case, Yanpingwei really sucks!
But Su Ze remained calm, just covered his nose and said:
"Ma Baihu, this brimstone is too strong, our Changningwei area is small, but there is no place to set up a medicine fire workshop."

Ma Baihu immediately smiled and said: "If that's the case, I would suggest Mr. Su to build a medicine mixing workshop first."

"Just pull back the medicine we have here, and mix it with carbon powder to make gunpowder. Why bother."

"But Ma Baihu's here is Yanpingwei's gunpowder bureau. I'm buying goods from you, isn't it in accordance with the court's rules?"

But Ma Baihu said with a smile: "Isn't it just some gunpowder? When we return to Fujian, the southern sky is humid. It's normal for the gunpowder to be scrapped due to damp. The commander and the second son can understand it."

Ma Baihu added another sentence: "If Mr. Su is still unclear about making gunpowder, just ask me."

When Ma Baihu and Su Ze came out, Yu Zongyuan, who had been bored all afternoon, wanted to take Su Ze to drink again.

Su Ze refused Yu Zongyuan with a banquet in the evening. The young commander had completely believed in Su Ze's clever calculation, and then pulled Su Ze and said:

"Brother Su will come to the city again in the middle of the month, but you must give me face, and I have something important to ask Brother Su!"

Yu Zongyuan is even more convinced that Su Ze can help him win the hereditary military position of commander, but this trip to Fuzhou also polished his temper. Anyway, his father is still in good health, and it is not a day or two to grab the inheritance As for the matter, as long as I have a good relationship with Su Ze, I can take my time.

Yu Zongyuan handed over a cloth bag again, and said seriously: "Then I will make an appointment in advance. This is a special product brought back from Fuzhou, brother. Brother Su, please accept it."

After finishing speaking, Yu Zongyuan drove Su Ze back to Nanping County School in a carriage, and gave Su Ze a cloth bag when they parted.

Su Ze opened it, only to see two pieces of girdle silver wrapped on the cloth bag, which together cost about 40 taels.

It's not that Su Ze hasn't made money these days, but it's the first time he's seen a fat sheep like Yu Zongyuan.

Su Ze hid the money in the school building, and when it was almost time to have a banquet for Brother Lin Qingcai, Su Ze called three classmates and walked towards the Yueyue Building.

(End of this chapter)