Picturesque Rivers and Mountains in the Red Chamber

Chapter 377 5.59 Princess, please kill me

Volume [-]

5.59 Princess, please kill me

After a few days of busy work, the general camp was finally straightened out. The most important thing was to manage people, such as flintlock guns, infantry cannons and leather armors that were not enough. Even with his arrangements, Jiao Zhen and Meng Kun were still unwilling to hand it over honestly, so they finally settled the matter after being kicked and kicked by him.

Then there are the artillery and cavalry directly under the training. There was no manpower to lead the team at the beginning. The famous saying in feudal society "A thousand troops are easy to get, but a general is hard to find" refers to this kind of situation. In the end, he met the two in person. In the same year, Chen Qian, Chen Yongjia and Zhang Hao and Zhang Haitong found out after a conversation that it was indeed good, so they simply settled on it.

Chen Qian was born in a family of military generals. Although there were no big shots in the family, his grandfather had served as a guard commander. However, his father had only one son, so he did not dare to enter the military camp again. As a brother, as the eldest son, he naturally needs to have a solid foundation, and because he has practiced riding and archery for martial arts since he was a child, he has a good understanding of cavalry.

Zhang Hao was on the contrary. He was born in a family of poets and calligraphers, so he was a different kind of person. He was not popular since he was a child, and it was the same when he was admitted as a martial arts scholar. His background made him look elegant, so Zhou Yang asked him to lead his direct subordinates. Artillery - There is another reason for this. He and Jia Lian are close cousins. Zhang Hao specifically mentioned it when he met, but Jia Lian has never been to his grandfather Zhang's family since he was a child, and he probably doesn't know about it at all.

The artillery was planned to be prepared for the ten-pound field artillery, but unfortunately it was not in place now. Zhou Yang only allocated six infantry cannons for preliminary personnel training; the cavalry was a subjugation establishment, but only three hundred households were trained. , This is easy to say, as long as you contact Dongping Palace to get all the horses, and leave the rest to Chen Gan.

Finally, after struggling until the last day of September, he finally received a message from Princess Yongchang, asking him to go to the palace to pay homage to Emperor Yonghe in the evening, in the imperial study.

"Haha, Zhou Aiqing has worked hard. Counting it, we haven't seen each other for more than a year since the spring hunt last year." As soon as he entered the study, he saw Emperor Yonghe raising his head from behind the imperial desk and saying hello with a smile, "There is also the emperor sister. There, I have been talking about it a lot these days, and I happened to hear that Aiqing had completed military preparations, so I invited him to see you."

"Zhou Yang has met Your Majesty!" Zhou Yang was about to kneel down without hesitation, but was stopped by Emperor Yonghe's signal to Dai Quan, the only eunuch, which made him a little confused, "Please rest assured, Your Majesty, the general will definitely meet in the end." I will go all out to lead this army and live up to His Majesty’s instructions and the princess’s grace; in the future, whenever His Majesty gives the order, the general will definitely go through fire and water to repay His Majesty!”

"Okay, okay!" Emperor Yonghe nodded with satisfaction, and was very satisfied with his expression of modern eight-part essay, "Sit down, I just want to know why Aiqing has such a special liking for firearms; again One, I heard from the imperial sister that all the firearms in your hand were purchased from the West?"

"Your Majesty, it's true!" Zhou Yang respectfully took the tea bowl from Dai Quan before continuing, "The development of Western firearms is indeed better than that of the Zhou Dynasty, but..."

"How much are those things called flintlock guns of yours?" Just as he was about to fool around, a familiar female voice at the door interrupted him, "Also, your trumpet weighs less than three hundred kilograms. The general cannon is indeed very good to use. Qi Jianhui has chased me several times and wants to get more. Is there any problem?"

"I have met Her Highness the Princess!" Zhou Yang quickly stood up and saluted. No matter how many games of "master and maid" the two of them played in private, he could only do this in formal occasions.

"Why are the emperor's sisters here?" Emperor Yonghe nodded with a smile, waving his hand for Dai Quan to serve tea, "I remember you said in the afternoon that you have something to handle tonight, and you don't have time to spend in the palace for the time being?"

"Dongfang came over to report when we were having dinner with the emperor's sister-in-law just now. The matter is over." Princess Yongchang calmly handed a stack of materials to Dai Quan and motioned for him to hand it over, "Although the capital is not very stable these days, it can only be said to break the sky. I've actually been following this thing here, but now it's more detailed."

"Thank you for your hard work, my dear sister!" Emperor Yonghe slowly flipped through more than a dozen pages of materials, and finally put them down with a sigh of relief, "Although it is a bit troublesome, if you prepare it in advance, you won't be in a hurry; plus Zhou Aiqing's amazing army, Even if there is something really stupid, I believe it won't be a big deal."

"Your Majesty, don't worry, the final decision will be made." Zhou Yang quickly stood up to express his position.

"Okay, just sit back and listen." Princess Yongchang interrupted him impatiently, "You haven't answered what I just mentioned."

"Your Majesty, Princess, as the general said just now, firearms are easy to use, but they are also very expensive." Zhou Yang must scare these two people, otherwise they will definitely use him as a scapegoat, "It's like the latest self-generated fire gun. , because Uncle Xue bought it from a Westerner, each one costs nearly 50 taels, not counting iron sand and gunpowder.

The infantry artillery mentioned by the princess just now costs 2000 taels of silver. Just to support the three thousand households under his command plus the troops directly under his command, the general will have to affix nearly 70 taels by himself, which is the entire northern snow. Fortunately, the Xue family has a strong foundation for the two-year net profit of the brand, and Uncle Xue is willing to advance it at any cost. Otherwise, he will not be able to pay even if he sells himself! "

"So expensive?" Even though he was prepared, Emperor Yonghe was still stunned.The current fiscal revenue of the Zhou Dynasty is only about ten million taels per year, which is the expense of an entire country. It was okay in the Taiping Year, but it is hard to resist any major events. Unfortunately, the past few years have not been smooth. Since Emperor Yonghe succeeded to the throne in the 45th year of Longwu, in the past five years, the imperial court has had a deficit of tens to millions of taels every year. It was only made up after Zhou Yang copied three salt merchants in Yangzhou. As a result, the following The Department of Revenue's pursuit of debts has gone awry again.

Zhou Yang's account just now was only for a dissatisfied guard army. If it is full, it will probably cost millions. Such "elite soldiers", even with the income of the imperial court, can train one in a year. Even if it is good, the Zhou Dynasty is still a feudal society, and its understanding of war and the army is also lagging behind. In their eyes, what use can one Wei Liu, more than [-] people do?

"You're a bitch, you didn't mean to scare people, did you?" Even Princess Yongchang didn't believe this.

"Princess, the general gave the Imperial Guard a whole hundred artillery households. What does Commander Qi think of this batch of artillery?" Even when facing His Highness, Zhou Yang was not prepared to tell the truth, "If the general I remember correctly, before the imperial guards used the Qianjin Flang cannon, right? How do you compare the two?"

"There is a world of difference." Princess Yongchang shook her head helplessly, "As soon as I brought these things back, I sent someone to send a cannon and five self-made firecrackers to the Ordnance Supervision of the Ministry of War. Those losers actually replied that they were all the same. It can’t be imitated, and it will take at least three years for mass production, and this is talking about firecrackers. The artillery simply said that the Zhou Dynasty did not have such high-quality refined iron!”

The flintlock gun developed by Zhou Yang is roughly at the level of the real-life British "Brown Bess". This thing has followed the lobster soldiers in conquering the world for 200 years; the infantry cannon is based on the real-life Western three-pounder cannon, which was also used in the [-]th century. In the middle and early part of the century, these two things looked at the entire history of China, but in the end they failed to produce mass production by themselves.

In today's Great Zhou Dynasty, firearms are still at the level of shotguns (small-caliber matchlocks) plus Hongyi cannons (heavy long-barreled front-loading cannons); rapid-fire cannons only have Folan cannons with serious air leaks and poor iron quality. The Hundred Jin and Thousand Jin Fo Lang machine guns correspond to the first-level support firepower of Qianhu and the Guards. It is not an exaggeration to say that the difference is 100 years.

"A group of corpses for vegetarian meals!" Emperor Yonghe couldn't help cursing at this time, no matter how well-mannered he was, but this time, Zhou Yang didn't bother to mention topics like "self-reliance and self-improvement", which would only make people uncomfortable—— Counting on a bunch of civil servants to engage in technology, you can refer to the various "competitive" research and development in the past ten years in reality.

"General Zhou, I don't care what method you use to get Qi Jianhui back a hundred artillerymen, and he will have a guard in his hands. You really can't reassure the emperor with those useless Folang machines." Princess Bai of Yongchang I glanced at him and wanted to get the matter done with just one sentence, "No problem within a month, right?"

"This is nearly 3 taels." Zhou Yang whispered.

"You go ahead." Princess Yongchang waved her hand to interrupt him unceremoniously, "In return, there are a lot of leather armors at the Ministry of War. Brother Emperor, General Zhou is willing to only have a single layer of leather armor, why not give him all of them?" ?”

"What do Ai Qing think?" Emperor Yonghe asked with a smile.

"The last general has taken his orders!" Zhou Yang looked bitter, but his heart was filled with joy - the quotation he just made said that it might not be possible to remove a zero, but cutting off [-]% was too low, and it was nearly [-] sets. Leather armor, easily equalize the effort just now.

"I want another three hundred of your self-made fire guns." His Highness Yongchang continued to make the request.

"Princess, you should kill me!" Zhou Yang ignored the situation and interrupted the prodigal woman in front of him without hesitation, "Uncle Xue almost emptied the red-haired ghosts in order to help the general gather equipment. The inventory alone cannot meet the needs. Even if you look at the general's head, no one can come up with new ones!"

"That's your business!" Princess Yongchang rolled her eyes at him, turned to Emperor Yonghe and said, "Qi Jianhui has a lot of crossbowmen. These three hundred self-generated fire blunderbuss can replace the crossbowmen. I have seen it. They all carry something called a 'bayonet', and when the time comes, we will select the most reliable manpower, who can be used by the Emperor's side."

"Zhou Aiqing?" Upon hearing this, Emperor Yonghe's expression immediately became serious.

"The general will think of a way!" Zhou Yang could only smile bitterly and bow, "Now, we can only take out a hundred firecrackers and six infantry cannons from the general's men, and let Commander Qi prepare the manpower first. Familiarize yourself, the rest of the vacancies will not be possible until the end of next month at least, but in this way, the end will slow down a lot."

"Don't worry, Zhou Aiqing. I heard that you first reorganized a thousand households?" Emperor Yonghe said with a smile, "I will make the decision here. As long as the thousand households can be raised by the end of next month, how about you be remembered for your great achievements?"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" Zhou Yang breathed a sigh of relief and bowed.

(End of this chapter)