open sea

Chapter 24 Cartridges
The advancement of technology can bring higher efficiency. Bai Yuanjie can't say this, but he understands it.

The long-pocket sickle and the rice bed are not high-tech items, and even the rice bed is nothing more than a few wooden sticks on the square wooden box and a wooden cover that is raised on three sides, but this can bring huge benefits to military households when harvesting rice. Efficiency is beyond doubt.

Harvest rice with a long sickle. As long as the sickle is sharp enough, you can collect all the rice in five steps vertically and horizontally in a few breaths. You don’t need to bend down to pick up the rice, you just need to put it on the donkey cart and transport it back. That's enough; and the rice beds allow the women in the guard to break down the handfuls of rice ears faster and pile them into the warehouse where they can use the whole long winter to turn the rice into rice.

The craftsmen employed by the Bai family were more efficient. It took only half a day to make more than a dozen long wooden poles for placing the sickle on the basis of the short sickle. Under the conditions, hundreds of people in the guards easily harvested all the military fields belonging to the hundred households, [-]% of the harvest was transported by cart to the warehouse in the city of the Qingyuan Guard Commander, and [-]% was left to pay the land tax on the military fields. The remaining [-]% ​​is the salaries of all the officers of the Hundred Households Office for the next two months, and the last [-]%...is reserved for the military households to enjoy the harvest.

Except for the commanders and those thousands of households who enjoy many military lands, ordinary military households don't care about the invasion of Japanese pirates at all. When the Japanese pirates come, they just run away. Go, and most of what they have is adobe walls.

In short, another winter of poverty!
But for the Guan family and his son, they seem to smell the smell of poverty no longer.

At Anyuan Post Station, Chen Mu fiddled with a few lead pills in his palm, raised his head and asked Guan Yuangu on the side: "That is to say, if I need your help, send someone to Qingyuanwei, pay the labor and materials, and you can do it for me." I make things; if I want to hire you and pay seven taels of silver every year, the three of you will only work for Chen, and Bai Baihu also said that Chen can pay a year's worth of silver at a time, right?"

The monthly wages of the Guan family, father and son are five hundred Tongbao, which is about six taels of silver a year, plus the one tael and seven qian paid to the government, it should be seven tael and seven qian.But in fact, due to the different years and fineness of Tongbao, only five taels of five or six coins can be exchanged for [-] Tongbao.Grain, Tongbao, and silver are all currencies these days, and each is harder than the other.

Chen Mu saw it when they were making sickles and rice beds. The father and son of the Guan family had good craftsmanship. The old man had dealt with ironworkers and carpenters all his life. The two sons are now nearly forty years old, and they are named Li Er, the ancestor of ironworkers, and Lu Ban, the ancestor of woodworkers, with the high hopes of Guan Yuangu. In Chen Mu's opinion, it is enough to be called a qualified craftsman.

Under the condition that Bai Yuanjie paid for iron materials in Baihusuo, the scythes he used were cold and shiny, and the wages were cheap.Five hundred Tongbao to hire three people?In Chen Mu's opinion, it was worth it.

Guan Yuangu's eyes glistened when he heard the young Xiaoqi casually mention seven taels of silver. He had never seen such a rich and powerful Xiaoqi officer in the guard all his life. In fact, he had received the most guards before that. His reward was only two stones of brown rice—he was still very young at that time, and he made and drilled a bird gun by himself in a month. The owner of the bird gun was Bai Baihu, now Bai Baihu's father.

Born as a military craftsman, unless he went to Beijing for shifts, he was not allowed to leave the guard for the rest of his life, but he was restricted by the guard, and the money for the substitute workers was always paid by the guard. Until today, he has never reached out to touch the silver.

But the spirit of the old craftsman is still there, the old man nodded heavily and said: "Back to Xiaoqi, it's not bad at all."

"Qiliang, Chen has it, but I can't give it all to you." Chen Mu took the warm water from the postman Ke Ze'er, nodded his thanks, and then stretched out three fingers to Guan Yuangu and said: "I can only give it to you." You get three taels, and the remaining four taels will be given to you in five months. And..."

Chen Mu put down the water bowl, tapped it lightly on the table, and said, "As long as Chen is not dead, and as long as Chen can still pay your father and son, you will be my Chen family craftsmen, how about it?"

Carpenter Chen?These days people have only heard of Yang Jiajiang, but not Chen Jiajiang, but Guan Yuangu can still understand the meaning of Chen Mu's words.Contrary to Chen Mu's imagined reaction, Guan Yuangu nodded after only thinking for a moment, and said with a smile, "It should be so, I have been a military craftsman all my life, and since I have been a servant of Xiaoqi, how can I not be a craftsman of the Chen family? "

It's nothing more than family soldiers and servants. This matter is really not a big deal in the eyes of the old military craftsman.What's more, although Chen Mu is a small flag, in him, Guan Yuangu sees that he is different from other military households and small flags. Pay attention to craftsmen!

Seeing Chen Mu finished speaking, the postman Ke Ze'er who was standing beside him stepped forward and asked, "Master Jun, do you want to eat?"

"Ke Ze'er, do you have something to ask Chen?" Chen Mudi showed suspicion on his face, this postman is a bit abnormal today!But seeing Ke Ze'er hastily smiled and shook his head, Chen Mu waved his hand and said: "You don't have to be so polite, I will ask someone to bring the meal later, you are a postman, and the things in the busy station are just, Chen Mu Not a guest, just on duty here."

When Ke Zeer left with a sneer, the more Chen Mu thought about it, the more something was wrong.
On the other hand, the storyteller Shi Qi picked up two lines of ancient prose. Obviously, riding a horse and firing guns these days made this melancholy Jun Ding a little bit more energetic, and smiled at Chen Mu: "The poor family thinks of a good wife, and the country is difficult. Good general! Take it with peace of mind, Xiao Qi, he has heard that the Japanese pirates are approaching Guangcheng, and he is afraid that he will lose his life in danger!"

Chen Mu, who was blowing and drinking hot water, was stunned for a moment, put down the bowl and took a deep breath, and said with some concern: "That's right, if the Japanese pirates really come to Qingyuan, we will guard the huge post station, and we can hold it ?”

He not only knows that Japanese samurai can fight, but also knows that Japanese big bows are very powerful. Let alone a team of hundreds of Japanese pirates or a small team of a dozen Japanese pirates, there were more than a dozen military households in the Battle of Heiling, and there were four Bai clans among them. In the case of an old soldier, he paid the price of five deaths and one serious injury to repel more than a dozen or 20 armed and unarmored bandits. When the enemy ran away, he didn't know how many bandits there were... Now it's just under his hands These crooked melons and dates are fighting Japanese pirates?
Keep a dick!

It's best not to come to those carrot heads who have been trained to kill since childhood!
"Tomorrow, when you go back to the guard, try to find a way to see if you can buy a new gun. Later, you will move the fire and medicine barrels into the post house, and then bring back some wood, a hundred catties." Chen Mu said from his arms. He took out the purse, gave Shi Qi four taels for him to buy guns, and handed three taels to Guan Yuangu, and then said to the old craftsman: "Originally, the old man should be rested, but the situation is urgent and you have to be prepared. Make some small wooden tubes of the same size, one can hold three yuan and two molecules of medicine, and one can hold one yuan of priming medicine, and put them together, the more the better."

After finishing speaking, Chen Mu knelt down and patted Wei Balang's face, showing a complex expression of worry and unwillingness, raised his index finger in front of Wei Balang's innocent eyes, and said through gritted teeth: "Little Hachiro, do you know what happened last time?" What did Bai Baihu say? He said that the imperial court offered a reward of 30 taels for a real Japanese head!"

Note: Money and points are units of weight.

In the Ming Dynasty, one coin was 3.7 grams, and one cent was 0.37 grams.The charge of black powder is very large, which is equivalent to six spoonfuls of medicine and one spoonful of priming medicine without the tip of a small household salt spoon.

The sub-powder is sent into the medicine chamber through the mouth of the gun, and then sent into the bullet rod for compaction. The priming medicine is then poured into the medicine pool to be laid by the matchlock. The medicine pool is connected with the medicine chamber in the gun tube by a small hole.

(End of this chapter)