open sea

Chapter 304 The Big Thief
Not long after Li Rubai left, several deputy generals from Liaodong also sent people to buy a batch of swords and armors, which made General Chen accidentally earn another ten thousand taels of silver.

Selling arms is Master Chen's old business in Nanyang. Now he is under the emperor's imperial envoy to supervise the establishment of the Arms Bureau, which makes him less taboo about competing with the Ministry of Industry, but even so he has not forgotten the Ministry of Industry.

In the north, apart from the main body of the chest and back, there are arm armor and leg armor skirts. However, this cumbersome lock armor craftsmanship Chen Shuai felt sorry for his artisans, so he specifically negotiated a deal with the Ministry of Industry. Local craftsmen do the work, and each pair of arm armors costs three coins and a skirt four coins.

The most competitive breastplate saves the most man-hours with the cooperation of the Ordnance Bureau's hydraulic forging hammer. This advantage cannot be replaced by others.

That's why he only made half of the waist knife, which was a loss for Chen Mu; but he made nearly five times the profit on the breastplate.

"Don't stare at the money when it's in the account. You think about the money all day long." Chen Shuai said to Zhao Shizhen, the imperial secretary: "We're not talking about how much money we make, and Chen didn't set a high price for them. You see Our knives are a bit more expensive than others, but they are of good quality and appearance; not to mention our armor, which is no worse than other knives and swords, and the price is a half cheaper...We make small profits but sell quickly."

Zhao Shizhen was taken aback by Chen Mu. He could understand the meaning of the word "small profits but quick turnover", but he couldn't understand how many shames a person who made five times the profit had to say this word so naturally.

But it did achieve Chen Mu's goal, making small profits but quick turnover.

Since Li Chengliang and Liaodong deputy commanders purchased armor for the family soldiers, Yang Siwei from Changping, Dong Yikui from Xuanfu, Dong Yiyuan, Ma Fang from Datong Town and others successively ordered armor from the Armament Bureau, such as bird guns, chest A. Waist knives are the best sellers.

Without Qi Shuai in Ji Town, even though Ji Town is the place that has the greatest demand for armor in the Xuanfu Armament Bureau besides Xuanfu itself, Qi Shuai doesn't want to use family soldiers, so naturally he doesn't need to ask Xuanfu in private. Purchase ordnance.

In a blink of an eye, the Xuanfu Military Bureau's orders piled up until the next year.

Even though the production capacity is extremely strong, Chen Mu earlier ordered the court to give priority to the supply of ordnance when there is a shortage of ordnance. Even if there are stocks in normal times, they can only take [-]% to [-]% of them for the generals and servants.In addition, no one is allowed to smuggle ordnance, and offenders will be sentenced to death.

Even Chen Mu himself has to abide by this rule, or he himself has to abide by this rule even more.

Chen Mu and Zhao Shizhen were staring at each other in the study room. Instead of books, there were only a few pictures on the desk and the same odd-shaped short gun—Ji Town’s Five Thunder God Machine.

The gun bed of the Wulei Shenji is a straight stick, weighing five catties, with five shorter barrels that rotate in one piece. They are fired by matchlocks. Two people are required to operate it, but it is still very cost-effective at close range.

"How many barrels do you want to let it have?" Chen Mu shook his head, frowned, looked at the Wulei Shenji bitterly, and said: "A few more barrels will make it heavy, and it will be inconvenient to carry, and its shooting distance is very short. It's short, only twenty or thirty steps, and it's difficult to load the medicine."

Zhao Shizhen quickly answered: "If it's too heavy, you can put it on the car, just like the rocket car I made below. You can make it long without being afraid of the weight. If you charge more gun barrels, you can hit farther."

Chen Mu still shook his head, "It doesn't make much sense in horse battles. The cost is high, but it can't achieve the same cost effect."

Speaking of which, Chen Mu changed the subject and said, "But it may be useful in naval battles, but we need to solve a few problems first."

"Rotate, set a winch and gear on the left side, so that one person can complete the rotation; add a rotation and angle bracket at the bottom, and one person can also adjust the angle of the muzzle; then add the gun barrel, at least ten eyes , which requires a lot of production experiments to make the weight and power at the best stage."

General Chen became more and more excited as he talked, and said: "It's better to be able to disassemble flexibly between the gun barrel and the gun bed. Chang Ji, think about it. In the next 30 to [-] years, it must be common sense for naval warfare ships to bombard each other, but the fast boats and big boats will jump to help seize it." Ships must also be commonplace, and there is no need to worry about having guns on board at long distances, but what about short distances?"

"The enemy ship is approaching, and the hooks thrown at each other tend to be close together. When the wooden boards are shot down, a group of enemies with swords and guns from the forecastle are about to jump on your ship to fight in close quarters. At this time, there are people on the side of the forecastle. Two of these weird things, bang bang bang!"

"A dozen gunshots hit the past, and the distance between the two ships is more than ten steps. In naval battles, no one wears thick armor, and seven or eight people can be killed in a blink of an eye; Remove the large gun barrel that was hot and smoking, and quickly install the gun barrel that was filled with medicines from the side, and then condescendingly sweep the low hull of the enemy ship, at least five or six lives were lost."

"How many people are there in a boat at sea? A hundred or so people is already too many. Like my son said that my boat in Nanyang can hold three to five hundred people, I think he is talking nonsense."

Chen Mu didn't care about Zhao Shizhen's stupefaction, his mind is now full of the picture of the Daming warship equipped with the Turtle Vulcan Cannon, and said: "At least a dozen of them will be killed or injured in an artillery battle, and another ten will be killed by one of these things." A few, we still have 70 to [-] people on board, and there are only [-] to [-] people left on the other side, and they jumped into the sea without hitting them, well, their ship and their cargo are all ours.”

Zhao Shizhen looked at Chen Mu even more strangely.

In all fairness, Zhao Shizhen really likes to think about weapons, and he is very interested in novelty objects such as rockets and bird guns.But to put it in a particularly stupid way, Zhao Shizhen's thinking about these things is not for killing people, but just for interest.

Killing more than a dozen with open mouth like Chen Mu, and killing more than a dozen with closed mouth, is too real for Secretary Zhao who has never seen blood.

Let him have a little resistance to improving firearms.

What made him even more surprised was that Chen Mu said very skillfully that their ship and their goods belonged to us. It felt wrong to say this from a general of the Ming Dynasty!

Very wrong!

"Especially for Spanish armed merchant ships with fewer guns and gunners. The forecastle of Fuchuan is higher than theirs, and there are two such things close to the forecastle and stern. They will stop when they go up and sweep the deck; if they are installed in a small On a shark boat, relying on the speed of the boat can make holes in the sail, making it unable to move!"

As Chen Mu said, he grabbed Zhao Shizhen's arm with light in his eyes, "We're going to make this, and Chen can stand it for five taels of silver. In the future, every warship will install four of it. There are still more at sea." Who can stop it!"

Chen Mu has been benchmarking in his heart. Although his impression of Western sea power may not be correct, he has been benchmarking what he owns with the West.In his heart, the small shark ship and the big blessing ship are the armed merchant ships west of Malacca; the warship is the opponent of the medium-sized shark ship, and the general big shark ship must be able to block the strongest ships of all countries.

In fact, he doesn't know what the strongest ship in the west looks like now, because he hasn't seen it yet.

Zhao Shizhen nodded blankly. He finally discovered that Chen Mu had another true identity hidden besides generals, officials, and military merchants.

He may be the most successful pirate ever.

(End of this chapter)