My life skills in Daming Liver - Chapter 661

c651 new musket

The benefits of smokeless gunpowder are unquestionable.

First of all, smokeless gunpowder can burn completely without leaving any residue of gunpowder and soot in the gun chamber. This way, soldiers do not need to clean the gunpowder chamber and gun chamber after each firing, which greatly increases the shooting speed.

The second is that smokeless gunpowder does not emit thick smoke or fire, which allows soldiers to hide their position when firing, improving the concealment of combat.

Su Ze looked at Little Eunuch You with some excitement and asked:

“Did Mr. You research this smokeless gunpowder?”

Little Eunuch You is now in his thirties. Although he is still fair-faced and beardless, he does not need to serve people in the palace or apply makeup. He does not look much different from ordinary people, but he is slightly less masculine.

The tradition of growing beards in the southeast is also quietly disintegrating. Although Confucianism has a saying that body and skin are influenced by parents, growing hair itself is also popular among scholar-bureaucrats who are not involved in production, and ordinary people can also do it. Shaving and repairing hair.

The reason is also very simple. Just like wearing long nails and wearing robes, ordinary people’s daily work requires labor, and a full beard is not convenient for work at all.

Nowadays, in steel mills and other places, workers in important positions also need to trim their beards for the sake of production safety.

Students at the Tiangong Academy Research Experiment and Li Shizhen Medical College basically shave their beards, in order to prevent beards from affecting their daily experiments.

Therefore, Eunuch You’s appearance is no different from that of ordinary southeastern officials. He said:

“Grand Governor, this smokeless gunpowder was accidentally invented by the teacher.”

“suddenly?”

Eunuch You said:

“In fact, the main raw material of smokeless gunpowder was already produced when the teacher was under Jiujiang City.”

“Are you talking about nitrifying drugs?”

Eunuch You said:

“Actually, the properties of smokeless gunpowder and nitrifying powder are similar, but the invention of this thing was an accident.”

“Once the teacher was doing an experiment on nitrifying chemicals at home, and I happened to come to visit to ask for advice. The teacher was in a panic and knocked over the bottles containing sulfuric acid and nitric acid.”

“In a hurry, the teacher wiped the tabletop with a cotton coat hanging on the wall and cleaned the experimental table.”

“If it was just like this, it was a simple experimental accident, but then the teacher forgot that the coat had been wiped with acid, and put the coat to dry by the fire, but accidentally got it contaminated with sparks.”

Everyone’s hearts were in suspense, and Eunuch Hu said calmly:

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. The flames quickly burned away the clothes. There was no residue at all, not even a trace of black ash. Then I remembered, isn’t this the best smokeless gunpowder?”

Eunuch Hu took over the topic and said: “Later I discovered that by treating cotton with sulfuric acid and nitric acid, you can get a special kind of cotton. This is the raw material for smokeless flames.”

Everyone exclaimed in surprise. They did not expect that such an important invention came from an accident.

Su Ze said worriedly:

“Mr. Hu, when you conduct experiments like this in the future, you must bring an experimental assistant with you. If something happens to you, wouldn’t it be our biggest loss in the southeast!”

Su Ze immediately said: “You Gong, I leave Hu Gong’s safety to you. You must protect Hu Gong’s safety. He is our great hero in the southeast!”

Eunuch Hu and Eunuch You were both very moved. From the first time they met, Su Ze’s attitude towards them was completely different.

Ordinary people only have two emotions towards mine supervisors and eunuchs: fawning and disgust. However, Su Ze did not have any prejudice against them because of their identities. Instead, he treated them equally and saw their talents.

It was precisely because of Su Ze’s respect that Eunuch Hu abandoned his status in the palace and vowed to follow Su Ze to the death.

Su Ze looked at everyone. Xu Wei was now full of white hair. He was originally the oldest among the important ministers. Although he had not been seriously ill in recent years, his energy was not as good as before. Su Ze could only let other cabinet ministers share Xu Wei’s burden. Work.

My father-in-law, Fang Wanghai, is also becoming increasingly exhausted. Since last year, he has been unable to adapt to the increasingly heavy official duties of the Ministry of Revenue and deal with increasingly complex reporting and financial problems.

Hu Zongxian is much older. Over the years, he has lived in the open air and built water conservancy projects across the country, working harder than other cabinet ministers.

Su Ze secretly made up his mind to solve the remaining problems of the Ming Dynasty and complete the unification this year.

After making up his mind, Su Ze asked Eunuch You:

“Mr. You, if the firearms factory immediately produces this new type of firearms, when will it be implemented?”

Eunuch You said without hesitation:

“There is no problem with the raw materials. The futures price of special steel has risen sharply a few days ago. Most iron plants have added steel-making furnaces for special steel. Our process can already use steam engines to process the bore, and the production efficiency is much higher than manual work. If Go all out and produce a thousand new muskets every day.”

Su Ze did the math and said, “One thousand pills a day, 30,000 pills a month?”

Eunuch You nodded and said:

“Teacher has solved the transportation problem of the new smokeless collodion. The configuration of this compound is not difficult, but production safety must be paid attention to.”

Su Ze nodded and said:

“Then speed up the production of this rear-fired musket. I will give you manpower and steam engines to double the production capacity. The Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War will fully cooperate to distribute this new smokeless musket to the frontline troops, and Let frontline commanders collect relevant battlefield information and formulate tactics and drills adapted to the new rifles as soon as possible.”

Just when Southeast was promoting new weapons and preparing to equip the entire army with newer weapons as soon as possible, Su Ze, who had just returned to the Governor’s Mansion, suddenly saw the visiting Shen Yiguan.

After reading the letter delivered from the North Korean leader Yi Sunchen, Su Ze handed the letter to Shen Yiguan and asked:

“In his letter, Yi Sun-shin said that the Liaodong Jurchens seemed to be making some changes and were trying to purchase artillery from North Korea. They seemed to have the idea of ​​​​rebelling against the Ming court.”

“What do you think?”

Shen Guanyi said: “In the Governor’s Office, the Jurchens are very ambitious. They have continued to cultivate power in Liaodong over the years, and the Jianzhou Jurchens are even more ambitious among them.”

Shen looked at Su Ze’s face carefully and said:

“The Governor’s Office, now that the unification of the world is a foregone conclusion, there is no need to support the Jurchens.”

Su Ze looked at Shen Yi Guan with some surprise. As a diplomat, Shen Yi Guan refused to use diplomatic issues to deal with the Jurchen issue. This also made Su Ze think more highly of Shen Yi Guan.

Being able to go beyond the areas he is familiar with, beyond the interests of his own department, and make such suggestions, this Shen Yiguan is indeed a prime minister!