Qi County, the military camp in the city.

The chief clerk Chen came to the lobby where Li Yan was and bowed: "General, it's about to enter the twelfth lunar month, and the autumn grain of the court is about to be collected."

The center of the county government office is Ma Dianshi's Hukou District, and the center of the county is the barracks in the city. Lu Xiru and his two are just staff members, that is, the back houses of the county government office, and none of the official duties were sent to them.

After Lu Xiru sent the note to Kaifeng, he couldn't wait for his servants to come back a few days later. He realized that something might be wrong. His servants all gave birth to children and did not treat them badly. Moreover, their family members were still in the Lu family, so there might be almost no escape.

After waiting for more than half a month, he still didn't see his servants coming back, and there was no movement in Kaifeng, so he knew that he was being monitored. He didn't dare to send his servants to deliver the letters anymore. One servant disappeared, and another servant was beaten, which was scared. He had only two servants to use.

So Lu Xiru bought the yamen officers to deliver letters to him, but the yamen officers were all locals, and few of them worked alone. They supervised each other and did not dare to accept Lu Xiru's money. Until a bold one, he took Lu Xiru's five taels of silver and letters from the front foot, and even the letter and the silver were handed over to Li Yan. Li Yan left the letter and the silver and gave the yamen officer half a pound of cotton. After that, this pattern continued. Lu Xiru spent more than fifty taels of silver, but did not send a single letter.

Li Yan frowned and thought for a while, saying, "No need to worry about this. We have paid so much summer tax this year, so let's save this autumn grain."

"The general means, don't hand over at all?" Chen Zhubu asked in surprise.

Li Yan said: "Don't worry, Master Chen, there is a tall man standing there. And now there are thieves everywhere in Henan, so our Qi County is not spared. I have reported to Governor Li, and I believe the court will not blame us much."

Chen Zhubu nodded silently and then bowed to his goodbye. He knew that Li Yan had completely controlled the entire Qi County. Even if Li Xianfeng sent someone to investigate, Li Yan could turn into a group of thieves.

As soon as Chen Zhubu left, Blacksmith Zhou and Wang Renhui came over together. They brought a handgun and a fixed ammunition. The amount of ammunition had been set before, and there were one or two cents of medicine (about 37 grams) in it, together with the ignition medicine and the launch medicine. However, the shell sent last time was a columnar body, which made Li Yan dissatisfied, so Wang Renhui asked to go back and change it again.

"Young Master, this is a newly made handgun. The machete has been reduced a little, and the rod has been made into thinner. The entire handgun has lost 10 taels of weight, but now it weighs three pounds and four taels."

Li Yan took the hand gun and tried it in his hand, feeling it was indeed lighter. Then he twisted out the strip of the guardrail under the muzzle and looked at it. The rod was more than half thinner than the head of the strip. He said: "What impact will these improvements have on production?"

Zhou Blacksmith replied: "It has some impact, but two processes have been added, so the impact is not big."

Li Yan nodded and asked Wang Renhui: "Has the new ammunition pack been made?"

Wang Renhui opened the box, took out an ammunition bag and handed it to Li Yan, and said, "This is a new ammunition bag made according to the general's prompts. Please check it."

Li Yan took it and looked at it, nodding in satisfaction. The new ammunition pack is underneath, and nearly one-third of it is a vertebrae. The tip of this vertebrae is easy for soldiers to bite it with their mouths, and it is more relaxed when pouring gunpowder into the gunpowder pool, so you don’t have to worry about pouring too much. It can easily tell where the head is and where the tail is, saving time for discernment.

He pinched the tip of the ammunition bag with his hands, and found that it was full. He nodded and praised: "Well, it's not bad. I know I'm thinking. It's very convenient to bite this way, so don't worry about gunpowder sticking to my mouth."

Wang Renhui said embarrassedly: "This experiment that Bei Zhi personally conducted was improved based on my own feelings when doing the movements."

Li Yan nodded, and said, picking up the musket with his left hand and holding the cartridge in his right hand. He bit the tip of the cartridge a hole, then poured gunpowder into the medicine pool where the spring had been raised, and pressed the spring with his right hand to jamm it. Then he raised the gunpowder and poured the remaining gunpowder into the barrel. Then he pinched his fingers and squeezed the lead ball stuck at the tip of the ammunition bag, and then put the ammunition bag made of oil paper into the barrel.

Then take out the strip, poke the grease paper, and then gently poke it down two or three times, until it feels that the grease paper has tightened the projectile. Then pull out the strip and put it back into the guardrail. Finally, when the gun is flat, use your right hand to move the strike iron back from the safe position in the middle to the position to be fired, and then complete all the steps from loading to preparing for firing.

Zhou Blacksmith and Wang Renhui, who were standing in front of Li Yan, immediately retreated to both sides. The pistol was filled with flint. As long as Li Yan pulled the trigger, it could fire and fire.

Li Yan smiled and said, "I'm quite alert."

Wang Renhui smiled awkwardly and said, "We have tried this musket every day these days, and we can penetrate the chain mail at thirty steps. We have tried it on half a pork pill. After being shot in, the lead ball will deform, and it will be useless if it hits it."

"Let's go, let's go to the schoolyard to try it." Li Yan said, then stood up and walked out. Zhou Blacksmith and Wang Renhui, who was holding the ammunition, both hurriedly followed.

Sun Sifu ran out earlier, but Li Yan arrived at the school ground and didn't wait long before he saw a target erecting against the wall in the corner.

Li Yan asked everyone to retreat, and then began to aim. The eyes, the door, the accurate letter, and the bull's eye in front formed a line. He immediately pulled the trigger.

With a "bang", a white smoke came out of the gunpowder pool to the side, and a flash of fire at the muzzle flashed, and his hand raised upwards under the action of recoil.

The wooden target leaning against the wall moved back and a faint smoke and dust emerged from the wall.

Sun Sifu immediately went up to check, then shouted loudly: "Twenty-five steps, hit the bull's eye! It's broken through!"

Li Yan moved the strike iron to a safe position in the middle and lifted the buckle spring. At this time, Wang Renhui immediately handed over an ammunition bag. Li Yan started some series of movements again neatly, loading the ammunition in. Then he started shooting again.

"Bang", "Bang", gunshots rang out in the school ground every once in a while. Under the not-so-strong north wind, there was only a faint smoke left. Although the soldiers who were training were very curious, their regular strict training made them dare not slacken at all.

Li Yan stopped after firing six rounds of ammunition. He felt that it was pretty good and there was no sign of being in a daze. So he ordered: "This pistol is good, and the ammunition is good. After returning, the process is settled as soon as possible and production begins. Wang Renhui, you need to get an ammunition box to prevent rain so that the soldiers can carry the ammunition together."
Chapter completed!