When the soldiers were all back, Li Yan counted it and they combined the pursuit of the victory and wiped out a total of 32 enemies, which means at least a dozen enemies fled.

Li Yan asked the soldiers to clean the battlefield, pack up all the useful things, and then quickly left.

"Fourth brother, you ride on it." Li Mou led the white horse and said to Li Yan.

Li Yan was still sitting on the shaft of the car and smiled and said, "If you like it, ride it, I'll give you this white horse."

"Then I thank the Fourth Brother." Li Mou said happily, immediately rode on the white horse, whipped a whip, and ran away.

After a while, Li Mou came back on a horse and said excitedly: "Good horse, good horse."

They encountered no accidents along the way and returned to Qilizhai smoothly. Li Yan asked someone to unload the food, and he took the man and Zhou Blacksmith to send the iron back to the county town together.

Now there are refugees everywhere in the city. Some of them set up shacks beside the city walls, while others sleep in the open on both sides of the streets. At the beginning, the wealthy gentry in the city set up a porridge shed, but as time went by, the porridge sheds were also removed one after another.

There is not much food in the granary in the county now, and the reliefs applied for from the court have not yet been responded to, so the county town has been sealed off the city very early and no more refugees will be allowed to enter the city. Every day, they only give the refugees a meal of porridge to make them barely live. Therefore, the security in the city is in chaos, and the refugees start stealing and robbing in order to survive.

When Li Yan and his friends entered the city, they saw that the soldiers and constables were patrolling along the streets to maintain public order.

"Young Master, should we make crossbow machines first or three-eyed guns first?" After arriving at the blacksmith shop, Zhou Blacksmith asked. Now that we have two thousand kilograms of iron, we have no shortage of other things, and we can make some things well.

Li Yan thought for a while and asked, "How far can the three-eyed gun shoot? What is the caliber of the lead bullet?"

"This is simple. Once I have finished the iron core, I will know it. The projectile mold is slightly smaller. As for the range, twenty steps should be able to break the heavy armor, and usually there should be fifty steps." Zhou Blacksmith said relaxedly.

Li Yan frowned and asked, "Does there be no unified standards and standards when you do these?"

"It's almost done," Zhou Blacksmith said naturally: "As long as the projectile can be filled in, the money and grain provided by the court is only a little bit. If you work meticulously, you will lose a lot."

"Now it's for me, and I require a unified standard." Li Yan emphasized.

Zhou Blacksmith explained: "There is no problem. As long as the projectiles can be filled in, if you want to hit it far, add the iron and Trojan horse. It is just a mat made of wood. The wood is easy to cut, and the one that can be made is very similar to the muzzle. If you pad it between gunpowder and the projectile, you can hit it far."

Li Yan thought for a while and rejected: "No! If the three-eyed gun is not mentioned, it will be difficult to load the bullet. If the future muskets have the same idea, it will be too troublesome. Therefore, there must be a unified and strict standard, so use the three-eyed gun to practice."

"Oh, my young master," Zhou blacksmith begged for mercy: "I just know how to shoot three-eyed guns. The three-eyed guns are short, only one foot, easy to work with. The musket is too long, and two layers of iron pipes are not easy to build. Besides, I have seen them and have never made them myself."

Li Yan encouraged, "Then practice your hands first! Tell me what you lack, but there must be a unified standard. You can leave the arrow cluster and crossbow receiver to your disciples. Think about how to get out the musket. I'll make a pattern of a caliper for you, and you can create one yourself to facilitate measurement of the size."

He had seen this caliper in his dreams and found it very useful. It is more convenient and accurate to measure diameter, depth, thickness, width, and especially to measure holes.

"We have a caliper," said Zhou Blacksmith, then took out a ruler from his tool box and said, "We use this to measure it. Although every craftsman will have some deviations in this thing, it will generally not have any impact."

Li Yan looked at two iron claws, and one of them was embedded on the hollow guide rail of the ruler body, and there was a ring below to facilitate adjustment of the iron claws. Moreover, the tail of the moving grab is equal to the ruler body, and the tail will protrude when pulling the moving grab, so that the depth can be measured.

He held the caliper and looked at it repeatedly for a while, nodded and said, "This thing is good, so I won't be ugly, just use this one. But I think you can still make a new one, especially the scale above. You need to divide it more finely, and it is best to get to the centimeters. The finer the bits, the better the thing you make."

Blacksmith Zhou said helplessly and unconfidently: "Okay, I'll try it. But this takes time and cannot be done in a short while."

"It's okay, you can do it slowly." Li Yan relieved him of this pressure.

Zhou Blacksmith suddenly said, "There are so many refugees outside, maybe there are blacksmiths. Should we go and find them?"

Li Yan smiled and nodded and said, "This is a good idea. You can go and find it. As long as it is something you find useful, you can stay."

"Young Master, this requires a lot of food." Zhou Blacksmith reminded. In this period of famine, no more money is mentioned, but food, as long as there is food.

Li Yan said affirmatively: "I believe in you. As long as it is something you think is useful, I will give him a full meal! But when you go out, you have to bring guys and staff, safety is the most important thing."

"Okay! With your trust from your son, I will definitely get things done for you!" Zhou Blacksmith said with emotion.

After Li Yan left the blacksmith shop, he returned to the grain shop and was finally able to take a hot bath. In fact, taking a bath is second, and the most important thing is to wash your hair. It is very troublesome to wash your long hair once, but now it is lacking in water, so you wash it once every half a month in Qilizhai. This is still mandatory. If they are not forced to wash it, it is probably possible to wash it once every two or three months.

In order to prevent the village from infectious diseases due to lice and fleas, he set this rule. But for him, half a month still seemed too long, so he often went into the county town on excuses and took a shower at the same time after finishing the work. It was really comfortable.

With long wet hair dissipated, Li Yan read the latest news in his study. The Qing soldiers finally withdrew from the Great Wall. The border towns and the troops entering the capital began to report victory. This report beheaded 1,000, and the one reported beheaded 3,000. It seemed that the Ming army was still quite powerful.

Li Yan shook his head and smiled, treating these words that won the victory as a joke.
Chapter completed!