Yuyue Mountain is located more than ten miles west of Jiayu County. It has deep mountains and forests, waterfalls and strange stones. It can stand on the top of the mountain to enjoy the magnificent waves of the Yangtze River. The scenery is particularly beautiful. It is the most famous scenic spot in Jiayu County. You can often see groups of scholars or county people who take ox carts to bring their families to visit here.

There is a huge cave at the foot of the mountain south of Yuyue Mountain. The entrance of the cave is three meters high and several miles deep. It is called Feiyu Cave. The Chen brothers tested the thunder in the sky. The Chen brothers, the former Hao Da Hao Er, were expelled from the military weapon prison because they were "dead" in the Battle of Xixia. Li Yanqing had to use the power of the county magistrate to create a household registration for them out of thin air and renamed Chen Jiang and Chen Hai. In the official records, their brothers were from Yule Township and made a living by making pottery, without any bad records.

Although the Black Heart Dragon King had been destroyed, the two of them were not unemployed, but continued to develop firearms in the Baihua Manor rented by Baoyanzhai. What they did all their efforts this year was to miniaturize the thunder and turn it into iron cannons.

Artillery has been available, also known as thunderbolt. In the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Song army was equipped with the miniaturized thunderbolt. However, whether it is the cannon or the fire, it is made of paper shells, and its lethality is too weak. If it can be made of pig iron, the damage of the iron sheet after blowing up will be extremely great, which can affect dozens of steps and cause damage to both men and horses. It will be an extremely sharp individual weapon.

However, it is very difficult to miniaturize the thunder. The main reason is that the amount of gunpowder is insufficient and it is difficult to explode the iron shell. Therefore, they tried countless times and ended in failure. Later, the Chen brothers could only make a decision on the shell. They first succeeded in making porcelain fire-blasting. The porcelain bottles are easy to break and the porcelain pieces can also hurt people. But the problem also arises. The porcelain pieces cannot penetrate iron armor and are easily fragile when carried.

The Chen brothers had to turn their attention to pig iron again. After countless failures, they finally made a small sky-shaking thunder that could be carried by individual soldiers, named Iron and Fire Thunder.

Li Yanqing brought Zhang Bao, Zhang Ying, Yang Guang and more than a dozen soldiers to Feiyu Cave with the Chen brothers, and tested the firearms here. There was no sound in the county town, which was very secretive.

More than a dozen soldiers stood guard outside the cave and were not allowed to enter the cave. Li Yanqing brought Zhang Bao, Zhang Ying and Yang Guang to the depths of the cave. There was a large open space here, and the surroundings were very empty. Brother Chen regarded this as a firearm test site.

"Let's start!"

The Chen brothers placed a box on the ground and opened it. Inside it was three one-handed iron fire thunders, which looked like a small eight-edged purple gold hammer with a wooden handle below. Li Yanqing actually drew a sketch of a grenade for them, but they could not make the shape of the grenade and made an eight-edged purple gold hammer.

Li Yanqing picked up a 'little hammer', weighing about three pounds. He estimated that he could throw it thirty steps away. He handed the little hammer to Zhang Bao, who was the most powerful, "You can throw it to see how far you can throw it?"

Zhang Bao took the hammer and threw it hard to go into the distance. He heard a crisp sound of "dong!" and it was about thirty steps away. Zhang Bao ran to pick it up. Chen Da took it and looked at it with heartache. Fortunately, it was not smashed and cracked.

"The reason why the county lord is to fill the medicine to the maximum extent, the iron shell is also thin. We could have made it smaller, but no matter how small the amount of medicine is not enough, the iron shell will not explode. But if the iron shell is too thin, the lethality will not work, so this is the limit."

Li Yanqing nodded, and he looked at the fuse again. The fuse was under the wooden handle and was usually wrapped in a semicircular wooden shell. When using it, the wooden shell was twisted off and rolled into a ball of fuse and it came out.

"Yang Guang, go and tie the test items to the iron pillar!"

The test sample is a piglet, wrapped in iron armor, mainly to see if the exploded iron sheet can penetrate the iron armor. The piglet is in the cage on Yang Guang's back. He mumbles and runs to more than twenty steps away. There is an iron pillar there. He tied the piglet to the iron pillar. The piglet screams so much that he is scared.

At this time, Chen Hai smiled and said, "Will the county lord try first?"

Li Yanqing lifted an iron fireball and twisted off the lid at the bottom of the wooden handle. Zhang Bao was about to go forward to light the fire, but Li Yanqing waved his hand, "Since it is a single weapon, let me do it myself!"

He pulled out a fire stick from the iron can with him, and swung it in the wind. The fire stick immediately ignited and lit the fuse below. Chen Hai hurriedly said: "When the fuse is about to reach the handle, you must throw it away, and then find a cover to cover it or lie down!"

The fuse was burning. When it was about to reach the handle, Li Yanqing suddenly threw the iron fire thunder at the iron pillar. He hid behind a big rock for a moment, and heard a loud "boom!" sound. Although it was not as earth-shaking as the thunder, it was also thrilling. At the same time, he heard the crackling sound. This should be the sound of iron sheets hitting the rock wall. The surroundings turned gray and white, and the air was filled with pungent smoke.

After a while, the smoke of gunpowder disappeared. Li Yanqing quickly walked forward. The piglet stopped screaming. The iron armor wrapped around it was broken through countless small holes. Yang Guang untied the iron armor. The piglet inside was covered with blood and blood. It was unknown how many iron sheets penetrated the body and was already dead.

Li Yanqing was overjoyed. This was indeed a sharp weapon against the cavalry. At this time, the Chen brothers came up and said, "The biggest problem now is that iron shells are not easy to make. They are made of blacksmiths with iron sheets, and the output is very small."

"Isn't it made of a whole body?"

Chen Hai shook his head, "The iron shell is only slightly thicker than the walnut shell, and is similar to the orange peel. It cannot be cast in one piece, so you can only use splicing."

Li Yanqing looked at the splicing part carefully again, and the splicing was perfect. He pondered for a while and asked, "What are you going to do next?"

"The next step is to continue to improve, and the fuse is not very stable. We need to find a way to build a wooden tool that wraps the fuse."

"If you have time, help me make an iron pipe, about two feet long, the pipe wall should be thick, and the hollow part is about as thick as a wine glass. If it can be cast intact, it is best to use two halves if it cannot be cast."

Speaking of this, Li Yanqing took out a piece of paper from his arms and handed it to them, "This is a pattern, be careful not to spread it!"

Of course, Li Yanqing wanted to make a musket. This was something he thought about for a long time. In fact, ten years later, the Song army invented muskets, which were only used to spit fire. Later, after decades, it gradually invented the muskets based on muskets.

However, the early storm guns were made of bamboo tubes and paper tubes. The actual combat effect was not good, the range was short, the medicine was slow, and it was very easy to damage. In fact, even a musket was not good. Its range and killing effect were far inferior to crossbow arrows. However, the musket still had an advantage. It could shoot dozens of iron bullets together and shoot within thirty steps. As long as the direction was not bad, it would be difficult for cavalry and war horses to escape, which could make up for the shortcomings of crossbow arrows in the enemy's short range.

The musket developed for decades. Until the metal pipe appeared, the musket was born according to the situation. Li Yanqing wanted to take the step of the musket and directly enter the musket era. When they were developing the thunder shell, they kept modifying the mold and could cast a complete large iron shell with iron. Then as long as they continued to improve, there was hope for casting an integrated iron pipe.

Moreover, after inventing the musket, wise craftsmen will continue to follow up and research, inventing sharper firearms, and even large-caliber artillery will be gradually developed. In this way, the Song army, which lacks war horses, can rely on firearms to fight powerful cavalry.

At noon, Li Yanqing and his men returned to the county town. As soon as they entered the county government, Mo Jun ran out, "My county lord is back!"

"Is there anything urgent?"

Mo Jun whispered: "People are coming from the capital. I'll wait for the county lord for an hour."

Li Yanqing was slightly stunned. People from the capital, who would this be?

"Who is it?"

"The person who came did not say it, but the subordinate's intuition was probably the one sent by the prince."

Li Yanqing's heart was thrilled, and then asked, "Does Yang Ju know?"

"He went to Jiangxia and agreed to not be back tomorrow. Ding Xiao also happened to ask for leave today."

Li Yanqing nodded, "Where is he now?"

"Now I'm waiting in my subordinate's official room, and my subordinates dare not let him go to the county magistrate's official room for the time being."

Mo Jun did a good job and did not let the visitor wait in his official room. Li Yanqing praised: "You are very cautious!"

Li Yanqing had known that Yang Ju had received the task of surveillance from the court to monitor him since last year, and he did not take it seriously. This was a hidden rule of the court. There was a system called essay management in the Song Dynasty. When the household registration of a criminal official was moved to a certain place, there would be a dedicated person to monitor his every move, and he would report to the supervisor regularly and explain his behavior. To some extent, it was equivalent to parole in later generations. In history, Zong Ze was falsely accused of despising Taoism and was sent to Zhenjiang essay management.

Although Li Yanqing was only demoted and could not be called a supervisor, he was still different from ordinary officials. The court could not ignore him and let him go. Almost all demoted officials would be monitored by local officials. If there were any extraordinary actions, they would be reported to the court in time.

Li Yanqing also knew that this was not Yang Ju's original intention, but Yang Ju was chosen by the court. However, he had a good relationship with Yang Ju, especially when he solved the financial crisis of the county government and concealed the matter of borrowing money to buy a boat for Yang Ju. Yang Ju also reciprocated her for gratitude and did not report many things to the court. For example, Yang Ju also heard about the development of the thunder and thunder, but she still concealed them for Li Yanqing.

Li Yanqing also understood in his heart that the thunder of the sky was just a firearm, it was irrelevant and had almost no impact on the court's structure. Yang Ju could bear the responsibility if he did not report to the court, but today the prince sent someone to him. This kind of thing was too involved. I am afraid that Yang Ju would not dare to hide it for him no matter how brave Yang Ju had, so he would never let Yang Ju or Yang Ju's confidant know about this.
Chapter completed!