Lu Wei was really tired of this kind of undercover life. Ever since he sold an iron fire thunder, these people kept looking for him and asking him for information. Now they asked for an iron fire thunder, almost asking him for information. It drove him crazy.
Fortunately, King Yong came back in time to give him some advice, so he gained some confidence.
When he walked into the private room on the second floor, Wang Shuang and Zhou Hua had been waiting for him for a long time. They stood up and said with a smile: "I have to trouble Lu Sima again."
Lu Wei nodded, looked around and saw Lu Jiao was nowhere to be seen, and asked, "Where is Lu Jiao?"
The two shook their heads and said, "We have searched several brothels, but we can't find anyone else."
"Forget it, this person is completely hopeless!"
Lu Wei walked into the elegant room and sat down, and said to the two of them: "You may have some clues about what you want!"
The two were overjoyed and asked quickly: "What's going on?"
"This time when the army came back, they brought back a lot of small iron fire mines. It is said that the quality was defective. Ten of them were tested and seven did not explode. The entire batch will be destroyed."
Zhou Hua said quickly: "You can just steal one from the destruction."
Lu Wei nodded, "I also have this idea, but I have to tell you, it will take time!"
"Why?"
"All the items have been transported to the Firearms Bureau. They will not be destroyed until they find out why there was no explosion. At that time, they will be placed in the military's scrap warehouse for a few days. I can't access them now."
"How long will that take?"
"I estimate it's about a month!"
Wang Shuang and Zhou Hua looked at each other, and the marshal was so anxious that they could only explain.
"Okay! Just one month."
Lu Wei coughed and said again: "This time the risk is very high. I can't do it alone. I also have to pay a lot of money to others, so I won't do it with 50,000 yuan!"
"Lu Sima, fifty thousand guan is already a lot!"
Lu Wei shook his head and said: "I won't do anything less than one hundred thousand yuan. You can think about it yourself! Give me a reply in two days!"
After saying that, Lu Wei turned around and walked away. Wang Shuang and Zhou Hua were stunned. Zhou Hua said angrily: "It's too easy for him to get money. Now he has learned how to open his mouth like a lion, but he still doesn't bargain."
Wang Shuang sighed and said: "He actually didn't want to do it, so he deliberately asked Han Feng to go back and report to Marshal Du! If Marshal Du agrees, then just take the gold directly."
"Really give him 100,000 yuan?"
"If Marshal Du agrees, he can get another one. One hundred thousand guan, just one hundred thousand guan! This is not our business."
"That's right! The key is whether Marshal Du can agree."
The business of Dongyuanhe Restaurant in Daming City is booming, the seats are full of guests, and the shopkeeper Liu Zhen keeps greeting the guests.
At this time, a tall and thin man walked in and nodded to Liu Zhen. Liu Zhen acknowledged it and smiled and greeted a guest. Then he entered the yard through the back door. The tall and thin man followed him to the shopkeeper's room.
The tall and lanky man named Wang Lian is Liu Zhen's most capable general. He is extremely skilled in martial arts and is mainly responsible for spying on military intelligence.
"Have you eaten yet?" Liu Zhen asked.
"Not yet! Xiao Liu said that the manager had something urgent, so I came right here."
"I'll tell you the mission later, and you can leave after eating."
Wang Lian nodded and looked at the red mailbox in Liu Zhen's hand, which indicated that the information was important.
"The target this time is a person named Yang Jinggong, the leader of the firearms workshop under Wan Yanchang."
"It seems that the manager asked me to investigate him last time."
Liu Zhen nodded, "You investigated last year and found that this person is the best gunpowder maker under Wan Yanchang. Now Prince Yong has issued an order to kill this person and burn the information in his hands."
"I see!"
"Do you need my help or manpower?"
"Give me a bag of kerosene and I won't need any help. I'm used to going alone."
"The gunpowder is fine. You go to eat and I'll give it to you when you leave."
Wang Lian quickly finished his meal, took a bag of kerosene, and disappeared into the sea of people.
Yang Jinggong was under so much pressure these days that he even urinated blood. In order to put pressure on them, Wan Yanchang broke up their five-person development team into five teams, and each team led a few apprentices to develop iron fire thunder.
The first person to successfully develop it will be promoted to the third level, rewarded with 10,000 taels of gold, and then assessed once every three months, and the person with the lowest progress will be beheaded.
The so-called progress is the number of times the gunpowder is tested, and the least number of times is the last.
The most direct consequences of this are two, hostility and fraud.
The five firearms makers were originally partners in a team, but now they have become enemies, wary of each other and spying on each other.
The second is fraud. The assessment indicator is the number of tests, so the test is repeated every day. Originally, a formula only needed to be tested three times and was abandoned if it failed to meet the requirements. Now it has to be tested a hundred times. If the requirements are not met, it must continue to be tested to make up the number, and even
The experiments done before were taken out again and continued.
The key is that all the references are used up. No one knows what kind of gunpowder can explode the iron shell, so they can only test the iron shell. This will cause a big problem, that is, the number of tests is too few, and it can only be tested once a day at most.
, it can even be tested once every few days, mainly involving a sealing process, which is very cumbersome and can only be completed in one day at the earliest.
Others can test gunpowder more than ten times a day, but you can test explosive iron shells only once a day, so your progress must be at the bottom, and you can only be beheaded.
Everyone knows this truth, but in order not to be ranked last, we can only fake it, concentrate manpower to test gunpowder every day, and test the explosive iron shell every five or six days.
Yang Jinggong is the most skilled of the five firearms craftsmen. He has the richest experience and the deepest understanding of gunpowder. The other four craftsmen are working hard to make fakes. Everyone's progress has greatly surpassed that of Yang Jinggong. During the assessment next month
, Yang Jinggong will be severely punished even if he is not beheaded.
But during this time, Yang Jinggong had already gained some insights. Two days ago, he accidentally discovered that after grinding gunpowder into powder and solidifying it into small particles the size of sesame seeds, it burned much faster than in powder form.
This is a major progress. This is the most critical step for the success of the iron fire thunder. As long as you make a low-quality iron shell, it will basically explode. If you put some white sugar, the explosion effect will be better.
In the past two days, Yang Jinggong had been conducting experiments secretly at home. He was afraid that several other competitors would spy on his secret and take away the reward of 10,000 taels of gold and a third-level promotion.
At night, Yang Jinggong was sitting at the study table, concentrating on recording his secrets in a small notebook.
'Since the porcelain fire mine can be successful, it should not be the gunpowder formula, but the gunpowder burning speed. Could it be that the spies got a fake fire mine, which led to a big detour in the development of the iron fire mine? I deeply doubt it.
.'
At this moment, a black shadow appeared behind him, and the light illuminated the long black shadow on the wall.
Yang Jinggong dipped some ink and continued writing, when suddenly a hand covered his mouth. Before he could react, Yang Jinggong felt a sharp pain in his vest, and the dagger pierced his heart, killing him immediately.
The man in black picked up the notepad on the table, looked at it, put it into his arms, spread kerosene all over the study room, especially the bookcase and desk, and then threw a charcoal stick into the kerosene, 'Boom!' The flames burst out.
Burning, the man in black jumped out of the window and left quickly.
Not long after, the house was burned through, flames shot into the sky, and explosions continued to sound. Several barrels of test samples hidden in Yang Jinggong's study were ignited and exploded.
Yang Jinggong's family stumbled out and shouted for help. Soon, neighbors came to put out the fire with gongs and drums, but the constant explosions of gunpowder scared them back and they did not dare to go forward to put out the fire. The fire grew bigger and bigger, and thick smoke billowed.
, engulfed five or six houses in the entire courtyard. Wan Yanchang’s dream of iron fire and thunder was also completely buried in this fire.
