The day before the imperial meeting, Zhu Youxiao specially took a day to visit the arsenal.
In addition to knowing the inside story of the five million taels, he also wanted to review the changes and developments in the past six months.
Every time Zhu Youxiao leaves the palace, there is no warning. He basically leaves at will without informing anyone in advance except Ma Xianglin.
They will not leave the palace with the emperor's chariot arrogantly, and the travel routes are also different. Today they may go through this door, and tomorrow they may go through that door.
It won't be like what is shown on TV, such as conducting private interviews incognito, pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger, etc.
If he follows the pretentious tricks in TV dramas, he will not survive for more than half a day, and he will have to be carried back to the palace to prepare for the funeral.
Although Emperor Zhu did not act like an emperor when he left the palace, the number of the accompanying guards never exceeded three hundred.
He offended too many people, and he was also the most powerful official and gentry class.
The officials and gentry may have dreamed that they would die suddenly and then someone else would take the throne.
Therefore, he pays great attention to personal safety and is extremely defensive.
As long as you leave the palace, your breastplate will never be missing.
Usually in the Qianqing Palace, there must be a double-layered guard of Jinyi guards and Imperial Guards.
Only in this way can he sleep well and have a peaceful sleep.
He kept fifty war horses in the palace, with a stable for every five horses.
The stables are located in all directions of the palace, as close to the palace gate as possible.
Then it was handed over to different eunuch departments to raise, and the horse feed was all provided by the Royal Forest Army, and people from the inner factory were secretly monitoring it.
So don't try to mess with his horse, let alone fall off the horse and fall to death.
The main reason is that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty is really a high-risk profession. You will be assassinated by falling into the water at every turn, which is really scary.
The imperial city is like a market, which everyone can enter and exit. The spread of internal information is so wide and fast that it is no worse than the network information age of later generations.
Therefore, there is no safety at all in this imperial city. Emperor Jiajing fell asleep and almost never woke up again. He was so frightened that he quickly moved out.
If it hadn't been for a major blood change and his confidants guarding him day and night, Zhu Youxiao might not have dared to live in Qianqing Palace.
When a group of cavalry wearing fine armor and black and red robes galloped out of the city, those who were lurking in the dark and watching realized that the emperor had left the palace.
Without any chance and no time to prepare, the emperor was too cautious.
When Zhu Youxiao arrived at the arsenal outside the city, the first person he went to look for was Bi Maokang, who was supervising manufacturing in the factory workshop.
"Shao Sikong, Your Majesty is here, right outside the door!"
When the guards came to inform Bi Maokang, he was studying a newly baked Shenwu self-made fire gun.
Before Bi Maokang had time to tidy up his clothes, he hurried out to meet the driver.
After Zhu Youxiao saw him, he did not immediately ask about the five million taels, but first asked him about the current situation of the arsenal.
After a year of expansion and development, as well as the merger of the Wang Gong Factory and the Ordnance Bureau, the current arsenal is very large in scale and is basically on the right track and has begun normal operations.
There are more than 13,000 craftsmen, of course, most of them are just small craftsmen. There are only more than 300 medium craftsmen, and there are even fewer big craftsmen, only seven.
Zhu Youxiao had to lament that the literacy rate was really too low, but craftsmanship alone was of no use. The Ming Dynasty had never lacked craftsmen.
From this we can also see how terrifying the illiteracy rate was in the feudal era.
You must know that most of these craftsmen are official craftsmen of the imperial court. Although they are not high-ranking people and they are not very wealthy, at least they are not like the lower-class peasants who have to work for a year without enough to eat.
Even among them, only a very small number of people can read and write. One can imagine the high cost of studying.
As long as the resources and channels for studying are in the hands of the gentry, the imperial power will never be able to truly stick to its word, and the emperor will not be able to make a decisive decision.
Just like the imperial examination, it cut off the roots of aristocratic families and supported a new group of literati to divide the forces that exploited them and made them disappear in the long river of history.
What made him feel suffocated the most was not this, but the over 10,000 craftsmen whose manufacturing techniques were completely unbalanced.
Most of them can only make cold weapons such as armor, spears, knives, shields, etc., and less than half of the craftsmen have qualified firearms skills.
Zhu Youxiao knew without even thinking that most of these people must have been recruited by the Arms Bureau and the private sector. None of the craftsmen in Wang Gong Factory knew how to use firearms.
Although it was a bit hard to accept, he thought about it and looked away. Among the short ones, they are taller. These people are at least better than those who don't know anything. If they are trained and taught well, they will be able to get started soon.
Bi Maokang has now listed this matter as the most important development direction of the arsenal and the first step in future reforms.
Your Majesty attaches so much importance to the popularization and development of firearms. If nothing else, the future development trend of the Ming Dynasty has basically been established.
The equipment of the Ming army will definitely need to be replaced on a large scale. The expenditure required will be astronomical and the time required will be immeasurable. Perhaps this ambitious goal can be achieved in this day.
Although he urged his men to mass-produce Shenwu's self-generated firecrackers and improved large-scale Folang machine artillery every day.
However, he still mobilized more than two thousand firearms craftsmen to serve as temporary training masters, teaching other craftsmen in batches to make firearms and cannons.
It's definitely not possible to rely on these thousands of people. The efficiency is really too low. It takes more than two months to mass produce a batch.
And now we are facing an extremely embarrassing problem. Because there are too few major projects, the establishment of Tiangongyuan is like a useless thing and has no effect at all.
Nowadays, the entire manufacturing and research and development of weapons is basically handled by Bi Maokang, and all matters big and small have to be handled personally.
The task of the intermediate workers is to be responsible for the technical problems and process difficulties encountered in the factory, ensuring that every furnace and craftsman can continue to forge and polish.
The only few major workers are responsible for factory inspection, gun testing, and cannon testing. They also have to take time to learn more professional knowledge and cultural foundation.
Bi Maokang also went to Xu Guangqi for this purpose. He had dealt with those red-haired barbarians and knew their more sophisticated and advanced weapons very well.
The manufacturing process is also very skilled. Bi Maokang is not an arrogant or arrogant person, but has a very good quality, the heart of an apprentice.
Whenever he has free time, he will go back to the capital to find Xu Guangqi and learn from him the simpler, more convenient and qualified red-haired barbarian craftsmanship.
After Xu Guangqi learned about the situation, he immediately sent people back to his hometown and sent all his books and the information he recorded to the capital, and gave them all to Bi Maokang without reservation.