It only took about ten days from the idea to the actual implementation of the folding gun. The smooth progress completely exceeded Zhu Youjian's imagination. He originally thought that he would need to go through the long technical accumulation of the flintlock gun before he could make the cartridge case and load the gun.
As a result, the breech-loading gun was miraculously produced. It turns out that historically, the front-loading gun and the breech-loading gun developed in parallel for a period of time. However, without detonating materials, they had to stagnate.
With this thing, Emperor Chongzhen was immediately full of confidence in the future. Although the power currently controlled by the palace may not be able to produce a large number of breech-loading guns, it still has the production capacity to produce 5,000 to 10,000 guns in one or two years.
It should be possible to produce hundreds of thousands of bullets a year.
With the new army equipped with breech-loading guns in hand, no matter whether he is a Manchu or Li Zicheng, if he dares to come to Beijing, he will never come back. In the two Opium Wars in later generations, the equipment of the British army was similar to this.
With less than 10,000 soldiers, I can defeat the Qing Dynasty without any means. It shouldn’t be too difficult for the new army I trained to reach the combat power of the British army.
Suddenly he gained confidence, and his demeanor when working in the past few days was different. He began to smile at the situation in front of him, and he was not angry at the southern Zhili battlefield that continued to collapse.
Just when he felt like a big stone had been put down in his heart, Wang Dehua, the chief minister of etiquette, hurriedly ran from the outer court to the palace.
"Zhangyin, you came to the palace in such a hurry, but something serious happened?"
"Your Majesty, I feel that if I don't come to the palace to tell you the truth, the situation in the country will be out of control!"
"What's the truth?" Wang Dehua said in a loud voice, which frightened Zhu Youjian. Could it be that the foreign court concealed some major military information? The unknown is the most terrifying thing.
"Since Donglu entered Zhili, the supply of materials in the capital has been poor, especially firewood and charcoal. It has snowed heavily in the past few days and the cold has been unbearable. According to a report from the Shuntian Prefecture, the capital
Many poor people and beggars died of the cold. The cabinet elders urgently discussed a case and said that emergency firewood and carbon stored by the imperial court should be used to relieve the people of the capital."
"Can't we just let them handle this? Didn't I explain it before? This situation is out of control!"
The news reported by Wang Dehua made Zhu Youjian dumbfounded. Due to the chaos in the Zhili area, it is inconvenient for supplies to enter the capital. The supply of large-scale consumables such as firewood and charcoal will definitely be extremely difficult. But this has happened a long time ago
After the explanation, just take out the reserves and use them first. There is no need to get out of control. Once the most difficult period of the recent period is over, and by the end of the first month, the new army will be sent out, the situation will be much better.
"Your Majesty! They don't have any firewood stored in the outer court! Apart from piling some cheap charcoal in the warehouse, they can't produce any emergency supplies for heating. So in order to relieve the people of the capital, they have to take it from the inner treasury.
The elders said it nicely, saying that it was a temporary loan and would be returned after they brought in firewood from outside. But in the current situation, by the time they brought in firewood from outside, the palace would have no use for it.
!”
It turns out that what Wang Dehua really wants to say is this! From his point of view, this will indeed make the situation get out of control. I don’t know whether the situation in the capital will get out of control by doing so, but the situation in the inner palace will definitely get out of control. As the inner palace, he
The big boss, no matter how much I say, I can’t do this to him.
Zhou Yanru and other grandsons are also good at scheming. They are threatening the inner palace and the emperor with the life and death of the people in the capital. If you don't take out the firewood, you are just pretending that the people in the capital will freeze to death. How will the people see the palace then?
"Zhangyin, you said that the outer court has stored some carbon in the treasury?"
"There is some charcoal stored, and the quantity is quite large. The cabinet ministers and people from the Ministry of Revenue said that this was stored in advance at the request of His Majesty for the soldiers to enter the customs. The old slave asked them why they did not store charcoal, and they explained
It is said that the warehouse is too small to store so much firewood, and charcoal is expensive. When money is tight, it is also a stopgap measure to store cheap charcoal that does not take up space. Your Majesty, don't you think this is a delay?
Can there be an emergency with so much unusable carbon?" When Wang Dehua said this, he was so angry that his teeth itched. This group of people in the outer court were clearly prepared to deceive people!
"Let's do this! Zhangyin, you go and tell the Grand Master and the others that the palace can give them most of the firewood and charcoal stored in it, and they don't need to make up for it later. Just use the charcoal stored in the warehouse to make up for it at the same price."
"Your Majesty, you must not do it! If there is no firewood in the palace, how can we keep warm and make a fire for cooking? The charcoal is smoky, not easy to burn, and is poisonous. It cannot be used as ordinary firewood. It is usually used in
The big kilns in various factories are no longer suitable for daily use."
"That's it. Just wait a moment. I'll have Daban and the other stewards from the inner palace summoned to discuss how to use stone carbon for heating. I have a way to use stone carbon for heating."
It’s not that stone carbon is unsuitable, it’s just that there are currently no useful coal stoves. Without smoke exhaust stoves and iron stoves, stone carbon cannot be used in daily life. As long as the problem of soot is solved, stone furnace
Carbon will be better than wood charcoal and firewood.
After Wang Chengen and the others were summoned, they quickly arrived at the emperor's palace. Seeing that they were all here, Zhu Youjian immediately arranged for the heating and stove renovation in the palace.
The carbon stove is not difficult to make. To be simple, just make an iron stove surface and fire tube, and then use yellow mud to paste the main body. To make it more complicated, use an iron plate to make the main body of the stove, and then fill the core with yellow mud.
That's it. In addition to the carbon stove that burns coal, Zhu Youjian is also planning to make a honeycomb briquette stove. This kind of stove uses less coal, is lightweight, and has less soot. It is very suitable for use in cities and can be used by small households.
For cooking, it can replace wood stoves on a large scale.
The main problems that plague the production and promotion of carbon furnaces are iron plates and chimneys, and now the iron factory in the palace has the ability to make a large number of iron plates. Due to the large demand from the enamel factory, the iron factory's plate press can now press out only a few
An extremely thin iron plate with a millimeter thickness. This kind of thin iron sheet is perfect for rolling fire tubes.
There are two types of briquette stoves in later generations, one with a chimney and one without a chimney. Relatively speaking, it is safer to get a chimney now, otherwise it is easy to cause carbon monoxide poisoning.
"In the past few days, we must first implement the use of stone carbon in the imperial dining room. The stove in the imperial dining room already has a flue, so there is no need to make any modifications. The only wind box that needs to be modified is to get some small hand cranks from the iron factory.
This problem can be solved by using a blower and opening up the air duct." The palace has many people and good conditions. If such a large-scale renovation of burning appliances was carried out elsewhere, it would probably take a lot of time. But in the palace,
It can be basically completed in twenty days at most.
What Wang Dehua did caused Zhu Youjian's good mood to be completely ruined. He thought that finding a folding rifle would change the overall situation. But this time the firewood crisis told him that the situation was not optimistic.
Carbon shortage is just the first problem to be exposed. With the rampant activities of the Qing army in the north and Shandong area, there will be shortages of various materials in the capital, especially food. At the same time, due to their destruction of the countryside in this area,
Next year's spring plowing in the North China Plain is bound to be affected. Historically, the reason why Li Zicheng was able to enter Beijing without any effort in the 17th year of Chongzhen was directly related to the massive destruction caused by the Qing army's entry into the country the previous year.