The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

The western suburbs of Queshan County.

On the east bank of Sanli River, at the foot of Wuli Mountain.

The five Tiger Guards who were accustomed to using flintlock guns held shields in their left hands and single-shot blunderbuss in their right hands. They charged towards the several wooden stake men wearing double armor in a semi-encirclement formation!

When they were more than ten steps away, the five of them picked up short muskets almost at the same time and started hitting the wooden stake man!

Bang bang bang...

As the gunfire rang out, several of the stake men were shot.

Liu Sheng could see clearly from behind that there was a hole in the outer layer of the wooden pile.

The five guards did not stop practicing.

They first used their shields to block arrows, then retreated a dozen steps and reloaded their weapons.

The paper-cased fixed-loading ammunition was used. After taking it out, bite the bottom. First, add a little to the powder tank of the flintlock gun as ignition powder. Then put the chewed paper-cased ammunition into the barrel and press it tightly with a purge bar.

The whole process is a lot shorter than when the paper shell is not used to load the ammunition!

The five men stepped forward again and fired short muskets, and another bullet hole appeared in the wooden stake man!

Liu Sheng looked at it and nodded slightly, then said: "Bring the target over and have a look."

"Yes!"

Several personal guards responded and fetched several wooden stake men.

Liu Sheng personally inspected the bullets and saw that the armor and cloth armor of all the wooden stakes were broken, and the lead shot was completely embedded in the wooden stakes.

This shows that the single-shot short musket he asked the gun factory to produce is quite powerful.

The director of the firearms factory, Lao Huamao, was transferred from the military and political affairs. At this time, he stepped forward and introduced: "The short musket we produced based on the drawings given by the commander has a maximum range of sixty steps and an effective range of Within forty steps.

One layer of armor can be broken in thirty steps, and two layers of armor can be broken in twenty steps. If it reaches within fifteen steps, even three layers of armor can be broken. "

Liu Sheng nodded.

The armor-piercing effect of this short gun was similar to his estimate, which showed that the gun factory had done a good job in developing it - it took skill to make something according to the drawings.

He asked his personal guards to try it again, and found that it could indeed break through three layers of armor within fifteen steps, and he was even more satisfied.

It should be noted that this is a flintlock musket that can be fired with one hand (without charging), not a matchlock gun with a barrel of more than one meter.

If it were a matchlock gun, it would be able to break through two or three layers of armor in sixty or seventy steps.

"How long does it take for your gun factory to produce 500 of these short muskets?"

"Back to the Marshal, the gun factory's hydraulic drilling machine is very powerful, and it has a special steel drill bit made according to the formula given by the Marshal. It can drill pipes very quickly.

This kind of short blunderbuss barrel can be drilled in one day. If it is a bird blunderbuss barrel, it will take three or four days.

However, the gun factory now only has five drilling machines, and each drilling machine can only drive four drill bits at the same time. Even if they are all used to produce short blunderbuss tubes, it would still take a month to produce 500. "

This remark not only flattered Liu Sheng, but also suggested that the firearms factory had too few lathes at present and needed more to increase musket production.

Liu Sheng smiled and said, "I will ask the machinery factory to buy you more hydraulic drilling machines, forging hammers and other machines as soon as possible.

You can decide how to arrange the production work in the factory, but you must deliver these 500 single-shot short guns to the Military Affairs Hall in one month. "

"Yes!" Lao Huamao responded loudly with a military salute, and then said: "Commander, please name this short gun!"

"Let's call it 'Xinghua style'."

After arranging the short gun production tasks and giving the short gun a random name, Liu Sheng continued to inspect the firearms factory.

Gun factories and other types of arsenals are now built on the east bank of the Sanli River to facilitate the operation of various lathes using the water power of the Sanli River.

For example, drilling machines existed in the Ming Dynasty.

Human-powered drill presses are generally foot-operated. If you use them to drill gun barrels, a drill press can only drive one drill bit. It takes nearly a month to drill out a gun barrel!

Not only is the manual drill press not as powerful as the hydraulic drill, but the drill bit is not strong enough.

Queshan Firearms Factory uses a water-powered drilling machine and uses a small amount of special steel made by local methods as drill bits, which naturally greatly improves the efficiency.

But this does not mean that all hydraulic drilling machines are so efficient.

Hydraulic drilling machines vary in power. If the power is low, it will take a long time to drill out a gun barrel.

Building various arsenals in Queshan was a task Liu Sheng had assigned last winter - at that time, the craftsmen who were forcibly recruited by the Weibu were already building various types of armor by the Sanli River.

Now in the past two or three months, the firearms factory, artillery factory, ammunition factory, armor factory, etc. have been initially built, and some hydraulic machines have been used.

Although every factory faces a situation similar to that of a firearms factory - there are not enough water-powered machines, and there are not enough skilled workers.

But it still increased the output of Guibu's guns and artillery armor by a large margin!

Unfortunately, the water flow of the Sanli River is too small and the height is low. The power of the hydraulic lathe is destined not to be too high, and the scale of the arsenal built here will also be greatly restricted.

For example, in a firearms factory, according to Liu Sheng's estimation, it would be enough to install twenty or thirty drilling machines.

If Kueibu wants to build a larger arsenal, it will have to find a place with a better geographical location.

After inspecting various arsenals, Liu Sheng was about to go to Queshan Iron Factory to have a look when he saw a horse galloping towards him.

But it is the knight guard who delivers the message.

After the knight dismounted, he delivered a telegram.

"Commander, there is an urgent call from Liujiazhai!"

Liujiazhai?

Could it be that something happened in North America?

A few days ago, I asked you if everything was okay?

With doubts, Liu Sheng opened the message and read it. Only then did he realize that there was a conflict between the Kuei tribe and the natives in the upper reaches of the Xinluo River over hunting.

The conflict was not big, just a few dozen people. Some of the Kueibu hunters were injured, but none of them were seriously injured or killed.

As for the situation of the natives, the telegram did not say anything.

But afterwards, the tribe took the initiative to negotiate with the Wei tribe. After some exchanges, the Wei tribe learned that the other party wanted to resolve the hunting ground dispute through a "duel" - I don't know whether it was because they knew how powerful the Wei tribe were, or it was traditional.

If Weibu loses in the "duel", its range of activities upstream will be greatly reduced, and it will not be allowed to expand further upstream.

If the tribe loses, it will migrate away and give up the land that will later become the city of Sacramento to the Wei tribe.

After Li Changwen left, the affairs in North America were jointly handled by Liu Dachuan, Yang Minghe, Guo Sanhai, and Yan Yuanshan.

This matter was obviously very important, and the four of them could not make a decision, so they sent a letter to the telecommunications office in Liujiazhai, asking the telecommunications office to send an urgent message to Liu Sheng.

'Looks like it's time to go back to North America. '

After putting away the telegram, Liu Sheng thought to himself.

He returned to Queshan on the first day of March. It is now the ninth day of March and he still has not been to Tianmu Mountain.

The delay in various things is partly due to the fact that the front-end time is mainly busy with the red lady, busy making little people, and I am a little indulged in the gentle land, and I don't want to be happy anymore.

Liu Sheng returned to the county seat, had lunch with Lady Hong, explained some affairs here, and then rushed to Tianmu Mountain with three hundred horsemen.

The distance from Queshan County to Tianmu Mountain is less than a hundred miles, so it took more than three hours to get there by horse.

Liu Sheng ordered two hundred knights to enter the camp at the foot of the mountain and guard the horses.

He only led Li Dingguo and a hundred other knights into the mountain.