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

Yang Wenyue stared down sharply.

Several officers from Wuyang and Ruyang Township did not dare to lie and told their own stories.

"Supervisor, Liu Thief did attack Wuyang with Hongyi cannon. I saw it with my own eyes!"

"The rebel artillery is nearly one foot long. Although it is silver-gray, it is thin at the front and thick at the back. It can hit two miles away. It is indeed a Hongyi cannon!"

"I once conducted a reconnaissance after the bandits marched, and there were many tracks that looked like gun carriages. Judging from the number, there must be more than ten!"

"···"

After hearing the conclusive words of these rural soldiers and officers, Yang Wenyue was shaken.

As the governor of Baoding, he knew a lot about Hongyi cannons and even supervised the production of several Hongyi cannons.

The Ming Dynasty began to imitate Western artillery as early as the Zhengde period. Especially during the Jiajing period, many French cannons were imitated and even sold to Southeast Asia and the West.

Even the General Cannon and the Crouching Tiger Cannon have the shadow of Western artillery.

Learning advanced foreign technology is not shabby.

Knowing that people's skills are much higher than yours, but still closing yourself off to the country and not learning, bewildering the people, and even ultimately deceiving yourself, is a fool's errand.

As for the earliest Hongyi cannons obtained by the Ming Dynasty, they were obtained by salvaging a sunken Hongyi (Dutch) ship in Zhaoqing in the 48th year of Wanli. There were twenty-two cannons in total!

Later, in order to deal with the Jiannu, four were first purchased during the Tianqi period, and then ten were purchased during the early Chongzhen years, and then the road to counterfeiting began.

However, not only does a Hongyi cannon consume thousands of kilograms of iron, it is also not that easy to cast.

It often takes several months to build a batch of Hongyi cannons, and after completion, there are still many unqualified and defective products.

In addition, the Hongyi cannon was too heavy to be used in field battles, so most of the time it was used to defend cities.

Therefore, from the early years of Chongzhen to the present, there are only dozens of Hongyi cannons imitated by the imperial court, and they are basically located in Beizhili, Xuanfu, Shanhaiguan, and Ningyuan, Jinzhou and other important military cities outside the pass.

Governors and prefects in various places or those who occasionally cast red barbarian cannons generally did not exceed five, and they were all red barbarian cannons with smaller calibers.

Of course, the exception was Sun Yuanhua, the former governor of Denglai - Sun Yuanhua had cast more than 20 Hongyi cannons, more than 300 French cannons, and thousands of blunderbuss in Dengzhou for three and four years in Chongzhen!

He also used Western methods to train an elite force that was good at using guns and artillery.

It is a pity that Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others rebelled and became slaves.

After that, the imperial court strictly prohibited local governors from casting large quantities of guns.

Based on the above knowledge, Yang Wenyue felt that it was impossible for the Runing bandit army to possess at least ten Hongyi cannons.

However, he felt that Gao Douyuan and the few rural soldiers officers in front of him had no reason or courage to deceive him.

If this matter was true, he could understand why the court had not received any relevant information before.

Presumably the local officials who got the news also thought it was ridiculous that the rebels had several or even dozens of Hongyi cannons, so they dismissed the matter as a local rumor or rumor.

But... there were still some points he didn't quite understand in what these people said.

"You said that the cannons of the traitorous Hongyi army are all silver-gray? Can they be pulled by carriages to attack the city?"

Several people nodded, "That's true."

"Those cannons can really hit two miles away?"

"When we attacked Ruyang, we fired artillery two miles away!"

After listening, Yang Wenyue stroked his beard and said: "As far as this court knows, most of the Hongyi cannons are made of pig iron and are gray-black; a few are made of bronze and are green-black; I have never heard of silver-gray cannons.

A Hongyi cannon that can shoot two to three miles weighs at least five thousand kilograms, and it will be even heavier with the cannon carriage.

Don't you think it's ridiculous to say that the bandit army used horse-drawn carriages to pull a dozen Hongyi cannons to attack the city? "

When he said this, Yang Wenyue was already considering another possibility - Gao Douyuan and these rural soldiers officers were all in league with thieves and were working together to deceive him.

At this time, Hu Dawei, who had been listening for a long time, also said in a voice like thunder: "Isn't it that you are having an affair with the thieves and deliberately exaggerating the strength of the thieves' army to scare us into retreating?"

"I was wronged!"

Several rural soldiers were so frightened that they knelt down.

Gao Douyuan turned red with anger and said angrily: "I am also an official of the imperial court, how can you arbitrarily taint my innocence?!"

Hu Dawei glared and said: "Then the Queshan County magistrate surrendered the bandits. You, Xiping, are right under the noses of the bandits, but you are safe and sound. So what if I suspect that you are having an affair with the bandits?"

At this time, Zhang Dechang couldn't help but help: "Magistrate Gao, you said that the rebel army has more than a dozen Hongyi cannons. It is indeed ridiculous. It is suspected of deterring us from going south to suppress the bandits."

Gao Douyuan never expected that in the face of the rampant thieves, he guarded Xiping cautiously and actively collected intelligence on the thieves, but what he got in return was the suspicion of his superiors and generals.

I was so sad and angry that I wanted to die.

He didn't bother to talk to the two generals Hu Dawei and Zhang Dechang. He faced Yang Wenyue directly, raised his hands with red eyes and said, "Please supervise the officer to show his innocence!"

Yang Wenyue remained silent.

He was originally suspicious of the information provided by Gao Douyuan, but after listening to Hu Dawei's analysis just now, he felt that Gao Douyuan was even more suspicious.

Seeing this, Gao Douyuan didn't understand what Yang Wenye was thinking?

He became even more sad and angry, and shouted: "It seems that the only way I can prove my innocence today is to die!"

After saying that, he turned around and walked out of the tent - there was not a single pillar in the tent of Yang Wenyue's army, and he was not wearing any weapons. There was no way he could commit suicide even if he wanted to.

He was going to jump from the North Gate Tower of Xiping to prove himself!

Unexpectedly, before he walked out of the tent, he heard a long and urgent shout from outside.

“Report—it’s urgent to transfer six hundred miles from the capital!”

Soon, the messenger was brought in and delivered an urgent report to Yang Wenyue.

Gao Douyuan was curious, but he was in no hurry to leave.

After reading the emergency report, Yang Wenyue's expression changed drastically. He slapped the desk and stood up, saying angrily: "Gao Douguang is incapable of harming the country!"

As he continued to read, his expression changed again, and he shook his head in disbelief: "The rebel army has hundreds of red cannons? Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! Gao Douguang and others must be trying to shirk the blame!"

Hundreds of red barbarian cannons?

Hearing this, not to mention Hu Dawei and Zhang Dechang, even Gao Douyuan, who had previously provided the rebels with at least ten Hongyi cannons, were shocked.

My first thought was that it was impossible.

"Supervisor, what happened?" Hu Dawei was the first to ask.

At this time, Yang Wenyue also read all the contents of the emergency report, frowned and sat down, saying: "On the ninth day of April, Gao Douguang was defeated in Gucheng and Zhugao Town. Huang Degong, the commander-in-chief of the Beijing camp, died in front of the rebel artillery. Thirty thousand Most of the officers and soldiers were lost.

Afterwards, the rebel army pursued the defeated troops, went down the Huaihe River, captured Huoqiu and Yingshang, and advanced to Yingzhou.

In order to prevent the bandits from attacking Fengyang, Gao Douguang, Wang Xian and others had no choice but to retreat to Shouzhou. Now Yingzhou and other places are probably lost. "

"More than 30,000 officers and soldiers were defeated?" Hu Dawei looked in disbelief when he heard this.

Based on his previous experience in suppressing bandits, he believed that a few thousand officers and soldiers could chase tens of thousands of bandits.