Anti-Qing: Starting from the Reincarnation of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 61 Triangles are Stable (22)

Although at present, the Yuancong faction has the absolute upper hand over the two factions, and almost all the senior generals in the Ming army are members of the Yuancong faction.

But as the Ming army continues to grow and develop, and continues to absorb talents and expand its power, the power of the Tujia people will definitely continue to grow and develop.

There are only a few people in the Yuancong sect, and the number will only decrease but not increase.

Sooner or later, the Tujia people will be more powerful than the Yuancong sect.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty will be forced to form a Tujia regime that represents the interests of the Tujia.

Then, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to continue its external expansion, the most powerful enemy it needed to face was not the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but the Hakka forces in Guangdong and Guangxi.

The resistance faced by Ming Dynasty's expansion will be very great.

In order to avoid such things from happening.

It was also to balance the Tujia forces in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Jing'an planned to introduce Hakka people as soon as possible to balance the forces in the court.

Although the follow-up may trigger party disputes between Tujia and Hakka.

But the advantage is that in this case, the Tujia people and the Hakka people are both members of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty did not need to be regarded as mortal enemies by the Tujia or Hakka people, but could calmly use the power of the Tujia and Hakka people to fight against the Qing Dynasty.

As for the future...

Zhu Jing'an can support the Yuan Cong faction to balance the forces of the two parties. Generally speaking, the situation can still be controlled.

No problem!

We all know that triangles have stability.

That's for sure!

Zhu Jing'an didn't have to wait long. With a grinding sound that made people's hearts ache, the gate of Hejia Village's enclosure opened from the inside.

He Shou wore plain clothes, held high a white flag, led people out of the enclosure and surrendered to the Ming Dynasty.

Although he has surrendered to the Ming Dynasty now, he may be liquidated by the Manchu and Qing officials later.

But even if the Manchu Qing Dynasty wants to liquidate, that will be a matter of the future.

But if he doesn't surrender to the Ming Dynasty now, Hejiacun will have no future.

He Shou led people to Zhu Jing'an and bowed down.

"The common people pay homage to the Grand Governor. The common people who did not know the future and resisted the king are really old and ignorant, and their crimes cannot be punished."

"Now, the old man has woken up and led everyone to surrender. I hope that the governor will be magnanimous and forgive us for our previous sins. I hope everyone in Hejia Village will be innocent."

"If there is any guilt, I, as the clan leader, am willing to bear it for the sake of my clan."

Hearing this, Zhu Jing'an turned over and dismounted, used his arms to help He Shou up, and spoke warmly.

"Mr. He was able to wake up and lead the crowd to surrender. This is already a great achievement. What crime is there?"

"Not only will I not punish Mr. He, but I will reward Mr. He greatly."

"Our Ming Dynasty is currently short of a Minister of the Ministry of Punishment to be in charge of the administration of punishment. I wonder if you are willing to contribute to the country?"

When He Shou heard this, the smile on his face suddenly froze.

He didn't expect that Zhu Jing'an was waiting for him here...

The reward Zhu Jing'an mentioned was really a hot potato for him.

If necessary, he would be tied to the Ming Dynasty's pirate ship and would not be able to get off.

But if not, he couldn't guarantee whether Zhu Jing'an would fall out on the spot after being rejected...

When he raised his head, he looked into Zhu Jing'an's eyes, which were as flat as a lake and devoid of any emotion.

In the end, He Shou was unable to say no.

He bowed down and said.

"If Ming Dynasty needs it, I will obey it!"

Seeing this, Zhu Jing'an nodded with satisfaction.

"Sir, it's great to think so."

After saying that, he turned around and said.

"Come here, cut Mr. He's braid."

He Shou: "..."

He Jin on the side gritted his teeth when he saw his father's braids being cut, and stood up and said.

"I am reporting to the Grand Governor that ordinary people also want to join the army and contribute what they can to our Ming Dynasty to "drive out the Tartars and restore China."

As soon as He Shou's braid was cut and his official hat was put on, the He family was tied to a pirate ship by the Ming Dynasty.

Although He Jin felt extremely unwilling, he could only accept the reality.

Then, he figured it out!

Now that the rebels have done everything, why not do it more thoroughly?
You might as well join the army!

Maybe this group of rebels can really succeed in rebelling against the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty?
If this succeeds, then He Jiake will be transformed into a hero of the restoration of the Ming Dynasty.

In the future, you will enjoy endless prosperity and wealth!

Since there was no way out, He Jin didn't mind taking a chance.

What if it happens?
Seeing this, Zhu Jing'an couldn't help laughing.

"Hahaha, for Mr. He's son to have such an awakening, Mr. He really has a good way of teaching his son!"

When He Shou heard this, he couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth. Wasn't this the whole thing forced by you?
……

Wuxuan County, at the gate of the county government office.

Li Jie quickly put the gear on a carriage.

Ji Bochang used a brush to gently comb the horse's mane.

The brush passed through the hair, and the horse made a pleasant humming sound. It stretched out its long tongue and licked Ji Bochang's face a few times to show his closeness.

Seeing this, Li Jie couldn't help but joked.

"Old Ji, not only do you live up to your name, you are also very experienced in riding a rouge horse. I never thought that even the horse pulling the cart would be so close to you."

"It's really strange!"

Ji Bochang heard Li Jie's joke, but he was not angry and just said with a smile.

"That's for sure, otherwise would my name be in vain?"

"How about Brother Jie? Do you want us to go to the brothel together next time?"

Li Jie's mouth twitched and he waved his hands quickly.

"No, no, no, it's the most boring thing to go to the kiln with a young boy. Those kiln ladies just left me alone and rushed to you."

Ji Bochang heard this and said with a smirk on his face, shrugging his hips.

"Hey, who calls me lives up to my name!"

While the two were chatting and joking, Master Luo Wentong Luo walked out of the county office.

When the two saw this, they immediately fell silent.

Master Luo looked around and asked.

"How are things prepared? Are the carriages ready?"

The coachman, Lao Yan, replied.

"When I return to Master, the horses will be fed, the carriages will be harnessed, and they will be ready to go at any time."

Upon hearing this, Master Luo nodded approvingly.

"Not bad, not bad, Xinghong, you did a good job."

"In that case, let's get ready to go. Let's go to Jintian Town..."

In order to temporarily stabilize the situation in Wuxuan County, Fang Kunzheng had the idea of ​​recruiting the Ming army.

Then, he sent his confidant, Mr. Luo, to go to Jintian Town to find out what Ming Dynasty was saying.

See if there is any possibility of appeasement!

In Fang Kunzheng's view, even if he cannot appease the Ming Dynasty, it would be good if Master Luo could figure out the next movements of the Ming army.

At the very least, it would be convenient for Fang Kunzheng to make further decisions.

And this idea was also given to Fang Kunzheng by Master Luo.

Then, Master Luo shot himself in the foot.

He really didn't expect that Fang Kunzheng would choose to send him to take risks in Jintian Town.

But the order has been issued, and Master Luo can only obey the order.

Master Luo got on the carriage and set off with a greeting.

The driver, Lao Yan, flicked his whip skillfully, making a crisp sound.

Immediately, the carriage slowly drove away from the gate of the county government and headed along the street towards Wuxuan County.

After leaving the county seat, the carriage continued along the official road and headed straight for Jintian Town.

……

Not long after, Master Luo arrived in a carriage outside Jintian Town.

Far away, he saw a roadblock at the intersection ahead.

The person responsible for guarding Luka was a team of Ming soldiers.

These soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were all wrapped in red scarves, holding swords and spears, holding their chests and heads high, looking quite impressive.

On the road, a big flag was hunting in the wind.On the flag with black characters on a red background, the big word "明" is very eye-catching.

Seeing this, Master Luo couldn't help but sigh and said silently in his heart.

It has been over a hundred years since the Ming Dynasty fell, so why do so many people still miss him?

Is it really that important to fight against the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty?
He has been a master for 30 to [-] years and has sent away several bosses. He has seen not a hundred but eighty rebellions and uprisings in various places.

More than half of them carried the banner of anti-Qing and Fuming.

But it has never been successful.

But the more this happened, the more puzzled he became. Did this so-called "anti-Qing and restoration of Ming" really have such great appeal?
Can the so-called anti-Qing and restoration of the Ming Dynasty make a group of idiots risk their lives to rebel against the Qing Dynasty?

"Who is coming?"

"Get out of the car and talk back!"

Just when Master Luo's carriage was about to reach Luka, several Ming soldiers came up with spears and stopped the carriage.

Master Luo and his group were stopped. He stuck his head out of the carriage and spoke.

"I am Luo Wentong, the master of Wuxuan County. I came to Jintian Town this time to represent the county government and want to negotiate with you."

"Go and report quickly!"

Looking at the dazzling swords and guns, Master Luo's calves were shaking a little, but in the end he stabilized his mentality, tried hard to maintain his airs, and spoke with a tense expression on his face.

Obviously, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who were responsible for guarding Luka were calmed down by Master Luo's gesture.

After looking at each other, one of them turned and ran towards Jintian Town to report the matter to the senior management.

……

In the Bauhinia Mountains, there is a mine!
Zhu Jing'an stood in front of a steel-making furnace.

This is a typical converter for acid steelmaking. The furnace body is about 1.22 meters high and is a fixed vertical container. There are 6 tuyeres at the bottom and can add about 350 kilograms of molten pig iron.

A blower is used to blow air into the molten iron from different tuyeres to take away the impurities in the molten iron, thereby quickly smelting steel of high quality.

This acid converter steelmaking method was invented by Bessemer, an Englishman, in the middle of the next century.

As soon as it was invented, it greatly promoted the development of the British steel industry, causing British steel production to skyrocket.

In this era, it is definitely a black technology and worth learning from.

However, the only flaw of this steelmaking method is that it must use high-quality pig iron with low phosphorus content to make steel, and iron ore cannot be used directly to make steel.

Otherwise, the quality of the steel produced will be very low.

Fortunately, the quality of the iron ore in the Bauhinia Mountains is not bad, and the phosphorus content is not high. After using a small blast furnace to make pig iron, and then using a converter to make steel, the quality of the steel produced is acceptable.

The advantage is that the efficiency of steelmaking is much higher than the traditional steel-frying method. This is a steel-making method that can make steel in batches, rather than the same steel-frying method that can only tap steel on a small scale.

We can only rely on the experience of master craftsmen to determine the quality of steel.

Another point is that the combustion of converter steelmaking does not require coke. Good steel can be produced using only charcoal, which is exactly in line with the conditions that the Ming army now has.

This converter was built by workers according to the drawings given by Zhu Jing'an and wasted a lot of effort and materials.

As for where Zhu Jing'an's drawings came from?
Don't ask, just ask the professor from your ex-girlfriend.

The converter was built and put into operation after testing.

Zhu Jing'an also came to inspect it in person as soon as he had time.

Although the world today can only be considered to have half of its foot in the industrial society, the importance of steel is still self-evident.

Whether a country is strong or not, the first thing to look at is its steel production.

The higher the steel production, the stronger a country is. This is an indisputable fact.

This is especially true when it comes to war.

Once the armies of two countries go to war, after excluding all other official factors.

Absolutely, the military of the country with more steel per capita has a greater chance of winning.

Of course, what I'm talking about here is just probability.

Things are not absolute. For example, rabbits created a miracle in the Korean War.

However, the reason why miracles are called miracles is because they rarely happen.

Not all armies are rabbits, able to change their fate against the odds and use morale to defeat steel.

Most of the time, per capita steel ownership is the most important criterion for measuring the combat effectiveness of an army.

What Zhu Jing'an wants to do now is to find ways to increase the per capita steel ownership of the Ming army.

The molten steel produced in the converter is cast directly into the mold. After it is cooled and demoulded, directly formed cold weapons such as swords, spears, and armours can be obtained.

The weapons produced in this way may have some shortcomings in terms of quality, but what Ming Dynasty needs to pursue most now is not quality, but quantity.

Besides, steel is steel, no matter how poor the quality is, it will definitely be stronger than the iron weapons used by the Qing army.

Many times, the world is not about comparing who is better.

It's about comparing who is worse.

If your opponent is a little worse than you, then you can win in the end.

The most typical example is the end of Ming Dynasty.

In an era where everyone was competing against each other, the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was relatively not that bad, won the final victory.

As the hydraulic blower operates, a large amount of air is blown into the furnace from the six air outlets.

The furnace temperature begins to rise rapidly!
Even though Zhu Jing'an was still some distance away from the stove, he could still feel the heat coming towards his face.

He watched helplessly as the pig iron was heated by the charcoal, burning red, and then melting little by little until it turned into red molten iron.

Immediately afterwards, pulverized limestone and carbon powder were added to the furnace for chemical reaction with the molten iron.

In order to remove impurities from the molten iron and turn the iron into steel.

As time goes by, the temperature of the molten steel is getting higher and higher, and it is getting redder and redder.

Zhu Jing'an turned to Guo Dashan and ordered.

"Guo Shangshu will have people keep an eye on the furnace. When the steel is almost finished, he will send someone to inform the governor. I will go to inspect other work first."

According to the efficiency of converter steelmaking, it takes about one to two days, or even longer, to complete a furnace of steel.

It was impossible for Zhu Jing'an to stay in front of the stove for such a long time.

This time he put down his busy military affairs and entered Zijing Mountain not only to inspect the converter for steelmaking, but also for other purposes.

For example, to inspect the construction progress of the armory workshop.

As the Ming Dynasty brought back a large number of craftsmen from the entire Wuxuan County and surrounding counties, the Ming Dynasty's ordnance workshop in the Bauhinia Mountains was officially opened.

Started large-scale production of various ordnance that the Ming army now urgently needs.

Such as gunpowder, swords and spears, shields, bows and arrows, as well as muskets, artillery, etc.

Here, gunpowder, swords and spears, shields, bows and arrows, etc. are all mature technologies, and production arrangements have already begun.

Zhu Jing'an inspected the finished product and found that overall the quality was pretty good.

The quality of the ordnance captured by the Ming Army in previous battles was much better.

It’s enough for the current Ming army!

Also, for the production of these ordnance, all Zhu Jing'an did was to instruct the ordnance workshops to use water conservancy equipment for auxiliary production during the production process.

It is also necessary to use standardized and assembly line production methods as much as possible in the production process to improve production efficiency.

Other than that, there is nothing else.

He knows that many times, in many things, the most taboo thing is for a layman to give an expert a blind command.

Zhu Jing'an never likes to point fingers at things he doesn't understand, but will leave them to professionals.

The production of firearms such as muskets and artillery is also currently in the process of technical exploration.

In fact, the muskets are not bad. The craftsmen that the Ming army worked hard to collect are all skilled in the production of matchlocks, so there is no problem at all.

All that's left is to figure out how to unify the standard caliber of muskets, improve the firing device, and change the matchlock to a flintlock.

With the drawings given by Zhu Jing'an, I believe they can figure out some tricks soon.

However, casting a cannon is not that simple.

The craftsmen recruited by the Ming army had at most helped the landlords to cast some small-caliber cannons.

In terms of shape, it is probably similar to the bowl-mouth blunderbuss, squatting tiger cannon, and Folang machine gun of the pre-Ming Dynasty, which are light cannons with limited power.

Now I want them to cast qualified field guns and cannons as soon as they get started, even if Zhu Jing'an has already provided them with blueprints and casting ideas.

That's also making things difficult for them.

There was no other way. Zhu Jing'an could only be patient and wait for these craftsmen to slowly work out the results.

Of course, while studying how to cast field artillery and cannons, the cannon-casting craftsmen were not idle either.

They were asked to continue casting a portion of the cannon.

One is to fill the vacancies in the Ming army's current artillery equipment.

The second is to allow craftsmen to practice their skills.

A skilled hand is definitely better than a novice. It is better to practice more with cannons now than to make a fool of yourself when the ordnance workshop officially starts casting field guns and cannons in the future.

Also, for the current Ming army, earthen artillery is enough for the time being.

The enemy the Ming army faces now is not the Eight Banners Jianrui Battalion of the Qing Army, nor is it the northwest elite soldiers of the Gansu-Shaanxi Green Battalion.

It's just the green battalions of prefectures and counties in Guangxi, or the regiments training armed forces.

To deal with these people, for the time being, earthen artillery is enough.

　The second update is a [-]-word chapter. Today’s [-]-word chapter is complete...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)