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

Shi Jincai came to the gate of the camp first with the bodyguards of Sanbai Shengjieying. The Ming army guarding the gate did not realize that they were enemies.

Instead, he asked Shi Jincai with a flattering expression——

"I wonder which general is here? Are you going to change defenses? Why didn't we receive the notice?"

Shi Jincai originally wanted to lead people to rob the camp gate.

Seeing that the camp gate was within easy reach at this time, he changed his strategy and asked: "We are indeed here to change our defenses. Go and ask your Qiu guards to come out."

The guard's name and other information were given by Zhao Kaifu on the road.

The gatekeeper Mingjun said: "Our guards accompanied the mine supervisor to Wuyang County. Now the commander-in-chief of the camp is Qin Ba."

"Then let Mr. Qin come out."

The Ming army commander who was guarding the gate went in. Soon, a military commander wearing cloth armor came to the camp gate with a few people.

The Commander-in-Chief of Qin was somewhat vigilant, and he could see that the rebel army did not look like the official army in many ways, so he became suspicious.

But I still didn't expect it to be an enemy.

Because he knew Zhao Kaifu.

He pressed the hilt of the knife and looked at the rebel team for a few times, then looked at Shi Jincai, frowned and asked: "Where are you from? Do you have any transfer orders?"

Shi Jincai smiled and said, "The order is here."

As he said that, he stabbed him with a knife.

Qin Ba was so agile that he ducked sideways and was about to draw his sword to fight.

However, he was suddenly shot by several crossbow arrows from more than ten steps away, killing him immediately.

Only then did the other Ming troops react.

They didn't even have time to shout "enemy attack" before they fled in all directions.

The guards of Shengjie Camp followed directly and rushed into the camp. While killing the scattered groups of officers and soldiers, they shouted: "Put down your weapons! Those who kneel down and surrender will not be killed!"

The top commanding officer in the camp was absent, and the second commanding officer was also attacked and killed. Dozens of the most powerful servants accompanied the guards and mine supervisors into the city to enjoy themselves.

The remaining few hundred soldiers of the battalion were suddenly attacked and had no power to resist.

In addition, there were only a few hundred people, but within a quarter of an hour, the camp was controlled by the guards of Shengjie Camp.

At the same time, Peng Youyi also led the first battalion to blockade the government-run iron yard next to it.

Statistics after the war showed that only about thirty officers and soldiers of this battalion were killed, and the remaining more than four hundred people were all captured, and no one escaped.

Later, Liu Sheng asked a dozen military and political officials to bring a group of veterans with relatively good arithmetic into the government-run iron yard to count the iron inventory and the number of craftsmen inside.

He also asked Helianyue to lead the two hundred victory battalion and the Yishao Xiaoqi battalion bodyguards to ambush Wuyang County on the way back to the iron field, and captured Naqiu guard and mine supervisor...

After the sun sets.

Helianyue could not help but curse when he saw that Qiu Shoubei and others had not yet appeared on the official road.

"Damn it, the Donkey Ball Guard and the Dog Mine Supervisor didn't know how cool they were when they came to the county town, and they haven't even returned yet. I'm afraid they didn't want to spend the night in the city."

A sentry commander answered with a smile, "I think most likely he went to visit a brothel."

Helianyue heard this and said curiously: "Eunuchs can also visit brothels?"

"That is, when I was in Ruyang, I often saw eunuchs arrogantly entering brothels looking for girls."

He Lianyue chatted with the sentry commander for a few words, and Tan Ma, who had to go to the front to conduct reconnaissance, came back and reported that he had not seen anyone suspected of being guarded by Qiu, so he ordered the troops to retreat.

After returning to the camp near the iron mine, Helianyue went to the rebel camp and reported to Liu Sheng.

Liu Sheng was looking at the reports of the military and political officials on the inventory of iron materials in the iron yard and the number of craftsmen.

The iron material from this iron yard is delivered once every three months. Together with the iron tax collected by the mine supervisor, it is first sent to Wuyang, and then passes through the Ru River, the Huaihe River, and the canal to the capital.

The rebels arrived at a very coincidental time, as the next relief mission will be in early November.

In other words, the iron ore currently has nearly three months of iron inventory.

After checking, there are currently 38 kilograms of pig iron and 35 kilograms of wrought iron in the iron yard warehouse.

Liu Sheng was quite happy when he saw this data at first, thinking that the wrought iron in stock at the iron yard could be used to make armor and weapons.

But after reading the "explanation" provided by military and political officer Zhao Deyou in the appendix, I realized that the wrought iron of this era was divided into grades.

After being tempered by craftsmen for almost one working day (about six to eight hours?), it is called "one fire" or "one refinement".

Pig iron will be lost due to continuous oxidation during the forging process, which is also considered to remove impurities.

Wrought iron for general civilian use is obtained by removing ten thirds of pig iron. That is to say, ten pounds of pig iron can be forged into seven pounds of civilian wrought iron.

The wrought iron used to make armor and weapons must go through at least five refinements.

After five refinements, ten pounds of pig iron can generally only yield three pounds of wrought iron.

From this we can see how big the difference is between civilian wrought iron and military wrought iron.

As for refined iron or steel, it can only be obtained after at least ten refinements.

After ten kilograms of pig iron have been refined ten times, there are often only about two kilograms left. (After five refinements, with each additional refinement, the oxidation will be reduced very little.)

According to experienced craftsmen here, only fine iron can be used to make armor pieces.

The fire gun requires refined iron with a higher refining number. Ten refined irons can only make a sudden fire gun like the one in the early Ming Dynasty.

If you want to make a musket (matchlock gun) or a flintlock gun, you need at least the kind of highly refined iron that can be tempered to produce one pound of ten pounds.

As for waist knives and spearheads, if they are forged using the folding method, they must be made of fine iron that has been tempered for at least ten times before they can be used, and they must be made of fine iron that has been tempered for more than thirty times to be considered good quality.

If you refine it a hundred times, it will be at the level of a treasured sword.

However, today's standard swords and guns basically do not use pure forging methods, but use more labor-saving processes such as steel wrapping, steel clamping or steel inlay.

No matter which process is used, it requires the use of wrought iron made more than five times and a small amount of steel (the steel here refers to fried steel and filled steel, which are not high-quality steel and were called pseudo steel in the Ming Dynasty).

What left Liu Sheng speechless was that the 35 kilograms of wrought iron in stock at the iron yard were of civilian grade!

As for the fine iron refined more than ten times, it is only 3 kilograms.

This number seems to be quite a lot, but when you calculate how much fine iron is needed to build various types of armor, you know that 3 kilograms is really not much.

According to the Ming system, a qualified cloth-covered armor would weigh at least twenty pounds, and the nail pieces inside would also weigh twenty pounds.

A helmet weighs at least five or six kilograms of iron.

A waist knife generally weighs one to two kilograms. Considering the steel used in it, it is calculated as two kilograms of fine iron.

As for fire blunderbuss, in the late Ming Dynasty, bird blunderbuss had to be used to keep up with the times. One shot required about twenty kilograms of fine iron (ten refinements), because it had to be refined before it could be made into a bird blunderbuss.

Based on this calculation, it would take 30 kilograms of fine iron to equip a sword player who only wears qualified level cloth armor.

To equip an elite musketeer who uses a gun to pierce cloth-faced armor requires 50 kilograms of fine iron!

3 kilograms of fine iron is enough to build the equipment of a thousand ordinary sword players, or the equipment of 600 elite musketeers.

As for the 38 kilograms of pig iron and 35 kilograms of wrought iron, it will take a long time to turn them into refined iron.

If he really had enough time, he would definitely use the technical information he collected to make steel directly here.

The problem is that he lacks time now.

The plan is to grab the iron field and leave, and then come back to occupy it again in the spring of next year to build the steel plant and arsenal of Huabu.