As a salted fish, I was forced to become the teacher of all ages

If he was transferred to Shenji Camp, Hua Manlou would not be so depressed. After all, his purpose was to be transferred, and whether Shenji Camp would go to Datong is still a matter of debate.

But the secondment is really bad, not only failed to leave the factory guard, but also took the risk of going to the front line - this is the worst outcome he imagined yesterday, so the cruel reality made Huamanlou feel aggrieved for a long time to say I can't speak.

The dark-faced Hua Manlou rode ahead, but the Xuanwu guards who followed him were very happy.

Can you not be happy?One day is enough for these people from the East Street Baihusuo to inquire about the origin of Huamanlou, and they are very happy: they have attached themselves to the good sir!

It is recognized that it is difficult for a hundred households on the East Street to get ahead, and even a hundred households are frantically fishing, let alone these people below?But if there is a capable Shangguan, the future will suddenly become brighter in an instant, and the significance of this is well known to anyone who is self-motivated.

So for these [-] places, East Street Hundred Households almost got into a group fight early in the morning, if Peng Guang had not come to Baihu House early to wait for Huamanlou with the same careful thinking as the following people, and then If these people are stopped and the next candidate is determined by drawing lots, I am afraid that Nanzhen Fusi will come to the door.

But the problem is...

"Could it be that Chief Hua is a serious person?"

"I don't know, but it's right to be careful."

"That's not right, I saw Officer Hua laughing at Yan Yan yesterday, it's quite easy to talk about."

"It must be that the affairs of the Shenji Camp are more troublesome? You should cheer up, don't spoil the matter of the chief, lest you mistake yourself and others!"

"Yes, whoever dares to ruin the matter of Chief Hua, I will break his leg!"

After a brief discussion, a group of Xuanwu guards put away their facial expressions and followed Hua Manlou solemnly one by one, and then swept everyone on the roadside with their sinister eyes, which was very scary.

The people along the way hid aside one after another when they saw this group of people. Some people even turned pale with fright, and most of them couldn't help muttering inwardly: Is this going to raid the house?Stay away, you will be in trouble if you collide with this group of killers!

Seeing this, Hua Manlou's mood became even worse: "Look, the factory guard is so annoying, how can we stay here!"

24. I will go and see for you!

When the group arrived outside the Shenji camp, Huang Zichao had already been waiting here. When he saw Huamanlou approaching, he quickly went up to greet Huamanlou and personally held the stirrup for Huamanlou: "My lord, you have worked hard!"

It is said that Huamanlou is the seventh rank, and Huang Zichao is also the seventh rank, so there is no need for him to be so low profile, but Huang Zichao has long been convinced by Huamanlou's whimsy and whimsy, this sincere person even wants to worship Huamanlou As a teacher, so even the title is a bit nondescript.

Hua Manlou didn't know what this honest man was thinking, he just thought it was Shenji Ying who prostituted him for free, and felt a little embarrassed after "the achievement he realized at the gambling table", and then he was very polite to him...

With a sigh, Hua Manlou jumped off the horse and said to Huang Zichao, "Let's get down to business. Are all the preparations ready?"

Huang Zichao nodded and said: "Everything is ready, just wait for the young master to arrive."

Before Huang Zichao left the Huai'an uncle's mansion yesterday, Huamanlou settled down early and asked him to find all the materials, and find some craftsmen who made firecrackers and some skilled carpenters. Only then did it stop.

Hua Manlou felt better when he heard this: "Then let's go and have a look."

Things have become like this, Hua Manlou is still very clear about the fact that the sooner it is done one day, the sooner it will be out of the pit of Shenjiying.

"Mr. Hua, do I need to do something?" Seeing that Hua Manlou was about to start working, Peng Guang quickly came up to him with a flattering smile on his face.

Hua Manlou said impatiently: "Find a place to sleep by yourself, don't stand here and get in the way!"

Peng Guang wanted to cry but had no tears: "Yes, get out of here..."

In fact, you don’t need to spend a lot of money to manage the fixed medicine, you just need to find a flammable and strong oil-paper-coated gunpowder.There are existing iron bars, and it only needs to be slightly improved and the use habits of soldiers should be corrected.

However, smoothbore guns and flintlocks are more troublesome to fire. The inner walls of the existing firearms can be said to be pitted. Looking at it, it is very difficult to do. To some extent, it is better to get out the matchlock gun first.

So after tossing for half a morning, Hua Manlou was completely on top, pointing to the crude firecrackers brought by the specialized firecracker craftsmen and said: "Throw out all these rags, and I will design the firecrackers myself! "

……

When Huamanlou was furious, Emperor Guangxing in the palace was in a good mood, even if the officials in the early court had been talking about it for a long time to support Datong, it didn't affect his mood.

"I heard that Hua Aiqing's family has a young talent?" After the imperial court was over, Emperor Guangxing summoned Duke Ying and Uncle Huai'an, and after the two had finished their ceremony, he asked Uncle Huai'an cheerfully.

Old Hua stared speechlessly at Ying Guogong, who was snickering, and then replied: "Return to Your Majesty, a dog has no shape, how can it be called a talent?"

It has to be said that after listening to Ying Guogong's bragging yesterday, Emperor Guangxing failed to connect the Huamanlou that was arranged to Xuanwuwei a few days ago with the improved firecracker Huamanlou that Ying Guogong said.

After confirming that the two were the same person, Emperor Guangxing felt that either Duke Ying really didn't inquire clearly, or Dongchang's information was wrong—of course, it may be more likely that Duke Ying did not inquire clearly: a family member How can a young playboy who the elders think can't be dealt with have the idea of ​​​​reform firearms?

There are so many young dandies in Beijing, if every dandy can stand on his own when he is pulled out, then that's okay?

Therefore, although Emperor Guangxing was very interested in the upgrade of the firecracker, and felt that if it was reliable, then the Shenji Camp would surely solve the disaster of Datong, but he still had doubts about whether the improvement of the firecracker was Huamanlou's original creation. , That's why Huai'an Bo was called to 'confront him face to face'.

Hearing Uncle Huai'an's words, Emperor Guangxing cheerfully pointed at Ying Guogong and said, "Qi Aiqing categorically said that your son is capable, but I think it was Hua Aiqing's handwriting. Aiqing might as well tell the truth. Regardless of the facts, I am not guilty of anyone."

Uncle Huai'an glared at Duke Ying again, and sighed, "Return to Your Majesty, if your Majesty is talking about the improvement of firecrackers, this matter is indeed Gouzi's whimsy, but it would be quite biased to say that he is a talent because of this..."

Emperor Guangxing couldn't help becoming very interested: "Oh? Hua Aiqing wanted her son to join the army a few days ago. I heard that Aiqing was difficult to discipline this matter, so I had to do it as a last resort?"

"Uh... yes, I beg Your Majesty to forgive me..."

Emperor Guangxing interrupted him: "Come on, come on, why am I a little confused? If your son really has such abilities, then why does Hua Aiqing bother to send him to the army for training?"

Uncle Huai'an struggled and said: "To tell you the truth, I didn't know that Li Zi had a lot of thoughts on these things before, I only knew that he was idle all day long and didn't want to make progress. After yesterday's long talk, he told the truth... ..."

Emperor Guangxing became more interested: "So, there is something inside?"

Uncle Huai An twisted his face: "Yes."

"Tell me, what did your father and son talk about?"

When the emperor asked, Uncle Huai'an naturally had to answer honestly, after all, this matter involved the future of Huamanlou—or the same sentence, Jane will rise to the top in the emperor's heart, but if the emperor thinks you are not a thing, then the future will not be there So, as an old father who was worried about his son, he had to cheer up to deal with it.

It’s just that the contrast between Huamanlou’s front and back even made Uncle Huai’an entangled, and the matter of enlightenment in the casino sounded like a joke, so Uncle Huai’an always felt that he was trying to kill himself when he expressed it...

Of course, Uncle Huai'an didn't forget to drag Ying Guogong, an old man, into the water. He emphasized several times that it was after listening to Ying Guogong's discussion on family education that he patiently communicated with Hua Manlou. What Lou said is still to be proved...

Although Ying Guogong also glared at him during this period, Uncle Huai An ignored him: Who told you to sell my son first?

After Emperor Guangxing listened, the expression on his face was even more twisted than that of Uncle Huai'an: "In the casino...can you understand these things? And...you can also understand the opponent's thinking?"

Uncle Huai An bite the bullet and said: "Your Majesty, Quanzi really said so. It's just...it's just that Wei Chen's attitude towards him these years has been too harsh, presumably there is a lot of water in Quanzi's words..."

When the matter came to an end, Uncle Huai'an couldn't help but hugged him back, wanting to take the matter to himself.

But Emperor Guangxing was not angry, he just felt a sense of sympathy: In recent years, the prince has become more and more shapeless, without a single truth in his mouth, and he is as afraid of snakes and scorpions when he sees me, but...

Poor parents!

Thinking of this, Emperor Guangxing stood up and said: "Hua Aiqing, is your son tinkering with firecrackers in Shenji Camp today? I'll go and see for you!"

25. Beat yourself up

To be honest, Emperor Guangxing didn't need to go to Hua Manlou at all, and he wasn't bored enough to gossip about his courtiers' family.

It’s just that he was more concerned and interested in the upgrade of the firecrackers at first. After all, it’s hard for him to imagine how the firecrackers team is airtight just based on what Ying Guogong said, so he moved his mind yesterday. Go to Shenji Camp to have a look.

The second reason is that the prince is really incompetent, so when he heard about Huamanlou a few days ago, he felt the same about Huai Anbo wanting his son to go to the army for training, and then arranged for him.But now that Huamanlou went to Datianting again, his image became too positive, so Emperor Guangxing became even more curious.

In fact, Emperor Guangxing was not at all interested in Ying Guogong's so-called guidance-based family education.Because in these years, he has been patient and reasoned with the prince, but the prince has become more and more stubborn. Almost every two or three days, someone from the East Palace will come to complain, which makes Emperor Guangxing very frustrated.

After Ying Guogong left yesterday, Emperor Guangxing brought Xu Dacheng to ask about Huamanlou in detail, so he knew that Uncle Huai'an beat Huamanlou every now and then, and he also knew that Huamanlou was in trouble years ago. Lou was beaten for half a month and didn't get out of bed—this was really cruel, how could he be so angry that he could beat his own son like this?

So Emperor Guangxing's thinking became like this: The so-called country is easy to change and nature is hard to change. It is impossible for a person to become better in a day, so if Hua Manlou really has the ability, it can't be enlightened in a day, right?This proves that Uncle Huai'an's education method is correct, even if he doesn't know what Huamanlou has realized in the casino, but the result is good?

Emperor Guangxing is only the son of the prince, so this matter is related to the education of the prince at a small scale, and it is related to the foundation of the ancestors at a large scale. If the prince can really beat the prince to look like a human being, it will be credited to the father and son of the Hua family up.

In order to see the most authentic Huamanlou, Emperor Guangxing ordered Uncle Huai'an and Duke Ying not to follow or report the news. He was dressed in casual clothes, and went to Shenji Camp in a cheerful light car.

……

Hua Manlou didn't know that Emperor Zhao, who was wearing epic equipment, was coming. After a quick bite of lunch at Shenji Camp, he went into the camp and continued to study firecrackers with Huang Zichao.

The current firecracker looks like an iron pipe in appearance, which is very eye-catching.Moreover, Hua Manlou was surprised to find that craftsmen these days have consciously wanted to increase the power of firecrackers, because in the prototypes they brought, there were three-eyed blunderbusses—that is, the barrels were divided into three parts... ah Just firearms.

It's a good idea, it's like making a shotgun, but the way is wrong: the power of black powder is so great, what's the use of dividing the barrel into a hundred?

Therefore, Hua Manlou considered that since he wanted to start from scratch, it would be better to completely overthrow the existing firecracker manufacturing, so what appeared on his blueprint was the famous Hanyang-made—of course, it was only similar in shape, that’s all. The current technology can't make this thing at all.

But after seeing the drawings, not to mention the craftsmen, even Huang Zichao was at a loss.

"My lord, this blunderbuss..." Huang Zichao said with difficulty: "If the barrel is too thin, it will easily explode... right?"

Hua Manlou was taken aback for a moment, then realized a bigger problem: steel smelting.

Hua Manlou remembers which book he read. In the Ming Dynasty, charcoal was still used to smelt iron. Charcoal was not only expensive, but also had a low combustion temperature. It was difficult to burn iron ore into molten iron, so iron had to be forged. Impurities are removed by beating to improve quality.

Obviously, Dazhao’s iron and steel smelting is not much better than that, just look at the price of iron - before the large-scale use of coal for iron smelting, the price of iron was actually very expensive.

In addition, nowadays iron molds are still clay molds, and the wall of the cast firecracker has trachoma, which is not enough to withstand the chamber pressure, and because there is no fixed amount of gunpowder, the phenomenon of overfilling is very common. When encountering this kind of extremely poor quality It's no wonder the iron pipe didn't explode!

In fact, this is not only true of firecrackers, but also of artillery.

In order to avoid bombing, the current artillery is generally made of copper. In the Kangxi Dynasty in the previous life of Hua Manlou, the General Shenwei Cannon, which was supervised by the Belgian missionary Nan Huairen, was also a copper cannon, because the cast iron cannon was really unbearable. Therefore, even if the copper cannons produced by the Celestial Dynasty were low and the cost of copper cannons was high, they had to be used.

With this in mind, Hua Manlou asked Huang Zichao with the last ray of hope: "Nowadays... has molten iron been smelted?"

"Molten iron?" Huang Zichao looked at Huamanlou in a daze, and then turned his attention to the blacksmiths he had found.

A bolder blacksmith hesitated and said: "Returning to the master, it is not difficult to smelt iron, but if you want to smelt iron into molten iron, this... villain has never seen it before."

Blacksmiths not only forged iron, but also studied other metals, such as tin.The melting point of tin is only over 200 degrees Celsius, so they generally know that metal can be fired into a liquid state.But molten iron, it is not easy to burn iron into liquid...

Hua Manlou covered his forehead depressedly: "Okay, don't be so busy, let's go."

Now he is clearly aware of what it means to be too big and easy to pull the egg, how can it be so easy to develop the primitive firecracker into a sudden fire all at once?Let's just shoot three shots honestly!

Huang Zichao was astonished: "My lord, why is this?"

Hua Manlou threw the drawing on the table: "If there is no good iron, my idea cannot be realized... Forget it, don't bother with this, let them polish the existing gun barrel, at least it can be improved. It works."

Huang Zichao looked at the blueprint, then at Huamanlou: "If we can make good iron..."

He admired Huamanlou very much, so even though he thought there was something wrong with the firecracker, he still hoped to try to make it, maybe it would work?

Hua Manlou looked at him with a half-smile: "Well, making iron is not difficult, but you can make iron privately... How many heads do you have?"

Hua Manlou knew this because he had read some history in his previous life, and knew that the man who pretended to be crazy had also practiced iron, and in order to cover up the sound of iron making, he also raised a large flock of geese in the palace at that time and later in the Forbidden City to cover up the sound. coming.

If the prince is like this, how can Huamanlou dare to do anything wrong?

Huang Zichao froze when he heard that.

At this moment, someone outside the camp suddenly said, "Oh? Hua Zongqi can also make iron?"

Hua Manlou raised his head and saw a middle-aged man who looked quite dignified walking into the tent, before he could answer the man said, "Could it be that you also learned the art of making iron from the gambling table?"

Hua Manlou was stupefied, and after a moment of silence, he cupped his hands and said, "May I ask if you are..."

I just talked about the comprehension technique of the gambling table with my father yesterday, and today this person knows, presumably he is probably a friend or colleague of Daddy Cheap, after thinking about it, Huamanlou on this floor did not dare to be rude.

The man smiled slightly: "Zhen...that's really nice, I know how to be polite. I'm your father's friend, and I'm working in the Ministry of Industry. I heard that you know how to cast firecrackers, so I came to watch the excitement."

(It's a double update, that's right, isn't this an update? Please click again, this thing is really important...)

26. What can you do?

"Uncle, what's your name?"

"...Miangui's surname is Zhao."

"Uncle Zhao also understands firearms?"

"...a little understanding."

The above is the whole process of Huamanlou meeting Emperor Guangxing of Great Zhao for the first time.

When Hua Manlou knew the real identity of this Uncle Zhao, every time he recalled this scene, he could not help but grit his teeth angrily: You said that you are a good emperor, pretending to be an official from the Ministry of Industry is really a real man?

And Emperor Guangxing laughed every time he thought of this scene, and he laughed very heartily—how many people in Guochao dared to call him uncle?

Huang Zichao, the witness of the incident, did not know the origin of this extraordinary official of the Ministry of Industry at this time - he was a seventh-rank military officer, he must have entered the palace at the Great Court Meeting, but he only had a look at the emperor from a distance. Will you recognize this grandpa?And because of the status quo of the country's civil and military inferiority, he had to salute others, and he didn't even dare to ask them which area the Ministry of Industry was in charge of...

In short, Hua Manlou, who has never seen a sinister heart these days, has no doubts about the identity that Emperor Guangxing lied about. How dangerous is it? There is no way to do this now, uncle is here for nothing today."

Emperor Guangxing smiled, glanced at the drawing on the table, then reached out to take a look at it, and then asked: "Did you draw this?"

After all, the emperor is the emperor, and this kind of aura of the king in the world is like entering the camp, as if he is at his own home, Hua Manlou couldn't help frowning: Why is this guy... so egotistical?

The slander belongs to the slander. In theory, people are elders, so Hua Manlou replied honestly: "Yes."

"Hmm..." Emperor Guangxing carefully looked at the Hanyang-made pole in the picture, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century according to the normal history, and said with a frown: "Why is the shape of this gun so strange? Why is the tail of the gun so wide?"

Hua Manlou had a black thread on his head: "That's the butt of the gun..."