Chapter 102 Clues

Obviously, compared with the relatively crude Feixuan Zhenjun before, the improved new ammunition has a longer range, greater power, and is particularly powerful. Even if you looked far away through the trees, you could see the raging flames rising into the sky - if it weren't for the withered grass and cold weather in winter, the fire would probably have spread quite a bit.

Huang Shanggang stared at it for a moment, then suddenly came to his senses and screamed:

"Oh my God! That direction - that direction is the Changling Mausoleum of Emperor Taizong!"

If a rocket hit the top of Emperor Taizong's tomb, these people would have no choice but to untie their belts and hang themselves!

This sudden terror shook Huang Shanggang so much that his legs and feet went weak and he could not stand steadily. He was about to kneel down and burst into tears. It was the Duke of Mu who remained calm and also looked into the distance:

"My Lord, you are too cautious... It is indeed in the direction of Changling, but it certainly cannot fly that far - Changling is nearly three hundred miles away from here!"

Huang Shanggang gasped and grabbed his arm:

"You really can't fly that far?"

You can’t blame Eunuch Huang for being so paranoid. Even a year ago, Eunuch Huang might have been calm and composed, and would never have believed that anyone could blow up the Zhu family's ancestral tomb with a single shot from three hundred miles away; but after witnessing with his own eyes the feat of the Prince of Mu testing the Feixuan Zhenjun No. 1, he could not help but become suspicious, and felt anxiety and terror in every detail - yes, no one had ever been able to blow up the ancestral tomb three hundred miles away with a single shot before; but hadn't anyone ever been able to send an iron shell weighing dozens or hundreds of kilograms into the sky before? What if - what if something really happens?

If something really happens, all nine members of the Huang family will cry out in grief!

In a sense, this was an absolute trust in the Prince of Mu, and an unwavering entrustment; so Mu Qi was actually somewhat moved:

"It really can't fly that far. Our experiments are still too crude, and the range can barely reach about 200 miles. This is all due to the limitation of technology..."

That's right. Although the prince made the principle sound so grand, with the "detachment part" and layered acceleration, the actual operation is very simple and crude - the craftsmen deliberately grind a part of the rocket's iron shell to make it thinner, and then apply a high-calorific value fuel on it (here we must pay tribute to the legendary alchemist Shen Yunzi); after the rocket is launched, the high-calorific value fuel will burn through the thinned iron shell, and the cumbersome outer shell will fall off, which can greatly reduce the weight, increase the range, and increase the power.

As for how such a complicated and tedious process is completed, it is actually worthless to talk about it - the craftsmen certainly cannot understand the deformation of steel under high temperatures, and Mu Qi's limited knowledge makes it difficult to provide full guidance. Therefore, the entire process is based on several empirical formulas that were mechanically copied from later generations and tested again and again. Otherwise, how could anyone see a meteor in broad daylight in the wild mountains and hills outside Beijing?

——Since they are meteors, there will certainly not be just one or two, but stars falling like rain, magnificent and strange, unimaginable.

Of course, there is a limit to technological progress based purely on experience. After repeating this simple experiment many times, Mu Qi could clearly feel the inevitable bottleneck in trial and error: they did improve the range and power, but the accuracy was a mess, which could be called the Brownian motion bullet of this century. As for how to adjust this Brownian motion bullet to an acceptable range, it requires extremely profound attainments in mathematics and physics - this touches on Mu Qi's blind spot in knowledge.

Technological progress always depends on progress in basic disciplines. Therefore, new talents and new blood must be introduced. The prince kindly put forward his own suggestions:

"This type of rocket still has a lot of room for improvement, but further development may require the help of Westerners. I heard that the Jesuit missionaries in the West have made some achievements in this area. If possible, I would like to ask them to solve some problems with the framework..."

It is an irrefutable truth that technological progress will lead to the demand for basic theory. If widespread industrialization is really rolled out, it will really require missionaries to introduce talents to translate books and communicate academic knowledge. This is one of the reasons why Mu Qi had to hold his nose and cooperate with Ru Wang. Even if Ruwang was always writing nonsense in his diary in private, he couldn't do anything about it for the time being.

However, such reasonable and appropriate suggestions, inexplicably took on other meanings in the ears of some people who were still frightened - in Huang Shanggang's ears, the so-called "room for improvement" only meant one thing: if the prince was given some more time, he would really be able to create something powerful enough to blow up the emperor's ancestral tomb with a single shot from three hundred miles away.

This, this, isn't this a bit too extreme?

Unfortunately, no matter how frightened Huang Shanggang was, he had no right to say a word against it at this time and place. Of course, this does not mean that the prince is cruel, overbearing and has no martial ethics, and even bullies the eunuchs; it is the experience summed up by Eunuch Huang after years of dealing with the emperor. Judging from his intuition, after the victory in the "Shangyu Naval Battle", Feixuan Zhenjun Wanshou Emperor inexplicably entered a very manic state; he was fierce and arrogant, beating up anyone he caught, and his subordinates showed no mercy. Of course, this is also very normal. The victory in the naval battle showed that the new weapons were truly invincible. The emperor's power increased dramatically, so of course he had to kill decisively to get rid of the resentment of being forced to maintain a balance for many years. Killing and chopping was refreshing, which really relieved the grievances in his chest - and among the many grievances in the emperor's heart, the Japanese pirates were definitely a big one.

In fact, no one knew how the Japanese pirates had offended the reclusive Fei Xuan Zhen Jun, but Zhen Jun’s hatred for them could not be faked; all kinds of curses and resentment could be summed up in one word:

I want the Japanese pirates to die! !

So, even if Eunuch Huang did his job conscientiously and reported it, it would probably be of no use. If His Majesty the Emperor is happy, he will just say a few perfunctory words; if he is unhappy, he will just tell him to get out and wait for news, that's all.

I know you are in a hurry, but don’t be in a hurry. Once the imperial court has wiped out the Japanese pirates, it will never be too late for you to be anxious!

Eunuch Huang stared for a moment, but decided not to say anything. In order to save his own nerves, he changed the subject:

"This new type of elixir...how long will it take to test it?"

The New Year is coming soon. Could you give the Jinyiwei and the Dongchang a holiday? It is difficult for everyone to get their reports back when there are always meteors in the daytime, fireworks all over the sky, and threats to the imperial mausoleum!

"It's almost done with the test." The prince said, "It may need some fine-tuning, but it should be completed before Generals Qi and Yu come to Beijing to see the emperor. The two generals can take over directly after they arrive. It just so happens that the captured Portuguese warships are about to arrive at Tianjin Port, so it's a good opportunity to try out the effect of rocket upload."

It's really embarrassing to say that the coastal defense has been in a mess for decades, and even the well-trained marines have been consumed. Now that the time has come, they even have to send urgent letters to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong to mobilize sailors and try to get the fleet started. Now Qi and Yu were summoned to the palace from afar to inspect the results of their training in front of the emperor. War is a matter of great importance to a country. The current Master Feixuan has not fallen to the incredible level of Baozong. No matter how weird and uncommunicative he is in normal times, at such a critical and delicate juncture, he must devote all his energy to preparing for the war and will not allow any slack - otherwise, if Poppy enters the country in the future, it will be out of control. Is he really going to lie on the bed drooling? !

When he thought of this, he could not help but be terrified and tried his best. The reason why Lord Yan and Lord Xu were able to carry out their work of punishing, governing and dismissing people so smoothly; the reason why the prince's experiment was able to move forward without any obstacles; and even the unknown young generals such as Qi and Yu were able to rise to the top and gain great trust; most of them were due to the almost unreserved support of the True Lord behind them. The ironclad facts eloquently prove that as long as you can threaten the life of the True Lord, he can still show a considerable level of humanity.

...Unfortunately, the situations where the safety of the True Lord is threatened are very rare, so human nature is always so thin, even almost non-existent. Born in sorrow and die in comfort. Perhaps only if people give him a big blow from time to time can he show his due level.

Huang Shanggang sighed and decided to do some useless persuasion:

"I will report today's events to His Majesty. Please be more careful in the future... By the way, what is the name of the 'new elixir' you mentioned?"

The prince introduced it to him happily: "This thing makes a sound like a huge thunder, and its killing range is very wide, so I decided to borrow your majesty's Qingci and call it the Great Immortal of Five Thunders, also known as the Five Thunders."

"……oh."

·

In fact, if the prince really wanted to develop some new weapons, the manpower he had in the suburbs would definitely not be enough. Adjusting parameters through simple experiments is an extremely large and tedious task. How can it be accomplished by just a few dozen craftsmen? The reason why Mu Qi was able to move forward and make rapid progress was mostly due to the fact that he relied on the other two laborers who were forcibly conscripted by him, two idiots who were forced to join the army.

This is also a very normal thing. If you want to invite a friend to help you with something, you must explain your reasons carefully. If Mu Qi wanted to take action against other forces, he would probably have to spend a lot of time making PPTs and giving speeches, and work hard to align the granularity with Party A to open up the closed loop of the ecological chain, and use a combination of punches to empower himself. But now we are taking action against the Japanese pirates, and the situation is completely different.

——No way, no way, you don’t really want me to explain to you why we have to fight against the Japanese pirates, right?

So Mu Qi didn't need to explain or mobilize anyone. All he had to do was go online every day and explain the progress of the war against Japan to the two idiots.

"... Generally speaking, this war has three goals. The most basic goal is of course to clear out the Japanese pirates along the coast. The mid-level goal is to clear out the pirates' hideouts. The most ideal goal is to fight long distances and destroy Japan's ports, which can ensure stability for decades. Of course, the difficulty increases gradually." Mu Qi unfolded a piece of white paper with marks on it and talked to the two of them. "I actually prefer the middle option. But Lao Deng seems to be determined to give the Japanese pirates a hard time..."

"We must give the Japanese pirates a hard time?" Zhao Fei asked, "What does this mean?"

"The Portuguese indemnity finally arrived a few days ago. One million six hundred thousand taels went into the national treasury, and the remaining one million nine hundred thousand taels went into the inner treasury, split 50-50." Mu Qi said slowly, "Li Zaifang found me and said that the emperor gave him a note that as long as it was related to the anti-Japanese war, it could be spent directly from the one million six hundred thousand taels in the inner treasury, without alerting the outer court."

The other two were silent in shock.

Thanks to Mu Qi's real-time reporting, or crazy complaints, they knew very well the temper of Master Feixuan and Emperor Wanshou, but precisely because they were familiar with the temper of this old wall lamp, their shock was truly incomparable. To be honest, even if Lao Deng's biological father, Emperor Xingxian, crawled out of his grave, the amount of gold coins that could be dropped would probably be limited to this level. Judging from this, Lao Deng's hatred for the Japanese pirates was so deep that it had reached a certain level of malice.

"...Of course I'm not speaking for the Japanese." Liu Li said, "But what did the Japanese pirates do to him?"

Where does this otaku emperor, who lives alone in the deep palace, never leaves the gate and may not even have met the Japanese, get so much hatred?

"I'm not really sure—"

Mu Qi said half a sentence and suddenly fell silent.

Liu Li's question was, of course, unremarkable, but it undoubtedly touched upon some vague doubts in his heart - judging from the various information already available, the only hatred between Master Fei Xuan and the Japanese pirates did not occur in the present, but should be caused in the future; if the leak of the historical echoes was true, then indeed no emperor would tolerate himself becoming a puppet of drugs and addictive substances. But the key point is, how could Master Feixuan know the repercussions of history?

Unless, unless - this is impossible, right?

After Princess Sishan destroyed the Heart Diary, he thought that there were no copies of the log that were spread outside, so he did not have any doubts about the system for so many days and was relatively confident in using it - no matter how exaggerated, biased, and incredible the historical echoes were, at least they showed him a possibility for the future and provided him with a reliable basis for decision-making!

For example, when he talks now, he has to bear the Confucian prestige in mind. This is a lesson for future generations.

But now it seems, now it seems...

It now seems that there is insufficient evidence to suspect the leak of the Xinsheng Diary. After all, it was really hard for Mu Qi to imagine that Lao Deng could endure for so long after getting the log, and did not break down and go completely crazy on the spot, risking his life to cleanse everyone from top to bottom - after all, he knew the strength of his own attacks. If Lao Deng could understand one tenth of the complaints, he would not be able to sit in the West Garden and pretend to be calm; even if he was not angry to death, he would definitely break down and turn the world upside down, at least turning over half of the court.

Given the status of the Duke Mu's Mansion, it would be impossible for him not to hear any news as long as Lao Deng broke through the defense and tried to investigate. Right now, the capital is relatively calm, and I can even complain leisurely until I don't want to complain anymore. No matter from which angle you look at it, it doesn't seem like the scene that would occur after a log leak.

...Perhaps, he was still over-worrying?

·

It’s hard to say whether he was overthinking or not, but Lao Deng’s behavior soon aroused greater doubts in Mu Qi. With more than ten days left before the New Year, Master Feixuan made an incredible move - he ordered the dispersal of many alchemists enshrined in the Western Garden, and strictly prohibited the local areas from offering any "strange people" as tributes, and anyone who violated the order would be severely punished.

...No buddy, this is really weird.