After much deliberation, the three of them finally decided to make three of them first to see the results.

Zhao Chengmo seemed to be worried these days. Every day when he came back, he locked himself in his room and no one knew what he was doing.

Gu Lingze was not in a hurry either. There was enough trust between the two of them, so he had the patience to wait for Zhao Chengmo to take the initiative to talk to him.

Gu Lingze also has not been idle these days. He has been studying gunpowder. In fact, simply configuring gunpowder is a very simple thing for Gu Lingze. After all, gunpowder originated from Chinese alchemy.

Moreover, anyone who has taken chemistry class in middle school basically knows the composition of black powder: one sulfur, two nitrate and three charcoal.

The problem now is how to apply it to weapons. Although he is a modern man and has a general understanding of the surface structure of mines and muskets, it is still difficult to manufacture them.

Gu Lingze has been writing and drawing on paper these past two days with the charcoal pencil he made himself. Combined with the records of firearms in the Military History, he has made some progress.

Maybe because he was too focused, he didn't realize someone came in until Zhao Chengmo walked to his desk.

"Cheng Mo." When Gu Lingze saw him, he put down the pen in his hand and walked out from behind the desk.

The two hugged each other quietly for a while, then sat down at the table.

Zhao Chengmo put the stack of papers in his hand on the table. "Originally I just wanted to organize an idea, but I didn't expect that I would write more and more when I picked up the pen, so I have been busy with these things these days."

Gu Lingze smiled and said, "Then let's watch it together?" Zhao Chengmo nodded, with a hint of excitement in his eyes.

This review took an entire afternoon. Gu Lingze made some suggestions and the two discussed many different plans.

When it was time for dinner, they had the servants bring the food into the room, and Gu Lingze and Zhao Chengmo continued to study until late at night.

When the two of them were talking about military matters before, Gu Lingze felt that Zhao Chengmo was extremely talented in this area.

He was unexpectedly surprised by the other party's idea this time, and at the same time he felt proud of his boyfriend for being so capable.

After court the next day, Zhao Chengmo gave the content that the two of them had sorted out yesterday to Gu Tianhua for review.

After reading it, Gu Tianhua felt that it was very feasible. He also praised Zhao Chengmo for coming up with this idea. Now he just had to wait to present it to the emperor to see what he thought.

Gu Xiuyi and the other two have already produced the first batch of weapons. Even though they had been researching them for a long time, it had always been on paper. After actually trying them out in their hands, they were so excited that they couldn't express it in words.

After the court session that day, Minister Cao invited the emperor to the Ministry of War. When they arrived at the martial arts training ground, Gu Xiuyi, Gu Feirui and Su Xuancheng were waiting there.

"Your Highness."

"Everyone, stand up." Qi Yuanjing exempted them from the formalities and looked at Minister Cao. "Cao Qing, you invited me here and said you wanted to show me something. What is it?"

"Your Majesty, it's not one but three things." Minister Cao was so happy when he mentioned this, which made Emperor Jing even more curious.

"Your Majesty, please look."

At this time, Gu Feirui was already standing in front of the target, holding up the crossbow in his hand and taking aim.

With three "swish" sounds, the crossbow arrow hit the bull's eye at an extremely fast speed, and Emperor Jing clenched his fists immediately.

"Move the target farther away."

Soon several soldiers carried another target and placed it farther away.

Gu Feirui shot with the crossbow three times in total, and then brought all the used targets in front of the emperor.

"Your Majesty, please look." Gu Feirui invited Emperor Jing to stand behind the target.

He pointed to the first two and said, "These six arrows penetrated the bull's eye, which is enough to show the power of the Shenbi crossbow." Then he pointed to the last one and said, "Although these three arrows did not penetrate, each of them hit the bull's eye, which is enough to show the accuracy of this crossbow."

After Gu Feirui finished his introduction, he presented the divine arm crossbow in his hand to the emperor. Qi Yuanjing looked at it carefully for a long time and was quite excited.

He looked at the crossbow and looked forward to what was next. "Cao Qing, what's the next one?"

Minister Cao gave Gu Xiuyi a look, and he stepped forward and drew the knife from the scabbard at his waist.

"Your Majesty, please look."

He asked the soldiers to bring the three weapons commonly used in the Qianyuan army: swords, spears and guns, and then chopped them with the Tang swords in his hands. Almost all of these three weapons were broken in half with just one chop.

Qi Yuanjing's breathing suddenly became much heavier.

Next came the chain mail on Su Xuancheng.

After the three items were shown to the emperor, they were all taken back to the palace, along with the people and the items.

Qi Yuanjing looked at the crossbow, sword and armor on the table and immediately fell into deep thought.

Time passed quickly and it was night. The three of them returned to the general's mansion together.

Gu Lingze knew that today was the day they would present their results to the Emperor for inspection, so he instructed the kitchen to prepare a table of delicious dishes in advance to celebrate for them.

Unexpectedly, the three of them were silent after returning. Gu Feirui and Su Xuancheng both looked listless, and Gu Xiuyi's face was also very heavy.

Gu Lingze looked at the three of them and asked in confusion, "Why don't you look happy at all? Did something go wrong with the weapons when you were demonstrating them to the emperor?"

The three sighed and shook their heads.

Gu Lingze couldn't help but said anxiously: "What happened? Tell me."

What was the problem? It was money.

When the late emperor handed over Qianyuan State to Emperor Jing, the entire country was a mess with internal and external troubles.

Qi Yuanjing worked hard for twenty years to allow the people to live a relatively stable life.

But the empty treasury has always been a big problem for him. Where does the money for the treasury come from? Since ancient times, it has come from taxes.

Qi Yuanjing knew that the people lived a hard life, so he never increased taxes over the years. When natural disasters and man-made disasters occurred, he even exempted local taxes for three years.

But a country has too many places to spend money. Over the years, in order to reduce the burden on the national treasury, most of the expenses of Gu Tianhua's army have been borne by Xie Luocheng.

Otherwise, Qianyuan Kingdom might not even be able to fight a war, and Qianhan Kingdom and other surrounding countries would not be as peaceful as they are now.

No wonder the Emperor and the Queen both presented huge gifts at the full moon banquet that day. It turned out that it was not for Xie Xiru, but for Xie Luocheng’s contributions over the years.

The Qianyuan Kingdom was poorer than Gu Lingze had imagined, but it was not because the people were too poor, but because the emperor was poor.

Gu Lingze thought for a moment and asked, "Can't we just make a batch first?"

Gu Xiuyi shook his head. "We have always been short of iron ore in our country. If we only produce a few batches, it will be meaningless. But if we want to produce more, we have to spend money to buy iron ore from other countries, but the national treasury has no money."

This is a dead end. No wonder the three people came back with their heads down. It's like dreaming about winning the lottery and then waking up to find out that you were happy for nothing.