one
The place where Changzhou prefect Han Qing lived was very nice. If it were in later times, it would definitely be a small villa worth more than 10 million yuan. From this, we can imagine that this guy must be a corrupt official.
However, at this time, what Tang Tong felt was not the greed of his cheap cousin, but the fact that the gatekeepers were too powerful. If Tang Tong did not give them rewards, the two servants would not bother to pay attention to him, the captain of a thousand households.
The King of Hell is always around, and the little ghosts are difficult to deal with. There is always some truth to the old saying that a master may not have both eyes looking at the sky, but a servant definitely has one eye looking at the sky and the other eye looking at his master.
In this era, civil officials looked down on military officials. Tang Tong had known this for a long time. However, even the gatekeepers looked down on him, a dignified captain. This surprised Tang Tong a little. From this point of view, his cheap cousin did not regard him, Captain Tang, as a relative.
Tang Tong turned around to look at Zhang Niujiao and Yue Yang who followed him, but the two of them lowered their heads and pretended not to see anything. It was obvious that they had already understood the situation.
Tang Tong cursed in his heart for a few times, and gave the two servants one or two taels of silver to each of them. Only then did the two of them put on smiling faces. The speed at which their expressions changed was so fast that Tang Tong felt that even Zhou Xingxing in later generations would not be as professional as these two servants. One of them ran inside happily to tell Tang Tong something, and came back after a while to lead Tang Tong and the other two in.
Tang Tong arrived at the reception room and a maid brought him tea. This time, Tang Tong was generous and gave the maid a tip of one or two taels of silver. The maid was pretty and had charming eyes. After receiving the silver, she gave Tang Tong a watery look. Although it did not electrify Tang Tong, it electrified Zhang Niujiao and Yueyang so much that they almost drooled into their teacups.
After waiting for a long time, the prefect Han Qing finally came out to see Tang Tong. Tang Tong went forward to greet him and presented the gift. Han Qing glanced at him and just hummed with a cold expression, obviously dissatisfied with the gift. Tang Tong saw it and cursed the corrupt official in his heart. He took out a silver note of two taels from his pocket and presented it to him: "Uncle, I came here this time..."
"Don't be impatient..." Han Qing interrupted Tang Tong, took the two-ten-ounce silver note, glanced at it, and said, "You're here for the right reason, Captain Qian. The Japanese pirates have been rampant again recently. Loutang, Hupu and other places have been invaded by them. The court intends to send troops from our local area to suppress these pirates. You should prepare. I know that your soldiers lack training, but I can only give you half a month to prepare. After half a month, you will be stationed in Loutang and suppress those invading Japanese pirates. This is the transfer order from the Ministry of War. Take it and have a look."
Tang Tong took the paper order, glanced at it casually, and didn't read it carefully. But he thought in his heart, asking those soldiers under his command to wipe out the Japanese pirates is no different from asking them to die. He was afraid that when these people saw the Japanese pirates from afar, the troops would be defeated. Then, as a commander without troops, what could he do to fight the Japanese pirates?
But not going was impossible. Unless he was ready to rebel, the court would blame him, and the crime would probably be serious. Tang Tong thought for a while and said, "My lord, you know what kind of people my soldiers are like. So I would like to ask you to give me some craftsmen, so that I can make some weapons for my soldiers. As for your kindness, I will never forget it."
"Well, we are relatives, and I know a little about your difficulties. How about this, I will write you a note, and you go and select some craftsmen by yourself. I can't help you with anything else, so you can do it yourself." Han Qing touched his well-maintained long beard and hesitated for a moment. The reason why he agreed was not because of the relationship, but because if the Japanese pirates were not wiped out soon, he, the prefect, would not be able to afford the offense. But this person said it in an official manner, and made Tang Tong owe him a favor.
"Your Excellency is right. I will definitely not let you down." After all, Tang Tong had never been in officialdom, so he naturally didn't know the shamelessness of this. However, he also knew in his heart that this cheap cousin didn't take him as a relative seriously at all, so he called himself a humble official, and he also despised this cheap cousin in his heart.
Sometimes people have to do some hypocritical things. Although Tang Tong hates this kind of hypocrisy in officialdom, he can't just slap his cheap cousin to death because that would not benefit Tang Tong at all.
Tang Tong was unwilling to stay in such a place any longer. After getting Han Qing's note, he said goodbye and left. He took Zhang Niujiao and Yueyang and selected ten craftsmen back to Weizhen Qianhu Suo. He originally planned to use this group of people and the craftsmen among the military households to manufacture some production equipment. But now Tang Tong had no choice. On the one hand, he began to reorganize his soldiers, and on the other hand, he guided these people to manufacture several hydraulic machine tools for the production of muskets.
two
There were less than ninety young men aged seventeen to twenty-five among the military households. Tang Tong recruited a dozen homeless refugees from outside to form a team of ten people. These people were paid one tael and five cents of silver per month, three meals a day, and two sets of coarse green military uniforms. Since these people refused to cut their hair, Tang Tong did not give them military caps.
Tang Tong divided these people into two teams, led by Zhang Yiheng and Zhao Yapeng. In addition to the five-kilometer cross-country training every day, they also had three hours of formation training and one hour of musket shooting training. It sounds simple, but just making these people know their left and right feet gave Tang Tong a headache for a while. Later, he remembered what he had read in a book, so he let these people train with straw sandals on their left feet and cloth shoes on their right feet. Only then did these people finally know their left and right feet.
Zhang Yiheng and Zhao Laipeng were mainly responsible for training these people. Tang Tong spent most of his time with the craftsmen. Tang Tong first checked the supplies in the warehouse. There was quite a lot of gunpowder and about four thousand muskets, but only about one thousand were usable. Since Tang Tong did not recruit more people this time, these one thousand muskets were enough for training.
Under Tang Tong's leadership, the craftsmen spent four days making a hydraulic drilling machine. The structure of this drilling machine was not very complicated, but it was enough to amaze the craftsmen because it was too fast compared to manpower. It could drill out eight gun barrels in twelve hours a day. Without manpower, one person could only drill out one gun barrel a month.
In Tang Tong's eyes, the precision of the drilling machine was very low, but in the eyes of those craftsmen, the gun barrel drilled out was very perfect. The craftsmen were all in awe of Tang Tong's ingenious skills, and they looked at Tang Tong with special respect, almost wanting to give Tang Tong the title of the reincarnation of Lu Ban.
In his previous life, Tang Tong spent a lot of time on firearms training. He had a very good understanding of the performance of various firearms and also knew some manufacturing methods of common firearms. He didn't expect that his knowledge would be put to good use in this life.
After these craftsmen had experience in making hydraulic drilling machines, they were able to master other machine tools more quickly. Tang Tong left the blueprints to them and asked them to study them on their own. He also arranged for about 30 military households between the ages of 20 and 30 to look after these craftsmen and prevent them from leaving easily to avoid the outflow of technology.
Because Tang Tong paid high wages, the craftsmen did not object to his move. Tang Tong then took some time off and began to train the soldiers more, because one more hour of training meant one more hour of combat power. Tang Tong understood this principle very well. No matter how brave and tough the untrained soldiers were, they were just a group of bandits.
Since Tang Tong took over the training, he added a bayonet training content for these soldiers. Tang Tong did not expect to train these people into special forces in the future. He just hoped that they could reach the level of ordinary soldiers in the future and he would be satisfied.
Ordinary people in this era have one advantage, which is that they are particularly able to endure hardships. In order to get such high treatment from Tang Tong, these people worked very hard in training. Their minds are also very simple. They think that since Lord Tang has given them such high treatment, they must live up to Lord Tang. Although there are some people who like to play tricks, they also behaved under Tang Tong's ruthless military stick. Later, Tang Tong adopted a soldier level system, dividing the soldiers into one, two, and three levels. The treatment of each level is different. In order to get higher treatment, these soldiers naturally worked harder in training.
People in ancient times had different thoughts than modern people. Most of them joined the army not for the country or the nation, but to fill their stomachs and for their own little benefits. Tang Tong did not have time to educate them on patriotism at the moment, so he could only mobilize the enthusiasm of these people by using benefits.
People of this era have another advantage, that is, they will be loyal to whoever rewards them. Although Tang Tong did not say that these people were his personal soldiers, in their hearts, these people regarded themselves as Tang Tong's personal soldiers.
On the fourteenth day, the first breech-loading rifle that Tang Tong had requested was manufactured. Tang Tongxing hurriedly took the gun to the shooting range to test it. This type of gun used paper-shell bullets. Although it was two thousand years earlier than in history, with the manufacturing level of the Ming Dynasty far ahead of the world at that time, and some advanced production technology brought by Tang Tong, the gun was still manufactured smoothly.
Everyone was shocked when the first bullet flew out of the gun.
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