Qianzhou, outside the capital city of Kyoto

, Lin Jiang came to a weapons field of the Military Equipment Bureau. After more than half a year of research by the craftsmen, the flintlock and artillery required by Lin Jiang had been developed.

However, there were many problems with the first generation of products, such as the problem of bursting the barrel, etc., so Lin Jiang asked them to spend another year to continuously improve, and now they finally have flintlocks and artillery that can be used in actual combat.

"Your Majesty"

The group came to the weapons field. The officials of the Military Equipment Bureau had been waiting here for a long time. Lin Jiang did not waste words and took people to the training ground to watch the weapon experiment.

Those people did not dare to let Lin Jiang experiment, so they arranged soldiers to come. A row of soldiers loaded the flintlock and then shot. The target in front was a scarecrow wearing armor.

The effective range of the flintlock is only two or three hundred meters, but in this era, Lin Jiang specifically instructed to increase the caliber, so even at a distance of a hundred meters, it can still break the conventional armor.

"Stop, what do you think?"

Lin Jiang said to the row of teenagers around him. These people were the twenty-eight disciples, but now there are only eighteen of them. The remaining ten died on the battlefield fighting with the monsters.

They were generally only thirteen or fourteen years old when they went to the battlefield. Now they are seventeen or eighteen years old, just like Lin Jiang.

"Your Majesty, this flintlock rifle can penetrate armor at a hundred steps, which is slightly better than the repeating crossbow. The cost is also slightly higher than the repeating crossbow, but it wins..."

The eighteen people looked at each other, and finally one of them stood up and said, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the flintlock rifle. Everyone was a man of both civil and military talents, so they would not fail to see this.

Lin Jiang nodded with satisfaction. Fortunately, none of them would say that this was a strange skill, otherwise Lin Jiang would definitely kick them over.

Then, everyone watched the artillery experiment again. In their opinion, the artillery was a large flintlock rifle, but it was not fired with flint.

The power of artillery is much stronger. It can easily break armor at a distance of 500 steps. In theory, it is difficult for a martial saint to resist. However, if it is in an open area, it will not pose much threat to a martial saint. With the reaction speed of a martial saint, it is normal to avoid it.

Of course, the invention of these weapons is not to deal with individual individuals, but to deal with armies, especially armies arranged in arrays. It is normal to crush a blood line with one shot.

Lin Jiang is still very satisfied with the current research of the craftsmen. After giving them some comfort and rewards, he asked them to continue to optimize the weapons and develop more powerful weapons.

Then Lin Jiang found the officials of the Military Equipment Supervision and asked them to find a way to mass-produce these weapons, to start equipping the army, and to train a new army.

With the national strength and population of the Datong Dynasty, once mobilized, it will be very fast. Even if the craftsmen are asked to make them by hand, it is not a big problem, not to mention that the technology of the Datong Dynasty is not backward. It should be the most advanced in this era. Just look at those warships.

··········

New weapons were being manufactured at a rapid pace, and Lin Jiang arranged the eighteen disciples to practice in various departments. This time, Lin Jiang would not let them start from the grassroots level. It was meaningless. Behind them were the bigwigs of the court. Going to the basics was just to gild the lily.

The performance of the eighteen people was naturally not bad. Lin Jiang taught them personally. Even if they were not qualified to be emperors, they were more than qualified to be ministers. Lin Jiang soon received many memorials praising them.

As the founding emperor, Lin Jiang had unparalleled prestige and could control everything now. As for the younger generation, it depends on the situation. Lin Jiang would also help them consolidate their position.

Three months later, three thousand flintlock rifles and twenty cannons were manufactured. Lin Jiang recruited new recruits for training and gave them half a month. After three months, they would go to the battlefield for actual combat.

In the blink of an eye, three months passed again. The new recruits went to the battlefield. The eighteen disciples signed up enthusiastically and wanted to lead the team. Lin Jiang directly asked them to become captains of each team and all went to the battlefield, but Lin Jiang himself did not go and still stayed in Kyoto City.

Lin Jiang secretly summoned a group of confidants and asked them to dig some secret rooms, caves, etc. in many places in Datong in the name of prospecting. They secretly buried a batch of treasures, such as gold, silver, and antiques. This was to prepare for the future. Lin Jiang didn't know whether the next awakening would be the era of spiritual energy revival. If not, it would be better to have some money to live. If it was a prosperous era, he could still live a chic life.

·······

To the north of Datong,

the Datong Army had been fighting with the monsters, but the scale was not large. This had never stopped, especially the Qingjiang Corps, which had been active on the battlefield for many years.

At this time, a new army appeared on the battlefield. Three thousand flintlock gunners were divided into six rows of five hundred people. On the left and right sides were ten artillery pieces each. Each of these artillery pieces weighed tens of thousands of pounds and required six heavy draft horses to pull. Outside this new army, there were nearly ten thousand soldiers protecting it. Now the Datong army knew that there were nobles among these new armies, so they would not let them get into trouble easily.

"The enemy is coming,"

someone shouted. A group of monsters appeared in front of them, and a light cavalry lured them to come.

"The distance is here, prepare the artillery, and fire."

The artillery had just appeared, and the tactics were still very imperfect. How to shoot accurately was still in the initial stage. Lin Jiang did not say too much, and they had to figure it out by themselves.

"Boom, boom, boom,"

twenty real shells flew out and hit a monster at a distance of hundreds of meters. The monster's whole body suddenly cracked, and the shells had not stopped yet, crushing all the way, bringing up a lot of broken limbs and arms.

But not every shell can produce results. Some shells are completely off target. Among the monsters, a martial saint appears and jumps up and chops the shell with a knife, knocking it away. Although the martial saint is seriously injured, he does not die. After a cannon is fired,

soldiers immediately start to clean the barrel and reload the ammunition. This process is very cumbersome and takes about a minute. In one minute, if there is no other means to slow down the speed of the monster, the monster will have already rushed over.

"Bang, bang, bang"

the monster rushed in a hundred steps away, and the flintlock opened fire. The accuracy of the flintlock is not to be mentioned. It depends entirely on luck and there is no way to aim. However, 500 people fired in unison, which is enough to sweep across an area.

After the first column opened fire, they immediately began to load ammunition, and then the second column opened fire, and so on, to achieve the purpose of continuous firepower.

It is basically difficult to kill a monster with one bullet, unless it hits the vital point directly, but a large number of monsters are still killed directly.

"The martial arts grandmaster and martial saint cannot be harmed directly, go and intercept them."

The general on the side saw that there were still demons approaching in the smoke, and immediately ordered to intercept them, otherwise these soldiers would be slaughtered.

This was originally a surprise ambush. After half an hour, the battle was over and everyone began to clean up the battlefield, mainly to check the injuries of the dead demons and see how they were eliminated.

"This new weapon is ready. Cannons can never be blocked unless a monster martial saint takes action. Monster martial saints are rare among monsters. How many monsters can there be?

Ordinary monsters have no resistance to cannons. They will shatter when touched. This is a sharp weapon to kill monsters."

"The power of the flintlock is weaker, but it has the advantage of continuous output. Ordinary monsters can be killed with three or four bullets. A few who are unlucky can be killed with just one bullet."

"A flintlock is enough to make a congenital warrior, and the training of a congenital warrior takes at least seven or eight years, and at most more than ten to twenty years. But a soldier can be trained in three months."

"There are billions of people in Datong, and it is completely possible to train five million new recruits to sweep the monster world."

"Let's go back and report to His Majesty."

The group of people were very excited about the results of the experiment. They rarely saw such sharp results. This group of recruits who had only been trained for three months were comparable to the most elite veterans.

In fact, even if the results were a little less, they didn't care at all. They would go back to report to Lin Jiang and increase support for new weapons because they were cheap.

The new soldiers continued to fight here, but the eighteen disciples soon returned to Kyoto and reported the results of the battle to Lin Jiang in detail. Lin Jiang also took the results of the battle to explain to a group of ministers, asking the court to allocate funds and increase the manufacturing efforts. At least 30,000 flintlock rifles and more than 100 artillery pieces were required each year to cooperate with the existing troops to attack the monsters.

Seeing that there was hope of defeating the monsters, Lin Jiang officially began to prepare for retirement. He had also observed the eighteen disciples for many years and had a candidate to inherit the throne in his mind.

However, Lin Jiang still had to design a system to limit the imperial power, so as not to let the safety of a country depend on one person and bet on whether the emperor was wise. The system should guarantee the operation of the empire.

Lin Jiang recalled the historical knowledge he had learned, analyzed many political systems, and finally chose one of them.