Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 249 Mutation
Zhu Shenzhui did not need to personally take care of the team's preparation and subsequent arrangements. Since it was a training exercise, it had to be thorough, so he handed over all these trivial matters to his subordinates. He could also take the opportunity to observe how his subordinates were doing during training.

After giving instructions, Zhu Shenzhui went to the workshop.

This time when they came to Zhaowuling, in addition to seeing the farming and training here, they also saw the research and development of the Yao brothers. Previously, the Yao brothers made yellow medicine according to Zhu Shenzui's requirements. Although the success of yellow medicine made Zhu Shenzui convinced that his guess was correct, and it is indeed possible to use yellow medicine to make the primer of firearms, thereby improving the firing of firearms, they still use matchlocks, and the flintlocks often malfunction.

However, the initial success of yellow powder did not mean that a real primer could be produced immediately. Although the yellow powder produced at the beginning could achieve the desired effect, it was far from perfect. In addition, the yellow powder itself was only the most basic primer design, which was far inferior to the more advanced red powder and modern primer devices.

Improving the formula and further enhancing the efficacy of yellow medicine was an important task assigned to the Yao brothers by Zhu Shenzhui. During this winter, the Yao brothers were not idle. They were constantly developing and changing the formula and conducting experimental comparisons. After a few months, the performance of yellow medicine has made some progress thanks to the efforts of the Yao brothers.

After watching the demonstration by the Yao brothers, Zhu Shenzhui found that the performance of yellow medicine was still a little unsatisfactory, but it could be barely used as a primer. After all, the Yao brothers were not professional modern chemists. They were just traditional fireworks craftsmen. Many of their techniques were passed down from generation to generation, and they did not understand chemical ratios. Moreover, the fireworks craftsmen were good at making fireworks, but it was their first time to make something new like yellow medicine.

The ratio of xanthate, including the composition structure of its raw materials, was only tried continuously without the basis of modern chemistry. This attempt is simply a process of repeated trial and error. This process takes a long time and has a high probability of failure. You must know that there is only one correct path, but there are tens of millions of wrong paths. It takes time to find the correct path from so many forked paths.

Even though the Yao brothers were highly skilled and proficient in gunpowder formula and purification, it was not easy to find the most suitable formula through trial and error. It was already very good to have such an achievement at the moment. At least the yellow medicine ratio they took out this time was much better than what they had seen before. Such progress was already very satisfying.

Now that there has been initial progress in the primer, the foundation has been laid for manufacturing primer-fired muskets.

However, it is impossible to develop a bullet with a body, cartridge case and primer integrated into one now. Not to mention whether the performance of the primer device can meet the requirements, the manufacture of an integrated bullet is a difficult problem.

At present, metallurgy and forging technology are still in the primary stage. Not to mention bullets, even the manufacture of gun barrels requires manual drilling and grinding. Zhu Shenzhu thought of using other methods to make gun barrels, but after trying it once, he completely gave up the idea. It is simply impossible with current technology. It will take a long time to develop technology to achieve this step. It cannot be completed in a few years or decades.

Besides, Zhu Shenzhui was not a professional. In his previous life, he had only touched a gun a few times during military training in college. After work, he did shoot a few times in a shooting club, but that kind of shooting was not even as good as military training. All the guns were fixed with iron chains, and shooting was just moving your fingers and pulling the trigger a few times. It was impossible to take it apart and study it, let alone hold it in your hand.

Zhu Shenzhui was already very good in helping Zhao Da make a musket. For further research, he could only give the concept direction, but it was impossible to rely on him to complete it. Just like now, if he wanted to make a primer-fired musket, he could only adjust the structure of the currently used matchlock musket, that is, replace the matchlock with a primer, redesign the ignition device, and partially change the medicine pool, while the rest would remain the same for the time being.

It seems simple to say, but it is not easy to do. How to do it specifically and how to achieve the goal depends on Zhao Da and the Yao brothers to research and develop.

After explaining his ideas carefully to the three of them, Zhao Da stared at the primer in his hand and thought carefully. As for the Yao brothers, they were a little shocked. They didn't expect that this thing they made would have such a use. The eldest brother of the Yao family was a little nervous in his astonishment, while the second brother of the Yao family was a little more excited and seemed eager to try.

After comforting them with a few words and making certain promises, I left the rest to them.

Zhu Shenzui didn't know when the work would be completed, but he believed that the combination of Zhao Da and the Yao brothers was far greater than one plus one. Both parties were the best craftsmen in the industry and would not let him down.

In a blink of an eye, time passed quickly. As the team was ready, Zhu Shenzhui and his party officially set off.

In order to avoid trouble, Wang Jinwu and others did not wear the uniforms of the garrison, but dressed up as ordinary traveling merchants. In addition, there were several vehicles, which looked no different from ordinary vehicles, but in fact these vehicles were completely different from ordinary vehicles. These were "chariots" specially built according to the descriptions of Lao Jin and others. When the Qi family army fought against the Mongols, they relied on this kind of chariot to use infantry to fight against cavalry.

The appearance of these chariots has changed slightly, but the performance is still the same, and these chariots can also be used to transport weapons and supplies. For this military training, Zhu Shenzhui loaded all the weapons and equipment prepared by the workshop onto the vehicles, including not only swords and guns, but also muskets, short muskets, two Portuguese cannons, plus leather armor, etc.

The group traveled westward from Zhaowuling and did not stop when they passed Yangtou Mountain. However, Li Hu went down the mountain specifically to meet Zhu Shenzui and even accompanied them for a while.

Meeting Zhu Shenzhui was one reason, and Zhu Shenzhui also knew the other reason, which was that Li You was the captain of the team, and it was normal for a father to care about his son, but Li Hu had no other thoughts. He saw that Li You wanted to see his son because he hadn't seen him for a while, and more importantly, he wanted to cheer his son up and told him to work hard with the team, and never lose face for the Li family, and to make himself look good in front of the Sixth Master. From Yangtou Mountain, it took two days to go west to Pingyang. The day before arriving in Pingyang, Zhu Shenzhui left the team and rode into Pingyang City.

This time he led the team north on a whim, and he only wrote a letter to his family. Since he passed through Pingyang, he had to go home to see his wife and children, and talk to his sister-in-law Zhang, and of course his niece Qiaoer.

This trip to the north would take at least two or three months, and although his family had made arrangements, he was still a little worried before leaving. When they got home, they were surprised and happy to see Zhu Shenzhu and Xu Jingqiu, who looked exhausted. But when they learned that he could only stay at home for one night and would leave the next day, they couldn't help but feel reluctant to let him go.

However, both Xu Jingqiu and sister-in-law Zhang could understand Zhu Shencui. To them, Zhu Shencui was the pillar of the family, and he went out to do business. Although the women were reluctant to see the man leave, they still resisted the idea of ​​letting him stay for the sake of the family.

He stayed at home for a day and spent the whole night with his wife. He set off the next day. When he set off, Xu Jingqiu did not cry, but just quietly helped Zhu Shenzhui tidy up his clothes and told him to be careful on the way and not to worry about her at home.

Looking at his wife, Zhu Shenzhui felt warm in his heart. He hugged Xu Jingqiu tightly, feeling her breath, as if he wanted to remember this breath deeply in his mind. After letting go, Zhu Shenzhui subconsciously looked at his sister-in-law Zhang. When his eyes met Zhang's, Zhang lowered her head slightly, as if she didn't want to look at Zhu Shenzhui. However, her fingers that subconsciously clenched the handkerchief tightly revealed her inner worry and reluctance.

"Go back! I'll be back as soon as possible!" He mounted his horse, turned around and said this to Xu Jingqiu and the others, then turned the horse's head, squeezed its belly, and rode away.

Watching her husband's figure leaving, tears finally fell from Xu Jingqiu's eyes. She looked deeply into the distance, until she could no longer see his figure, but she still did not look away.

After leaving the city, Zhu Shenzui went straight north and met up with the team in a village twenty miles outside the city.

Kang Youfu had arrived ahead of time with people and goods. When Zhu Shenzhui arrived, both parties had already completed the handover. Seeing Zhu Shenzhui coming, Kang Youfu hurried forward. Zhu Shenzhui did not dismount but leaned over to communicate with him for a few words. Seeing that everything was ready, he waved his hand and the team started to move north along the official road.

Everything went smoothly in Daming, and a few days later they passed through the checkpoint and exited the Great Wall.

Along the way, Zhu Shenzui was still keeping an eye on the movements, but found nothing unusual. After the grassland caravan was attacked last year, he had been trying to find out the person behind the attack, but until now he still has not found the real target. The broken clues flew away like a kite with a broken string, and the mastermind did not make a second move. If it were not for the discovery of the insider in the caravan, Zhu Shenzui would even suspect that the last attack was just a coincidence.

It is said that caution makes for a long journey. Even so, Zhu Shenzui still did not dare to be careless. After leaving the Great Wall, he was extremely vigilant all the way north. He even hoped that he might run into some short-sighted horse bandits. The people he brought this time were not ordinary caravan guys, but new soldiers with whom he had high hopes. Even though their number was small, they were the ones he had trained meticulously. What's more, his purpose of coming to the grassland this time was not just to do business. He wanted to train this army with the blood of the Mongols.

The journey north was actually equivalent to a march. All the rules were based on the military system, especially the composition of the team and the respective positions during the march. As for scouts, it goes without saying that Zhu Shenzui brought several Mongolians from the caravan to serve as scouts. They had superb horsemanship and were familiar with the grassland, so they were perfect as scouts.

A few days passed and everything went normal. The team would reach Ashitemur's tribe in two days, and they still hadn't encountered any trouble.

Zhu Shenzhui was a little disappointed about this. He was always worried about running into problems when he was traveling as a businessman in the past, but this time he was looking forward to running into trouble because the people and purpose were different this time, but he happened to have a smooth journey.

In the afternoon of that day, the team was still moving towards its destination. Looking at the sun, Zhu Shenzui decided to stop the team after another hour and a half, and then set up camp to rest for the night.

Who would have thought that at this moment, a horse came galloping from the front. The sound of horse hooves aroused the team's vigilance. At the order, the marching team immediately stopped and stood in their positions. Zhu Shenzhui stood on his horse and looked over. When he saw what the rider was wearing, he felt relieved.

Because the person who came was the scout he had sent out, not the horse bandit he had imagined. But before Zhu Shencui was about to sit back down, he heard a sharp whistle in his ear, and his face changed instantly.

(End of this chapter)