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

Chapter 523 Arrangement Progress
This is because Yan Lao Si and Lou Lao Er showed mercy. If they were more ruthless, none of these people would be able to stand.

The battle lasted less than a quarter of an hour from the beginning to the end. Looking at the corpses lying on the ground and the even more terrified soldiers kneeling in surrender, Yan Laosi and Lou Laoer smacked their lips in boredom, as if they were wondering why it ended before they had enough fun.

After the battle, Yan Laosi and Lou Laoer simply asked about the situation. After learning that these people were actually the Shanxi army who came to defend the king, they didn't know how to deal with them for a while. In desperation, they could only find a place to temporarily lock up the remaining people. A few days after this incident, Lu Yisheng returned with the troops of Luzhou Guard. He returned to Zhaowuling two days later than Zhu Shenzhui. After returning, he heard about this and went to see the cave where the prisoners were detained. Then he asked Yan Laosi and Lou Laoer about the situation at that time.

After hearing the report, Lu Yisheng did not dare to make a decision on his own, so he sent someone to Luzhouwei to invite Zhu Shenzhui to come. Because this matter involved the mutinous Shanxi army, Lu Yisheng was afraid that the news would leak out, so he did not explain the details in the message to Zhu Shenzhui, so Zhu Shenzhui did not know about this until he came to Zhaowuling.

After listening to Lu Yisheng's story, Zhu Shenzui finally understood everything. When he came to the cave again, he looked at the closed door of the cave and saw more than 200 Shanxi soldiers inside. He couldn't help but think about how to deal with these people.

To be honest, Zhu Shenzhui was in the capital at that time. He knew all the causes and consequences of the Shanxi Army's mutiny and sympathized with their plight. However, after the mutiny, the Shanxi Army burned, killed and looted in the capital, and did a lot of evil things. Many civilians escaped the looting of the Eight Banners soldiers, but not the looting of the Shanxi Army. Not only were their property and food looted, but many of them, young and old, died in the Shanxi Army. What was even more pitiful were the women. The rebellious soldiers were so angry that they could do anything.

From this point of view, it would not be too much to chop off all the heads of these Shanxi soldiers. If they were wronged, what crime did the civilians who died in vain commit? It is extremely shameful to take revenge on the civilians for their own injustice.

But if you think about it carefully, you can't just kill them all with one stick. Not all the Shanxi soldiers are guilty. Most of them were just coerced or passive. If on the battlefield, Zhu Shenzhui could give the order to kill them all without mercy, but now these people have all become prisoners. In addition, they are all from Shanxi and most of them are just ordinary military households. It is a bit difficult to kill them now.

"Sixth Master, if these people are really useless, let me deal with them. I guarantee that we will do it cleanly and without anyone noticing." As if he saw Zhu Shenzhui's hesitation, Lu Yisheng spoke from the side.

In Lu Yisheng's opinion, it was too easy to kill these people. They were all locked in the cave anyway. All he had to do was set a fire in the cave and guard the entrance to prevent anyone from coming out. The people inside would either be burned to death or suffocated to death.

When everyone is dead, just fill the hole with soil, and no one will know what is going on inside. Then the matter will be over, and there will be no aftermath.

Zhu Shenzhui shook his head slightly and did not agree. Although it was not difficult to kill these people, it would be too harmful to the harmony of the world. Although Zhu Shenzhui was not a saint, he knew that killing prisoners would bring bad luck. He did not want to kill these unarmed and surrendered Shanxi soldiers.

"Torture them one by one and let them point out the mistakes of each other. Kill all those who have killed civilians or insulted women. As for the rest, ask about their identities and family details, and compile a list. You can decide whether to send them to mine or to your eldest brother. Keep these people for now. They may be of use in the future."

After hearing this, Lu Yisheng immediately understood what Zhu Shencui meant and agreed immediately. Zhu Shencui was not interested in seeing the chaotic soldiers trapped in the cave, so he went back to the Hundred Households Office.

Now that you are here, you may as well stay here for a few more days. On the one hand, wait for Lu Yisheng to finish dealing with the rebellious army, and on the other hand, inspect the situation in the workshop.

It has been more than a year since I left here last time. The training of the new army has already had a procedure, so Zhu Shenzhui no longer needs to pay too much attention to it. As long as he is given enough time, manpower, equipment, and money to support the troops, Zhu Shenzhui believes that Yan Laosi and the others will not let him down.

However, he could not afford to support so many new troops at the moment. Although the combat effectiveness of the new troops was strong, the cost was also very high. With Zhu Shenzhui's current ability, the number of new troops was almost at the limit of his ability. For a long time in the future, the number of new troops would remain roughly the same as it is now, but retaining the number and continuing training were two different things. Considering the issue of veterans and new recruits, and the possibility of further expansion in the future, Zhu Shenzhui was ready to gradually replace the first batch of new troops. Every year, about a few hundred or more new troops were transferred from active service to the reserve service, and they were trained in the name of military households. On the one hand, this could maintain the fresh blood of the new troops, and on the other hand, it could ensure that the veterans would still maintain their combat effectiveness after being transferred to the reserve service, and could be recruited for battle at any time.

In addition, the development of local centurions also requires young and strong population, and the replaced veterans can help the centurions with farming and development. This method was also decided by Zhu Shenzhui after careful consideration, and now he plans to implement it step by step.

In addition to the above factors, the benefits of doing so are that it can reduce the huge expenditure on the new army's money and food, and solve the problem of being unable to continue to expand the size of the new army in the simplest way. As for whether it can really achieve the expected results, no one can guarantee it, but Zhu Shenzhu believes that as long as the operation is good, even if the success rate is half, it is enough for him to do so. Apart from the problem of the new army, there is the situation of the workshop.

Now there are three most important parts of the workshop. The largest one is still the blacksmith workshop, or it can be called an iron factory.

Through the recruitment of technical talents from all over the country and the research and generous rewards over the years, the technology of Zhaowuling Ironworks has been well developed. Whether it is ironmaking or steelmaking, its technical level has reached the highest level of this era. The amount of pig iron, wrought iron and even high-quality steel produced every day exceeds the total amount of several large workshops of the Ministry of Industry.

In addition to supplying part of the steel produced for self-demand, most of it was made into various rough pieces and shipped to the grassland to strengthen the Tenger tribe. In addition, Zhu Shenzhu did not give up the smuggling of steel. The profit from smuggling steel was even higher than that from smuggling salt.

However, Zhu Shencui still had very strict control over this kind of smuggling. He instructed that Kang Youfu must never let the weapons fall into the hands of the Jiannu. Even the various tribes on the grassland that were smuggling needed to be differentiated. Except for his own Tenger tribe, no single tribe could be allowed to dominate the other smuggling tribes. The power of each tribe must be balanced. Even when conflicts arose among several tribes, if one tribe could not support itself, he would privately support that tribe. In other words, Zhu Shencui was no different from a black-hearted arms dealer, taking this opportunity to make a fortune from the war.

Apart from the ironworks, the other two most important workshops were the gunpowder factory and the firearms factory.

Yao Liang was in charge of the gunpowder factory. He was an excellent fireworks craftsman and was more proficient in the development of gunpowder than his younger brother Yao Yuan. Moreover, since the development of yellow powder, Yao Liang's thinking window was suddenly opened and he became fascinated by chemistry.

It has been hundreds of years since the invention of gunpowder. During these hundreds of years, the research on gunpowder has never stopped, especially among fireworks craftsmen, who have passed the research on gunpowder from generation to generation. Based on gunpowder, by adding and making some changes to the original formula, they have produced a variety of colorful and exquisite fireworks.

However, all these developments and changes are based on the original foundation. That is to say, no matter how the fireworks craftsmen think about it, the structure of the basic formula of gunpowder has never changed. What has changed is only the difference in proportion, or the addition of some other materials. In other words, it is the same principle.

But when Yao Liang discovered that xanthocyanate could have the same effect as the best gunpowder, and even surpassed the performance of gunpowder, this result completely overturned what he had learned before. He never thought that the basic formula of gunpowder could be completely changed, and even the original formula and materials could be abandoned and replaced with other materials. This made Yao Liang suddenly become very interested in this and began to study it in depth.

In the past year or so, in addition to making yellow powder and other gunpowders, Yao Liang has put almost all his energy into developing new gunpowders. He used many tools to extract, compare and fuse a lot of substances like alchemy, intending to make a gunpowder that is stronger, more stable and more practical than yellow powder.

Although he has failed countless times and the possibility of success is out of reach, Yao Liang still enjoys it and is deeply involved in it. Zhu Shenzhu fully supports Yao Liang's research, and it is precisely because of his support that Yao Liang can always maintain the possibility of continuing his research.

Yao Liang's younger brother Yao Yuan is different. Compared with his brother's persistence, this boy is smarter. Due to the success of the Plum Blossom Spear, Yao Yuan has almost given up the development of gunpowder as a fireworks craftsman and turned to the development of firearms.

It has to be said that Yao Yuan is very talented in firearms, and his mechanical ability is also demonstrated. Now Yao Yuan has developed a "Six-Turn Magic Gun" that can be loaded with six rounds or even a "Seven-Turn Magic Gun" that can be loaded with seven rounds based on the Plum Blossom Spear. He also has the idea of ​​making modifications to the Portuguese cannon and the Tiger Squat Cannon, intending to combine the two to form a new type of artillery that has both the fast loading design of the Portuguese cannon and the power and portability of the Tiger Squat Cannon.

Although the development of this type of artillery has not yet been successful, his idea is good. Judging from the drawings of his design, it vaguely has a similar structure to the mortars of later generations. It is just that technical limitations have prevented it from being successful for the time being.

In addition to these, there are also improvements and designs for processing machinery, which makes Zhu Shenzhui surprised that this guy actually made a lathe and a drilling machine. Although the structure is still very primitive and most of them require human or animal power to drive, their appearance has brought technical improvements to the workshop, which makes Zhu Shenzhui very excited.

(End of this chapter)