Colonial Era: From Remnants to European Dominator

"The East, what is the East? Is it Marco Polo's golden land, or the silk and porcelain bestowed by God, or even God's beverage of tea? These are all, but not entirely, because the true East has already perished."

"Civilization groveled under the blade of the Tatars, its brilliant culture was trampled, and its exquisite aesthetics were taken over by barbaric vulgarity, leaving behind only that disgusting queue and ugly clothing."

"I remember when I was in Russia, Russians were always ashamed of their past as slaves of the Mongols, but I could also sense that savagery in them. It was a survival wisdom learned from their masters that gave the Slavs a unique obsession with expansion. Siberia was just the first step in their future expansion. The real expansion was in Europe, in the neighboring Khanates."

Orlov, the owner of the quill pen, looked up at the full moon outside the window. In many legends, the moon is always associated with evil. The moonlight devoured by monsters in the East and the horrors in the culture of werewolves and witches in the West all link the moon with bad things.

Thinking of everything he had seen in Jinshan City these past few days, Olof lowered his head again and picked up the quill pen that desperately needed replacing:

"This is a civilized city. Its order is comparable to Rome or Florence in Italy. It just has a smaller population. But overall, it is part of civilization in terms of cleanliness and law."

"This city was founded by the Seres people after the fall of the Ming Dynasty. They learned to coexist with savagery through slaughter and tamed it."

"The Seres of the Gold Mountain are clearly pagans. They do not believe in God; they believe in Buddhism, Taoism, and the local Tengri totem. This is impossible in Europe. It is difficult for a city to accommodate three different faiths. The Ottomans were already considered anomalies. They allowed Christ to exist in Armenia and employed them as part of the empire."

"The city's founders were clearly more enlightened, or perhaps the East has always been very experienced in this regard."

Orlov habitually lit his pipe, one of his few remaining possessions. He never imagined that the people of the Golden Mountain didn't smoke, or rather, that the people of the surrounding grasslands didn't have the habit of smoking, let alone cultivating it. As a result, he repeatedly suggested to the benevolent general that this spiritual food from the Americas should be cultivated, but each time he only received the answer "in the planning stage."

If this continues, he might start peeling tree bark and cardboard.

The distinctive nicotine aroma of tobacco filled his nostrils, making Orlov's mind even clearer, and he even changed the name of his revised Siberian travelogue:

"The prologue to civilization."

At the very beginning of this article, Orlov's first sentence is:

"The old Rome of the East is extinct; a new Rome is rising!!"

Moonlight streamed through the half-open window, illuminating Olof's pale, Scandinavian features and highlighting the scattered manuscripts and ash strewn about in the breeze. His pipe had been put down, leaving only a single pack of tobacco—a rare moment of brilliance amidst his unwavering dedication, which gradually brought his image to life.

----------

The fire workshop, now officially renamed "Jinshan Firearms Factory," has now entered a period of stable construction after the chaos of a large-scale recruitment drive a few months ago.

"Adding manpower, manufacturing equipment, building new factories, bestowing rewards, and improving production lines—all these expenses totaled 170,000 silver ingots, a considerable expenditure."

"And operating this factory every year would cost at least 30,000 to 40,000."

"Young master, not to mention the shortage of manpower. The current few hundred students are already the limit. If we want to recruit more, we will have to recruit able-bodied men from the tribes. However, we still have to take into account the time for learning to read and write. It will be difficult to expand again in a short time."

Wang Jingui's hair was noticeably whiter than it had been a few months ago. After all, the expansion was several times larger than before. Just teaching apprentices and expanding the factory had exhausted most of his energy, not to mention participating in the improvement of machinery. If it weren't for the government's decades of kindness to him, this deadly task would probably have shortened his lifespan by three to five years.

"Master Wang, do you have someone you'd like to recommend? You can also reward them."

"If they are your own children, you can send one up as well."

Looking at Li Yuanheng, who had blatantly used connections to give him an extra reward, Master Wang was deeply moved, but unwilling to break the rules, he simply said:

"My son is dull-witted. It is already a blessing from our ancestors and a benevolent prefect that he can stay in this new factory to work as an apprentice and earn a living. How could we ask for more? As for the preferred candidates, I can recommend two people: one is my eldest apprentice, Song Enhai, and the other is Hu Sai. However, he is of Turkic origin, so I'm afraid the government will not use him."

"Hey, what Turkic or not? Jinshan has been a city for over 60 years. There's no longer any distinction between Han and Turkic. In my opinion, as long as people are loyal to Jinshan Prefecture and willing to work hard, they are all Jinshan people, and therefore Han people. If they betray their ancestors and their homeland, then they are traitors and everyone should kill them!!"

Upon hearing Li Yuanheng's words, Wang Jingui immediately beckoned to Hu Sai, who was still modifying the equipment.

Looking at Li Yuanheng before him, Hu Sai was so frightened that he dared not breathe, only bowing his head and respectfully addressing him as "Young Master." Li Yuanheng, seeing this, first sized up the man a few times, then spoke:

"You were also involved in the water hammer incident, and it's said that you were the one who came up with the ox and horse method."

"Yes."

The reply was weak, and Li Yuanheng didn't react much, only offering a few words of praise before letting the other person leave. Then he turned to Wang Jingui and said:

"Song Enhai and Hu Sai will be in charge of the gunpowder and artillery sections respectively, and will be appointed as foremen. Their annual salary will be calculated at eighty silver ingots."

"As for the annual allowance, let's just say it's based on the amount given by the township head."

"This old man thanks you greatly, young master—"

Just as Wang Jingui was about to kneel down, Li Yuanheng pulled him up:

"Where is the gun? Take me to see it quickly."

-------

In a newly unlocked storage room in the backyard, a brand-new musket appeared in Li Yuanheng's hands.

Compared to the previous "multi-national" muskets purchased from various places, this musket, which was gradually measured and manufactured using the Jungar musket as a template and the Rakshasa musket as a reference, is more like a combination of the two in terms of size, but it is also longer than both of them.

Following the gaze, one could see a longbow and arrow symbol below the muzzle, exuding the atmosphere of the Jinshan Grassland.

"This gun is four feet long, and there is a bayonet slot under the muzzle. If a bayonet is added, it will be at least five and a half feet long."

[Approximately 181 centimeters long, it was considered excellent among firearms of its time.]

"However, due to the scarcity of spring steel, we can only produce about thirty springs a month now, which is probably not enough to meet the demand."

When the topic of springs comes up, Wang Jingui gets a headache. After all, the reason why flintlock guns were able to replace old-fashioned matchlock guns was not because they had made great progress in power and range, but purely because the technological innovation brought about by spring technology greatly improved the firing speed and loading speed of flintlock guns, rendering the matchlock guns, which still required a matchlock and had complicated steps, useless.

After all, most spring steel nowadays is made by hand, which is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also very easy to waste steel. That's why thirty or so spring steel per month is already the limit for the entire firearms factory.

"I heard from the Swede Olof that firearms have now completely replaced iron weapons like swords and spears in Europe, except for cavalry. With such a large-scale change, Europe must have a more advanced method of steel refining than we do."

"If we want to increase production, we'll probably have to find a way to improve steel production."

"Steelmaking----"

Li Yuanheng's words made Wang Jingui fall into deep thought, and the latter, seeing this, quickly followed up with:

"I can bring Orlov to the factory. He is very knowledgeable, has traveled to many countries, and comes from a military background. He must know something about firearms. Master can discuss it with him. As for the translation, since we have nothing to do these days, I can do the translation myself."

"Young master is so busy these days, how could you possibly—"

"No problem!!"

Li Yuanheng waved his hand, then grabbed the first musket that belonged entirely to Jinshan Prefecture. His once tranquil eyes were now filled with restlessness and an expectation unlike anything seen in this era.

As someone from a later era, he was all too aware of the power of firearms, and the musket was the ship that truly changed the times.

Although modern firearms do not yet fully demonstrate absolute dominance over cold weapons, the door to cold weapons has long been cracked since the invention of the flintlock musket. This may not be very noticeable in Asia, but in Europe, on the other side of the East Asian continent, the impact of the full adoption of firearms is like an accelerator for a rocket, rapidly propelling European civilization from the waves of the Atlantic Ocean to the whole world.

The Americas, Africa, many parts of Asia, and even Australia, which was not yet a place of exile but is now known as "New Holland," will all become pastures and homes for European whites amidst the clamor of firearms.

The irony of history lies here: the civilization that invented gunpowder and the compass did not enter the industrial age first. Instead, a civilization that was still in the barbaric Middle Ages for the first few centuries, relying on parchment for writing and whose history was a later, half-true, and half-false fabrication, actually occupied most of the planet's land and resources. In the end, it left behind the older and more intelligent Eastern civilization and became the ruler and shaper of this new world for a considerable period of history.

This absurdity kept echoing in Li Yuanheng's mind, and eventually everything refocused on this new type of musket that symbolized a brand new future for Jinshan Prefecture in the 18th century:

"What's the name of this gun?"

"It has never been named before, please bestow a name upon it, young master."

Li Yuanheng looked at the new gun in his hand as if it were his lover, his hands constantly stroking the cold muzzle, as if it were his lover's face:

"Guns are not suitable for our Han people; firearms are better. Let's call them Flying Sickle Guns!!"