Huh?
Didn't the Young Master just pay a visit to the Suzhou Prefect? How did this man offend his Young Master again?
"I obey!" Li Cheng asked no further questions and prepared to lead his men away immediately.
Zhu Ci hurriedly instructed, "Don't rob them of everything; leave at least half, try your best not to take any lives."
Understood, rob their wealth but spare their lives.
Although there was some dissatisfaction regarding the Suzhou Prefect's decision to flee in the face of danger, this was simply the state of the Great Ming court nowadays; from top to bottom, one could hardly find a single reliable person.
At any rate, the Suzhou Prefect still followed the proper procedures, voluntarily resigning and returning home instead of simply fleeing. He was far more reliable than the Magistrate, he governed Suzhou Prefecture quite well; at least there were no reports of any particularly egregious misdeeds. As for those miscellaneous taxes and levies, they were hardly a concern at a time like this.
Just let him off this time; otherwise, how could we possibly kill them all?
Li Cheng left decisively, his return.. was also quite fast.
Zhu Ci was somewhat surprised to hear that they had returned so quickly: "So fast?"
Did the Suzhou Prefect surrender as soon as they met?
After Li Cheng entered, he said with a heavy expression, "Young Master, when we caught up with the Prefect, we found that his entire family had been killed."
Zhu Ci frowned. "All of them?"
Yes, not even the servants were spared.
Can you tell what the killer's methods were?
Li Cheng shook his head: "The opponent did a very clean job; they left almost no traces behind."
Zhu Ci clicked his tongue. "Was this a vendetta? They acted incredibly fast. It's a pity you made the trip for nothing."
Li Cheng hesitated for a moment before saying, "It wasn't entirely a wasted trip. Plenty of valuables and horses were left behind at the scene, so I brought them all back."
Hmm?" Zhu Ci instantly became vigilant. "Why would they leave valuables behind?
Jiang Quan guessed, "Maybe there was too much to carry back?"
Zhu Ci looked at him as if he were an idiot. "You said there are still many horses, so how can they not be transported away?"
If the men Li Cheng brought could take the goods away, why couldn't the other side?
Because they weren't there to kill, Li Cheng didn't bring many men, but the other side was there to silence witnesses, so their numbers were bound to be greater. How could they not be able to transport them away? Even if they couldn't take them all, wouldn't they leave some people behind to watch the place?
Li Cheng scratched his head, clearly unable to figure it out either.
Zhu Ci said directly, "Forget it, since you've brought them all back, just take stock and record them."
The other party must have left these things behind on purpose, either knowing he would come and leave them for him, or wanting to find someone to frame in order to clear their own suspicion.
From Zhu Ci's perspective, the latter was more likely.
But it didn't matter; he would take the blame for this, he would also keep a record of this debt, even if the possibility of finding the other party was slim, there was still hope.
It was mainly because he truly couldn't spare the time right now.
Originally, he had rushed back to the village in a hurry because he wanted to continue improving the gunpowder at the Xinghuo Factory, but instead, he encountered the matter of Sea Bandits landing on the shore, he would have to recruit more people to deal with them.
He finally caught his breath after being so busy until now.
He had many aspects to improve this time. When he was suppressing the mountain bandits before, he had discovered that even with improved gunpowder, the saltpeter, sulfur, carbon would easily separate during transport. Furthermore, the combustion rate was difficult to control, leading to somewhat unstable thrust.
The simplest way to solve the layering problem would likely be to purify the saltpeter and granulate the gunpowder.
Purifying saltpeter is actually quite simple. By directly utilizing the difference in solubility, one can dissolve the saltpeter in water, filter out the impurities, then, after cooling, obtain saltpeter crystals of higher purity. As the purity of the saltpeter increases, the energy of the gunpowder will naturally increase as well.
As for granulation, it involves mixing the gunpowder according to the ratio, adding a small amount of water to knead it into a dough-like consistency, then pressing it through a bamboo sieve to form granules, finally drying them.
The internal structure of the granules after drying is uniform, allowing for a faster and more stable gas generation rate during combustion. Furthermore, they possess better moisture resistance, resulting in a significant increase in both range and power.
This type of improvement applies to all types of firearms, but the next focus of improvement will be the Fire-Dragon Water-Spout.
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Author's Note: Zhu Ci: Let me take the blame, let me find out who did it! Evil kitty lighting the fuse. jpg
Next update at 6:00 PM~
Chapter 62
The Fire-Dragon Water-Spout is very likely the first two-stage rocket in history—or at least in the history of this land—specifically designed for naval warfare.
The overall structure was a dragon shape made of bamboo, with a single-stage rocket strapped to the outside and a second-stage rocket inside the dragon's belly; its range was not far, at most one thousand five hundred meters.
Although it sounded advanced, according to the records Zhu Ci had read, the Fire-Dragon Water-Spout had all sorts of defects.
Zhu Ci analyzed the records in the Wubei Zhi, there were quite a few problems. For instance, the structure was fragile, the gunpowder was inefficient, the ignition was prone to failure, the flight was difficult to control; besides these, the safety risks were also significant.
Regarding the inefficiency of the gunpowder, Zhu Ci had already developed granulated gunpowder, which directly solved the problem.
Structural fragility is also easy to solve. The original Fire-Dragon Water-Spout used bamboo tubes covered with a layer of paper, which not only easily deformed from moisture but also suffered from extremely serious gas leakage.
Improving this isn't actually that difficult; you just need money.
By simply reinforcing the outer shell—brushing the inner bamboo layer with raw lacquer and tung oil ash for moisture and fireproofing, then wrapping the exterior with hemp rope soaked in tung oil—it forms the simplest "composite fiber layer" once air-dried.
Individually, these materials don't seem particularly expensive, but compared to the previous Fire-Dragon Water-Spout, the costs began to skyrocket.
And this is just one small aspect of the improvements; even more significant weightier issues have yet to undergo multi-stage integration and optimization.
To reduce the chance of the second-stage rocket failing to ignite, Zhu Ci replaced the middle partition with a fusible partition. This partition was made of a tin-lead alloy; in other words, this thing was not uncommon nowadays and could even be said to be something for which craftsmen could be found among the common folk.
Besides that, there were also modifications to the tail fins, the addition of a nose cone inside the second-stage rocket, so on.. Once the Fire-Dragon Water-Spout was fully improved, Zhu Ci felt that if it were truly for robbing Sea Bandits, using this thing was too much of a loss; the money looted might not even cover the cost of the Fire-Dragon Water-Spout!
Fortunately, he wasn't just doing it for the money; his primary goals were revenge and deterrence. If possible, he even wanted to lead his men back to Nanjing.
He just needs to wait and see for now; once the Qing Army retreats, he doesn't know what the昏君 will choose.
He certainly didn't want to turn back and find that his hometown had been wiped out by Sea Bandits; where would that leave his dignity?
After several rounds of experimentation, the stability and range of the Fire-Dragon Water-Spout have both significantly improved.
Zhu Ci rolled up his sleeves, turned his head, asked, "How is the training going for those retainers with good swimming skills that we selected before?"
Jiang Quan immediately said, "They have all made some progress, they can even recognize a few characters now."
Zhu Ci asked again, "There won't be any problems going out to sea, will there?"
Jiang Quan immediately said, "There certainly won't be any problems."
Zhu Ci turned his head toward Jiang Xueyan and asked, "The boat has been bought?"
Jiang Xueyan straightened her back and said, "They have been bought. Would the Young Master like to go have a look?"
She spoke these words with some nervousness; because she was both skilled and proficient in mathematics, the Young Master had previously entrusted her with the camp's accounts, leaving Jiang Xueyan feeling both excited and pressured.
Buying ships was her first task after taking over the camp's accounts; after much investigation and careful calculation, she finally managed to purchase several ships.
Zhu Ci naturally wanted to go and take a look, but every time he finished inspecting the ships, he was left with the feeling that he was very poor.
There were six ships in total, which used up almost two-thirds of the assets.
Oh, by "assets," I mean the military camp's own accounts.
He has been making some distinctions lately; the money from New Year's social exchanges or from selling beehive coal all belongs to the treasury, whereas money from looting.. ahem, from robbing the rich to aid the poor and such, all goes into the military camp's accounts.
If you really counted it, the money in the military camp's accounts was far more than his; otherwise, how could one say that robbery brings in money so quickly?
Standing on the deck, Zhu Ci sailed toward the unknown sea amidst the sea breeze, feeling a rare moment of unease.
Mainly, although the ships they purchased were quite good among the common people, they could only be compared to the coastal fishing vessels of later generations.
Sigh, when will he be able to own a Fuchuan?
Forget it, a Fuchuan is a bit too ambitious for now; it wouldn't be bad to own a Bird Boat first.
Bird Boats are the main vessels of the Zheng family navy under Zheng Zhilong and his son Zheng Chenggong; they can carry more than ten cannons and possess great speed and maneuverability.
However, even using Bird Boats to fight Sea Bandits felt a bit like using anti-aircraft guns to swat mosquitoes.
While Zhu Ci's mind was occupied with these chaotic thoughts, the backdrop was a small island under relentless bombardment and the screams of Sea Bandits.
Well, the Fire-Dragon Water-Spout is more suitable for precision strikes; if you want even greater power, it's best to pair it with large-scale suppressive fire.
Of course, a Fire-Dragon Water-Spout is more than enough to deal with Sea Bandits.
After wiping out a group of Sea Bandits, Zhu Ci clicked his tongue as he looked at the confiscated treasures.
He knew he would lose money, but forget it, he'd just treat it as training for the troops.
Land battles are easy to train for, but naval warfare truly requires spending real silver and gold to master. Now that the troops have been trained, it is already quite good to have some subsidy income.
Zhu Ci was gone for nearly half a month, single-handedly wiping out most of the Sea Bandits within the Jiading coastline.
It wasn't that he didn't want to exterminate the rest, but rather that he had calculated that, according to the normal timeline in the books, the Qing Army should be advancing southward.
It was just that there were more variables than before, he didn't know if things would turn out the same.
After drifting at sea for nearly half a month, when Zhu Ci stepped onto land again, he felt as if his entire body was swaying, feeling as though his body had not yet adjusted.
In fact, it wasn't just him; basically every soldier who had gone out on a trip was like this. Zhu Ci could at least maintain some composure, trying his best to walk normally, but the men behind him were truly stumbling and could barely even stand straight.
Zhu Ci returned home and, having just sat down, asked, "Is there anything urgent? If not, I'll go rest first."
Exhausted to the point of death, if it weren't for the need to maintain his image, Zhu Ci would have wanted to collapse into the chair right now.
Fu Qiulu immediately said, "It's nothing much. The only thing truly related to us is that the new Suzhou Prefect died suddenly on his way to take office, also.. the imperial gazette has been released."
Hmm? Sudden death?" Zhu Ci asked immediately. "Natural causes?
Fu Qiulu shook her head and said, "I don't know. I heard the imperial court sent people to investigate, but there has been no follow-up."
Zhu Ci said languidly, "Then it doesn't matter. It won't affect us. Everyone should just go about their business. I'm going to sleep."
Just now, to welcome him, nearly the entire family, young and old, came out together.
Oh, not only his family, but the old and young from the entire village came as well, they even brought plenty of food.
Zhu Ci had emphasized it once while on the boat: you must not take even a single needle or thread from the common people; do not take anything. You are my soldiers; I will take responsibility for your clothing, food, shelter, transportation; do not reach out toward ordinary people.
But he couldn't resist everyone's overwhelming enthusiasm, so Zhu Ci finally took charge and accepted some eggs and vegetables as extra rations before he was finally let go.
At this moment, he was truly forcing himself to deal with everyone. Once he returned to his room and hurriedly washed up, he fell straight into a sleep that lasted a full day.