Li Mu didn't say anything else, use the steelmaking method I taught you to exchange for other people's iron ore, so that you can become the most popular person. But he didn't say this, because according to the current situation, Wang Rui would definitely not agree. He also counted on this secret method as the killer weapon of ZTE's family business.

But in the end, he would definitely do the exchange he should do. Li Mu did not take these things seriously. At his level, he looked at macro things. It doesn’t matter who knows the so-called secret methods. As long as he can create what he needs on time, it’s enough.

Besides, he was not tied to Wang Rui. If Wang Rui could not create the weapons he needed on time, what is the steel filling method or the steel forging method, he could teach others at any time. Will Wang Rui dare to grin?

In the evening, after refusing Wang Rui's repeated attempts, Li Mu insisted on returning to Yangzhou City. After the Chinese New Year, Li Mu's time was arranged in a dense manner. All the itineraries were made by Wei Yingluo. If you want to find him temporarily, unless it was Li Shimin, no one else would have the same face. So Wang Rui asked Wei Yingluo to find the right person, after all, she was in charge of Li Mu's daily itinerary.

There is no way, the revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard. Doing more work today is to retire tomorrow as soon as possible. Li Mu has been using this sentence to encourage himself, but in fact he has no idea. He doesn't know when he can truly put down the stall in his hand and hide in the Liuke to live a life of his life.

"Xiaojiu, look at this." In the studio, Li Mu handed Dugu Jiu a bullet of about an inch as if he was a magician.

That's right, the bullet. Dugu Jiu also knew that Li Mu had something he called a "gun" and was carried with him. When he was used, he would make a thunder-like sound, which was extremely lethal. Li Mu claimed to the public that the "Yiyang Finger" was this thing called "gun".

I saw it was about the same length as a human index finger, and it was wrapped in paper shells, one end pointed and the other end thick.

Dugu Jiu frowned and said, "Why is this thing made of paper shells? I remember your gun, the bullet is copper?"

"It's just to save costs," Li Mu bent down and took out a long spear from under the desk. It was completely different from the exquisite short spear in his arms. This one was relatively rough and not that delicate. Dugu Jiu took it and played with it for a while, and said, "It's still practical, which lacks fancy things and saves a lot of labor."

He said it very pertinently. The one in Li Mu's hand was extremely luxurious. The gun barrel was made of gold, the grip was made of ivory, and it was supplemented by exquisite hollow carvings. Not to mention the material, this working hours were worth more than a thousand guan. The bullet was still copper, so who could afford it? Only Li Mu, who did not use money as money, would make such a thing.

"When using it, just use your teeth to bite the bullet tip and pour the gunpowder into the fire pool. The projectile is in the middle of the paper shell, blocking the remaining gunpowder and cannot be poured out." Li Mu can trust Dugu Jiu infinitely, and the explanation is very detailed: "Then close the fire door, stuff the remaining gunpowder and projectiles into the barrel with a strip. As long as the gunpowder is not damp, the launch will not be affected."

Dugu Jiu played back and forth, frowned slightly, and said, "What's the use of this thing? If you didn't fire a single shot in front of the two armies, I'd already shot three arrows."

Dugu Jiu is not talking nonsense. The "gun" Li Mu took out is still in a very primitive stage. Compared with the guns of later generations, almost all the body is full of shortcomings. Li Mu is not unable to create a better gun, it can be done, but there is no need.

"You are right. It is really not very useful in front of the two armies-" Li Mu said with a smile, "But he is not used in front of the two armies, this is used on the ship."

"On the boat?" Dugu Jiu became even more confused and said, "What's the use of on the boat? Do you also fight wars at sea?"

There were no enemies in the waters around the Tang Dynasty. Later generations of Japanese pirates who brought huge troubles to the Central Plains could not create ships of more than 200 stones, and the naval battle was even more unnecessary. The Thousand Stone ships of the Tang Dynasty sailed by, and the waves brought about may overturn the ship.

"Everything has to be prepared for the future. There is no war now, and it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no future. If you are not prepared, you will definitely suffer a loss." Li Mu pointed to the 'world map' hanging on the wall and told Dugu Jiu: "The harbor west of Tubo is home to the sea, and their navigation skills are also very developed, which is no less than our Tang Dynasty. If we meet them on the sea in the future, there will inevitably be conflicts."

Dugu Jiu glanced at the location where Li Mu pointed, which was more than ten thousand miles away from the Tang Dynasty. He could not imagine that he could reach that far by boat. But since Li Mu said that it was necessary, it must be a necessary thing, and he did not stubbornly. Just looked at the gun in his hand, Dugu Jiu was still puzzled and said, "Brother, the range of this thing should not be farther than that of a bow and arrow, why not use a bow and arrow?"

"Good question!" Li Mu smiled and said, "There are three benefits. First, the accuracy of the bow and arrow is the first step, the arm strength, and the second step is the eye strength. Both are indispensable. This gun can pull the trigger by an individual, and there is no threshold for arm strength. It is also easy to aim. Seeing that these two gaps are not met, the target will be met, and there is no possibility of failure to hit."

"Secondly, bows and arrows are much longer than bullets, and there are many winds and waves on the sea. After the bow and arrow are shot out, the head will be tilted when the wind blows, and the bullet will not be affected much."

"Third," Li Mu took out two more guns and put them at his hand, saying, "Like you said, if I shoot one shot, you can shoot two arrows. But who said, I only have one gun? I have five guns, all of them are loaded and placed next to them, so that I can shoot continuously, faster than you shoot archery, right? And I save more effort, and if I shoot archery for a long time, will my arms not be sore?"

Dugu Jiu is a martial arts fanatic. The advantage of martial arts fanatic is that he will not admit his mistakes. If he is wrong, he is wrong. If he is right, he will not admit his mistakes because he is desperate. He also took a boat and thought about what Li Mu said. It seemed that it made sense. Then he nodded and said, "Brother is right. This thing is indeed better than a bow and arrow in the sea."

"You will come to General Hou tomorrow. You have to discuss this with him. Although you can create any blacksmith, you can make it, but it is a taboo thing after all. Let him buy it by the Ministry of War and let the East Factory build it."

"East Factory?" Dugu Jiu was stunned for a moment, and then remembered the East Factory that Li Mu mentioned was not the East Factory that had died eunuchs, but the East City Arsenal in Chang'an. Speaking of which, the original intention of the East Factory was originally the security guard of the East City Arsenal, but now he has overseen his authority and replaced this name. It seems very interesting.

But this is also a good thing. After all, places like the ordnance station are more secretive and more inconspicuous.

Without the ordnance led by Li Mu, the development was very slow. The research direction was also very solid, and it was just about how to improve the direction of cold weapons. After all, due to the limitations of the times, people in this era could not think of the concept of "hot weapons". Although Li Mu had already used gunpowder and tried a knife in the Western Regions, Li Shimin had witnessed the power of gunpowder. But so far, gunpowder has not become the protagonist of the war. In addition to the absurd remarks such as Li Mu taking out the set of gunpowder that requires meteorites as materials, people's concepts and understanding of war are still the main reason for preventing the development of hot weapons.

Everything is about the environment. When everyone uses cold weapons to fight, the idea of ​​using hot weapons to fight will be regarded as an alien. Everyone will not think about it, and naturally they will not develop. There is only one way to change this situation, that is, to let everyone see the benefits of hot weapons, such as using gunpowder to win an unprecedented victory.

But this is something Li Mu didn't want to do, because compared to cold weapons, the damage caused by hot weapons increases by geometric multiples. This is like a Pandora's box, which is easy to open, but difficult to control.

Therefore, Li Mu mixed a lot of tricks in preparing gunpowder, with the purpose of not allowing Li Shimin to master the exact secret recipe for gunpowder. Instead of opening Pandora's magic box, he created a musket in order to seize hegemony at sea. In addition, others artificially restricted the application of muskets, making muskets a useless rib that is only suitable for sea but not land warfare.

In this way, Li Shimin would not covet muskets, and it would be considered as sealing hot weapons on the sea.

Li Mu did this by artificially controlling technology to its level, so that the butterfly that traveled through time would minimize the impact of it.

As we all know, the development process of human beings is actually not linear. In the thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, the development process of human beings was very slow. This period was generally linear, but after the Industrial Revolution, the development of science and technology and productivity was no longer linear. Every technological breakthrough led to the "leap-step" improvement of productivity. Who would have thought that in the past few thousand years, human beings could not have been able to get a few meters away from the ground. In the early 20th century, after the Wright brothers invented the aircraft, less than seventy years later, human beings set foot on the moon?

This unreasonable leapfrog development will lead to the combat effectiveness of the party that has completed the "overstep" and form a "generation difference" for opponents who are still at the original level.

Once generational differences are formed, no matter what kind of time, place, people and advantages are counted. Those who wait for the backward side are failure and repeated failures. Until it completes the "leap", they can catch up with the advanced side and compete fairly with the other side. This is like a science fiction novel called "Three-Body" that Li Mu read before time travel. Earth and Three-Body People have been busy for centuries, but not as good as the "playing card" thrown by higher civilizations. It is not at the same level that fights, which makes people so desperate.

Therefore, the backward side will definitely try to smooth out the generation gap at all costs. In order to do this, it is all-out to do anything.

In later generations, what has been proven countless times is that any invention of situations is temporary, because once it is put into large-scale application, it will inevitably be reversely cracked and copied by the opponent, sooner or later.

Therefore, while ensuring that the Tang Dynasty remains ahead, Li Mu is very cautious about opening Pandora's box.

After all, leading two generations will not bring greater overwhelming advantages than leading one. If you want to enjoy the generation difference bonus for a longer period of time, you should try to keep your new technology as confidential as possible and delay the time when the new technology is released.

As long as you can always maintain an overwhelming advantage against the enemy, rashly taking unnecessary advanced technology will only shorten the time for the opponent to catch up, prevent the opponent from taking detours, and will definitely be harmful to you without benefits.

This is like a pole vaulter in later generations who only breaks her own record by one centimeter in each Olympics. She earns endless bonuses by breaking her own record.

Can she refresh five centimeters?

The answer is of course yes. During training, refreshing ten centimeters is like playing. But she doesn't do that, because if she does that, she can only get the record-breaking bonus once.

This situation is the same as Li Mu now. If he wanted to rely on this system, as long as he devoted himself to research, machine guns could be created. But is it useful? To unify the world and become the emperor? He doesn't have the intention.

He just wanted to make the Tang Dynasty strong, the people rich and the people could eat a lot. It was not difficult to make the people rich and strong by being powerful with military force. Many things still need to be done according to the logic of historical development.

...

The next day, after contacting Hou Junji, the matter was settled quickly. Hou Junji placed an order for 5,000 muskets in the name of the Ministry of War for the Navy. The gunpowder part was also an order placed at the Dongcheng Arsenal. Of course, the Dongcheng Arsenal could not make the bullets that Li Mu needed, so in the bullet part, the name of the damp gunpowder affecting the launch, he specifically instructed that the master needed to prepare all the materials and when needed, the soldiers would bring their own ammunition, so they signed the order.

Hou Junji originally had a great yearning for muskets, but after experimenting with them personally, he discovered many disadvantages of the musket, such as the long time to fill the bullets, insufficient shooting distance, etc. Finally, he concluded that unless this musket is used for defense, the two armies would probably not even be able to keep up with the use of a firewood stick in front of the two armies.

But Hou Junji still affirmed the purpose of naval battles.

He didn't know that Li Mu was secretly preparing another big killing weapon.

"gun!"

In the mountains on the west side of Yangzhou, Li Mu lifted the black cloth covered with cannons to show the way for Dugu Jiu.

Dugu Jiu leaned closer and looked at it. The object was two feet long at the beginning and end, and seven iron hoops were added around his body. The cannon head was built with two iron claws and there was also iron trip. Although it looked very strong, if you look closely, you just had a copper-cast musket on your body, and you couldn't tell how powerful it was.

"This is a real killer weapon, and it's not the same thing as a musket." Li Mu asked Dugu Jiu to dodge, took two big iron drills, fixed the cannon body to the ground, and then took a huge rock and pressed it on the top of the cannon barrel.
Chapter completed!