Chapter 561 A Crossbow (1)

In Hangzhou, in the original history, Qian Miao expanded the Hangzhou city wall three times. When Lu Fang captured this place, it only carried out twice, and the construction of Luocheng was not completed. But generally speaking, since Hangzhou is located in hilly areas such as Fenghuang Mountain in the south, close to Qiantang River and West Lake in the west, the direction of construction of Lu Fang chose was similar to that of Qian Miao's original direction, both of which expanded mainly to the east and north. The general structure is the traditional structure of "Nangong North City, the front dynasty and the back market".

The only difference is that Lu Fang did not establish a "market system" according to the ancient Chinese urban planning since ancient times, and divided all urban areas into multiple closed small areas with chessboard shapes, but a "street system" based on streets and alleys, making the entire Hangzhou city an industrial and commercial area. Convenient transportation and prosperous commercial exchanges attracted a large number of merchants and craftsmen from Liangzhe and even the Jiangnan area to gather here, and invisibly improved the economic and military strength of Zhenhaijun.

Xizhaoling is located in the northwest of Zicheng. If there were no Lu Fang, in more than twenty years, King Qian Chu of Wuyue would have built a brick pagoda here for his beloved concubine Huang to thank the Buddha for his son. This is the famous Leifeng Pagoda in later generations. As for this historical branch, although Lu Fang also had another son, as a time traveler who had received decades of modern education, he would naturally not attribute the credit to the gods and Buddhas of clay carvings and wood sculptures. So he refused the advice of Gao Fengtian and others, deducted the money and grain for the construction of the pagoda, and built a palace for himself at the original address for summer escape.

The ancient cypresses in the courtyard are towering, but the yard is full of shade, which makes people feel very happy at first glance, without the coolness of the scorching heat. The thinnest trees are also the same as the thickness of the hug. The trees have been for at least two or three hundred years old, and they are all specially transplanted from the mountains. It can be seen that although the area of ​​the courtyard is not large, the builder has really put a lot of effort into it. The door is half open, and under the cool breeze passing through the hall, the light purple tulle curtains flutter gently, and you can see the door inside.

There was a bamboo couch, and a man was wearing only a pair of boxers, naked on his upper body, and covered his belly with a purple silk blanket, sleeping soundly. A pretty maid stood on both sides of the bamboo couch, carefully wearing a cold fan for the man on the couch, driving away the mosquitoes that occasionally fly in. On the tables next to the bamboo couch was a quaint dragon incense burner, spitting out a wisp of blue smoke from the mouth of the dragon head located on the top of the stove, making the house look like a fairyland.

Suddenly, the man on the bamboo couch suddenly turned over, and the silk blanket covered his stomach slipped down and fell to the ground. The two maids looked at each other, and the one on the right quickly bowed and picked up the silk blanket, carefully covering it back on the man's stomach on the couch. The maid's movements were a little bigger. When she got up, she brought her sleeve to the incense burner on several tables and fell to the ground. With a clang, she woke the man on the couch up.

"Who!" The man on the couch reacted very quickly. He jumped up as soon as he woke up, and pulled out the horizontal knife under the pillow in his hand. It was Lu Fang.

"I'm guilty of death!" Lu Fang's actions scared the two maids to kneel on the ground and kowtowed and apologized. Lu Fang looked at the surrounding situation and realized that the incense burner was still rolling on the ground. While she was still scabbard, he called the two maids and said in a deep voice: "Forget it, you two get up, let's get up this time, be careful next time!" Lu Fang felt a chill when he got here. It turned out that he had just woken up and jumped down to the ground, but he was barefoot, so he quickly lowered his head to find the clogs.

The maid on the left saw the opportunity and quickly took the wooden clogs beside her and said softly: "Please sit down and wait for me to walk on the king." After that, he walked two steps and carefully put the wooden clogs on for Lu Fang.

When Lu Fang heard this, he was stunned and subconsciously sat back on the couch, feeling that his feet were already slippery. It turned out that the maid was putting his shoes on him. Lu Fang looked down and saw that the maid put the clogs in his arms, warmed his body, and then gently massaged the soles of Lu Fang for a while before putting on the clogs. The whole process was quick and orderly, and it was clearly trained on weekdays. Lu Fang frowned. He was from a humble background, and most of the servants in the family were old children of Huai Shang. These people were impeccable in loyalty, but the service like this was far from being a service person. He had never seen such a person dealing with him in his impression, so he asked in a deep voice: "Who are you two? I shouldn't have seen you?"

At this time, the maid had already put on wooden clogs for Lu Fang and responded respectfully: "I report to the king that the young man was originally a native of Hangzhou and was originally a servant of Mrs. Chen. Seeing that we were both smart and capable, the lady sent her to serve the king."

Lu Fang nodded, it turned out that Lu Fang had a total of two concubines: Lu Shuxian, Chen Liniang, and Zhong Yuancui. Among these three, Lu Shuxian was the husband and wife of Lu Fang, and was a virtuous man. But after all, the Lu family was just a little rich man on the Huai River. In this chaotic world, it was just a food and clothing. As the saying goes, "Three generations look at food, and four generations see through it." In this way, it is not possible to catch up with the enjoyment of daily life in a short time, let alone Lu Shuxian is diligent and thrifty. With extra money, it is mostly distributed to the poor and lonely people in the clan. In addition, Lu Fang himself is not a very particular person, so naturally the couple is not as good as the couple. Their thoughts about personal enjoyment are far from being too small. But Chen Liniang and Zhong Yuancui are different. One of them is the legitimate daughter of the prominent clan in Jiangnan, and the other is the beloved daughter of the King of Jiangxi. Which one is not the Zhongming Ding Food Family? Although they were defeated for a while, their vision and airs remained. Lu Fang was not powerful before, so it was fine when the foreign enemies advanced. However, with Yang Xingmi's death, internal troubles in Huainan gradually arise, and the offensive and defensive momentum between Zhenhai Army and Huainan has gradually reversed. With the small external pressure, the water naturally rose. These two maids should have been taught by Chen Liniang and sent to serve Lu Fang.

Seeing that Lu Fang was silent, the two maids thought that they had done something wrong just now, which made the noble man feel unhappy. They quickly kowtowed and apologized, "Damn it, I hope the king will forgive me!"

Lu Fang was thinking in his heart, but was startled by the sudden actions of the two maids. Then he realized that maids like this were extremely humble at that time, and there were many brutals, and there were few unhappy people. It was just normal to kill them. Maybe they would also involve their family members. Since these two men were Li Niang's people, he didn't want to betray them anymore, so he smiled and said, "Forget it, I was thinking about things just now, and I didn't mean to blame you. Get up!"

When the two of them heard this, they were surprised and quickly got up and said in unison: "Thank you for your kindness, let me change your clothes for the king!" Without saying a word, the two brought warm clothes and served Lu Fang to wash the clothes. The two were originally selected by Chen Liniang. Not only were they skillful, gentle in character, but also had their appearance, so they naturally served Lu Fang very comfortable. Lu Fang saw the two women with black green on their foreheads busy around him, but he didn't even have to move a finger, and he felt very emotional for a moment.

The two of them were very quick to move, but in just a moment, they had cleaned Lu Fang's whole body. Lu Fang stood up and walked towards the shooting garden behind the palace, where he had something very important in the afternoon.

When Lu Fang arrived at the shooting garden, his family, Gao Fengtian, Chen Yun, Chen Wu and others had already been there, so they quickly entered the shooting garden together. They saw several wooden rakes placed outside the 25, 50, 75, and 100 steps, obviously to detect some new long-range weapon.

"King, according to your instructions, the Armor Crossbow has already made samples. Please check them there." The man who spoke was wearing a seventh-grade blue official robe. He was standing in front of Lu's side with a little uneasy, but it was the blacksmith leader Tao Da. Lu Fang nodded and smiled, "I haven't seen him for several years. He is already a seventh-grade official. A family told you that this iron can glorify his family and honor his wife and children. Didn't he coax you?"

Gao Fengtian, who was standing beside him, saw Tao Da being nervous and unable to speak, and smiled and said, "Tao Da is quite clever in making utensils. If he hadn't taken the craftsmen by the fire all day, it wouldn't have been done so quickly. It would be natural for him to be the steward and the chief steward of the steward."

"Okay! I like this kind of person who does practical things. Tao Da. If this fire crossbow is made later, you will list the meritorious craftsmen and report them together. I will reward you with other kindness!"

When Tao Da heard this, he couldn't help but burst into tears, his lips trembled, and he threw himself to the ground excitedly, and kowtowed repeatedly: "The king treats him so well, even if he dies, he will make this fire crossbow." After that, he stood up and turned around and greeted him. The two craftsmen carried a long wooden box and placed it on the ground.

Tao carefully opened the wooden box and saw a strange machine placed in the wooden box. A long iron pipe was embedded on the wooden handle. There were several metal parts on the wooden handle, and next to it was a long fork, a short stick, a thin rope, a cow horn, a cloth bag, and flints. If a modern person familiar with the history of gun development saw all this, he would immediately recognize that the box was placed with a comb.

Gao Fengtian watched Tao carefully take out the objects from the wooden box with interest, splicing them together, and judging by the scent of sulfur emitted from the air, the thing in front of him should be somewhat similar to the copper cannon made by the lord earlier. However, although Tao Da was his subordinate, Lu Fang grabbed it very tightly and often came to see how the progress was. Many times, he went over to communicate directly with Tao Da, and was extremely strict with the confidentiality. Therefore, Gao Fengtian avoided suspicion intentionally or unintentionally, and did not know the specific situation of the equipment very well. Looking at Chen Yun and Chen Wu and the other two beside him, I was afraid that they were not as good as him. Seeing Lu Fang excitedly wielding the metal teeth on the wooden seat, a thought suddenly popped up in Gao Fengtian's mind: "The king should have seen these things before."
Chapter completed!