Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

After reading the Zhang family's marriage proposal, Ju Ming sat at his desk and thought seriously about the pros and cons of such a marriage for him.

There doesn't seem to be much harm, but there aren't many benefits either.

Mainly because the Zhang family is in Jiangxi and currently there is no one in an important position.

However, after the two parties got married, once Zhu Ming raised an army, he would deceive the Zhang family to death.

Ju Ming originally planned to find a family of Western military generals to marry into, such as the Zhong family and the Zhe family. However, it was gradually discovered that it was not feasible. Marriage between civil servants and military generals was normal in the early Song Dynasty, but gradually became rare in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty. Firstly, civil servants looked down on military generals, and secondly, marriages between civil servants and military officers seemed to be taboo.

If you really want to get married, it won't be too late to get married after you start the army. By then, it will probably become a concubine.

Ju Ming even wrote a letter in Pinyin, discussing the time of the rebellion in detail, and basically identified three time points:

First, after the Fangla Uprising, he took advantage of the officers and soldiers to go to Zhejiang and Zhejiang to respond in Hanzhong.

Second, after Tong Guan's attack on Liao, the elites of the Western Army suffered heavy losses, which was a good time for rebellion.

Third, after the Jingkang Incident.

Zhu Guoxiang's reply was that it was too risky to respond to Fangla's uprising, and at least he would have to wait until Tong Guan conquered Liao.

Ju Ming basically agreed with his father's point of view, but felt that Fang La could also succeed.

The main force of Fangla's rebel army was destroyed within a year, simply by hitting the muzzle of the gun. At that time, the government and troops had gathered in Gyeonggi, and all kinds of logistical work had been done properly. Tong Guan was going to lead the army to conquer Liao, so he had no choice but to go and suppress it after learning about Fangla's uprising.

The elites from all over the country, with well-equipped soldiers and armor, and sufficient logistics, even saved the time of gathering troops, and were directly sent to fight Fangla. How could it be possible to hold on?

To be honest, if Fang La had not rebelled, Tong Guan's attack on Liao would not have been so ugly. At least there is no shortage of food, grass and ordnance, and morale will definitely be much higher.

By the time Tong Guan finished suppressing Fangla, no matter the outcome, the Song Dynasty's finances collapsed because the southeastern region was riddled with holes.

At that time, Ju Ming took the opportunity to occupy Hanzhong and Sichuan and cut off another source of wealth for the Song Dynasty. Even if the elite of the Western Army is still there, there is a serious shortage of food and pay. If they are brought in to suppress Ju Ming, it is easy for them to start complaining halfway.

After all, the battle is about logistics!

Just like Zongze in history, there was no possibility of "crossing the river" because he had no logistics to speak of.

"Zongze's Legacy" was compiled by a descendant of the Zong family, and a large number of its contents are inconsistent with official history and are also inconsistent with the memorials of other civil servants at the time.

There are two million people in the capital gathered in the capital with martyrs from all over, and they can still have food and grass for half a year. This kind of record can only be half believed.

Zongze's anti-golden spirit cannot be questioned, and his three calls to cross the river are probably true. He is definitely a national hero.

But Zongze's descendants said that the food and grass could last for half a year, which is pure nonsense.

There was a great famine in Gyeonggi Province the year before, the Cao River was blocked again, and countless rebels came who were waiting for food. No matter how powerful Zongze was, he couldn't produce food.

In order to cover up the lie, the descendants of the Zong family also said that Zongze was ordered to dredge the Cao River and it was completed in seven days. But the real situation is that Zongze did not receive this order at all, and before Zongze went to Tokyo, the Tokyo left behind was already clearing up the situation.

It would not be of much use to dredge it up. The grain transported to Tokyo could only barely alleviate the famine.

Because the Jin soldiers were raging across the prefectures and counties, the water transportation system had collapsed. The ability to transport several waves of grain was at its limit, and subsequent grain transportation activities came to a complete standstill.

Zongze's biggest problem at that time was not to eliminate the Jin soldiers, but how to get food for disaster relief so that the huge rebel army could have enough to eat.

The actual situation is: "There was a great famine in Bianliang. A meter of rice cost three hundred yuan, and a mouse cost hundreds of yuan. People ate algae and locust leaves and died without any bones left."

Even if Zhao Gou had the guts to run back to defend Tokyo, he would still have to starve with Zong Ze.

Jin Bing also knew what was going on in Tokyo. They had already plundered money during the Jingkang period. There was no money and no food there, so why did they go there? From the beginning to the end, the Jin soldiers did not attack Tokyo again, but went around to capture the city and territory.

The great thing about Zongze is that he dares to do things and is willing to be the mainstay.

Moreover, his skill in controlling people was able to pacify countless hungry rebels, and millions of starving soldiers and civilians did not cause a big mess.

However, it is difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without rice. Without food, there is no food.

Half a year before Zongze's death, Zhao Gou ordered the restoration of water transportation many times, but it was not restored until Zongze's death. Officials responsible for supervising the transportation of grain were even punished. (The Cao River needs to be dredged by civilians every year. At that time, many sections of the river were seriously silted up, and the court was no longer able to recruit civilians.)

His successor Du Chong was unable to calm the situation at all, because "people were eating each other" inside and outside Tokyo, so he simply abandoned the mess and led his troops to run away.

Ju Ming considered the pros and cons and decided to accept the Zhang family's marriage proposal.

One is to get some dowry money, and the other is to see the Zhang family's subsequent influence.

This approach is quite shameless!

After picking up a pen and writing a reply, Ju Ming asked Bai Sheng to send it over.

He rode out of the city and took a boat to the iron smelting yard.

The hydraulic forging hammer has been built, and a reservoir has been built to stabilize the water flow. Water was pumped into the reservoir using a hydraulic bobbin cart. During the dry season, manpower could also be used to step on the bobbin cart. There were already windmills in the Southern Song Dynasty, but I don’t know if there were any in the Northern Song Dynasty.

The reservoir is equipped with a gate that can regulate the size of the water flow to control the speed of the forging hammer.

The water turbine can drive four forging hammers at the same time, allowing four blacksmiths to work at the same time.

At this time, the craftsmen are obviously not yet proficient, and they are a little hesitant to forge. They will probably be able to fully master it in two days.

"How about the water-powered forging hammer?" Ju Ming asked.

Tu Shen smiled and said: "Save effort."

If a larger and higher water reservoir is built, the efficiency of driving more forging hammers at the same time will be greatly improved.

Of the four forging hammers currently, two are forging steel and two are forging steel.

Ju Ming was already writing to the emperor, saying that he could forge weapons here, and requesting the imperial court to allocate funds to forge hundreds of steel swords.

This thing is valuable. As long as the court is willing to buy it, Ju Ming is willing to sell it. The iron smelting yard and the forging shop must be allowed to make profits. Even if hundreds of hundred-forged steel knives are forged, it will not improve the combat effectiveness of the army, because such high-level weapons must be issued to generals.

Armor can also be made, it depends on whether the court will give you money.

If the imperial court did not allocate funds, Ju Ming would have no choice but to use Jinzhou's finances to build the armor and deposit it directly into the Jinzhou Arms Storehouse.

After looking at the water-powered forging hammer for a while, Zhu Ming went to look at the fire gun.

There were only two craftsmen at work, and Ju Ming made the musket directly.

Don't think that the bird gun is lagging behind. Its structure is relatively complex, and it was considered a precision firearm in the mid-Ming Dynasty.

With the current smelting and forging technology, two wrought iron tubes must be punched and tightly packed together. The hole was very small at the beginning and required a fine steel drill bit to drill all the way in. It would take a month to drill the barrel of a blunderbuss.

The Ming Dynasty's "Military Bei Zhi" complained about the ineffectiveness of the blunderbuss used by officers and soldiers, and also gave specific reasons.

That is to say, in order to keep up with the progress, the officials and the craftsmen, in order to save trouble, directly forged the iron pipes into iron pipes without drilling them at all. This results in gun barrels with different thicknesses and hole sizes. Some can accommodate three or four bullets, and some cannot even fit a bullet. There are also various problems. Anyway, the barrel explodes as soon as you fire it.

After the trial production of the gun is completed, Ju Ming will continue to build it.

Only four craftsmen are assigned to make the barrel, and another craftsman is assigned to make other parts. Each craftsman takes 40 days to make one, and can make 36 firecrackers in a year.

In the first year, they were trained in gun-making skills. From the second year on, each person was assigned two apprentices.

At the beginning of the rebellion, there were not many cannons, and the officers and soldiers they faced were not strong. They were just used to win by surprise.

…

Zhang Gen received Ju Ming's reply and smiled and handed it to his wife to read: "Send someone back to Dexing to arrange for my daughter's dowry."

"Maybe we can get married by the end of the year." Huang said happily.

The couple was very satisfied with the marriage and had no idea that they were about to be cheated.

A few days later, Ju Ming arranged for a matchmaker to propose marriage, brought two geese as gifts, and asked for the woman's birthday and horoscope.

"Da Lang, please put it away." Mr. Huang even changed his title.

Zhu Ming took the horoscope paper with both hands: "Thank you, madam."

The woman could not see guests at this time, so Zhang Jinping hid in the back room and took a peek with his maid.

After the business was done, Zhang Gen invited Ju Ming to have tea and asked, "I've been in Jinzhou for half a month and I really can't find anything to do. Can Dalang give me some errands?"

Ju Ming asked: "Sir, do you want to train sergeants?"

Zhang Gen nodded and said: "As the deputy regimental training envoy, I do have the responsibility of training sergeants."

Ju Ming said: "There is no horse army in Jinzhou, and the infantry is used as a servant. Before I came, there were not enough sergeants, and my predecessor had a lot of free pay. I have not restored these for the time being, and the military pay has been diverted to other uses without any corruption."

"I don't doubt that Dalang was paid on his own," Zhang Gen said.

Ju Ming made his attitude clear: "The state government does not have enough money and food, so it is impossible to fully train the Xiang army."

Zhang Gen said: "Thirty people are enough, and we will pay the full amount of food."

"Okay." Zhu Ming promised to give enough food and wages to thirty people, recruit young and strong Xiang troops and let Zhang Gen train them.

This old man really couldn't take any time off. Historically, he was demoted to deputy regimental envoy and was promoted again by wiping out bandits. The giant bandits in Huaixi have been raging for two years. The imperial court sent many officials but they couldn't deal with it. Zhang Gen led a group of rural soldiers to annihilate them.

Zhang Gen added: "The weapons in the armament storehouse seem to be unusable."

Ju Ming said: "Jinzhou Zuoyuan is short of craftsmen, and I am too lazy to recruit more. I have an iron smelting yard in the mountains north of the city. I can make some ordnance, and the state government will pay for it."

"Then let's build thirty armors first." Zhang Gen said happily.

Ju Ming immediately agreed and treated it as if it was for him, and he could use public funds to reimburse him.

After returning with the woman's birthday and horoscope, Zhu Ming planned to explain the matter of getting a wife to Zheng Yuanyi.

As soon as I returned to the state government office, I was notified that two young men surnamed Wei had arrived in Xiangzhou.

These are the two grandsons sent by Wei Tai. They should have come after the state test last year. At that time, there were floods, refugees and bandits appeared, and I was entangled in trivial matters, which has been delayed until now.

"Wei Yingwu (Wei Yingshi) pays homage to the prefect!" The two brothers bowed to each other.

Ju Ming happily held hands and said, "Sit down quickly and talk. When we were buying grain last year, we were grateful to the Wei family for their generous help."

Wei Yingwu said: "My ancestors heard that the prefect has learned a lot, and he hopes that my two brothers can study under the prefect."

"I am not very talented and have little knowledge. I really don't dare to take it seriously. Let's discuss knowledge with each other." Zhu Ming planned to bring the two brothers here to see if he could brainwash them. If successful, it would also be a help to attack Xiangyang in the future.