If the method of boiling manure and cooking nitrification can be done, it is a timely help for the Taiping Army, and its value is even better than the manufacturing of flintlock rifles in the short term.

The reason why the war between Guangxi and Hunan was stalemate was that the Taiping Army adopted a defensive stance and only wanted to enfeoff the Qing army in Yunnan and Guizhou. Therefore, it was only Guangxi and the Qing army of the Ministry of State Security that broke in the line. The Qing army in Guizhou, in Hunan, was unable to break through the flesh-and-blood defense line built by the Taiping Army's sacrifice of tens of thousands of Han people. The Qingping County Prince Luo Keduo had to lead his troops to retreat. On the one hand, he responded to the rising anti-Qing movement of the natives, and on the other hand, he asked for help from the Qing army commander Doni.

On the other hand, the extreme lack of gunpowder forced the Taiping Army to stop large-scale military operations. After the fifth town in Guangxi severely damaged the Qing army in Quanjie, it should have immediately invested in the attack on the Qingyuan Qing army after a few days of rest, in order to annihilate the Ministry of State Security or force it to retreat to Guizhou and re-block the border between Guizhou and Guizhou. However, because the supply of gunpowder was not available, the advantage of artillery and firearms was lost. The strong attack on Qingyuan Prefecture City would inevitably cause major casualties. Therefore, the Guangxi Governor Shao Jiugong, who was in charge of the Guangxi war, ordered all towns to stop attacking the Qing army, and while taking the time to rest, they waited for the medicine sent from Guangdong to be replenished before attacking.

At the same time as the truce of Guangxi, Shao Jiugong and Yu Shizhong were not idle either. They ordered the surrendered generals Zhou Guoding, Lu Sanxiang, Geng Juxian and others to constantly write letters to persuade Qingyuan to surrender. Although there was no effect, it caused doubts within the Qing army, because no one knew what their colleagues were thinking. In order to show that they had no intention of surrender, some Qing army generals who received the letters of surrender, handed over the letters to Xingguoan. Xingguoan did not read these letters. As long as people burned the letters, they vigorously appeased the generals, saying that they only needed to defend Qingyuan and wait for the general to lead the army to come in person, the situation in Guangxi could be improved again.

Whether the General Doni really led the Manchu and Mongolian army to come, Shi Guoan was actually in a deep mind. He had sent several fast horse envoys to Yunnan. Every time Doni replied, he insisted on Qingyuan waiting for reinforcements, but it has been almost half a month, but the reinforcements have not arrived for a long time. This made Shi Guoan uneasy, worried about whether something happened in Yunnan, otherwise why did the northern line be blocked, and Doni would not return to the army.

The line Guoan insisted on Qingyuan and reinforcements, while the Taiping Army waited for the medicine sent by Guangdong. However, the newly built military pharmaceutical factory in Guangdong was limited by the source of raw materials and the production of medicine was extremely low, so the main sources of gunpowder used by the Taiping Army are mainly from the Qing army, the second is from the Portuguese Macau, and the third is from trade with the Zheng family.

On the Qing army, the Han army flag soldiers and horses were used in large quantities, and ordinary green camp soldiers had no firearms at all. Therefore, in the battles that captured Guangxi and Hunan, the Taiping Army failed to seize a large amount of gunpowder. When the fifth town severely damaged the Qing army in Quanjie, it was not able to seize much gunpowder. When the line Guoan withdrew its troops, it did not even have time to dismantle the central army's tent. The artillery on Xiaobei Mountain was not needed, but took all the medicine away, which disappointed the fifth town, which hoped to seize the supplementary medicine. It was not difficult to see from this that the Qing army attached no less importance to gunpowder than the Taiping Army.

The Taiping Army in Guangxi and Taiping Army in Hunan faced the problem of lack of medicine. The medicines they carried during the Western Expedition were exhausted, and the remaining small amounts of medicines were constantly consumed. There was no large-scale war, but small groups of Qing army scattered soldiers and chieftain armed forces in various places often occurred, so the remaining medicines could not be saved. In the Battle of Xiaobeishan, the artillery battalion and the Fourth Town A Brigade lost the advantage of firepower blockade because the supply of gunpowder was not enough, and the Qing army broke through with their lives.

It is basically impossible to seize this part now. The way to purchase gunpowder from the Macau Portuguese has been cut off. Gunpowder is not only very important to the Taiping Army, but also extremely important to the Portuguese in Macau. The Taiping Army regards salt, iron, manpower, food, and gunpowder as strategic materials, and the Portuguese also regards gunpowder as a material of life. The Grapes themselves cannot produce gunpowder in Macau, so most of their source of medicine was sent from China and India, and most of the medicine needs to be used for escorts by merchant ships. In fact, there is not much gunpowder in Macau. Therefore, it is impossible for them to sell gunpowder to the Taiping Army again and again. After all, the Taiping Army had extremely unfriendly actions against Macau last year, and the war was triggered at that time.

Compared with the Qing army and pirates, the Taiping army in the eyes of the Portuguese is a very dangerous enemy. In this world, no matter how stupid a person is, he will not just rely on the enemy to exchange for peace. Therefore, the Macau Governor Bugalo tactfully told the Guangdong Provincial Government Office that they really have no gunpowder to be sold to the Taiping Army. The Portuguese refused to sell gunpowder anymore, and bad news came from the Jinxia Zheng family.

Hu Qili, the seventh town in Chaozhou, sent people to Jinxia to buy gunpowder under the order of Duke Xiang of Song, but from March, Jinxia no longer sold gunpowder to Taiping Army. Hu Qili sent people to ask about the reason. Chen Yonghua, the prince of Yanping, explained that the Zheng army will make big moves this year, so the vassal states are hoarding a large amount of supplies, so they can no longer provide medicine to Guangdong. I hope Guangdong will forgive me.

The main sources of the three gunpowder were cut off, and only one newly built military pharmaceutical factory produced medicine at a yield of dozens of kilograms a day. How can it supply the needs of more than 100,000 Taiping Army? It was stopped in Guangdong's first, third and seventh towns. The Guangxi Field Army and Hunan Taiping Army were not enough, let alone the expeditionary army to fight against Annan. It was fine if the navy had no gunpowder. How could the Annan Navy suppress the Annan Navy without gunpowder?

After Yu Shizhong became the commander-in-chief of the Guangxi Legion, Guangdong had just sent two thousand kilograms of medicine, including 600 kilograms of gunpowder. Two thousand kilograms of medicine sounded like a lot, but if it was actually divided, each town could only receive a few hundred kilograms, so that a musket soldier could get less than half a kilogram, and the amount of medicine fired by a gun was between three and four qians. That is to say, all these two thousand kilograms of medicine were used by the musket soldiers, and it could only ensure that one gunpowder fired six to seven times. If the gunpowder was evenly added to the artillery battalion of the Fourth Town, it would be even more monks and less porridge, which was difficult to sustain.

However, Yu Shizhong could not wait for Guangdong to send supplemental medicine next time, so he personally led the fourth town and the fifth town to launch a strong attack on Qingyuan Prefecture. In his report to the military commander's office, Yu Shizhong bluntly stated that he must immediately block the gap caused by the advance of the Ministry of State Security. Otherwise, once the Qing army in Yunnan attacked Guangxi along this gap, it would be difficult to defend against the more than 30,000 troops of the Guangxi Field Army alone.

Zhou Shixiang approved Yu Shizhong's action and agreed to allocate all the two thousand kilograms of medicine. Yu Shizhong's concerns were imminent. The Ministry of State Security had already broken a gap in the border between Guizhou and Guizhou. If Doni ignored the war in Yunnan and led his troops from Guizhou to Guangxi before peace, the Guangxi field army would definitely not be able to stop it. Once Guangxi was lost, the blockade in Hunan would become a joke. The Hunan Taiping Army would become an isolated army by then, and his hometown Guangdong would also face the danger of loss. By then, it would be the real time for life and death.

As the war in Guangxi was around, even if there were new medicines delivered in Guangdong, it was difficult to replenish them to Hunan. In Hunan, Zhou Shixiang has been deploying the second town. The ninth town and the two towns of the bandit suppression in Xiangxi were deployed to break into Guizhou. They were annihilated by Luo Keduo's troops in one fell swoop. Then they led their troops to the east to pick the fruits of the Guo surname and seize the southeast.

Now, this plan has to be postponed again, because Zhou Shixiang really has no medicine in his hands, so he attaches great importance to the method of boiling manure and cooking salt. He also attaches great importance to Cheng Hanbin, the Huguang scholar who presented his books.

The blind man Li immediately invited Cheng Hanbin, a juren from Huguang. Before the other party had stepped into the hall, Zhou Shixiang had already stepped forward and said excitedly: "Mr. Cheng is the author of this "Military Artifacts"?"

Although he had heard that Guangdong's thief scholars were quite young, when he saw the real person, he felt that the other party seemed to be in his thirties, and Cheng Hanbin was still quite shocked. In a trance, he couldn't help but think of the young Emperor Shunzhi in Beijing. He could not help but compare the two, but then he laughed secretly: What is the comparison between these two people?

"No, "Military Arts and Arts" is not written below, but is a masterpiece by Mr. Bi Maokang." Cheng Hanbin shook his head and said.

"Bi Maokang?"

Zhou Shixiang was stunned. He had never heard of this person, and almost blurted out subconsciously: "I don't know where Mr. Bi is now. I am eager to seek talent. Mr. Bi's book "Military Arts Pictures" really solves this man's huge problem. I want to visit Mr. Bi for advice."

Cheng Hanbin was relieved by the "thief scholar"'s eagerness to seek talent, and thought to himself that the "Military Artifacts" had thrown a stone and asked for a way out. But he shook his head again and said, "Mr. Bi is no longer alive."

"ah?"

When he heard that Bi Maokang was dead, Zhou Shixiang was suddenly lost. Why did such a big talent die? After a moment of loss, he remembered that he seemed to be a little neglected by Cheng Hanbin, so he hurriedly asked him to sit down and asked Bi Maokang about it.

Cheng Hanbin Dao Nabi Maokang was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Wanli. He served as the right assistant censor, the Shaanxi Inspector, and the Shandong Inspector. In the 42nd year of Wanli, he built the Lishan Academy in Jinan, Shandong, and was the largest academy in Jinan at that time. During the Tianqi period, he was impeached by the censor Wang Jikui and was demoted. In the early years of Chongzhen, he was appointed as the envoy of the Tongzheng in Nanjing and promoted to the right assistant minister of the Ministry of War. Later, he asked to retire because of his age. When he said goodbye, Emperor Chongzhen ordered him to build military chariots, Shenfei Cannons and other military equipment. After the equipment was completed, he edited the "Military Weapon Pictures" to join Sizong.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Bi Maokang died in his hometown. However, Cheng Hanbin first saw this book "Military Artifacts" at the time when Emperor Shunzhi's Mafa, Tang Johnson. When Cheng Hanbin and Xu Wenyuan and others discussed Western learning with Johnson Chan, they talked about firearms, and Tang Johnson Chan took out this book "Military Artifacts" and said that China had great materials. This book recorded many methods of making firearms, some of which were stronger than Westerners, especially the self-generated guns.

Before this, Cheng Hanbin was quite curious about firearms and had read the firearms. However, when he saw the self-producing guns in this book, he was surprised to see them on the spot. He understood the difference between firing fires with a machine and igniting gunpowder with a flint rope. At that time, he asked Tang Ruowang for this book "Military Artifacts" and wanted to go back and study it for a while.

This move made Xu Wenyuan and the others puzzled, because Cheng Hanbin came to participate in the examination, but he studied what the fire gun used by the warriors. However, they didn't know that Cheng Hanbin had made many ingenious things in his ten years of waiting in his hometown. Therefore, when he saw the self-generated gun that he had never touched, he could not hide his curiosity, or he could not find out the truth.

Seeing that Cheng Hanbin was interested in this self-producing gun, Tang Ruowang smiled and ordered someone to take out a shot and told him that it was made by the Ministry of Works of the Ming Dynasty. However, because he had no money to make it, he stopped working after only dozens of samples were made. A year later, Beijing was broken, and these samples were either destroyed by war or scattered among the people. The rod in his hand was also unintentionally. Emperor Shunzhi also played with it when he came, but he didn't take it seriously.

Seeing the authentic product, Cheng Hanbin was even more excited. He looked at the structure carefully and was exactly the same as the graphics drawn in the book. He was so excited that he wanted to ask Tang Ruowang for this self-produced gun. Unexpectedly, Tang Ruowang smiled and refused, saying that he had promised the Bishop of Macau to send the gun to Macau.

After Tang Ruowang said this, Cheng Hanbin was not willing to force it. He only secretly remembered every detail of the gun. After returning, he made notes. After giving up the Qing court's test, he went south, and thought about how to attract the attention of the thief scholar. If he persuaded the other party to go east along the river and go straight to the southeast, he would inevitably have a bit of boast and talk about it on paper. Therefore, it is better to start from the actual needs of the thief scholar, let the other party value himself first, and then make the other party take the opportunity to make the point.

As he traveled all the way in Hunan, Cheng Hanbin not only saw the Taiping Army's oppression of the people of Hunan's prefectures, but also the Taiping Army's emphasis on muskets and gunpowder. Therefore, after repeated consideration, he resolutely used "Military Artifacts" as his stepping stone.

Now it seems that this stepping stone has had a great effect, and this thief scholar is indeed a good firearm.

"The most feared by the barbarians of China is firearms. The "Military Artifacts" written by Bi Da during his lifetime can be said to be a comprehensive view of ancient and modern times, and a collection of ancient and modern firearms, plus his own innovation and research, which is actually a powerful weapon for the military and national. When I first saw him, I was shocked and couldn't speak, especially the self-produced gun, and later I shot the self-produced gun with my own hands, but I had no doubts."

"Mr. Cheng has seen the real thing of a self-producing gun?"
Chapter completed!