Chapter 360

Early the next morning, Zhao Kuangyin came with a pair of dark circles under his eyes.

He didn't sleep last night.

After the Sky Screen ranking ended, he sat alone in the Imperial Study until the third watch, turning over and over thinking about the names of those descendants—

Zhao Qi, Zhao Yun, Zhao Kuo, Zhao Dun, Zhao Gou, Zhao Huan, Zhao Ji.

Seven.

Seven useless ones.

Plus a few other mediocre ones, occupying more than half.

He memorized these names, then went to sleep for two hours, and woke up before dawn.

Gu Shanhe was eating breakfast in the Imperial Garden.

Seeing Zhao Kuangyin come in, he put down his chopsticks: "Official Zhao, your complexion is not good."

Zhao Kuangyin sat opposite him, poured himself a cup of tea, and took a gulp: "Immortal Master Gu, I want firearms."

Gu Shanhe looked at him: "What kind of firearms?"

"The kind you gave Li Shimin. Red-clothed cannons, fire muskets, I want them all."

Zhao Kuangyin put down the teacup, his voice very deep, "I watched the list last night and thought about it all night."

"The Great Song valued civil over military for three hundred years, and finally exchanged it for one hundred thousand floating corpses."

"As long as I live for one day, I will not let this happen again."

Gu Shanhe nodded and pulled a stack of paper from his sleeve.

The paper was very thick, with dense lines, dimensions, and annotations drawn on it.

"Fire musket blueprints, red-clothed cannon blueprints, ammunition ratios, casting processes, all here."

He pushed the paper in front of Zhao Kuangyin.

"Your Great Song's craftsman technology foundation is not bad; you should be able to produce samples in three days."

Zhao Kuangyin took the blueprints, flipped through two pages, and his eyes brightened.

The next day, black smoke rose from the workshops outside Bianliang City.

Zhao Kuangyin personally supervised the construction, transferring the best blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and carpenters in all of Bianliang City.

A total of forty-seven people, divided into three groups.

One group cast cannon barrels, one group made ammunition, and one group assembled fire muskets.

Zhao Kuangyin moved a chair and sat at the entrance of the workshop, staring.

The craftsmen were under great pressure.

With the emperor sitting at the door watching, no one dared to be lazy.

The first day produced waste—

The cannon barrel wall thickness was uneven, and it exploded directly during the test firing, fortunately, no one was hurt.

Zhao Kuangyin didn't scold anyone, just said one sentence: "Do it again."

The second day, another one was wasted.

On the morning of the third day, the third cannon barrel was cast.

The craftsmen polished it with sandpaper for three hours, the inner wall was as smooth as a mirror, and the outer wall was uniform in thickness.

Load medicine, fill bullet, ignite.

Boom!!!

Half of the dirt wall on the target range collapsed.

Zhao Kuangyin stood up from the chair, walked to the cannon barrel, and squatted down to touch it.

The cannon barrel was still hot, but it didn't crack or deform.

He straightened up, looked at the half-collapsed dirt wall, and his mouth twitched.

"Success."

The fire musket was also test-fired successfully on the same day.

A wooden board was nailed fifty paces away, and the lead bullet hit it and went through.

Tried again at one hundred paces, it went halfway in.

Two hundred paces, it could hurt people.

Zhao Kuangyin held the fire musket in his hand and flipped it over for a long time, then handed it to the commander of the Forbidden Army beside him: "Follow this, build one thousand first. Build fifty cannons first."

The commander of the Forbidden Army took the fire musket, his hands trembling.

It wasn't fear, it was excitement.

The next day, Gu Shanhe came again.

He brought three cloth bags and placed them in front of Zhao Kuangyin: "Corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes."

"These three things have a yield of a thousand catties per mu."

Zhao Kuangyin squatted down, opened a bag, and inside were some golden things he didn't recognize.

"A thousand catties per mu?"

He looked up at Gu Shanhe, "Really?"

"The Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasty, and Tang Dynasty have already planted them."

"You have people reclaim wasteland and plant them, and see the harvest in half a year."

Zhao Kuangyin issued an edict that same day.

All the wasteland outside Bianliang City was turned over, and the Forbidden Army was sent to farm.

The commoners watched the soldiers carrying hoes to the fields, all foolish—

What's the situation? The emperor has the Forbidden Army farming?

One month later, the first batch of firearms rolled off the production line.

One thousand fire muskets, fifty red-clothed cannons, neatly arranged in the workshop courtyard.

Zhao Kuangyin transferred three thousand of the most elite soldiers from the Forbidden Army, each equipped with a fire musket, and trained them in shooting.

The sound of gunfire on the target range rang from morning to night; the people of Bianliang City listened, at first they were afraid, but after listening for a long time, they got used to it.

Three months later, the steam engine came out.

Under Gu Shanhe's guidance, the Great Song craftsmen spent two months understanding the steam engine blueprints, and another month exploring the sealing process of cast iron pots.

When the first steam engine started turning, it didn't drive a waterwheel, but a forging hammer.

A twenty-catty iron ingot was hammered as flat as dough.

Zhao Kuangyin looked at the clanking iron lump and said to Gu Shanhe:

"I now understand why Li Shimin was able to unify Europe in half a year."

"Official Zhao, this is just the beginning."

Gu Shanhe said, "I also brought the blueprints for Zheng He's treasure ships."

When the steam engine was puffing black smoke, Ying Zheng was meditating in the Imperial Garden.

The cultivation method he was practicing was given by Gu Shanhe, called "Heavenly Dao Immortal Scripture," which was a middle-to-upper-grade item in the system space.

Ying Zheng's talent was not bad, just started a bit late.

But he hadn't stopped for almost half a year—watching the Great Song develop during the day, cultivating at night, never missing a beat.

That afternoon, a ripple suddenly appeared in the pond of the Imperial Garden.

It wasn't blown by the wind, it spread from the center of the pond outward, circle after circle, all the carp under the water floated up, lying on their sides, as if worshiping something.

Ying Zheng opened his eyes.

He felt that the energy in his dantian was no longer energy, it was liquid—

Thick, cool, rotating, with weight.

Foundation Establishment, success.

He stood up and tried to circulate his spiritual power; the spiritual power walked a circle from the dantian along the meridians, unobstructed.

More than three times faster than the Qi Refining stage.

Gu Shanhe happened to walk over from the corridor, saw Ying Zheng standing by the pond, and looked at the carp floating on their sides in the pond, smiling: "Brother Zheng, broke through?"

Ying Zheng nodded, expressionless, but Gu Shanhe noticed he clenched his fist.

The First Emperor would also be nervous, even if only for a moment.

"Try flying on the sword?"

Gu Shanhe took a cyan long sword from his sleeve, the blade narrow and long, the whole body gleaming with cold light.

"Middle-grade spirit sword, just drip blood to recognize the master."

Ying Zheng took the sword, made a small cut on his fingertip, and the blood bead seeped into the hilt.

The spirit sword hummed, cyan light flashed, and then it was quiet.

Ying Zheng tossed it into the air; the spirit sword hovered in front of him, not shaking or tilting, as steady as if nailed in the air.

He stepped on it, the blade sank slightly, and then steadily supported him.

Ying Zheng rose into the air on the sword, first three feet high, stopped for a moment, then circled the Imperial Garden once, then rose to ten feet, and flew over the palace wall.

People on the ground looked up—the First Emperor was stepping on a cyan light, circling in the sky.

No one shouted, no one knelt, all were stunned.

Ying Zheng flew a circle and returned, landed on the ground, put away the sword, his expression as usual.

But Gu Shanhe noticed that when he landed, the corners of his mouth curled up by less than a millimeter.

Liu Bang stood at the other end of the corridor, his mouth open, sunflower seeds falling all over the floor: "Brother Zheng, you, you, you flew up?"

Ying Zheng glanced at him: "Hmm."

"I want to fly too!"

Liu Bang picked up the seeds on the floor, stuffed them in his pocket, and ran over to find Gu Shanhe.

"Immortal Master Gu, when can I fly?"

Gu Shanhe said: "You are at the eighth level of Qi Refining, you can fly after breaking through to Foundation Establishment."

Liu Bang counted with his fingers: "How long will that take?"

"At your current speed, about a month."

Liu Bang stopped talking, returned to his courtyard, and began to cultivate.