Chapter 111: Homemade Firearms

Chengzong returned to Zuantianmao. A few days later, a messenger delivered four guns.

Fire lances and bird guns were nothing new.

At Yanshui Pass, they had seized plenty of firearms — single-eyed, three-eyed, small cannons operated by one or two men, even medium cannons that needed mule carts to haul. Many were just left lying there.

They had no way to take them. In the whole mule battalion, few soldiers could operate firearms skillfully. Picking up a three-eyed gun to use as a club was less handy than a bow or saber.

They did bring quite a few small cannons. Cao Yao's battalion cannon squad, barely a hundred men, carried a full fifteen mule-portable small cannons.

There were also three three-hundred-jin cart-mounted Frankish breech-loaders pulled by mules.

But the two bird guns and two double-barreled handguns Chengzong sent over were genuinely novel.

Because these were Liujiazhuang's homemade firearms, crafted by He Xin, a bird-gun smith brought from Sanyuan by Cai Zhongpan's brother-in-law.

"Fine workmanship. Far better than the junk at Yanshui Pass, and no worse than Shanxi smiths' work."

On the threshing ground at Dawang Mountain, Cao Yao studied the firearm, sniffed the wooden gunstock, and bared his teeth in a grin. "Damn me, a brand-new stock. Last time I smelled this was back in Wanli 46, in the Capital Garrison!"

Hearing this, Liu Chengzong breathed a sigh of relief. He knew nothing about firearms.

But Cao Yao was an expert in handling firearms, with a particularly sharp eye. Discarding so many firearms at Yanshui Pass had been his idea.

So as long as this old scoundrel said they were fine, then the Liujiazhuang craftsmen's firearm-making skill must be truly excellent.

Still, his words puzzled Liu Chengzong. He asked, "I know Shanxi makes good blades, but do they make good firearms too?"

"Ha!"

Cao Yao burst out laughing at this. He patted the goose-quill saber hanging at his waist, then hefted the bird gun in his hands. "You think there's a difference in a craftsman's skill when making these things?"

He pointed at the post-station soldiers sparring with tasseled spears nearby. "The spearhead socket — rolled. The gun barrel — also rolled. And this..."

He pulled back the bird gun's cocking lever, squeezed the trigger, and the cock snapped down. "Looks intricate inside, but what the hell's the difference between a spring leaf and a pair of crossing shears? The hardest part is drilling through the finished barrel — it has to be smooth and straight to shoot far and true."

"That was... Tianqi something, damn, I forget. Anyway, it was in Shanxi. That was when Grand Coordinator Sun, same name as you, sent Zhang Daorui back to his hometown to make guns and cannons. You know Zhang Daorui?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head, baffled.

"Embroidered-Uniform Commander. Doesn't matter anyway, he was just some guy from Zezhou, Shanxi." Cao Yao raised a finger. "A year and a half, over thirty thousand taels of capital. You know how many weapons those elite Shanxi craftsmen made for Liaodong?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head again.

"Can't recall exactly. Seven thousand five hundred sabers." Cao Yao seemed to be showing off, saying smugly, "Over ten thousand three-eyed guns, more than two thousand mule-drawn Frankish breech-loaders, and Wind-Chasing Guns too."

"That many?" Liu Chengzong did know about the Wind-Chasing Gun. He asked, "That's the one you wanted to make when we raided the prince's estate?"

"Right. I had one before, looted back then. That thing was great. Well-made, with a big ball it hits whatever you aim at out to two hundred paces. With scatter shot at fifty paces, it sprays and kills whoever's there."

Seeing Liu Chengzong lost in thought, Cao Yao raised an eyebrow and asked in delighted surprise, "So? Thinking of having the craftsmen make a Wind-Chasing Gun for fun? I tell you, with your craftsmen's skill, making that thing's a piece of cake!"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. He looked up at the sun, and feeling there were too many ears around, pulled Cao Yao into the cave where they stored grain and stoves. As they walked, he said, "I'm planning to set up an arsenal. Well... an Armory Bureau."

Cao Yao, spooked by his secretive manner, followed him deeper into the cave. Hearing this, he frowned. "So set it up. Why so cautious? You afraid someone will overhear or something?"

Liu Chengzong turned and gave him a look like he was an idiot. Matter-of-factly, he said, "Of course I'm afraid of people hearing. Think about it — when government troops come, we leave. We can take the craftsmen, but can you strap two rings on an iron kiln and carry it off?"

Cao Yao nodded, though inwardly he scoffed. Just take the people — steel and iron could be looted anywhere, and iron kilns were easy to build. Of course, the root reason was he didn't think much of setting up an Armory Bureau at all.

His agreement was purely out of trust in Liu Chengzong.

Besides, on this trip back to Yan'an Prefecture, he'd seen the Liu family's actions and the maps they'd drawn a couple of days ago. They were truly extraordinary.

Yang Dingrui, from an administrative official background; Liu Xiangyu, from a county yamen chief and prefectural tax official background; plus Liu Chengzu, who understood military affairs — with this bunch of professionals stirring up rebellion... Cao Yao, a bandit who'd roamed three provinces, genuinely felt he needed to step aside.

A man's value lies in self-knowledge.

Cao Yao considered himself a professional at being a bandit chieftain, fleeing for his life and scraping by.

But at the prefectural level, pulling the dragon's sinews from the court — that was a job he truly couldn't do.

They weren't even thinking on the same plane.

"For big matters, you still have to make the call. Me, a half-baked dog-headed strategist pushed into the role, I can only use my experience to check for gaps and fill holes for you."

Cao Yao warned, "Anyway, I figure with this handful of craftsmen, even if we hide them in the mountains, making forty guns a year, by Chongzhen 27 that's only a thousand guns. By then, the trees on our graves will be towering."

As for increasing the number of craftsmen to boost production, Cao Yao didn't even bring it up — there was no need.

Never mind how hard it is for a master to train an apprentice. Just the fire, water, grain, and charcoal needed for smithing — in present-day northern Shaanxi, few places could support them squandering resources like that.

And if volume grew, where would all that iron come from? In these times, miners had all run off to grab food. Who was still digging ore?

"By Chongzhen 27, the trees on our graves will be that big? Then our lives would be way too short."

Liu Chengzong said this with a cheeky grin, then dropped the smile. "Everything else is manageable. Actually, the biggest problem right now is finding a location. I've been studying terrain maps these past two days. I have two favored choices."

"Where?"

"The Xichuan River."

"You mean... the prince's estate?"

Cao Yao knew the Xichuan River all too well. That was where they'd raided Prince Qin's estate.

Liu Chengzong nodded. "We didn't know before, but there are kilns, water, and land nearby. It's very suitable. But it's closer to Fuzhou than the prefectural seat — very conspicuous when government troops come."

"The other is in Ansai, northwest of the Xingzi River. Also a prince's estate, bigger than the earlier one. In early years, it was a fief pasture for raising sheep and horses. Later they farmed it and set up an estate. I'm sending Guo Zashi and Wei Qian'er to scout it. If no one's looted it yet, perfect — we're short on grain anyway."

Cao Yao asked, "How far?"

"A hundred and forty li." Liu Chengzong said the distance lightly, shaking his head with a smile. "It's much easier now. A hundred li in any direction is no problem at all."

Doing bad deeds, you must not be seen.

There are two ways not to be seen. The first is to always move outside others' line of sight — for example, traveling by night and resting by day.

That's why last time they raided the prince's estate, they traveled night roads and transported goods in batches. A hundred-li journey, they went back and forth hauling many times, taking nearly ten days of back-and-forth just to bring the grain back.

As for the second method — it's covering others' eyes.

Right now, Yan'an Prefecture's eyes had already been covered by the Liu family.

"Good. Since you've chosen the place, I'll have the cannon squad prepare. Once Guo Zashi and Wei Qian'er return, we'll discuss what preparations to make."

Cao Yao nodded in agreement. Setting up an Armory Bureau or not made no difference to him, but securing grain mattered to everyone.

He said this was a good thing. "We can also see Yang Yao's skill... Speaking of which, you said he'd merge battalions with Chengzu this time back. Why has there been no word?"

"It doesn't fit anymore."

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "I thought too simply before. Crossing Stars and Monk Wang's Collapse the Sky each command their own camp. Though we've joined forces and move together, it's the same as our situation with Master Gao — we can't reorganize their troops."

"And if I only merge camps with my elder brother, it would strip them of manpower. What the family is doing now is also very important, and will prove even more useful in the future."

Provisions stretched to the breaking point, polarizing the chieftains' situations.

Some chieftains, like No-Touch-Mud, Heaven-Rising Monkey, and Primal Chaos Monkey, would sweep up common folk and drive them like locusts to plunder everywhere.

Other chieftains — Liu Chengzu, Liu Chengzong, Zhang Wu, men who knew the border army's strength — were extremely cautious about troop numbers, doing their best to absorb experienced soldiers to feed.

Their forces were smaller, but precisely because of that, the pressure of provisions was lighter, giving them the chance to plan before moving.

But neither form was healthy.

"Think about it — what my father, my brother, and my younger brother are doing — can you imagine what it will become in the future?"

Liu Chengzong painted a beautiful blueprint of the future for Cao Yao: "Yan'an Prefecture draws our pay. The common people are our people. When government troops attack, the people will bring us intelligence. Villages will be relocated by our people. Wherever we march, no need to chop wood, build fires, or dig in cooking pits — the people will provide us a meal of dry rations."

"While the government troops are still pursuing us, the people up ahead will already be building camps, ramparts, and trenches. We move in, and the government troops take a beating…"

Cao Yao raised a hand to stop his beautiful fantasy. "But that's not what your father, your brother, and your younger brother are doing right now. All they do is resist taxes for the people. If every man in the old Liu family were a madman like you, forcing a bunch of deserters and bandits to dig irrigation canals for the common folk, then damn it all, Yan'an Prefecture would've been transformed long ago."

"Three feet of ice isn't formed in a single day. What in this world isn't learned?"

Liu Chengzong countered, "Every time I've charged into the fray, I've had to rely fully on my elder brothers' strong support just to make the soldiers do what they don't want to do. Now the troops under our command all know — if you commit no offense against the people and dig canals for them, when the people are robbed, they'll come report it to you."

"My father has a scholar's temperament, Mister Yang has the airs of an official, my brother carries himself like an officer. They don't know these things. In their hearts, they think in terms of everyone keeping to their proper place. Soon they won't even know what the common people look like anymore. The purpose of what they're doing was always to blindfold Yan'an Prefecture. You get what you ask for — it's perfectly normal."

In saying all this, Liu Chengzong bore not the slightest blame toward his father and brother. For them to have achieved this much was already remarkable.

In the age of imperial power, officials and commoners were never the same species to begin with.

The herdsman, the sheepdog, and the sheep all live on the grassland. The herdsman will build a sheep pen, but it's hard for him to switch places, crawl into the pen, and experience what eating grass feels like. Conversely, even if a sheep entered the house, it wouldn't immediately lie down on the bed to sleep.

Liu Chengzong's tone softened. "Only my younger brother, running back and forth, can know what the common people truly want in their hearts… My younger brother can know it. My father and elder brother have the ability."

He raised a hand and pointed his thumb at himself. "And I have the will to do this work. All we lack is one victory."

Every person is shaped by their own experience, and through each benefit, their character and way of thinking are reinforced.

In Liu Chengzong's understanding, youth limited him, but the prestige brought by victory could offset that weakness.

Cao Yao asked, "So we raid the princely estate?"

"Too small. Not enough to unite the camps and set the rules." Liu Chengzong shook his head. He drew a deep breath and said, "Government troops. The government troops of Guyuan and Qingyang."

That very afternoon, after he and Cao Yao had finished this conversation, Gao Yingxiang sent men from Yanchang County. They brought not only the subordinates of Heaven-Rising Monkey, Primal Chaos Monkey, and No-Touch-Mud, but also men under Zhang Yingjin, the Chaos-Shaking King of Yanchuan.

They had come to make introductions.

This meant that in Yan'an Prefecture, Hexi Circuit of Shaanxi — Yijun, Zhongbu, Luochuan, Ganquan, the prefectural seat, Yanchang, Yanchuan — the chieftains of every region were now linked into a single network.

For now, they numbered over ten thousand. Very soon… Liu Chengzong felt that number could triple.

In the days that followed, Liu Chengzong was busy meeting with Collapse the Sky, Monk Wang, Crossing Stars, Yang Yanchang, and others, exchanging views on the government troops.

In the end, they reached an agreement — a plan to wait for the government troops to attack, then withdraw to Yanchuan for a decisive battle.

This was the difficulty of a joint camp. So many chieftains, all equal in standing, made concentrating strength extremely hard.

He desperately needed prestige.

Soon it was the fifteenth of the eighth month. Chengyun sent two sheep to Great King Mountain and called Liu Chengzong to Drill Sky Ridge to reunite with his parents and brothers.

The easy atmosphere of the past was nowhere to be seen at the dinner table. Their mealtime talk was filled with assessments of the situation and worries for the future.

Liu Chengzong ate only half his meal before hurriedly taking his leave. He galloped through Coiling Dragon Stream and raced back to Great King Mountain to catch a second round with his own soldiers.

This time, they did not drink.

Originally, Liu Chengzong had planned to find a way to get them some wine, but to his surprise, not only did the squad commanders object — even Cao Yao had no intention of drinking.

The timing was wrong. On festival days, longing for family strikes twice as hard, and his ranks were full of wretched souls who had lost their loved ones.

Last time he drank, he'd made a fool of himself in front of so many men. Cao Yao felt it as a particular disgrace, and he now strictly enforced the prohibition order in the artillery squad.

When he returned, Liu Chengzong brought Chengyun with him. He knew this kid wanted to do something big.

Though he had no intention of letting Chengyun "do something big," he could first observe and learn.

In his mind, he pondered the role of every person around him. In Chengyun, he saw an uncut piece of jade.

He could manage the supply train, and he could go deep among the common people.

He also had a talent for bribery and threats. In the future, let him study a bit more under Monk Wang — learn how to stir up the people.

Then he would have a versatile hand beyond the battlefield.

It was also on this very day that Wei Qian'er and Guo Zhashi, traveling by starlight, finally hurried back from Ansai County. They brought good news.

The princely pastureland on the banks of the Apricot River had not only escaped plunder, but had also annexed the surrounding fields during this years-long drought.

The common people on both banks of the Apricot River offered up their land in submission. Those left homeless sold themselves into slave status just to find shelter.

That place was immensely wealthy — as different from the living hell of Ansai City as heaven is from earth.

"And, boss…" Guo Zhashi's eyes were practically blazing as he spoke. He said to Liu Chengzong excitedly, "Their convoy transporting rent silver to the princely manor is already on the road. It'll pass the prefectural seat soon."

Note: Zhang Daorui's return home to manufacture military equipment quantities — from The First Collection of Censor Zhang, "Drafts of Memorials, Surviving Ashes," "Memorial on Supervising Smelting, with Attached Cabinet and Ministry Memorials."