Chapter 798: The Mobei Post Road

The Armory within the city of Xi'an Prefecture.

Click.

Liu Chengzong gripped a short-stocked double-barreled flintlock, pulled the trigger — the right barrel failed to fire — then pulled the other trigger.

Bang! Ten one-mace iron pellets burst through the smoke in a flash of fire, scattering to strike a wooden target ten paces away.

He Xin, the Military Office's steward, saw the misfire and his face stiffened.

He was the bird gun artisan who had joined Liu Chengzong alongside Shi Chengwo back in the day, a veteran from the earliest days of the Lion Battalion.

It was just that, in the Shaanxi of this era, making bird guns hardly counted as a core technology, so his official rank had always remained below Shi Chengwo's.

This time he had brought a newly made weapon all the way from Xining — combining experience from heavy muskets and wall guns, it used left and right barrels, two flintlock mechanisms, and two triggers; essentially, it was two guns joined into one.

It could fire a single large lead ball or multiple small iron pellets from each barrel independently, and with the barrels shortened, it was far lighter than a heavy musket.

At ten to thirty paces, its power was immense.

It was a military implement suited for hunting and self-defense, intended to equip the tiger-catchers and tiger-killers of every county, to solve Shaanxi's tiger plague.

He had tested it repeatedly at the Ju'erwan Armory in Xining; the trigger springs had been adjusted many times, and the ignition rate was already very high — at least, He Xin had never encountered a misfire.

Yet, as luck would have it, the very first shot he brought to present the gun to Liu Chengzong failed to fire.

Liu the Lion, however, did not take it to heart.

He knew this was an inevitable process; back when they were building heavy muskets and wall guns in Qinghai, they had chosen to fit the wall guns with flintlock mechanisms while keeping both light and heavy guns on matchlocks, precisely because of the low ignition rate problem.

Even his own Yulin Guard soldiers, equipped with several hundred captured flintlock pistols — whose quality was actually worse than what they made themselves — had all complained about the low ignition rate.

This was perfectly normal.

So he merely glanced at the dense pattern the shot had punched into the target, gave a slight nod, and re-cocked the flintlock mechanism.

He Xin's heart leapt into his throat.

Fortunately, this time the mechanism did its job — bang! The left barrel, loaded with a one-tael lead ball, fired successfully, drilling a deep hole into the wooden target.

The harsh rebuke He Xin had imagined never came.

Liu the Lion simply held the not-so-light double-barreled flintlock and praised it: "A fine weapon. In terms of man-hours, how does it compare to the light musket and the heavy musket?"

Having his self-made weapon recognized overjoyed He Xin; his eyes shone with surprised delight, his tone lightened, and he cupped his hands: "In reply to the Grand Marshal, total man-hours are slightly longer than the heavy musket, but once in actual production, this humble officer estimates the output will surpass the light musket."

"Longer man-hours but greater output?"

Liu the Lion was puzzled. "Why is that?"

"The flintlock firing mechanism has more parts than the matchlock, requiring more labor, and the double barrels also add labor — it is equivalent to making two guns at once, merely sharing a single stock."

"But artisans, laborers, and apprentices — the Ju'erwan Armory has plenty. The bottleneck craft limiting the output of light, heavy, and wall guns lies in boring and polishing the barrels."

This, Liu the Lion did know. Whether using forge-welded barrel sections or rolled and hammer-forged tubes, once the barrel was formed, the bore had to be ground and drilled on a vertical boring machine.

Not to drill a hole in seamless steel tubing, but to polish it.

This was also the most time-consuming task; under normal conditions, a single bird gun barrel required a full month to polish completely.

Because the quality of this step's craftsmanship directly affected the likelihood of the gun bursting.

A burst barrel was a simple matter.

To put it plainly, a gun is just a tube open at one end; you find a way to ignite the powder inside, it releases gas, the gas expands in volume and pushes the projectile out of the barrel — the faster the gas expands, the higher the projectile's muzzle velocity.

And a burst barrel is simply when the barrel gets blocked.

The steel tube open at one end becomes a homemade bomb sealed at both ends.

If the barrel bore was not polished during manufacture, and lead balls were being fired, lead would foul the bore walls; the fouling would then obstruct the next lead ball, and the barrel would burst.

This process determined the entire manufacturing cycle of a gun; at the current technological level, the man-hours were difficult to shorten.

He Xin explained: "Though this gun combines two barrels into one, its advantage lies in the two-chi barrels, which require only ten days to bore and polish. By adding more boring-machine craftsmen, output can actually surpass the light musket."

In essence, the manufacturing cycle was shorter.

After all, in firearms manufacture, the small parts of the firing mechanism and the woodwork of the stock were all very simple; only the barrel-boring and polishing process took a long time. No matter how many production lines were started simultaneously, the light musket's production cycle was still one month.

Whereas this short double-barreled gun's production cycle was comparable to the standard three-eyed gun of the Scout Cavalry; with the same number of craftsmen, its output was three times that of the light musket, and one and a half times that of the three-eyed gun.

Compared to other military equipment, it could better leverage the handicraft scale advantage the Marshal's Manor had accumulated over several years at Ju'erwan.

"If the double-barreled gun is to equip the tiger-catchers and tiger-killers, each county squad will need at least two guns working in coordination."

Liu the Lion had just experienced a flintlock misfire firsthand during the trial. He thought to himself that although re-cocking the flint was a simple motion, a tiger was faster — so if he saw a tiger pouncing, he would probably impulsively charge in with his blade.

Therefore, at least two guns had to work together; surely the flints of both guns could not both fail to spark.

Thinking of this, he turned to Zhou Riqiang and asked: "Would this kind of self-igniting firearm be useful for hunting at Taimeng Garrison?"

Zhou Riqiang first shook his head, then nodded, and said: "In reply to the Grand Marshal, this device is exquisite. It would be useful for defending the fort and repelling skirmishes at Taimeng Garrison, but for hunting... the bow and arrow is still better."

He explained: "Shot ruins sable pelts."

Liu Chengzong nodded; he truly had not considered that.

The best method for hunting was still relying on hunters setting snares, especially for animals like sable, which were small in body but had expensive pelts — ten pellets fired into one would ruin the entire pelt.

Even if one had to use a weapon for hunting, it was best left to an experienced hunter using a bow and arrow to shoot precisely through the eyes, which maximally preserved the integrity of the fur.

But that was a near-miraculous skill; even Liu the Lion could not guarantee he could do it every time.

To shoot clean through the eyes three times out of ten already made one an expert among experts.

"At present, Taimeng Garrison has established a foothold on the western frontier. You and your brother Zhou hold the border defense there; let Chokur fight the battles to the west. Once he has expanded his territory by two thousand li, have him return to be invested as the Khan of the Sibir."

Liu Chengzong actually harbored no great ambition for the lands over there; it was enough as long as he could prop up a power to guard the western gate.

He said to Zhou Riqiang: "When you go back, just focus on improving Taimeng Garrison's wartime and peacetime readiness with Zhou Yijing, and spread the civilizing influence of the King. If you have strength to spare, subdue the forest tribes to the east. The Marshal's Manor's territory is growing ever larger; we can absorb as many pelts as they can produce."

"As for those Ross outposts and forts infiltrating along the rivers — occupy whatever you can; whatever you cannot occupy, leave to time."

Liu Chengzong was discussing with Zhou Riqiang how to return and pool their collective wisdom, using threats, bribes, and both hard and soft tactics against the Ross outposts infiltrating Siberia.

Footsteps sounded from outside the Armory. A Yulin rider who had tied up his horse entered the drill ground with a letter at a quick pace, saying: "Grand Marshal, urgent letter from the Mobei."

Liu Chengzong was stunned upon hearing this; his brow furrowed slightly, and he asked in bewilderment: "The Mobei?"

As far as he could recall, the Marshal's Manor and Mobei still had no post road linking them.

But in fact, one had already been established.

It was a post road built by men sent by Yang Qi, Commander-in-Chief of the Monan Protectorate.

Because of the earlier incident where Hong Taiji and the Chongzhen Emperor both offered him a princely title at the same time, Yang Qi had raced all the way back to Xi'an Prefecture, missing Liu Chengzong's massive eastern campaign and bitterly losing out on battle merits.

Yet even without the merits from this campaign, his earlier defense against Dorgon at Guihua City alone still made him the Marshal's Manor's greatest contributor on the Monan steppe.

After all, the weight of the achievement was different.

In the Lingdong campaign, the commander was Liu Chengzong. Follow Liu Chengzong, just obey orders, and even a fool from the Clansmen's Battalion could earn merit.

But Yang Qi's resistance against Dorgon at Guihua City was a different matter entirely — that was called holding his own sector.

What's more, Yang Qi was now a living legend across the realm, a prince consecutively enfeoffed by three parties: the Great Ming, Daiqing, and the Marshal's Manor.

In status and degree of legend, even His Excellency Zhang Yichuan — Ancient Origin True Dragon Retired Emperor, Henan Commander-in-Chief of the Marshal's Manor, and Commander of the Great Ming's Gaoyou Guard — fell slightly short.

But to achieve that, Yang Qi had suffered far more than Zhang Yichuan. The three-day mad dash covering fifteen hundred li alone was not something an ordinary man could pull off.

On that journey, Yang Qi had ridden several horses into collapse. This time, after receiving his enfeoffment as Prince of Shunyi from the Marshal's Manor and returning to Monan to command the three garrisons, the very first thing he did was build a post road. He even sent envoys to the three Khans of Mobei, inviting them to link the post roads of Monan and Mobei.

But the matter was not fully accomplished.

Gombu Khan simply refused to see his envoy at all, claiming only that he was ill.

This was also very easy to understand.

Most Mongol nobles detested Liu Chengzong, and it was not entirely Liu Chengzong's fault.

In this era, the goodwill and obedience the steppe noyans felt toward a khan was, by nature, directly proportional to his power and inversely proportional to his status.

The greater one's power, the more one needed a khan to bolster one's own authority and neutralize the threat posed by the various tribes; the higher one's own status, the more one felt that one could become khan oneself.

Thus, when Liu Chengzong declared himself Khan, his strongest supporter was Baatur Khong Tayiji of the Choros.

This Liu might be illegitimate and freakish, but could he possibly be more freakish than the Choros?

They were bona fide forest savages by origin — even the name Oirat, bestowed by Genghis Khan himself, meant "close associates."

No matter how close a friend is, you cannot invite him into your home to act as master.

And for Gombu Khan, a man with a very strong sense of being master of his own house, accepting enfeoffment, refraining from open confrontation, obeying summons but ignoring decrees, and shutting his door to be himself — that was already the greatest concession he could make to the illegitimate Great Khan Liu Chengzong.

And now, look at this. Never mind Liu Chengzong himself — a mere high-ranking bootlicker under Liu Chengzong had the gall to send men to Mobei to point fingers and tell him what to do.

This was something Gombu Khan could absolutely never accept.

Subadai Khan, for his part, had the will but not the means. In the battle east of the ridges, he had sent seven thousand troops and suffered over half in casualties. Although he had brought back a great deal of spoils and rewards, he still had to quell the grievances of his nobles and noyans, busy convening assemblies and holding funerals to deal with the aftermath.

He simply had no attention to spare for building a post road.

There were no roads at all on the steppe. Between Monan and Mobei lay stretches of desert, gobi, mountain ranges, and river shoals. To demand that he build a road convenient for galloping — how could that be easy?

He had only set up a few relay points at the various tribes' winter camps to facilitate the delivery of letters.

The one most enthusiastic about this matter was, unexpectedly, the very man who had always kept Liu Chengzong at a respectful distance — Chechen Khan, Sholoi.

In truth, as soon as Babu Taiji of the Chechen tribe, who had observed the battle, returned and recounted to Sholoi Khan what he had witnessed in the Lingdong campaign and all of Liu Chengzong's deployments, Sholoi found this fool of a khan, Liu Chengzong, rather amusing.

Truly, his military command was maxed out, but as for political intelligence or anything of the sort — he didn't have a shred of it in his head.

A war directed by Liu Chengzong, involving the Marshal's Manor, the Later Jin, plus Mobei and Khorchin — four parties — had wiped out over a hundred thousand men.

Yet the one who reaped the greatest benefit with the smallest loss was, on the contrary, the Great Ming, who had not even fought.

The Great Ming was clearly Liu Chengzong's greatest enemy under heaven, yet he built a city, Songmo Prefecture, in the Khingan Range, taking the initiative to seal his enemy's largest flank vulnerability.

With a move like that, he might as well have pasted the words "I am an idiot" right on his face.

Didn't this make the Great Ming invincible?

Even at its zenith, the Later Jin had been unable to break through the Guanning defense line in a frontal assault. Now, with its troops and generals lost and its vitality severely sapped, forcing the Guanning line was even more impossible.

As long as the Eight Banners nobles still had their wits about them, they would not stake their national fate on Songmo Prefecture.

Then wouldn't the Great Ming be able to free up its hands and hammer the Marshal's Manor with full force?

This made Sholoi even consider sending a surrender memorial to Hong Taiji. Following a muddle-headed fool of a khan held no future.

Better to offer fuel in snowy weather and take Khorchin's place in the Later Jin's hierarchy.

Of course, Sholoi was not that impulsive.

Even if the man really was a fool, to command tens of thousands of troops ranging across the great desert, crossing mountains and ridges in a string of victories, and even to pull off a grand flanking envelopment with such battlefield dominance — that was still like a god descending from the heavens.

He believed that which side the Chechen Khanate leaned toward still required further observation.

Sholoi merely sent a letter to Hong Taiji, explaining the reason his son Babu had appeared at Liu Chengzong's side, and at the same time sent a few gifts to observe the courtesies of a good friend.

It was only half a month after Babu Taiji returned to the Chechen Khanate, when Sholoi took his son out hunting and watched the hounds fight over the catch, that a bolt of lightning suddenly flashed through his mind and he understood.

That villain Chengzong built Songmo Prefecture in the Khingan Range without ever regarding the Great Ming as an opponent — he simply saw them as clients for his robbery services, protecting his food supply.

The moment Sholoi Khan realized this, he immediately snuffed out the thought of defecting to the Later Jin.

This was an era where every old aristocrat felt insecure. The clever khan to the east and the fool khan to the west — the world's two top-tier robbers had successfully matched into the same arena.

Leaving old aristocrats like them terrified, like fish on a chopping board.

Between Liu Chengzong and Hong Taiji, the two greatest scourges in Sholoi's eyes, weighing the harms, Hong Taiji still posed the greater threat to him.

Because of the greater distance, Liu Chengzong had too many targets to rob. As long as Sholoi didn't jump up and stomp around right in Liu Chengzong's face, coming all that way to rob him once wouldn't even cover the travel expenses.

Hong Taiji was a different matter.

By his reckoning, this year and the next would be the Later Jin's most frenzied period.

Putting himself in their place, Sholoi saw that the Later Jin now had a radius of three thousand li. Joseon was not fatter than it, the Great Ming was not more tender than it — only the Chechen Khanate, with its mix of fat and lean, was the most palatable opponent.

Amid this weighing of pros and cons, Sholoi received the envoy from Yang Qi of Monan and learned of his desire to build a post road linking the north and south of the great desert.

Sholoi Khan not only approved with both hands — he wished he could make his warhorse raise all four hooves in support as well.

In any case, he was different from the other great feudal lords of Mobei. The entire Chechen Khanate was his domain and subjects, so with a grand wave of his hand,

he declared: don't just build post stations. Good road conditions mean reinforcements arrive faster. We'll build roads directly — as far as they can go, aiming to reach all the way to Xanadu.

Precisely because this desert post road that Yang Qi had organized was under construction, there was no shortage of men and horses along the route, which allowed Erdeni's letter to reach Shaanxi with extreme speed.

Liu Shizi was still in Xi'an Prefecture discussing with Zhou Riqiang how to gradually deal with the Oros soldiers in Siberia.

The several sharpest minds in the Marshal's Manor most knowledgeable about Siberia pooled their wisdom, talking of threats and bribes, of mixing hard and soft tactics.

An urgent letter arrived from the north, and this problem that had been troubling him — Erdeni Khong Tayiji of Lake Ubsu had already settled it for him.

"Pulled the firewood from under the pot."

Liu Shizi clutched the letter and said to Zhou Riqiang with a laugh, "The Khong Tayiji of the Khotgoid tribe has cut the road. Golden Stream Camp recruited over a thousand Oros soldiers, and the Oros camps north of the Mobei region — this time they have no field combat strength left at all!"

Good evening!